It was around this time 84 years ago, a few days before Yom Kippur, that Rabbi Leo Baeck wrote a towering prayer of inspiration on behalf of, and in defence of, the Jewish people. It was sent to all rabbis in Germany to read during the Kol Nidrei service.
Rabbi Baeck was then the president of the representative organization of German Jewry. He had seen, with crystal clarity, who – and what – the Nazis were, well before they actually ascended to power in 1933. Indeed, in 1933, he presciently proclaimed that the thousand-year history of German Jewry had come to an end.
He was a staunch, principled defender of the rights of German Jews. But he knew that defending his people’s rights meant also defending the rights of all minorities who were increasingly being victimized and oppressed by a rising nationalist tide of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Rabbi Baeck famously stated that, “Service of God consists in what we do to our neighbour.”
His inspiring prayer was a summons to his people to be mindful of their faith and heritage and of the moral obligations that faith imposed upon them, especially on the eve of Yom Kippur.
“In this hour all Israel stands before God, the judge and the forgiver.
“In his presence let us all examine our ways, our deeds and what we have failed to do.
“We stand before our God.”
However, deeply affronted by the calumnies and the violence the government directed at Jews, and refusing to be cowed into silence or shame by its sheer brutishness, Rabbi Baeck valiantly aimed pointed accusations at the regime.
“With the same fervour with which we confess our sins, the sins of the individual and the sins of the community, do we in indignation and abhorrence express our contempt for the lies concerning us and the defamation of our religion and its testimonies.”
Rabbi Baeck then enunciated a short list of some of Judaism’s significant moral bequests to the world, such as “respect for man created in the image of God” and “the commandment of righteousness and of social justice.” He then continued with his opposition to the Nazis.
“In all this we see manifest the spirit of the prophets, the Divine revelation to the Jewish people. It grew out of our Judaism and is still growing. By these facts we repel the insults flung at us.”
Rabbi Baeck determined that raising the bewildered, flagging spirits of the Jews would not be accomplished solely through the bravery of standing against the Nazis. Their spirits would soar higher by also summoning the memory of Jewish past.
“Our history is a history of nobility of soul, of human dignity. It is history we have recourse to when attack and grievous wrong are directed against us, when affliction and calamity befall us.”
READ: BEN-DAT: A REFUGE FROM OPPRESSION AND DESPOTISM
As a challenge to the Nazis, Rabbi Baeck restated his belief in the permanence and interconnectedness of the people they were determined to wipe from the face of the earth.
“All Israel stands before her God in this hour. In our prayers, in our hope, in our confession, we are one with all Jews on earth. We look upon each other and know who we are.”
The above are mere excerpts from Rabbi Baeck’s prayer. The Nazis arrested him for having written it, prohibited its use and sent him to prison. In 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Rabbi Baeck survived the war and moved to London, where he died in 1956. His prayer was read into the trial record of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 in Jerusalem.
Perhaps Rabbi Baeck shows us a way to respond to the emboldened anti-Semites who appear increasingly to be emerging from the crevices of their dark obsessions today. We must not ignore them; rather, as Rabbi Baeck did, we must act with purpose. He provided the template:
Identify as Jews. Embrace that identity. Call out the anti-Semitic acts. And stand united in such causes with fellow Jews.
