Choosing Life: Self-Sacrifice in the Shadow of the Holocaust

During my final years in yeshiva (I studied at Chevron, among the illustrious Yeshivos of Jerusalem), while eager matchmakers were grabbing my friends, we would jokingly practice engagement speeches. A typical speech would include unapologetically exaggerated pathos: “The groom’s remarkable dedication to his studies, his self-sacrifice, emblematic of the entire yeshiva….”

At the time, I hardly considered the dramatic, perhaps even tragic meaning of the expression “self-sacrifice” (mesirus nefesh). It was another way of saying that the boy was a serious Torah student who invested time and energy in his learning. After all, I was used to hearing about how self-denial was an integral part of Torah study, as we find in the Talmud (Berachos 63b). The Mashgiach (spiritual supervisor) would preach that Torah learning at the highest level requires suffering, giving up life’s pleasures, and self-mortification. A person must “kill himself” – a metaphorical expression sourced in the Gemara – in the tent of Torah.

At engagement parties, the theme of devotion and sacrifice is woven into the soundtrack

Looking retrospectively, dedicating one’s life to Torah study after marriage is the natural continuation of the ‘self-sacrifice’ ideal. At engagement parties, the theme of devotion and sacrifice is woven into the soundtrack, setting the stage for the groom who sets aside the burden of earning a living and responsibility for his future family’s physical sustenance (the standard expectation from married men), adopting instead “devotion of the soul” in his continued dedication to Torah studies.

Reflecting on all this today, I think to myself: Can we really call this giving up one’s life for Hashem?! Isn’t that overly dramatic for the average groom? How does a young and cheerful boy become like Rabbi Chanina ben Teradion, a martyr who was tortured and murdered at the stake while wrapped in burning sheets of a Torah scroll, ensuring a slow and agonizing death? How can a happy event, the building of a Jewish home that is akin (in the Talmud) to rebuilding a ruin of Jerusalem, be compared to the horrific death of Rabbi Akiva, whose flesh was shredded with iron combs for studying Torah when Rome forbade it?

Without claiming a total answer, I think the Holocaust has much to do with it.

 

The Shadow of the Holocaust

There was no discussion of the Holocaust in yeshiva. None. I hardly recall hearing the word Shoah in the Yeshiva environment. There were exceptions, few and far between, when a Rosh Yeshiva would speak to a small circle following Kinos on Tisha Be’Av. It was heard occasionally, but the Holocaust was certainly not the subject of any significant address I recall, whether inside or outside the Yeshiva.

Yes, the Shoah was undoubtedly on the minds of some of the great rabbinic figures under whom I studied. The Yeshiva’s Mashgiach, I later discovered, lost his entire family in the Holocaust. As a child, he immigrated from Europe to Israel, leaving no traces of his old life. None of this was openly reflected in his lectures or conversations. I only found out about these details after his death, despite my having enjoyed a close personal relationship and hearing many stories from him about his youth. The wife of one of the Roshei Yeshiva, Rabbi Farbestein, is a pioneer in Holocaust research in the Charedi world. Another Rosh Yeshiva hailed from the Radzin Chassidic community, almost entirely wiped out in the Holocaust (like virtually all Polish Chassidic communities). None of this was apparent during daily yeshiva life.

The deeper ideas so prevalent in Yeshiva, such as Torah study, service of Hashem, or faith and Providence, cannot be discussed without considering the Holocaust

Although there was no official institutional recognition of the Holocaust — a point that has been discussed in several articles on this platform — I believe that from a spiritual, or theological, perspective, its significance continues to shape Jewish life today. The core ideas so central to the Yeshiva world — Torah study, service of Hashem, faith, and Divine Providence — cannot be meaningfully discussed without reference to the Holocaust.

The term most closely associated with the Holocaust within Torah-observant society is Kiddush Hashem — the sanctification of Hashem’s Name. Those who perished during the Holocaust are remembered as having “died for the sanctification of Hashem,” and survivors of the camps and ghettos are likewise regarded as individuals who sanctified His Name through their suffering and endurance.

One of the most heartrending stories in this context involves a halachic question posed to a rabbi in one of the death camps: Which blessing should one recite before entering the gas chambers? Here stands a Jew, moments before being suffocated to death — yet he does not face a simple death, but a supreme mitzvah: death in the service of Kiddush Hashem. In that moment, he turns to the rabbi and asks: What is the proper blessing to recite upon fulfilling this rare and exalted mitzvah?[1]

The term Kiddush Hashem takes on a unique and profound meaning within the context of the Holocaust. Generally, Kiddush Hashem refers to situations in which a Jew is threatened with death unless he renounces his covenant with Hashem. It is a sanctification of Hashem’s Name when a Jew remains steadfast in his faith, refusing to betray the Torah and his Judaism even at the cost of his life. His unwavering fidelity, maintained under threat of death, proclaims the glory of Hashem to the world.

However, within the context of the Holocaust, the killing of Jews was not directly linked to questions of faith. The Nazis murdered Jews irrespective of their religious observance. Accepting Christianity or even adopting Nazi ideology could not spare a Jew from persecution. Conversion offered no refuge. While it is often noted that the Nazis forbade the practice of Torah and mitzvot, empirical evidence suggests that Jews were not specifically targeted for their religious observance.

The German aim was more to annihilate the physical existence of the Jew than to crush his spirit. For them, an escape from an extermination camp was far more serious an offense than praying with a minyan or laying Tefillin. Under the extreme and brutal conditions of the Holocaust, the observance of mitzvot became an almost unimaginable luxury. When a person’s every ounce of energy was consumed by the bare struggle for survival — after the loss of family, of national pride, of human dignity — how could he even contemplate the fulfillment of a mitzvah?

And yet, amidst this devastation, Kiddush Hashem was redefined: it became the cry of a shattered people proclaiming, “Despite everything, we never forsook You.” It was the symbol of an unbreakable bond with Hashem, an infinite devotion that no horror could sever. The heroic act of clinging to mitzvah observance under such unimaginable conditions — of holding fast to Hashem through hunger, humiliation, and death — became the new face of Kiddush Hashem.

 

A Culture of Kiddush Hashem

In the year 5704 (1944), as the chimneys of Auschwitz continuously bellowed the smoke of all that remained from the great communities of Pressburg and Transylvania, the national conference of Agudath-Israel convened in the Land of Israel in the small town of Petach Tikvah.

Among the speakers at that conference was Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahneman, founder of various educational institutions in the Lithuanian city of Ponevezh. These included a yeshiva gedolah, a yeshiva ketana, a school and college for girls, as well as elementary schools. Later, Rabbi Kahneman became known as the founder of the famous Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and the educational and charitable institutions associated with it.

I cannot say how much Rabbi Kahneman knew at that time about the full extent of the Holocaust. Surely he knew of the destruction that had befallen large swaths of European Jewry, even if the magnitude of the devastation was not yet fully clear. He certainly knew that by Sivan 5701 (June 1941), his wife and three sons had been murdered by the Nazis, along with approximately one thousand students of the educational institutions he had founded. The harsh reality was that no Jewish life remained in Ponevezh — once among Lithuania’s largest and most vibrant Jewish cities — and that centuries of flourishing Jewish existence had been utterly wiped from the face of the earth.

Did he know this? Did he know that Vilna, Telz, Radin, Minsk, Shavel, Brisk — all the great centers of Torah and Jewish life — had met a similar fate? Some rumors must have reached him, but who could fully absorb such shattering news and yet continue to function?

At that unspeakable moment in our national history, Rabbi Kahneman did not succumb to despair. Instead, he sought hope. He spoke to his audience of this time as “a time of distress for Yaakov” — quoting the familiar words of the pasuk — “but he will be saved from it.” He chose to see the light glimmering at the end of the tunnel, the redemption that would arise from suffering. He articulated an unwavering trust that Divine salvation would one day flourish upon the soil of Eretz Yisrael.

But what would that salvation look like? Rabbi Kahneman had an answer: “The Divine revelation of our generation,” he said, “is the revelation of Hashem’s holiness through acts of Kiddush Hashem.” And what is the nature of this sanctification?

Rabbi Kahneman drew a line connecting the Kiddush Hashem of Rabbi Akiva to that of Rabbi Mendel Alter, brother of the Gerrer Rebbe:

Nineteen hundred years ago, the leader of the Jewish People, Rabbi Akiva, was imprisoned and sentenced to death. From within his cell, he requested water to wash his hands, declaring: “My body should perish before I transgress the words of the Sages.” Now, in Treblinka, Rabbi Mendel, the holy brother of the Gerrer Rebbe, marched toward death, calling out: “Jews, soon we will sanctify the Name of Heaven. Let us prepare ourselves for this great mitzvah. Bring me water to wash my hands.” One man leapt up and cried: “Rabbi, I will risk my life to bring you water — if you promise me your share in the World to Come.” The holy rabbi readily gave up his portion in the World to Come, in exchange for a cup of water to fulfill the mitzvah of netilat yadayim.

Kiddush Hashem thus became the central axis of Jewish existence. It was no longer defined merely by martyrdom in defense of mitzvah observance; it now encompassed the very way mitzvot were performed. When facing absolute emptiness and despair — when death hovered close and all hope had fled — the act of fulfilling a mitzvah assumed its highest and most complete form. In such moments, the mitzvah itself became radiant, attaining the fullest expression of Kiddush Hashem.

Extending this idea beyond life-threatening circumstances, Rabbi Kahneman taught that a Jew must aspire to study Torah and fulfill mitzvot with pure altruism, utterly detached from personal interest. Torah and mitzvah observance demand self-sacrifice — even the sacrifice of the World to Come. Only by severing personal ambition and striving solely for Kiddush Hashem can one reach the loftiest spiritual heights.

Those who perished in the furnaces of the Holocaust enjoin us, the living, to “die” metaphorically — through the self-sacrifice of Torah study.

Those who perished in the furnaces of the Holocaust enjoin us, the living, to “die” metaphorically — through the self-sacrifice of Torah study.

This powerful sentiment is reflected in the words of a survivor from the Lodz Ghetto, who astonishingly longed for the ghetto life because of the spiritual heights he attained there:

“I am often ashamed of myself. How did I fall from the heights of that time into the depths of today’s comfortable and trivial existence? I have become so far removed even from the lofty ideals we lived by then. […] How do we view the ghetto today? Hell! A graveyard! A dark, bottomless abyss! Yet within our close-knit group, it was a furnace of pure self-sacrifice and boundless devotion, the likes of which cannot be found elsewhere.”[2]

Rabbi Kahneman saw in this devotion the highest religious ideal. “We are all chalukah Jews,” he said — referring to the longstanding institution of chalukah, the distribution of charitable funds to the impoverished Jews of Eretz Yisrael. Just as the Jews of the Land of Israel once relied on diaspora support for their physical sustenance, so too do we today rely on the legacy of Kiddush Hashem for our spiritual sustenance. Those who died in the Holocaust’s fires command us, the survivors, to live lives defined by metaphorical self-sacrifice — the mesirut nefesh of Torah study and mitzvah fulfillment.

Today, the renowned Ohel Kedoshim — the Ponevezh Kollel — stands as a living monument to this ideal. Engraved upon its walls are the words chosen by Rabbi Kahneman: “And it shall come to pass that he who remains in Zion and he who is left in Jerusalem shall be called holy” (Yeshayahu 4:3). The Kedoshim — the holy ones — are not only those who perished. They are also those who survived, who rose from the ashes to rebuild, who dedicate their lives to Torah in sanctity. They are the true heirs of Kiddush Hashem.

In this spirit, Yitzchak Meir Levin, head of the Agudath Israel movement in Israel after the Holocaust, proclaimed at the founding conference of the Haredi school system:

We are all called to great sacrifices. Considering that six million of our brothers — including a million and a half children and youths — sanctified Hashem’s Name by passing from this world, we, who remain, must also sanctify His Name — through education. […] This may be the final trial before the coming of Mashiach, and its success depends upon us alone.
We must first sacrifice our sons for a Torah education.[3]

Torah is kept alive only in those who possess the supreme virtue of self-sacrifice.

 

Can We Choose Life?

What does all this mean for us — survivors, growing up with a sense of pride, strength, and security during a time of Jewish flourishing?

All my life, I have grappled — spiritually, conceptually, and emotionally — with the notion that dedication to Torah demands separation from life. Why, I asked myself, is the Torah ideal taught in the yeshiva so distant from the experience of life itself? I could not deny the spiritual potency of that ideal, yet neither could I accept it. I sought to understand its nature and its conceptual roots. At first, my thoughts turned to the old “Torah and life” debates that arose among the Jews of Enlightenment Europe. I explored the distance between Torah and worldly life through familiar frameworks: the tension between this world and the next; the confinement of Torah to the narrow domain of halachic practice; the yearning to bridge these divides.

These considerations remain relevant, of course — the tension between Torah and life did not begin with the Holocaust. Yet, I believe the Holocaust dramatically intensified this tension. It made self-sacrifice into a religious ideal.

The boy’s slogan, Rabbi Berkowitz recounts, was: “All the world deems beautiful, you shall deeply despise.”

In his work With God in Hell, which explores religious experience amid the ghettos and camps, Rabbi Eliezer Berkowitz describes the Holocaust as “the war of the body against the soul.” According to Rabbi Berkowitz, Nazi ideology was the ideology of a world emptied of spirit — a world that could not tolerate the Jew, who embodies the endurance of the human soul. The climax of this war, this confrontation with ultimate truth, is captured in the story of a young Jewish boy from an assimilated Viennese family. In the ghetto, he joined a group of Chassidim organizing clandestine Torah study under the shadow of death. The boy’s slogan, Rabbi Berkowitz recounts, was: “All the world deems beautiful, you shall deeply despise.”[4]

This narrative permeated the yeshiva education I received. At its core, the deepest experience of yeshiva life is self-sacrifice. It is precisely when the Beit Midrash falls silent, when the hum of voices fades and a student sits alone with his seforim, while life bustles elsewhere — a Purim celebration, a vacation, the vivid energies of ordinary existence — that spiritual enlightenment occurs. In that moment of voluntary isolation, the student touches the highest educational ethos the yeshiva seeks to impart: the ideal of self-sacrifice.

When the heart longs for joy, for satisfaction — during the Friday night yeshiva meal, for instance — but this yearning is overcome by the drive to return to Torah study, there is the taste of true fulfillment. Torah thrives only among those who sacrifice themselves for it — only among those who, as the Talmud teaches (and as Maimonides codifies), are willing to “kill themselves in the tents of Torah.”

We are all, in a sense, victims of the Holocaust. The immense devastation of European Jewry weighs heavily upon our consciousness, accompanied by the extreme interpretation of Divine service forged in that time of catastrophe. We struggle to free ourselves from the internalized belief that the highest expression of spirituality and Divine service lies in abandoning human flourishing in all its forms — personal, communal, cultural.

We are all, in a sense, victims of the Holocaust. The immense devastation of European Jewry weighs heavily upon our consciousness

It often feels as though, deep down, we seek rejection, embrace poverty and degradation, longing to sacrifice life, honor, growth, and vitality for a fleeting taste of spiritual ecstasy — for a taste of Kiddush Hashem.

Perhaps the time has come to reconsider. Perhaps, instead of placing the “one who dies in the tent of Torah” atop the yeshiva pedestal, we should begin to exalt a different Torah imperative: “You shall live by them, and not die by them” (Vayikra 18:5).

The mitzvot of the Torah are imperatives of life. The true restoration of Jewish dignity, so savagely destroyed in Europe, will come not through a Torah enshrined only in moments of death and martyrdom, but through a Torah lived with joy, vitality, and human flourishing.

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. As I command you today: to love Hashem your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, so that you may live and multiply; and Hashem your God will bless you in the land which you are going to possess. […] You shall choose life!” (Devarim 30:15–19)

---

[1] Shut Ma’amakim, Volume 2, Siman 2.

[2] Cited in Moshe Prager, Those Who Never Yielded (2013).

[3] See Michal Shaul, “The Rehabilitation of Haredi Society in the Shadow of the Holocaust [Hebrew],” Iyunim Bitkumat Yisrael, Vol. 20, p. 376.

[4] In the seventh chapter of the book Rabbi Berkowitz tries to soften the negation of life latent in such statements, yet but I am unconvinced that he succeeds in doing so. In the end, I think he simply changes the meaning of the term “life” by conferring it with meaning beyond actual existence in this world (by interchange of “life” with “survival”).

 

Photo by yiftah-s, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons