Was the Holocaust Punishment for the Jewish People’s Sins?

A troubling claim that the Holocaust was Divine punishment – how should that be evaluated?

Q. Dear Rabbi, I have a question. I read something where a Rabbi said that the Holocaust was G-d’s punishment for the sins of the Jewish people!? I must say in advance that I have heard it many times. But I have a few questions. As I understand it, are all Orthodox Jews of all schools of thought of this? Except for Habbad? Did I understand that correctly? And what I wanted to ask is, was the Rebbe of Habbad against this opinion? And what I wanted to ask, as you confirmed to me, there is eternal gehinom and temporary gehinom in Judaism. What I would like to ask, for example, in the Talmud, as far as I know, it only says over 12 months and who gets the eternal gehinom. But where does it say that the gehinom can last longer than 12 months? And if, as you confirmed to me, is there such a thing as almost everyone stays only 12 months? Thank you in advance and have a nice week.

These are large questions well beyond the scope of this concise site. Just in general, everyone agrees that there is reward and punishment, but not everything in the world, especially in these generations of ge’ula and historic upheaval, are connected to reward and punishment: not the defeats, and not the victories. The gentiles and anti-Semites also have free-will and that is also part of the complex picture. Sometimes, especially in Haredi circles, they try and simplify things and sometimes suggest one possibility as if it is clearly the “reason” why G-d did this or that (in order to get across an educational message), although they also really admit that we don’t know why and don’t understand G-d and all of His thoughts, especially regarding how the world is run. Regarding Chabad, you should ask them. The Talmud writes explicitly that Gehinom is up to 12 months (Shabbat 33b), but there are eternal punishments for the minority which is called by other names. It’s also important to stress that Judaism, as opposed to other religions, isn’t preoccupied with what happens after death, but we deal more with improving this world by choosing to be G-dly.