Meaning in Response to the Holocaust
Jewish writers searching for the possibility of finding meaning in response to the Holocaust disagree on a number of key issues. Where Martin Buber (1970) sees meaning as emerging from the immersion of the self in others including the relationship between the individual and God, Viktor Frankl (1984) expresses a strong sense that when suffering is inevitable, the individual must reach inside the self to find freedom from anger and a willingness to accept the limits that are being imposed on him or her. For Elie Wiesel (1982), like Frankl (1984), a concentration camp survivor, suffering under extreme conditions may lead one at least initially to the belief that Nietzsche was right in concluding that "God is dead" and to reject any potential for finding sustenance in God as the "Thou" of Buber's (1970) radicalized covenant. Finally, Emmanuel Levinas (1979) calls upon individuals to find meaning via the exercise of ethical responsibility to the other and not necessarily or exclusively in the relationship with God.
For Frankl (1984), freedom is less linked to the option to exercise unlimited discretion in movement through the world than the freedom to forgive others and the self for pain while taking on responsibly for what one does. Frankl (1984) finds within the human experience the almost universal necessity of caring for the soul by recognizing one's own limits and learning to endure without hatred the suffering that others may impose upon one.
While it would be difficult to conclude that Wiesel (1982) emerged unscathed from the terrors of the concentration camp in which he was forced to stand silently by as his father died, the fact is that the found redemptive meaning in his camp experiences. Frankl (1984) did find the foundation concepts for his Logotherapy in his personal experiences and came to the conclusion that by embracing freedom even within limits one can struggle a...