Rabbi Daniel Siegel

Where is “Merciful God”?

Our Jewish Community’s recent Yom HaShoah commemoration included, as did similar gatherings around the world, an intoning of the El Malei Rachamim prayer.

אל מלא רחמים שוכן במרומים…/El Malei Rachamim Shochein BaMeromim…

God full of mercy, who dwells on high…

These very words conjure the question of the Shoah, of which we are most mindful, “Where was the merciful God?”.

Saying these words, brings to mind, as well, the words of the celebrated Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, from his poem אל מלא רחמים/El Malei Rachamim – God Full of Mercy:

אלמלא האל מלא רחמים – Ilmalei HaEl Malei Rachamim

היו הרחמים בעולם ולא רק בו – Hayu HaRachamim BaOlam VeLo Rak Bo

Were it not that God was full of mercy

there would be mercy in the world and not just in Him

In projecting the full measure of mercy as being within God we excuse ourselves from being merciful beings, rendering mercy as dwelling on high and not within our world.

Questioning the presence of the merciful God points to the absence of the merciful man.

This week’s parashah, Kedoshim, begins and ends with the call for us to “Be Holy (Kedoshim) for the Lord your God is Holy”. It is in this parashah that we find the universally recognised mandate: “Love your neighbour as yourself”.

Significantly, scholars contend that this command VeAhavta LeReiach KaMocha/ ואהבת לרעך כמוךmore correctly means “Love your neighbor, for he is like you”. This reading is borne out by the second iteration of this injunction: “The stranger that resides with you shall be as one of your citizens, and you shall love him, for he is like you (VeAhavta Lo KaMocha/ואהבת לו כמוך), for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

In both instances, the command to love our fellow human being, for he is like us, concludes with the reminder “I am the Lord”.

God is full of mercy, within our world, only if we are the same.

The Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Elie Wiesel, who asks in his book Night, “Where is merciful God, where is He?”, dedicated his life to calling upon the mercy and presence of man.

He could not do otherwise, nor should we. For the presence of the merciful God does not preclude but is predicated upon that of merciful man.

Love your neighbour, for he is like you