God on trial

I just watched a powerful program on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre (only, for some reason, they’re calling it Masterpiece Contemporary). I almost didn’t watch this program, because I saw that it took place in a Nazi concentration camp, and anything to do with the Holocaust tends to upset me very much. Did I want to go there? In the end I did, and I’m glad I did, though of course I cried at the end, when the prisoners who had been “selected” were trotted off to the gas chambers.

I would call the performance a play, for it seemed like one. Lots of talk, relatively little action, a limited number of sets, although the opening and closing scenes, when the busload of modern-day tourists was arriving at Auschwitz, and then leaving it after their tour, opened it out, and made it more like a film. But the main body of the piece, during which a group of prisoners holds a “trial” to determine if God was guilty of breaking his covenant with his “chosen people,” seemed very much like a play. And that in itself gave me pleasure, to be watching an intelligent, well-acted, thoughtful play. And that last descriptor, thoughtful, was what made it especially satisfying. Weighty matters were being argued, questions that must occur to most thoughtful people at some time in their lives, when they look around at all the suffering there is in the world and wonder, where is God.

Perhaps the strongest argument in defense of God was that terrible things had happened to the Jews in the past – being enslaved in Egypt, later in Babylon, the massacre at Masada, the expulsion from Spain – and these terrible times had usually resulted (ultimately) in things being better. “If we had not been exposed to Egypt, to Babylon, would we not still be an insular tribe of shepherds?” the man asked. “Have we not become so much more, because of our experiences over the years?” It was suggested that these terrible times were painful, but necessary, purifying episodes.

Some were arguing that the Jews must have done something wrong, and were being punished by God, but this idea didn’t seem to win many proponents, as they all knew that too many who could surely not be accused of committing sins against God – children for example – were suffering. Surely it was not a just and good God who would punish the innocent with whoever might, indeed, be guilty of sin. This discussion can be applied to all peoples in the history of the world. There are too many examples of the good and innocent suffering, while the cruel and the intolerant triumph -- at least in the short run -- for one to suppose that God is in the punishing and rewarding business, at least in this life. People all too often do not get their just rewards.

Perhaps the most interesting argument was made toward the end by a man who had until then been silent. He abruptly stood up and began reeling off the history of the Jews, going back to their departure from Egypt – which was preceded by all sorts of plagues and miseries being visited on the hapless Egyptians, including the death of all the firstborn in the land. “Did he kill the Pharaoh?” he asked. The Pharaoh was, after all, the one who was preventing the Israelites from leaving. But no, God killed the innocent children. And then, when the soldiers were pursuing the departing Israelites, did he close the Red Sea immediately behind the latter, cutting them off from their pursuers? No, he waited until the soldiers were in the middle of the sea, then released the held-back waters, drowning them all.

And the fellow had numerous other examples that showed that, as he put it, God was not good, God had just been on their side. And now, he seemed to have changed sides. This was the final argument before the guards burst in and hustled out those who had been selected. But we learn from one of the departing tourists, who has heard this possibly apocryphal story, that the remaining prisoners did find God guilty of breaking his “contract” with his people. He had promised to protect them, if they were true to him, and in this terrible time he had not done so.

I would say, a not unjust judgment.