Hating Gypsies and antisemitism 

Shalom and thank you for your question. You bring up the essential human tragedy, namely, needless hate. The hate may indeed be needless, but unfortunately, it is also a part of human nature. However we are here in this world to do our best to overcome negative character traits.

Why did Hitler (may his name be blotted out of history) do what he did, to Jews, Gypsies, and others? There is no ‘good’ answer to this. It has been suggested that he was a psychopath for one… but we must take a look at human nature in general. We are composed of a body and a soul. The soul has levels. The lowest level of the soul is what animates the body, and it is in charge of survival instincts. Since G-d creates us in order to live, the animating part of our soul tells us: Eat! Drink! Make children! This is an inherent way we are programmed in order for the world to continue. This lowest level of the soul is ‘looking out for number one’, meaning that if anything or anybody threatens our existence or even our pleasure, we then have the famous ‘fight or flight’ response. Watch children playing and you will see that when they are confronted with someone who is different, they will sometimes victimize that different child or older person, they will tease them and treat them badly. This is somehow connected to the basic ‘fight or flight’ response. The natural human tendency is to look out for our own selves and fight off anybody or anything that we feel threatens us. Someone who is different makes us feel somehow threatened. Animals usually stick to their own kind. Nazism arose between the first and the second world wars when there was widespread economic depression, and the Nazi party gained power because they catered to the basest human instincts of throwing blame on others, turning them into scapegoats, rather than searching for constructive ways to build up the economy. So the theory of Aryanism was concocted and anyone who did not meet the criterion of an ‘Aryan’ became the enemy. It became an opportunity for the forces of evil to be unleashed.

Before G-d created this world, according to Kabbala – Jewish mysticism, He created other worlds which had to be destroyed. This is because the energies were energies of chaos, each type of energy was on its own and could not integrate with another type of energy. In our world G-d  creates us with ten types of energies which CAN integrate. The energy of loving-kindness can integrate with the energy of severity and ‘give birth’ to something good. An example in simple English would be, if a person is an alcoholic or a drug addict and he asks you for money, you have to think carefully. If you think there is a good chance that this addict is going to buy more alcohol or more drugs, it is probably a better idea to show him where there is a soup kitchen so he can get a good meal, rather than a fix. This is integrating energies, tempering loving-kindness with severity.

There are higher levels of our soul that are in charge of reminding us to be good, to respect our parents, brush our teeth, not eat a third doughnut and not be nasty. There are levels of our soul where we search for meaning – as you are doing by asking your very pertinent questions, and where we decide that we want to dedicate ourselves to making a contribution to humanity, like the many heroes and heroines who gave up their lives to save other people, or survived difficult conditions but were focused on helping others through the difficult times. A very great Rabbi by the name of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson was in a bomb shelter as a child during a war and the smallest children were distressed and they were crying, this was dangerous because the enemy could discover the group of people. The young Menachem Mendel managed to calm down the small children so that they wouldn;t make noise even though he was no more than a child himself. Later on, he was walking near a river with his mother when she suddenly noticed that he was not by her side, he had seen a child drowning and he jumped into the river and saved the child. He grew up to be the greatest Jewish leader in our times. He never went on vacation, he always remembered people he had met and advised, and he could ask someone a question about what they had discussed thirty years earlier. You see, in this world there are forces of holiness and forces of impurity. If you look into a clean, clear pond, you will see a reflection of the green trees around it, the clear blue skies and fluffy white clouds and the sunshine. If you look into a muddy pond, you will see many things reflected, but they all look muddy, because the pond is muddy. So it is with the forces of holiness that are like the clean pond, while the forces of impurity are like the muddy pond. Everything that exists on the side of holiness exists on the side of unholiness, but in an impure way. There are great spiritual leaders, there are good and devoted people, and there are leaders of the ‘muddy’ side… In areas like relationships. You can have healthy marriages, where there are problems but they are being worked on with mutual respect, or you can have people selling themselves G-d forbid, or engaging in relationships that G-d forbids, and thus taking the holiest potential in the world and hurling it into the mud.

There is a way to fix what went wrong in the Holocaust and still goes on in the world, when people engage in causeless hatred or other evil things. We must increase the good. A little light dispels much darkness. The Holocaust was mainly against Jews and Gypsies. For Jews, when they keep the commandments of the Torah this adds light to the world, (there are six hundred and thirteen of them,) and for people who are not Jewish, there is a system of moral structure based on Seven Noahide Laws. These are laws that G-d gave to Noah after the flood, and they involve things like not stealing or killing, and setting up courts of Justice, keeping these laws adds light to the world. You can find more information online. Although there is still much evil in the world, there are also many rays of light, we have to keep our eyes open for them!

We believe that if we keep on with determination, adding light to the world instead of darkness, eventually goodness will prevail, the Messiah will be revealed, and the world will be  a good and peaceful place to be. We are getting closer to that time, may it happen soon!