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On the Conclusion of WW II

Mordecai KaplanMordecai KaplanMay 8, 1945

I am entirely unequal to giving anything like adequate expression to the feelings that well up in my heart at the thought that the war in Europe is at an end. If only it were like waking up from a terrible nightmare!

But unfortunately the unspeakable atrocities committed by the insane murderers are too real to disappear with the break of the dawn, and the living victims of the war are too much part of our own lives to be forgotten.

And worst of all, the chances that human beings have learned anything from the war that would render them more human are very slim, indeed.

[As we remember the slaughter of the six million on Yom Ha-Shoah, it is well also to remember that in May of 1945 the war in Europe ended. Kaplan doesn’t comment often on current events. In the current selection we see his very emotional reaction to the end of the War.

Although hope for change is central to Kaplan’s approach to Judaism, we sometimes experience a fundamental pessimism on his part. Deep down he does not expect things to change very much. Of course, it is difficult to live in such a space and Kaplan does not stay there for very long. —Mel Scult]