From the Tetragrammaton to the Name of Jesus: A New Look at God’s Presence in the Holocaust

This article shows how God’s revelation of His divine Name by means of the Tetragrammaton (Exod. 3:13–16) sheds light on the question of His presence in the Holocaust. Just as the reference to the future meaning of the divine Name implies that the Lord will not abandon His people, so does the meaning of the new Tetragrammaton (the name of Jesus in the New Testament) imply that God the Father does not leave His people in – and because of – His Son. The spiritual journeys of such Holocaust victims as rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, Etty Hillesum and Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) show that only an openness of Judaism to Christianity can provide an answer to the question of God’s presence in the Holocaust. It is primarily the Father’s gift of His Son on the Cross which has made it possible for God to enter the world of suffering. It is the same gift of the Father which has enabled those who bear the name of Jesus – the new Tetragrammaton – through Baptism, under the guidance of Pope Pius XII, to courageously serve as instruments of God’s presence among the Jewish people during the Holocaust.