Number of the Names

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Psa 147:4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by [their] names.

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A Number or a Name?

When Moses was en route with the Children of Israel to the promised land, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob presented him with an unusual request. God asked Moses to number the people. This was an unusual request because everywhere else in scripture even with King David, the numbering of the people of Israel was a sin, and a very serious sin. David's number resulted in a plague on Israel in which thousands died. Interestingly, it is the one example in scripture where God requested a behavior that would require a a shekel offering for sin. The reason for the numbering of the Children of Israel presented as strength, and not in God. But in this instance, the actual numbering was both commanded and requiring atonement.1-3

Reasons run deeper than a mere counting being sin. It was wrong to depersonalize the Children of God, wrong to reduce a people named before God to a simple head count, and very wrong to walk apart from the meaning and importance of a name before God. Martin Buber

The Descent to Genocide

They are not Us

  • The Education of Anti-Semitism:
    Learn Why They are not like us

  • The Incurring of Hatred:
    • They are vile and Dangerous

  • Segregation:
    • We must not be Near them

  • The Cessation of Employment:
    They must not have resources or recognition

  • The Erasure of Citizenship:
    • They must be a People without Power

  • The Erasure of Identity:
    • They must all Have the Same Name

  • The Erasure of Human-ness:
    • They are Animals, they must be destroyed.

  • The Cessation of Protection:
    • They must not be Safe Anywhere

  • The Erasure of Ownership:
    • hey must belong Nowhere

  • Their Religion is Meaningless/vile:
    • God is not on their Side

  • Their Suffering is Meaningless:
    • They are for Slavery & Experimentation

  • Their Names are without Meaning:
    • They are Numbers
  • Their Bodies are not Theirs:
    •   They may be processed into product
  • They are no Longer a People:
    • Genocide
    noted that as God spoke with Moses from the burning bush, He gave Moses His own name: a name which allowed access to God---Buber noted that part of the critical nature of a name was the meaning and authenticity of that person before God and man; as with God, a name grants us access to one another and allows communion.4 Indeed, the first task God appoints Adam in the Garden is to name the animals, following the naming of Adam and spouse.5

    It may seem a trivial thing at first to make so much out of the meaning of names, or importance of appellations. Throughout human history however, one of the first steps in most if not all of the Genocides we have committed against ourselves, is the demeaning and subsequent erasing of personal names and identities. A Genocide cannot happen without depersonalization: mass killings cannot take place against a people with names. A novel by Madeleine L'Engels,The Wind in the Door metaphorically tackles this as the great evil in her theological story seeks one purpose: the 'un-naming' of people: the dissolution of who they are, from the surface identification to the core of spirit and soul.

    The Process of Losing Names During Shoah

    The Mass Deportations and Killings did not happen all at once during Shoah. The very definite steps to depersonalization that allowed a whole nation to be taken captive and killed, though began early. The following process include the processes on the right: [see table]

    The thought that a people could be taken captive and mesmerized into an almost compliance with their erasure is unimaginable for those of us who have not lived through it. If it began to happen here, we would immediately cry, Civil Rights and seek to stop the intrusion on our sensibilities. Our laws are so well defined in the area of Civil Rights that we cannot picture a sub-group of people losing those rights. In Germany, between 1933 and 1938, Jewish civil rights were so eroded, by legislation and 'emergency' edicts (see, e.g. The Enabling Act,or the Nuremberg Laws) that the right to fight back was nullified. Once those laws, such as the Nuremberg and Race Laws were in effect, it was not a matter of choice in resistance in any manner but 'underground' because there was no legal recourse. In 19xx , the right to appeal in court was removed from the Jewish community and by 19xx, one could no longer even study for or practice law if one was Jewish. One could neither vote, sue nor appeal a blatantly unjust and illegal act. Property rights were removed, and when Jewish homeowners went to local police departments regarding harrassment, littering or property destruction, they were informed that they were 'citizen-guests' in Germany, and that the police had no obligation to respond. Without the protection of the law, no legal protest or recourse was left.

    Further, as we have examined elsewhere ( Why didn't the Jews Resist?) to offer illegal resistance, meant to put others in danger. Many people selflessly are willing to put their own lives in danger for a worthy cause: altruism is still an honorable stance in our culture, but far fewer consider it altruistic to put others in danger for a worthy cause. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is an example of this. If the Jews did not resist, all would be killed or deported to horrible deaths. If however they took up arms (it was mostly a confederation of youth 'zionist' groups in the ZOB, ); then they risked bringing down the wrath of the Reich on the ghetto, and instigating violence against all. Some reasoned that they might stand a change of escape during deportation for the Nazis had lied to the Jewish Councils (Judenrat) about the safety of 'work camps' such as Treblinka. The ZOB had better information though, about the death camps, but in Warsaw, Cierniakow chose not to heed them. One of the reasons therefore for non-resistance was a 'learned-helplessness' and unrealistic hope that people in the 20th century could not be as bad as the National Socialists became.

    Depersonalization & Dehumanization

    Looking at the 'factors of descent' in the list above, though, one notices that there is a deliberate process taking place, a 'sedition' of the person and national identity of the Jews. People who feel slightly degraded, unjustly, often become incensed and angry, and may even take up violent assault against persecutors, because they still have a sense of who and what they are. As degradation and the robbery of rights and self-government worsen, though, self and national identity decrease to the point of a pathological submissiveness, although little else may be possible beyond the heartiest of souls. In the Zimbardo Prison Studies (See Blind Obedience), in a mock imprisonment in a Psychology department in California many years ago, Phillip Zimbardo found that even in experimental conditions with that oppressed people who have no control, become depressed, uanable to make decisions, submissive and negative. Oppressed people do not often pose a threat to occupying forces if the oppression reaches a certain level. Despotic governments which often instigate genocide use this 'process'. Examples abound such as the criminal enslavement of African Americans in the 1700s and 1800s in the US, garment workers enslavement in many countries, or the persecutions by the Janjaweed in Dar Fur. When a certain level of depersonalization or dehumanization is reached, even when there is a possibility for effective resistance, it will not be taken. The process used by the Third Reich was methodical: it started with
    Ostracism from the German Culture and Society
    Removal of Civil Rights
    Removal of Personal preferences/free choice
    Removal of Travel and therefore escape
    Degradation and Redefinition of the Nation,
    degradation and redefinition of the Person
    A redefinition for the subgroup of 'personhood'.

    When the last feat is accomplished, moving from Societal Isolation, to Personal Isolation and lastly to "Sedition of Personhood, then mass killings become a viable method for reaching a goal. When even the name of a person becomes a 'negotiable' commodity, then the concept of what a person is, changes, almost always pejoratively. © 2000 Elizabeth Kirkley Best, PhD-Shoaheducation.com

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