Page "Holocaust theology" Paragraph 36

Another early voice who ultimately rejected the idea that the Holocaust was divine punishment, with Hitler as an instrument in a greater plan, was Rabbi Mnachem HaKohen Risikoff.

When Rav Kook died in 1935, Risikoff — with " a presentiment of the catastrophe " yet to come -- published a eulogy in which he put forth his belief that Kook might have been taken early to spare him from even worse times to come.

His writings reveal his struggle to accept the idea that the Holocaust was punishment for sin, and a call to repentance — and early on considered that Hitler might be part of a divine plan.

But he ultimately wrote that it was not possible to accept this idea, because such extreme suffering could never come from God, for God acted according to Torah