Yes to Life

Floor Speech

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Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record remarks submitted at the request of a Virginia Beach constituent, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman of Temple Lev Tikvah, and are a reflection of his views. International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Saying ``Yes to Life'' Published for the first time in English, Yes To Life (In Spite of Everything) Boston: Beacon Press. 2020, originally appeared in German in 1946 following public lectures delivered in Vienna, Austria in March and April 1946 by the renowned psychiatrist and author Dr. Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997), the iconic founder of Logotherapy, the third school of Viennese psychotherapy. His thirty-nine books were translated into fifty languages. His classic Man's Search For Meaning was reconstructed during nine days in 1946 from bits of paper he had ``obtained'' during his internment since the original manuscript sown into his coat was confiscated upon arrival in Auschwitz.

An Austrian Jew, Dr. Frankl was deported by the Nazis in 1942 to Terezin, Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and Turkheim from which he was liberated by the American forces in 1945. His pregnant wife, parents and brother who were deported with him did not survive. Dr. Frankl chose to remain in Vienna after the war--though the majority of survivors left with understandable cause--to head a neurology department in a major hospital and, I believe to prove the limits of Nazism and the power of the individual to contend with great suffering, asserting the human will while serving as a personal exemplar. Already back in 1946, still reeling and recovering from the unfathomable horrors of the Holocaust, Dr. Frankl's insights remain most relevant, pointing at the critical difference a single human being can make whether for good or evil in face of mass ideologies proven empty and utterly destructive.

While the inmates in the camp, testifies Dr. Frankl, were told by their tormentors as a means to dehumanize them that they ``were `not worth the soup' '' they were given following a trying day, never mind that the poor-quality soup was the only food they ate that day. Nazism sought to reduce humanity to meaninglessness. Juxtapose it with Dr. Frankl's noble assertion ``of life's unconditional meaning'' which is rooted in Judaism's affirmation that human life is a precious divine gift, partaking of God's sacred image; that saving one human life is tantamount to saving an entire world, and destroying one human life is tantamount to destroying an entire world. No wonder saving a life, our own included, is a paramount Mitzvah overriding all but three Commandments. Each of us is unique and irreplaceable, including one's weaknesses. Each human life is of infinite worth and meaning that none can rub us off. Indeed, God's divinity and human dignity are indivisible. Dr. Frankl's personal experience in the camps led to his conviction that having a sense of purpose while in dire circumstances of suffering can make a critical difference for one's very survival.

The book's title Yes To Life is intimately intertwined with Judaism's clarion call ``L'Chaim! `` ``To Life!'' as well as the Biblical admonition, ``U'Varachta Bachaim,''``Choose life.'' ``Yes To Life'' was forcibly and ironically sung as a hymn by the camps' inmates, originating in a camp song ordered by one of Buchenwald's commanders. Yes, saying ``yes'' to life in face of imminent death is both courageously encouraging and foolishly disappointing, reminiscent of the Nazi deceiving ``Arbeit Macht Frei,'' ``Work Will Free You,'' upon entering hell's gates. Judaism's endless optimism manifested in Dr. Frankl's approach, captured the Rabbinic teaching not to lose hope even if a sword is placed on your neck. However, the odds do not support it. The same heroic thrust but rarely realistic prevailed in the paradoxical reassuring though not accurate message atop a shtiebel's entrance in the Warsaw Ghetto, ``Jews, do not despair!'' Is not hope against hope all that we have left when the chips are down, providing us with an extra measure of strength to endure?

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the founder of Temple Lev Tikvah in Virginia Beach. Kazakhstan's only born rabbi, he is the son of Polish Holocaust Survivors and spent his early childhood in transit and DP Camps in Austria and Germany. He grew up in Haifa, Israel.

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