But precisely because of the enormity of the Holocaust experience, Fackenheim tells his fellow Jews they must now add one more law to their ancient Torah—a 614th commandment. Commandment 614 is simply this: Thou shalt not give Hitler any posthumous victories. Elaborating on the 614th Commandment, Fackenheim says, “We are forbidden to despair of the world as the place which is to become the kingdom of God, lest we help make it a meaningless place in which God is dead or irrelevant and everything is permitted.”1 Fackenheim was saying to his own Jewish community that even in the face of the
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hope as the antidote to atrocity
