Where Was God on October 7? Theodicy and Jewish Faith

Quick Takeaways

This question runs deep in Jewish tradition – it threads through Jewish texts from Job to the Talmud and has been debated for thousands of years.

Hester panim (divine hiddenness) is a biblical framework that God Himself warns about in Deuteronomy 31:17 – not an excuse but a theological category.

No single rabbinic answer exists – Rashi, Rambam, and Ramban each offer different explanations for suffering, and Judaism holds them all simultaneously.

Post-Holocaust theology directly shapes how Jewish thinkers respond to October 7, from Elie Wiesel’s protest theology to Emil Fackenheim’s 614th Commandment.

Every Jewish denomination rejects the idea that October 7 was divine punishment – a rare point of total agreement across Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements.

The “October 8th Jew” phenomenon shows that for many, the crisis strengthened rather than destroyed faith and communal identity.

Judaism makes room for anger at God – the Talmud itself acknowledges that even cursing God in anguish is understood (Sanhedrin 101a).

Why Won’t This Question Go Away?

Where was God on October 7th?

The question arrived before the blood had dried, and it has not left. Families shattered at the Nova festival, hostages dragged into tunnels, kibbutz communities that hadn’t seen violence like this since the founding of the state – all of it on Simchat Torah, the most joyous day on the Jewish calendar. And so the oldest question in religious life returned with a force that felt almost physical: theodicy – how do you believe in a good God when the worst happens to the innocent?

This is the same cry that rose from Auschwitz, from the Spanish Expulsion, from the destruction of both Temples. October 7 gave it new teeth. About half of all Israelis reportedly reconsidered their relationship with religion in the weeks after the attack. As Jewish approaches to suffering show, the tradition has always sat in this tension rather than resolving it neatly.

What Is Theodicy and Why Does It Matter After October 7?

The word “theodicy” comes from Greek roots meaning “justice of God.” It names the problem that keeps religious people up at night: if God is both all-powerful and all-good, why does catastrophic suffering exist? Gottfried Leibniz coined the term in the 18th century, but the question itself is ancient. The Book of Job wrestles with it. The Talmud debates it across dozens of passages. Moses himself – according to the foundational passage in Berakhot 7a – asked God directly: why do the righteous suffer? This is the question called tzadik v’ra lo.

After October 7, theodicy stopped being a classroom exercise. Kibbutz Be’eri. Kfar Aza. The Nova festival. These names carry the weight of real people – children, grandparents, peace activists – murdered in ways that defy comprehension. “Where was God?” was screamed at vigils, whispered at shivas, typed into search bars at 3 AM. Judaism insists on a personal God who acts in history – God chose Israel, gave Torah, split the sea. When that God seems absent during a massacre, the betrayal cuts deeper than it would for someone who never expected divine involvement.

Hester Panim: Did God Hide on October 7th?

Jewish thought names this experience: hester panim, literally “the hiding of the face.” In Deuteronomy 31:17, God warns Moses that there will be times when divine presence withdraws – as a consequence of Israel’s choices or as part of a deeper plan humans cannot see. The prophet Isaiah echoes this: “Truly You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isaiah 45:15).

An honest answer, even when it offers little comfort. Hester panim says God’s presence becomes concealed – not absent, but hidden. Martin Buber called this an “eclipse of God” – the light is still there, but something has passed in front of it. October 7 fell on Simchat Torah – a day of dancing and unbridled joy turned in an instant into a day of slaughter. The Torah’s very structure contains this paradox: God acts powerfully in Exodus, then seems to vanish in moments of crisis.

The most haunting biblical example of hester panim is the Book of Esther – the only book of the Hebrew Bible where God’s name never appears. Not once. Jewish tradition reads it as a story of hidden providence. Esther is a model for finding meaning when God seems absent from the text of our lives.

What Do the Rabbis Actually Say About Suffering?

Classical Jewish commentators do not agree on why suffering happens. The Talmud in Berakhot 5a introduces yissurin shel ahavah – “afflictions of love” – the idea that suffering can purify the righteous, like fire refines gold. Rashi supports this view. But he also acknowledges that suffering can serve as a wake-up call, prompting repentance and return to God.

Rambam (Maimonides), in his Guide for the Perplexed (Guide 3:12), takes a different approach: most evils are “evils of privation” – consequences of an imperfect physical world, not divine punishment. Human free will and natural causation bear most of the responsibility.

Ramban (Nachmanides) offers another framework: the world operates through hidden miracles (nissim nistarim). What looks like random catastrophe may be divine justice working through concealed channels – a “concealed love” that humans can only glimpse.

Ibn Ezra, on Job 34:33, essentially says: we don’t know. Human understanding is fundamentally limited. The Book of Job’s real lesson, according to Ibn Ezra, is the inadequacy of our frameworks. “I don’t know” is a perfectly legitimate Jewish theological position. I find a radical honesty in that admission.

The Talmud in Menachot 29b offers the most sobering response. When the Ten Martyrs – great rabbis killed by Rome – suffer horrific deaths, Moses asks God how this can be. God’s answer? “Shtok, kach alah bemachshava” – “Be silent, so it arose in divine thought.” Some suffering is simply beyond human comprehension.

How Does Post-Holocaust Theology Shape Responses to October 7?

October 7 did not happen in a theological vacuum. Jewish thinkers had been wrestling with industrial-scale evil for nearly eighty years, and post-Holocaust theology provides the vocabulary – and the scars – that shape today’s responses.

Elie Wiesel, who watched God die at Auschwitz, wrote in Night about seeing a child hanged in the camps. When someone asked where God was, Wiesel heard an internal voice reply: “Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows.” This was protest theology – the insistence that God is present in suffering, even when that presence offers no comfort. Wiesel refused theodicy but never fully abandoned faith. He argued with God the way you argue with someone you love – furiously, because the relationship matters.

Emil Fackenheim proposed the 614th Commandment: Jews are forbidden to give Hitler posthumous victories. To abandon faith would be to let the murderers win the spiritual war as well as the physical one. After October 7, this idea has new resonance. Many Jews feel that walking away from Jewish identity now would feel like surrender.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, in the Jerusalem Post, brings these threads into the present: God did not send Hamas. God limits intervention to preserve free will. The proper response is to look for God in the acts of courage that followed – soldiers who ran toward danger, communities that rebuilt within days.

Six Jewish Answers to ‘Where Was God?’ – And Why Judaism Welcomes Them All

What emerges from this tradition is a multiplicity of answers – and Judaism treats that multiplicity as a feature:

God was hidden (hester panim). Divine presence withdrew, as warned in Deuteronomy 31. God’s face was turned, and we must call it back through teshuvah and moral action.

God was suffering alongside the victims. Rabbi Dov Ber Cohen, writing at Aish, argues God was “right there” in the tunnels, at the festival, in the safe rooms – not preventing, but sharing the pain.

God does not intervene in human evil. Drawing on Rambam, free will is sacred and absolute. God created a world where humans can choose monstrous evil, because without that freedom, goodness would be meaningless.

The question is wrong. Rav Soloveitchik, in Kol Dodi Dofek, argued that “why” traps us in paralysis. The proper Jewish response is “how” – how do we respond? Action, not explanation, is the Jewish way forward.

Rail against God. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, in the Times of Israel, calls for protest theology: thunder against injustice. But he also shifts the question: “Where was Man?”

God is in the moral response. Prof. Benjamin Porat, writing for the Israel Democracy Institute, rejects divine punishment theology entirely. God is present in the “brokenhearted spirit” and the moral clarity that followed.

The Orthodox world has seen a surge in Torah study and observance since October 7. Conservative communities have rallied around kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh (all of Israel is responsible for one another). Reform communities have focused on pastoral care and social justice. All three converge: October 7 was not a punishment from God. The “October 8th Jew” phenomenon, where Jewish identity transcended denominational labels, is itself a theological statement.

How Do You Put These Ideas Into Practice?

Theology that stays in the head doesn’t heal anything. Here are three levels of engagement:

Beginner: Sit With the Question

Read the Book of Job – even just chapters 1–3 and 38–42. Then read Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Don’t look for answers yet. Let yourself feel the weight of the question. There is alot to sit with. Jewish tradition says sitting with a question honestly is already a form of prayer. You might also explore basic Jewish approaches to suffering.

Intermediate: Study the Commentaries

Open a Tzadik v’Ra Lo source sheet on Sefaria and work through the classical commentaries side by side. See how Rashi, Rambam, and Ramban disagree – and notice the Talmud holds all their views as valid. Judaism gives you a toolbox, not a single answer. Talk through what you read with a study partner or rabbi.

Advanced: Engage With the Hardest Thinkers

Read Elie Wiesel’s Night. Study Emil Fackenheim’s 614th Commandment. Work through Hans Jonas’s The Concept of God After Auschwitz. These thinkers do not offer comfort – they offer honesty, which is worth more. Consider writing your own theological response. Putting words on paper forces clarity that vague unease never achieves.

The Question Is the Answer

Judaism has never demanded certainty. It demands engagement.

The Jewish people have been asking “where was God?” for three thousand years – and have kept praying, kept studying, kept showing up. The question does not destroy faith. In Jewish tradition, the question is faith. A God you cannot question is an idol. A God you can scream at, argue with, even momentarily curse – that is the God of Abraham, of Jacob, of Job, of Elie Wiesel.

Psalm 91:15 promises: “I will be with him in distress.” Not “I will prevent the distress.” I will be in it. Jewish tradition gives you permission to say “not yet” – or even “not ever.” The Talmud in Sanhedrin 101a tells us that even cursing God in anguish is understood.

We carry this question not because we have solved it but because carrying it together is what makes us who we are. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh – all of Israel is bound up with one another. And that refusal to let go of either God or each other, generation after generation, might be the closest thing to an answer this side of eternity.