Ten Drops of Wine

From my earliest Seder memories until recently, I performed the ritual without a second thought, and I noticed that many around me commented on the humanity of the Jewish approach.

As I read more and more Holocaust history and Holocaust memoirs, sharp questions arose. I read about Nazis who grabbed Jewish children and slaughtered them in front of their mothers. I read about Nazis who dropped pellets of poison gas into chambers that murdered hundreds of innocent Jews in ghastly fashion — and then did the same thing, over and over. I read about the cruelty of Nazis and their collaborators in Jewish ghettos, killing Jews at random, or beating them to a pulp. Most of the Nazis and their collaborators got away with it, but some were caught and later tried and punished. And some were killed outright during the war.

I asked myself, “Would I subtract a drop of wine in mourning for a single one of these Nazis who was killed?” Could I muster an ounce of compassion for the death of a Nazi?

I could not. Was I, then, violating the meaning of the injunction to dip my finger in the second cup of wine ten times at the Seder? Was I emotionally or spiritually deficient?