“Unprecedented and Unparalleled”: The Last Step in Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira’s Altered Faith

Abstract

This essay reexamines the final writings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira after the Grossaktion Warsaw, challenging the claim—most prominently advanced by Shaul Magid—that Shapira’s faith was “broken” at the end of 1942. Through a close analysis of two post-deportation sermon addenda and two letters buried in the Ringelblum Archive, I argue that R. Shapira did not abandon faith, but rather arrived at its final form: a faith marked not by rational theodicy or historical paradigms, but by radical submission to divine will and the continued potency of prayer. This “altered faith,” though stripped of explanatory frameworks, remains robust and deeply devotional—a final, faithful response to incomprehensible suffering.