Remembering Elie Wiesel
03/07/16 05:16
The way that I know Elie Wiesel is the way an author is meant to be known, I suppose: through the reading of his books. Although his first book, Night, was written in 1956, I didn’t read it until nearly twenty years later. I discovered the book as a requirement for a seminary class. It was a phase of my life when I didn’t read novels. I was so consumed with the required reading for my studies, that I felt I didn’t have time for fiction.
Elie Wiesel taught me that sometimes fiction can carry more truth than nonfiction can bear. I was immediately hooked. Despite my limited seminary budgets of money and time, I quickly acquired Dawn and Day and The Gates of the Forest. I couldn’t stop reading his books.
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living.” Over the years people have applied a lot of titles to Wiesel, “holocaust survivor,” “author,” Nobel Peace Price Laureate.” The title he chose for himself was “witness.”
Being born after the end of the Second World War, I am indebted to the witnesses whose writings have told the stories of the victims. It wasn’t only Wiesel, of course. I had previously read The Diary of Anne Frank, which firmly established in my heart and mind that the victims were not merely statistics, but rather individuals with thoughts and feelings and aspirations and intentions.
The cruelty of the holocaust is overwhelming: six million dead. I don’t know how to wrap my mind around the numbers. The power of the witnesses is even greater. It is a privilege to simply have lived at the same time as these voices who bear witness.
Elie Wiesel wrote some sixty books. I own about half of them and have read a few more. Zalmen or the Madness of God and The Trial of God are two powerful books that examine faith from an insider’s point of view. In Night Wiesel tells of watching the hanging of a child and says that his faith in God was also executed on that scaffold. His experiences raised deep and serious questions. Where is God in the midst of human cruelty? If God made everything that is, how could such evil exist? How could God have allowed such a world to unfold? These are not the questions of an atheist or non-believer? These are the questions of a Jew living in the midst of God’s covenant people. They are searing and eternal.
The term Ani Maamin comes from Maimonides’ thirteen-point version of the Jewish principles of faith. Wiesel chose it as the title and theme of an epic poem. The subtitle has been rendered, “A Song.” My copy of the poem bears a longer version: Ani Maamiin: A Song Lost and Found Again.” It is a powerful testament of what it means to remain in relationship with God even when the circumstances of life force one to question God’s goodness. I was fortunate to have been able to obtain a copy of the book when it was still in print and affordable in my budget. I’ve read it over and over again through the years. I’ve adapted portions of it to be spoken in characters in dramas and dialogues that I’ve written for the church. I’ve quoted it in sermons. I’ve read it out loud with no one to listen and let the words ring in my head and my heart.
In The Forgotten, Wiesel explores the function of human memory. His principal character, Elhanan Rosenbaum is a survivor who is losing his memory to an incurable disease. Haven chosen not to speak of the war, he resolves, in his state of confusion to tell his son about his past before it is too late. His son is then compelled to travel to the Romanian village where the crime was committed. He encounters a gravedigger who leads him to the grave of his grandfather and to the truth that reaches beyond the grave to bind the generations together.
When I pause to think of how close the world came to losing Wiesel before he began to write his stories, it seems a miracle that he survived. His mother and sister were killed upon their arrival at Auschwitz. His father died of dysentery and malnutrition in Buchenwald. After liberation, Elie was taken to a French orphanage. It was from there that he began his career as a journalist. He waited ten years before writing about his experiences in the war.
True to his role as a witness he never forgot.
Once he found his voice, he never stopped writing.
He emigrated to the United States and became a citizen of our country. He accepted his new country with its good and its bad. His personal savings and the resources of the Elie Wiesel Foundation were lost to the criminal actives of Bernie Madoff. His last book, “Open Heart” explores his life from the perspective of an aging man who had experienced multiple bypass surgery. He also explores his regrets over the Madoff losses. Throughout his long and productive life never shied away from the negative. He taught us to believe in hope because he was not afraid to speak of despair. He taught us to believe in faith because he was not afraid to speak of doubt. He taught us to love because he was not afraid to speak of hatred.
In a talk he once spoke of the obligation of the witness. A witness not only carries the obligation to recall and tell the stories of what he has seen. He is obligated to pass on that witness so that it will be shared by another. That to which he bears witness must never be forgotten. It is a duty which extends beyond the lifetime of the witness. We, who have read his stories have become witnesses by virtue of the power of his witness.
Now that he has died, the sacred trust has been passed. We too must not only bear witness to the truth he told, but we must pass it on so that it will never be forgotten.
I once heard a recording of a conversation he had in which he said he still has many questions for God. The questions remain now that he has died. I have no doubt, however, that he now has been blessed with the opportunity to ask them and receive answers directly.
Rest in peace faithful witness.
Elie Wiesel taught me that sometimes fiction can carry more truth than nonfiction can bear. I was immediately hooked. Despite my limited seminary budgets of money and time, I quickly acquired Dawn and Day and The Gates of the Forest. I couldn’t stop reading his books.
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living.” Over the years people have applied a lot of titles to Wiesel, “holocaust survivor,” “author,” Nobel Peace Price Laureate.” The title he chose for himself was “witness.”
Being born after the end of the Second World War, I am indebted to the witnesses whose writings have told the stories of the victims. It wasn’t only Wiesel, of course. I had previously read The Diary of Anne Frank, which firmly established in my heart and mind that the victims were not merely statistics, but rather individuals with thoughts and feelings and aspirations and intentions.
The cruelty of the holocaust is overwhelming: six million dead. I don’t know how to wrap my mind around the numbers. The power of the witnesses is even greater. It is a privilege to simply have lived at the same time as these voices who bear witness.
Elie Wiesel wrote some sixty books. I own about half of them and have read a few more. Zalmen or the Madness of God and The Trial of God are two powerful books that examine faith from an insider’s point of view. In Night Wiesel tells of watching the hanging of a child and says that his faith in God was also executed on that scaffold. His experiences raised deep and serious questions. Where is God in the midst of human cruelty? If God made everything that is, how could such evil exist? How could God have allowed such a world to unfold? These are not the questions of an atheist or non-believer? These are the questions of a Jew living in the midst of God’s covenant people. They are searing and eternal.
The term Ani Maamin comes from Maimonides’ thirteen-point version of the Jewish principles of faith. Wiesel chose it as the title and theme of an epic poem. The subtitle has been rendered, “A Song.” My copy of the poem bears a longer version: Ani Maamiin: A Song Lost and Found Again.” It is a powerful testament of what it means to remain in relationship with God even when the circumstances of life force one to question God’s goodness. I was fortunate to have been able to obtain a copy of the book when it was still in print and affordable in my budget. I’ve read it over and over again through the years. I’ve adapted portions of it to be spoken in characters in dramas and dialogues that I’ve written for the church. I’ve quoted it in sermons. I’ve read it out loud with no one to listen and let the words ring in my head and my heart.
In The Forgotten, Wiesel explores the function of human memory. His principal character, Elhanan Rosenbaum is a survivor who is losing his memory to an incurable disease. Haven chosen not to speak of the war, he resolves, in his state of confusion to tell his son about his past before it is too late. His son is then compelled to travel to the Romanian village where the crime was committed. He encounters a gravedigger who leads him to the grave of his grandfather and to the truth that reaches beyond the grave to bind the generations together.
When I pause to think of how close the world came to losing Wiesel before he began to write his stories, it seems a miracle that he survived. His mother and sister were killed upon their arrival at Auschwitz. His father died of dysentery and malnutrition in Buchenwald. After liberation, Elie was taken to a French orphanage. It was from there that he began his career as a journalist. He waited ten years before writing about his experiences in the war.
True to his role as a witness he never forgot.
Once he found his voice, he never stopped writing.
He emigrated to the United States and became a citizen of our country. He accepted his new country with its good and its bad. His personal savings and the resources of the Elie Wiesel Foundation were lost to the criminal actives of Bernie Madoff. His last book, “Open Heart” explores his life from the perspective of an aging man who had experienced multiple bypass surgery. He also explores his regrets over the Madoff losses. Throughout his long and productive life never shied away from the negative. He taught us to believe in hope because he was not afraid to speak of despair. He taught us to believe in faith because he was not afraid to speak of doubt. He taught us to love because he was not afraid to speak of hatred.
In a talk he once spoke of the obligation of the witness. A witness not only carries the obligation to recall and tell the stories of what he has seen. He is obligated to pass on that witness so that it will be shared by another. That to which he bears witness must never be forgotten. It is a duty which extends beyond the lifetime of the witness. We, who have read his stories have become witnesses by virtue of the power of his witness.
Now that he has died, the sacred trust has been passed. We too must not only bear witness to the truth he told, but we must pass it on so that it will never be forgotten.
I once heard a recording of a conversation he had in which he said he still has many questions for God. The questions remain now that he has died. I have no doubt, however, that he now has been blessed with the opportunity to ask them and receive answers directly.
Rest in peace faithful witness.