Elie Wiesel

Robert Mcafee Brown

Description

Upon presenting the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace to Elie Wiesel, Egil Aarvick, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee, hailed him as "a messenger to mankind--not with a message of hate and revenge but with one of brotherhood and atonement." Elie Wiesel: Messenger to All Humanity, first published in 1983, echoes this theme and still affirms that message, a call to both Christians and Jews to face the tragedy of the Holocaust and begin again.

Sujets

• 20th Century
• Jewish Studies
• Jewish
• Modern
• Holocaust
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Nobel Peace Prize
• Jews
• The Holocaust
• Modern history
• Ethics
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Holocauste

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 1983
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268160630
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ELIE WIESEL:
MESSENGER TO ALL HUMANITY
Elie Wiesel:
Messenger to All Humanity
REVISED EDITION
Robert McAfee Brown
Copyright 1983, 1989 by University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
Grateful acknowledgment is made to: Random House, Inc., for permission to quote from the following works by Elie Wiesel: A Beggar in Jerusalem , translated by Lily Edelman and the author, 1970. One Generation After , translated by Lily Edelman and the author, 1970. Souls on Fire , translated by Marion Wiesel, 1972. Ani Maamin: A Song Lost and Found Again , translated by Marion Wiesel, 1973. The Oath , translated by Marion Wiesel, 1973. Zalmen, or The Madness of God , translated by Nathan Edelman, 1974. Messengers of God , translated by Marion Wiesel, 1976. A Jew Today , translated by Marion Wiesel, 1978. The Trial of God , translated by Marion Wiesel, 1979.
Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc., for permission to quote from the following works by Elie Wiesel: Night , translated from the French by Stella Rodway. Les Editions de Minuit, 1958. English translation MacGibbon Kee, 1960. Dawn , translated from the French by Frances Frenaye. Editions du Seuil, 1960. English translation Elie Wiesel, 1961. The Accident , translated from the French by Anne Borchardt. Editions du Seuil, 1961. English translation Elie Wiesel, 1962.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers, for permission to quote from the following works by Elie Wiesel: The Town Beyond the Wall , translated by Stephen Becker. 1964 by Elie Wiesel. The Gates of the Forest , translated by Frances Frenaye. 1966 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Legends of our Time . 1968 by Elie Wiesel. The Jews of Silence , translated from the Hebrew by Neal Kozodoy.
Summit Books, for permission to quote from the The Testament by Elie Wiesel, 1981.
Paulist Press, for permission to quote from Harry James Cargas in Conversation with Elie Wiesel . 1976 by Harry James Cargas.
KTAV Publishing House, for permission to quote from Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? , edited by Eva Fleischner, 1977.
Indiana University Press, for Permission to quote from Confronting the Holocaust , edited by Rosenfeld and Greenberg, 1978.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Brown, Robert McAfee, 1920-
Elie Wiesel, messenger to all humanity.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Wiesel, Elie, 1928- -Criticism and interpretation. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature. 3. Wiesel, Elie, 1928- -Religion and ethics. 4. Holocaust (Jewish theology) I. Title.
PQ2683.I32Z59 1983 813 .54 82-40383
ISBN: 0-268-00920-1
Manufactured in the United States of America
eISBN 9780268160630
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
TO ELIE WIESEL
I tried very hard, my friend, not to write this book. At every stage it seemed a tampering with things I had no right to touch. But because each exposure to your work moves me more deeply, I feel compelled to share a portion of what you have given me. To receive and not to share-that would be a denial of all that I have learned from you.
You have said that to be a Jew means to testify; such must also be the obligation of a Christian. And you have taught us all-Jews, Christians, and all humanity-that before testifying ourselves, we must listen to the testimony of others. I have tried to listen to your testimony. And now I feel obligated . . . to testify.
Since gifts mean most when they come from the givers themselves, rather than through intermediaries, I hope most of all that those who read my pages will be moved to read yours.
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
How can the non-Jew speak?
How do we respond to stories?
On denying the story: a necessary digression
The story of the story-teller
1. Becoming a Messenger: An Impossible Necessity (a journey of the self)
The Event took place: one must speak
The Event defies description: one cannot speak
The Event suggests an alternative: one could choose silence
The Event precludes silence: one must become a messenger
The Event suggests a certain kind of messenger: one can be a teller of tales
2. Darkness That Eclipses Light (a moral journey - 1)
Victim
Executioner
Flight
Spectator
Madness
3. Light That Penetrates Darkness (a moral journey - 2)
Participant
Michael and Milika
Michael and Pedro
Michael/Pedro and Menachem
Michael/Pedro and the Silent One
From Solitude to a City
From a City to The City
4. From Auschwitz to Mount Moriah - And Return (an historical journey)
Necessity: the journey to the past, where the present is recovered, not evaded
Reverence: the journey to Sighet, where lost reality is more haunting than a severed dream
Celebration: the journey into Hasidism, where dancing counts for more than prayers
Reflection: the journey into Midrash, where every thought is worthy of embellishment
Contemporaneity: the journey into Scripture, where stories of the past describe the present
Challenge: journeys into the present, where any human need is paramount
5. The Silence of God, and the Necessity of Contention (a theological journey)
On speaking of God while speaking of humanity
The agony of the believer
The silence of God
The necessity of contention: putting God on trial
On speaking of God by speaking of humanity
On starting all over again
Belief or unbelief?
6. Birkenau and Golgotha (challenges to a Christian journey)
A revision of the Jewish agenda: the inevitability of contact
Christianity . . . died in Auschwitz
The betrayal of Jesus
A revision of the Christian agenda: the shape of a response
Birkenau and Golgotha
7. The Ongoing Struggle of Light Against Darkness; or, What Is There Left For Us To Do? (a human journey)
From Jewish particularity to human universality-in that order
From repudiation of hatred to affirmation of anger
From immoral order to a moral society
From immoral sanity to moral madness
8. And Yet, And Yet . . . : A Small Measure of Victory (an unlikely journey)
Notes
Bibliography
Appendix I
Appendix II
Index
List of Abbreviations
Accident
The Accident
Beggar
A Beggar in Jerusalem
Conversation
Harry James Cargas in Conversation with Elie Wiesel
Dimensions
Dimensions of the Holocaust
Gates
The Gates of the Forest
Generation
One Generation After
Legends
Legends of our Time
Masters
Four Hasidic Masters and their Struggle Against Melancholy
Messengers
Messengers of God
Portraits
Five Biblical Portraits
Responses
Responses to Elie Wiesel
Silence
The Jews of Silence
Souls
Souls on Fire
Testament
The Testament
Town
The Town Beyond the Wall
Trial
The Trial of God
Victory
A Small Measure of Victory
Zalman
Zalman, or The Madness of God
Acknowledgments
Because of an embarrassment of riches I cannot possibly thank all those who have contributed so substantially to whatever merit this volume possesses.
My debt to Elie Wiesel is indicated elsewhere. His friendship, encouragement, and availability during the writing remain a source of wonder and gratitude to me.
I have benefited immensely from the reactions of my companions in the classrooms of Stanford University, Union Theological Seminary, and Pacific School of Religion, as we have struggled together to confront the implications of Wiesel s writings for our own lives-an initially harsh blessing that finally heals. I am grateful for special assistance from Barbara Pescan and Annie Sultan.
Some of the material in Chapter 6 was originally given as a lecture at Mercy College, Detroit, Michigan, in a Holocaust series under the leadership of Dr. Carol Rittner, R.S.M., and materials in Chapters 2 and 3 were the basis for lectures given at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, under the leadership of Dr. Farley Snell, and at the Chautauqua Institution, under the leadership of Dr. Ralph Loew. On all these occasions I received substantial help in discussion sessions.
I am particularly grateful to the Jewish members of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, on which we serve under Elie Wiesel s leadership, for their openness to my attempts to enter, at however far remove, into experiences many of them have known at first hand. They could have resented my presence or ignored me. But they did neither thing. Instead they embraced me. The warmth of that embrace persuades me that there are no barriers too high or too wide for human beings to overcome.
For material help during two periods of uninterrupted writing I am indebted to Dr. Robert Lynn and the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and to Dr. Jerry Hochbaum and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.
Portions of the material have appeared in the following journals: Christianity and Crisis, Christian Century, Commonweal, Face to Face, Theology Today , and the NICM Journal; and in the following books: Weisel et al, Dimensions of the Holocaust , Northwestern University Press, 1978; Brown, Creative Dislocation-The Movement of Grace , Abingdon, 1980; and Ryan, ed., Human Responses to the Holocaust , Edwin Mellin Press, 1981.
Two matters of logistics. First, as an aid to the reader, I have kept page references to Wiesel s own writings within the text itself. Other quotations or references are footnoted. Second, readers who are bothered by references to man and mankind should remember (a) that most of Wiesel s novels were written before sexist language was an issue, so that he cannot be held retrospectively culpable for language that now disturbs many people; (b) that he writes in French, in which l homme is a stronger word than personne; and (c) that in the face of the enormity of the issues with which he is dealing, his own affirmation that he means the French word to be understood inclusively should enabl