Shabbat Candlelighting 6:53 p.m.                                             Friday, September 21, 2012/ 5 Tishrei 5773
 

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An Interview with Elie Wiesel
Last week we sent a message to the community with regard to the audio problems experienced at our Opening Night event, promising that we would do our best to contact Professor Wiesel to ask a selection of the major questions from the evening. We were able to speak with him for a few minutes yesterday, and are pleased to share his answers with you.

1. In his book Night, Professor Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever,” yet all these years later, he clearly still retains a strong Jewish faith. We asked how and why – after all his experiences - he has been able to sustain his belief in G-d.

Professor Wiesel: There is no alternative. If I want to remain faithful to those who came before me, and I do, I believe in that faith…then of course I have to live in a way not to bring shame to my father and mother, and my grandparents, my teachers of that time and later. So therefore, it’s almost something that had to do with those who were close to me, more than with G-d himself. To have a Jewish way of life.

2. Because of Night, Professor Wiesel is largely credited with having opened up public discussion of the Holocaust and forcing its memory into the open. Many outside our community sometimes question why we place such importance on remembering our most painful experiences, which they may view as being best or more easily left in the past. We asked him why it is so important to remember.

Professor Wiesel: Without it, it wouldn’t be who we are. I’m defined by what I remember, and not by what I forget. And especially the Jewish tradition is based on Jewish memory. We must remember in order to celebrate our holidays and have faith in the future. It’s memory. The one word, it’s the key word defining the Jewishness of the Jew – it’s memory. And not to remember would be a betrayal of that memory.

3. With so many books, movies and documentaries about the Holocaust now, there is concern about the potential trivialization of the subject. As the author of Night, as a survivor, and as the champion of human rights around the world, we wanted to get Professor Wiesel’s perspective on this.

Professor Wiesel: I am concerned…I remember at one point the show, that miniseries on NBC, called The Holocaust and it was so cheap. It was so false in every way. They didn’t even do their homework, I remember. I even tried to criticize it. I was asked by The New York Times to do a review and I wrote a devastating review, which created an uproar in Hollywood, especially. To this day, there are people in Hollywood who cannot stand me because of that. And I had to do it. Trivialization is almost worse than forgetting - to remember for the wrong reasons, to remember the wrong things. I am worried, yes. But what can we do. That’s history - if enough people do something, it becomes an event.

4. Many of us who are not survivors are naturally curious about how survivors adapted to life after the camps. For those of us who were not there, it’s difficult to fathom, and yet the answers provide tremendous insight into both human resilience and our collective history. Professor Wiesel looks at this question from a different point of view.

Professor Wiesel: The question is how did I adapt, how did we adapt to death, much more than life. How did we adjust ourselves to see again, after the war, to see in death a scandal, rather than the norm. In the years inside that cursed universe of evil, death was the norm. You could see people dying literally in front of you, without even feeling anything. That was the norm – they came there not to live, but to die. And then, for the first time, after the war, we realized that death is not the norm, but rather the exception to the norm. That the death of one person should bring us sadness, melancholy and pain, it was something that we had to learn.

5. Engaging young people in our community is a priority for our Federation, and we had more than 360 students and young adults with us at the event. Professor Wiesel encouraged them to “Think higher and feel deeper.” Certainly, this was one of the most inspirational messages for many guests that evening. Here’s what else he had to say to our community’s young people, and to us all:

Professor Wiesel: The Jew in me is what makes me write and teach and live. I cannot conceive of myself any other way. I am a Jew, which means I am from my parents and my grandparents. I go back to Rashi in my family. I believe as a writer and as somebody involved in human rights, I bring a universal message to the world. I believe the more Jewish the Jew, the more universal is his or her message. And that is what I try to tell students, and leaders. In order to be able to say something authentic, you must be authentic, which means authentically Jewish.

6. Life is not made up of years – life is made up of moments. That’s another message that resonated strongly with the audience. When we heard that, important moments in our lives flashed before each of us. We asked Professor Wiesel to expand on that.

Professor Wiesel: Life is not made up of years - years come and go – but of moments, each moment that remains, moments that have an impact. So when I think of years, there’s one moment that stands out – let’s say the first time I met my wife, the first time I met my teacher, Shaul Lieberman, the first time I read a book, the first time I discovered a philosophy or something – the first time. And that moment becomes a moment that weighs on you, and reaches you, and becomes part of you. That is the moment. And therefore whenever I do something with effort, I hope that there will always be a moment. That when people were there that evening, and they left and said to one another, look, we heard a dialogue, a conversation between two friends, and there was a moment that I will not forget, that was a moment that will mean something to me in the years to come. That was my hope for that evening.

Approaching Yom Kippur
In a few days we will observe Yom Kippur – our collective and personal day of reckoning. We’ll take stock of our words and behaviours, reflect on who we are, and ask God’s forgiveness for our missteps, assuming that we have already attempted to do the same with people who we may have hurt.

On behalf of the Board and staff of Jewish Federation, may I ask your forgiveness if in our public actions and community efforts, we have offended or hurt you. In our zeal to fulfill our major objectives related to generating resources to meet community needs, and to build and strengthen our community, we may have lost sight of the importance of ensuring the inclusion and dignity of each individual in our community.

May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a year of meaning, health and peace.

Shabbat Shalom!


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