32 Friday, August 6, 1976

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Wiesel as Bible Interpreter, Parable Narrator in New Book

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Elie Wiesel is a master
interpreter of the legen-
dary in the Bible and in
Jewish traditional
folklore.
In fact, legend assumes
realism in the expressive
writings of the eminent
author who commenced
with the reportorial and
interpretive • of the
Holocaust and has since
emerged as the distin-
guished commentator on
Jewish historical
legacies.
The master chronicler
of the crimes of and the
lessons to be learned from
the Holocaust, Wiesel has

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gained a place of emi-
nence as an anthologist
and interpreter of Bible
lore.
His "Messengers of
God: Biblical Portraits
and Legends" (Random
House) is an inspiring col-
lection of Bible stories and
parables, a work of im-
mense magnitude in defin-
ing the roles of the great
characters in ancient
Jewish history.
In a translation from
French by Marion Wiesel,
this masterful compila-
tion revives the legen-
dary as well as the factual
in parables and legends
from the Midrash and
from Bible commen-
taries, in addition to the
portrayals of Torah per-
sonalities who are the au-
thor's heroes in his new
and exceedingly impres-
sive work.
The manner in which
the subject has inspired
the author is very mov-
ingly emphasized in
Wiesel's introductory
paean in which he as-
serts:
"When I was a child, I
read these Biblical tales
with a wonder mixed with
anguish. I imagined
Isaac on the altar and I
cried. I saw Joseph, pr-
ince of Egypt, and I
laughed. Why dwell on
them again? And why
now? It falls to the
storyteller to explain.
"Disciple more than
anything else, his aim is
not to plunge into histori-
cal exegesis — which
surely lies beyond his
competence — but to reac-
quaint himself with the
distant and haunting fi-
gures that molded him. He
will try to reconstruct
their portraits from Bibli-

ELIE WIESEL

cal and Midrashic texts,
and eventually insert them
into the present.
"For Jewish history
unfolds in the present.
Refuting mythology, it
affects our life and our
role in society. Jupiter is a
symbol, but Isaiah is a
voice, a conscience. Mars
died without ever having
lived, but Moses remains
a living figure. The calls
he issued long ago to a
people casting off its
bonds reverberate to this
day and we are bound by
his Law. Were it *not for
his memory, which en-
compasses us all, the Jew
would not be Jewish, or
more precisely, he would
have ceased to exist.
"Judaism, more than
any other tradition, man-
ifests great attachment
to its past, jealously keep-
ing it alive. Why? Be-
cause we need to. Thanks
to Abraham whose gaze
is our guide, thanks to
Jacob whose dream has
us spellbound, our survi-
val, prodigious on so
many levels, lacks

neither mystery nor sig-
nificance.
"If we have the
strength and the will to
speak out, it is because
every
one of our
forebears expresses him-
self through us; if the
eyes of the world often
seem to be upon us, it is
because we evoke a time
gone by and a fate that
transcends time. Panim
in Hebrew is used in the
plural form: man has
more than one face. His
own and Adam's. The Jew
is haunted by the begin-
ning more than by the
end. His messianic dream
is tied to the kindgom of
David and he feels closer
to the prophet Elijah
than to his next-door
neighbor."
Wiesel, in this en-
lightening and very brief
introductory essay also
poses the question "What
Is a Jew?" and he replied:
"Sum, synthesis, vessel.
Someone who feels every
blow that ever struck his
ancestors. He is crushed
by their mourning and
buoyed by their triumphs.
For they were living men
and women, not symbols.
The most pure, the most
just among them knew ups
and downs, moments of
ecstasy and confusion; we
know, for they are de-
scribed to us. Their holi-
ness was defined within
human terms of reference.
Thus the Jew remembers
them and sees them as
they were at the cros-
sroads of their own lives:
troubled, exalted, marked.
They are human beings:
people, not gods. Their
quest rejoins his own and
weighs on his decisions.
Jacob's ladder rends his

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nights. Israel's despair:
burdens his solitude. He
knows that to speak of
Moses is to follow him to
Egypt and out of Egypt. To
refuse to speak of him is to
refuse to follow him.
There is a concluding_
fascination in Wiesel's
spirational approach to
Jewish historicity in this
declarative statement:

"

"In Jewish history, all
events are linked. Only
the
today,
after
whirlwind of fire and
blood that was the
Holocaust, do we grasp
the full range of implica-
tions of the murder of one
man by his brother, the
deeper meanings of a
father's questions r
disconcerting silent
Only as we tell them nu-w,–
in the light of certain ex-
periences of life and
death, do we understand
them.

"And so, faithful to his
promise, the storyteller
does nothing but tell the
tale: he transmits what
he received, he returns
what was entrusted to
him. His story does not
begin with his own; it is
fitted into the memory
that is the living tradi-
tion of his people.

"The legends he brings
back are the very ones we
are living today. -

Thus Wiesel is both the
historian and the nar-
rator and interpreter of
the parable. The eminent
author who could also be
described as the mystic
emerger in his new work
as realist historian. Thus
in his writings as well as
in his public appearances
at which he related his
dedication to Jewish
folklore and Bible teach-
ing he is again the mas-
ter.

Susan L. Harris
Plans to Marry

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MISS HARRIS

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur./
Harris of Pepper Hill Dr.,
West Bloomfield,
nounce the engagen L
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son of Mr. and Mrs.
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lawn Ave., Oak Park.
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law school in the fall.
An October wedding is
planned.

