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Friday, December 6, 1985

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Wiesel's Admonition 'Against Silence' In 3-Volume Treasure

Prof. Irving Abrahamson of the City
Colleges of Chicago, in a prefatory note
to Against Silence: the Voice and Vision
of Elie Wiesel (Schocken Books), the col-
lected works which he edited into a
three-volume epic account of the
greatly-impassioned historian of the
most dramatic years of this century,
makes this comment:
"Conceivably, Elie Wiesel may never
write his autobiography, for he sees his
life as a commentary on his work, not
his work as a commentary on his life.
While many of the pieces collected here
contain direct autobiographical refer-
ences which will to some extent satisfy
the understandable interest in the facts
of his fascinating life, in a very special
and complex sense all that Wiesel has
written is 'autobiography.' Both his fic-
tion and his non-fiction contain a rich
body of material that illuminates the
man and his works, as well as the rela-
tionship between the two. But no other
contemporary writer comes to mind who
is simultaneously so self-revealing and
so hidden. For while Wiesel allows us
entrance into his world, he refuses to re-
veal the ultimate mysteries inside. They
remain — as they should — for us to
solve."
Yet, in this anthologically-compiled
literary treasure, Wiesel himself wrote
an autobiography of a sort. In the
foreword to the three volumes, Elie
Wiesel wrote:
Twenty-five years of writing,
teaching, speaking, reflecting,
remembering ... how did the
editor manage to condense them
all in these three volumes? The
words are mine, but the
framework is his, as is the pace,
the general concept, the back-
ground, the direction, the
structure — and everything else.
Thus the project is as much his
as it is mine.
Lectures, reviews, interviews,
dialogues, forewords, essays,
marginal comments: as I turn the
pages I realize how difficult it
must have been, how far he had
to go to track me down. Have I
been to too many places? Have I
tried to cover too much ground?
Much of myself is in his work.
Hopes and fears and memories,
some forgotten, others altered by
the passing of time.
God knows, I tried all my life
not to repeat myself — and yet.
Certain statements had to be
made again and again with re-
gard to topical and urgent mat-
ters: he was wise enough and
rigorous enough to keep only
what seemed to be essential. As
for the omissions of another sort,
they reflect my own change of
attitude towards given people
and their work, certain ideas and
their specific interpretations, re-
lationships that, like all things,
have undergone modifications,
both rational and irrational.
And so, although the reader
may not find in these volumes all
these twenty-five years of my life,
he will discover in them the point
where I have arrived now. They
are, therefore, in a true and per-
sonal sense, a kind of taking
stock. Usually one does this one-
self. But he has done it for me.
Will I ever be able to thank
him enough?
There is a great deal in the three-
volumed Against Silence that reveals one
of the mose skillfully researched under-

takings ever in literary projects. Dr. Ab-
rahamson utilized every available
statement by Wiesel, all of his books, all
his speeches and book reviews. Every
one of the numerous sections in the
three volumes concludes with a bibliog-
raphy of notes. In the 83-page introduc-
tory essay, the editor utilizes the
speeches and reviews, - and other corn-
ments by Wiesel, to point out that "the
texts within each section appear in
chronological order, according to the date
of earliest appearance or delivery." They
are not necessarily the date of publica-
tion, and his references to the entries are
accompanied by this interesting note:
Against Silence is designed for
both the scholar and the general
reader. These volumes for the
first time give the historian the
philosopher, the theologian, and
the literary critic ready access to
the hitherto unavailable defini-
tive texts to necessary to the pur-
suit of the questions Elie Wiesel
has raised. Equally, these texts
are intended for the general
reader — to give him access to a
wealth of material that will eng-
age him, enlarge his experience,
and enrich his appreciation of
Wiesel's work, his life and times.
There is much that is remarkable
about these assembled written and spo-
ken assertions quoted from Wiesel's dec-
larations during the years of his em-
phasis that what had occurred must be
remembered, that the horrors and
tragedies are not to be forgotten. There-
fore the corporate title of the three vol-
umes: Against Silence. Each excerpt is a
classic itself. Every page is a volume,
and collectively they speak volumes.
Here is a typical example, appearing
in the first section of the first volume
entitled "The Holocaust Era and the
Past." The specific quotation is "Let Us
Remember, Let Us Remember," It's a
speech delivered at the 30th anniversary
of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising delivered
in Temple Emanu-El, April 29, 1973. It's
worth repeating: this one-page hear-
trending recollection could be judged as
a volume in itself, to be read and re-
read, certain to move even the toughest
person, emphasizing the remembering!
Wiesel, in the assembled declara-
tions Against Silence, brilliantly
gathered into a collective literary trea-
sure, does not hesitate to challenge. He
challenges the Vatican, he demands jus-
tice for Israel, he collects the evidence
against the terrorists of the Holocaust
and he pleads with Jews for understand-
ing. Indeed, he challenges and criticizes
Jews as readily as their enemies, in the
interest of establishing the truth he
seeks. He challenges the almighty while
Nrenerating the faith that sustians him.
Therefore, in criticizing an atheist,
he rises to specific heights in his adher-
ence to the principles he propagates.
That is why one of his essays, entitled
"Jewish Atheist" A Quarrel With God,"
merits complete quoting despite its
length. It is reprinted in the
Abrahamson-edited three-volume an-
thology from the Baltimore Jewish
Times, April 9, 1965, tnd the text fol-
lows:
When I read the first press
reports about an atheist rabbi in
Detroit, my initial reaction was
not anger but sympathy.
The idea of a spiritual leader
declaring war on the Ribono Shel
Olam, on God, out of a clear sky
and from the pulpit of a syna-
gogue to boot, rather intrigued
me. Now finally the wrath of our

Elie Wiesel: "Against Silence."

generation has also penetrated
religious precincts. I thought.
Many tormented writers, angry
poets, and agonized artists had
risen: only an angry rabbi was
lacking, and now the rabbi from
Detroit would be that one.
Why not? We Jews, more
than all other people of the
world, have reason, nay, the
duty, to be angry about man and
his fate, about Creation and the
Creator. Our betrayal has been
universal, even cosmic. All gates
were shut tight to us and all eyes
full of daggers. It is natural
therefore to have expected a
mighty outcry of protest against
history by the Jewish historian,
by the Jewish thinker against the
very thought process, and by the
Jewish believer against religion
itself.
To a certain extent, the voice
of the outcry among non-Jews
has been louder and clearer than
among Jews. In vain will you
seek wrath. among most of the
American Jewish writers; in vain
will you find a prophetic note
that strikes the proper chord, the
proper trope, on the events of
yesterday's and today's times.
So I was pleased to read that
somewhere in Detroit a rabbi had
risen in rebellion against God's
way, against God's will.
For to quarrel with the
Ribono Shel Olam is entirely
Jewish, just as it is truly Jewish
to accept the divine g'zar din, the
decree of pain and agony, and of
punishment.

Neither Jeremiah the pro-
phet, nor Jonah, nor Job feared
to come with grievances against
the Almighty. Nor Levi Yitzhak of
Berditchev. Still later there were
to be pious Jews who dared sit in
judgment over the Judge of all
judges.
It is said that three Jewish
sages in one of the Nazi concen-
tration camps once decided to
form themselves into a bet din, a
court of law, and summon the
Almighty to a din torah, to trial,
where he could defend himself
for permitting so many of His
children to perish on the Akedah,
the sacrificial altar. The strange
bet din took testimony from wit-
nesses pro and con and listened
in full gravity to the summations
of the prosecution and the de-
fense. The trial was conducted in
full conformity with the laws of
the Torah which, according to
our sages, are equally binding on
the Lord. The judges then an-
nounced the verdict.
It is not important what the
verdict was or whether it was
carried out. What is important is
that in the very shadow of the
flames there were God-fearing
Jews who demanded with broken
hearts an answer from God.
I thought that the young, de-
fiant, rebellious rabbi from De-
troit was striving to go in their
footsteps, and I was prepared to
applaud him for it.
The Holocaust, it had been
expected, would bring a wide

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