Metro

Examining Reconciliation

Elie Wiesel covers new ground with speech at Rochester College.

Judith Doner Berne

Special to the Jewish News

A

standing ovation in the sold-
out Rochester Church of Christ
Auditorium both greeted and
followed the appearance of Nobel Peace
Prize recipient, human rights advocate
and writer-philosopher Elie Wiesel last
Thursday night, Aug. 21.
Wiesel, whose best-known book Night
described the horrors of the two concen-
tration camps he survived, spoke on "The
Power of Language for Reconciliation" to
a rapt audience of more than 800 at the
event sponsored by Rochester College.
"We ask you tonight to be our teacher;
we ask you tonight to be our rabbi:' said
Dr. John Barton, vice president of aca-
demic affairs, who had invited Wiesel to
give a special lecture to mark the 50-year
anniversary of the small Christian school
tucked away in Rochester.
"John, dear John Barton, was very
demanding;' Wiesel said. "It should be a
new lecture. He gave me so many ques-
tions. He gave me work."
Wiesel, who teaches philosophy at
Boston University, didn't tie up his
thoughts in neat packages.
Often he responded with questions of
his own, using the Socratic method that
posits that by posing questions through a
dialogue or dialectic you can work toward
a higher truth.
"Good questions," Wiesel said, "are bet-
ter than good answers. Questions unite;
answers divide.
"Reconciliation has a lofty sound:' he
began. "It implies a disagreement"
The first disagreements appear in
Scripture — without reconciliation, he
recounted. God punishes Adam and Eve,
who opened their eyes and felt shame.
Their sons Cain and Abel fought, with
Cain murdering his brother.
"Their parents probably overheard them
from the kitchen;' Wiesel said. But, more
seriously, he asked, "Where were their
parents? Why didn't they speak? It was the
first failure of education.
"Life is so sacred; no one has the right
to violate it or eliminate it. I can be recon-
ciled with my death but not yours."
Question: Is reconciliation always
attainable or necessarily desirable?
"I will not give a blanket pardon to Nazi

perpetrators," Wiesel said. "The dead alone
possess that right"
That doesn't mean, he quickly added,
that the children and grandchildren of
wrongdoers must pay. "Only the guilty are
guilty — their children are not."
Question: Can there be forgiveness with
reconciliation?
Yes, with a caveat. Wiesel gave positive
examples, such as the relationships now
enjoyed by former enemies such as France
and Germany or Norway and Sweden.
"But it must never be at the expense of
memory;' he said. "Without memory, all
initiatives are doomed.
"I devoted my life to celebrate memory:'
Wiesel said. `Alzheimer's means total
despair. It is cancer of identity: Every day
you tear out a page. What remains — the
covers. What if a whole generation suffers
from Alzheimer's?"
It took him 10 years, he said, to write
about his experience in the concentration
camps. "I was afraid I wouldn't have the
proper words to communicate what we
went through. I wrote because I had no
moral choice."
Question: Is language more than words?
"Even God needed language to create
the world," Wiesel said. "Whether words
or written or spoken, we are responsible
for their impact. Since my childhood, I
learned to respect language. To abuse
words is danger-
ous."
During war or
other extreme sit-
uations we real-
ize the frailty of
language, Wiesel
said. "Language
is its first victim.
Both Stalin and
Hitler made lan-
guage their obedient captive. Who hates
one group hates all groups."
He was shocked, he said, when he saw
the way black people were treated on his
first trip to the southern United States. "I
felt shame. I never felt shame as a Jew but
I felt shame for being white."
Just as language precedes war, Wiesel
said, language helps reconciliation.
Question: What happens when, in the
name of God, certain crimes are being
committed? What do you do then?
The dialogue toward reconciliation

Elie Wiesel: "i devoted my life to celebrate memory."

between Catholics and Jews, begun by
Pope John XXIII and advanced by Pope
John Paul II, falls short, Wiesel said.
"They forgot to take the third partner
— Islam — which they should have done
right away. Maybe if they had done it then,
maybe it could have prevented certain
crimes being
committed today.
"I can't
believe Wiesel
said, that God
wants his chil-
dren to fight
one another. We
know, because
God listened to
Moses, that God
listens. "It's all a question of what we tell
him for what reasons."
Question: Will the power of language
alone be enough to achieve peace?
"I believe today art, including literature,
is here to help us overcome the obstacles
before us," he said. Perhaps he had in mind
the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's
recent concert in North Korea.
"My fellow friends with me in the
camps:' he said, nodding toward several
Holocaust survivors in the audience, "will
tell you we had an absolute right to say to

"Good questions are
better than good answers.
Questions unite;
answers divide."

the world,`Goodbye. You weren't there. You
didn't come to help us. Mr. God, goodbye.
You let me down.'"
But "we didn't use that right. It is
because we suffered, we want other people
to be saved from suffering."
Question: Is this a reason for going on?
"Yes."
Rochester College President Rubel
Shelley named Wiesel an honorary visit-
ing professor of humanities. He also has
received more than 120 honorary degrees
from other institutions of higher learning
in the United States, Europe and Israel.
Earlier in the evening, the college feted
Wiesel and other Holocaust survivors at a
dinner. "It was a kosher meal at a Christian
college with a rabbi's benediction:' the col-
lege president rather proudly announced.
Rochester College students Majeema
Thomas and Justin McMahan remained in
their last-row seats after most of the audi-
ence had left.
"I think it was a great start to our 50th
anniversary:' said Thomas, a sophomore
who is student body president. "This is a
highlight of my year."
"I was very intrigued by what he went
through:' McMahan, a freshman, said. "For
this to happen here in my first semester is
very exciting." ❑

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August 28 • 2008

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