“Elie Wiesel:  View Through the Valley”

A Sermon for West Seattle UU Fellowship
February 8, 2004
Rev. Peg Boyle Morgan

“Sometimes we must interfere.  When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.  Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.”  — Elie Wiesel

READING
Elie Wiesel was born in a small village in has been called over the years of political boundary changes Transylvania, Romania, or Hungary.  His family was Jewish.  He adored his mother, loved his father though he did not know him as well, and had normal sibling squabbles with his sisters.  Elie loved to study his Jewish lessons.  And he cherished his friendships.  In his memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea, he talks about the spiritual value of friendships:  p. 49.

When he was 15, his family was taken to Nazi concentration camps.  He and two of his three sisters survived.  Elie would live a few years in a French orphanage and then studied in Paris at the Sorbonne.  He worked for several years in entry-level journalism positions.  Elie would not begin to write about his memories of Auschwitz and Buchenwald for ten years.  He finally broke his silence at the insistence of French Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac.  The resulting book, Night, was published in 1958.  Over the next thirty years, he would become a US citizen, take up the cause of Russian Jews, marry his wife Marion, became a father, be appointed chair of the Holocaust Memorial Council, and receive the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement and the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature.  He is the author of 36 works dealing with Judaism, the Holocaust, and the moral responsibility of all people to fight hatred, racism and genocide.

SERMON
Elie Wiesel’s life was filled with experiences of the worst and the best of humanity.  Throughout it all, Elie struggled to maintain his faith in his God and in life.  His early study and experience in Jewish culture and beliefs provided for him a salvation.  His culture teaches that there are times of exile, and that we just need to keep on keeping on, believing there is a plan, and that there will be a promised land.  Elie did, and he made of his life a dedication to all those who did not survive the camps.  Little did he know the prediction that had already been made about who he would become. 

It is in Elie’s memoir that he tells a story that happened in his early childhood: 

Elie was just eight years old when a revered Rabbi came to his hometown.  The custom was for people to speak to the Rabbi and receive his blessing.  Elie’s mother, Sarah Wiesel, was talking with the Rabbi about many family matters.  Elie, holding his mother’s hand, was not paying attention so much to the words being exchanged as he was to what he still remembers as the beaming face of the rabbi.  Suddenly the Rabbi tells Elie to approach.  The Rabbi picks up Elie, puts him on his lap, and begins asking Elie about his studies.  Elie answers the Rabbi’s questions, feeling a bit awkward and overwhelmed.  The Rabbi then asks Elie’s mother to step outside.  “Good,” the Rabbi says, since they are now alone.   “Now we can speak calmly.”  They speak about many things, including the lesson from the Torah for that week, and the commentary lesson Elie was studying.  Elie feels the time passing, has it been a few minutes, or was it a few hours?  The Rabbi kisses Elie on the forehead and tells him to wait outside.  “Tell your mother to come back,” He says.  Elie’s mother now has her own private time to talk to the Rabbi.    When they finished, Elie noticed tears in his mother’s eyes.  Elie feels ashamed.  He wonders if he did not answered the Rabbi well enough, or if he in some way embarrassed his mother.   “Why are you crying, mother?” Elie asks, but his mother will not tell him.  Not that day, nor the next day when Elie asks again. 

Twenty-five years later, in New York, Elie receives an urgent call from his cousin Anshel, who lived across town, and was gravely ill. He needed an operation, but was refusing to proceed before receiving a blessing from Elie.  Elie pronounces a simple blessing, asking God to give Anshel full recovery.

Anshel is recovering a few days later from surgery when Elie asked him: “Why was my blessing so important to you?” 

“Do you remember the last time the Rabbi visited Sighet?”  “Like yesterday,” Elie replies, “How could I forget?  My mother was so upset, but I never found out why she came away from the Rabbi in tears.” 

“I know why,” Anshel says, with a smile.  “I was walking with your mother on the way home, you were walking ahead of us, and she swore me to secrecy, telling me what the Rabbi said –he said that you would become a great man, but that neither your mother nor he would live to see the day.  That’s why I wanted your blessing.  If the Rabbi had such faith in you, your blessing must mean something in heaven.” 

Elie, in many ways has fulfilled this prediction, known world wide, he is a very accomplished and good man.  But fame brings a higher level of responsibility.  Is he a great man? I’m not so sure, as I will mention later, but definitely he is a man who has blessed the world with his plays, his novels and his speeches.  He survived many years as a budding journalist, living in poverty.  Now he has much wealth, earning thousands with each public address.  After receiving his Nobel Prize, he and his wife established a foundation to promote peace and human understanding.  He has funded worldwide conferences of Nobel Peace Prize recipients to grapple with the causes of hate.  He has sponsored conferences of young adults to vision ways to create peace for the future of their world.  He has spoken out against the suffering of Jewish people around the world, but also about Ethiopians, Cambodians, and Mesquite Indians, Bosnians and many other groups.

I had wanted to study the ideas of Wiesel for some time, as I have been attracted by random quotes of his words.  Recently I had the opportunity to read some of his work.  I’d like to tell you about three themes that I see emerge from his writing.

First of all, Wiesel believes that one of the most important human faculties is memory.  What would we be without our capacity to remember?  My mom often talks about memory.  After we visit together she will say “thank you for helping me build such wonderful memories.” 

Wiesel takes a different approach to memory.  He says that “memory is a passion that allows us to live in more than one world, to prevent the past from fading and to illuminate the future.”  He hopes that we learn from our past, both as persons and humanity as a whole, so that we can build a better future without cruelty and hate.

Wiesel says that there are places from our past that we never leave, or maybe we might say, those places never leave us.  The places where we stand in our memories continue to influence how we see the world.  For Wiesel those places are the village of his birth, the home of his teacher with whom he studied mystical Judaism, and of course, the awful concentration camps.  Wiesel knew that he needed to tell his story of these places, but he also did not want to remember, and he felt the inadequacy of language to convey his experience.  And he also knew that it is human to forget, even to want to forget.  Memory helps us to survive; forgetting allows us to go on living. Wiesel promised to himself that he would tell his story after ten years; he hoped by then he would find the right words.  He was bolstered by the belief that telling stories of the camps would mean that humankind would never be so savage again.  But he was disillusioned by how wrong he was.  As he said in his Nobel acceptance speech,  quote: “We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for people everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is 'different'—whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem—anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually.  A naïve undertaking?  Of course.  But not without a certain logic.”  End of quote    Despite his disillusionment, Wiesel still preaches the need to tell the stories of man’s inhumanity to man, and to uphold what we call in our first principle—the worth and dignity of all people.

Memory and storytelling -- the first theme. 

A second theme that winds through Wiesel’s writing is that of the need to overcome indifference.  Wiesel believes the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.  The opposite of love is indifference.  He says, and I really like this idea, that we humans are defined by what troubles us, and that the response of a moral society, or of a moral person is getting involved with what troubles us.  He reminds us that indifference means, “makes no difference” and that to remain silent, knowing that people are suffering and to have it “make no difference” is the greatest sin of all.  Rather than be indifferent, Wiesel says “Sometimes we must interfere.  When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant.  Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must—at that moment—become the center of the universe.” 

Wiesel responded to the tragedy of 9-11 by speaking out against fanaticism.  The fanatic is one who is so committed to a cause or belief that they do not care about others and they don’t want to think about another perspective.  To the fanatic, everything is curse or blessing, friend or foe, nothing in between.  Tolerance is seen as weakness, and there are no doubts and no dialogue.  How can we fight fanaticism? Wiesel asks.  How can we bring killers back to the fold?  Wiesel doesn’t know, but he believes we must at least fight indifference to evils when they occur.  We fight indifference through education and we diminish it through compassion.  Education—knowing what is going on, listening to victims and believing them;  What are their memories?  What are their stories?  How have they seen their lives? What is their view? --And we diminish indifference through compassion—presence and assistance for victims.  Education and compassion. 

One theme is memory and the importance of sharing our stories, and a second theme is the need to fight indifference through education and diminish it through compassion.

A third theme in Wiesel’s writings is the need to protest.  He says in his
Nobel Prize (December 11, 1986) acceptance speech:
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.  The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, we can save the world.  We may be powerless to open all the jails and free all prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one prisoner, we indict all jailers.  None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness.  War leaves no victors, only victims.  …Humankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction.  A destruction only we can provoke, only we can prevent.  Humankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to creation, it is our gift to each other.” End of quote

I love that line—“there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”  …So true, and yet this may be Wiesel’s Achilles heel, separating him from greatness.  For he is criticized for not protesting enough about the plight of the Palestinians under the occupied rule of the Israelis and their soldiers.  Some call him the “High priest of Jewish victim hood, a worshipper of the Holocaust, while being incapable of perceiving and identifying the EVIL of what the Israeli government has for too long inflicted on the other Palestinians,” the non-Jewish Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza strip.  Some say that if Wiesel was to express solidarity with the Palestinians and agree that “morality IS indivisible, he would lose the preeminent position he has cultivated and from which he has profited.” (Dr. Edna Hunt)

Wiesel has asked the question of what he, himself, has done to alleviate the plight of Palestinians, and he confesses that he has not done enough, but that since he is not an Israeli, he will not take a public stand.    It seems that Wiesel’s traumatic experience has created tribal ties that are too strong to allow him to identify with the humanity of the Palestinian families who hold titles to land in Israel.  I have not been through what he has been through.  I don’t even begin to understand what he has experienced. 

But, as Camus once said, “Not to take a stand, is a stand.”  And I believe that the more privilege and power we have, the more we are responsible to make our stand public.  His saying we must always protest, and yet his not protesting what Israelis are doing to Palestinians, feels a bit like what I heard sometimes growing up:  “Do as I say, and not as I do.”  I was so impressed during a public presentation our Fellowship in West Seattle produced, with U.S. Jewish women who told stories of the crimes against humanity, crimes against the Palestinians in the West Bank, the burning of their houses, the killing of stone throwing children, enforcing 24 hr curfews that go on for days--Jewish women who themselves stood at Palestinian check points, trying to get Israeli soldiers to let Palestinians pass through to hospitals and colleges.  These women worked also with Israelis who were active in a peace solidarity movement.  The people of Israel, like the US are a diverse people, many do not agree with their government.   We must not demonize the people of Israel or we become what we protest.  And we must also protest the Palestinian suicide bombings that take precious lives.

Though Wiesel does not demonstrate the courage to speak out about Palestine, his three themes still are good lessons for me, and his flaw, if we agree it is a flaw makes me identify with him all the more as a human being.  How many times have I not spoken the truth, for fear of a consequence coming back to me, for fear of offending someone?  How about you?  Wiesel is not perfect, and I do not put him on a pedestal.  But his challenge is still valid-- for us to remember the times humans have been demeaned, and to tell the stories to each generation—for each generation needs to grasp the enormity of hateful actions of those in power.  Each generation needs to learn about our human potential for good and for evil.  Memories and stories are critical.  All killings of the innocent are holocausts, no matter how small, no matter who the victims are.  And his challenge is still valid that we should not be indifferent; there should never be a time when we fail to protest. 

To “pro…test” is to bring forward our testimony.  What does this mean for us?  It means that we need to act out our religion, to witness, to give testament to our values.  At a minimum in this democracy we must testify in three ways:  we must vote—not letting the times and cynicism discourage us; we must write our legislators and congress people; and we must join and support organizations whose values we support, supporting them with our name and with our money.  Beyond these minimums we can do more, depending upon our courage, our health and our other responsibilities.  We can join demonstrations and marches, we can take leadership positions in human rights organizations, and we can travel to those places where humanitarian actions and assistance is needed. 

In all these acts, faith is central—faith that our protest, when combined with the protests of others, can make a difference, can nudge this world closer to more love and more justice, and more compassion.  Our protests can be responding and criticizing what we see as crimes against human dignity, or our protests can be in the form of acts to promote what we value. Our choices tell us some interesting things about ourselves.  I’d like to tell you of an example of building up what we value.

There is a village in Israel called the Valley of Peace that teaches the world another important lesson.  The village is named in both Hebrew and Arabic:  in Hebrew:  Neve Shalom, in Arabic: Wahat al-Salaam.  Its name comes from the book of Isaiah (32:18) “My people shall dwell in an Oasis of Peace.”  It is a cooperative village of Jews and Palestinian Arabs, situated equidistant from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv--A village where 60 families of Jews, Christians and Muslims live in peace, each one faithful to their own faith and traditions, while respecting those of others.  Each looking to find in this diversity a source of personal enrichment. 

Basic to the purpose of the village is the fact that there are academies in various countries where the art of war has been taught.  Inspired by the prophetic words, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” villagers have built up their community to be a school for peace, for peace too is an art, an art that must be learned.

The significance of the village may be found not so much in the “Peace” part of its name but in the “Valley” part.   There exists a chasm in understanding and interpreting the history of the country now officially called Israel which others called Palestine.  This chasm may only be crossed by changing one’s perceptions and experimenting with the other side’s basis of understanding.  That is why the image of a valley is alluring.  A valley implies two separate sides, both staring at each other from their respective hills.  To be able to reach each other, we have to lower ourselves and change position.  Going down into the valley, crossing, and going up the other side, gives us another view.  On returning to our previous position, we have a better idea of what things look like from the other side. (idea credited to Simon Lassman “A Village of Peace—Lessons to be Learned”)

The themes of Wiesel’s wisdom, his limitations and the lessons of the valley are not just for the Jewish/Arab conflicts.  We can see their value for the conflicts we encounter in the world today, as well as our own personal lives.  There are times when we are so angry with a co-worker or family member that all we want to do is whine, complain and gossip about them.  But it is possible to stop staring from our hilltop, to decide to take a walk down into the valley and up the other side, to gain a new viewpoint.  We can ask the other to tell us their story, to tell us what they have experienced so we may, for a moment, stand in the places of another person’s memories, seeing a different view.

For truly we must remember that peace is not a gift of the gods, but a gift we give each other. 

May it be so.