Elie Wiesel, the teacher, the writer, the activist, the survivor of the Shoah, urged his students to remind the world to never forget the atrocities of our Holocaust.
Years later, when students remember the impact of their teachers, they frequently acknowledge the gifts of wisdom, life experiences and knowledge that touched their own lives.
Elie Wiesel, the teacher, the writer, the activist, the survivor of the Shoah, urged his students to remind the world to never forget the atrocities of our Holocaust.
Wiesel was likened to the biblical Isaac. He was plucked from the fiery inferno of a war against Jews throughout Europe, to later serve as a voice of conscience against hate and injustice. His message conveyed the darkest dimension of evil, yetzer hara, inherent in man.
Occasionally, it would be balanced by hope, ani maamin, “I believe,” that good would ultimately triumph. “Ani Maamin” is the title of a song he sang as a child in Sighet, Transylvania, and later rediscovered as a poem, a parable, a Talmudic legend, a cantata and the title of one of his numerous books. I believe, ani maamin, that maybe the Messiah will come, an affirmation of faith, hope and life.
This unique dimension of Professor Wiesel’s optimism would surface occasionally in class. In a world filled with madness, good would ultimately triumph. Wiesel incorporated stories that captured the fervor and spirituality of his Hasidic heritage and the legends captured in his work, Souls on Fire.
Professor Wiesel was my teacher at Boston University and often encouraged his students to grapple with the question of, “where was God?” He shifted the responsibility for the world’s evil and indifference by asking, where was man?
Professor Wiesel’s somber tone of voice often tugged upon one’s heartstrings. I vividly remember as he recounted the testimony of historians as the Nazis murdered Jews by day and returned home to make love to their wives.
The murder of 6 million Jews was the result of world indifference. Often, collaborators found in each country the Nazis conquered shared a similar hate for the Jews. Wiesel would describe the planet Auschwitz-Birkenau in class as the largest cemetery in the world. The voices of the victims, their tormented souls, the enormous dimension of the death site, clearly built to exterminate the Jewish race along with other minorities despised by the Nazi.
Professor Wiesel’s message and his words often resonated in the minds and hearts of his students well after class concluded. Thirty years later, I hear Wiesel’s voice when I stand up to oppose people who are prejudiced and intolerant of others.
Years later, I took Wiesel’s message to heart, ani maamin, I believe, when I traveled to the Soviet Union in the 1980s to teach and inspire Refuseniks, Jews denied exit visas, about Chanukah, the festival of freedom, and that they, too, would taste religious freedom in their lifetime.
May the life and teachings of Elie Wiesel, z”l continue to inspire and remind us to never be silent or apathetic in the face of evil and injustice.
Rabbi Barry Blum leads Congregation Beth El-Ner Tamid in Broomall and was a student of Elie Wiesel at Boston University.
