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11. Wiesel’s Post-Auschwitz Shema Yisrael
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11 Wiesel’s Post-Auschwitz Shema Yisrael Alan L. Berger A writer, attests Elie Wie sel, is “Someone who can say no to the system, no to the surroundings, sometimes even no to God.”1 After a statement such as this, it is fitting to pause and follow with the Nobel Prize winner’s favorite phrase, and yet his “No to God” is simultaneously a questioning of the deity. It is more fitting to substitute the word “why” for “no,” since for Wie sel the Holocaust is “the question of questions. It is both man’s way of questioning God and God’s way of questioning man. And there is no answer coming from either side.”2 I shall return to the issue of questioning shortly. Beginning with his classic memoir Night, which is central to all of his work— the rest is commentary— Wie sel poses endless questions to a God who is apparently unable or unwilling to listen. He employs irony to underscore this preoccupation, viewing traditional theological claims through a Holocaust lens. Therefore the Shema Yisrael prayer, Judaism’s central confession, bears special scrutiny in Wie sel’s oeuvre. Obsessed by memory, Wie sel’s work tells “legends of our time” in an attempt to wrest the dead from oblivion and to seek justice. His memoir, followed by Dawn and The Accident, all speak of despair and loss; the traditional Shema Yisrael prayer in these texts appears radically diminished by the evil of the Shoah. In Wie sel’s tales, personal experience challenges normative teachings. Night introduces a set of ironic reversals that come to haunt the whole of Wie sel’s literary output: the biblical Akedah is supplanted by sons sacrificing their fathers; the living say Kaddish for themselves; Wie sel becomes God’s accuser rather than His defender.3 Gradually, as the author begins to explore the possibilities of hope in a sea of post- Holocaust despair, he sharpens his focus on the covenantal relationship. Although Wie sel’s writings seek an acceptable image of the deity, he also embraces a neo- hasidic emphasis based on the Baal Shem Tov’s maxim: “The way to God leads through man,” no matter how flawed he or she may be. All of these considerations impact on Wie sel’s post- Holocaust Shema Yisrael. My essay is divided into three parts. First, I discuss the centrality of the Shema Yisrael in Judaism. I next turn to a brief summary of Wie sel’s post- Holocaust Shema 127 128 | Alan L. Berger prior to the appearance of his novel Twilight, arguably his first sustained and comprehensive treatment of the issue. I then discuss Twilight and The Time of the Uprooted4 as illustrations of the novelist’s building on and advancing his earlier understandings of the prayer. I conclude by contrasting Wiesel’s understanding of this prayer with that of his fellow survivor/writer Primo Levi. Then I offer a meditation on the moral significance of Wie sel’s post- Holocaust Shema as a contribution to the necessity of seeking both a post- Shoah tikkun atzmi (repair or mending of the self) and a tikkun ha-olam (repair or mending of the world). Shema Yisrael The Shema, the central Jewish prayer, articulates the basic beliefs of monotheism. However , paradoxically, it is technically not a prayer. Its reference is horizontal rather than vertical, being addressed to the Israelites rather than to God, and based on the biblical verse in Deuteronomy 6:4 expressing the uniqueness and unity of God, with whom Jews have a special relationship based on the commandment to love God, and about whose words the Jewish people have an obligation to teach their children. It is the creed by which one lives, and dies, as a Jew. It is among the first Hebrew phrases learned by children (the rabbi in Wie sel’s play Zalmen, or the Madness of God states that “when a Jewish child reaches the age of three, it becomes his father’s duty to teach him” the Shema Yisrael) and is the one utterance that nearly all Jewish people— regardless of their level of observance— can repeat by heart. Furthermore, observant Jews recite the Shema on their deathbeds. The Shema is intimately bound to Jewish martyrology, nowhere in more dramatic fashion than in the Eleh Eskerah of the Yom Kippur liturgy, which portrays Rabbi Akiva reciting Shema Yisrael with his dying breath, thereby bearing witness to his faith [BT Ber. 61b]. Moving...