In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

114  december 4, 1999 Simone Weil tried to figure out morally who we humans are, what obligations we ought to feel and why, as we go about our permitted time on this planet. S ome of us taking a course on contemporary religious thought in the middle of this century tried to understand the work of Simone Weil, reading her three books, Waiting for God, The Need for Roots, andGravityandGrace—“onemoredifficultthantheother,”ourprofessor playfully remarked. Yet he clearly wanted us to make the acquaintance of this almost legendary essayist, political philosopher, and member of the French resistance who stood up to Hitler’s henchmen. We read with some difficulty the books urged on us. Nor did their author want us to have any easier time of it than she herself had had as she tried to figure out morally who we humans are, what obligations we ought to feel and why, as we go about our permitted time on this planet. Gradually we got to know this idiosyncratic, fussy, severely demanding writer—her exhortative and melancholy side, her bouts of skepticism that sooner or later yielded to a surprising, even startling insistence on the mind’s necessary devotion to God. In a way, she arraigned her own brilliance, declared its subjectivity before God, before the mysteries of worship and faith, as eminently  115 desirable. She was well versed in Freud and Marx, but had her own manner of looking inward, or outward at the world and its workings. She was therefore a formidable antagonist to many who lived on the political left, who unreservedly embraced psychoanalysis (its secular interpretations of mental life) and Communism or socialism. This was their way of looking at money and power, a way she took seriously but wanted to forsake eventually in favor of the claims made for (and upon) us mortals by Jesus of Nazareth. His words and deeds, his fate in ancient Palestine she studied not only as a would-be believer, but as one who, in her own original-minded fashion, felt strongly that she, as an intellectual and as a political and social activist, had much to learn from the biblical narratives, pronouncements, and injunctions that make up the New Testament. Two decades after I encountered Simone Weil in that college course, I resumed struggling to understand her ideas and ideals and tried to share what I’d learned about her through the effort of writing a biography. By then (the late 1970s) I was immersed in her articles and books, at times with admiration, at times with serious, even troubling reservations. It was then that I met her brother, Andre Weil, a most distinguished mathematician who taught at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and who had achieved his own breakthrough leadership as a rigorous thinker—a counterpart, in that regard, of his sister. I knew nothing of mathematics and had only heard of Andre Weil’s various accomplishments as a theorist—the “Weil conjectures,” no less. The phrase was an ironically fitting parallel to the suppositions and guesses of the ever-imaginative Simone. TolookatAndreWeil(Iconjectured)wastogetascloseasitwaspossible to get to his sister both in appearance and manner. I recall noticing 116  especially Andre Weil’s eyes. They looked intently, took in the room where we sat, responded to questions put to him, then turned toward the distance a window offered, as if somewhere, beyond the then and there, answers awaited and were forthcoming to those who sought them. I remember, too, some remarkable things he said, his eyes now back inthehereandnowofaconversation:“Youhavebeenstudyingmysister’s work, so you must know that she defied the understanding of her life by others. She was sui generis, hard for people to know even when she was there among them. Who is she?—I was asked again and again. Once, when I told her what others wanted to know, she replied: ‘It makes no difference—Godmatters,notthepersonalityofthisoneorthatone!’SoI told one of the people later who was curious about her, that if she wanted to know who Simone is, she should try to think of her soul—its search for ahome,foritsCreator.Youcanimaginethelookonthefacethatbelonged to a member of the Parisian intelligentsia at the time! Through me, my sister Simone was once more walking her own road, speaking in words she knew well and liked to use, even if others, hearing them, scratched their heads in disbelief.” Apausethen,followedbyawrysmile,andthiscomment:“Ofcourse, Simone had confronted her own disbelief in God, so she would naturally stir others to...

Share