Elie Wiesel: Jewish, Literary, and Moral Perspectives

15. Dialectic Living and Thinking: Wiesel as Storyteller and Interpreter of the Shoah

15 Dialectic Living and Thinking Wie­ sel as Storyteller and Interpreter of the Shoah Irving Greenberg During an extraordinary career that spans six decades, Elie Wie­ sel has done many things well. He has been a journalist and a prolific creative writer. In that role, he attained unique stature as a witness to the Holocaust and a representative of the conscience of the survivors. He has also served as an academic and an interpreter/­ commentator of the Jewish tradition. Wie­ sel has vigorously pursued the role of engaged pub­ lic intellectual and moral activist. He has played this role with great intensity in order to increase human solidarity and responsibility on an international scale. Yet notwithstanding those accomplishments, in this essay I argue that his most lasting legacy will prove to be as a storyteller of the Shoah and as teacher/transmitter of the covenant of redemption. The thrust of his work and the main purpose of his life has been an attempt to carry on in the chain of Jewish teachers who have passed on the tradition from the beginning toward what they hoped would be a redemptive (actually a messianic) end. Like the Jewish teachers before him, Wie­ sel is still convinced that it is important to pass on the tradition because the hope and deliverance of all humanity hang on that message. Most importantly, he has shown how to live and credibly teach the wracking, tormenting contradictories of redemption and destruction without scanting either. In the process, he has instructed us how to slouch toward tikkun in a world that is profoundly broken. Storytelling and Redemption From the beginning, that is, from the Bible and onward, the Jewish proclamation/ promise of redemption for humanity and the world has taken the form of storytelling rather than philosophical or theological exposition. In the end, the Bible proclaims not a truth but an outcome: the completion of history with the perfection of the world. 173 174 | Irving Greenberg This is a goal to be lived and to be worked for by human activity (in partnership with God). For the story to come true, humans must become engaged in its realization. Since humans are the medium of achievement, their involvement is essential; their understanding shapes the message; their mixed motives and reactions are factored into the process. The story summons people to become tellers and actualizers of the tale through their lives. The story engages people because it touches them at many levels—­ conscious and unconscious. A tale has cultural—­ and personal—­ impact that neither formal texts nor philosophy can ever attain. Therefore, the story has been the preferred vehicle of communication and of transmission of the Jewish tradition. To become a Jew is to hear certain stories and claim them as one’s own. To be a Jew is to live in accordance with the tales—­ and to pass them to the next generation. In the biblical Bik­ kurim (first fruits) ritual, the story of the Exodus is recapitulated and brought down to the present. In the classic rabbinic Jewish religious ceremony, the universal national celebration, the Passover seder, the story of the Exodus is retold and reenacted to the point where each in­ di­ vidual participant will finally say: “I came out of Egypt” (and I must live accordingly). The Jewish story starts with an act of liberation (i.e., the Exodus), an event that, in a world of suffering and finitude, lays bare the underlying but hidden structure of redemption and infinity. There is a God, a Creator who sustains Creation and wants it to be perfect, that is, full of life, especially human life, upheld in all its dignity. In the biblical account, the goal is proclaimed by God and by prophets bearing revelatory messages from the Creator/Redeemer. But the story is focused mostly on the people and their responses. The narrative does tell of God’s search and caring intervention for humans , but it includes much more detail about the people, their virtues, and their faith, their blindnesses and self-­ seeking, their frequent inability to grasp the underlying nature of redemption. The account includes their conflicts in living by the standards of the redemptive event and, not infrequently, their unwillingness to live up to the goal. In the biblical period, the journey to realize the story was led and taught by prophets who brought direct redemptive messages (in­ clud­ ing chastisement and warnings) from the Deity who intervened in history to redeem Israel. Given the...