by Elie Wiesel
But now I feel like discussing religion with him. For beyond the esteem in which I hold him professionally, he intrigues me as a man. A practicing Jew, he had opened the Kastner trial with his head covered by a kipa. But then suddenly, toward the middle of the trial, he appeared bareheaded. My question: What had precipitated the religious crisis revealed by this act? What had provoked it? A word of the accused, a gesture of the prosecutor, the tears of a survivor? Or perhaps a point made by Shmuel Tamir, former officer of the Irgun and future minister of justice under Menachem Begin?
He does not answer. Instead he asks me a question in strictest confidence. Begin has offered him a seat in the Knesset. What to do? Forsake justice for politics?
Who am I to advise him? The skeptic in me distrusts politics and, even more, politicians. In the end the judge succumbed to temptation. And came to regret it.
The Côte d’Azur. I love that place of bliss. I love the climate, the atmosphere, the free spirit of its inhabitants. We frequently go there to spend a few days or weeks in the small villages around Nice, Monaco, or Cannes. Hours spent reading, walking, listening to music. The saying is true: One can live like God in France—that is to say, not badly at all.
We settle down to spend the summer in a house Marion found in Roquebrune. I am working on The Oath while at the same time preparing my Hasidic lectures. The writer Manès Sperber and his wife, Jenka, spend some peaceful moments with us. I have already spoken of my ties to Manès. I love to listen to him, and he loves to teach. Adler, Trotsky, Silone: He knows so much on so many subjects. Thanks to him, I make considerable progress in oenology. I also owe Manès everything I know about the behavior of mosquitoes, though I still don’t know why, even in the middle of a crowd, I remain their chosen target. To console me he says, “It is always the females that bite. And then they die.” Of happiness?
Marion has discovered a villa close to ours, “La Souco,” where Malraux lived during the Occupation. She would love to buy it. I discourage her, and that’s a mistake. I have come to realize often that her instincts are good, her intuition infallible. Had we followed them more often, her husband would be a wealthy man today.
For a change of scenery we drive to San Remo, where Yossel Rosensaft and his entourage of Bergen-Belsen survivors welcome their Israeli, English, and American friends. They sing and laugh, laugh and sing, even as they evoke their dark memories of long ago.
I rise before the others, around 6 a.m., to go down to the Hotel Royal’s swimming pool, where the instructor gives me lessons I desperately need. I tell myself that if one day I have a son, it will be incumbent on me, in accordance with the injunction of Rabbi Akiba, to teach him to swim. Best to be prepared. I am a poor student and tend to flee as soon as I hear steps approaching. Consequently I still don’t know how to swim.
The past resurfaces. I remember the day when I first discovered the Côte d’Azur. The immensity of the sea at Bandol. My first trip as a journalist. The immigrants who came from the displaced persons camps. A young girl named Inge. My excessive shyness. My first journey to Israel. All that was long ago, in 1949.
Marion is eager to go home. So am I. We must return to New York, where little Jennifer is anxiously waiting for us. Marion’s daughter is often sad, but it is easy to make her smile, so easy.
Here I am, a married man, responsible for a family. For the first time, at age forty, I experience daily life with a woman. In the old days, in Sighet, people married at eighteen. A twenty-five-year-old single woman was considered a spinster, and a thirty-year-old unmarried man a confirmed bachelor. What was the hurry? Were they really mature enough to lead independent lives at such a young age? For me, the discovery of life as a couple includes a series of challenges and traps. I must unlearn certain habits, acquire new ones, learn to bring together two sets of friendships, solder two natures, forge a complicity. There are innumerable problems of adaptation. Will love solve them? What is happening to us happens to everybody. The husband seems always to be cold, while the wife insists on turning on the air-conditioning. She can spend hours in a store; he becomes restless after five minutes. He regularly attends synagogue; she hardly ever does. She loves movies; he is immersed in his books and only occasionally “sacrifices” himself and accompanies her to a film. Never mind. They love each other. Even the disagreements are a source of wonder. Doesn’t a life in common signify discovery and sharing? Whatever they undertake, they do together, in perfect harmony. Even their trivial and, mercifully, infrequent quarrels are worthwhile: They allow for stimulating reconciliations.
My friends are happy to see me happy. They’ve had to wait long enough for this. Rebbe Menahem-Mendel Schneerson of Lubavitch had often scolded me, quoting Scripture: “It is not good for man to remain alone.” Among the letters I received from him before my marriage, there was one in particular that made me smile. Three strong pages on theological topics like “Is it possible to believe without believing in God?” followed by a simple question that he said “has nothing to do with theology: Why don’t you get married?” I told him that the question actually had a lot to do with theology….
Saul Lieberman, too, pushed me toward marriage in his own way: by describing to me the often tragic fate of bachelors in talmudic literature. Abraham Joshua Heschel had limited himself to a few allusions. When we returned from Israel, he and his wife, Sylvia, hosted a dinner in our honor. On meeting Marion, he gave her his trust with characteristic warmth. That day, in his wonderfully courtly way, he crossed half the city to find orchids for the new bride.
As for me, I try to remember why I was so fearful of “losing my freedom.” Was I afraid to detach myself from the past and its ghosts? Afraid of a stability I confused with complacency? No doubt these fears were real, but they were of secondary importance. Why did I wait so long to create a home? True, I worried about not being able to support a family, but was there a deeper reason, a general lack of confidence in the future?
Back home people would have said that I was waiting for my zivvug, the being who was destined to be mine in the civil registers on high.
A story, why not?
When the famous German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn reached the age to be married, it was natural that the richest, most beautiful, most cultivated young girl was chosen for him. Both sets of parents declared themselves delighted and saw no need to consult the two intended. An agreement was reached as to the wedding date, and the cream of society and the most notable rabbis were invited.
On the day of the wedding, following custom, the bridegroom gave a drasha, a lecture, that his friends interrupted at intervals with appropriate songs. In another room, the bride and her friends were being entertained by the best musicians and minstrels of the region.
At the moment when the groom had to raise the veil of his bride-to-be, he was dazzled by her beauty. Unfortunately, at the same time, she saw him and fainted. For the philosopher was as famous for his ungainly appearance as for his erudition. He had a small, pointed nose, bushy eyebrows, two dissimilar eyes, and a hump. One can understand the bride’s reaction. As soon as she came to, she asked for her father and said, “I’d rather die than marry him.” The father begged her to relent, to be patient and obedient. To no avail. The mother also pleaded. In vain. Both lamented: What a scandal, what a shame, all these guests, the uncles, the aunts, what will they say? In the end Moses’ father had to tell his son. The groom was not a philosopher for nothing: He had guessed everything. “I understand,” he whispered. “Please explain to her that I am not angry. In return, I’d like to speak to her alone; I’d like her to give me fifteen minutes. Thereafter, she’ll be free to return to her parents.”
In those days such a request seemed preposterous. What? Two young people alone before the wedding? Still, the rabbis agreed. A quarter of an hour, no more. Mendelssohn welcomed the young girl, smiling. He invited her to sit down and to listen to him. “I shall tell you a talmudic legend,” he said.
Before coming down to Earth to be
born, every soul is escorted by an angel. Together they leave the heavens, while a divine voice announces: The son of so-and-so will be the husband of so-and-so’s daughter…. Well, when I heard this voice, I turned to the angel and told him that I would like to meet my future wife. “Impossible,” answered the angel, “that is strictly forbidden.” Since I was born a philosopher, I knew how to defend my cause. “Listen,” I said, “if you don’t show her to me, I shall simply refuse to go down to Earth.” That’s when the angel panicked: “You cannot disobey. This command comes directly from God. Don’t you know that it is He Who keeps souls in a coffer that none other can open?” “No matter,” I said. “Either you show her to me, or I stay here.” Eventually this angel gave in, making me swear that I would never betray him. Then he showed me the woman God had, perhaps inadvertently, chosen for me. And when I saw her, I fainted. To say that she lacked beauty and grace would be charitable…. She had a hump, her nose was crooked, better not dwell on it…. In a rage I began to shout, “I don’t want her, do you hear me, I don’t want her; I’d rather die than live one day at her side!” “It’s my fault,” sobbed the angel, “I shouldn’t have given in. I shall be punished, and the punishment inflicted on angels is the worst of all….” I felt sorry for him and offered him a deal: I would consent to go down and marry the young girl, but on one condition: that I could take her ugliness upon myself.
And the beautiful girl believed him. And her wedding to the philosopher was celebrated with great joy.
Bit by bit I move away from professional journalism, which no longer satisfies me. I feel like changing—if not my profession, then my workplace and my schedule. I still visit the U.N. on a regular basis. In the absence of great speakers, its discourses and goals lack vision. I have to force myself to “cover” its political and diplomatic events. Its cast of characters is usually uninteresting. In truth, my heart is no longer in it. Even scoops no longer excite me. I propose to Gershon Jacobson, my colleague with ties to the Lubavitcher movement, that he take over. Dov Judkowski, my boss in Tel Aviv, agrees. But how will I manage financially? I still send weekly columns to Yedioth and occasional special features to the Forverts, for whose news desk I stopped working some time ago. I am tired of repeating the same formulas, just changing the names. “Mr. X met last night with ambassador Y….” “It appears that … Z formally denies that …” I feel my vocabulary getting poorer and poorer by the day. Fortunately, there are my studies with Lieberman, my walks with Heschel.
And yet there would be plenty of topics for a journalist with a passion for his profession. While years ago space was allotted to me parsimoniously at Yedioth, today I could command as much as I’d like. Noah Mozes is happy: The daily has increased in size, circulation, and influence. But Dov advises me to give up my column; he thinks I should be writing more “serious” material. At the Forverts, my editors are more indulgent; they would publish my thoughts on the theological dimensions of Chinese gastronomy if I so chose.
The times are dramatic—intervals of freedom punctuated by brutal interventions. The sadness of the 1968 Prague Spring: “Wake up, Lenin! Your children have gone mad!” A demented Australian youth sets fire to the El Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem. Richard Nixon sinks ever more deeply into the filthy war in Vietnam, the wretched legacy bequeathed to him by his predecessors. Two hundred thousand demonstrators converge on Washington to vent their anger. The bloody name of My Lai drips over the headlines: How could a lieutenant wearing an American uniform coldly order the massacre of a hundred or more men, women, and children? An officer explains that there are times when it is necessary to save a village from Communism by destroying it. A tragic conclusion.
Meanwhile the Concorde triumphantly soars over the Atlantic. Modern man moves faster and faster without knowing how to utilize the time he saves. In France, in an ultimate gesture of contempt, General de Gaulle steps down, slamming the door behind him. Justice Abe Fortas resigns from the Supreme Court for having accepted a $20,000 bribe from a shady businessman. Then comes Chappaquiddick: Does young Mary Jo Kopechne’s death signify the end of Teddy Kennedy’s presidential dreams? As for man’s first walk on the moon: I spend a sleepless night on the Côte d’Azur waiting for the historic moment. I explain to Marion: “One day we may have a child and he will ask us what we were doing when the first man ‘conquered’ or ‘liberated’ the moon. What will we answer? That we slept?”
Then there was Woodstock: 400,000 young people gathered to experience the ecstasy of collective rebellion. Joy, love, and freedom all in one. The thrill of learning that Beckett has been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature: But where does Godot fit in? How I would love to decipher their silent dialogue.
Not content to change just my marital status and place of residence, I also change publishers in America. Through Lily Edelman, B’nai B’rith’s director of educational programs, I meet Jean Ennis and Jim Silberman. Jim is editor in chief of Random House, and Jean heads its publicity department. They introduce me to their chairman, Robert Bernstein, a tall, attractive man with red hair, whom Marion perceives as the reincarnation of Huckleberry Finn. Soon I am their author. Lily offers to translate A Beggar in Jerusalem with the help of her husband, Nathan, professor of Romance languages at Columbia University. The result does not satisfy Jim. I take back the manuscript and try rewriting it, but my English is not up to the task. I turn to Marion. She reworks the translation.
It is 1970. The publication by Random House of A Beggar in Jerusalem goes smoothly, perhaps as a result of its winning the French Prix Médicis. There are enthusiastic reviews in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers throughout the country. This is the first time that one of my books gets such a reception.
A Beggar in Jerusalem does not make for easy reading. I conceived of it as a sort of collage, every chapter a separate tale. Together they were to be more than the sum of their parts. My intention was to contain in one tale basic elements of both Jewish history and my own. To recount the Six-Day War, I called upon characters from my earlier novels, biblical figures and Hasidic Masters, mystical madmen and roving visionaries: I summoned them all to the Wall in Jerusalem. I even invited a certain Joshua of Nazareth to take his place there. Shlomo the Blind, who had previously met him, had predicted what his disciples would make of his teachings. And the son of Joseph the carpenter began to weep, saying over and over: “This is not what I wanted, this is not what I meant to happen….” But it was too late.
Of all my novels, readers say this is the least accessible. It requires explanations I feel incapable of providing. American tourists, returning from Israel, wrote to complain that they had gone to the Wall but had not encountered “my” beggars.
In One Generation After, published in France in 1970, I return to the Six-Day War, which has a place in the collective memory of more than one people. There I recall a conversation with Colonel Motta Gur, the liberator of the Old City of Jerusalem, about a radio broadcast of his that had touched the Israeli public so deeply that it was rebroadcast several times. I asked him if he was religious.
He seemed incredulous: “Of course not! For God’s sake, why would you think that?”
“Because your account was suffused with religious overtones.”
His expression was one of bewilderment: Where on earth did I get that idea? Suddenly, the roles were reversed; now he was interrogating me:
“Did I speak of God?”
“No.”
“Of the Bible?”
“No again.”
“Did I discuss issues other than those relating to the confrontation? Did I quote the Torah?”
“No.”
“There! You see? Your question is groundless. All I did was tell a story. My own.”
But what a story. It has elements of prophetic delirium. Listen: Under his command, the paratroopers began to run through the Old City, from one street to the next, from one turret to the next, obeying an irresistible force. The situation was mad, exalted, insane. Every sol
dier knew, however obscurely, that he had lived only for this moment, for this race. Then, in the midst of the roaring battle, Gur’s voice was heard shouting his report to headquarters: “The Temple Mount is in our hands!” And everywhere—on every front, in every house, in every place of business, in every yeshiva—officers, soldiers, children, and old men wept and embraced. And there was in these tears, in this explosion of emotion, something unreal that set the event apart, this event that changed forever those who lived it, and the others as well.
Motta Gur shrugged and said: “You make it sound too poetic; that’s not my style.”
“So for you it was nothing but another war episode, a battle among so many others?”
“I won’t go that far. After all, Jerusalem was not only a military objective. It was something else. Jerusalem is … Jerusalem.”
“What is it that makes Jerusalem … Jerusalem?”
“Why, its history, of course. It is Jewish, isn’t it? It touches me, it … it’s part of me!”
“Jericho, too, has a past linked to ours. So does Hebron. And Gaza. And Bethlehem.”
“Enough of your comparisons! Jerusalem cannot be compared to any other place.”
I was smiling. He had fallen into the trap. Here he was speaking in mystical terms.
“Strange,” he said at the end. “What started as a strictly military operation ended as something else entirely. Suddenly we were fighting as if in a trance. We understood at that moment that our true objective was no longer to occupy this or that strategic position, but to liberate history itself….
“But, no, I’m not even religious, surely not observant. How many times do I have to tell you? Yes, I occasionally go to synagogue. So what? My children go; I accompany them. What does it prove? Only that I fulfill my duty as a parent.”
I met him a few years later. He pretended to be angry; he scowled: “If you knew what problems you caused me….”