Away from despair and toward hope: A conversation with Elie Wiesel’s student and friend

‘Had anyone told us when we were liberated that we would be compelled in our lifetime to fight antisemitism once more, or worse, that we would have to prove that our suffering was genuine,” Elie Wiesel wrote, “... we would have had no strength to lift our eyes from the ruins.” (From The Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences, 1990).

Today, we are standing in the presence of evil incarnate and searching for words. Is it possible to carry feelings of despair and hope simultaneously in the face of evil? I turn to Elie Wiesel’s teachings and to his student and friend Dr. Avraham (Alan) Rosen for words.

In 1945, after the liberation, language had ceased to exist for Wiesel. He was unable to find the appropriate words to reveal the horrors he had witnessed and suffered. A Holocaust survivor, writer, humanitarian, and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, Wiesel asked, “How is one to communicate that which by its very nature defies language? How is one to explain the inexplicable? And then, how can one be sure that the words, once uttered, will not betray, distort the message they bear?” (A Jew Today, 1979).

He waited 10 years to write his first memoir, Night (1956), and in his final memoir, Open Heart (2012), a bookend to Night, he continued to wrestle with the limitations, the insufficiencies, of words: “... every sentence, every word, reflects an experience that defies all comprehension.”

Coming full circle in Open Heart, he wrote, “There it is: I still believe in man in spite of man. I believe in language even though it has been wounded, deformed and perverted by the enemies of mankind. And I continue to cling to words because it is up to us to transform them into instruments of comprehension rather than contempt. It is up to us to choose whether we wish to use them to curse or to heal, to wound or to console.”

In 1978, Rosen, a scholar, author, and lecturer, began his studies as an undergraduate, and then a doctoral student with Wiesel, who was a professor of humanities at Boston University in Massachusetts. Rosen received a master’s degree and a PhD in literature and religion, concentrating on catastrophe as dealt with in literature. They studied together for 10 years, forging an enduring, close teacher-student bond, and collaborated on various projects.

Despair? “We cannot allow the enemy to set the terms for us,” says Rosen. “The enemy has no right to dictate despair. We need to persevere to live, despite what is intolerable. With perseverance, we can overcome any obstacles to our survival. We need to give each other a sense of being able to go forward, and revel in Jewish life. How wrong it would be to yield to the temptation of despair.”

In A Song for Hope, Wiesel wrote, “When there seems to be no hope, there is at least a quest for hope – and that quest itself is strong enough in motivation to affirm life and its sacredness and its sacred purpose” (92ny.org/archives).

The indestructibility of antisemitism

HOW CAN we interpret the apparent indestructibility of antisemitism? Wiesel wrote in Open Heart, “At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more antisemitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing.”

Rosen comments: “Wiesel had no illusion that antisemitism would disappear. But he believed that the Holocaust would be a lesson for the world, and antisemitism would become shameful. That did not happen. Antisemitism is alive, and this was a source of great anguish for him.”

“Why this hate for us?” asked Wiesel. “Is it because we are the only people from antiquity to have survived antiquity? Is it that in spite of persecutions and attempts to convert us, we have refused to disappear from history?” (Tolerance in the Talmud, 2006, 92ny.org/archives).

“It is the persistence and endurance of Judaism against all rational thinking that drives antisemites crazy,” says Rosen, paraphrasing his teacher. “They hate Jews for existing and for continuing to exist. Their existence seems to defy the laws of history.”

Is there an aspect of idolatry in antisemitism? “Antisemitism does share some characteristics with idolatry,” explains Rosen. “There is a perverse attraction to antisemitism. On the face of it, it does not seem to be perverse or unnatural, but there is a kind of diabolical seductiveness to the hatred of Jews.

“The question is, how can we deal with it or eliminate it or steer people away from it?” he asks. “The question is, how can we maintain our strength despite such lunacy?”

CONFRONTED WITH atrocities and spiritual challenges, Wiesel chose the opposite direction, away from despair and toward hope.

“Hope is the lever that lifts us above despair,” says Rosen. “It can be seen in the continued, tremendous unity of the Jewish people today. The powerful response of world Jewry gives an extraordinary mirror into the spiritual power of the Jewish people. We see hope in our remarkable capacity to rebound.

“There are great things that people do day in, day out, to nurture others, to preserve life,” he says. “There are people who have dedicated their lives to bringing more light into the world, more joy, more possibility. They are absolutely dedicated to that: to inspire people. It depends on your focus. You choose your focus.”

Rosen writes on literature, history, religion, and ethics in relation to the Holocaust, and has published five books associated with the teachings of Wiesel. In 2013, his book Elie Wiesel: Jewish, Literary and Moral Perspectives was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Subsequently, he gathered and edited some of Wiesel’s unpublished teachings into a volume titled Filled with Fire and Light: Portraits and Legends from the Bible, Talmud, and Hasidic World (2021).

Rosen lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Ruth, and their family, and travels often to North America to lecture at universities, yeshivas, and seminaries. For the past two years, he has been working on and coordinating the multimedia website “The Elie Wiesel Living Archive at the 92nd Street Y” in New York, which presents Wiesel’s lectures, readings, and recorded conversations from 1967-2014. (www.92ny.org/archives/elie-wiesel)

He explains why Wiesel recruited Talmudic teachings to tell the story of the Holocaust: “Wiesel believes essentially in the vigorous transmission of Jewish tradition as a mode of truth telling, as a mode of bringing forth the mysteries of the world. And that body of knowledge has already been honed, and has already been primed, to deal with the Holocaust. From the volumes of Tanakh, Talmud and hasidic texts, Wiesel distills the various details of the life of a sage or master in order to portray what makes that person distinctive.... He wants to make sure the person, the individual life, is front and center.”

Writing in French, Wiesel featured the word “celebration” in five of his original titles. “In the face of such a devastating event,” says Rosen, “he wants to exalt life; to bring us to an understanding of the absolute preciousness of each life, of what makes each life singular and holy.... Thus, the whole pantheon of Jewish teachings is understood by Wiesel and communicated to us as a celebration.”

In this way, he is guiding each and every Jew toward a celebration of our unique, eternal heritage. 