Authors: Elie Wiesel
“Come on now, Ephraim—show it to me!”
“No—I’m not allowed to. Besides, I really must go. I’m in a hurry, someone is waiting for me.”
I didn’t insist. He turned on his heels, and clumsily
bumped into a desk. As he put out his hand to keep from falling, he dropped his package. And you’ll never guess, Citizen Magistrate, what it contained—pamphlets and booklets of a very nonmystical nature.
Yes, indeed, my first lesson in Communism was given me by Ephraim that very night, at the House of Study. Funny, isn’t it? Ephraim, a Communist agitator. Ephraim, the future rabbinic judge, distributing clandestine tracts.
“Let me see!”
Ephraim shrugged his shoulders and agreed. I sat down on the steps leading to the podium and started reading. Eerily bloody stories glorifying the terrorist activities of the revolutionaries at the beginning of the century. Attempts on the lives of the Tsar and his family, bombs flung at the governor’s motorcar, the assassination of the Minister of Police.… How stupid, I thought, how childish. All these adventurers, these criminals whose inevitable destination was Siberia—what did I have in common with them? The Tsar had not harmed me personally; his Secret Police, the Okhrana, had never touched me; no one had taken it into his head to shut me up in a fortress. I read those pamphlets with their tales of long ago without really understanding them. Though their authors wrote in Yiddish, their language was not mine.
I looked at Ephraim in confusion, not knowing whether to be angry or laugh. “Have you gone mad, Ephraim? You’re abandoning the holy texts for
this
?”
Embarrassed, he put his head between his hands and didn’t answer.
“Seriously, Ephraim, is this how you intend to hasten redemption?”
“Yes,” he said defiantly.
“My poor friend! Our sages were right to forbid the study of mysticism until a certain age: it endangers the mind.”
“I haven’t lost my mind, Paltiel. Now listen to me carefully. I still want to save the human race and rid society of its ills; I still wish to bring the Messiah. Only—I’ve found a new way of doing it, that’s all. I’ve tried meditation, fasting, asceticism, but with no success. There is only one path leading toward salvation—”
“Which one?”
“The path of action.”
“Action? But I believe in that too. What is prayer if not an action? What’s the practice of mysticism if not an act of faith in God?”
“I’m talking to you about an action related not to God but to history, to the events that produce history, in short, to man himself.”
Seated on a bench between two desks, I with my Book of Prayers according to Rabbi Itzhak Luria, he with his idiotic pamphlets, we made a fine pair, Citizen Magistrate.
“Would you like to have a real discussion?” said Ephraim.
“Why not?”
“Then first of all promise to say nothing to anyone.”
“I promise.”
“It’s not enough to promise—swear.”
“I swear.”
“It’s not enough to swear—swear before the open Ark, while touching the sacred scrolls.”
I refused, of course. One doesn’t play around with the Torah.
“If you don’t trust me, too bad,” I said. “Let’s drop the whole thing.”
“I do trust you. If I demand an oath from you it’s for your own safety as well as mine: you’ll watch what you say; otherwise you might let something slip at the wrong time and place.”
“So, what could happen to me?”
“It’s better not to know, Paltiel. You’ve heard of the Secret Police, haven’t you? Well, they exist, and for them torture has become a science. If they catch you in their net, it’s all over for you. They’ll never believe you weren’t mixed up with … with all that.”
“Mixed up with what?” I cried.
“The Revolution,” he said gravely.
Ephraim tried to give me a quick course in political science in the manner of a Talmudic lesson, but I didn’t take him too seriously, at least not that night. And yet his fear was real: though he seemed to be more afraid of his parents than of the Secret Police. In spite of his arguments and exhortations I stood my ground and refused to take an oath before the holy Ark. My word had to be enough—take it or leave it. He stood up; I thought he was leaving. Not at all. Deliberately, methodically, he started his work: one pamphlet in each desk, tracts in the
talith
bags. Incredulous, I watched him without moving. But he, entirely at his ease, had the audacity—and the ingenuity—to ask for my help, without which he could not finish in time. And like an idiot I could think of nothing better to do than to agree.
And that is how, without my realizing it, without even thinking about it, I became his accomplice. He was kind enough to promise to return the following week to continue our discussion—and our work. And, of course, he kept his word.
His explanations and arguments could be recited by the youngest of our Pioneers. Simple and simplistic, yes—but sincere. And persuasive for a romantic adolescent of sixteen like myself, for they played on my sensibilities. The emphasis was on human misery and not on religious defiance. If Ephraim had used real Marxist propositions I would have turned my back. But instead of quoting Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin, he invoked the messianic
hope we shared. And I could only approve: he was pleading for justice for the victims, and the dignity of slaves, amen.
“My father is one of the Just,” he said. “He has never done anything to harm a living being; and he’s poor. We often go hungry, did you know that? Two hot meals a week, that’s all we can afford. Why are we condemned to hunger, to poverty?”
“Because it’s God’s will,” I answered. “Who are we to wish to pierce the secret of His ways? Let the Messiah come and …”
“I have four older sisters; there’s no money to marry them off. Why do you want my sisters to remain old maids?”
“God’s will is unfathomable; it is not up to us to question it, you know that perfectly well. Let the Messiah come and …”
“The Messiah, the Messiah! For two thousand years men worthier than we have been imploring him to make himself known and to establish his kingdom, and century after century injustice goes on. Do you know Hanan-the-Coachman? He has nothing; he doesn’t even own his horse or his coach; nor his hovel either, nor even his body. He toils from dawn to dusk and often late into the night. Occasionally you can see him, eyes red from lack of sleep, lips parched, driving Jonah Davidovich. Think of Jonah, sitting comfortably in the coach behind Hanan, and dare deny that so much injustice makes it imperative for us to wait no longer. Dare tell Hanan to be patient! And what about Brokha-the-Laundress, do you know her? Pious and humble, she has lost her husband and kills herself working to feed her seven children, to send her three sons to school, to buy ingredients for a Sabbath meal. She does the housework, the laundry and the cooking for Ksil Messiver, the greengrocer. Ksil has the time and the means
to wait for the Messiah—but Brokha-the-Laundress! Think of her before you answer.”
Ephraim expressed himself passionately; he disturbed me. We were alone, as usual, in the House of Study. Outside it was snowing. And as he talked, one by one, the candles burned down and went out. Ephraim swayed back and forth while talking as though we were studying a tangled commentary submitted by Rabbi Eliezer, son of Hyrkanos, on the purity and impurity of certain objects.
“You’ll tell me it’s all up to God,” he went on. “You’re right, but only partly. Human suffering concerns God, of course, but it also affects us. Why do men make their fellow men suffer? Paltiel, that question concerns you and me!”
“Who makes his fellow man suffer? The wicked and the miscreants. Their victims’ fate affects me, their own leaves me indifferent. The presence of the wicked in the world is a problem for the philosophers, and that I’m not. How can we explain the imperfection of Creation? And evil, and its appeal and power? Since the mystic response doesn’t satisfy you, read Maimonides. As for myself, I prefer to wait for the Messiah.”
“Well, I feel sorry for you, you’ve got a long wait ahead of you.”
“Why? Don’t you believe in the coming of the Messiah?”
“Yes, Paltiel, I do. Every morning I pray for his coming, his early coming. Like you I recite the prayers. But he’s taking his time; meanwhile exile is a heavy burden to bear, especially for the poor: the laborers, the beggars. Do you understand, Paltiel? I’m willing to wait a year, a century—but the less fortunate can’t wait!”
Little by little, slowly and systematically, he instilled in me his concept of the world. Only Communism allows man to overcome oppression and inequality swiftly. According to Ephraim, Communism was a sort of messianism
without God, a secular, social messianism while waiting for the other, the true one.
“Look around, Paltiel, look around here in Liyanov. On one side, the rich; on the other, the destitute. On one side, the powerful, on the other, the exploited. The rich are rich because the poor are poor—and the other way round. If the rich had no one to exploit, nothing would be left of their fortune. Conclusion: the wealth of the rich is just as scandalous as the poverty of the poor.”
Our nocturnal meetings became more and more frequent. I helped him distribute his tracts; sometimes, quite as a matter of course, I accompanied him to other synagogues. We were a team, but he had still not confessed to me his adherence to the clandestine Party. We talked of mysticism and liturgy, history and poetry, everything but ideology. I helped him because he had become my friend; he was my friend because he allowed me to take action. We were friends because—because we were friends.
Together we believed that ultimate redemption depended only on us, as our ancient texts kept affirming. God had created the universe and made man responsible for it—it was up to us to shape it and make it resplendent. In helping our neighbor, we were helping God. In rousing the slaves and invoking their pride and dignity, we were accomplishing God’s work on His behalf. That was how we reconciled divine omnipotence with human freedom. In His omnipotence, God has made us free; it is up to us to restore the primordial equilibrium by returning to the poor what they had had to yield to their exploiters; it was incumbent on us to change the order of things—that is, to start the Revolution.
“Don’t you understand?” Ephraim cried, eyes ablaze. “We must start the Revolution because that is God’s command! God wants us to be Communists!”
In spite of all Ephraim’s explanations, I still didn’t
know what that word meant, just as I didn’t know that it linked us to the Soviet Union. I didn’t even know that in Liyanov, among our God-fearing Jews, there was a clandestine Communist Party.
I was very naive, Citizen Magistrate. I was a Communist and didn’t know it.
While washing the dishes in the communal kitchen, Raissa eyed her son, who stood in the doorway, ready to return to the attack:
“Please, Mother—tell me about my father. Now we’re allowed to talk about him, you said so yourself.”
“Don’t you see I’m busy?”
She was irritated, as usual. Her irritation was contagious.
“You’re always busy. And when you’re not, you’re upstairs with Dr. Mozliak.”
“Are you starting again?”
Grisha seemed about to run off, then turned back. What good was it to get angry? That was no way to make her talk.
“Please, Mother. I hardly know my father, I don’t know him at all. It’s not normal. A son should know his father, even if his father is no longer alive.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
A pot in her hand, a kerchief on her head, Raissa seemed to resign herself. Grisha found her pretty, vulnerable. A melancholy smile, like a memory of her youth, brushed her lips.
“Everything?” she asked with a smile. “And what does that mean—everything?”
Grisha hesitated. His assurance left him. In his mother’s presence he had for some time felt himself both accuser and accused. Why was she making him suffer? Why was she so evasive? And—why was he so insistent? Because he loved her or because he didn’t?
“Yes, Grisha, what is—everything?”
Grisha blushed. His mother was right. Everything—what a stupid word—meaning one thing for the living, another for the dead; another for Mozliak, and yet another for Kossover. For the living, it was perhaps the sunbeam dancing across the kitchen, playing with the dust; or the noise of chairs being moved on the first floor; or certain silences tormenting an abandoned child.
“Tell me—was he happy?”
“I think so. Sometimes. Why do you ask?”
“I told you. I want to know everything about him.”
All of a sudden it was vital for Grisha to know whether his father had been happy. And only Raissa could tell him.
“He was happy, Grisha. Like most people.”
“I don’t like that answer. My father wasn’t like most people.”
“That’s true, Grisha. He wasn’t, except in matters of happiness; he was happy and unhappy like the rest of us.”
“What made him happy?”
“Everything or nothing. A smile. A babbling brook. A word, the right word.”
“What made him unhappy?”
“A smile. A babbling brook. A word, the wrong word.” Raissa paused; there was a silence. Then:
“He
was
unlike anyone else.”
“Did he love you?”
It was important, urgent, for Grisha to know whether his father had loved Raissa.
“Yes, he loved me.”
“How do you know? Did he tell you?”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How did he tell you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try. Think!”
“I don’t remember.”
Raissa had raised her voice as she said those last words. A neighbor came in, scowled at them, took a teapot and left.
“And you?” said Grisha. “Did you love him?”
“Why these questions? Why now?”
“Did you love him? Answer me. I have the right to know whether you loved my father.”
“What right? Who gave it to you? I will not allow you to …” Raissa spoke harshly.
She controlled herself: “You’re still young, Grisha. You can’t understand. Between man and woman there are many ways of loving.”
She took a deep breath. “You, it was you he really loved.”