From the Kingdom of Memory : Reminiscences

Rating:
Summary: Wiesel reminisces upon traditions of his Jewishness!
Review: Once upon a weekend retreat at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, I became absorbed by Elie Wiesel's fascinatingly describing his Memory of Jewish holidays, the Talmudic literature, the Jewish Laws and stories of Abraham, Moses, Isaac and Jacob. At that point in my life after retiring as Prison Chaplain, I began to look at the lives of Jewish writers. I wished to grasp some of their pain, suffering and depths of Faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Elie Wiesel had written much of those feelings in his "Night"; "Dawn" and "Souls on Fire."

While caught-up in writing about my Memories of serving as a Prison Chaplain, I wanted to choose a good Model. My first underlining began with Elie's wonderful quote from "Society and Solitude" by Emerson to begin his chapter, "The Stranger in the Bible." Then I looked back at the first chapter, "To Believe or not to Believe." There I read the habits of a Jewish mother as she teaches her children, a Talmudic Ledgend of Moses and Rabbi Akiba, other stories of other Rabbi's...I was really hooked!

After Elie's return to his birthplace of the little Jewish city of Sighet, revisiting sights of his boyhood, he arrives to that key chapter, "Making the Ghosts Speak!" He writes of his own "despair of humanity and God!" From his studies of history, philosophy, psychology, he realized his anger at the Germans. "How could they have counted Goethe and Bach as their own and at the same time massacred countless Jewish children?" Then he admits that he "was angry at God too, at the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! How could He have abandoned his people just at the moment when they needed Him?" His struggling led to his conclusion: "I am free to choose my suffering but not that of my fellow humans."

This small gem of Essays has that fearful power to prod around one's insides, revealing your own gut-wrenching memories! It surely has done that and much more for me in every reading! Don't miss it!
Retired Chap Fred W Hood