One Generation After (22 page)

“Forgive me … Not important … Dislike receptions …”

“How selfish can you be? You only think of yourself! What about us? Don’t we count any more? It is written …”

“It is written nowhere that the bridegroom must be entertained before the wedding. During and after—yes. Not before.”

From the privacy of my corner, I observe the young man. He is moved, but his emotions are under control. He seems shy, intimidated, that’s all. Embarrassed. In the face of the rabbi’s exuberance, he makes an effort not to blush. He blushes anyway.

I notice the famous thinker A. J. Heschel. He too is watching the bridegroom.

“Why so melancholy?” I ask him.

“I look at this young man and I see him elsewhere. If not for the war …”

“If not …”

“… I know, I know. But sometimes, in my dreams, I put out the fire in time. I rediscover myself as I was before. And I remember. The customs of long ago. The Saturday preceding the wedding the whole town escorted the young man to the synagogue. He was treated like a prince and given the place of honor. As he was called to the Torah, the congregation rose. And after he had recited the traditional prayers, he was showered with nuts, raisins and other sweets: symbols of abundance and good wishes. Then he was escorted home with great pomp. For hours and hours, there would be singing and dancing and drinking in his honor. The old men told stories, the troubadours composed songs. While now …”

“What do you expect?” I say, answering for the young man. “Times have changed, so have customs. We have unlearned the art of inviting joy and fervor.”

We both fall silent. We know the young professor lost his parents. It is probably best to leave him to his thoughts.

Meanwhile, it is getting late. The service has been resumed. But Reb Leibele Cywiak and his friends are conferring in a corner:

“What? Let him leave like that, without anything?”

“Empty-handed?”

“Inconceivable …”

“Inadmissible …”

“Let’s arrange …”

“… a reception? In one hour? And on Shabbat, no less? Impossible …”

“Even so …”

The young visitor is not one of the regulars; but his new status entitles him to full consideration and honors.

All of Israel’s children are equal; one must love them equally and, if need be, prove it to them.

“All right,” says the rabbi, “don’t worry. We’ll manage. It will not be said that we are giving up our traditions.”

He quickly removes his ritual shawl and disappears behind the door leading to his private quarters. A half hour later he is back, more radiant than ever.

He catches up with the service; in the meantime we have reached the reading of the Torah. A conscientious stage director, the rabbi manages to communicate his secret instructions to the congregants without attracting the groom’s attention.

The young man is the last to be called to the bimah. He is reciting the closing benediction when, suddenly, in response to the rabbi’s signal, the other men take several steps backwards. Suddenly he finds himself alone. At first he looks lost and frightened. Then his face reflects profound and painful surprise, as nuts and raisins rain down on him, as in years gone by, as though he were still living in a world protected by his father.

I watch him close his eyes and I see the trembling. Through the ripped veil, no doubt, he is seeing the same things my own imagination is retrieving out of the irrevocable past. No doubt he grasps the distance separating him from that past. Any second
he will give in: the tears he has held back so long will be allowed to flow.

But no, not here, not now, he seems to be telling himself, I must not let go. Not here, not anywhere, not ever. Think of something else, turn back to the present. You cannot let go. Be careful. Clench your fists until they ache, bite your lips until they bleed: not one tear must be shed. After all, you didn’t train your will all these years just to come to this? And with an effort he hopes will go unnoticed, he reads the Haftarah and chants the benedictions; his voice does not betray him a single time.

His duty done, he withdraws into a corner for the second half of the service. More alone than ever, he seems even paler.

But the story does not end here. Reb Leibele Cywiak has further surprises in store: everybody is invited to an improvised reception. No sooner are we seated than we are served wine, liqueurs, vodka and everything else one may expect to find at a Hasidic celebration.

Someone calls out: “Rabbi Cywiak, we didn’t know you could work miracles!”

And our host, proud of his exploit, responds: “The continuation of a tradition, that is the true miracle!”

We fill the glasses, we drink to the young man’s health and future happiness, we intone one song and then another. Almost like before, almost like over there, on the other side of war. And still the young man remains silent and aloof, breathing deeply, heavily, as if to calm his pounding heart. He gasps for air; his forehead is bathed in perspiration. I know his thoughts are with those who are absent, for his face, his eyes are clouded. If only he knew their resting place, he would follow tradition and go
anywhere at all, to invite them to his wedding. But there is no place to go.

At the table, the guests make every effort to cheer him; some try to change his mood by teasing him, others speak to him in whispers.

Reb Leibele Cywiak calls for silence: “One day the Guerer Rebbe, may his sainted memory protect us, decided to question one of his disciples: How is Moshe Yaakov doing?—The disciple didn’t know.—What! shouted the Rebbe, you don’t know? You pray under the same roof with him, you study the same texts, you serve the same God, you sing the same songs, and you dare tell me you don’t know whether Moshe Yaakov is in good health, whether he needs help, advice or comforting?

“Therein lies the very essence of Hasidism,” concludes our host, “it requires that every man share in every other man’s life and not leave him to himself in either sorrow or joy.”

A furtive glance toward the guest of honor; never have I seen him so tense. The basement is only dimly lit but dark glasses shield his eyes. His drawn features betray his turmoil. His lips open and close without a sound. How much longer until his strength gives out?

Other speakers take the floor. In accordance with custom, we now sing the bridegroom’s praises. Does he even hear what is being said? The qualities attributed him? The wishes being expressed? His eyes, what do they see at this very moment? What images do they call forth and from what depths? And why does he feel this oppressive desire, this need to weep? And why is he not weeping? Whom is he defying by holding back his tears? His head bowed low, he is sitting among us against his will, dazed and ill at ease, a stranger at his own feast.

Sensing his distress, I want to touch his shoulder and say: Chase away your sadness, lift your eyes and look at the friends surrounding you, don’t reject them. But out of discretion, I keep my place and my role.

Professor Heschel, though, takes the initiative by turning toward the guests: “What! Don’t you people know how to dance?”

The Hasidim ask for nothing better. Quickly they move tables and benches out of the way. No sooner has a circle been formed than a powerful song rises from the entire congregation: a rapid, torrential song, full of rhythm and fire, a dizzying call to fervor, a song so vital it imposes its mark on the earth. They dance, hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, their faces aflame, their hearts filled with joy. The circle gets larger and smaller in turn. The dancers part, come close again, lose and rediscover each other: they become one with the song, they become song. Song has won a victory over silence and solitude: we exist for others as well as for ourselves. And so we sing to cover the noise of all those years reverberating in our memories. And also to show our ancestors: Look, the chain has not been broken. We take up the same song ten times, a hundred times, so as not to leave it, so as not to leave each other. The way it was sung in Wizsnitz and in Sighet. And the Hasidim dance the way they danced in Guer. Louder, faster! May the song become dance, and motion become song. May joy come to orphans and their friends, a joy at once ancestral and personal, violent and serene, a joy that announces and is part of creation.

Since I have remained on the sidelines because of a fractured leg, I am free to watch the participants. From the very beginning of the festivities, the young man has often closed his eyes.
Even now he is staring at the floor, his teeth are clenched while he allows the Hasidim to encircle and pull him into their frantic rounds. Does he know what he’s doing or where he is? Suddenly I am drawn into the vision: we are in another town, in another synagogue, surrounded by other guests. He recognizes them, he knows them: parents, uncles, cousins, teachers, fellow students, friends. And all murmur: Thank you for inviting us, thank you for allowing us to celebrate this Shabbat with you; we shall come to your wedding.

And that is when, for the first time the defenses fall. Everything is spinning around him, inside him. There is no more reason to feel shame or fear remorse. Through his eyelids, closed as though forever, he feels the flow of his first adult tears: they flow and flow and scorch his face.

And I wonder about his eyes. Whether they are still the same.

Two legends:

When Rebbe Yishmael’s turn came to endure Roman torture, a heavenly voice was heard to say: “Yishmael, my son, keep quiet. If you weep, I shall throw the world back into chaos. One single tear will engulf all of creation.”

And Rebbe Yishmael did not weep. In spite of his wounds. In spite of his anger. He destroyed nothing.

Clothed in the mantle of the prophets, young Elisha assembled the villagers and told them a strange and disturbing tale: he had just seen his master flying off—alive in a fiery chariot, straight up to heaven, never to return.

Except for the children, the village did not believe him. So he began again. For the children.

 … And now, teller of tales, turn the page. Speak to us of other things. Your mad prophets, your old men drunk with nostalgic waiting, your possessed—let them return to their nocturnal
enclaves. They have survived their deaths for more than a quarter of a century; that should suffice. If they refuse to go away, at least make them keep quiet. At all costs. By every means. Tell them that silence, more than language, remains the substance and the seal of what was once their universe, and that, like language, it demands to be recognized and transmitted.

Elie Wiesel was fifteen years old when he was deported to Auschwitz. He became a journalist and writer in Paris after the war, and since then has written more than fifty books, fiction and nonfiction, including his masterwork,
Night
, a major best seller when it was republished recently in a new translation. He has been awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor, an honorary knighthood of the British Empire, and, in 1986, the Nobel Peace Prize. Since 1976, he has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University.