On the Holocaust and Identity: In Memory of Elie Wiesel, of Blessed Memory (Column 14)

With God’s help

A few days ago the most famous Holocaust survivor in the world passed away, the writer and journalist Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Wiesel was identified with the Holocaust and its lessons, and he dealt with them extensively, indirectly and directly, in his lectures and writings.

Wiesel was born in the city of Sighet in Transylvania, in a Hasidic home. He was in Auschwitz, where he lost his mother and sister (and also his father, on the death march to Buchenwald). After the war Wiesel came to France, where he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and also taught Hebrew. He was a journalist in France and later, from 1956, in the United States. He was a lecturer in the humanities at Boston University, where his archive is also housed (managed by Yoel Rappel). He was active on behalf of peace and human rights and against various persecutions throughout the world, and in his view this was the principal lesson of the Holocaust. Wiesel was an ardent defender and supporter of the State of Israel (and for a certain period in the 1940s also of the Irgun), and was sharply criticized for this as well. What follows are reflections that arose in me when I heard that he had died (some of them critical), and I write them in his memory.

On lessons and emotions: between Hasidim and the Mitnagdim (the non-Hasidic opponents of Hasidism)

I must note that in Wiesel’s writings that I happened to read, I always felt that he was escaping to an overly emotional plane. The moral pathos that served him in his activism and writing generally expressed itself not in arguments but in examples and experiences. He showed us where things can lead and urged us to act so that this would not happen, but he did not make arguments. In a certain sense, I thought there was here a kind of use of the Holocaust (albeit in a positive sense) in order to advance lessons (correct and important ones) that he deeply valued.

As someone of philosophical temperament, I always thought that one does not need the Holocaust in order to understand that one must not torment and abuse human beings, or even to tell us that one must not remain indifferent. All this is self-evident. Moreover, the occurrence of the Holocaust is a fact, whereas moral imperatives are norms. As every beginning philosopher knows, deriving a norm from facts is a fallacy (the naturalistic fallacy).

Of course, this does not mean that we all do what is incumbent upon us. Far from it. The Holocaust can certainly serve as a catalyst for action, and it can certainly show us where things may lead if we allow them. But it is still not correct to relate to all this as a "lesson" of the Holocaust. These claims are not lessons of the Holocaust. To sharpen the point, I would say that it does not seem to me possible to construct an argument in which the occurrence of the Holocaust is one of the premises and the conclusion is that one must not abuse people or that one should be moral. Motivation to action by means of the Holocaust is emotional, not philosophical. But perhaps motivating people to action at all takes place on the emotional plane and not the philosophical one. A pity.

In an interview that Yoel Rappel conducted with Elie Wiesel, he says: "I came to philosophy because of the questions; I left because of the answers." And then he adds: "My mother never asked me whether I gave good answers. She always asked whether I asked good questions. I love questions, but not answers. Questions do no harm; answers – yes." But I (=M.A.), by contrast, always feel that the questions are indeed important, but the answers are no less important than they are. Someone who asks in order to ask and not in order to strive for answers—in my opinion there is something inauthentic about his questions.

Perhaps the difference between him and me lies in another paragraph from that same interview. Rappel asks him: "In all three books, the absence of figures from the stream of the "Mitnagdim" stands out. We do not find the heads of the great yeshivot in Poland and Lithuania, the people of the Musar movement. Do you have something against them?" And Wiesel answers him: "I never understood them. I do not know who needs the great debates and the many stringencies. They create difficulty in Jewish life, a life that is not easy to begin with. And perhaps the fact that I grew up in a home that had a Hasidic soul influenced me."

It seems to me that his identification of the "Mitnagdim" with stringencies is mistaken. In Hasidism there are no fewer stringencies, and usually many more (although most of them lack a basis in Jewish law). It seems to me that what he intends here is not stringencies but the intellectual-rational casuistry of Lithuanian scholarship, detached from natural feeling. In other words, what he really means is the focus on philosophy and the rational, as against Hasidism, which focuses more on psychology and the emotional. This indeed is a clear difference (though not an absolute one) between Hasidim and Mitnagdim. One can now see in these remarks a subtle root of his tendency toward questions without answers, or toward the emotional in place of the rational.

On identity and the Holocaust: between the individual and the collective

I have heard more than once from various people (mainly secular ones) that the Holocaust is the essence of their Jewish identity. I do not really understand this statement. What does the Holocaust have to do with identity? Or with Judaism? Does anyone see value in being persecuted or murdered? Is my identity that my grandfather was murdered? The Holocaust was the product of the decision and actions of a collection of wicked people, and I do not think I am prepared to let them define me. This statement sounds very charged on the emotional plane, but it seems to me hollow of content on the philosophical plane. And perhaps human identity in general belongs to the emotional plane and not the philosophical one. Again, a pity.

Incidentally, precisely on this point Elie Wiesel, in that same interview, formulates himself more cautiously. He says: "No one can escape himself. The Holocaust, with all its horrors, is within me. It is a large part of my personal identity. How can one write about the Binding of Isaac without mentioning the Holocaust? The same applies to the Ten Martyrs, as this finds expression, for example, in the story of Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradyon. And so one can continue to many figures. It is impossible without this." Wiesel says here that the Holocaust is part of his personal identity, but he does not say that this is his Jewish identity.

Personal identity is also composed of our biography and our experiences, but collective identity needs something more. The collective must carry with it some further message, an idea, an ideology, something beyond facts. The naturalistic fallacy is especially relevant to collective identity, and perhaps somewhat less so to personal identity, which is primarily biographical fact.

In a certain sense, it is specifically the collective that makes us rational. Rationalism comes from comparison to standards outside us, from the need to place and measure one’s thinking and behavior against others, so that they may be interpreted by others and understood within some framework outside oneself, within some context. My feeling is that a solitary person cannot really be rational.

In postmodern culture there is despair of reason and of values, of right and wrong, of beautiful and ugly, of just and unjust, and therefore human beings feel lonely. There are no objective standards, and in such a situation each person builds his own standards for himself. No wonder that in such a world the emotional replaces the rational. All I have are my feelings, since there are no standards against which I can examine their validity. In the postmodern world people ask questions and do not wait for answers. They do not believe in them. It seems to me that at least in this sense Elie Wiesel was close to it.

The difference between religious and secular thought

Here another point arises for me. People are generally accustomed to think that religiosity tends more toward emotionality and secularity is more rational. My impression is that the situation is exactly the reverse. Religious thought is very rational, certainly the Mitnagdic kind. And specifically secular thought is very emotional. The despair of reason that so characterizes many secular people leads them to focus on feeling.

It seems to me that in many cases one of the deepest points that a secular person cannot understand in a religious person is his cold rationalism. The willingness to act according to what seems to him correct, even if it is not connected to his natural feelings and emotions. A religious person puts on tefillin even if it says nothing to him, simply because he thinks that this is the right way to behave. The secular person does not understand this. Not only because he does not accept the basic premises, but because he does not manage to understand what tefillin does for the one who puts them on. The answer is: nothing. I do it because that is what seems right to me. Right and wrong belong to the intellectual plane, not to the emotional, experiential plane.

There was once a chemist in Jerusalem named Israel Shahak who used to publish articles in the press against religion and religious people. On one occasion he reported on the wife of a priest (kohen) who was raped, and the rabbis instructed her and her husband to separate (this is indeed the law in the case of a priest’s wife). In the wake of this, a public debate arose and harsh criticism was directed at that ruling. Was the trauma that the woman had undergone not enough, that the rabbis now force her and her husband—who want to remain together with their children and love one another—to break up the family and make everyone even more miserable? Quite a number of people (including religious ones) attacked this ruling, and I personally happened to hear this several times. One of the common questions raised then was: Do they (the rabbis) have no heart? Where is their morality? I tried to explain to my interlocutors that the rabbis do have heart and morality, but they make their decisions with their heads and not with their hearts. They believe that this is the correct way to act, and therefore that is how they rule. Their hearts ache no less than those of all their critics, and yet they still think that the heart is not the recommended guide for how to act.

It was clear to me in these discussions that the criticism did not begin with the fact that the critics did not accept the foundational premises of faith and Jewish law. It was something much beyond that. They were really claiming, even if only implicitly, that even if they accepted those premises they would not act accordingly, because their hearts rebel against it. The reader will easily notice here the parallel to what I described above regarding the lessons of the Holocaust on the philosophical and psychological planes.

The connection between the two axes

We have seen a distinction on the religious-secular axis, and the same distinction also on the collective-individual axis. There is a connection between these two axes. Religiosity (institutional, not personal) is collective in character. This does not mean that every religious person is necessarily swept automatically along with the herd (this is no less common among secular people), but that his identity is collective in essence and not merely personal. Torah is transmitted to a people, and borne by a people, not by private individuals. Each individual within this collective contributes his own contribution and finds his unique expression within it and from it. Even those who are exceptional can be such only because around them there is a framework that sees them as such. Without the collective around you, you cannot be a true individualist. In this sense, being within a collective framework not only constrains (though that too is true) but also liberates. It enables us to be rational and to act according to objective standards rather than according to subjective emotional caprices.

In the secular world people try to build an alternative identity (see my article on secular Jewish identity). The illusion that personal identity can serve as a substitute for collective (and religious) identity collapses again and again. All kinds of national idols or mystical sects arise on the basis of this search for alternatives, but it does not really work. The human being is a social creature, but not only on the psychological plane; no less on the philosophical plane.

In a world in which no framework exists outside the person, and certainly when it comes to a materialist worldview, there cannot be large, objective, binding ideas. What remains is subjective personal emotionality, and nothing more. People try to reinvent the wheel, to create secular morality, secular nationalism, values, gods, and even secular holiness (a flag, an anthem, fallen soldiers and martyrs, national holidays and memorial days), without success. This does not succeed and cannot succeed because there really is no such thing. What one gets instead are mock substitutes, ridiculous reflections, and sometimes very harmful ones, that do not truly replace the original. No wonder that religious discourse keeps slipping into all these dimensions, despite the criticism and opposition to it.

Back to Elie Wiesel

By his own testimony, Elie Wiesel was a believer. But without knowing the man and without conducting an in-depth study of his writings and thought, I have the impression that his faith was very personal and subjective. Yoav Sorek conducted an interview with him, and he brings there a passage from his book Night, in which he writes:

I shall never forget the little faces of the children whose bodies became a burning torch beneath silent heavens.
I shall never forget the flames that forever consumed my faith.
I shall never forget the silence of the night that forever robbed me of the desire to live.
I shall never forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into a desolate wasteland.

His faith was burned forever, yet at the same time he continues to pray. Sorek asks him about this, and Wiesel says: "The grievance remains. I do not have insolence toward Heaven. Not that. A grievance toward Heaven—yes. If I prayed in Auschwitz, how can I not pray now? Do I really believe that my prayers are accepted? No. Perhaps I am not worthy. But I continue."

I, as a "Mitnaged," feel that this is not really a reason to pray, and indeed it is doubtful whether this is prayer at all. This prayer belongs to the psychological dimension and not to the philosophical one. It is done from motives rooted in feeling and not out of principled commitment.

Against this background it is easier to understand what Sorek describes there: "Wiesel’s refusal to say anything about the beliefs of another is consistent. Throughout the interview I felt how careful he was not to judge: not Israel, not Holocaust memory in Europe, not the unbelievers, not the Haredim, and not those who combine Buddhism and Judaism. He keeps his words and beliefs as his own property, and leaves others theirs."

A subjective and personal faith, too, belongs to the psychological plane and not to the philosophical one, of course, and here I close the circle. May his memory be blessed.