Shabat: The Edge of the Forest

Excerpt from Part II: Danse de Paradoxe

Elie Wiesel wrote:

The beginning of the Sabbath.  The celebration of its perfect holiness…”

   “As I returned from the house of prayer with my father, and when I became older, we both sang:

     “Shalom aleichem, malachei ha-sharet malachei ha-shalom”

        [Peace be with you, servant angels, angels of peace.]

“The following day, after the morning prayer and the meal, my father made all of us fulfill our charitable duties…Dina(his sister)  organized cultural get-togethers.  My mother visited hospitals.  As for me, my father used to take me to the edge of the forest to visit the Jewish patients in the insane asylum….Though he was not at all wealthy and worked hard to earn a living, he took an interest in the insane, for according to him, they were more defenseless than the poor.”

   “At first he used to leave me outside, in the courtyard or garden, while he went and brought ‘his patients’ sweets and fruits.  During the Pesach holiday he gave them matzoh.”

    “…once I spoke with one…who said, “Who can rescue me today?”

   Doriel digressed and said to the doctor:  “There’s also religion, Doctor. By clashing with reason, it can prevent you from living in reality…The rigidity of the laws, the bewitchment of the mystics: these I knew and even liked….You who belong to another world and another time, can’t understand Jewish life in a small town---and Brooklyn was a small town, a shetl, which in spite (of all)…became lively spiritual centers “attuned to the slightest flutter of the Lord’s eyelid.”....