Ritzen, retired from teaching college English, collects quotations by Holocaust survivor, author, and Nobel laureate Wiesel that he personally has found most inspiring. They are arranged in sections on three tales, wounded faith, four stages of mending faith, and God's inner circle. He concludes with "The Madman's Prayer." There is no index. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

GOD'S INNER CIRCLE

The Radical Devotion of Elie Wiesel to FaithBy MICHAEL RITZEN

KTAV PUBLISHING HOUSE, INC.

Copyright © 2012 Michael Ritzen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60280-211-7

Contents

Introduction.............................................xiiiPrologue.................................................1Night....................................................3Three Tales..............................................91) "The Just Man of Sodom"...............................92) "Sisyphus"............................................103) "The Fatman"..........................................12Wounded Faith............................................19Mending Faith: Stage I...................................23God's Tears and Prison...................................23God's Guilt..............................................32Holy Madness.............................................34Mending Faith: Stage II..................................39Better to Blaspheme......................................39Mending Faith: Stage III.................................45Radical Devotion.........................................45Paradox..................................................47Facing Divorce...........................................49The Man That I Am........................................52Mending Faith: Stage IV..................................57Nevertheless I Celebrate You.............................57"The Decisive Link"......................................59One Place "God Is to Be Found"...........................60God's Inner Circle.......................................67Three Declarations and One Interlude.....................671) To Be A Jew...........................................682) Prayer................................................74Midstream Interlude......................................853) "What About My Faith?"................................87Coda.....................................................93For the Beginning Seeker.................................93Conclusion...............................................99"The Madman's Prayer"....................................99Addenda..................................................117Works Cited..............................................121

Chapter One

Three Tales

I. The Just Man of Sodom

Stated simply, God's absence when his children face torture and death invalidates for many the ancient covenant of loyalty and obedience in exchange for divine protection and freedom. It need not, however, cancel personal morality. In One Generation After, Wiesel tells of the "Just Man of Sodom" who stood on street corners day and night preaching against sin and debauchery. No one listened. After observing him many times on his way to school, a child pulled at his robe and asked, "Why do you go on and on every day when not even one person listens to you?" He replied, "In the beginning, I thought I could change man. Today I know I cannot. If I still shout today, if I still scream, it is to prevent man from ultimately changing me" (72). The Just Man has many brothers. One, the subject of this monograph, has stated in an interview, "I write because I must, and if I still scream, it is to prevent the others from changing me."

II. Sisyphus

A much earlier cousin is from Greek legend. Sources for the myth of Sisyphus can be found in Homer, where the heavens were busy with gods, spelled with a small "g". They were a lively group, capricious, jealous, vengeful, and their celestial and earthly playgrounds would appear to a monotheistic culture as Godless. Sisyphus was King of Corinth. Zeus, Ruler of the Heavens, felt betrayed by Sisyphus and sentenced him to Hades, where he must push a boulder to the top of a mountain, only to see it roll back down, and then repeat the task—for eternity. Sinai it was not. Albert Camus saw in this myth a metaphor for modern man in his struggle with a Godless Absurd universe. The Just Man's kinship with Sisyphus is dubious, but instructive. God or no God in Sodom, the Just Man rebels against lawlessness. No monotheistic God atop the Sisyphus mountain, yet the hero rebels against an absurd fate. Though both rebels are joined by a fierce sense of honesty to oneself, Sisyphus was doomed to a solitary fate. His passion was fed, not by the debaucheries of Sodom, but rather by the absurdities of what he saw as a meaningless universe. The tale, as interpreted by Camus, offers a useful contrast to the "vision" of Wiesel, who nevertheless honors Camus as a crucial influence. Sisyphus, sans covenant, sans God, sans hope, in an "absurd" universe devoid of inherent meaning, does find, through his punishment, however, rebellion and thus passion and joy. In this universe, as Camus states it, "without a Master" Sisyphus eventually grows to understand "that all is well" and the essay ends: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" (91). Wiesel, bound inextricably, for better or worse, to his "Master" (thus for him an intrinsically meaningful universe) is also well acquainted with "passion and joy." He is not, although, the model one seeks for reassurance "that all is well" nor as an exponent for a secular version of existential happiness.

Earlier in the essay, Camus asks:

IS ONE ... GOING TO TAKE UP THE HEART RENDING AND MARVELOUS WAGER OF THE ABSURD? ... AT LAST MAN WILL AGAIN FIND THERE THE WINE OF THE ABSURD AND THE BREAD OF INDIFFERENCE ON WHICH HE FEEDS HIS GREATNESS (39).

It is a wager heroic rebels (especially the hungry and thirsty) must find hard to resist. Enter Sinai. Enter Jews. Enter the Covenant. Enter the Covenant shattered into more pieces than the Ten Commandments in a painting by Samuel Bak. Does Camus's "wager of the absurd" now live? With two crucial Wieselian updates. For Jews, the "Bread of Indifference" becomes the "Bread of Affliction" for those who died because they were Jews and who, tragically, absurdly, will never know if or how their lives are honored in the ensuing generations. As for "Wine of the Absurd," it is drunk at the birth of children, some of whom might one day fatally be discovered by racial purists as having even a trace of "impure Jewish blood." "Absurd" defiance. "Absurd" hope. "Absurd" beliefs in the influence of Survivor-Witness. Perhaps even "Absurd" delusions of God. It is this bitter wine and sour bread on which Jews feed their greatness. Sisyphus, at least, was free of ancient loyalty to an absent God. A luxury, Wiesel might say, that Jews cannot afford. Although Camus claims, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy," Wiesel would likely wish him well, but, due to his own non-negotionable belief in God, part company.

Meanwhile, meet the Fatman: a Chassid who, like Sisyphus, was a virtuoso in the craft of protest, a savant in the art of the Absurd. Like Sisyphus, he was cursed with a daunting weight, but the similarity may or may not end there. One can read his travail as a variation on the Sisyphian curse: heroic and futile. Believers, as we shall see, may contest the assertion of "futile...."

III. The Fatman

The Fatman lived alone in a small forest hut. One day, a rare knock at his door. It was the BESHT (Hebrew acronym for "Master of the Good Name"), a great eighteenth century religious leader and, some claim, founder of the Chassidic movement. When the door finally opened, the Besht was taken aback. His host was obese, over 300 pounds, with food in his long beard, not to mention a manner so rude there was not even an unfriendly greeting. Silence. Leaving the door open, he shuffled back to his table and commenced eating....