by Elie Wiesel
Talmud means “study.” Studying Talmud means studying how to study. In other words, one never concludes the study of Talmud. Just as the Torah has no beginning, the Talmud has no end. For two thousand years it has been given to us to add a commentary here, an opening or a hypothesis there.
The Talmud or the beauty of dialogue—the entire Talmud is nothing but that, a series of dialogues between a sage and a disciple. Sometimes they are centuries apart, and yet, as one studies them, one has the impression that they are seated at the same table looking into each other’s eyes in order to better understand each other.
How many thinkers know that Talmud also signifies tolerance? The minority always has equal right to be heard; it demands and deserves the same respect as the majority. Both positions are recorded in the same way.
And then, is there another religious text where ancient Masters interrogate God on His actions in history? Of course they do it respectfully, but that makes their arguments neither less strong nor less daring.
To study Talmud is to celebrate it. It is also to be in touch with a memory in which death alone is silent.
And now? A new idea for a novel on judges is on my mind, taking shape, preoccupying me. I have many notes, pages filled with points of reference. Excitement and anguish run high.
The Anatomy of Hate
BEGINNING WITH the Nobel laureate conference in 1988, the Foundation for Humanity that Marion and I created at the end of 1986 has been organizing international conferences on a single theme: “The Anatomy of Hate.”
“Hate,” the key word, describes the passions, often contradictory and always vile, that have torn and ravaged the twentieth century. Only the twentieth century? In truth, the word contains and illustrates the full recorded memory of human cruelty and suffering. Cain hated his brother and killed him; thus the first death in history was a murder. Since then, hate and death have not ceased to rage.
Hate—racial, tribal, religious, ancestral, national, social, ethical, political, economic, ideological—in itself represents the inexorable defeat of mankind, its absolute defeat. If there is an area in which mankind cannot claim the slightest progress, this surely is it. It does not take much for human beings, collectively or individually, to suddenly one day pit themselves like wild beasts one against the other, their worst instincts laid bare, in a state of deleterious exaltation. One decision, one simple word, and a family or a community will drown in blood or perish in flames.
Why is there so much violence, so much hate? How is it conceived, transmitted, fertilized, nurtured? As we face the disquieting, implacable rise of intolerance and fanaticism on more than one continent, it is our duty to expose the danger. By naming it. By confronting it.
In our own way, with the limited means at our disposal, we do what we can. This goes for me in my writings as well as in my activities inside and outside the framework of the seminars organized by our foundation in the United States, the Middle East, and Europe.
At Boston University, which recently celebrated its 150th anniversary, we specifically explored the religious aspect of hate. Bishop Krister Stendhal of Stockholm, dean of the Faculty of Theology at Harvard; Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, former chairman of the Department of Judaic Studies at City College; Professor Mohammed Arkoun of the Sorbonne, as well as another twenty or so scholars and researchers, participated in this seminar. Chaired by the humanist scholar David Hamburg, president of the Carnegie-Mellon Foundation, the sessions tended to be long, passionate, and mostly tolerant. Looking back, I realize that there were important gaps in this conference: We should have invited representatives of other religions. Neither Buddhism nor Shintoism was represented. In ecumenical circles, the tradition of studying the traditional clashes among the three major monotheistic religions is so strong that one easily forgets all the others.
How is one to explain fanaticism’s attraction for so many intellectuals, to this day? And what can be done to immunize religion against its pull? For once it absorbs absolutist trends, religion too becomes aggressive and to the same extent as the nations that flout the right of their neighbors or even that of their own citizens to security and happiness, by means of either ideology or force of arms. Wars between races, religions, political ideologies, economic interests—what they have in common is the faith of the fanatics and the moral power derived from their material superiority.
Fanaticism is dangerous not only for the layperson who fights it, but also for the believer whom it fascinates. The fanatic inspires and breathes fear. It is the only tie that binds him to his fellow-man and God. So afraid is he of doubt that he pushes it outside the law. Whether his dictatorship is intellectual or theocratic, he pretends to possess a unique and eternal truth. Insist on a discussion, and he takes offense. He accepts questions only if he alone has the right to answer them. It comes to this: The fanatic accepts only answers—his own—while his tolerant adversary prefers questions.
Since the beginnings of history, man alone suffers from fanaticism and hate, and he alone can stem it. In all of creation, only man is both capable and guilty of hate.
The last decade of the twentieth century, also the last of the millennium, began rather auspiciously. A contagious current of freedom or desire for freedom electrified oppressed nations. It was as though society wished to purge itself of the phantoms and demons brought to life by the violence of the dictators under both Nazism and Communism. All of a sudden, people were moving toward the twenty-first century with confidence, looking forward to a radiant destiny under the sign of alliance rather than vengeance.
Then came the dawn of disenchantment. Joy had lasted but one summer. Had it, too, fallen victim to fanaticism?
We are back to the question: What is fanaticism? How ought one to deal with it? And at what precise point does a belief become integralist or fundamentalist?
An idea degenerates into a fanatical postulate the moment it excludes those who oppose it. By denying the burgeoning independence of ideas or beliefs, religious or political fanaticism deprives them of their ability to function as well as of their right to exist. One confronts its closed fist in every one of the monotheist religions. Catholic integralism matches that of the Protestants, which matches that of the Muslims, which matches that of the Jews. It repels me in all its forms. Whoever declares that he knows the path leading to God better than others causes me to turn away. If he tries to take me there by force, I resist.
Does this mean that I avoid a debate with him? Usually it is the fanatic who shies away from a real debate, a civilized dialogue. He is convinced that he does not have to fight to win, that he has won before hearing the first word. For him, used as he is to monologue, any exchange is an aberration. His discourse is monolithic, closed to doubt and hesitation, hostile to external influences. He listens to himself in order not to hear you. He evolves in a reductive universe deprived of diversity. He inhabits it alone with himself; he becomes the object of his own passion.
For the fanatic is a zealot, a madman of faith. It is he whom Nietzsche was talking about when he said it was not doubt but certainty that leads to madness. Blinded by passion, he turns divine beauty into human ugliness. For him and because of him, the nostalgia for God degenerates into an irresistible desire to hate. He usurps God’s place in Creation. He takes himself for God. Like God he strives to make every man in his own image, but smaller. He wants everyone to resemble him yet remain smaller, humble and humiliated, bowed before his throne. Convinced that he is the sole possessor of the meaning of life, he gags or kills the Other in order not to be challenged in his quest. And finally, the religious fanatic sees God not as his judge and king, but as his prisoner.
Let us not deceive ourselves—fanaticism is not exclusively religious in essence. Secular fanaticism is no less vile. The secular fanatic is sometimes more eloquent but no less evil. Both tend to see in the Other not a subject of pride, but an object of contempt.
Fanaticism is a pernicious cancer that undermines the promise of man and crushes him w
ith the weight of evil. The fanatic is tireless because he is never satisfied. He constantly tries to acquire more power, devoting all his energy to that end—one does not hate in the abstract. A fanatic can feed his hate theoretically, but he will soon put it into practice—sometimes he will not relent until he has turned his country into a jail. Since other people’s freedom frightens him, the fanatic does not feel free and alive except when others are not. The more crowded the prisons, the more his own liberty flourishes. Thus the fanatic will do the impossible to prevent others from dreaming, loving, thinking in pursuit of their own quest for identity. His goal? To imprison the ideas of others, to paralyze their imagination. For the fanatic, the Other should remain locked in the present, without memory and without hope.
The aim of our conferences? To combat fanaticism, which is the major component of hate, and vice versa. More precisely, not all fanatics are filled with hate, but all those who are filled with hate are fanatics. Their conduct leads inexorably to the destruction of the Being in being. By the time this becomes evident, it is already too late.
I used to say over and over that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. There is no reciprocity. Hate is always gratuitous, sterile. It is a powerful, insurmountable barrier that permits no intrusion. In other words, nothing good, nothing great, nothing that is alive, can be born of hate. It denies all possibility of metamorphosis or transcendence. Hate begets only hate. It is urgent and imperative to defeat it before it overwhelms us. How can we achieve this? By attacking its visible form—fanaticism.
Combating fanaticism means denouncing the humiliation of the Other. It means celebrating the freedom of the Other, the freedom of all Others. Ultimately it means freeing man from the humiliating chains the fanatic forces upon him. It means opening the prisons and giving back to men, women, and God Himself the freedom the fanatic has stolen.
The sessions often have recourse to psychology. In Boston, Leo (Sjua) Eitinger, of Oslo University, explores the absence of hate among victims, and Robert Jay Lifton, professor of psychiatry at CUNY, examines with us the power of hate but also the ethical apathy among the killers. He is elaborating on a theme that we have been trying to explore for years, that the absence of hate in the killer is even worse than the hate. The members of the Einsatzgruppen massacred thousands and thousands of Jewish children they did not hate.
And God in all this?
Robert McAfee Brown, the most eminent of Protestant theologians; Harry James Cargas, an audacious Catholic thinker; John Roth, an insightful essayist and inspired teacher, all contribute to the theological debate. Could there be a God of hate? The prophets enumerate what the Lord abhors. But is it conceivable that He has come to hate His own creation?
At Haifa University it is the pedagogic aspect of hate that absorbs the conference participants. At what age can one detect the first signs of hate in a child? There is a discussion of the suggestion that a child is incapable of hate until the age of three, that hate is something that is learned, acquired. But if that is so, can it be unlearned as well?
There are some difficult moments at this same conference in Haifa. The great Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua, true to his provocative self, overemphasizes his Israelo-centric line. According to him, the Diaspora should “liquidate” itself. After I received the Nobel, he took into account my work and activities on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people and wrote me a letter in which he deigned to grant me—in jest, of course—a heter, a sort of purely personal exemption, authorizing me to stay where I am. How is one to explain such a closed mind in a gifted, generous, inspired writer, someone I am fond of?
On the other hand, the dialogues with Muslim participants provoke little embarrassment. Arab journalists, teachers, and students participate in the debates. They are ready to listen as well as to express themselves in an atmosphere of total freedom, I would almost say comradeship. The same desire is evident on all sides: that of finding a middle road. And all this was happening in 1990, well before the peace process was started between Israelis and Palestinians.
At the reception in honor of the conference, in a splendid Druze mansion, a group of Arab journalists from the Old City of Jerusalem approach me. Among them is a young couple. She is beautiful; he has an open, friendly face. They would like to record an interview for Arab television and Arabic-language magazines. They are familiar, they tell me, with my work on behalf of human rights and express their appreciation. But… I know what is about to follow: “Why are you ready to listen to everyone who suffers except us? Why do you refuse to hear us?” They speak without hate or anger, as though they wished only to elucidate a purely philosophical problem. Are they expecting me to justify myself in their eyes? Not even. It seems to be a simple matter of intellectual curiosity. They don’t resent me; they are not reproaching me in anyway. I owe it to them to be truthful: “First of all, don’t think that I am deaf or indifferent to what you are enduring. I am listening to you, and I hear you. But since you say you are familiar with the nature of my testimony, you must also be aware of my attachment to Israel. Now, you cannot deny that Israel is living in fear, for reasons that may or may not be valid, and that it is a fear inspired by you. Help me dissipate that fear, and I promise you that my friends and I will do everything we can not only to hear you but to make others hear you as well.” Unlike their Israeli defenders, they take up the challenge. The understanding created between us justifies hope.
The next conference is held in August 1990 in Oslo. The theme is “The Anatomy of Hate and Conflict Resolution.” In a historic precedent, the Nobel committee itself is our co-organizer. The Norwegian government, supportive as always, places its infrastructure and its considerable means at our disposal. Everything works magnificently, miraculously, without a hitch. Airplane tickets, hotels, restaurants, programs, transportation, simultaneous interpretation, press relations—more than four hundred accredited journalists ensure an international coverage worthy of a summit conference. Under the direction of Geir Grung of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geir Lundestad of the Nobel Institute, and Chief Rabbi Michael Melchior, the event runs as smoothly as a Swiss watch. From the moment they get off their plane, all participants are taken in hand by a member of the reception committee and a representative of the government. There is no passport check, no customs inspection; no customs officials are to be seen. Every guest is treated like the star of the conference. Of course, the list of participants is impressive: François Mitterrand; Václav Havel; Nelson Mandela; the Lithuanian president, Vytautas Landsbergis; Jo Benkow, speaker of the Norwegian Parliament; Jimmy Carter; John Kenneth Galbraith; Conor Cruise O’Brien; Ehud Olmert, Israeli minister of health; Hanna Siniora, editor in chief of an Arabic daily in Jerusalem; the Cuban poet Armando Valladares; the German novelist Günter Grass, the Hungarian novelist György Konrád; the journalists Herbert Pundik from Politiken in Copenhagen and Abe Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb from the New York Times…. All told, some fifty politicians, intellectuals, scientists, educators, psychiatrists from many different countries have gathered to seek together a response to the hate that continues to haunt and afflict nations.
As for the artistic aspect of the event, Marion heads the special team that has taken on the intricate and subtle preparations of the concert that, traditionally, becomes the highlight of our conferences. Audrey Hepburn, delicate and supremely gracious, and Gregory Peck, grave and regal, act as masters of ceremonies. The orchestra is conducted by Lukas Foss. On the program, some of the most outstanding performers of our time: the flutist James Galway, the soprano Frederica von Stade, the bass Simon Estes.
All sessions are plenary. Gidske Anderson (who will eventually succeed Egil Aarvik as chair of the Nobel Committee) and I chair the meetings. More authoritarian and less sentimental than I, she intervenes whenever I am too timid: She will interrupt a speaker who ignores the flashing red-light signal to stop and exceeds his allotted time. Almost all the speakers obey the light signal, including Jimmy Carter and François M
itterrand. One who does not is Elena Bonner. The stubborn, courageous wife of Andrei Sakharov considers herself free as always—free to speak as she wishes, when she wishes, and as long as she feels like it. Our rules not only displease her, they annoy her. I feel bad, but I am happy Gidske is enforcing the regulations.
A moving scene: Jacques Morillon of the International Red Cross is discussing the Middle East situation. He tells us that he fears for the soul of Israel. Ephraim Urbach, the venerable Talmudist, answers him: “Every time I hear that someone wants to save Israel’s soul I am seized with apprehension….” And with a great display of erudition, he firmly cites examples from the present and the past. The next day Morillon offers public apologies.
In another scene, no less moving, Leon Wessels, deputy foreign minister of South Africa, addresses Nelson Mandela: “Nelson, I was born with apartheid; what I wish for now is to attend its funeral.” The two men begin a dialogue that surely contributed to the process of democratization in their country.
And François Mitterrand charms everyone with his simplicity. He sits surrounded by intellectuals, some well known, some not so well known, but none who has his rank or power.
And Václav Havel, who tells of how he never felt hate, not even for his jailers.
And the Czech children’s choir he has brought in his plane to sing—magnificently—at the concert.
And Nadine Gordimer, not yet a Nobel Prize laureate, who denounces racism with conviction.
And John Galbraith, who demonstrates that humor, too, helps resolve human conflict.
The conference ends with the drafting of an Oslo Declaration, which we wish to be solemn. Here it is:
This ancient scourge, whose origins remain hidden in darkness, knows neither barriers nor frontiers. It strikes all races and religions, all political systems and social classes, and because hatred is willed by man, God Himself is unable to stop it. No nation may consider itself protected against its poison; no society is safe against its arrows. Both blind and blinding, this hatred is a black sun, which from under an ashen sky, hits and kills all those who forget the greatness of which they are capable and the promises once bestowed upon them. Hatred has no mercy for those who refuse to fight it. It kills whoever will not try to disarm it. Parents, teach your children that to hate is to mutilate their own future. Teachers, tell your pupils that hatred is the negation of every triumph that culture and civilization may achieve. Politicians, tell your constituencies that hatred is, at all levels, your principal enemy, and theirs. Tell all those who listen to you that hatred breeds hatred and can breed nothing else.
