PRESIDENT'S CORNER - July 22, 2016
Welcome to Vol. II, No. 1: Last week was the 50th of these Corners, so I thought it might be nice to start over. We’ve got good news and bad news this week…
Some light went out of the world on July 2nd when Elie Wiesel passed from this life. When a teenager asked if Wiesel could summarize his advice to live a good life, Wiesel offered four words: “Think higher. Live Deeper.” [Time magazine obit 7.25.16]
Wiesel’s life story reminds me of a novel I read many years ago by another concentration camp survivor, Andre Schwarz-Bart: The Last of the Just, which uses an ancient legend to portray the suffering of the Jewish people through the centuries. It’s a story that has never left me. The tradition of the Levy family relates to the legend of the Thirty-six Just Men, the Lamed-Vov, upon whom in each generation the world reposes. Adapting the legend to serve as his leading motif, Schwarz-Bart depicts the Lamed-Vov as supporting the world by absorbing all its ills and griefs. “For the Lamed-Vov are the hearts of the world multiplied, and into them, as into one receptacle, pour all our griefs.” Without them, Schwarz-Bart says, “humanity would suffocate with a single cry.” With them, life can go on and God can continue to bear the ordeal of looking on the world. Also the legend says that the Lamed-Vovnik comes forth in times of Jewish adversity not only to suffer but to assist and console. It tells of young Ernie Levy, who is identified as “the last of the just” and who must coen to grips with his legacy. [With thanks to Commentary magazine]
Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, was also published in 1960, eventually selling over 10 million copies. In Night, he said, I wanted to show the end, the finality of the event. Everything came to an end—man, history, literature, religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with night." With Dawn and Day, his trilogy of the Holocaust was complete. In the life he led, I can’t help feeling that Elie Wiesel was one of the Just Men of our time. May he remain in our hearts forever.
Book Club: I keep hoping to hear from you about what you are reading and would like to recommend to the rest of us. So, let me hear from you—don’t be shy! That said, if you have never read Night or The Last of the Just, you could not go wrong with either.
Fall Course Proposals: Today is the deadline for proposals for the fall term. Please do your duty and/or send Bob Craig any ideas you may have for classes and who might offer them.
I close today with some quotes by Elie Wiesel…
There is divine beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.
If the only prayer you say throughout your life is "Thank You," then that will be enough.
…and…
Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.
― Elie Wiesel, Dawn
Stay cool on this HOT weekend!
Jim Held, President