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at The 92nd Street Y, New York. Supported by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Oct 18, 2012
Professor Wiesel emphasises what makes Ezekiel different from other biblical prophets. In exile in Babylon, Ezekiel, more so than his peer, Jeremiah, imagined both exile and redemption in more tangible ways. And, more than any other prophet, he saw redemption as further away from its corollaries, sin and punishment. Ezekiel also does not just convey the message of what he has heard from God, but what he saw. In Jewish tradition, we say, shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel), not re’eh Yisrael (See, O Israel). He was the first to evoke Kiddush HaShem, martyrdom, in Jewish collective memory. He was also a man of repetitions (he calls out Adoshem, Adoshem -- O Lord, O Lord -- two hundred times and of extremes -- from the ecstasy of the chariot, the merkava, to the terror of the dry bones. Professor Wiesel questions whether the dry bones really came back to life and explains that on this point Ezekiel became evasive like a politician and that Talmudic opinion was divided. Professor Wiesel stresses that Ezekiel appeals particularly to “our generation,” the generation of survivors, who felt resurrected from the dead. He recalls that when he arrived in France with other “Buchenwald Children,” one of the survivors asked for a Bible and started to read from Ezekiel. One adolescent responded by asking whether Ezekiel had foreseen the concentration camp, and another suggested that Ezekiel had been there in the camp with them.
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