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at The 92nd Street Y, New York. Supported by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
May 22, 2014
Professor Wiesel invited journalist Marvin Kalb for a conversation on a subject of his choice and he decided upon “the simple subject of freedom.” Kalb is very interested in the First Commandment, in which God says that He brought you out of bondage in Egypt, put slavery behind you and gave you a path forward. Professor Wiesel agrees with Kalb that this is the basis of our faith and that Egypt formed us as a people with an accent on memory. You are commanded to remember that you left Egypt and have been a slave. Kalb asks Professor Wiesel if there is a connection between the concept of freedom in the first of the Ten Commandments and the concept of freedom of religion in the first of the ten amendments of the US Constitution. The founding fathers of America, influenced by the Bible, put down freedom first and self-defense second. Professor Wiesel explains that when God speaks of slavery, He says that we have been His servants, not someone else’s. The commandment is against slavery to any person; if at all, it is to God. And yet, paradoxically, faith in God and His law should be an act of freedom.
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