Messengers Of God

“Wiesel has never allowed himself to be diverted from the
role of witness for the martyred Jews and survivors of the
Holocaust and by extension for all those who through the
centuries have asked Jobs question: ‘What is God doing and
where is His justice?’ Here in a masterful series of
mythic portraits drawing upon Bible tales and the
Midrashim (a body of commentary) Wiesel explores ‘the
distant and haunting figures that molded him’: Adam Cain
and Abel Abraham and Isaac Jacob Joseph and Job. With the
dramatic invention of a Father Mapple and the exquisite
care of a Talmudic scholar Wiesel interprets the
wellsprings of Jewish religious tradition as the many
faces of man’s greatness facing the inexplicable. In an
intimate relationship with God it is possible to complain
to demand. Adam and Eve in sinning “cried out” against the
injustice of their entrapment; Cain assaulted God rather
than his brother; and Abrahams agreement to sacrifice his
son placed the burden of guilt on Him who demanded it. As
for Job Wiesel concludes that he abdicated his defiance as
did the confessing Communists of Stalin’s time to
‘underline the implausibility’ of his trial and thus
become the accuser. Wiesel’s concern with the
imponderables of fate seems to move from strength to
strength