All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [176]
Seated like a queen mother among our guests, she talked about President Nixon, expressing great affection for him. When a professor of political science asked how she could possibly defend his Vietnam policy, she brought all her eloquence to bear in defending her friend in the White House. The humorist Herbert Tarr tried to break the tension by raising his hand. “I have a question,” he said. “Mrs. Meir, will you marry me?” Her answer was barely audible amid the outbreak of laughter: “Would you be embarrassed if I said yes …?”
My thoughts turned to Golda on September 13, 1993, when, oscillating between hope and fear, I attended the White House signing ceremony for the agreement between Israel and the PLO. “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” she had confidently asserted. Twenty years after the Yom Kippur war, fifteen years after Golda Meir’s death, the whole world recognized with Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton that a Palestinian people does exist and that it has the right to fulfill its destiny.
Rabban Gamliel, son of Rabbi Yehuda the Prince, said: “Be careful in your relations with those in power; they draw you close or allow you to approach them only when they need you. They are your friends when your friendship is useful to them and affords them pleasure, but they forget you when you are in trouble.” I have thought of this often. Is it wise for a writer to come too close to power? Is it prudent to be a friend to princes? Naturally, it depends on the writer, on what he values. And what is power? I would later discuss the question with François Mitterrand, and also with my master Saul Lieberman.
In the Jewish tradition there are three powers, or forms of power: those of the king, the prophet, and the priest. In ancient times their election was inspired by God, but none survived the Temple’s destruction. Today every leader believes himself king, every member of the clergy takes himself to be the high priest, and “prophets” indulge too much in politics.
During the time Sighet was under Hungarian rule, schoolchildren had to do compulsory service in the Leventes, a kind of scout movement under the supervision of the army and the Ministry of Education. We had to perform various tasks, such as digging trenches at army bases, helping firefighters, or clearing snowbound streets. One day—it was a Friday—I was assigned to head a team. Exempted from the task of wielding a shovel, I was supposed to oversee, command, and shout—very loudly. I took my role seriously, rushing from group to group berating laggards: Hurry up, the snow has to be cleared by nightfall, before Shabbat! Suddenly I found myself face to face with the grandson of the Borsher Rebbe. He was a close friend of mine. We often studied together, and prayed at the same times. He stared at me with an expression not so much of disapproval as of sadness and surprise. Was I going to harangue him too, make him feel my power, my authority? When my eyes met his, I was overcome by remorse. I began to stammer excuses, at which point our commander appeared on the scene. Realizing that I was not cut out for this job, he shook me and screamed, “Next time, you fool, you’ll sweat blood like everyone else.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw my friend smiling. I would later see men of all ages who, in extreme situations, brutally exercised their power over their fellow inmates. Sometimes I ask myself whether I would have been like them had I been appointed a kapo or Vorarbeiter. To this day I feel that no one has the right to judge or draw comparisons. Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
Over the years I have observed many politicians, who often have disappointed me. Ambition brings them to center stage, where they posture as social reformer or revolutionary ideologue. For too many of them it is theater. They act the part, and the journalist who reports (or even amplifies) their words becomes