All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [215]
Levi Eshkol died before he could see the realization of the dream. He was a generous and good man. Golda Meir succeeded him as the first waves of Soviet Jews began arriving in Israel.
Upon returning to the United States I threw myself into the struggle for Soviet Jews. Both here and in France my testimony at last brought some reaction, especially among young people, but little action, official or otherwise. Abraham Joshua Heschel and I pleaded with audiences in the United States and Canada. Disappointed by the sparse attendance of adults, I often began by asking high school students, “Where are your parents? Why didn’t they come with you? Next time make them come too!”
Wherever we went, we found that only the young responded. How could we awaken the powerful Jewish communities? I wrote article after article in the Forverts, Yedioth, and Hadassah magazine, circulated appeals and petitions, rushed from demonstration to demonstration and convention to convention: rabbinical associations in Toronto, Miami, and New Jersey, institutes and conferences of philanthropic groups. I accepted all radio, television, and press interviews on the subject. But nothing happened, and like Meir and Ephraim, I felt frustrated. We had to do something else, we had to do more.
Gershon Swet, of Russian origin and dean of correspondents for Israeli newspapers, proposed that I meet with several influential Jewish intellectuals at his home. I told them of the complacency and silence of the old people and the courage and defiance of the young. I told them how miraculous it seemed to discover so many Jews defying the most feared regime on earth in order to remain Jewish. Imagine, I said, a course in Talmud in Moscow.
They asked questions, and I replied as best I could. One man in particular stood out. I was struck by the combination of irony and kindness in his blue eyes. He asked for details about the Talmud course in Moscow: the number of participants, their ages, the length of the session, the treatise they studied, the commentaries they used. Fortunately, I recalled every detail of my visit to the Moscow synagogue.
When the host offered us tea, I took the opportunity to inquire about the man who had posed all those questions. “Don’t you know him?” he asked, surprised. “That’s Dr. Saul Lieberman.” So this was the man whose landmark work on the Jerusalem Talmud I had studied and so admired. Just then the master came over to where we were standing, hand extended. He asked more questions. “Tell me the truth,” he said in a low voice so that no one else could hear. “Is it true you studied the tractate of Sanhedrin in what you call the Moscow yeshiva?” I told him it was true, except it wasn’t really a yeshiva. “Are you certain it was really the Talmud?” I was. “You’re interested in the Talmud, then?” Yes. “Since when?” Since childhood. Gershon Swet intervened: “You ought to come to one of his lectures at the 92nd Street Y.” Lieberman smiled: “Oh, you teach?” Intimidated, wishing to drop the subject, I replied: “Yes, but it’s not important.” But Lieberman would not let it go. “What do you teach?” A little of everything, I said, but really, it’s not important. “Still, what are you going to talk about in your next session?” I swallowed hard and murmured that I would deal with, well, a Talmudic subject. “Really! In that case, I’ll be there.” He called his wife, Judith, over, introduced us, and asked her to make a note of the date of my lecture. Judith took me aside and politely told me not to count on their showing up. Her husband would probably discover he was otherwise engaged that evening.
She was wrong. Though I had prepared as well as possible, I got stage fright when I saw the couple in the audience. Was I now to talk about the Talmud in the presence of my generation’s greatest Talmudist? I began by citing the maxim that a disciple who dares teach the Halachah (the Law) in his master’s presence is guilty of a capital crime. As it happened, Dr. Lieberman was not (yet) my master, and