When Eli Wiesel Wept

the yeshiva.net ali wiesel was very close to my father allah shalom allah mashon he once came to my house and he was crying he told my father that just unbelievable story that he was in auschwitz with his father and he said i had a piece of bread and my father had a piece of bread he was 14 years old and i was starving and i wasn't just starving you know when you're starving and the the starvation doesn't cease and he started to cry and he said my wish was that my father would die so i could get his piece of bread he says that's what they turned us into that a 14 year old jewish boy all he can pray for is his father's demise so i can get his piece of bread it's not just we were hungry it's that we were turned into insects whose sole purpose in life is survival just survival another piece of food another piece of food another morsel of bread another crumb that's all we can think about and we understand this because when a person is stripped from everything from everything i go back to my most basic basic instincts in the abraham maslow pyramid of human needs king david was such a fugitive that's what he should have been asking for just give me another morsel of bread just let me sleep a night on a mattress talmud says that's not what he asked for [Music] he did not forget his human dignity he didn't forget that he was destined to be a king you remember lion king he did not forget that he was larger than his immediate needs he never took his eyes off the ultimate possibility of the human being who was a reflection of divinity who was a fragment of infinity who was a piece of heaven and who deserves to live a royal life to have an impact to change the world to live up to her to his or her deepest potential i ask for one thing even as a fugitive i want to sit in the home of god he didn't only think of himself as a small person an insignificant person overwhelmed with his immediate needs he always appreciated the vision of what a person really really is a child of hashem the possibilities are infinite a human being soul is essentially eternal and timeless and therefore i'm capable and i deserve so much more this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at triple w dot the yeshiva.net donate