And the Sea Is Never Full (59 page)
Read And the Sea Is Never Full Online
Authors: Elie Wiesel
How am I to sing, Mother, how am I to sing the songs that your father, Grandfather Dodye, taught us on Rosh Hashana eve?
How can one still love in this life, when you, Tsipouka, my gentle sister whose future was stolen by the enemy, when you entered death so small, so frail, so innocent?
I still have so many questions to ask you, Father. So many doors to open, so many secrets to discover. Will I have the time?
From the other room, or is it the other side of night, a sweet voice breaks into my daydream: “Did you call me, Father?”
I answer: “Yes, my son. I called you.”
*
One Generation After
(New York: Random House), 1970.
| Aggadah | Traditional Jewish literature; commentaries, aphorisms, legends of the Talmud. |
| ahavat Israel | Love for, devotion to, the Jewish people. |
| aliyah | 1) “Ascent” toward Jerusalem, hence immigration to Israel; 2) the honor of being called up to read a section of the weekly portion of the Torah. |
| Amidah | The principal daily prayer, recited standing and silently. |
| Aufruf | The tradition in which a bridegroom is called to the Torah on the Shabbat preceding his wedding. |
| bar mitzvah | The ceremony marking the assumption of adult religious responsibilities, at age thirteen. |
| Beit (Ha)midrash | A house of study and prayer; a synagogue. |
| Besht | Initials of Baal Shem Tov, the “Master of the Good Name,” founder of the Hasidic movement. |
| Bimah | The raised platform used for the reading of the Torah. |
| B’nai B’rith | A Jewish social and philanthropic organization. |
| chuppah | At a wedding, the canopy under which the marriage ceremony is performed. |
| genizah | A hiding place for sacred books and objects. |
| Haganah | The well-known Jewish paramilitary self-defense organization in Palestine. |
| Halakhah | The body of rabbinical law. |
| Halakhic | Relating to Halakhah. |
| Hasid (Hasidim) | Literally, “pious man.” A disciple of the movement founded by the Baal Shem Tov. |
| Havdalah | The ceremony at the conclusion of Shabbat marking its separation from the rest of the week. |
| heder | A religious elementary school; Hebrew school. |
| Irgun | A Jewish nationalist underground organization which fought against the British occupation in Palestine. |
| Kaddish | The prayer for the dead. |
| kipa | A skullcap, or yarmulka, worn by Jewish males. |
| Kol Nidre | The prayer opening the Yom Kippur evening service. |
| kosher | Ritually pure, in accordance with dietary laws. |
| Marranos | Spanish Jews who, though forced to convert to Catholicism, continued to practice Judaism clandestinely. |
| mezuzah | A parchment containing passages from the Pentateuch that is rolled into a case and affixed to the doorpost as an expression of faith. |
| midrash | A parable; a story that embodies and expresses moral teaching or a tenet of faith; also, a volume of midrashim. |
| Minha | The afternoon service. |
| minyan | A quorum of ten men required for a communal religious service. |
| Mishna | The codification of the Oral Law based upon the laws and commandments of the Torah, and the basis in turn for the Gemara, or Talmud. |
| mitzvah | A divine commandment. |
| Musaf | The additional service following the main morning service on the Shabbat and holidays. |
| Neilah | The concluding service of Yom Kippur. |
| Palmah | An elite Haganah strike force whose members were recruited from kibbutzim. |
| Pesach | Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrating the Exodus from Egypt. |
| Purim | The holiday (marked by games, exchanges of gifts, and skits) commemorating the victory of the Jews of Persia over their enemy Haman. |
| Rosh Hashana | The Jewish New Year. |
| rosh yeshiva | The head of a rabbinical academy. |
| Seder | The ritual meal on Passover, during which the story of the Exodus from Egypt is told. |
| Sefer Torah | Sacred parchment scroll containing the books of the Pentateuch. |
| Shaharit | The morning service. |
| Shavuot | Pentecost; chiefly commemorates the Giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. |
| shivah | The first period of mourning, which lasts seven days. |
| shofar | The ram’s horn used in Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services. |
| shtetl | A Jewish village in Eastern Europe. |
| shtibel | A Hasidic place of prayer. |
| shtreimel | The wide-brimmed fur hat traditionally worn by Hasidim. |
| siddur | A prayer book. |
| Simhat Torah | The holiday celebrating the completion of the year-long reading of the Torah, and the renewal of the cycle of readings, beginning with Genesis. |
| Sukkot | The Feast of Tabernacles. |
| tallit | A ritual prayer shawl. |
| Talmud | The vast collection of rabbinical teachings, laws, and commentaries based upon the Mishna (q .v.); also called the Gemara. |
| tefillin | Phylacteries—two small leather boxes containing four passages from the Pentateuch; one is strapped to the left forearm and one to the forehead during weekday morning prayers. |
| Tisha b’Av | The Ninth of Av, a day of fasting in memory of the destruction of the Temple, which according to tradition occurred on this date. |
| Torah | The five Books of Moses, or Pentateuch; in the broader sense, the sum total of Jewish lore and learning, of which the Pentateuch is the foundation. |
| Tsahal | The Israeli army. |
| Vidui | A confession of sins. |
| Yad Vashem | The Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. |
| yahrzeit | The anniversary of the death of a parent. |
| yeshiva | A talmudic academy. |
| (pl. yeshivot) | |
| Yizkor | A service in memory of the dead, recited on the three festivals of Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot, and on Yom Kippur. |
| Yom Kippur | The Day of Atonement, the culmination of the Ten Days of Penitence which begin with Rosh Hashana, and the most sacred day in the Jewish year. |
BOOKS BY ELIE WIESEL
Available from Schocken
And the Sea Is Never Full 0-8052-1029-6
All Rivers Run to the Sea 0-8052-1028-8
A Beggar in Jerusalem 0-8052-1052-0
The Fifth Son 0-8052-1083-0
The Forgotten 0-8052-1019-9
From the Kingdom of Memory 0-8052-1020-2
The Gates of the Forest 0-8052-1044-X
The Testament 0-8052-1115-2
The Town Beyond the Wall 0-8052-1045-8
The Trial of God 0-8052-1053-9
Twilight 0-8052-1058-X
Available from Vintage
A Jew Today 0-394-74057-2
With son Elisha and President Jimmy Carter at the first Day of Remembrance ceremony, April 24, 1979.
At a commemoration of Holocaust victims in the East Room of the White House with President Reagan, April 30, 1981.
Receiving François Mitterrand at the Wiesel home in New York, March 24, 1984. At left, Leonard Bernstein.
With Mikhail Gorbachev.
With wife Marion and Lech Walesa in Auschwitz, January 17, 1988.
With Marion and the Russian Jewish singer Nehama Lifschitz after her arrival in the West in 1970.
With Egil Aarvik, chairman of the Nobel committee. In background, Marion and Elisha. Oslo, December 10, 1986.
With a friend, Dr. Leo (Sjua) Eitinger, Oslo, 1987.
With the Dalai Lama (far left), 1991.
With President George Bush in the Oval Office, March 1991.
With Gordana Dukovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Ronald Fox (U.S.A.) at the “Tomorrow’s Leaders Conference” in Venice, May 1995.
Discussing Bosnia with President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, December 1995.
In class at Boston University, 1982.
