Job is a ‘blueprint for all human beings,’ Wiesel says

The Book of Job is relevant to the modern world in its portrait of human faith and resilience, professor Elie Wiesel said. 

Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Holocaust survivor and Boston University professor, began his annual fall lecture series Monday with an address entitled “In the Bible: Job Revisited” to an audience of more than 800 students and Boston area residents in Metcalf Hall.

Wiesel is known for his memoir “Night,” published in 1956, about his experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.   

“Job’s own quest for meaning and concern for justice cannot not appeal to our own,” he said. 

He said chief among these lessons was the vital nature of speaking up about important issues, an effort to which Wiesel has committed his life and career. 

“In times of trouble, silence helps the victimizer, never the victim,” he said, adding that Job suffered because he remained silent. 

A common thread in all of Wiesel’s work is an adversity to indifference in the face of injustice. 

“We are all against indifference,” he said. “What is the Talmud if not a reinforcement of that commandment, ‘Thou shall not stand idly by,’ one of the most beautiful of all commandments?” 

Wiesel summed up by saying that the story of Job is inextricably linked with both Jewish culture and humanity in general. 

“It is a story not of beginnings, but of beginning again,” he said. “Isn’t this an essential component of Jewish history?” 

He said the fact that Job was able to begin again serves as a “blueprint for all human beings, everywhere, ever.” 

College of Arts and Sciences senior Elizabeth Mauro said she felt she needed to take advantage of the opportunity to see Wiesel speak while she still attended BU.

 “I’d definitely give it two thumbs up,” she said. “There was one sentence he said that I could have sat here for an hour and a half and thought about, ‘Why was Job satisfied with God’s response? Job was satisfied simply because He had spoken.’ That said it all for me.” 

CAS senior Anna Dias-Mandoly said she respected Wiesel for his accessibility.

“He’s not one of those scholarly people who sits around using convoluted words,” Dias-Mandoly said. “When he talked about how his students were the most important people he dealt with, I just thought, ‘This is why I love BU.’”  

Others said they enjoyed Wiesel’s perspective on the relevance of the Book of Job. 

“I really liked how he related the story of Job to everyone,” CAS freshman Diana Garcia said. “Specifically his interpretation of how everyone suffers, but is reborn and able to learn from it.”

Jean Mekkaoui, a housewife from Dover, and Barry Jennings, an artist from Mansfield, said they traveled to BU to take advantage of the opportunity to see Wiesel speak. 

“It’s an honor to listen to a man like him,” Mekkaoui said. “There’s only one Elie Wiesel, and if we can have a chance to be a student for one night, why wouldn’t we take advantage of that?” 

“When you know that you are going to be talking about something the entire next day, that means that something has resonated,” Jennings added. “It really hit home for me.” 

Wiesel’s lecture series will continue with presentations on Nov. 2 and 9, entitled “In the Talmud and Other Sources: Satan in Ancient Memories” and “In Our Own Time: The Tragedy of the Saint Louis.”

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