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Filled with Fire and Light

Portraits and Legends from the Bible, Talmud, and Hasidic World

Read by Assaf Cohen
Edited by Alan Rosen
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Here are magnificent insights into the lives of biblical prophets and kings, talmudic sages, and Hasidic rabbis from the internationally acclaimed writer, Nobel laureate, and one of the world’s most honored and beloved teachers.

“This posthumous collection encourages a path toward purpose and transcendence.” —The New York Times Book Review

From a multitude of sources, Elie Wiesel culls facts, legends, and anecdotes to give us fascinating portraits of notable figures throughout Jewish history. Here is the prophet Elisha, wonder-worker and adviser to kings, whose compassion for those in need is matched only by his fiery temper. Here is the renowned scholar Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, whose ingenuity in escaping from a besieged Jerusalem on the eve of its destruction by Roman legions in 70 CE laid the foundation for the rab­binic teachings and commentaries that revolutionized the practice and study of Judaism and have sustained the Jewish people for two thousand years of ongoing exile. And here is Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad Hasidism, languishing in a Czarist prison in 1798, the victim of a false accusation, engaging in theological discussions with his jailers that would form the basis for Chabad’s legendary method of engagement with the world at large.
 
In recounting the life stories of these and other spiritual seekers, in delving into the struggles of human beings trying to create meaningful lives touched with sparks of the divine, Wiesel challenges and inspires us all to fill our own lives with commitment and sanctity.

Elisha
The Perfect Disciple
 
 
The man is strange, elusive, complex, full of contradictions. Why is he so severe one day and so affectionate the next? Which principle governs his existence? A man of faith, is he a carrier of hope or of punishment? Is he dominated by rage or by love? He astonishes us by his humanity as much as by his inflex­ibility. Can he be understood by us, always? Does he understand himself? How is one to reconcile the kindness he shows a barren woman and the tenderness he demonstrates toward a lifeless boy with his apparent cruelty to other, living children?
 
Of course, he is a prophet, and prophets do not seek to be understood or admired. All they want is to be obeyed. They teach by example. They follow God’s words; why shouldn’t people follow theirs? People rarely understand what a prophet expects of them. Nor does he understand what God wants of him. But he remains obedient—always.
 
Is Elisha son of Shafat my favorite prophet? As with the great Hasidic masters whose souls were sent down to put ours on fire, all of the prophets are my favorite—but one at a time. When I evoke Isaiah, the prince of the prophets, it is he whom I most admire. But when I tell of Jeremiah’s witness, it is he whose inspiration I seek. Each time I am drawn to a prophet, whether because of the majesty of his language or the intensity of his vision, he becomes the melodious center of my inner landscape.
 
Since Moses, the prophets have shaped the lives of the Jew­ish people by influencing their practices as well as their dreams. Some distinguished themselves through fear, others through hope. Some felt their mission was to disturb, others to console. What do they have in common? They allow the human being to be sovereign and speak truth to power. For them, truth matters. God is not only truthful, He is Truth itself. Truth is God’s seal, just as human beings are in His image. Our prophets proclaimed this even if it made them unpopular. Since they were not elected to their positions with the assistance of political parties, they were totally independent. They owed nothing to kings or to their subjects because they owed everything to God and God alone. God was their only elector and very special protector. And yet, prophets led lives filled with solitude and suffering; only rarely did God come to their aid. But they knew that their suffering had meaning.
 
How can one not feel for them, how can one not approach them with both humility and gratitude?
 
The Romans had their legislators and gladiators, the Greeks their oracles and philosophers. As for the Jews, they had their prophets. Did they reveal the future? No. The present occupied them more deeply than the future. What they did was unravel the significance of the present so as to understand its conse­quences for the future. In so doing, they praised virtue and con­demned the cheap seduction of evil. Their mission consisted of trying to reunite the people of Israel and the God of Israel.
 
Were they all-powerful? Was their power limitless? In matters of study and law, they enjoyed no privileged status. “Chakham adif mi’navi,” states the Talmud. A sage, a master has priority over the prophet. In debates, it is the word of the sage and the scholar that is decisive. We are guided by his position, not by that of the prophet. But isn’t the prophet God’s emis­sary? Yes, but his voice is like the bat kol, the heavenly voice; it does not affect the outcome of the debate. We are commanded to believe that the Torah “lo b’shamayim hi,” the Torah is not in heaven but here, on earth. It is to be found not among the angels but among human beings. It is up to us to appropriate it, study it, comment on it, and interpret its eternal message. Is it meant to put the prophet back in his place? Perhaps, but—where is his place?
 
These questions relate to all the prophets—thus also to Eli­sha. Who is he when he is not possessed by God’s words and is compelled to use his own? Does he have a private life, a secret existence? Does he have aspirations that are independent of God?
 
Whenever we approach a biblical or Talmudic topic, we must place it in the context of our need to create through learn­ing a community from which it is possible to draw, as from an inexhaustible fountain, a joy that is exhilarating and pure. One studies these texts not out of a desire to please or to conquer but to better understand things that both elude and envelop our being in an endless quest for transcendence.
 
One studies the words left to us by the prophets in order to penetrate our collective memory, to help us find ourselves again, as we did thousands of years earlier, in the silence that, at dawn, hovers over the eternity one encounters only in the stones and the souls of Jerusalem.

“This posthumous collection encourages a path toward purpose and transcendence.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“I was fascinated by these simply told tales of intelligence, perseverance, and miracles. Wiesel’s writing is a conversation with the reader, leavened with a sense of humor. In Filled with Fire and Light, he could even find something positive to say about the devil. He saw light where others saw only darkness.”
—Forward

“Wiesel displays his rhetorical gifts in this collection of essays, which includes a look at the unusual friendship between an ancient rabbinic scholar and a reformed criminal. They achieve his goal of studying the stories ‘in the context of our need to create, through learning, a community’ and in a way that can inspire joy and ethical behavior. Wiesel astounds with these timeless lessons drawn from ancient texts.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“A posthumous collection by Nobel laureate Wiesel probes the sources of Jewish wisdom. Empathetic inquiries into the challenges of faith celebrate the lives and struggles of spiritual leaders appearing in the Bible and the Talmud, and in Hasidic lore.”
—Kirkus Reviews
ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016. View titles by Elie Wiesel
Introduction by Alan Rosen vii

FROM THE BIBLE
Elisha: The Perfect Disciple 3
King Josiah: Fighting Against Idolatry 26
God in the Torah: The Five Books of Moses 46
 
FROM THE TALMUD
Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish: The Sage and the Adventurer 69
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai: The Hope of the Word 96
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus: A Minority of One 124
Satan in Ancient Memories 149
 
FROM THE HASIDIC WORLD
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi: A Commitment to Fervor 165
A Different Master: Rabbi Uri of Strelisk, the Seraph 197

About

Here are magnificent insights into the lives of biblical prophets and kings, talmudic sages, and Hasidic rabbis from the internationally acclaimed writer, Nobel laureate, and one of the world’s most honored and beloved teachers.

“This posthumous collection encourages a path toward purpose and transcendence.” —The New York Times Book Review

From a multitude of sources, Elie Wiesel culls facts, legends, and anecdotes to give us fascinating portraits of notable figures throughout Jewish history. Here is the prophet Elisha, wonder-worker and adviser to kings, whose compassion for those in need is matched only by his fiery temper. Here is the renowned scholar Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, whose ingenuity in escaping from a besieged Jerusalem on the eve of its destruction by Roman legions in 70 CE laid the foundation for the rab­binic teachings and commentaries that revolutionized the practice and study of Judaism and have sustained the Jewish people for two thousand years of ongoing exile. And here is Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad Hasidism, languishing in a Czarist prison in 1798, the victim of a false accusation, engaging in theological discussions with his jailers that would form the basis for Chabad’s legendary method of engagement with the world at large.
 
In recounting the life stories of these and other spiritual seekers, in delving into the struggles of human beings trying to create meaningful lives touched with sparks of the divine, Wiesel challenges and inspires us all to fill our own lives with commitment and sanctity.

Excerpt

Elisha
The Perfect Disciple
 
 
The man is strange, elusive, complex, full of contradictions. Why is he so severe one day and so affectionate the next? Which principle governs his existence? A man of faith, is he a carrier of hope or of punishment? Is he dominated by rage or by love? He astonishes us by his humanity as much as by his inflex­ibility. Can he be understood by us, always? Does he understand himself? How is one to reconcile the kindness he shows a barren woman and the tenderness he demonstrates toward a lifeless boy with his apparent cruelty to other, living children?
 
Of course, he is a prophet, and prophets do not seek to be understood or admired. All they want is to be obeyed. They teach by example. They follow God’s words; why shouldn’t people follow theirs? People rarely understand what a prophet expects of them. Nor does he understand what God wants of him. But he remains obedient—always.
 
Is Elisha son of Shafat my favorite prophet? As with the great Hasidic masters whose souls were sent down to put ours on fire, all of the prophets are my favorite—but one at a time. When I evoke Isaiah, the prince of the prophets, it is he whom I most admire. But when I tell of Jeremiah’s witness, it is he whose inspiration I seek. Each time I am drawn to a prophet, whether because of the majesty of his language or the intensity of his vision, he becomes the melodious center of my inner landscape.
 
Since Moses, the prophets have shaped the lives of the Jew­ish people by influencing their practices as well as their dreams. Some distinguished themselves through fear, others through hope. Some felt their mission was to disturb, others to console. What do they have in common? They allow the human being to be sovereign and speak truth to power. For them, truth matters. God is not only truthful, He is Truth itself. Truth is God’s seal, just as human beings are in His image. Our prophets proclaimed this even if it made them unpopular. Since they were not elected to their positions with the assistance of political parties, they were totally independent. They owed nothing to kings or to their subjects because they owed everything to God and God alone. God was their only elector and very special protector. And yet, prophets led lives filled with solitude and suffering; only rarely did God come to their aid. But they knew that their suffering had meaning.
 
How can one not feel for them, how can one not approach them with both humility and gratitude?
 
The Romans had their legislators and gladiators, the Greeks their oracles and philosophers. As for the Jews, they had their prophets. Did they reveal the future? No. The present occupied them more deeply than the future. What they did was unravel the significance of the present so as to understand its conse­quences for the future. In so doing, they praised virtue and con­demned the cheap seduction of evil. Their mission consisted of trying to reunite the people of Israel and the God of Israel.
 
Were they all-powerful? Was their power limitless? In matters of study and law, they enjoyed no privileged status. “Chakham adif mi’navi,” states the Talmud. A sage, a master has priority over the prophet. In debates, it is the word of the sage and the scholar that is decisive. We are guided by his position, not by that of the prophet. But isn’t the prophet God’s emis­sary? Yes, but his voice is like the bat kol, the heavenly voice; it does not affect the outcome of the debate. We are commanded to believe that the Torah “lo b’shamayim hi,” the Torah is not in heaven but here, on earth. It is to be found not among the angels but among human beings. It is up to us to appropriate it, study it, comment on it, and interpret its eternal message. Is it meant to put the prophet back in his place? Perhaps, but—where is his place?
 
These questions relate to all the prophets—thus also to Eli­sha. Who is he when he is not possessed by God’s words and is compelled to use his own? Does he have a private life, a secret existence? Does he have aspirations that are independent of God?
 
Whenever we approach a biblical or Talmudic topic, we must place it in the context of our need to create through learn­ing a community from which it is possible to draw, as from an inexhaustible fountain, a joy that is exhilarating and pure. One studies these texts not out of a desire to please or to conquer but to better understand things that both elude and envelop our being in an endless quest for transcendence.
 
One studies the words left to us by the prophets in order to penetrate our collective memory, to help us find ourselves again, as we did thousands of years earlier, in the silence that, at dawn, hovers over the eternity one encounters only in the stones and the souls of Jerusalem.

Reviews

“This posthumous collection encourages a path toward purpose and transcendence.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“I was fascinated by these simply told tales of intelligence, perseverance, and miracles. Wiesel’s writing is a conversation with the reader, leavened with a sense of humor. In Filled with Fire and Light, he could even find something positive to say about the devil. He saw light where others saw only darkness.”
—Forward

“Wiesel displays his rhetorical gifts in this collection of essays, which includes a look at the unusual friendship between an ancient rabbinic scholar and a reformed criminal. They achieve his goal of studying the stories ‘in the context of our need to create, through learning, a community’ and in a way that can inspire joy and ethical behavior. Wiesel astounds with these timeless lessons drawn from ancient texts.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“A posthumous collection by Nobel laureate Wiesel probes the sources of Jewish wisdom. Empathetic inquiries into the challenges of faith celebrate the lives and struggles of spiritual leaders appearing in the Bible and the Talmud, and in Hasidic lore.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Author

ELIE WIESEL was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016. View titles by Elie Wiesel

Table of Contents

Introduction by Alan Rosen vii

FROM THE BIBLE
Elisha: The Perfect Disciple 3
King Josiah: Fighting Against Idolatry 26
God in the Torah: The Five Books of Moses 46
 
FROM THE TALMUD
Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish: The Sage and the Adventurer 69
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai: The Hope of the Word 96
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus: A Minority of One 124
Satan in Ancient Memories 149
 
FROM THE HASIDIC WORLD
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi: A Commitment to Fervor 165
A Different Master: Rabbi Uri of Strelisk, the Seraph 197