Night: Chapter One

THEY CALLED HIM Moishe the Beadle, as if his entire life he had never had a surname.

THEY CALLED HIM Moishe the Beadle, as if his entire life he had never had a surname.

He was poor and lived in utter penury.

He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible.

He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible.

Physically, he was as awkward as a clown.

Shekhinah in Exile, where, according to Kabbalah, it awaits its redemption linked to that of man.

Shekhinah in Exile, where, according to Kabbalah, it awaits its redemption linked to that of man.

By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple.

Maimonides tells us that one must be thirty before venturing into the world of mysticism, a world fraught with peril.

My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental.

Jewish community of Sighet held him in highest esteem; his advice on public and even private matters was frequently sought.

In vain.

Because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die.

After a long silence, he said, "There are a thousand and one gates allowing entry into the orchard of mystical truth.

He must not err and wish to enter the orchard through a gate other than his own.

And Moishe the Beadle, the poorest of the poor of Sighet, spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah's revelations and its mysteries.

Thus began my initiation.

Not to learn it by heart but to discover within the very essence of divinity.

AND THEN, one day all foreign Jews were expelled from Sighet.

Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks.

Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things.

As for Moishe, he wept and pleaded:

Splendid news from the Russian Front.

Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us.

Annihilate an entire people?

And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manner of things—strategy, diplomacy, politics, and Zionism—but not with their own fate.

In those days it was still possible to buy emigration certificates to Palestine.

I had asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave.

The regent Miklós Horthy was forced to ask a leader of the pro-Nazi

Finally, people began to worry in earnest.

ANGUISH.

They never demanded the impossible, made no offensive remarks, and sometimes even smiled at the lady of the house.

The optimists were jubilant: "Well?

The weather was sublime.

First edict: Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for three days, under penally of death.

Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star.

My father's view was that it was not all bleak, or perhaps he just did not want to discourage the others, to throw salt on their wounds:

Jewish police force, a welfare agency, a labor committee, a health agency—a whole governmental apparatus.

The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion.

Some schoolmates and I were in Ezra Malik's garden studying a Talmudic treatise.

My father was sharing some anecdotes and holding forth on his opinion of the situation.

We were stunned, yet we wanted to fully absorb the bitter news.

The shadows around me roused themselves as if from a deep sleep and left silently in every direction.

It was all in jest.

Then he went over to the bed where his wife lay sleeping and with infinite tenderness touched her forehead.

My father was running right and left, exhausted, consoling friends, checking with the Jewish Council just in case the order had been rescinded.

My father was running right and left, exhausted, consoling friends, checking with the Jewish Council just in case the order had been rescinded.

Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty grounds—pitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home.

Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty grounds—pitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home.

All this under a magnificent blue sky.

By eight o'clock in the morning, weariness had settled into our veins, our limbs, our brains, like molten lead.

Some of the Jewish police surreptitiously went to fill a few jugs.

People must have thought there could be no greater torment in God's hell than that of being stranded here, on the sidewalk, among the bundles, in the middle of the street under a blazing sun.

His very presence in the procession was enough to make the scene seem surreal.

It was like a page torn from a book, a historical novel, perhaps, dealing with the captivity in Babylon or the Spanish Inquisition.

They had ceased to matter.

Gaping doors and windows looked out into the void.

There had been incidents of hysteria and harsh blows.

Policemen wielding clubs were shouting:

I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later.

She was clenching her teeth; she already knew it was useless to complain.

Its inhabitants evidently had been caught by surprise.

Despite her fatigue, my mother began to prepare a meal.

People's morale was not so bad: we were beginning to get used to the situation.

And then surely the civilian population will be evacuated ..."

"They worry lest we join the partisans ..."

"As far as I'm concerned, this whole business of deportation is nothing but a big farce.

There no longer was any distinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate—still unknown.

There no longer was any distinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate—still unknown.

There no longer was any distinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate—still unknown.

SATURDAY, the day of rest, was the day chosen for our expulsion.

But behind the shutters, our friends of yesterday were probably waiting for the moment when they could loot our homes.

The twenty-four hours we spent there were horrendous.

A prolonged whistle pierced the air.

A prolonged whistle pierced the air.

He was poor and lived in utter penury.