Free All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs by Elie Wiesel Page A

Europe again. Then one day I received a letter from a lawyer in Berlin: My uncle had recently died there and had left me his estate of about a hundred dollars. I can see him now, hovering eternally between two fits of coughing, two absences. I would have liked to have known his story better.
    My cousins’ stories, the few who survived, are more or less similar to my own. On my father’s side there were Leizer, Yanku, Velvel, Reshka, Aigyu; on my mother’s Voïcsi, Dvora, Leibi, Shiku, Sruli, Eli. Some live in Belgium, others in California. One female cousin settled in Buenos Aires, another in Sao Paulo, but most abandoned the Diaspora for the Land of Israel. Among my cousins and their children you will find doctors, rabbis, diamond merchants, teachers, businessmen, scribes. I keep up with them through Hilda. The husband of one cousin died in Argentina after having both legs amputated. Another’s went mad during the Gulf War.
    I often think of those who did not survive—the youngest, the smallest. I remember their visits to our house, and mine to theirs. During holidays we would sit under the trees and trade long-forgotten secrets.
    Even more often I think of my friends of those days: Itzu Junger, Haimi Kahan, Itzu Goldblatt, Moshe Sharf, Hershi Farkas. For me friendship has always been a necessity, an obsession. Later I wouldcome to love Epicurus, the Greek philosopher who posited friendship as an ethic.
    Friendship or death, the Talmud says. Without friends, existence is empty, sterile, pointless. Friendship is even more important in a man’s life than love. Love may drive one to kill, friendship never. Cain killed Abel because Abel was only his brother, whereas he should also have been his friend. David shines in history not only because of his territorial conquests but because of the true friendship, noble and indestructible, that bound him to Jonathan. A man capable of such friendship could only be exceptional.
    The Hasidic movement owes its success to its emphasis on friendship among the faithful as well as to fidelity to the master. Friendship is indispensable, essential. The Hasid comes to the rabbi’s court not simply to see him, hear him, and spend Shabbat under his roof, but also to meet with friends who come for the very same reasons. He feels an attachment to each and every one of them, through what Hasidic literature calls “the root of the soul.” Together they form a community whose members are equal before God, as before the rebbe. Granted, there are more poor than rich among them, and more are unhappy than fulfilled. But it is incumbent upon the rich to aid those in need, as it is incumbent upon the poor to accept without envy those more fortunate than they. In Brooklyn as in Paris, Hasidic solidarity is real. Whoever is in need, his friends come to his aid. A refugee arriving out of nowhere is immediately taken in, given food and lodging, a loan and a network of support.
    To praise God the famous Rebbe Pinhas of Koretz said: God is not only the Father of our people, the King of the Universe, and the Judge of all men. He is also their friend.
    As a child I needed friendship more than tenderness to progress, reflect, dream, share, and breathe. The slightest dispute with a friend gave me a sleepless night as I lay wondering whether I would ever again know the excitement of a nighttime walk, of discussions about happiness, humanity’s future, and the meaning of life. Disappointment in this domain caused me greater pain than a failure in school.
    Shortly before my twelfth birthday I began to feel more sure of myself. I no longer sought to “bribe” my friends. Our bonds were strengthened by our common projects. A thousand memories tie me to them.
    I would have loved to have deserved the friendship of young Dovid’l, grandson of the legendary Reb Shaye Weiss. A precociousTalmudist, he seemed destined for a dazzling future. Unfortunately, he was even more studious than I. In our community he was the