is picking potatoes with the Poles.
Mind you, this is not the Nazis yet.
He's picking potatoes, and he comes, and he wants to cook a potato on the fire.
And they start mocking him.
The farm hands fell silent at his approach.
He squatted and slipped three potatoes into the embers of the fire.
All those silent glances released a mortal anguish within him.
posed delicately on the quivering tongue.
At his slightest gesture, the fangs would close.
Breathing heavily in fear, he plucked out a potato jiggling it in his palms.
Some people use the fire without even asking, a voice growled.
In the clutch of terror, Mordecai dropped the potato.
You hear that, the Pole asked.
We have here, a typical moment of bullying, right?
The bullying of the group against the pretty much defenseless, young Jew.
his half open tunic unveiled the majestic beginnings of a taurine neck.
Taurine from Taurus like your favorite football players.
accented his look of a stocky animal, Mordecai trembled.
two delicately blue eyes stare at him with a placid, hating, Polish gravity.
No help for it, the voice said, you've got to fight.
Mordecai rallied, why, what for?
And since there was no offense, he went on.
might allow us to resolve the differences between myself and this gentleman?
talks about rationality, no offense, right?
these Yidels, said the young Pole in the voice of gesture, of sincere conviction.
And then sweeping the air with an elegant gesture, he flung Mordecai to the ground.
an interesting moment here about The Last of the Just.
depositing him face down in the dirt.
dirty Jew, and drove a foot against his rump each time he tried to rise.
reducing him suddenly to a human body, flexed and sinewy as a bow.
He never knew how it happened.
crying, what do you think you're doing?
We have the chapter break.
he would have thrashed him with the whole stiffened mass of his body.
had conquered the whole Christian universe of violence in one campaign.
Notice the phrasing, the whole Christian universe of violence.
That one, a peasant said, that one's not like the rest of them.
Slowly, a dry shame invaded Mordecai.
Now, he said, with a naive arrogance they liked, now I can use your fire.
to all animals inoffensive or dangerous, including those who bear the name of man.
So he understood that he has to fight back.
So he's not just the standard Lamed-Vovnik, right?
And in this case, he beats the bullies.
resists and is then respected for fighting against the bullies.
And, in this case, winning against big odds.
But this is just fists, right?
And this is not just the whole of the issue.
another Jew and they have a conversation.
Had ceased to believe in God.
Benjamin stared at him, uncomprehending.
than anyone except the Lamed-Vovniks had ever displayed.
Assuredly he was not an unbeliever, then what could this mean?
What do you mean exactly, dear Mr.
Goldfaden, when you tell me that you don't believe in God?
I am not entirely sure that I grasp the basis of your thought.
He seemed mysteriously irritated by Benjamin's tone.
The boy went on with the same skeptical indulgence.
believe that God created the heavens and earth and all that followed?
Benjamin understood, illumined by a sudden insight that the good Mr.
Goldfaden quite simply did not believe in God.
if God did not exist, what would you and I be?
and his voice sought vainly for the lost tone of gaiety.
Poor little Jewish workingmen, no?
Alas, said the old presser.
all things as Mr. Goldfaden must see them.
Zemyock, his little town, was only an absurd fragment of the universe.
But then he wondered, where does all the suffering go?
This is exactly what Wiesel is trying to deal with.
he cried out in a sob that ripped through the darkness of the workshop.
It goes for nothing, oh, my God, it goes for nothing.
So, if God does not exist in Benjamin's universe, the suffering goes for nothing.
had already been asked by Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov.
I hope you have a chance to read that, it's really an amazing book.
were looking at what is the point of the suffering?
been part of what the Jews have been doing.
the role they have played in the culture.
but that is what is being faced now with the Nazis.
So the novel is called The Last of the Just.
while it's being very realistic.
that is being raised, that is happening.
how can I make sense of what's going on?