“Wiesel and Wieseltier on God and war: JPDS hosts a ‘conversation’”
June 5th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
My article on a conversation between Elie Wiesel (my photo is to the right) and Leon Wiseltier is in this week’s Washington Jewish Week (here).
Here’s a selection:
Though every two Jews are said to have at least three opinions, God’s perspective is supposed to be consistent. Yet, the Bible’s Exodus calls God a “Man of War,” while Chronicles reveals that God refused to allow David, who was a “man of wars,” to build the Temple. How can a warmongering God punish his own copycat subject?
Elie Wiesel and Leon Wieseltier addressed this question and others last week during the third Annual Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Lecture, held at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in the District. The Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital sponsored the conversation on “Peace and War in the Jewish Tradition,” which attracted more than 800 people.