ZALMEN OR THE MADNESS OF GOD

By Elie Wiesel

On Yom Kippur eve in 1965, Elie Wiesel found himself in Russia, “in a synagogue crowded with people.  The air was stifling.  The cantor was chanting . . . Suddenly a mad thought crossed my mind: Something is about to happen; any moment now the Rabbi will wake up, shake himself, pound the pulpit and cry out, shout his pain, his rage, his truth.  I felt the tension building up inside me; the wait became unbearable.  But nothing happened . . . It was too late.  The Rabbi no longer had the strength to imagine himself free.”

In Zalmen, or The Madness of God, Wiesel gives his Rabbi that strength, the courage to voice his oppression and isolation, and the result is a passionate cry.  This play illuminates not only the plight of the Soviet Jew, but the anguish of individuals everywhere who must survive—and yet long for something more than mere survival.

(Adapted for the stage by Marion Wiesel.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9780307833037

Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was the author of more than forty books, including his unforgettable international bestsellers Night and A Beggar in Jerusalem, winner of the Prix Médicis. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor with the rank of Grand Cross. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016.