The Oath by Elie Wiesel

of Kolvillàg, only larger. The rapt faithful below; the women out of sight in the balcony. The children on the steps leading to the Holy Ark. A thought crossed my mind, petrifying me: I am still in my native town, I have left it only in my dreams, I have done nothing but changed dreams. To recover my senses, I studied the faces lifted toward me. The rabbi’s head was resting on his right hand, his arm leaning on the lectern. The beadle, practical and efficient, was making sure that the head of the community was seated comfortably. An emaciated young student was keeping his eyes lowered so as to hear better—or not hear at all. A speech delivered to this large an audience could not possibly be distinguished; important teaching can take place only in a limited circle. A taciturn old man was shoving a neighbor too noisy for his liking. The schoolteacher, combing his bushy beard with his fingers, was counting those of his pupils who were stealthily edging toward the exit.
    The more I looked, the more I doubted my sanity: What if I were indeed still at home?
    The beadle tapped me on the arm, pulling me out of my daydream: “What are you waiting for?”
    “I don’t know …”
    “Well then, begin!”
    “Everything is getting mixed up in my head,” I muttered by way of excuse.
    “Start, the rest will follow.”
    “I don’t know how.”
    “Say anything,” the beadle insisted. “Say that the sanctity of the Shabbat must be observed; that’s not complicated and makes a good impression.”
    “I don’t know how,” I said stubbornly.
    “Say that we must praise the Lord for having given us his Law. All the preachers say it, you won’t be taking any chances!”
    Our whispered discussion could but intrigue the audience. The rabbi lifted his head and looked at us questioningly. The beadle rushed to inform him that fate had played them a nasty trick; this particular Saturday they had happened on an idiot. The distressed rabbi was about to rise and come to my aid, when I began to speak.
    “
Morai verabotai
, my revered teachers,” I said, rocking forward and backward. “I ask you to forgive me if my words are brief. I could lie to you. I could pretend feeling dizzy. I could feign ignorance. But one does not lie in the presence of the Torah. The truth is different: I am not here to speak but to hold my tongue.”
    And I returned to my seat.
    This happened time and time again, whenever I was about to speak in public. The speaker became speechless. Everywhere I saw the same faces, the same expressions; I moved in the same setting. How could I offend the good people of Kolvillàg by telling them their own story, the very one they had forbidden me to reveal?
    Yet sometimes it happened that I did useful work. In the small hamlets, mostly, far from the centers. There I brought back lost sheep to the fold, preaching repentance, showing the way. I jostled the self-righteous, the rich, the proprietors, the merchants. I encouraged the humble. As for the poor, I communicated to them the pride of calling Israel’s past their own. I made them sing after services, during services and even instead of services. On the side, I settled disagreements and quarrels between rabbis and notables, butchers and ritual slaughterers; Iinterpreted the Law so as to reconcile the minds it had divided. It would not have taken much for me to fall into the trap of vanity and consider myself important, indispensable, irreplaceable. People praised me, feared me. They saw in me one of the hidden Just Men whose mission it is to sanctify space with their ephemeral presence wherever man tries desperately and unsuccessfully to approach the Almighty. They took me for the prophet Elijah, who, like me, visited and consoled lonely beings. They whispered that I was a Master in disguise. Before revealing himself, the Tzaddik must undergo trials of renunciation in anonymity. By helping strangers, I became a stranger in my own eyes. Having convinced my fellow-men,