The Time of the Uprooted by Elie Wiesel

will save you.” And through half-closed eyes, he saw a man who seemed regal and calm, but very sick; his eyes were bleeding, but his upturned gaze lit up the sky. “Pray,” said his mother. “Jesus will hear you. Ask Him to let you live. Promise Him that you’ll grow up as a good Christian. He loves children, yes He does.” Then the man with the warm, kind gaze took his hand and with infinite care drew him back from the shadows into which he was about to disappear. On that day, the child János made up his mind that he would never be without his portrait of Christ. His mother had to bring him the portrait every morning when he awakened, every night before he went to sleep, so he could kiss it, once, twice, a dozen times.
    Over the years, János would examine many portraits of his Savior painted or drawn by a variety of artists in many periods of history. He became familiar with these many portrayals and was recognized as an expert. A glance was enough for him to identify the artist, and the circumstances under which he had worked. People came from afar to ask the parish priest in the remote province of Székesváros to explicate or authenticate the work of a master—or a forger’s copy. He became the enemy of deception, and the defender of Christ’s honor and love. For the widow Báranyi’s adored son had chosen the priesthood as his vocation. She had tried to dissuade him at first; he was her only son, and she would rather have seen him father a large family, and, most of all, be happier than she had been. But he knew how to make his case: “Did you not tell me time and again when I was a child that I owed my miraculous recovery to Him? Then must I not consecrate my life to Him?” The poor woman was not able to debate him; she could only nod and swallow her tears. “Yes, my son, you’re right, of course you’re right. You learned in the seminary how to put words together, but still . . .” “But what, Mama?” “What’s to become of us if you have no children? Someday I’ll die, and then someday you’ll die, and there’ll be no one left of our poor family. That’s why I’m weeping.” In response, he drew from the pocket of his cassock his first portrait of Jesus, the one she had given him to kiss when he was a child and dying; he was never without it. “Be not afraid, Mama. He will always be with us.” “Yes, of course, of course, my son. Our good Lord Jesus will be here after we’re gone. He is life. . . .” “He is life everlasting,” János intoned. He was blissfully content, but his mother was torn between her good fortune at seeing her son happy and the thought that she had lost the son she adored to the beloved Son of God.
    But now, in the horror-filled night that lay like a pall over the city, the Archbishop could not understand why the Christ of his dream did not resemble any of the portraits he had been looking at since childhood. And yet, the Christ of his dream had a familiar face. That made him tremble, as if he had just committed a sin for which no forgiveness could be imagined.
    Hananèl, the young Kabbalah scholar known as the “Blessed Madman,” is seated at his table, a small dusty volume open before him. He is rereading the commentary in the Midrash on the section in the Book of Job that deals with the individual’s responsibility to remember: “Shortly before a being is to leave his earthly existence, the Lord appears to him and says, ‘Record all you have accomplished.’ The man does as he is told and sets his seal to what he has written.” The young scholar scratches his bushy black beard and puzzles over the passage: Why does the Lord have to go to the trouble of personally reminding every individual to prepare his final accounting? Why not send an angel to do it? Suddenly, he glances up to see the “beadle,” his friend and faithful aide. Hananèl gives him a mildly reproachful look: Why is the beadle disturbing him at this late hour? But as usual Hananèl