Elie Wiesel passed away in 2016. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. This collection of portraits of Jewish sages is derived from lectures he gave in the last decade of his life. It resembles earlier collections such as Souls on Fire (1972) and Sages and Dreamers (1991).

Like those two earlier books, this one organizes the stories into three groupings: stories from the Bible, stories from The Talmud, and stories from the Hasidic world.

In this volume, stories from the Bible present characters from outside the Torah (the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament). But, as Wiesel explains, in Jewish spirituality, all learning is Torah. And, “The Torah is not in heaven but here, on earth … not among the angels but among human beings.” Here are character studies of Elisha and King Josiah, both from the books of Kings.

There is also a character study of “God in the Torah.” In this long chapter, Wiesel walks the reader through the manifestations and expressions of God as witnessed in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It is a rich feast and never far from the lessons of the Holocaust. As a Holocaust survivor himself, Wiesel could do no other. He concludes the chapter this way:

“As a Jew, I believe that it is possible to be a Jew with God or against God — but not without God.

“He is kind and harsh, demanding and forgiving, friendly and authoritarian, pleased and disappointed, and sad. At times, He sobs. A Midrash:

“When God sees the suffering of His children scattered among the nations, He sheds two tears that fall into the great ocean, producing mighty sounds that reverberate from one end of the world to the other.

“I like this legend. It shows the pathos, the compassion of the Almighty. But then I wonder, Why didn’t He weep when six million of His children perished in fire?

“Then I think, perhaps He did. And His tears fell into the ocean. And they produced mighty sounds.

“But, perhaps, nobody listened.”

The Talmudic stories are lessons of great rabbis from the ancient world: Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, and Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Perhaps most interestingly, Wiesel concludes the section with “Satan in Ancient Memories,” examining the reoccurring of Satan in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptures as well as God’s relationship with Satan.

From the Hasidic world come stories of premodern rabbis living on the outskirts of the modern world in Eastern Europe in the early nineteenth century: Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi and Rabbi Uri of Strelisk. Wiesel writes: “They are poor? So what. They are oppressed? So what. They have their own 'kings,' their own ideals. They too are fighting, but their means are different. Their victories are of a spiritual nature. For a Hasid, what matters is the realm of the spiritual, nothing else.”

Intriguing in a book by a best-selling Jewish author, are the portions of the chapter on Rabbi Uri that indicate his opposition to popularizations of Kabbalah (Jewish spiritual teachings). Rabbi Uri believed that books shouldn’t be published of these teachings, because they tend to replace the importance of receiving mysteries through a teacher.

These stories all become teachers in how to serve the needs of the poor and in devotion to God through prayer.