Opposites

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. -- Elie Wiesel

I am troubled by the word "indifference." As in Wiesel's above quote, he blames it for almost everything that could happen that is bad. In the world. In our beliefs. In our way of living. How many times a day do we casually say "I don't care" about things we are asked? Or "I don't know" as an answer to an inquiry about something. That is indifference to the importance of the person asking the question, requesting dialogue. It is a discarding of that moment, instead of capitalizing on an opportunity to love.

I think it was Wiesel that said something about how while he was interred in Buchenwald as a Jew during WWII, that he quit believing in the Jewish God. That was his awakening, how to believe in a God and also believe in such a place as the Nazi death camps. Both existing at the same intersection of historical time. His own self, his eternal soul, present at this place and time. He perceived the God of his faith as indifferent. I have thought the same thing at different times in my life. When my son's close friend was killed on a motorcycle at the age of twenty. How could such a painful sentence be handed down to his parents. How could "love" and "God" fit in to the scheme of that incredible grief that surrounded that moment?

So agree with Wiesel, indifference is our enemy. We cannot allow indifference to claim another endangered species, another abused child or a planet that will offer an unhealthy environment for the next generation. Our indifference cannot condemn the future.

I want there to always be tigers, clean air and a God.
 

Former Buchenwald prisoners - Elie Wiesel's face is visible on the second row, fourth from the left, by the vertical wooden beam.