When Elie Wiesel first began writing Night, his words filled an 864-page manuscript. Now, read and celebrated across the world, his account of surviving the death camps fits a slim pocket book of 109 pages.

“I feel responsible, not only for what I write, but also for the way it’s being interpreted,” Wiesel said to a small discussion group of students and community members gathered on Tuesday afternoon in the Allbritton Center. “I wanted every word to be a word of truth.”

It was in similar cogent fashion that the internationally revered Nobel Laureate later addressed an audience of over 500 assembled in the Memorial Chapel on Tuesday evening. An additional 300 people watched the simultaneous broadcast in Beckham Hall, the Goldsmith Family Cinema, and the Center for the Arts Hall. Wiesel’s lecture explored both the implications of building a moral society and why the death penalty has no place in such a society.

Although neither the discussion group nor the lecture directly focused on Wiesel’s experiences during the Shoah (Holocaust), he did not skirt the subject and on several occasions voiced his concern for the wellbeing of younger generations.

“Life is not only moving forward, but it is returning forward,” Weisel said. “I discover what my memory contains. My job is to prevent my past from becoming your future.”

Rabbi David Leipziger Teva and President Michael Roth opened Wiesel’s lecture, which was organized by the B’nai B’rith Lecture Bureau. Teva thanked those that had made the event possible and Roth offered his admiration for a story from Wiesel’s “Tales from a Hasidic Master.”

Wiesel referred to his visit to Wesleyan as a happy return, as he spent a good deal of time at the University during the sixties and seventies.

Although Wiesel plays many roles, he captivated both the discussion group and the lecture audience as a storyteller. Many themes carried over from one to the other and despite the gravity of the topics, Wiesel’s pithy words often drew laughs from the audience during both the discussion and the lecture, whether describing his work with President Bill Clinton or critiquing the Ten Commandments.

“One: they are too difficult,” he said in regards to the commandments. “Two: nobody obeys them.”

Yet, humor allowed Wiesel to broach the critical issues of his lecture and brought him to what many students have agreed was the most resonating message of his talk.

“I have another commandment,” he said. “Thou shalt not stand idly by.”

During the small discussion session, Wiesel focused on the importance of writing as a tool for social change.  Lauren Feld ’11 asked Wiesel for suggestions on how to use writing as a tool for social change, but avoid being “preachy.” Wiesel responded with his signature conviction.

“Preachers are preachers; writers are writers,” he said. “Some writers are good preachers, some preachers are good writers, but usually they don’t go together. The main thing is to be honest with yourself. If you want to influence others you must tell honesty. If the reader loses faith in you as a writer, then you are lost.”

Wiesel urged students committed to social justice to choose a single issue of focus and go from there.

“Start writing, stop worrying,” he said. “It’s not so bad.”

Wiesel made many an effort to rouse hope for students and make his message current to the qualms of today. He and Jared Gimbel ’11 shared as a smile as Gimbel launched into Yiddish before asking a question about the implications of Ecclesiastes for writing today and whether original thoughts can still be generated through writing.

“[King Solomon], who said nothing is new, wrote three books after saying that,” Wiesel replied as he laughed with the audience.

Not necessarily contrary to his optimism, Wiesel also expressed a particular sensitivity to the issues of future generations.

“I don’t feel I have the right to add to young people’s despair,” he said.

Prompted by a question from Sam Sontag ’14, he also delved into how one grapples with evil in the world.

“Evil in general is, very simply, an act of any human being who feels the need to humiliate another human being,” Weisel said. “It means to draw pleasure and happiness and even meaning from the humiliation of another human being. Therefore, that evil must be fought immediately. Don’t give evil another chance.”

However, Wiesel explained during the lecture that the response to this kind of evil was not to create more violence. Instead, he began his focus on human rights and carried a hope for greater moral development of society. This guided his work in the Balkans with President Clinton. His experiences there led to his discussion of what constitutes a moral society.

“In a moral society, death is never an answer,” he said. “What should be the answer? We cannot go around the law. It is the law that makes a society moral or immoral.”

Wiesel reiterated the significance of the law throughout his lecture—the word echoed through the chapel with each repetition and provided a foundation for his allusion to Cain and Abel in his argument against the death penalty.

“Why did religious history begin with that morbid story,” he posed to the audience. “What did it teach us? That civil war is possible. No. It wanted to teach us that whoever kills, kills his brother.”

Although Wiesel acknowledged the pain of survivors and families who experience the murder of a loved one, he spoke of the need to affirm the sacredness of life.

“If they have taken a life, they should suffer for that, but not death,” he said.

As Wiesel moved to the end of his lecture, Rabbi Teva opened a question and answer session, which featured pre-selected questions from the community. The last question asked what advice Wiesel has for Wesleyan students who want to change the world, but are not sure how to do so.

“Information, in and of itself, is not enough; it must be turned into knowledge,” he said. “Knowledge, in and of itself, is not enough; it must be turned into sensitivity. Sensitivity, in and of itself, is not enough; it must be turned into commitment. There is a plan for the rest of your life.”

Wiesel ended the lecture with an appreciative bow to the audience’s standing ovation and echoing hall of applause.

Last year, a conversation between Rabbi Teva and Executive Director of the CT Network to Abolish the Death Penalty Ben Jones led to Wiesel’s visit to campus.

“He’s spoken mostly about the Holocaust,” Teva said. “That’s not the talk to give at this time on this campus. He could address moral and ethical issues and that would be valuable from a variety of angles.”

Director of Writing Programs and Professor of English Anne Greene participated in the original proposal and collaborated with Teva on setting up the small discussion session that proceeded Wiesel’s lecture.

“We were interested in Elie Wiesel as a writer and whether he would talk about himself as a writer, because we thought that would have broad appeal on campus,” Greene said.

The event was made possible by the Rosenberg Family Fund for Jewish Student Life, The Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, The Endowed Fund for Lectures in Ethics, Politics, and Social Issues, Wesleyan Writing Programs, CT Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, Wesleyan Jewish Community, Office of Diversity and Strategic Partnerships, the Jewish and Israel Studies Program, Student Activities and Leadership Development (SALD), and the Office of Residential Life.