SWA #3

When Wiesel distinguishes between information and knowledge he is talking much about what our past three reading have been about. Wiesel is saying that in today’s world we know a lot of different information but that is it. Knowledge, instead, is knowing the information but also researching it, knowing the whole story, and being able to have an educated discussion about it. What Wiesel is trying to get at is that you can know information without being knowledgeable about it, and that is what’s most important.

Wiesel defines responsibility as taking action on things that you know. He ties it to knowledge by trying to show that responsibility is taking action when you know something needs to be fixed. He uses the example of him going to Biafra. He claims that after he went and saw the children it gave him the responsibility of trying to help these kids. He claims that because we are a wealthy and blessed country that we have the responsibility of helping these less fortunate.

Wiesel defines presence as talking sincerely with the utmost respect to a person. I think by this he means to be there for people when they are in need. He uses this word presence with the word communication. He then says that communication means “To be able to give and receive at the same time” This means that we should be able to listen to each other but also talk and understand where they are coming from. This communication is what he refers to as a human presence.

Listening plays a huge role in this communication and presence that Wiesel refers to. In order to have the proper communication you must first listen to the person in need before you can talk to them and help them with your presence.

Wiesel starts out his argument about “am I my brother’s keeper?” with the story of Cain and Able. He uses the references to God and the Bible because he was a Jew in the Nazi death camp. Most of his audience is typically Jews so they can relate to the bible and also the close relationship to God through prayer.

Wiesel says that we can deal with this conundrum by taking responsibility for the issues around the world. He says that he challenges his students to not let things in the media just pass by but instead if they here of a story try to take action and become knowledgeable about the issue so that they can help those people in need.