Elie Wiesel, Bernie Madoff and La Nuit

"We gave him everything, we thought he was God, we trusted everything in his hands," [Elie] Wiesel said., according to CNBC's pportfolio.com .

Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Prize for writing about his personal experience of the holocaust. I first heard of him 15 years ago when my young daughter worked very hard on an essay on ethics she was submitting for a contest sponsored by The Elie Weisel Foundation for Hummanity. Through the years we have spoken about him frequently. "What would Elie Wiesel think about this?"

The Foundation lost $15m to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme while Wiesel also lost his personal fortune. Yesterday Wiesel began to speak out about Madoff at a Conde Nast sponsored forum for New York's elite .

I wondered how cruel a fate, to be devastated and "destroyed" twice. First the holocaust and now this. First by Nazis. This time by another Jew and a self proclaimed humanitarian. Since it is said "character is fate", I decided to look for his chart.

Unfortunately , we don't have the birth time. I read, by the way, that Wiesel studied astrology when he was young in order to begin study of the mystical Jewish Kabala.

Forgiveness is a big topic with Wiesel as it is in the Jewish religion. When asked if he would forgive Madoff, Wiesel replied, "no" to a round of applause. A more complete version is summarized on portfolio.com: "As for forgiveness, the Jewish scholar can't find any for Madoff. Forgiveness must be sought, Wiesel says, and Madoff doesn't appear capable."

What I see in Wiesel's chart is afflicted Sagittarius., recently pummeled by Pluto's exit over progressed Sun conjunct Mercury at 27 and 28 Sag and opposing his 28 degree Gemini Mars which has just proogressed to 0 degrees Cancer, again opposed by tr Pluto. Natal Saturn is in Sagittarius along with the South Node.

Sagittarius is about ethics (no surprise it is repeatedly emphasized by Wiesel) but also about beliefs and the ultimate belief ... God or no God. Wiesel barely believes in God.

This from astrotheme.com:

After the war, "Wiesel first wrote the 900-page tome Un di velt hot geshvign (And the World Remained Silent), in Yiddish, which was published in abridged form in Buenos Aires. Wiesel rewrote a shortened version of the manuscript in French, and it was published as the 127-page autobiography La Nuit, and later translated into English as Night.... Wiesel had trouble finding a publisher for his book, and initially it sold few copies."

"I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone – terribly alone in a world without God and without man." Elie Wiesel, Night (1958, translated by Stella Rodway) "

[end of quote from astrotheme]

This is the painful dalogue of many with Saturn in Sag. No matter what is done to them. the ultimate argument is with the existence of God. Often God is experiened as anti-matter. For example when Mother Theresa had her "words with God', her doubts and discouragement at her calling, it sounded like she was arguing with a husband of 30 years, very intimate, full of longing to feel close again. Not so with Wiesel. His dark night is without stars.

In this context, knowing that his life is a quest to believe in a higher power, Wiesel's statement with which I opened is horrifying, "We gave him everything. We thought he was God...." In almost hysterical personal agony, which one can only witness in awe and pity, Wiesel nevertheless says a very revealing thing. His shocking blasphemy also shows little self responsibility for having created after all, a false god or idol. Wiesel's character had a fatal flaw.

I feel like Hansel and Greel when I consider the magnitude of evil present but Wiesel's admission is also terrifying to contemplate.

Spiritually we know that forgiveness is for the sake of the victim/forgiver not the perpetrator. If Wiesel cannot forgive, the bitterness of Mercury and Venus in unforgiving Scorpio (opposite Sagittarius' ruler, Jupiter) combined with the rage that accompanies a Mars/Pluto transit might prove fatal.

I have thrice been relieved of my life savings. The first time it happened I experienced rage, guilt and depression to such a degree it poisoned my existence. For several months I was exceedingly bitter and self destructive. Iin grief and despair, I turned on myself. Then I happened to hear a lecture on forgiveness which I took to heart. I had to forgive myself for doing something so harmful to my own well being. I resolved never to lose hope again and never to lose sight of God working even in the darkness, on the edge, to show me something and then to guide me back. So far I have kept to that resolve.

[picture conisidered fair use from wikipedia and attributed user Вени Марковски]