INTERVIEWER: Are you waiting for the Messiah?

WIESEL: Not for a personal one. But I am waiting for something. It may be forever, but I would not want to stop waiting.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

WIESEL: Life would be empty. If everything were concentrated in the present, there would be no possibility of transcending the present. We are suspended between the absolute past and the absolute future over which we have no control. It’s a creeping flame. Sometimes it bends one way, sometimes the other way. Sometimes it brings light and sometimes fire—life or destruction. Take away the waiting, what remains? I think the Messianic concept, which is the Jewish offering to mankind, is a great victory. What does it mean? It means that history has a sense, a meaning, a direction; it goes somewhere, and necessarily in a good direction—the Messiah. At least we would like to think that history is going in that direction. But I think it’s going in the wrong direction. We are heading towards catastrophe. I think the world is going to pieces. I am very pessimistic. Why? Because the world hasn’t been punished yet, and the only punishment that could be adequate is the nuclear destruction of the world.