It sounds
paradoxical I know, but as of late I have been finding great
comfort in the words of a 29 year-old Jewish woman who was put to death in
Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp, in 1943.
I actually just learned about
Etty Hillesum a few months ago when I was on a day-long retreat a
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in the context of a talk about the
Yamas and
Niyamas, 2 of the 8 limbs of yoga.
Immediately fascinated by her, I promptly went to my public library the next day to check out her one and only book:
An Interrupted Life, The Diaries of Etty Hillesum: The Intimate Journal of a Young Jewish Woman in Holland During the Holocaust Years.
The book is divided into two different sections that cover the years
1941-1943. The first part, and the longest, is her own personal diary that is awfully well-written in meticulous detail.
The second part, called "
Letters from Westerbork," is a collection of letters she wrote and sent to friends while living in Westerbork, a German
concentration camp in Holland that served as a holding station for Jews before being moved to another concentration camp, like
Auschwitz, to be put to death.
It feels a little risky, and possibly inappropriate, to refer to Etty Hillesum as a kindred spirit because of the fact that her young life was taken from her at the age of 29 in the
Nazi Holocaust.
And yet the alternative, to not write about her, to not say that I
deeply identify with her
writing,
perspectives and
spiritual outlook on life, to not share her wisdom with others, does not feel "right" or respectful either because her wisdom and legacy should not be silenced, even in death.
I suppose some might find it strange that I experience
comfort when I read
An Interrupted Life, as opposed to say:
despair or
sorrow.
(Truth be told, I find it a little bit strange to, but there we are...)
However,
counterintuitive as it may be, I do.
I also find it
deeply inspiring.
Take this one diary entry written on
July 3, 1942, what would be one year and 4 months before she was put to death in
Aushwitz.
What they are after is our total destruction, I accept it. I know it now and I shall not burden others with my fears. I shall not be bitter if others fail to grasp what is happening to us Jews. I work and continue to live with the same conviction and I find life meaningful--yes, meaningful--although I hardly dare say so in company these days.
Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet [at this point in history Jews were no longer permitted to use trams for transportation in Holland] and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors- it is all as one in me and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself, without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together.
I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath; so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn't that doing something for future generations?
Re-reading this passage again, I cannot help but think about the concept of
bodhichitta from the Buddhist tradition.
Bodhichitta is a Sanskrit word, an ancient Indian language, that describes a state of mind that is committed to awakening, empathy and compassion for the purposes of
enlightenment of self and all other beings.
From my laywoman's understanding, I think what
distinguishes Bodhichitta from, say, Buddhahood, are the "
compassion" and the "
and all other beings" components.
So could
Etty Hillesum, the young Dutch Jewish woman who died in the
Holocaust be viewed as a
20th century Bodhisattva? One who vows to dedicate one's life and one's energy to the cultivation of Bodhichitta?
I'd say so, but see what you think.
I've included below some other excerpts from her post-humous book.
A couple of suggestions:
1.) Read them
slowly.
2.) Remember the
context of her life and time in history.
3.) Maybe, be
inspired to carry on her commitment to a
meaningful life in whatever circumstances you happen to live at this time.
A few years ago I scribbled on a scarp of paper: ‘grace
during its rare appearances must be welcomed with polished skill.’ But that was
something that leapt out of my brain and still hasn’t been translated into
flesh and blood.
Has a new phase of my life really begun? But the question
mark is wrong. A new phase shall
begin! Battle has been joined. ‘Battle’ isn’t right either, since at this
moment I feel so good and harmonious, so utterly whole, or rather: my awareness
is growing apace and everything that was locked up in my head until now in the
shape of precisely worked-out formulae is about to flow into my heart.
But my exaggerated self-consciousness will have to go first-
I still enjoy this in-between state too much. Everything will have to become
more straightforward, until in the end I shall, perhaps, finish up as an adult,
capable of helping other souls who are in trouble, and of creating some sort of
clarity through my work for others, for that’s what it’s really all about.
---------------------
One must keep in touch with the real world and know one’s
place in it; it is wrong to live only with the eternal truths, for then one is
apt to end up behaving like an ostrich. To live fully, outwardly and inwardly,
not to ignore external reality for the sake of the inner life, or the reverse-
that’s quite a task.
---------------------
I think that I’ll do it anyway: I’ll ‘turn inwards’ for half
an hour each morning before work, and listen to my inner voice. Lose myself.
You could also call it meditation. I am still a bit wary of that word. But
anyway, why not? A quiet half-hour within yourself. It’s not enough just to
move your arms and legs and all the other muscles about in the bathroom each
morning. Man is body and spirit. And half an hour of exercises combined with
half an hour of meditation can set the tone for the whole day. (1941)
But it’s not so simple, that sort of ‘quiet hour’. It has to
be learnt. A lot of unimportant inner
litter and bits and pieces have to be swept out first. Even a small head can be
piled high inside with irrelevant distractions.
True, there may be edifying emotions and thoughts, too, but the clutter
is ever present. So let this be the aim of the meditation: to turn one’s
innermost being into a vast empty plain, with none of that treacherous
undergrowth to impede the view. So that
something of ‘God’ can enter you, and something of ‘Love’ too. Not the kind of love-de-luxe that you revel
in deliciously for half an hour, taking pride in how sublime you can feel, but
the love you can apply to small, everyday things.
-------------------
I have become just a little stronger again. I can fight
things out within myself. Your first impulse is always to get help from others,
to think you can’t make it, but then suddenly you notice that you’ve fought
your way through and that you’ve pulled it off all by yourself, and that makes
you stronger…
…I was in for an utterly miserable time. But I pulled myself
out of it, although I don’t quite know how. Not by arguing it out with myself,
but by tugging with all my mental strength at some imaginary rope. I threw all
my weight behind it and stood my ground and suddenly I felt that I was free
again…
I’d just like to know how I did it, how I managed to break
free. If I knew that, as I really should, then I might perhaps be able to help
others with the same problems…
And the lesson I learned is this: thought doesn’t help; what
you need is not causal explanations but will and a great deal of mental energy.
---------------------
I have tried to look that ‘suffering’ of mankind fairly and
squarely in the face. I have fought it out, or rather something inside me has
fought it out, and suddenly there were answers to many desperate questions and
the sense of emptiness made way for the feeling that there was order and meaning
after all and I could get on with my life. All was smooth going again after a
short but violent battle from which I emerged just a fraction more mature.
I said that I confronted the ‘suffering of mankind’ (I still
shudder when it comes to big words), but that was not really what it was.
Rather I feel like a small battlefield, in which the problems, or some of the
problems, of our time are being fought out. All one can hope to do is to keep
oneself humbly available, to allow oneself to be a battlefield.
After all, the problems must be accommodated, have somewhere
to struggle and come to rest and we, poor little humans, must put our inner
space at their service and not run away. In that respect, I am probably very
hospitable; mine is often an exceedingly bloody battlefield and dreadful
fatigue and splitting headaches are the toll I have to pay.
Still, now I am myself once again, Etty Hillesum, an
industrious student in a friendly room with books and a vase full of ox-eye
daisies. I am flowing again in my own narrow river bed and my desperate
involvement with ‘Mankind’, ‘World History’ and ‘Suffering’ has subsided. And
that’s as it should be, otherwise one might go mad.
------------------------
You can’t think your way out of emotional difficulties.
------------------------
A little peace, a lot of kindness and a little wisdom –
whenever I have these inside me I feel I am doing well.
------------------------
To understand ideas and people you must go out into the real
world, onto the ground on which everything lives and grows.
-------------------------
Imagine somebody in pain all over his body, unable to bear
anyone touching him even with the tip of a finger – that’s the feeling in my
soul.
------------------------
There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God.
Sometimes I am there too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and
God is buried beneath. Then He must be dug out again.
I imagine that there are people who pray with their eyes
turned heavenwards. They seek God outside themselves. And there are those who
bow their head and bury it in their hands. I think that these seek God inside.
-----------------------
We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.
----------------------
All I wanted to say is this: the misery here is quite terrible and yet, late at night when the day has slunk away into the depths behind me, I often walk with a spring in my step along the barbed wire and then time and again it soars straight from my heart- I can't help it, that's just the way it is, like some elementary force- the feeling that life is glorious and magnificent, and that one day we shall be building a whole new world.
Against every new outrage and every fresh horror we shall put up one more piece of love and goodness, drawing strength from within ourselves.
We may suffer, but we must not succumb. And if we should survive unhurt in body and soul, but above all soul, without bitterness and without hatred, then we shall have a right to a say after the war.
Maybe I am an ambitious woman: I would like to have just a tiny little bit of a say.
Dare I say Ms. Hillesum, you just did.
May it be so.
