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Elie Wiesel Faith In Night

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According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, faith is “belief and trust in God”(“Faith.”). This faith permeated young Elie Wiesel’s life before he and his family were sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust, and is an idea that is omnipresent throughout his novel, Night. As the novel opens, we see how absolutely devoted young Wiesel is to studying the Jewish religion. His belief in an omnipotent, benevolent God is unconditional, and he cannot imagine life without this divine power.He is eager, optimistic, and he even deviates from his father's recommendation by remaining in the synagogue after the others leave and he finds Moshe the Beadle to guide him in his studies. Night details the complete spiritual devastation that Wiesel experienced …show more content…

For almost a year, Wiesel stood spectator to atrocities beyond what is imaginable, and his God was nowhere to be found. The hanging of a young child was a spiritual breaking point for many people in the camp. No one in the camp, Wiesel included, could understand how a merciful God would allow something like that to happen. Wiesel, while being forced to watch the execution alongside his fellow prisoners said “Being me, I heard the same man asking: ‘Where is God now?; And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is- He is hanging here on this gallows…’”(Wiesel 57). This scene explicitly shows that while some prisoners still waited for God, Wiesel had effectively resigned. the hanging of the child was that last straw that told him God was not going to help them. From this point on, Wiesel saw himself as alone, and without the God that he had loved so deeply for his entire life. Pursuing this further, Wiesel’s lamentation eventually morphed into full on rebellion and anger towards God. On Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, Wiesel chose not to fast with the other prisoners. While many felt that they should fast to show God that they still trusted Him and kept their faith, Wiesel felt that he had nothing left to give to God, saying “I did not fast, mainly to please my father, who had

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Wiesel's loss of faith was brought on by the absence of God. This resulted in him questioning why it was God's will to allow Jews to suffer and die the way they had. Another portrayal of religious confliction within Wiesel was the statement of his faith being consumed by the flames along with the corpses of children (Wiesel 34). Therefore, he no longer believed God was the almighty savior everyone had set Him out to be or even present before them. To conclude, his experiences within Nazi confinement changed what he believed in and caused him to change how he thought and began questioning God because of the actions He allowed to take

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Have you ever been through something traumatic or so life changing that you have doubt the truthness of your faith? Throughout Night, Elie Wiesel, the author shows several instances of his loss of religion throughout the book. Wiesel demonstrates his loss of faith through the experiences he has while in the Nazi concentration camps. Wiesel had many traumatic experiences while being held captive in the concentration camps. Those included his refusal to recite the Kaddish prayer for the dead.

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The book Night by Elie Wiesel shows how suffering and witnessing the painful deaths of many innocent lives can be the cause of loss of faith in the benevolent god. This book is taken in a horrible, inhumane place called the Holocaust. It all started when Moshe the Beadle stopped talking about God after he had witnesses the massacre of Jews by the German Gestapo; at that time no one believed him but time would prove them wrong. When Elie witnesses the horror of the concentration camps and what they do to people especially children he feels as if his God has been murdered right before his eyes. In the camp he sees an atrocity after atrocity, death after death.

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Traditionally, Jewish people fast during this extremely important holiday. When the day arrives, Jews in the concentration camp are conflicted: should they fast as they always have, or do circumstances outweigh traditions? Wiesel recounts this argument in Night: “...there were those who said we should fast, precisely because it was dangerous to do so. We needed to show God that even here, locked in hell, we were capable of singing His praises. I did not fast...

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Belief and Faith is a “double-edged sword” to the jews, it cuts both ways. It keeps them alive, and at the same time makes them oblivious, and leads to their suffering. Over time, Elie’s belief in god, diminishes and eventually he questions God’s existence extensively and at point, Elie is infuriated that even though they are being tormented and enslaved, the Jews will still pray to god, and thank him, “If god did exist, why would he let u go through all the pain and suffering (33). This is a major point in the ongoing theme of faith and belief, because for once he is infuriated with the thought of religion in a time of suffering. Throughout the book, with the nazis ultimate goal is to break the jews and make dehumanize them and if anything, their goal is take and diminish their belief.

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Even though Wiesel's faith is the main focus point in the Night, other prisoners struggled with the same issue. For example afters months in the camps one of father’s friends, a man named Meir Katz, is starting to give up. He is not so much giving up on his beliefs towards God as he is giving up on life itself. He believes death is so guaranteed that there is no point in continuing to live. During this point in his thoughts Meir Katz goes on to tell Mr. Wiesel, Elie Wiesel's Father, “Why don’t they shoot us all right away” (Wiesel 98).

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As all the prisoners gathered together to watch the hanging, many prisoners were weeping and praying to God to be released from this torture. “‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.’” (Wiesel, 65).

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The next step of his loss of faith starts again with a heartbreaking event. One night, Elie says that he and the other men at the Buna camp had to watch a young boy as he was hanged and “were forced to look at him at close range” (65). This agonizing event from the book upsets all of the witnesses as they watch the young boy dying in front of them “lingering between life and death” (65). From this, Elie admitted to himself “Where [God] is? This is where--hanging from this gallows…” (65).

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Why do you go on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies?”(Wiesel 68) Wiesel clearly is losing faith in God because he has seen babies burned alive, families killed together. Wiesel blames God for what has happened. Additionally, Elie Wiesel is not thankful for God anymore because he is not in Auschwitz helping him and the rest of the Jews. Wiesel feels anger towards God.

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