How Does Elie Wiesel Use Religion In Night

Elie Wiesel begins his religious progression through Night with a deep passion for religion and God. Night begins in Elie’s hometown Sighet, where Elie is a passionate spiritual observer, “I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel 3). Preceding the horrors of the Holocaust, Elie was a religious young man who was so passionate and devout, he spends his days and nights praying and studying his religion. Wiesel, as a young man, wanted to take his spiritual religion deeper, so he asked his father to seek a teacher to mentor him in the studies of the Kabbalah. Yet, Elie’s father did not approve of his quest to analyze the Kabbalah,

But life in Auschwitz grows deadly, and Elie begins to doubt his faith in God. During his first night in Auschwitz, Wiesel describes what he felt as he slept next to the crematorium that claimed the lives of innocent people, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed...Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes,” (Wiesel 34). As Elie watches the ashes of small children escape into the night sky, he feels his faith in God wither. One evening in Auschwitz, Elie doubts God and religion, “Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice,” (Wiesel 45). Elie Wiesel doubts God, in the light of the fact that he deems failure in the delivery of absolute justice of God. Wiesel speculates on whether God deserves prayer when innocent children are murdered, while the Nazi live. Later in his story, when Elie finds himself working in the labor camp of Buna, he realizes what the Nazi had done to him and his faith. “I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less: a famished stomach. The stomach alone was measuring time,” (Wiesel, 52). This sudden awareness shows the startling change in Elie

Wiesel’s passionate response in this quote shows how much has changed for him since the beginning of his story, “Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "For God's sake, where is God?" And from within me, I heard a voice answer: "Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows… " (Wiesel, 35). After the hanging of an innocent young boy, in a moment of despair, Elie’s subconscious answers to a question that he’s been asking himself ever since his journey of terror began. Elie resolves that the torture and dehumanization around him is a message of silence from God. On Rosh Hanashah a Jewish holiday for fast and prayer, Elie determines that he won’t accept God’s lonely stare of silence “And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him,”(Wiesel 69). Wiesel’s compelling statement, leads him on his religious progression through the Holocaust. Despite his previous behavior, the Holocaust survivor does something that surprises his readers, and even himself, “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed,” (Wiesel 91). During his Holocaust journey, Elie’s faith in religion was slipping through his hands like melted gold, but on what he assumed was his last leg of