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Loss Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

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The Holocaust, a time of misery, suffering, and self-doubt for all who were victimized. It forced several people to abandon their faith and beliefs – leading them to In Elie Wiesel’s Night, Elie experiences a loss of faith due to the traumatic experiences of the Holocaust which leads him to believe that God has abandoned him, showing that when people experience a horrific event, even the most devout can lose their faith in God.
Elie is a very religious child, and is shown to be very devout as his main goal in life is to become one with God. Elie is part of a very religious household, and has obviously been raised with certain standards. Much like other children his age, he spends his days studying under the instruction of his parents. “As …show more content…

When he first arrives at the concentration camps, Elie is torn with confusion and anger towards God, this is where he first begins to doubt his faith and God’s justice towards humanity. When he is walking towards the crematorium, a man starts reciting the Kaddish, “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). During the Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah, when his inmates are chanting prayers, he becomes angry and wonders what the point of praying to a God who does not protect them is. “Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him?... Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night…” (Wiesel 67). After being at the camp for a while. Elie begins to question why God has punished the people who have prayed to Him their entire lives. He then reflects on all the previous times God has punished the Jews because of the little mistakes they have made and comes to the conclusion that,

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Night by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, is a powerful memoir about the Holocaust. The Nazis slaughtered six million Jews and five million Gentiles during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel underwent many transformations throughout the dreaded concentration camps, especially with his relationship with his father, and his faith in God. Throughout Elie’s experience at Auschwitz, his devotion and perception of God changed drastically.

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Before Elie was shipped to the concentration camp he would spend his time studying Jewish mysticism, “One evening, I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar, the Kabbalistic works, the secrets of Jewish mysticism. ”(Wiesel, 5) he once had a love for his race before war changed his mind. Elie believed that if God answered him everything would be ok but when he did not, “Never shall i forget those flames that consumed my faith forever….. Never shall i forget those moments that murdered God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes….Never.” He even prayed to God even when he did not believe he was there.

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The Holocaust affects Jews in a way that seems unimaginable, and most of these effects seem to have been universal experiences; however, in the matter of faith, Jews in the concentration camp described in Elie Wiesel’s Night are affected differently and at different rates. The main character, Elie, loses his faith quickly after the sights he witnesses (as well as many others); other Jews hold on much longer and still pray in the face of total destruction. In the beginning, all of the Jews are more or less equally faithful in their God and religion.

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When Elie Wiesel was only a teenager he was starved, beaten for no good reason, and was separated from most of his family… millions jews went through this same exact pain. Elie Wiesel was born in an isolated town of Sighet,Transylvania and was raised in the Jewish faith. But in 1944 he and his family were sent to a concentration camp in Auschwitz and then Buchenwald where they worked hard labor. In his book ,“Night”, he wrote about his experience during the holocaust, what their daily life was, and the hardships they had to go through. Throughout Elie’s duration in the concentration camps has deeply affected him because he began to slowly lose his faith/religion, lose his emotions and sympathy for other people, and acted more hesitant to certain

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"Faith is not a belief. Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell." During World War II losing faith was common, especially in the concentration camps where living another day was a blessing and a curse. In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel writes about his experiences, as a teenager, in the concentration camps. Memories of the death of his family, hunger, and the destruction of his own innocence can lead a man to lose faith.

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His faith is firm and he wants to do everything he can to better understand God’s place in his life. During Elie’s time in Auschwitz, he becomes confused about his relationship with God. He wonders why he should worship and asks, “What was there to thank Him for?” (33). Elie lost most of his faith after entering the camp.

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Elie continued to be angry at Him. Thousands of prisoners were repeating the prayer “Blessed be God’s name…” (Page 67). But Elie was concerned why should he bless Him? Everything inside Elie opposed it.

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Brandon Smidl Ms. Cavaliere English 10 5 January 2023 Loss of Faith by Witnessing Human Suffering A story named “Night” by Eliezer Wiesel confronts the topic of losing faith through human suffering by relating it to personal experiences during the Holocaust. The main character, Elie (Eliezer), talks about his experiences going through the countless Nazi-run concentration camps that were meant to conflict pain and suffering upon the Jewish people. Due to the atrocities that the Jewish prisoners faced every day many of them lost their faith in God and questioned their faith and belief in a higher power. During the time of the holocaust, many Jewish prisoners were sent to what

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It is important to remember, he witnesses German soldiers using babies as shooting targets, men who are burning alive, and loved ones who must separate, and Elie could not believe God would allow any of it. Berenbaum reveals, “[...] the transition from a God-filled world to a Godless world is not easy for Wiesel. He continually emphasizes not only the initial suffering that brought him his view of a Godless world but also the internal pain” (Berenbaum 17-18). When Elie arrives at the camps, he has no idea the emotional destruction he is about to endure. No matter how mentally draining the torture imposed by German soldiers is, the most difficult struggle Elie faces has been his ever-changing feelings toward God.

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Both works include several references to religion and faith, for the Holocaust is mainly the religious persecution of Jews. The concept of God and religion provides one with hope and allows them to believe that good will always prevail over evil. Moreover, God is seen as a protective figure, shielding humans from harm. Within Night, religion is presented constantly as Elie battles an internal conflict against his faith. After being exposed constantly to death and suffering, Elie’s faith falters.

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Elie Wiesel wrote in one of the most difficult style writer can ever do: Put the worst human feelings, thoughts, and emotions into words. His purpose of writing a book “Night” was to show how he didn’t lose his faith during the Holocaust. And that’s overall theme of the book – faith. In the book, when Nazi took them to concentration camps, Elie thought: “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me.

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In the next stage of Elie's spirituality in Night he becomes questionable with the power that God has. One way Elie show this is by doubting God's supremacy. Inside the concentration camps, the Jewish people went through torture that caused them to question their faith in God. In one discussion among them, Elie thinks about his doubt about God's righteousness and sees God in a whole new perspective and brought him to words of anger and disappointment "I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job!

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The adversities at Auschwitz and Buchenwald caused Elie to lose faith in God.  Before being transported into Auschwitz, Elie was a boy who deeply believed in God and had absolute faith in God. Elie 's first seeds of doubt in God came when he was  transported into the camp and separated from his mother and sister. The other prisoners began reciting the Kaddish, but Elie got agitated when they gave thanks to God, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me.

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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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