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Loss Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

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It only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains, but what does it take to move faith? At the onset of Elie Wiesel’s journey, he has a deep interest in the religion of his family and community which leads him to begin studying with a poor, foreign jew, Moishe the Beadle. Wiesel writes “And Moishe the beadle… spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah’s revelations and its mysteries.” Curiosity, as well as tradition, fuel Wiesel's faith. Whilst living a life of happiness and comfort, Wiesel is able to devote himself to studying the Talmud and Kabbalah, implying that his faith is very strong. The question must be asked, however, is faith actually realized without trevail? The writer of Hebrews writes, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (11:1) Therefore, without hope...faith is inconceivable. Within the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel, a young man portrayed as having a strong faith, once exposed to the horrific dehumanization and murder of millions of men, women, and innocent children throughout the Holocaust, ceases to have hope and loses faith in his …show more content…

Forced into maturity, Elie’s innocence is ripped from him as he faces many difficult situations. Assigned to a warehouse of electrical materials, Elie and his father are forced into strenuous work and harshly beaten often. Physically Elie begins to become tired, and spiritually he questions his purpose and the meaning of life. Watching on as a young child is sent to the gallows a prisoner questions “For God’s sake, where is God?”, and as Elie answers internally “Where He is? This is where---hanging from this gallows…” It becomes clear that he completely denies, not the existance, but the justness of God. This is confirmed when it is written “ I was not denying his existence, but doubted His absolute justice. Elie’s personal experience lead to the further lessening of his

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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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Elie became independent from God and refused to view him as omnipotent, and therefore, Elie and the other inmates believed that“ [they] were masters of nature, masters of the world” (87). With the daunting experience that Elie had undergone, he felt that the camps had utterly devoured his identity and his soul, but because he suffered blisteringly and managed to abide, even if “ [he] was nothing but ashes now, [he] felt [himself] to be stronger than this Almighty to whom [his] life had been bound for so long” (68). Although Elie was at last, liberated from the concentration camp, the rigorous conditions and brutal treatments from the camps has weakened him physically, mentally, and spiritually. Elie, bereft of his faith and soul, looked into mirror for the first time after his liberation, and “from the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating him” (115). Through tormenting sufferings and witnessing the mortifying decimation in the Holocaust, Elie’s faith is eventually dismantled

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Genocides test their victims not only physically, but also mentally and spiritually. This was observed during the Holocaust, where the “lucky” survivors at the concentration camps had to come to terms between their reality and their idea of faith. Author and survivor, Elie Wiesel, shows this in his memoir Night. Throughout the memoir, Wiesel shows that during these times of trouble, faith in humanity was more insidious than the faith in God. Even though times of great prosperity, or of great ruin, turn men to faith as a cure-all, events such as the Holocaust spiritually exhausted their victims into a state of losing faith.

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571 Words | 3 Pages

While you are reading Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, you get to see the decline in Elie’s faith. In the beginning, Elie was very devout, he even went out and found himself a teacher on his own accord. Only when you get farther in the book do you get to see the decline. While Elie’s time in the Concentration camps goes on, his faith starts to dwindle. Nevertheless, Elie begins by finding himself a teacher.

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Wiesel states “You must never lose faith even when the swords hangs over your head.” (31) That even though they are going through hard times, faith is something positive that has to stay with us until it's all over. Also Wiesel states “I did not deny God's existence but I doubted his absolute justice.” (43) What Wiesel is trying to say is that he knew that there is a god out there but at this point he thought that god wasn't acting far with them.

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So this essay will show how Elie's faith declined throughout the book. To see how Elie loses his faith throughout the novel will be when he witnesses the hanging of a young boy, when he witnesses babies being thrown into the fire, and will be the death of his father. The hanging of a young boy. The boy is accused of sabotaging the Nazis and is sentenced to death. As he dies, the boy cries out for his father, who is also in the camp.

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“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.” (Page 69) This means that Elie is irritated of God not doing anything

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Faith is something that is not easily gained, but easily lost. In the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, who is also the author, demonstrates this very well. From seeing Elie’s actions such as how he thinks, how he acts, and what he tells “Rabi”, it is easy to tell that he is losing or has already lost his faith. In “Night” Elie has moments where his faith is strong but still could be stronger. In the first chapter, Elie wishes to learn more about the Cabbala, but his father will not let him.

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A man asked after the hanging ‘For God's sake, where is God’(65) and inwardly Elies answers ‘Where He is? This is where hanging here from this gallows…’. Elie's faith continues to weaken while he is in the camp. His faith weakens from seeing so many people dying or dead. From seeing him and others starving, from seeing people abandon their family and friends for their own survival.

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Elie Wiesel successfully created a clever plot consisting of dialogue, introspection and dynamic characters to make his story realistic and compelling. Elie WIesel changed the protagonist Eliezer, an observant Jewish youngster, that strived to delve deeper into the mythical traditions of his religion, changed to a person that questions God’s greatness, a disloyal son and a person that only seeks personal gain. The protagonist, Eliezer, proves to be a very dynamic character. One of the most noticeable change in Eliezer is that his perspective and beliefs of God has changed dramatically.

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In NIght by Elie Wiesel he wrestles with the theme of faith during his experiences in the Holocaust. Why did he pray? “I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions”(5). Elie was extremely devoted to his Jewish religion and wanted to learn as much as possible about it. He was thrilled to continue to learn and even went under the wing of a beadle, Moshe, to learn as much as possible from him too.

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Living in 1940s Europe during Word War two, changed Elie’s religious identity. From being a young boy with immense faith to questioning if god was even alive, then finally, going back to his faith because he had nothing better to believe in. As Elie goes through his time in the camp, the once very religious and eager to learn about god boy starts to lose his faith in god and his religion as a whole. As Elie was a young boy he wanted to learn everything about his religion that there was to learn, but his father was so focused on the wellbeing of others, that he did not care or notice.

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This existential conflict of Elie losing his faith in God and overall losing his identity can be seen from his behavior with Jewish rituals, his change in moral code, and

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Written from the perspective of a teenager, Elie Wiesel explained his experience during World War II and the Holocaust. Eliezer grew up in the small transylvanian town, Sighet, located in Hungarian Transylvania. Before the war, Eliezer was very religious and would often go to the synagogue to pray. Eliezer would frequently involve himself with religious stating, “I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night”(Wiesel 8). Eliezer would talk with Moishe the Beadle about religion and the Kabbalah.

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Elie Wiesel suspects that God is letting him go through such a situation. Wiesel begins losing faith in God. For example, Wiesel stated,”What are you, my God? I thought angrily. How do you compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to you their faith, their anger, their defiance?....

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