Morals In Night By Elie Wiesel

According to The Wall Street Journal, an American Psychological Association survey said that nearly one-third of adults struggle with basic decisions. Jews in concentration camps during World War II were faced with many decisions as well, but their decisions were not basic nor pleasant like debating whether to have chocolate ice cream or vanilla. The Jews were put in hard situations where none of the outcomes were desirable. In Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, Elie and the Jews he encounters are no exception to the lose-lose situations which Lawrence Langer referred to as “choiceless choices”. Moral dilemmas were so tough during this time as the Jews battled keeping their dignity and morals or surviving. It seems like it was impossible to do

Yom Kippur was an important religious holiday for the Jews that called for them to not eat for the entire day. The Jews debated whether they should do this or not because they already fasted everyday, though not of their own choosing or free will. Due to their malnourishment and harsh conditions they were already so sick and weak, and “to fast could mean a more certain, more rapid death” (69). Some of the Jews argued that God was testing them, but if He was Elie still didn’t fast. His father had told him not to, but Elie also did it as a sort of rebellion because he felt God no longer cared about him. The Holocaust was very trying physically and emotionally for the Jews, but it was hard on their spiritual faith as well, even for rabbis and for Elie who had been very devoted to his

When they were being evacuated on the death march Elie was quickly losing strength and “the idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate” him (86). He was put in a hard spot where if he stopped for a break he would be trampled or shot, but to continue to run meant more pain, especially for his throbbing foot, and he was already so exhausted. In this case, it was Elie’s father who helped him survive. Elie knew he was his father’s sole support and that if he died his father probably would too. Since his father was there, Elie gave himself the mindset that he had to push on, but if his father had not been there beside him he could have easily chosen the other option and let himself fall to the ground. To survive people needed some sort of hope or something or someone to live for, to give the suffering purpose. Without a purpose the suffering wasn’t worth it, and they died. Elie’s father was Elie’s reason to continue living, to continue pushing through the pain, so because of him Elie lived another