Night By Elie Wiesel Theme Essay

“For God's sake, where is God?" And from within me, I heard a voice answer: "Where is He?" This is where—hanging here from these gallows... " (65) This quote is taken from the book "Night,” which is a memoir by Elie Wiesel, who tells his story as a young Jewish boy who lived through the Holocaust. In this memoir, we are able to see the many struggles the Jewish people faced during this time, one of them being their conflicts with faith. From this piece of literature, we can learn many important lessons that Elie wanted the world to know about. In this book, Elie Wiesel tries to tell the world about the human experience through the theme of faith and how, when faced with hardships and inhumanity, faith can be destroyed, how it can also be comforting

Even though throughout the novel we see Elie question his faith, there are times where he finds himself believing in God. For instance, on page 34, he says, “Deep down, I was saying good-bye to my father, to the whole universe, and, against my will, I found myself whispering the words: "Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba...May His name be exalted and sanctified." In other words, even though Elie does not know if he still believes in the existence of God, he finds himself wishing for it and praising him. From this, we can infer that even in times of weakened faith, people will find themselves wanting to believe in something. Another example where faith is used to comfort people can be seen on page 91, where Elie says, “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed. "Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu's son has done." At this point in the story, Elie has stopped believing in the goodness of God, yet when he is faced with the possibility that he could do something terrible, he finds himself praying to the God that he thought he no longer believed in. The author illustrates that faith, no matter how broken it is, will provide its believers with a little bit of comfort. To sum up, Elie is trying to convey to the world that faith can also comfort people in times of

Throughout the text, we see several instances of faith providing strength to the inmates, but we also see how it makes their suffering worse. For example, on page 45 it says, “God is testing us”. He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming our base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair. And if He punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more.” In other words, the events the Jewish people were going through are nothing but a trial that they have to pass. It seems to me that this pushes the people to persevere through the brutality of the camp. Yet faith is also the cause of much of the suffering and internal conflicts the Jewish people have. To illustrate this idea, the author talks about his experience and says, “What are You, my God? I thought angrily, he said. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies?” This evidence highlights that the people are troubled because of their faith in God, since all they see is evil, and not good. As one can see, Elie conveys to the world the