Religion In Night By Elie Wiesel

Introduction: Elie Wiesel was 15 years old, when he started to see and experience terrible things. He and his family were sent to concentration camps. Before his family's separation, Elie had faith in a God he loved and admired. All that changes as time goes on. Elie starts to see death roam around and devouring people. Elie asks God, where he is and why he is not doing anything to stop the killing of thousands. This is when Elie starts to lose faith and respect toward God.

Elie WIesel is a young boy, when he starts to grow his belief in God. He was twelve and deeply observant. By day he studied Talmud and by night he would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. He was into any belief, that one day Elie had asked

Some of the men spoke of God and his mysterious ways. One of the men said that God was testing them, and if they were capable of overcoming the killing of Satan within themselves. As for Elie, he didn’t want anything to do with God at that moment. “As for me I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying his existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.” (pg. 45) Elie was starting to experience new things with God, and responded to such things in a certain way. One day when Elie returned from work, there, in the middle of the camp was a dead boy hanged. They were forced to look at him squarely in the face. Elie had watched other hangings, but there was one that had caught his attention. This hanging also caused Elie to question God about his silence. The hanging of the pipel. In Buna, the pipel were hated because they often displayed greater cruelty than their elders. The oberkapo was tortured for hiding weapons. His young pipel was left behind. The young pipel was condemned to death. At the signal his chair was tipped over, the caps were set off. The child was still breathing, he remained like that for half an hour. All eyes were on the young pipel. There was a man who constantly kept saying “ Where is merciful God, where is He?” (pg.64 & 65) Elie thought that the man was right. “ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where He is? This is where-hanging here from this gallow.”

After Rosh Hashanah, Elie knew that what he said was wrong, and pleaded for forgiveness before God. Elie had stopped pleading and lamenting. He felt stronger without any of these, he was the accuser. He even mentioned that he was in a world without God and man. He felt like nothing but ashes. Without the need of praying, he seemed to feel much stronger than the Almighty to whom his life had been bound for so long. After feeling this way, he felt like a stranger when the men assembled for a prayer. Even on the day of Yom Kippur, Elie had decided not to fast. One was to please his father who had forbidden him to do so. Another reason he didn’t fast was because he thought that their was no longer a reason for him to fast. He no longer accepted God’s silence. Elie also mentions he no longer is a saint, and that he is a simple creature of flesh and bone. “I suffer hell in my soul and my flesh. I also have eyes and I see what is being done here. Where is God’s mercy? Where’s God?” (pg.77) Elie has totally changed from a religious innocent little boy, to a stranger (since he said he was no longer saint, and when the men prayed he even said that he was a stranger. Elie even felt sorry for Akiba Drumer, he even said that if Akiba only kept his faith in God. Elie wants others to not stop believing in God, but he himself feels like he won’t be able to do that since such anger has took over