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The Role Of Faith In Elie Wiesel's Night

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Elie Wiesel is not only a talented author but a survivor of the holocaust who documented his horrific experiences in his memoir “Night”. In the beginning of the book Elie Wiesel was one of the most religious people in his town of Saghet who had a dream of living a monastic life. However, as a result of the harrowing injustices he endured he continuously lost faith in his religion. Within the book the reader is reminded again and again that when extreme adversity is experienced, faith is often lost. Night first documents loss of faith due to tragic experiences when Elie thinks, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify his name? the almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. …show more content…

Notably, when Elie thinks, “Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. 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? […] Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?” (67). Explicitly, Elie resents God for allowing him and his Jewish brothers and sisters to be tortured and murdered in gruesome and cruel ways. How could Elie possibly praise a God who condones the murder of children and mothers? He can’t which why he also says, “Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). Before his struggle, he was emotionally and spiritually connected to God and spent so much of his time studying the Jewish faith. In contrast, after he experienced living in a concentration camp he questioned God’s motives and no longer believed in absolute justice. He doesn’t believe in the same God he once did; before, he believed in a benevolent and kind father of humankind, he now can only believe in an apathetic and cold observer of the Jew’s

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