ipl-logo

Why Did Elie Stray So Far Away From His Beliefs

568 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The concentration camps

1941, Elie Wiesel was a thirteen year old Jewish boy in Sighet, Transylvania, who spent his days learning about his God. The relationship between the boy and God was vigorous. A hopeful young Elie with a great love for God was cast into a harsh, cruel world where the Almighty’s presence is unknown. How did Elie stray so far away from his beliefs? In the beginning, Elie was completely dedicated to studying Jewish beliefs. On page 3, he tells us, “ By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to a synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” Elie was so consumed by the knowledge, when he wanted to find a master to teach him Kabbalah, his father told him he was too young. However, that didn’t stop the thirteen year old, with the constant …show more content…

I had never asked myself that question. I cried because… because something inside me felt the need to cry. That was all I knew. “ Why do you pray?” he asked after a moment
Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (page 4). Elie didn’t see a life without God, to him it was unimaginable. About a year later, the Germans had invaded Transylvania and were currently moving Elie and his fellow Jews into concentration camps. While leaving the haven of his home town, Elie prayed to God, on page 20, he says, “Oh God, Master of the Universe, in your infinite compassion have mercy on us…”. After they arrived at the camp, Ellie was ripped away from the innocence that he and God walked together in. When the Jews arrived at the concentration camp, humanity seemed to slip right out of grasp, opposed to when they first arrived at the camp.Guards were doing unmentionable acts to babies. Elie wondered where his God was and why he wasn’t protecting them. “ 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. What was there to thank Him for?” ( Elie, page

Show More
Related
672 Words | 3 Pages

Faith Fading with Hope People look to God as the pinnacle of motivation, where people “find rest in God alone, [their] hope comes from him” (Scriptures). When severe calamity and hardships are presented to humans, their faith that their God will protect them weakens. When Eliezer Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust and author of the memoir Night, faces the Nazis’ dehumanizing acts that strip him of his faith, the development of how a once “former mystic” turns into a hopeless corpse is presented to the audience (Wiesel 67). Throughout this account, Wiesel implements rhetorical questions as a way to emphasize the theme that when people lose faith, they are not only losing their God, but they are losing their hope for survival.

Read More
544 Words | 3 Pages

(Wiesel 4) Elie has asked his father to learn more about his religion, as he desired to increase his devotion. He was motivated, and his devotion was strong, before his capture. “We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image,”(Wiesel 14) Ellie explains how he still felt Gods presence while entering the camps. Even when he first faced the reality of what was happening, he still believed that God was in control and was still a part of him.

Read More
1146 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
726 Words | 3 Pages

Elie wanted to believe in god but how would he believe in him if he hadn't shown them that he was there to let them free from their

Read More
588 Words | 3 Pages

Oftentimes, the effects of traumatic experiences can transcend the importance or the gravity of original beliefs. With every passing day, Elie is seeing more and more innocent infants, children, men, and women dying all around him, simultaneously. However, as the survivors around him congregate and continue to pray to God on their own volition he is thoroughly confused. With the amount of deaths around him, he questions everything, and thinks aloud.

Read More
560 Words | 3 Pages

In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when Moishe the Beadle told the Jew community about the cruelty of the SS,” Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns” (weisel 7). This is inhumanity because the Nazis are killing little, innocent, defenceless babies. As the author describes his experiences, many other examples of inhumanity are revealed. Two significant themes related to inhumanity in the book Night by Elie Weisel are loss of faith and disbelief.

Read More
693 Words | 3 Pages

Many Jews at this time had lost their faith and Elie was one of them. Growing up, Wiesel was committed to studying his religion he shows this through the quote “By day I studied the Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple.” (3). But after witnessing babies being burned alive he is quick to question God asking “Why should I sanctify His name?” (33).

Read More
478 Words | 2 Pages

What was there to thank Him for?” (Page 33) This means that Elie feels that God is being

Read More
760 Words | 4 Pages

“I ran off to look for my father. And at the same time I was afraid of having to wish him a Happy New Year when I no longer believed in it,” (Wiesel, 75). Earlier, Elie talks about how he felt powerful and stronger than God himself, now that he was free from the Almighty. He also talks about how he felt alone but strong. Later, he shows retaliation against God.

Read More
451 Words | 2 Pages

Milos Kulina Elie’s faith towards God changes a lot as the story goes on. In the beginning of the work, his faith in God is complete. In chapter one when asked why he prays to God, he says, “Why did I pray? ... Why did I live?

Read More
2034 Words | 9 Pages

Not only is Elie questioning God’s existence, but he is also placing the entire blame on God since He chose to stay silent when innocent people were suffering. It is almost as if Elie believes that God is not only condoning the behavior and inhumane actions of the Nazis, but that He is involved in these actions. In such a great time of despair, Elie tries to make sense of his situation by allowing himself to use God as a scapegoat which causes him to blame God entirely for the actions of the Nazis. Elie uses extremely mocking names against God to again portray how Elie believes God is powerless. Elie states, “I was the accuser, God the accused.

Read More
863 Words | 4 Pages

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?”

Read More
768 Words | 4 Pages

For his father Elie would keep himself going; he knew that his father could not go on if he died, if Elie lived then there would be a chance that his father would too. Elie and his father’s bond of love and family was too great to break them

Read More
669 Words | 3 Pages

What had I to thank him for?” (22). Just before this, Elie had just witnessed the mass murder of countless Jews. He believes he has no reason to worship a god who is said to protect people from harm when that promise hasn't been fulfilled thus far. He feels as though so much damage has been done to them, so he questions why they worship him at all.

Read More
734 Words | 3 Pages

Elie is angry at God for the injustice he lets in the world due to the fact the Nazis hang three children and call the rest of the camp to see what happens. In page 66 the author states that elie had angrily respond to god “ what are you my god? I thought angrily. how do you compare to this stricken mass gather to affirm to you their faith their anger, their defiance what does your grandeur mean matter of the universe in the face of all this cowardice , this decay and this misery?

Read More

More about Why Did Elie Stray So Far Away From His Beliefs

Related Topics

Open Document