Religion can be compared to sprinting in a race, it is necessary to have the fortitude and forbearance, but out of all things, you need to contain leadership abilities. The book “Night” by Elie Wiesel exemplifies how fortitude aids in overcoming even the most gruesome events. This type of bravery is attained by the Jewish religion. This religion is grounded in structure and the German Nazis took it away from Jews thus making a plethora of them lose or question their belief in God. In the novel, The author's own faith starts to lose momentum when witnessing the agonizing death of countless innocent lives, the brutal status of their domain, and mayhem brought forth because of persecution.
Religion. A strong word for some and an everyday term for others. To Eliezer Wiesel religion meant everything, at least that’s how it was prior to the holocaust. While Wiesel was at the appalling concentration camp his faith for God began to dwindle with every reprehensible event Eliezer was included in. While dwelling upon the relationship that Wiesel had with God throughout the novel Night I have come to the conclusion that Wiesel's experience at Auschwitz has stripped him of his faith for the lord.
Many Jews who considered themselves staunch believers in G-d, even in the face of tragedy, had their faith tested, and often destroyed, after experiencing the Holocaust. Many could not sustain faith in a G-d who would allow the Jews to suffer such horrific events on such a large and organized scale. The world knows Elie Wiesel, one of the most famous and prolific Holocaust survivors, for his brave and candid writings about the Shoah. His book Night documents his experience in Nazi concentration camps as a teenager during the Holocaust. Before the war begins, Wiesel is a devout Jew who refuses to defy or even question G-d. Throughout the novel, his faith stretches, morphs, and almost disappears.
Night is not merely just about a little boy during the awful time in the holocaust, it’s about how one would be able to endure all of the pain and yet not lose sight of their faith or religion. The main character is Eliezer’s. Eliezer is the son of the man i don’t remember but anyway eliezer is a jew in a concentration camp which is awful. In the story the reader will see from from eliezer’s perspective because while he is experiencing these events he thinks about it in his mind so psychological he will explain what’s happening in the camp.
He bitterly thinks that God is showing cowardice by not aiding His people in their troubled times. Although religion is one of the most important components in Elie’s life, this is quickly stripped away when the traumatic events around Elie occur. By the way he angrily thinks about God’s absence during the difficult times, it can be inferred that his faith in God is decreasing with each passing moment. Wiesel shows that the deaths around him causes trauma in which his emotions and his mind are implicated. The trauma that he experiences pushes him to the extent of questioning the one constant component in his life, which is God.
In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, there are many hardships that caused the characters to lose faith in their religion. Night is a 1960 memoir based on Weisel's Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944 -1945 toward the end of the Second World War in Europe. In the novel many prisoners struggle with their faith. “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my drams to dust.”
In such a cruel place such as the one they were in, it is deemed to be impossible. Even though Elie’s connection to God was strong, it was still broken. So many traumatic events happened at the camp, it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. Being forced to witness all these horrible things everyday, with no sign of God made Elie question if there even is one. If there was a God he’d be trying to help the innocent Jews escape or at least something, and if he was not then should he even be regarded as one, was Elie’s view on the whole situation.
60 million dead in World War II. 11 million captured and killed. All due to one man’s prejudice and hate. Adolf Hitler started a war over prejudiced ideals and beliefs. In that war: concentration camps, and in those camps: people like Elie Wiesel.
“Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him?” Elie Wiesel is the author of the nonfiction book Night. The book tells of Elie’s true experiences during the Holocaust. The quote above is one example of Elie losing his faith overtime showing that he is a dynamic character.
“Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering”(Wiesel, 38) . In the novel Night ,by Elie Wiesel, he explains about his experiences and suffering as a young boy during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a systematic persecution of millions of Jews. Elie Wiesel and his family were apart of this horrific event. Elie was a very religious boy that loved studying the Talmud and spending time at the Temple until his life was forever altered by the Holocaust.
When is the breaking point of giving up on religion? Religion is something that explains where people came from, why people are here and what happen when people die. However religion also requires faith for what you believe in. One person who has trouble with is faith is Elie Wiesel. Elie born in a Jewish family wanted to learn more about Judaism.
He felt like if there was a god there, where was he? Why would he let all these terrible things happen to innocent people, His people? Earlier in the book, just after he saw the ditches filled with burning bodies, Elie had said that his God had been killed at the sight, but now it seemed like he had fully accepted that. He started referring to himself as “the former mystic” and said, “My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy.
Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel, 4). Moishe then goes on to tell him that “Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks him” (Wiesel, 5) a statement that would ultimately stay with him throughout the Holocaust and cause him to ask God many questions in the midst of his despair. Although Eliezer initially begins with an unshakeable belief in God, the evil and cruelty of the Holocaust soon causes him to question God and leads to a struggle of faith.
Elie is first introduced as a God fearing boy who equates praying to breathing. As Wiesel writes in the novel “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(Wiesel,4)
This marks a significant change from his devoting belief to a deep loss crisis of faith, as he comes to the contradiction between his religious teachings and his brutal experience. The world in flames cannot have a God. This belief was now a possible reality for Elie. But people's hearts require a light in which they need to believe, which is why as Elie saw people praying, even with the experiences that the people had endured, he explained to himself that “My eyes had opened and I was alone in a world without God, without man., but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. Among these men assembled for prayer" (Pg68).
