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. Although he does not replace G-d with a different …show more content…
When the other prisoners discuss prayer and the Kaddish, Wiesel questions “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?” (Wiesel 33). Even in the concentration camp, Wiesel never doubts G-d’s existence. He still refers to Him as Almighty and recognizes His presence. Yet, he does question His righteousness and care for the Jewish people, when he questions why He would stay silent and why his fellow prisoners would worship Him. He explains his position, saying that “I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). This statement, while concise, describes well Wiesel’s faith during the Holocaust. Wiesel does not stop praying because he has no faith in G-d’s existence, but because he does not consider Him worthy of praise. Wiesel’s faith in G-d’s existence is clear, as he refers to Him throughout the memoir. Yet, he cannot understand how a righteous G-d would allow the Holocaust to happen, so does not believe in …show more content…
He decides that “man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favor, You cause the heavens to rain down fire and damnation” (67, 68). Still recognizing G-d’s existence, Wiesel refers to G-d as less powerful than human beings. This is because He cannot control or prevent their actions - He can only react to them. Wiesel views His punishment of human beings as a weakness of G-d; if he was all-powerful, he would be better able to control humans’ actions and would not need to punish them. The S.S. hangs a young child in front of the entire camp, which leads a man near Wiesel to ask “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where - hanging her from this gallows’” (65) When Wiesel watches the boy hanged in public, he loses much of his faith in G-d - not in His existence, but in His ability to rule human beings. He views G-d’s inability to prevent the Holocaust and its horrific events as a failure, and views G-d as “dead” because his presence has become meaningless if He cannot help human beings. Wiesel’s faith in G-d’s existence was still intact, but little else of his faith was. He felt G-d lost His power over humans, deeming Him
Eliezer Wiesel, the author of Night, wrote the book with the goal of teaching his audience to never lose faith. As a Holocaust survivor, Eliezer faced obstacles that most of us will never have to face. These hardships however, did cause him to finally lose his faith in God. Throughout the book, Eliezer questions his faith. Because of the severe trial and adversity, Eli Weisel questions his faith in God, even though he was a faithful man before the Holocaust.
Throughout the book Night, the main character Wiesel's opinion of God changed once he experienced something as mortifying as the Holocaust. When his faith was tested, he decided to stop having faith in God, he stopped trusting God, and allowed himself to stop being illuded by God. On page 19 there are a few examples of Wiesel's views and beliefs on God before the Holocaust. “Where, according to Kabbalah ”, this shows that Weisel was interested in his faith enough that he knew the rules and standards/principles that his religion valued. “I succeeded on my own in finding a master for myself in the person of Moishe the Beadle.”
He stayed in that camp and watched everyone die around him, and his faith began to falter. He began to wonder if there was even a God anymore, and if there was, why was God letting all of this happen to them? The night the soup tasted like corpses, Elie states: “Here He [God] is- He is hanging here in the gallow.... “ That might be one of the reasons that Wiesel told his
He was originally an incredibly dedicated religious believer and followed every custom in the book. He even went against his father’s wishes and found a master to further his devotion to God (4). As the Holocaust went on, however, Wiesel simply could not believe that God would allow this sort of thing to happen, and accused Him of it, then lost his faith (68). He even did not fast on Yom Kippur to please his father and rebel against God (69). But, even after all that happened, there was still a part of him who believed in God, and that part showed itself when he prayed to God to “give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done” (91).
Why would the all-powerful, all loving God do something like this to his people? Elie Wiesel’s journey is documented in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel and other’s faith was different before the Holocaust, than it was in the camps during the Holocaust, than it was at the end and after the
Rosenblatt explains that it was important for Wiesel to make people understand that you have to help one another in times of difficulty. Humanity is the key to ending inhumanity. He didn’t want history to repeat itself, more importantly he wanted humans beings to be there for one another in times difficulty. Though cruelty breed cruelty, and we all born with inhumanity and humanity; we can’t the evil outshine the
When asked why he prays to God by Moishe the Beadle, Wiesel was left in a somewhat unresponsive state. This example shows us a different view of his profound faith. Wiesel thinks, “Why did I pray?.... Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”
I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (Wiesel 45). While Elie Wiesel had moments of lost faith, some others wholeheartedly, regardless of what they were going through, believed that God did what he did out of love. Akiba Drumer said: "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.
Wiesel's loss of faith was brought on by the absence of God. This resulted in him questioning why it was God's will to allow Jews to suffer and die the way they had. Another portrayal of religious confliction within Wiesel was the statement of his faith being consumed by the flames along with the corpses of children (Wiesel 34). Therefore, he no longer believed God was the almighty savior everyone had set Him out to be or even present before them. To conclude, his experiences within Nazi confinement changed what he believed in and caused him to change how he thought and began questioning God because of the actions He allowed to take
Wiesel believes that the Rabbis son had to free himself of a burden that reduced his own chance for survival. As this thought occurs to him Wiesel writes, “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." ” The thoughts however do cross his mind and he is ashamed of them. He conquers these thoughts and remains devoted to his father until his death.
To begin with, Wiesel could not believe what was happening. He didn’t believe how cruel the Germans were. Wiesel was living a nightmare and couldn’t escape it. For instance, Wiesel stated, “I pinched myself; was I still alive? Was I awake?
Wiesel was one of those who started to question his absolute faith in God when he admits, “But I had ceased to pray… I did not deny gods existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.” (42) As Wiesel’s faith weakens, his bond with his father grows stronger. Not long after, Wiesel is asked if he wants to get in to a good unit. He replies, “I certainly do want to get in to a good unit.
Six to ten million people died during the Holocaust all because of Hitler. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, the reader learns about the difficulties, from a survivor’s point of view, in the concentration camp. Wiesel experiences what it’s like to be beaten down physically, mentally, and emotionally. The SS guards stripped him of his identity and religion. In the beginning of the story, Wiesel believed very deeply in God.
Elie, once so faithful, is one of the first to lose faith in God due to the horrific sights he sees. After witnessing the bodies of Jewish children being burned, Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” (34). He quite understandably has begun to doubt that his God is with him following the sight of the supposedly chosen people’s bodies being unceremoniously burned. Elie, though, was perhaps not a member of the masses with this belief; in fact, some men were able to hold on to their beliefs despite these horrendous sights. Also near the middle of the book, Wiesel reflects on the faith of other Jews in the face of these events, saying that “some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come.
I think that how Wiesel thought the whole time, but he needed to feel strength. He can't kill the Germans so instead he killed God inside him, he needed something familiar in his life something that he used to do, so he prayed to God. Maybe he had a trust deep inside him that God is merciful and will forgive him for his thoughts. It is amazing how 'Night' shows the struggle of Wiesel in a way that can relate to Arjuna and Krishna relationship in Hinduism. Both Wiesel and Arjuna had questions on who God is, and what is His nature.