Mysticism In Night By Elie Wiesel

In life, faith can not be proven; therefore, your faith in something can be taken away. For example, with age the belief of mystical characters such as unicorns and mermaids are taken away and the faith in a person can go away once they lie about something. In the heartbreaking memoir Night by Elie Wiesel Elie, a Jewish child that was deeply religious, was gradually stripped of his faith by his experiences during the Holocaust. Hitler and the Nazis were responsible for brutally killing millions of Jews in attempt to exterminate the Jewish race and Elie manages to survive the excruciating time. In the beginning of the memoir Elie is very religious and even interested in mysticism. As soon as he sees the beginning of the horrid things done to

He loved learning about God and was also interested in mysticism. “I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (3). Elie spends most of his time at the synagogue praying and learning more about his faith. As the memoir continues is questioned by Moishe the Beadle, a “religious crony” of Elie’s, about his prayer. Elie replies, “Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (4). Elie is so religious that he basically says that he lives to pray and worship God. Elie later talks about why he prays and what he prays for: “‘I pray to the God within me for the strength to asks him the real questions.’ We spoke that way almost every evening remaining in the synagogue long after all the faithful had gone, sitting in the semi-darkness where only a few half-burnt candles provided a flickering light” (5). Elie is devoted to his religious beliefs and even stays in the synagogue when it is dark and everyone has left. As religious as Elie is it has to take a lot to cause Elie to question his

By the end of the memoir, Elie’s faith is utterly taken away. Throughout the Holocaust, Elie witnesses the death of countless children, from newborns to toddlers. One day when he sees a young, innocent boy being hung in front of everyone and he says, “‘For God’s sake, where is God?,’” he then writes, “And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where - hanging here from this gallows…’”(65). Elie says that when that young boy died, his faith and religion died with too. The Jewish prisoners hold a prayer service for Rosh Hashanah and Elie refuses to join in. “ I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger” (68). Elie, who once would have been fully active in the prayer service, now stood watching the prayer service like a stranger. Elie also does not fast for Yom Kippur: “I did not fast...And then, there was no reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him” (69). Elie is fed up with God being silent in a time when His people were being tortured and killed. This is the reason why he rebels against