Mortifying. Earth shattering. Horrific. The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel tells of his experience in the horrific concentration camp Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel was a 15 year old Jewish boy when his entire family was moved to a concentration camp. At the camp, Elie goes through many mortifying and earth shattering trials that test him. One of his trials was his relationship with God. At first, Elie had great faith in God, but later on he starts to doubt God's power, and near the end of the memoir he no longer believes God had any power to help. Originally, Elie had unquestionable faith in God. For example, in Sighet, Moishe the Beadle questions why Elie prays to God. Elie had never thought about that and states "Why do I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?"(Wiesel 4). Elie prayed so often it is instinct that he pray to God. He had been raised to listen and obey God. He had never thought of why he prayed, all he knew was that God commanded men to pray. Elie believed and trusted in God and did what he asked without questioning the motives. This shows that Elie had great faith in God when he lived in Sighet. …show more content…
At the concentration camp, at night some of the other prisoners would talk of God and how He works in mysterious ways. They believed that they were being tested of their faith. Elie had a much different view of God after all he has been through because he "...was not denying His existence, but I doubted his absolute justice"(45). Elie still thought that God existed, but now he did not think God had power over everything. He believed if God had power over everything, then he would have prevented all the evil things that the Nazis did to the Jews and his family. God loves all of his children, and he wouldn't want evil things to happen to them. If He had the power to, He would have stopped the horrors Elie was facing. Elie is truly starting to question his faith and the power of
This example shows that Elie still has faith in his God and still believes. Later on in the story he starts to question God and his existence once Elie finds out
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
In the beginning of the text, Elie is very curious about God. Everyday he studies the Talmud (Jewish Bible), and every night he goes to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple. But, this relationship of faith and curiosity in God changes when the
(Ilibagiza 78). Elie also believes in God, but as time goes on he starts to believe that he is not in God’s favor. He is constantly rejected by hope and thinks he, being a Jew, is brought to camps to die. The main focus for the prisoners is that they survive. “In this place, it’s every man for himself” (Wiesel 10).
Elie did not understand why the suffering of his people who believe in God was put to this abuse as Gods plan. It was difficult for him to believe in God when he felt God was in control of everyone's life, Elie is left to question God and do nothing more to help. God's role in Elie and other faithful follower dropped, they no longer had faith and hope in the help God would give them. Those who remained faithful and who would continue to pray used it as a source of comfort for them to go to with all the hardships occurring. Unlike them Elie no longer cried while praying, it was no longer a source of comfort for him, it stayed with him but it was always on a tip of a scale ready to fall.
Elie could not believe his eyes; how could this been kept covert. Some people began to recite the Kaddish, which is the Jewish prayer for the dead. Elie felt irate for the first time at this. He thought; “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent.
(pg.65), only for Elie to respond, “And from inside me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where-
The adversities at Auschwitz and Buchenwald caused Elie to lose faith in God. Before being transported into Auschwitz, Elie was a boy who deeply believed in God and had absolute faith in God. Elie 's first seeds of doubt in God came when he was transported into the camp and separated from his mother and sister. The other prisoners began reciting the Kaddish, but Elie got agitated when they gave thanks to God, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me.
Life is full of good and bad experiences, but you don’t always have control of what happens. That can be scary sometimes and it depends on how you handle it as to whether you get out of that situation. In the memoir Night written by Elie Wiesel, Eli, a teenager had been taken away from his home and taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Night is the scary record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his own family and the death of his own innocence as he tries to fight his way out of the concentration camp. Over the course of the book, Eli changes from a believer in God living in bearable conditions to someone who has become profane because of the situation he’s been put in.
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?
Belief and Faith is a “double-edged sword” to the jews, it cuts both ways. It keeps them alive, and at the same time makes them oblivious, and leads to their suffering. Over time, Elie’s belief in god, diminishes and eventually he questions God’s existence extensively and at point, Elie is infuriated that even though they are being tormented and enslaved, the Jews will still pray to god, and thank him, “If god did exist, why would he let u go through all the pain and suffering (33). This is a major point in the ongoing theme of faith and belief, because for once he is infuriated with the thought of religion in a time of suffering. Throughout the book, with the nazis ultimate goal is to break the jews and make dehumanize them and if anything, their goal is take and diminish their belief.
The cruelty of the German officers at the concentration camps change Elie’s personality throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Elie is deeply religious and spends most of his time studying Judaism. However, by the end of the novel, Elie believes that God has been unjust to him and all the other Jews, and has lost most of his faith. The cruelty of the German officers also changed the other Jews as well. The events of the Holocaust forces the prisoners to fend for themselves, and not help others.
Elie Wiesel suspects that God is letting him go through such a situation. Wiesel begins losing faith in God. For example, Wiesel stated,”What are you, my God? I thought angrily. How do you compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to you their faith, their anger, their defiance?....
and it changed him. In the book, Night, the main theme, is religion and belief which is shown when Elie talks about the his strong religion and belief as a boy, his disconnection from religion, and the inhumane actions the Nazi 's caused. Having such a strong belief in something and then dramatically changing how you think, is a very significant event. During this time, many people questioned where God truly was. Even Elie was questioning where God was.
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.