Religion In Night By Elie Wiesel

Elie’s Faith Jack Lewis Language Arts This paper is about the book Night by Elie Wiesel. Throughout the novel, we get hints and implications regarding Elie’s faith. At the beginning of the book, we often talk about how he worships his God and his loyalty to him. But as the story progresses, and we see his experiences at Auschwitz, he sees that faith dwindle.

The book Night by Elie Wiesel shows how suffering and witnessing the painful deaths of many innocent lives can be the cause of loss of faith in the benevolent god. This book is taken in a horrible, inhumane place called the Holocaust. It all started when Moshe the Beadle stopped talking about God after he had witnesses the massacre of Jews by the German Gestapo; at that time no one believed him but time would prove them wrong. When Elie witnesses the horror of the concentration camps and what they do to people especially children he feels as if his God has been murdered right before his eyes. In the camp he sees an atrocity after atrocity, death after death.

He is much more involved in religion than the rest of his family. When his father asks “why do you pray?” Eliezer’s response is shocked at first, as if it was a ridiculous question to ask. To him, religion and prayer is so innate and important that it’s simply second nature. His decline in religious faith is a direct consequence of the inhumane circumstances of concentration camps.

Firstly, the quote of Eliezer's religious and moral nadir. Eliezer says "... Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes..."(Wiesel 34). The horrific, indefatigable moments that Eliezer endures destroyed his beliefs.

Generations to come, ponder the ideology of: Is God present within our society? Yet a simple question, the book Night, by Marion Wiesel interprets the existence of God within Elie’s life. The main character, Elie faces a multitude of life-altering occasions, one being when he is forced out of his home. It recounts Elie’s experiences as a Jewish teenager during World War II, particularly his time spent in Nazi concentration camps. His dad, a respected individual, is a constant symbol of feelings of love, duty, and commitment to his family; Eventually passing it on to Elie.

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.

Eliezer Wiesel was a fifteen-year-old boy deported to the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945 along with the Jews from his hometown in Sighet. He demonstrates the personal struggles to maintain faith along with the struggle of silence, all of which are presented through the theme of Night by Elie Wiesel. His character develops a loss of innocence as he encounters inhumanity and the death of his father.  Elie was a believer in God and learned the secrets of Jewish mysticism with the help of Moishe the Beadle before being sent out to the concentration camps. As he maintained his survival, he lost his faith in God.

Eliezer Wiesel loses his confidence in god, family and humankind through the encounters he has from the Nazi death camp. Eliezer loses confidence in god. He battles physically and rationally forever and no more accepts there is a divine being. "Never should I overlook those minutes which killed my god and my spirit and turned my fantasies to dust..."(pg 32). Elie endeavored to spare himself and asks god commonly to bail him and take him out of his hopelessness.

When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise… But look at these men whom You have betrayed, what do they do? They pray before You! They praise Your name!,” (pg.68) because of all the horrors and mistreatment Elie has endured, like witnessing infants being thrown into the trenches, “... Children thrown into the flames,” (pg.32), and watching his father being slapped, “... he slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours,” (pg.39), his faith is distinguished. This contrasts to the beginning of the book where Eliezer says he cannot imagine a world without God, “Why do I pray?

"Religion is not man 's relationship to God, it is man 's relationship to man" (Wiesel). Eliezer Wiesel was a twelve-year-old Jewish child when his world turned upside-down after the German army invaded Hungary in the Spring of 1944. In his memoir, Night, published in 1960, Wiesel writes about the time he and his father spent in Auschwitz-Buchenwald and how this time resulted in his struggle to understand and be faithful to God. The theme of doubting Gods existence recurs throughout the memoir as Eliezer questions not only God, but himself, and his ability to stay faithful during his experiences. Growing up, Wiesel recalls that his father devoted his life to the study of the Torah while his mother and sister worked in their family store, so

The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in history. It just so happened to be the cause of six million deaths. While there are countless beings who experienced such trauma, it is impossible to hear everyone's side of the story. However, one man, in particular, allowed himself to speak of the tragedies. Elie Wiesel addressed the transformation he underwent during the Holocaust in his memoir, Night.

Eliezer was very close to god and wanted to learn anything he could. Once he was taken away from his home, he began losing faith in god and lost all hope. Eliezer stopped praying and he believed that god was unjust. Eliezer felt as though god was uncaring and so he stopped believing in him. His view on god changed juristically throughout Night.

In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he questioned God, ¨Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled, he caused thousands of children to burn his Mass graves?¨(Wiesel 68). Overall, Wiesel does not follow the words of God and is not believing in him anymore because he thinks God is the one thatś letting all the inhumanity occur. One theme in Night is that inhumanity can cause disbelief or incredulity.

Others remain faithful and retain the hope that He is on their side, explaining these happenstances as an example of God’s mysterious ways. While this may as well be the case, Elie stops praying, believing that he has been abandoned. He finds no hope of redemption in the Talmud like

(33). He starts to wonder what kind of God would allow such devastation to occur, and he vows, “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God” (34). The concentration camps tarnish Eliezer’s belief in a compassionate God. As he spends more time in the camps, Eliezer admits that he has “ceased to pray” (45). Praying used to be a central part of his life, but the camps have made him dubious of God’s power.