An Analysis Of Elie's My God

Elie was a holocaust victim who was almost forced, by other jews, into a furnace, by order of the Nazis. “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” Elie was very religious before the Holocaust and yet on the first night at Auschwitz he lost his faith in God. He regained faith

Throughout the time Elie lived through the Holocaust, his devotion and relationship with God greatly changed. In the beginning of his life, Elie was a devoted observant Jew, who studied everyday, and went the synagogue and cry. He was also trying to convince his father to study the Kabbalah, so he could later become a Rabbi. But while in the camps, with all of the suffering, and labor, Elie begins to question God. While his dad was praying, Elie began to feel anger, “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). Elie sees what is happening around them, with people being burned and killed, and becomes

After experiencing the holocaust, Elie can no longer make sense of his world. His lack in faith results from his painful experience with Nazi persecution, but also from the cruelty he sees fellow prisoners inflict on each other. Elie also becomes aware of the cruelty of which he himself is capable of. Everything he experiences in the war shows how humanity is lost people allow cruelty to show itself. “Our

“Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body of a snare. Perhaps less than that: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time” (Wiesel 52). With this, Elie struggled with keeping any sort of faith in God.

As Elie gets used to his new life in such a hellish state, he realizes that the trusting and faithful child that he once had been had been taken away along with his family and all else that he had ever known. While so many others around him still implore the God of their past to bring them through their suffering, Wiesel reveals to the reader that although he still believes that there is a God, he no longer sees Him as a just and compassionate leader but a cruel and testing spectator.

Elie loses complete faith in god in many points where god let him down. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of the misery he was facing. "Why should I sanctify his name? The Almighty, the eternal, and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent..."(page 33). Elie was confused, because he doesn’t know why the Germans would kill his race amongst many others, and he does not know why god could let such thing happen to innocent people. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(page 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and a courage to

In the beginning, Elie believes that God is everywhere, that nothing can exist without God. When Moshe the Beadle asked him why he prayed, he thinks to himself, “Why did I pray? … Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (2), this thought reveals that Elie believes in God with

Another time Elie questions God and his faith is around Rosh Hashana, the new year. All the Jews gathered together to say prayers to God. He questions God for allowing all these terrible things to happen to them when they live their lives for Him.

The murder of so many children under God’s supervision is unforgiveable to Elie. “Why would I bless His name?” (Wiesel 67) Elie asked himself. His refusal to recite the benediction was caused by the burning children’s flesh that consumed his faith. He believed it was God who was responsible for creating the crematoria causing the children to burn, and the death factories such as Auschwitz.

The ultimatum has just transformed: either God is cruel, or he is not real. His anger being within faith and his anger at God for not coming to his aid is crucial, because it acknowledges the existence of a God. Elie has not denounced God as a concept, but he has shunned the idea of the benevolent God of his childhood, he wonders how “anyone can believe in a God of Mercy” (Wiesel, 2006) when they have witnessed such atrocities. His new understanding of God, however, is one who allows children to die in furnaces and his "chosen people" to burn in mass graves. (Knopp, 2014.) For all purposes, he feels that the Holocaust has murdered his God, causing him to fall back on self-reliance now that he has no faith in a compassionate God to sustain him. Within Fowler, reevaluated conclusions of faith and spirituality tend to be explicitly held and have a personal legitimacy founded in experience (Hutchison, 2015). For Elie, this has a negative connotation, much like his identity development in Erikson's model. He has progressed along the linear framework, but not in a healthy, conventional way. His reevaluation of faith has become a loss of faith,

Though faithful as they enter the horrific camps of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Buna, Birknau, Dachau, and Buchenwald, the Jews become capricious. They start losing grip and begin falling down the slippery slope of death the Germans set up for them as more horrors of the camps become unveiled. Soon after arriving in the camp and being told about the crematoria, he felt “anger rising with me [Elie]. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent” (33). This is the first time that his faith is challenged. After a few days in Auschwitz he “had ceased to pray. I [Elie] was not denying His existence, but doubted His absolute justice” (45). As seen, Elie is beginning to have doubts about God and therefore his belief and faith in him. Finally, when Elie is looking for God to come though he doesn’t and he asks,

Before experiencing the atrocious events of the holocaust Elie Wiesel was completely devoted to his religion and to God. As a young boy he would engulf himself in religious books and spend many hours at temple. His faith slowly dwindles during his hard times in the concentration camps. It is difficult to put all faith in God when experiencing something as tragic as the holocaust; it was easier to just give up hope. Faith served as his impetus, but not for long. ”I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people” (Night Quotes). Elie rightfully began to question where God was, as the thousands were suffering. “I have seen children, hundreds of Jewish children, who suffered more than Jesus did on his cross and we do not speak about it” (Interview with Elie Wiesel). After countless prayers

Elie first recalls Dr. Mengele’s “eight short, simple words” (Wiesel 27) when he enters the camps: “Men to the left! Women to the right!” (Wiesel 27) In this part of the book, Elie and his father are separated by his mother and sisters. This metaphorically kills Elie because he is very attached to his family as are they to him. A piece of Elie has been taken away from him forever. Later in his memoir, he mentions the cruel hanging of the Pipel. Previous hangings that day did not phase Elie, but when the young, angelic Pipel was hanged, Elie said his once flavorful soup “tasted of corpses.” A man near Elie was saying “Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? Here He is- He is hanging here on this gallows…”(Wiesel 62) This is a powerful quote that shows how Elie has also began to question his faith. This brings about the mindset of the death of God in Elie. Elie begins to show distrust and rebellion in his God. This is a sharp contrast to Elie’s former beliefs. When Elie’s father dies, Elie emotionally shuts his mind off. He says “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me anymore.” He had finally given up. His father was his rock tied to the balloon, his reason to keep going. Without his father, Elie gave up and became zombified like the rest of the broken souls. Elie fully turned into the emotionless man that he was set to become as a result of surviving

The boy struggled due to the non strategically placed rope. This sight caused confusion and fear among the prisoners. After Elie witnessed the awful hanging of his fellow peers, he lost all belief in the god he once worshipped. “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to god in whom I no longer believed.” (Wiesel,67)

Light during the day, darkness at night, growth and development, as well as death at the very end of one’s life are all experiences that most human beings will see in their lifetime. Death is one of the most common fears throughout our species. Society has developed medicines, advanced medical procedures, and routines to further one’s health and lifespan all to escape death. When faced with genocide and concentration camps, the Jewish community in various European countries, held on to any hope they could scrounge up despite Nazi Germany’s attempt to diminish all rays of hope. Separating families, taking away basic rights, killing the old, young, sick, and disabled are just the first steps taken by the Nazi’s to confiscate hope from the Jews. Some within the Jewish community saw this as the ultimate test of faith to God, while others saw this as a severe punishment from God himself. Elie’s contemplation and struggles with his religious views are just one example of the variety of perception changes throughout the Jewish community during and after this tragedy.