Almost every human being has went through a period of time in their life when their faith in god was nonexistent due to experience with hardship. The novel, Night, was written by Elie Wiesel to depict his ghastly experiences at a concentration camp during the holocaust. He goes through a number of changes when it came to his faith in God. Elie’s beliefs change from being deeply devoted to God to questioning his devotion to completely repudiating him. Throughout the memoir, there are very clear examples of Elie’s struggle with faith and religion. Elie was deeply devoted to God as he would dedicate his time studying the Talmud and praying at the synagogue every night. He dreamt one day that he could study the Kabbalah, the mystical teachings of the Torah. He has so pure and his love for God was absolute. When he is asked on why he prays, he replies, “Why did I pray? Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel 2). He speaks of prayer as if it’s something that is so fundamental to life and we can clearly see how strong his faith is. Elie eventually goes on to study the Kabbalah with the help of a teacher. He is taught that “Man comes closer to God through questions he asks him” (Wiesel 3). Elie is full of questions which displays his spiritual commitment.
Elie begun to question his faith shortly after arriving at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He
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Elie is asked, “Where is God”, and he answers, “Where is He? hanging here from these gallows” (Wiesel 62). From this point on, Elie struggles to even make a show of faith and his mind was now embittered. As I mentioned earlier, Elie’s faith was based on questions, not answers. This is when we witness Elie losing his faith in god when he is suddenly full of answers. Death surrounded him and instead of questioning where is god? He now feels that God has abandoned him along with everyone
Night is a dramatic book that tells the horror and evil of the concentration camps that many were imprisoned in during World War II. Throughout the book the author Elie Wiesel, as well as many prisoners, lost their faith in God. There are many examples in the beginning of Night where people are trying to keep and strengthen their faith but there are many more examples of people rebelling against God and forgetting their religion.
Faith is like a little seed; if you think about the positive aspects of a situation, then it will grow, like a seed grows when you water it. However, if the seed does not receive water anymore, it will die, which serves as a parallel to the horrors and antagonism of the concentration camps that killed Elie’s faith. After the analysis of the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the reader can visualize the horrors and slaughter of millions of innocent people that occurred in concentration camps. Throughout the book, Wiesel explains how his faith in God was tested, as he was forced to leave his home, separated from his family, and observed the death all around him; he even witnessed children being thrown into huge ditches of fire alive. Elie felt abandoned, betrayed, and deceived by the God that he knew who was a loving and giving God. It was then he started to doubt His existence. Elie tried to hold on to his faith, but the childhood innocence had disappeared from within him, and he lost his faith in God completely.
In times of hardship and strife it can be difficult to hold onto faith and religion. So imagine being taken from home at the age of 15 and being thrown into a concentration camp immediately separated from friends and family and being forced to work around the clock in harsh conditions hardly being fed and witnessing countless deaths at every corner. Well the main character in the novel Night by Elie Wiesel had to face this exact thing and many more which made him change spiritually and faith wise over the course of the of the novel going from being completely devoted to God to hating him during his horrific time in the concentration camp which drastically changed him as a person and shaped the story as a whole regarding the fact that it's easy to lose your spirituality in times of trials and tribulations.
He prays to God even though he said he disbeliefs of his existence. But does it because he fears he might leave his father too. He recites religious phrases to comfort him. Everything that Elie has gone through the still remains loyal because it’s all he has left to protect him.
Initially, Eliezer’s faith is a result of his Jewish studies, which teach him that God is everywhere in the world, that nothing exists without God, that in fact everything in the physical world is a reflection, of the divine world. At the beginning of the memoir, his faith in God is absolute. When Moshe asks him why he prays to God, he answers, “Why did I pray? . . . Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Weisel 4). His belief in comforting and caring God is unconditional, and he cannot imagine living without faith in a divine power; however, throughout the Holocaust Elie’s faith is shaken to its core and he begins to question God himself. Since his studies showed God is good and God is everywhere in the world Elie believes the world is generally good. When
Alone and scared, no light to follow. Wondering in the dark not knowing where you're going. Upset and afraid because the one you did look toward for help is no longer there. It feels as though he has gone away. The silence is loud and the light is no more.
In the memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel portrays the dehumanization of individuals and its lasting result in a loss of faith in God. Throughout the Holocaust, Jews were doggedly treated with disrespect and inhumanity. As more cruelty was bestowed upon them, the lower their flame of hope and faith became as they began turning on each other and focused on self preservation over family and friends. The flame within them never completely died, but rather stayed kindling throughout the journey until finally it stood flickering and idle at the eventual halt of this seemingly never-ending nightmare. Elie depicts the perpetuation of violence that crops up with the Jews by teaching of the loss in belief of a higher power from devout to doubt they
Experiencing trauma causes a person to change their view in God. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, went through substantial confusion as to how God could abandon his people. His experiences in the concentration camp challenged his view in a good and just God. The journey, in his walk of faith, questioned a loving God.
This quote shows Elie’s loss of faith because, Elie is questioning God for not saving him and the other Jews from the from being put into the concetration camps. This was just the beggining of Elie’s loss of faith. Elie continues to question, and loss his faith when he witnesses a little pipel get hung from the gallows. Elie said, “‘For God’s sake, where is God.’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is?
Before the Germans invaded his hometown of Sighet, Elie was enveloping himself in the studies of Kabbalah. His father dejected his request to find him a Master of Kabbalah, and after searching Elie found one for himself in the form of Moishe the Beadle. That is his father says “"You are too young for that. Maimonides tells us that one must be thirty before venturing into the world of mysticism… He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain. I succeeded on my own in finding a master for myself.” As he was learning with Moishe the Beadle, Elie’s moral was very high and he seemed to enjoy what he was doing. That is, Elie says “We spoke that way almost every evening, remaining in the synagogue long after all the faithful had gone, sitting in the semidarkness where only a few half-burnt candles provided a flickering light.” This shows his dedication to his religion, if he never enjoyed his studies he would not stay and talk to his mentor long after his time was over.
The act of losing faith is difficult to avoid in stressful situations. Elie and his fellow victims experienced various degrees of their loss of faith, as seen in Night. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night is about his personal experiences in Auschwitz. He records what he personally went through when he was in the Nazi concentration camp for a year. In the novel Night, Ellie Wiesel and the other Jews struggle to learn that it's difficult to maintain a person's faith during tough times.
The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel shows how strength helps one survive through the most horrendous of events. This strength is achieved by the Jews through religion. Religion is based on structure and the Nazis took this structure away from the Jews, making many of them lose faith in God. Elie, being quite young, was influenced by the entire event, which causes his to question his faith, just like many other Jews during the holocaust. As a quite innocent boy, he was introduced to the concentration camp with a pure heart, and originally was a person who truly was the definition of religious. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, however, Eliezer's faith falters by witnessing the painful death of many innocent lives, the harsh conditions of the
Elie Wiesel shares his horrific experiences and events from the Holocaust during 1941 to 1945 in his memoir Night. During these years Elie evolves from being a kind hearted, spiritually impassioned, and innocent little boy, into an emotionless and spiritually dispassionate young man. He drifts away from his devotion to the Jewish religion and wanting to further deepen his understanding of the Cabbala. Because of the separation of his family and the endless torture of his people, he questions divinity. If such a tragic and devilishly cruel monstrosity is able to happen to innocent people, then there can’t possibly be a God that would permit such cruelty to take place.
When Elie lived in Sighet his life was devoted to his faith. His identity was deeply rooted in his belief in God and his faith. Elie was constantly seeking to learn more about his faith and ways to grow his connection with God. He was so devoted to his faith that when he was asked why he prayed his first response was to think, “Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Wiesel 4). Elie believed that his faith was as important to his survival as breathing. This showed how truly devoted Elie was to his faith that he couldn't even imagine being able to live without it.
Elie was losing his faith because he was unsure about god. "My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man."(Wiesel 68). In this part of the book we see why Elie was questioning his faith. His identity was also questioned because he didn’t recognize himself. "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me."(Wiesel115). The readers see how bad they were starved, and how unreal it really was. Finally, Elie lost his name and this questioned his identity because he was no longer "Elie" by name. "Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments."(Wiesel 42). During this part of the book everyone lost their name. The way Elie was treated was made clear to the