Religion In Elie Wiesel's Night

In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses his change in faith to show that extreme conditions, such as the Holocaust, will drastically alter how one sees and takes the world in. Elie’s faith in God started out strong and prominent and was quickly questioned as the horrible experiences of the Holocaust carried on which, in the end, resulted in the death of his beliefs in God and religion.

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.

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie starts losing faith in his Jewish beliefs. Multiple times in the book Elie says quotes that show his anger and disappointment with what he sees every day in the concentration camps. In this essay I will be showing many examples from different quotes on why Elie begins losing his faith.

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.

Most people around the world are in pursuit of a religion that reflects one’s personal interests, qualities, and beliefs. As a Holocaust victim, Elie Wiesel has a first hand experience with the overall cruelty that Jews become accustomed to in these times of torture. Within the second World War were additional wars inside the minds of innocent people, or internal conflicts. God is an entity that is positioned in the hearts of the enslaved; however, when put in distress, one’s faith in God slowly begins to repress. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the significance of the loss in faith of God can likewise be perceived as the loss of identity. Wiesel reveals how during this time of pure hatred towards his religion, he becomes unfocused on who he used to be, and strays from his true self. Religion has been the motive of most wars throughout history, and often this external conflict leads the oppressed to internal conflict. As seen through Elie, one can see how this internal conflict or loss of faith alters personal identity.

During the Holocaust, many Jews lost their religious faith when they were annexed and tortured by the totalitarian Germans of World War II. Elie Wiesel emphasizes this concept in Night when he loses his religious perspective which he regains later in his life. Elie’s perspective changes dramatically throughout Night because he does not believe that God is alongside him. During the first month of the tragic year that he has yet to endure, Elie starts to inquire whether God is flanking the Jews with support in their fight. When Elie is first in the camp, he supports the opinion of Akiba Drumer, another inmate who bonds with Elie and his father, that “God is testing us. He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming our base instincts, of

The holocaust unleashed unparalleled cruelty and suffering to a great number of people; Elie Wiesel survived these hardships, but his innocence was shattered. For this reason, he wrote Night to share his personal memories of his time spent in the concentration camps and details the transformation of his faith and understanding of God. Each person Elie writes about attempts to reconcile their agony with their faith, albeit many fail or have their faith transformed. In this paper, I will describe how Wiesel’s understanding of God transforms as he experiences tragedy and how the various prisoners come to terms with their faith.

In the Kingdom of Night, time stands still; it is there that indifference is made absolute and only through action can this indifference be cast off. Religion is often a catalyst for action as people find that their devotion to it is the best way to remove indifference from their lives. Many struggle to answer the question of why they exist and when they do not find an answer, they lose their will to do anything, so when they are able to answer that question with their faith in God, they are able to act, find joy in that action, and spread that joy to others. And although religion eliminates indifference in this way, it can do the opposite as generation after generation follows the faith but never have to answer the question for themselves and only follow because those before them did. When that point is reached, unless someone takes action either for or against the indifferent, nothing will change and indifference becomes a mainstay in the world. By the 1920s, the Jewish people were indifferent to what was happening around them. They could see the racism and prejudice against them, but did not care to do anything about it, so when Hitler rose to power

“Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death.” (Wiesel 67). This example shows how Elie is losing his faith. Wiesel does not understand how if God, “The Almighty”, was real with the greatest power how he could allow the burning and killing of so many innocent people and if He was then Elie would no longer want to praise someone of that much cruelty. Later Wiesel gives a greater example of how he loses his faith in god. “And I, the former mystic, was thinking: Yes, man is stronger, Greater than God. When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise, when You displeased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the flood… But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray before you!” (Wiesel 68). This continues to show that Elie is extremely confused how God could turn his back on them when they worship him and didn’t do anything to get this type of torture such as

Elie begins his story, pre Holocaust, having great faith in G-d. He is on path to be a scholar, he is studying daily with Moshe the Beadle. All of this starts off by looking optimistic for Elie. His life is good, he has great faith in G-d. Their are no issues. However, as the war escalates and Elie begins to witness the horrors of the holocaust he loses faith. For example, as the holocaust is just beginning and Elie is yet to be saved despite the losses he is faith he begins to lose faith by saying “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. 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?” (pg. 33) As the war continues to escalate and Elie is removed from the gettho and begins getting deported to Auschowitz his loss of faith heightens as he lacks the support from god. Elie begins wondering. ““Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves?” (pg. 74) The more atrocities Elie learns the the nazis are causing the more he begins to wonder where his god is.

After reading Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the reader traces Elie’s life through his experiences in the Holocaust. Examination of what he sees and feels makes evident his change from a religious, sensitive little boy to a spiritually dead, unemotional man. By exploring his life before deportation, at Auschwitz and at Buna, the path of his deterioration is markedly clear.

All over the world people are faced with troubles. Some threatening to their lives, in these struggles many lose their faith during the fight. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, several prisoners struggled to maintain faith during the Holocaust. Throughout the novel prisoners witness horrific sights; through this they question who they are and what they believe. Many individuals struggled to maintain faith after witnessing starvation, beatings, and murders of the innocent.

Ten years after WWII, Elie Wiesel’s novel Night was published in 1955. Night describes “his memories of life inside four different Nazi death camps,” as he was one of the few Jews to survive the Holocaust during WWII (Sanderson). Wiesel’s autobiographical novel makes him “the best-known contemporary Holocaust writer and novelist,” and reveals the impact of the concentration camps on humanity and for the individual (Sibelman).As a negative Bildungsroman, Night depicts “a coming of age story in which, rather than finding his identity as a young hero would typically do, Eliezer progressively loses his identity” when time painstakingly “ends for young Eliezer in the spring of 1944” (Dougherty, Bosmajian). His shattering identity is “experienced individually and collectively” and is symbolized by his loss of personal possessions and loss of faith (Dougherty). This novel exemplifies the Holocaust as a dehumanizing process through Wiesel’s own experience, which influences his work Night.

In Wiesel's novel, Night, it takes place towards the end of World War 2 at the climax of the Holocaust. The story follows Elie Wiesel, a teenage boy, who recounts horrific memories of his experience during the Holocaust. In a few instances, the protagonist reshapes his faith through his experiences in the Nazi concentration camp. Such instances include scene where Wiesel is introduced to the concentration camp in Birkenau, the public execution in Buna, and the act of defiance toward God. Throughout the story Wiesel's value of faith undergoes a drastic transformation during his ordeal in the Holocaust.

In the text, Night, by Elie Wiesel, the dynacism of the narrator is accentuated by the battles he undergoes with his faith throughout. Wiesel's whole journey throughout Auschwitz is greatly influenced with his ongoing argument with his inner self. God, to people of religion, shapes how people live their lives ever since they were young; how they grow, learn, play, economics and who they should fall in love with. God is what maps out their lives, and for the Jews during the Holocaust, this was a backbone for life. In the text, when the Jews get brutally targeted in the Holocaust, Wiesel feels betrayed by God. Through it all, Wiesel goes on a self journey trying to stay alive and trying to stay loyal to his faith.