The Trial Of God Book Analysis

When Elie and his camp were liberated he maintains his faith but it is extremely weak. Elie still wonders if God cares and feels like the Germans murdered his faith. “Behind me, I heard the same man asking: For God’s, where is God? And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where he is? This is where— hanging here from the gallows” (65). Elie is experiencing the hanging of a child and Elie feels the Germans killed his faith just like the young child.

In Night Wiesel struggles with his religion through the genocide process of the Jews, instituted by the Nazis. Though Wiesel loses his faith in God, he does not however stop believing in God. He loses faith that God is an all loving God. This is demonstrated when Wiesel says, “I was not denying His existence, but doubted His absolute justice” (45). An incident in Night where Wiesel also demonstrates that God is not the all-loving God he ounce thought is when a young boy is strangled on the gallows, and a group of Jews are lined up to watch as the boy struggles between life and death for more than half an hour. When a man had asked, “Where is God” (65)? Someone answered, “Where He is? This is where, hanging here from this gallows” (65). In that moment, the God whom Wiesel adored and his

In Chapter 2 of Encountering the New Testament the author talks about a few of the different practices that unified the Jews as well the different religious groups that had different beliefs. Judaism was unified in the beliefs that they had been chosen by God, they were waiting for the messiah to come, they respect the synagogues, they shared the same laws and traditions of elder. Although these beliefs were unifying there were seperate religious groups and leaders that held different beliefs. Probably the most well known group of religious leaders were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a small group of religious leaders that believed in God, and the coming messiah. Although many of the Pharisees did live good lives many of them were

Eliezer was taught that God is supposed to be filled with good, yet as he goes through the Holocaust, he thinks that maybe God doesn't exist at all . As he and his father are walking through Auschwitz, he sees the Nazi's burning babies in a large pit. While his father began whispering to himself the prayer for the dead, reciting "may his name be blessed and magnified...," Eliezer asks himself, thinking that he would be burned as well, "Why should I bless his name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe...was silent. What had I to thank him for?"(Page 31) This is the beginning of his lack of faith in god. As Eliezer and his father were together in Buna, an occasional public hanging would take place. Hangings were executed not only for those that committed a crime, but also for the prisoners of the camp, in order to learn a lesson from the accused. In Buna, one of three prisoners who were hung was a little boy, who was a servant of a member of the resistance group in the camp. Once the boy was publicly hung, the boy was still alive, just hanging there on the noose for about half an hour. As the prisoners in the camp were forced to watch the hanging, they began to cry. Eliezer said that even though there were so many hangings, this was the first time everyone was crying. At that moment, a prisoner asked out loud "Where is God now?"(Page 62) and Eliezer answered to himself "Where is he?

Elie Wiesel’s renowned autobiography, Night, describes the numerous atrocities faced by concentration camp inmates during the holocaust. He explains that prisoners whom were not immediately murdered were subject to severe physical and psychological brutalities, all of which left lasting trauma. Like many others in these circumstances, Wiesel found it difficult to hold onto his Jewish faith when such cruelty surrounded him, going as far to question God’s very existence. These ideas are found in the excerpt: “Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘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,’” (Night, pg. 65). This is Wiesel’s account of one of his most horrifying experiences

One major problem that stays through the whole story is if Elie Wiesel and the other Jews should remain with their faith. At the beginning of the novel, Elie is a very religious person who follows all his beliefs. During the Holocaust, he notices that if there really is a God, then why isn’t anything being done to stop this tragedy. One day, a boy is being hung to his death for no reason. This is an episode where prisoners ask for God, but nothing happens. “And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. ‘For God’s sake, where is God’,” (65). This quote illustrates that when the Jewish prisoners need their God the most, he is not there. A poor boy suffers, and God is not there to stop this. Another major internal conflict Wiesel has with himself is whether or not he should stay with his father through the Holocaust. The time before liberation, Shlomo, Wiesel’s father, asks for water from him. Elie Wiesel refuses because he does not want to get beat by the guard. Since Wiesel does not help his father, Shlomo is beat to his death. “My son, water… I’m burning up...My insides… The officer wielded his club and dealt him a violent blow to the head. I didn’t move. I was afraid, my body was afraid of another blow, this time to my head,” (111). This quote shows that Elie Wiesel wants to help his father, but he needs to survive. He realizes that even though he

One of the first examples of the Holocaust’s importance is how it affected people’s views and religion. During the book, Wiesel was angry at God. He doubted if he should believe in God. “For the first time I felt the revolt in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible was silent. What had I to thank Him for?” (25). This quote shows that Wiesel had

What God would let his people be burned, suffocated to death, separated from their families, and starved to death? Many people persecuted and sent to concentration camps questioned this thought. It was near impossible to keep faith at this time of torture. They felt as if God had abandoned his people, left to suffer the cruel events of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel grew up as a faithful and deeply spiritual young person. For a person of his age, he was greatly curious by his Jewish faith, he pursued Moishe the Beadle to deepen his spiritual understanding. Upon experiencing the torture of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel lost his faith completely. He found it impossible to believe that a God could allow his people to experience such torture. Upon surviving the Holocaust Elie Wiesel realized that faith is crucial to surviving without losing character. The hardships that Elie Wiesel faced in the concentration camps lead him to lose faith, until after when realizing it was crucial to keep faith in God despite the horrendous events of the Holocaust.

From the start of the story, Elieser was a sincere Jew who studied Jewish tradition faithfully and believed faithfully in God. Even as the Jews were being deported, they expressed their faith in God to save them from the Nazis. To understand the Holocaust through the eyes of Eliezer, one must follow his path of lost faith in God. At Auschwitz, when he first spotted the furnace pits in which the babies burned, he began to doubt God. Eliezer asked himself, "Why should I bless His name? What had I to thank him for?" Eliezer at this point felt that God betrayed him because God was not there to stop the horrible events. With the lasting impact of that night, Eliezer went on to state, "Never shall I forget that night…which has turned my life into one long night…Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever…that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget this moments which murdered my God…Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself." That night was the turning point of Eliezer's faith in God. Eliezer told a story where two prisoners were suspected of being involved with a resistance along with a young boy, who was a servant of a resistance member. As the prisoners watched the child strangle on the end of the noose, they began to tear. One man even starts to wonder how God could be present in a world with

The holocaust was a terrible period of punishment and abuse for many who were discriminated against, especially the jews. One of these jews was Elie Wiesel. He is the author of the book Night a autobiography on his life as a Jew in the Holocaust. Throughout the book Elie displayed many traits. Elie’s traits include loyalty, determination, and religiousness. The characterization of Elie the protagonist and the other characters plays a role in creating and supporting a theme in the novel Night. From reading the novel we can tell that Elie Wiesel's night shows that the holocaust was a very difficult time for jews and that it made them lose faith in god.

On the Jewish New Year, Elie feels a strong rebellion against God. He becomes the accuser and God the accused. But in his rebellion against his faith in God, he also feels alone and empty. The Jews debate whether they should fast for Yom Kippur. As an act of obedience to his father and also as an act of rebellion against God, Elie swallows his food. In the camps, his physical needs become more important than his faith. Elie and his father manage to survive through the selection process, where the unfit are condemned to the crematory. Elie suffers from a foot injury that places him in a hospital. As Elie recuperates in the hospital after his foot surgery, a faceless neighbor tells him that he has more faith in Hitler than in anyone else because he's the only one who's kept his promises to the Jewish people (p. 77). This is a direct attack on those who have clung to their faith in God. The ultimate insult is that even Hitler is an object worthier of faith than God is.

Three days later, optimism still present, the Jews still refused to believe that God would let dreadful things occur to them even when “German army vehicles made their appearance on their streets” (9). The towns “impressions of the Germans were rather reassuring” (9) at that time, on the contrary of the bloodcurdling conceptions they later gained when the reality of the terrors of Germans had cropped up. Months later, Elie and the other Jews’ faiths become warped when they come back down to earth and the Germans true intentions strike as they enter their long expedition in the death camps.

The Trial of God is a play that was written by Elie Wiesel. The play was first published in 1979. The play was set in a feudal European settlement where three travelling Jewish artistes put God on trial to answer for His quietness during a pogrom. It is a powerful drama with historical and especially post-Shoah concerns surrounding faith. While imprisoned in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel witnessed a trial. It was not unusual for prisoners to witness trials, this one would be different and very unusual. It was unusual because of the defendant. God was on trial. God was tried for turning his back and ignoring the Jewish people in their ultimate hour of need. God was tried in absentia. I mean how you can put God on the witness stand is a question all in itself. There was one problem, no one was willing to take on the role of God's attorney. God was eventually found guilty. After the verdict was announced, the "court" prayed. How is that for an oxymoron? But this incident, which served as the inspiration for The Trial of God, is part of the long Jewish tradition of arguing with God.

In the movie God on Trial, director Andy de Emmony has the actors in the setting of the concentration camp, Auschwitz, where they have to face the challenging and controversial issue of God’s goodness. The characters hold a trial to judge God, the room is full of tension and division where some of the prisoners defend God and the others accuse God with murder and evil. Those who come to God’s defense restate numerous biblical stories which are full of miracles and beautiful natural stories full of hope. On the other hand, the others accuse God with devastating personal experiences and horrendous biblical stories. The movie is not the only time people tried to defend or question God’s goodness. In the article, “ Did God Command Genocide?”

Concentration camps were horrible places filled with starvation, dangerous work, and death. After being taken out of the ghettos Jews were most often carted like caged animals to the camps. There, if not immediately sentenced to death during selection, the people were stripped of their identity and thrown into a situation no human deserves to be in. Many Jews either lost their faith or used it as a tool for survival. Many asked themselves, is there a god, or is this a test of faith? (Sheldon 1) Given