Loss Of Faith In Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

How do you react when your faith is being tested? For Wiesel in the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel the reader witnesses the loss of faith. The response of Wiesel faith was effected by the surrounding he was faced with. The foundation of his beliefs was questioned by the events he saw. Thus as time passed more individuals began to lose their religious behaviours.

In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.

What comes to mind when one thinks of total loss, confusion, and anger towards something? To Eli Wiesel, this is his life as less than a human. His life following his capture by the Nazis and the inhabitants in the multiple concentration camps turned his life upside down. Some would say he faced all odds and even had his doubts regarding who he was and why he was part of these dreadful, seemingly, God-forsaken events. Needless to say, his memoir Night, will follow his life as an eager child of God, to almost complete loss of faith in Him.

It only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains, but what does it take to move faith? At the onset of Elie Wiesel’s journey, he has a deep interest in the religion of his family and community which leads him to begin studying with a poor, foreign jew, Moishe the Beadle. Wiesel writes “And Moishe the beadle… spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah’s revelations and its mysteries.” Curiosity, as well as tradition, fuel Wiesel's faith. Whilst living a life of happiness and comfort, Wiesel is able to devote himself to studying the Talmud and Kabbalah, implying that his faith is very strong.

The Holocaust was one of the worst things to ever happen in the civilization of mankind. The mass genocide resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jewish people all over Europe. During the Holocaust, the people that were not immediately executed were put into concentration camps. During the peoples’ time in the camps, their faith in Judaism was tested as some had an even deeper faith in their religion, meanwhile others lost all faith in God for allowing such things to happen to human beings. Richard L. Rubenstein wrote about how the people in the world lost faith in God and questioned religion as a whole.

At the beginning of Night, Elie was someone who believed fervently in his religion. His experiences at Auschwitz and other camps, such as Birkenau and Buna have affected his faith immensely. Elie started to lose his faith when he and his father arrived at Birkenau. They saw the enormous flames rising from a ditch, with people being thrown in.

In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.

“You don’t understand... You cannot understand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. Where did I get my strength?

Why do you go on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies?”(Wiesel 68) Wiesel clearly is losing faith in God because he has seen babies burned alive, families killed together. Wiesel blames God for what has happened. Additionally, Elie Wiesel is not thankful for God anymore because he is not in Auschwitz helping him and the rest of the Jews. Wiesel feels anger towards God.

4. On the last page of the novel, Eliezer says, “from the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.” Do you predict that life will ever return to Eliezer’s life again? Why?

In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel a character in the book, Eliezer, begins to lose his faith. This occurs after many horrific incidents in the novel such as babies being burned alive or a child killing his father for a mere scrap of bread. Towards the beginning of his living hell Eliezer clings to his faith, like many others, hoping that his experiences were a test from God. His faith deteriorated more and more throughout his nightmare. His thoughts go from desperately clawing to keep his faith to blaming God for abandoning his children to denial of faith completely.

Death was the best thing that could have happened to Elie WIesel. In his book, night, he has to overcome some of the most gruesome experiences ever read about, and it’s a true story. He had to get over working in terrible conditions, get over losing his family, and forget his future as his faith was lost. To start off, Elie had to get over the unbearable dilemma of losing multiple members of his family. It is unimaginable to lose any family members in such a horrid way, but that was only one of the barriers he had to face.

The Holocaust affects Jews in a way that seems unimaginable, and most of these effects seem to have been universal experiences; however, in the matter of faith, Jews in the concentration camp described in Elie Wiesel’s Night are affected differently and at different rates. The main character, Elie, loses his faith quickly after the sights he witnesses (as well as many others); other Jews hold on much longer and still pray in the face of total destruction. In the beginning, all of the Jews are more or less equally faithful in their God and religion.

Elie Wiesel’s Experiences In the book Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his experiences of the Holocaust. Throughout this experience, Elie Wiesel is exposed to life he previously thought unimaginable and they consequently change his life. He becomes To begin with, Elie Wiesel learns that beings aware and mindful are more than just important. On many occasions, he receives warnings and hints toward the impending tragedy.

Elie Wiesel is not only a talented author but a survivor of the holocaust who documented his horrific experiences in his memoir “Night”. In the beginning of the book Elie Wiesel was one of the most religious people in his town of Saghet who had a dream of living a monastic life. However, as a result of the harrowing injustices he endured he continuously lost faith in his religion. Within the book the reader is reminded again and again that when extreme adversity is experienced, faith is often lost.