Introduction: Elie Wiesel was 15 years old, when he started to see and experience terrible things. He and his family were sent to concentration camps. Before his family's separation, Elie had faith in a God he loved and admired. All that changes as time goes on. Elie starts to see death roam around and devouring people. Elie asks God, where he is and why he is not doing anything to stop the killing of thousands. This is when Elie starts to lose faith and respect toward God. Elie WIesel is a young boy, when he starts to grow his belief in God. He was twelve and deeply observant. By day he studied Talmud and by night he would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. He was into any belief, that one day Elie had asked …show more content…
Some of the men spoke of God and his mysterious ways. One of the men said that God was testing them, and if they were capable of overcoming the killing of Satan within themselves. As for Elie, he didn’t want anything to do with God at that moment. “As for me I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying his existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.” (pg. 45) Elie was starting to experience new things with God, and responded to such things in a certain way. One day when Elie returned from work, there, in the middle of the camp was a dead boy hanged. They were forced to look at him squarely in the face. Elie had watched other hangings, but there was one that had caught his attention. This hanging also caused Elie to question God about his silence. The hanging of the pipel. In Buna, the pipel were hated because they often displayed greater cruelty than their elders. The oberkapo was tortured for hiding weapons. His young pipel was left behind. The young pipel was condemned to death. At the signal his chair was tipped over, the caps were set off. The child was still breathing, he remained like that for half an hour. All eyes were on the young pipel. There was a man who constantly kept saying “ Where is merciful God, where is He?” (pg.64 & 65) Elie thought that the man was right. “ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where He is? This is where-hanging here from this gallow.” …show more content…
After Rosh Hashanah, Elie knew that what he said was wrong, and pleaded for forgiveness before God. Elie had stopped pleading and lamenting. He felt stronger without any of these, he was the accuser. He even mentioned that he was in a world without God and man. He felt like nothing but ashes. Without the need of praying, he seemed to feel much stronger than the Almighty to whom his life had been bound for so long. After feeling this way, he felt like a stranger when the men assembled for a prayer. Even on the day of Yom Kippur, Elie had decided not to fast. One was to please his father who had forbidden him to do so. Another reason he didn’t fast was because he thought that their was no longer a reason for him to fast. He no longer accepted God’s silence. Elie also mentions he no longer is a saint, and that he is a simple creature of flesh and bone. “I suffer hell in my soul and my flesh. I also have eyes and I see what is being done here. Where is God’s mercy? Where’s God?” (pg.77) Elie has totally changed from a religious innocent little boy, to a stranger (since he said he was no longer saint, and when the men prayed he even said that he was a stranger. Elie even felt sorry for Akiba Drumer, he even said that if Akiba only kept his faith in God. Elie wants others to not stop believing in God, but he himself feels like he won’t be able to do that since such anger has took over
“The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing.” Elie remembers the voices of the prisoners around him asking “For God’s sake, where is God?” Elie says “And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where He is?
The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe chose to be silent” (Wiesel 33). Elie started to wonder why he should worship God when God stood silent and didn’t do anything while innocent people were slaughtered en masse. Elie started to lose religious faith in and not show his devotion and love for God. Elie’s faith changed
Elie wanted to believe in god but how would he believe in him if he hadn't shown them that he was there to let them free from their
I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice" (53). As shown in the previous paragraph, Elie's religion was what made his life whole, however now he is turning away from God and trying to sort out all the chaotic feelings
Elie continued to be angry at Him. Thousands of prisoners were repeating the prayer “Blessed be God’s name…” (Page 67). But Elie was concerned why should he bless Him? Everything inside Elie opposed it.
On page 66, Elie writes, “What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies.”
When Elie says ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ and from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where-hanging here from these gallows…” (Wiesel 65) this is when we realize that Elie has lost his faith in god. Not becoming atheist but dropping the notion that god is wonderful and amazing and should be worshiped day in and day out and should be sacrificed for and prayed to and begged forgiveness of.
The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in history. It just so happened to be the cause of six million deaths. While there are countless beings who experienced such trauma, it is impossible to hear everyone's side of the story. However, one man, in particular, allowed himself to speak of the tragedies. Elie Wiesel addressed the transformation he underwent during the Holocaust in his memoir, Night.
I concurred with a job. I was not denying his existence, but I doubted his absolute justice.” Elie is not denying the fact that God doesn’t exist, but little by little he’s getting separated farther from him. In conclusion Elie’s faith towards God does shift around throughout the story.
In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he questioned God, ¨Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled, he caused thousands of children to burn his Mass graves?¨(Wiesel 68). Overall, Wiesel does not follow the words of God and is not believing in him anymore because he thinks God is the one thatś letting all the inhumanity occur. One theme in Night is that inhumanity can cause disbelief or incredulity.
“I ran off to look for my father. And at the same time I was afraid of having to wish him a Happy New Year when I no longer believed in it,” (Wiesel, 75). Earlier, Elie talks about how he felt powerful and stronger than God himself, now that he was free from the Almighty. He also talks about how he felt alone but strong. Later, he shows retaliation against God.
Elie Wiesel had a childhood full of adversity. When you’re exposed to so much violence and adversity at such a young age, your lifespan is shorter and you health declines rapidly. Studies show that children who are regularly affected by trauma have undeveloped brains and are more vulnerable to various diseases. Elie and his father were both exposed to violence during the rough times of the Holocaust. Violence made Elie question his faith in God, and made him grow numb to death and adversity.
Elie was called along with the others to the appelplazt to watch the hanging of an innocent boy. When the boy lingered between life and death, Elie’s faith was pulverized seeing that his glorified god had allow inequity to befall, therefore, when one of the inmates asked where God is, Elie answered ” Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows” (65), revealing Elie’s belief that God was dead because hope and righteousness did not exist among them. Elie saw that his inmates were blessing God on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, he became enraged since he blamed God for their unscrupulous sufferings, thus, “Every fiber in [him] rebelled”(67) when he was supposed to express his gratitude to God. Elie has stopped seeking God’s help, instead, he was in charge of his own survival even when he was facing the worst of all things.
As for me, I had ceased to pray... I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). It is apparent here that the effect of the Holocaust on the Jewish people’s faith was delayed on some level. Elie refuses to pray to the God that apparently abandoned him. This is personified when he says he doubts that God has absolute justice.
But after the invasion by the Nazis, all the Jews started to suffer, starve, die, and specifically Elie started losing faith in God. “Where is merciful God, where is He?’’ , questions like this were posed before him. This quote shows that not only Elie but other Jews were questioning God and it seemed that they were losing faith in God as