The Innocence Of God In Elie Wiesel's Night

Superior Essays
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Birkenau are just some of the sinister names for hell on earth during the Holocaust. Suffering is inevitable at the concentration camps. The constant struggling the Jews face make a great void between themselves and their faith in God. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, was one of those who fell and began to doubt the very existence of God. The Jews and Elie still had faith that God had a greater purpose in mind, and though they opposed the idea of suffering, they would suffer with pride. The reason is that they believed that they were a part of God's plan. And so Wiesel and his town were indoctrinated into the camps, believing that if their faith endured, they would be saved. Soon the delusions faded and Wiesel began to doubt God. In the memoir, Elie waits for God to intervene in a heroic way. However, when the intervention doesn’t come through, he begins to accuse God of His cruelty against His own people. Wiesel spends a big portion of his memoir writing about how suffering can lead a person into doubt and in extreme conditions, absolute denial of faith and hope. Wiesel is stating that the nature of man’s belief in God can sway depending on his or her current situation. We can see this through Elie’s first night at Birkenau, his first encounter in front of the furnace, and his personal accounts/interviews. During his first night at Birkenau, Elie says, “The Eternal…was silent. …show more content…
What had I to thank Him for?” Elie felt that God has left him and His own people forever. The lessons Elie learns from the concentration camps are the total opposite of the lessons he was taught from the Bible during his innocent Jewish childhood. During his childhood, Elie learns that the moral of the Akedah, or the binding of Isaac, is that God demands sacrifice but is ultimately compassionate. However, when the Jews suffer at Birkenau and God is silent about it, Wiesel begins to question the very existence of God. This is when Wiesel and his fellow Jews start to lose faith because of the horrible situation they are currently in. It was not easy for Wiesel to start questioning the existence of God, or he would not have held on to his faith with so much determination. However, as time passed in the concentration camps, the meaningless suffering the Jews had to go through ended up bursting the consciousness of Elie’s seemingly invincible Jewish faith. When Elie was in front of the furnace, he noted that “For the first time I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe…was silent. What had I to thank Him for?” (Night, 31) At this moment, Elie felt outraged from the fact that God has put His own people through a living hell. …show more content…
Wiesel wants all of his readers to know that he has been questioning God for the past 20 years, but never received a satisfying answer. Wiesel strongly believes that not everything needs an answer. Sometimes it is better to not receive an answer. All Wiesel wants is that the Jewish community to know that they may rebel against God, but they should never deny God and his

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