Throughout Night, the Nazis take away everyone and everything the Jews care about. And for Elie Wiesel, they also took away his faith. In the ghetto, before the camps, Elie was devoutly Jewish. He even tried to convince his father to allow him to master Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism that one usually attempts as an adult:
I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah. "You are too young for that. Maimonides tells us that one must be thirty before venturing into the world of mysticism, a world fraught with peril. First you must study the basic subjects, those you are able to comprehend. (Wiesel 3-4)
In these years before the concentration camps, I think that Elie’s life revolved around his religion. He might have even become a rabbi if his faith hadn’t been destroyed by the Nazis. But Elie began to question his faith and his God when he witnessed the horrors in the concentration camps. He wondered how God could allow such terror to be brought upon his people:
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? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? (Wiesel 67)
Elie saw so much during his time at the concentration camps, so many things that were so horrific that they defied anything he ever would have thought possible. And his God allowed them to happen. I think that Elie half-expected God to come down from the sky and kill all of the Germans for what they had done. But nothing changed. That is when Elie began to turn his back on God, to rebel against the very thing that had sent him to the camp in the first place:
When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah's generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favor, You caused the heavens to rain down fire and damnation. 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! They praise Your name! (Wiesel 67-68)
WOW! Yet again you have amazed me with your brilliant work Ava. Outstanding work with your third blog post. In the second quote you reflected on how all the men were keeping their faith and how Elie was amazed on how they could in these troubled times is something to ponder about. I do think that faith played a huge role in the novel as well, as many Jews lost it as they were brought to the concentration camps. Overall, great job on this post!
ReplyDeleteGreat work! Your was very poignant in your writing and throughout the book. The theme of faith was an excellent choice and you have explained and back it up perfectly. When he had faith and when he did not. Your reasons to back up this theme of faith were very in-depth. I also thought that how you included modern-day into your blog post was very interesting with the African Americans and the justice movements. Overall you did a pretty good job!
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