Night essay

When one suddenly faces reality, one’s belief would waver. Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir which describes Eliezer’s experience during the holocaust and his meeting with reality. Eliezer is mainly conflicted between believing his God and blaming God due to his cowardice.

            Praying to God as a kid was his everyday life. As a Jews, he believed in God without knowing why. He was influenced by his parents who were also Jews. He describes his childhood daily life as: “During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (1). He was a religious as kid and he always wanted to learn more about his religion and about God. He didn’t have to worry a lot during his childhood so he was able to learn and spend his life peacefully. During his talk to Moshe the Beadle, he starts to think about stuff that he hasn’t thought about before:  “Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(2). His faith in God was something that he did without knowing any of the reasons to. Praying to God is a habit that he can easily do everyday just like breathing and living. He had no explanations for it. This shows his loyalty to God and his religious belief.

            While moving from camp to camp, Eliezer’s God slowly died as he began to see the muders and deaths in front of him. While he and his father were walking toward death, Eliezer heard his father recited a prayer. In the moments of death, the feeling of anger engulfed Eliezer: “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? ... Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God” (31-32). Eliezer believes that his God is dead because He never helped them during their moments of sufferings. His frustration from people still having full faith in God caused him to develop a negative feeling for God. He thought that this feeling was the feeling of his God dying but instead, it holds a much deeper meaning. After living in Auschwitz for a while, his feeling started growing more. He still acknowledge God but in a different way:  “I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (42). God’s existence had not disappeared from Eliezer but he began to doubt God. When he didn’t know much stuff, he believes his God died, in contrast to him after while in the camp, his God never died. He doesn’t believe in God; his hatred slowly increases as he sees more suffering.

            Facing crueler events, Eliezer’s hatred changes into anger meant to blame God. He released his anger in his mind whenever he thinks that God doesn’t deserve people’s faith in him. Facing death and fear everyday, Eliezer’s anger rose and vents it on God: “The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?”(31). Eliezer’s faith in God was wilting away and doesn’t believe that God deserves anything when He lets all the Jews suffer and die. Every time he hears someone bless God or pray for God, his hatred took over his thought: “‘Blessed art Thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in the crematory?’” (64). After seeing so many deaths, his eyes opened to the real world and his reliance upon God had disappear. Even though it is gone, he used God as another way to vent his anger on the life he had to live through. Elie’s denial in God’s power led to his hatred and his cowardice for blaming God.

            Facing the cruelest of reality during wartime, Eliezer faith turned into another use of venting anger. He knew deep inside that there is no use venting it on a person so he blamed God on everything.