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Religious views can change depending on the things a person experiences. Some traumatizing situations could lead a person to question their belief in God. Elie Wiesel’s memoir, ‘Night’, talks about Ellie’s life as a Jew during the Holocaust and his relationship with God. From Sighet to Buchenwald’s liberation, Elie Wiesel’s faith changes from strong devotion to a cynical view to changing the position God holds in his life.
In the beginning, Elie Wiesel shows a strong devotion to his relationship with God. During the day, he “studied the Talmud” and at night Elie would go to “the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (pg.3). Wiesel ingrained his spirituality in all of his activities and started studying the Kabbalah and advanced Jewish text, with the help of Moche the Beadle. He wanted to devote all of his time to religious studies and spend his life dedicated to Judaism. Wiesel follows Judaism instinctively, like a body function. When Wiesel is asked by Moche why he prays, he cannot answer, but thinks to himself: “Why did [he] live? Why did [he] breath?” (pg.4). With Moche’s guidance, he studies the Zohar to “discover within the very essence of divinity” (pg.5). Wiesel maintained his devotion to Judaism when his situation started to deteriorate. When they first arrived at Auschwitz, he and his people thanked God and had their confidence restored because they “felt free of the previous nights’ terror” (pg.27). When Wiesel’s shoes are covered in mud and not discovered by the SS guards, he “thanked God, in an improvised prayer, for having created mud in His infinite and wondrous universe” (pg.38). Wiesel clung to the belief that God was watching over them and helping them survive.
As ‘Night’ goes on, Wiesel starts to become disillusioned with God’s power and starts to question his devotion. When he is confronted with terrors of the crematorium and hears the sound of men reciting the Kaddish, “the prayer for the dead”, he ponders why God “chose to be silent” (pg.33). This event caused him to become angry and question himself as to why he should thank God and sanctify his name. While in the camp, Wiesel felt that God was nonexistent. After the first night in Auschwitz, he was changed as a person in both his beliefs and the way he sees the world. Wiesel mentions how he never would “forget those moments that murdered [his] God and [his] soul and turned [his] dreams to ashes” (pg.34). Elie could not get past the thought that God should be able to stop what was happening. This leads him to resent God and revolt against him. He found himself asking “Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled” (pg.67). Wiesel questioned why God would “go on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies” (pg.66). He resents God because he believed God had abandoned them.
In the end, Elie redefines the position God holds in his life. He sees that the Holocaust does not only bring out the evil and cruelty in the Nazis, but also the other prisoners, and even himself. Elie feels that he is better off alone, without God. God must not exist if the world could be so cruel. “[On Yom Kippur] I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against him” (pg.69). Despite all this, Elie realizes that his belief of God was always present and his habit of religion will never leave. “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed” (pg.91). Even though Elie claims to not believe in God, he still turns to him when he doubts his ability to control himself.
Throughout ‘Night’, Elie’s relationship with God faces hardships and setbacks which changes his view on religion. Wiesel’s started out as very devoted, but as the memoir goes on, he starts to have doubts in God. In the end, Elie says he doesn’t believe in God, though he realizes his religion and relationship with God will always stay with him.
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