Essay: Night written by Elie Wiesel – religious struggles

Have you ever expected something from your parents for behaving good or achieving something commendable and all your parents do, is criticize you and call you greedy for expecting something in the first place? Putting this question to reality should tell you a lot about the followers of Jewish faith. In countries such as Germany, the years of 1933-45 heralded one of the most toxic Anti-Semitic acts known to humanity, the Holocaust. The book Night written by Elie Wiesel is an autobiography of the author’s life in Auschwitz as a Jew. Through the book, readers learn that Elie Wiesel was only fifteen years old when he was taken to Auschwitz. Elie was a big believer in the Jewish faith before the Holocaust and wanted to become a Rabbi himself when he grew up. Coming to understand that he believed God was dead/no longer existed because of the atrocities he had been witnessing during the Holocaust is a serious indication towards the horrific reality experienced by 6 million Jews  and many others between the years 1933 and 1945. Thus, through this essay I am going to prove how Elie’s religious struggles progress through his life in Auschwitz with references from the book Night.
“When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks…”, as Moishe the Beadle describes to Elie Wiesel. Moishe the Beadle was a very poor man in Sighet, Transylvania, which is where Elie and his family lived. Elie wanted to study the Torah as a child and Moishe was the only person who agreed to teach Elie the writings from the religious text. Among all the foreign Jews who were expelled from Sighet, Moishe the Beadle was one of them. He barely escapes the Nazi’s and returns to Sighet warning the Jews of the dark times to come. All the Jews including Elie consider Moishe mentally unstable and dismiss all of his warnings. Their only justification was that God wouldn’t allow anyone to be as bad as Moishe described them to be. The mentality that the Jews of Sighet had, is the only reason(arguably) why they had to experience death because they couldn’t accept the truth to reality before the Nazi’s released their wrath on them. In other words, they could have escaped. The reason this particular period of Elie’s life is significant in his religious struggle is because, all the events that followed the warnings were a direct contrast to what Elie believed was true; that nobody could be so inhumane towards others. Thus, the contrasts to Elie’s initial beliefs served as a spark to his religious struggles with God.
“Everybody around us was weeping. Someone began to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don’t know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves…”, as Elie mentions. This particular quote reflects Elie’s rebellious mentality towards the Jewish God for the first time in the book. Elie is surprised after seeing people reciting the Kaddish; a prayer recited to the dead; for themselves. He starts questioning himself about why he should make sacrifices or pray anymore as he had started to believe that God was no longer anybody’s savior. This is a very significant turnaround in Elie’s religious beliefs as this is the first time in the book readers are made aware of Elie’s religious struggles and his contemplations of God’s existence. Following the initial beliefs Elie had about the humaneness of people, the reason Elie started contemplating God’s existence was because of the things he saw happen in Auschwitz, such as the people reciting the Kaddish to themselves. “The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?”, as Elie adds, is a clear indication of his hatred towards God; with the use of the words ‘terrible’; and his contemplation of God’s existence with the use of the word ‘silent’. Thus, through the incidents Elie witnessed and experienced, his religious struggles were furthered to the point of him considering God to be dead.
“Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows …”, as Elie says. A gallow is a structure used to kill individuals. Following the initial sparks to his religious struggles involving contradictions to his initial beliefs regarding the humaneness of people and his experiences in Auschwitz, Elie’s witnessing of Jews being hung to death was the last straw in his religious struggle. At this point he was convinced that God no longer existed. The conclusion Elie comes to, draws back to his initial beliefs of the humaneness of people. Putting those beliefs into perspective of Elie’s conclusion, readers also learn about Elie’s expectations of the humaneness of God himself. Elie characterized God as a supreme being who wouldn’t let any harm to be done to the people who didn’t deserve it. Furthermore, through Elie’s experiences in Auschwitz he was convinced that none of the Jews deserved what they were being condemned to as they were still praying and committing to fasts despite the horrendous environment they were living in. Thus, as Elie’s expectations of God’s humanness and the reality at Auschwitz didn’t go hand-in-hand, he came to the conclusion that God was dead.
The title of the autobiography, Night, is no arbitrary choice of words by Elie Wiesel. The word Night portrays betrayal and, an end to something. However, it also marks the beginning of the good times to come as Daylight follows the darkness of the Night. Thus, in context of the autobiography, the title Night, is used to summarize the darkness of the Holocaust and also to mark the happiness that was to follow after surviving the Holocaust.
Thus, in conclusion, Elie Wiesel’s religious struggles was an ongoing process that added up in significance as time went by. His experiences in Auschwitz played a key role in his religious struggles as they were what arose questions in his mind leading him to the conclusions he ended up with.