Loss of Faith in Elie Wiesel's Night Essay Example

Depending on religion and beliefs, one often looks up to God, (or another higher power) to protect them from evil. Faith can be difficult when a repetition of awful events occur, leading one to wonder if the higher power they believe in is present. In the holocaust, many people in the Jewish community start to question God’s power when witnessing the brutality Jews are facing in the concentration camps. In Night by Elie Wiesel, witnessing and being a victim of abuse from the concentration camps cause Elie to lose faith, going from deeply religious, to deteriorating faith, to having lost all faith in God. 

Despite the rumors circulating about the concentration camps, at the beginning of the book, Elie faith is strong. In Sighet, Moshe the Beadle teaches him about the Kabbalah, and together they pray. Elie and Moshe stay in the synagogue praying and listening to God even “after all the faithful had gone” (Wiesel 5). Elie’s strong faith before the concentration camp is significant because it shows that he believes and trusts in God, even though he can’t fully comprehend Gods plan. After being deported to the first concentration camp, Auschwitz, two men walked to retrieve water. When they came back, they told the false information they have received to the other Jews, stating that they are in a labor camp, families will stay together, and the conditions are good. Elie, as well as the rest of the Jews who have learned the new give “thanks to God.” (Wiesel 27). Elie’s faith in God once he arrives at the concentration camp stays strong. In spite of witnessing harsh punishment from the Kapos in the concentration camp, Elie’s faith remains strong. When he receives new shoes for work, which are in good condition regardless of the mud covering them, Elie thanks God “in an improvised prayer” (Wiesel 38). Elie praying to God even after seeing the abusive Nazis is important, because it shows that Elie remains faithful. 

When Elie continues to witness the cruelty of the Nazi’s against the Jews, Elie’s faith begins to deteriorate. When the Nazis are hanging an innocent child, they force all of the Jews to watch. One Jewish man asks where God is, and Elie hears a voice inside his head telling him God is “hanging here from these gallows” (Wiesel 12). This implies Elie’s new decline in faith because he believes God is in the child being hanged, unable to help the Jews. On Rosh Hashanah, Elie was the opposite from ready to celebrate. After just witnessing a boy being hanged, Elie is angrily asking his God why he continues to trouble “these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies?” (Wiesel 66). Elie’s faith is never the same after the hanging and watching the many innocent lives that are taken by the Nazis, he continues to question God throughout the book. 

Elie’s faith has already started to deteriorate but witnessing more abuse towards the Jewish community at the concentration camp for a long time causes Elie to have no more faith in God. After watching many Jews suffer, Elie has lost faith in God. When he is thinking back to the past concentration camps Elie questions God for watching as their “fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces?” (Wiesel 67). Although he probably knows earlier, Elie is angry his mom and sister have been killed in the crematorium, and this directly effects Elie, because his immediate family is killed, without any remorse, making it seem like God is not there.  At this point, Elie has trouble finding any faith in God. When Elie watches Rabbi Eliyahu’s son betray his father, leaving his side when they are running. In desperation to not betray his father, Elie starts to pray to God “in whom [he] no longer believed” (Wiesel 91). Elie has been whipped, verbally and physically abused, and is struggling for survival. He now has no more faith in God, but despite his beliefs, is willing to pray for loyalty to his father. 

In Elie Weasel’s Memoir Night, the concentration camps Elie suffers through turn him from a religious person, to struggling with faith, to having lost his faith in God. When an unfortunate event occurs, humans tend to either gain or loose faith. Like Elie Wiesel’s loss of faith, due to the abuse he witnesses and undergoes in the concentration camps, many feel loss of faith due to traumatic experiences. In the twenty first century, there are many people suffering and dying because of corona, which can lead to loss of faith for some. By writing Night, Elie Wiesel is trying to show one must experience a traumatic event to truly test their faith.