Adding yet ANOTHER Night essay onto your google reader list

The Holocaust is an event that is often thought about when people hear the words, “Jews,” “Germans,” or “Hitler.”  Even though there are many articles and documents regarding the Holocaust, there are few written first-hand accounts of it.  Elie Wiesel is the author of Night, a memoir of what he faced during the Holocaust.  In the novella, Wiesel mentions the events that occurred, people he met, and the many conflicts he faces, with the conflict against the supernatural the most prominent.  Throughout the story, Elie guides readers through the events he saw and experienced, and he focuses and discusses the great conflict he experiences with the supernatural (God).

Wiesel begins his memoir by introducing Moshe the Beadle, and explains his experiences, conversations with Moshe, and Moshe’s fate. When Moshe first notices Elie praying, the first signs of conflict between Elie and the supernatural appear: “Why did I pray?  A strange question.  Why did I live?  Why did I breathe? ‘I don’t know why,’ I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease” (2).  This is the conflict that Elie encounters with his confusion with religion.  He was uncomfortable that Moshe asked him about why he prayed and cried as he did so.  He is beginning to sense some discomfort with religion and the reasons he felt the way he did.  He is conflicted with emotion to why he did not know the reason behind the ways he felt.  The religion began to confuse Elie, because he could not understand the deep emotions that he felt when we communicated to Him with his hear and soul.  Because Moshe brought up the questions of why Elie felt a need to pray and cry, Elie began to see Moshe often to discuss religion with him.

As the memoir progresses and Elie is forced from his home, then away from his mother and sisters, he begins to feel even more conflicted with his relation to God, the supernatural.  After a SS officer asks Elie and his father for their age, Elie’s father begins to recite the Kaddish, blessing His name and praying that it may be magnified.  He begins to feel angered and says, “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me.  Why should I bless His name?  The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent.  What had I to thank him for?”(31).  This is the first time in the novella where Elie directly talks about his anger and disappointment at Him, the One that Elie had praised and wanted to have a master to guide him in his studies of the cabbala.  The Jews, who believe strongly in their God, still praise and pray and honor him, even though he did not do anything to stop and prevent the many deaths and torture and hardships that were forced on the Jews for their lifestyles, beliefs, and for being the enemy.  He does not remain much of an influence in Elie’s personal life, because Elie no longer becomes so devoted to Him, because of his betrayal to them, after all the time they spend respecting him and honoring his name.

In the many journeys from concentration camp to concentration camp, many men died in the extreme labor and effort it took, and also from the freezing weather.  On the journey to Buchenwald, Rabbi Eliahou asked Elie if he had seen his son, whom he had stayed with through the three years of concentration camps with.  Elie tells him that he had not, but he soon realizes that he did see him running by his side, and that the son had seen the Rabbi losing ground and falling towards the back of the column, but he began to plow ahead to the front of the line.  Elie reacts to the sudden realization: “...in spite of myself, a prayer rose in my heart, to that God in whom I no longer believed”(87).  Even though Elie no longer believes in Him or honors Him like he once did, he still has the natural reaction to pray to Him to not act like Rabbi Eliahou’s son did to his father.  There is still a religious side in Elie, that loyally prays to Him in times of need, and for hope and guidance in life, but he tries to avoid that side, because he does not believe in Him anymore, because he had stayed quiet in their time of need when the Germans stripped them of all their belongings, life, religion, and freedom.

Throughout the novella, Elie’s belief and respect toward Him, the supernatural greatly changes.  At the beginning, Elie highly respects Him and wants to be able to learn and follow His beliefs and teachings.  After being moved to a concentration camp away from his mom, sisters, and old lifestyle, he is angered at Him and begins to lost his faith.  By the time he is transferred to Buchenwald, he has completely lost his faith in Him for quite some time, but he still prays to Him, somewhat reluctantly, but as a natural instinct.