Elie Wiesel\'s Portrayal of God

Elie Wiesel's Portrayal Of God

Elie Wiesel's book "Night" discusses with regard to the experiences that the writer went through as he was taken from his home village of Sighet to several concentration camps including Auschwitz. Although there is controversy concerning the reality of certain facts in the story, it would be absurd to claim that this is a work of fiction, taking into account that it addresses a series of occurrences that were very common for a Jew in Nazi-dominated Europe. The book is largely written from the perspective of a person who, as a survivor of the Holocaust, wants the whole world to understand the process one undergoes as he become more and more distant from God.

The Holocaust is certainly an event who instills theological dilemmas in most individuals familiar with the events that happened in Nazi-controlled death camps. Many people believe that it would be impossible for a true and active God to allow happenings like the Holocaust to occur.

Wiesel started life as an avid supporter of God and as a passionate Jewish believer and he kept his belief to the end of the event as he believed that a higher force would intervene in a biblical fashion and put an end to the injustices committed by the Nazi system. Even with the fact that the camps were liberated as the Second World War was coming to an end, the narrator realized that God failed to act in accordance with some of the most important behaviors that were characteristic to him. This played an important role in changing Wiesel's thinking with regard to religion and with concern to the idea of divinity in general.

Wiesel and his acquaintances in Sighet are initially taken to a ghetto where they start to believe that things are actually looking up for them as they become the members of a community solely formed from Jewish individuals and thus no longer have to deal with discrimination. Most of the individuals in the ghetto are optimistic and rabbis even say "nothing will happen to us, for God needs us." (Legends 124) This further contributes to the idea that most Jewish individuals were unable to realize the situation they were in during the beginning of the Holocaust and some actually believed that they would not suffer as the event progressed.

The narrator proceeds to describe feelings in the Sighet ghetto as time passed. "And we, the Jews of Sighet, were waiting for better days, which would not be long in coming now." (Night 5) Even as they were taken to death camps, many Jewish individuals continues to believe that God was with them and that they needed to act in agreement with his plan, despite the fact that it involved them having to suffer.

While Wiesel started to doubt God's plan, he continued to have blind faith as he expected suffering to end at one point and the Jewish people to be praised for their ability to remain unaffected by such horrible happenings. The narrator's theory concerning his trust in God is very similar to the biblical figure of Job, especially considering that he lives through events that trigger similar feelings of despair. The writer tried to understand the situation he was in and used the example of Job in an attempt to do so.

The fact that the Holocaust caused a great deal of suffering makes it difficult for the narrator to concentrate on the traditional role of God and influences him to consider a scenario in which divinity is not necessarily interested in the well-being of mankind (Berenbaum 154). Night contains a great deal of theological ideas discussed by a person who is certainly entitled to consider the role of God in the world.