Elie Wiesel's Faith in Night Essay Example

Faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. In this case, Elie Wiesel loses faith after witnessing Nazis torturing many of his loved ones and strangers who were harmed by hard labor and living in deplorable conditions. This caused Elie Wiesel to lose faith during his time at Auschwitz, and it led Eliezer to believe that "his god" had abandoned him.

Elie Wiesel's faith is shaken for the first time on Pages 32-33 of Night when he witnesses the atrocities of Auschwitz and sees the pits of burning babies and adults. As we later see him say “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” He said this because he was perplexed about why "his god" would allow this to happen.

Another occasion when Elie Wiesel's faith was shaken was on pages 66-67 when he reflects on the tragedies that occurred at Auschwitz and states “Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?” Elie Wiesel's thought process at the time was why he should praise a god who allowed these hate crimes against them to occur, as well as why he chose them to be tortured. As well as why he created so many Death Factories, which resulted in the deaths of so many people.

The last time Elie Wiesel's faith was shaken was on page 69, where it states, “I did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbidden me to do so. And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, or protest against Him.” And this is where we finally see him rebel against his god, where he stopped praising him, as he stated, "I no longer accepted God's Silence”. 

In summary, Elie Wiesel loses faith in God as a result of his silence on the atrocities that occurred in the concentration camps, as seen throughout the book Night, where we see the violence and hard labor they were subjected to, as well as Elie Wiesel losing faith in God. We see this from the beginning of the book when he wonders why his god is so silent, until the very end when he rebels against him.