A truly moving story about the Holocaust is told in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. The main character Eliezer really struggles with his faith in a benevolent God that he had known from way back as a young child and at this point in time, his strong faith in an omnipotent God that he believes in is unconditional. But this is challenged by the nasty experiences, to say the least, that together with other Jews, he faced in the concentration camp. At the beginning, Elie has absolute faith in God (Wiesel 1) but as the book progresses and upon entering the concentration camp, he struggles with his faith in God. He did not deny him but rather doubted his absolute justice
The bad experiences notwithstanding, Elie’s faith is shaped by the people that he is within the camp. A good example is rabbi Elihou. He is one man that gives people the hope that things will be fine someday. His presence alone gives the people genuine peace and comfort. Elie and his father face several challenges whereby he almost lost his father but in a strange twist of events they would find themselves together having survived the selection. Even when his father was about to be thrown out of the moving vehicle because they thought that he had died, Elie convinced them that he was still alive and he was left. God’s hand had seen them go through the horrifying experiences. When they take the road trip to Buchenwald, it so happens that very many people had died along the way but Elie and his father had survived the torturous ordeal (Wiesel 89)
Elie starts to doubt God due to the suffering that they were going through and he says that for the very first time he felt a revolt inside of him and he did not see a reason why he should bless His name because he was silent when they needed him most and therefore Elie thought that he had nothing to thank him for (Wiesel 31).His father is one of the key persons who shaped his doubt in god. For instance, when he was getting old and weak, Elie found himself saying that it was too late to save his father (Wiesel105). They parted with his mother and sisters and lost hope of ever meeting them again (Wiesel 27). He began thinking that he had lost his faith in the flames (Wiesel 32). At one point, Elie felt all alone in the world and that God was no there at all. He felt That God was not there at all (Wiesel65). Elie felt that if God wouldn’t save his children then no one else would. His lack of faith in God led him to believe more in Adolf Hitler than he did God (Wiesel 77).
With such an experience in the hands of the Nazi in the concentration camps, Elie’s believe and trust in god had been put to test to such an extent that he doubted he ever existed and watched him and the rest of the Jews go through the heart wrenching experiences they had in the camps. Elie and the rest of the captives are human and its human nature to doubt our beliefs when faced with experiences such as this. It is therefore true that Elie would not agree to a description of a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent who sat back and watched them go through that horror. But at the end of the day, having survived the ordeal, he is not the same person, the same innocent child and believer we meet at the beginning of the book he has changed and his perception of God is also different.
Despite all the trouble, heartache and pain, there are a few instances where there seems to exist the power of faith and disbelief and this is seen more especially with the kind of relationship between Eliezer and his father. Elie stays true to the kinship and blood ties instincts and tries against all odds to save his father. At times, he risks his own life just to rescue his father from the group of men who have been condemned. But the opposite happens to the entire Jewish group of people and God. It defeats logic when God, their God could not save them at the point when they needed him most and this is why people like Elie start doubting his existence. The entire story revolves around the problems the Jews faced in the concentration camps. It is therefore true to say that the covenant between god and his people had broken and he was no longer the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God they had trusted in all their lives, at least before the Holocaust.
The entire experience that the Jews had in the hands of the Nazis was heart wrenching as it is painful. Through the experience of the Jews as brought forth by Wiesel, places forth a challenge of what a covenant really is. It is difficult to understand that in all that, God was taking care of his people just like Elie was on the lookout and protecting his father even to the extent that he put his own life on the line for him. In all that he goes through, it is agreeable that we should agree to take care of each other as he did his father even in the middle of genocide.
Work Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam Books 1982
