The Role Of Religion In Night By Elie Wiesel

Emily

The definition of religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods; is a system of faith and worship. Religion is one of the strongest forces that incentivize human’s actions; religion has started fights, wars, and even genocide. The Holocaust was a tragic, horrendous time in which an entire race was persecuted for their religious beliefs, causing them to question everything they had ever known. For some, the only way of coping was through justification because the Old Testament, which characterized their religion, foretold the suffering of God’s people. Throughout the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, changes from being someone with so strong of a belief system to completely crushed by the experiences of the Holocaust. As a teen, Elie was

Foolishly the Jews believed that nothing would happen, they were ignorant to all the warnings always convincing themselves their lives would go back to normal. It never did. They were captured, ripped away from their own lives, treated worse than animals. Slowly, Elie became aware of the torturous experiences that were to come. “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?” (Page 31). Elie first questioned his faith at Auschwitz while someone began to recite the Kaddish, a symbolic prayer for the dead, a prayer he had never heard someone say for themselves. It had only been the first few days of agonizing months, and he had witnessed a father and son kill each other for bread, and heard a fellow Jews’ plan to run at the electrical fence, because death was better than enduring so much pain. How could God, the just and righteous, allow for innocent people to be slaughtered and