Night is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe. The document gives a summary of the events and how the characters undergo cha...
Reading the book and closely following the experiences of Eliezer raises a mixed feeling
about religion and how people's expectations of God. Why does God allow people to undergo so
much suffering, yet he promises to care for his children? Are human beings innately born evil? If
there is a measure of goodness and wrong, what are the parameters to ascertain such? What are
the limits that a person must set to stop being humane and fight your survival? These are some
questions that boggle in my mind after reading the narration of the experiences of Eliezer and his
family; I believe that Eliezer had them, too, following what the Jewish people underwent.
From the book, it is right to say that until we experience two sides of a story and pass the
test of time, it is not enough to declare that we revere God. A slight misfortune may befall us,
which could be the beginning of questioning whether we are believers. For example, Eliezer was
dedicated to religion and read the first five books of the bible as per the Jews. He was committed
to the faith. However, his experience under inhuman treatment, including the burning of small
children, changes everything. He even starts to question whether God exists and why he would
leave his people to undergo such immense suffering without intervening. Slowly, he began to
lose grip on religion and adopted the “survival for the fittest” notion.
In my view, I consider Moshe the Beadle as a role model and a mentor to Eliezer. Eliezer
uses a simile to describe him to bring about a vivid description of his appearance and how people
perceived him. "Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. His waiflike shyness made people
smile. As for me, I liked his wide, dreamy eyes, gazing off into the distance." He helped him
learn the Caballa and taught him to always ask God for guidance to find the correct answers.
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