The Accuser and the Accused: Faith and Religion in Elie Wiesel’s Night

Any novel that addresses the horrors of WWI is bound to address religion as well. It is not difficult to imagine that the Jews who endured the Nazi concentration camps would find their faith in God tested. Elie Wiesel is no exception. Throughout Elie Wiesel's Night, he evolves from a religious young Jewish boy into a spiritually deficient man. It is easy to trace this journey from Elie’s first encounter with the Nazis to his last days at Buchenwald.

At first, Elie is a hopeful Jewish boy studying Talmud. At thirteen, he even asks his father to find him a master of Kabbalah to help with his studies (Wiesel 4). Once Elie and his family are forced to leave their home, his faith comes into question. Wiesel recounts, “I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God... imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness.” (19). Wiesel has already gone from a boy who is eager for God to return to someone who is not particularly sad to leave his Religious studies behind. This separation from Religion turns to anger as Elie’s journey continues.

When Elie arrives at Auschwitz, he hears the other men praying to God. He writes, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name?... What was there to thank him for?” (Wiesel 33). He is angry with the men for praying and with God for ignoring the prayers. But when Elie decides he is going to throw himself into the fire, he begins to involuntarily pray the same prayer (Wiesel 34). At this point, Elie is angry with God, but still looking to him for help. It is not until Elie begins to believe that God has actually been removed from the world that this changes.

Several times throughout Night, Elie says that he believes God is dead. On his first night at Auschwitz he writes, “never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes”(Wiesel 34). Later, after watching the horrific hanging of a young child, he overhears a man wondering where God has gone. Wiesel thinks to himself, “Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows” (64). Wiesel believes that the evils of WWII have caused the death of not just his own faith, but God himself.

Eventually, Elie begins to blame God for the crimes of WWII. He regains some power in his situation by making himself capable of judging God. “I felt very strong,” he recounts, “I was the accuser, God the accused” (Wiesel 68). This is interesting to consider in conjunction with the introduction to Wiesel’s The Trial of God. While in the camps, Wiesel witnessed a “trial” held by some of the religious men at Auschwitz where “finally in a unanimous verdict: the Lord God Almighty...was found guilty of crimes against creation and humankind” (Brown Intro.). This memory clearly played a part in Wiesel’s understanding and judgment of God, even if it did not make it into the novel.

Throughout Night, Elie Wiesel struggles with religion. The reader first sees an eager Kabbalah student who quickly becomes enraged at God. After that, Elie comes to believe God has died. Eventually, Elie decides that God is present but unjust and that it is his job to judge him. While he does lose his faith in God, he never loses belief in him completely. How important this shred of belief is can only be known by Elie himself; however, Wiesel continued to write about religion for many years after WWII, so it is safe to say that God and religion continued to have an impact on his life well after the horrors of the war were left behind him.

Works Cited

Wiesel, Elie. The trial of God (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod): a play in three acts. New York: Random House, 1979. Print.

Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.