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Hannah Steele

Ms. Crowell

Adv. Composition

11 December 2017

A prayer formed inside of me, to this God I no longer believed: Separation in Wiesels Night

In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel graphically describes his ordeals in the many

concentration camps. Prior to leaving Sighet, Elie meets Moishe the Beadle, who helps him to

become a mystic by teaching him Kabbalah. Moishe warns Elie about what has happened to

himself: How had he, Moishe the Beadle, been able to escape? By a miracle. He was wounded

in the leg and left for dead . . . (6). Elie and his family do not realize Moishes truth in his story,

until they load the trains. Elie loses his faith the very first night at the camp; also, his physical

strength starts to fade as he becomes hungrier and angrier. Although Elie Wiesel loses his faith

and his strength during the time at the camps, he never truly loses his belief in God. Wiesel

separates his body from his soul. This distinction between the two keeps him alive and helps him

survive the terrible months of his life at the camps.

While Elie lives in the ghetto, his faith is strengthened every day. He devotes all his days

to studying Talmud and Kabbalah. Due to Elies drive and curiosity at such a young age, he

actively worships: It was to be the last night spent in our house. I was up at dawn. I wanted to

have time to pray before leaving (18). At the beginning, Elie and his family customarily say the

blessing before eating. However, as soon as the reality of this terrible and tragic journey hits him,

his faith starts to crumble. Only a few days after arriving in Auschwitz, Elie reflects, For the

first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the
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eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?

(33). At this point in Elies life, his anger for God rises and only increases as time continues.

Nevertheless, he occasionally recites the prayer of death over somebody who cannot go on. One

night, months later, when they stop running for the day, a man named Rabbi Eliahu searches

everywhere for his son, asking everyone if they have seen him; they have been together in the

camp for three years. After the realization that the boy speeds up to escape the burden of his

father, Elie feels terrible: In spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God

whom I no longer believed (91). Elie asks for God to give him the strength never to do what

that boy did to his father. Elie thinks that he no longer believes in God, but since his first

emotional reaction is to pray when he recalls what the son did to his father, his obviously still has

his faith. This story proves the point that Elie still does have his belief although his faith and trust

in God might not be the strongest it has ever been. Elie continues to believe in God through the

challenging times where all trust is gone, because he knows that God will get him through.

Throughout the days at different concentration camps, Elie grows more and more

emotional. He feels furious. As the train passes, he possesses anger for the people who passively

just throw bread to help but refuse to actively stop this terrible massacre. He has raging anger for

the veteran prisoners. In addition, rage for both God and his father consumes Elie. His anger for

his father increases when his dad draws attention to himself, which leads to a beaten by Idek.

Most of all, his resentment for the Nazis increases. Elie is angry towards Idek for punishing him

when he saw Idek with the Polish girl. After whipping him 25 times, Idek says, Listen you son

of a swine! You shall receive five times more if you dare tell anyone what you saw (58). When

he finally is free, he wants revenge for all that these people have done to him and the other

fellow prisoners, but when the time comes, surprisingly, none of the prisoners think about
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revenge or their families because they want and need food. Elie says, Our first act as free men

was to throw ourselves onto provision . . . No thought of revenge, or of our parents. Only of

bread (115). Ironically, this anger helps him because it keeps him alive and strong. It motivates

the protagonist to live for a little while longer, especially after his fathers death.

Because of Elies physical strength and intelligence, he separates his body from his soul,

thus saving himself. I was dragging this emaciated body that was still such a weight. . . . there

were two of us: my body and I. And I hated that body (85). As the prisoners endure the Death

March, Elie wishes he could just get rid of his body because it slows him down. He keeps his

heart and mind apart from his physically weak self that he carries. This mental separation allows

him to know that his true strength comes from the way he thinks. He knows that if he mentally

believes he cannot go on, then he definitely will give up and quit. Elies mind keeps him strong.

His mental strength along with his fiery anger for the guards and all the people allowing this

mistreatment to continue help him to survive. In the hospital after liberation, Elie rises from the

bed and examines himself for the first time since the ghettos. He realizes, A corpse was

contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me (115). He still refers

to his own body as a different part of himself, separate from his saved soul. He does not think of

himself by outward appearance anymore but by inward, because he has grown so much as a

person going through the loss of his parents and siblings and the journey itself.

Elie Wiesels does not have the same strong faith as he did before leaving his perfect

home and family; he loses his strength quickly. As his strength goes, so does his faith but not his

belief. He not only separates his faith and belief, but also his body and soul. This separation

keeps him alive. It saves him and allows him to survive the journey and terrible months of his

life.
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Work Cited

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Translated by Marion Wiesel, Hill and Wang, 2006.