Transformations in Night

In his autobiography, Night, Elie Wiesel relates how the atrocities committed during the holocaust deeply effect his belief in God and his relationship with his father. In the beginning of the book, Elie's relationships with his father is not so intimate. At the same time, his relationship to God is extremely close. By the end of the book these relationships change, leaving Elie closer to his father than to God.

Before the Nazi occupation of his hometown, Sighet, Elie's relationship with God and his outlook on religion was quite extreme for that of a Jewish teenager in the 1930's. When asked why he prays to God, Elie thinks to himself, "Why do I pray? … Why do I live? Why do I breathe?"(p2) To Elie, praying was a natural part of life. Although it went against his father’s wishes, Elie spent most of his time studying the Kabbalah with his mentor, Moshe. In a demonstration of his commitment to Judaism, Elie writes, "We would read together, ten times over, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by heart, but to extract the divine essence from it." (p3)

As opposed to his relationship with God, Elie's relationship with his own father was not intimate. Elie remarks, "My father was more concerned with others, then with his own family." (p2) Throughout most of Elie's teenage life, Moshe acted as his father. Elie would tend to go to Moshe for guidance, and for other things that you would expect a son to go to his father for. However, as the prejudice against the Jews progresses, Elie's relationships with his father and with God begin to make a dramatic shift.

When initially forced into the ghetto (and from there into the concentration camps), Elie and the rest of the Jews of Sighet were deprived of their basic freedoms and slowly dehumanized. Laws were put into effect that imposed curfews, prohibited the practice of religion, and limited the ownership of property. At first, Elie tries to follow his instincts and pray to God for help. "Oh God, Lord of the universe, take pity upon us in thy great mercy…" (p17) Soon after this, because of Gods inability to help, Elie loses faith. He begins to question the true existence of God, by asking himself questions such as, "Where is God? Where is he now?" (p61) and how could there be a god that allows such horrible things to occur?

After losing faith in God, a single event causes Elie to completely abandon any notion of a God. During an allied air raid on Buna (one of the labor camps in which Elie and his father were housed), a man is shot dead after reaching for a bowl of soup. A week after this incident, the Nazis erect a gallows in the central square of the camp and publicly hang a small child who is the servant of a resistance member. Although all of the prisoners have stayed strong and not cried through this point, as they watch the child hang from his neck, they all burst into tears. One of the prisoners wonders how a God could be present in such a cruel world. Elie views this incident as God being murdered on the gallows