A Dwindling Faith

A Dwindling Faith

“My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God…” (Wiesel 68). Most people would think hard times would strengthen people’s faith, that they would rely even more on their beliefs. But that is not always the case. In times of great crises, people’s faith may disintegrate to an almost nonexistent state. When people must look to physical things like food for survival, spiritual things like faith tend to be dropped. It has no use anymore.

Night by Elie Wiesel is a dramatic book that tells the horror and evil of the concentration camps that many were imprisoned in during World War II. Throughout the book the author, and main character, Elie Wiesel, as well as many prisoners, lost their faith in God. People are trying to keep and strengthen their faith but they end up rebelling against God and forgetting their religion. Even Elie, who had been training to be a religious figure in the community.

Elie had a strong faith as a young child, and at an early age of twelve he went to his father and asked him to find him a tutor to teach him the Kabbala. His father refused with the reason that he was so young and that he should wait until he was older and knows more of what he wants. This reason did not satisfy Elie. He decided to take it into his own hands and he recruited Moishe the Beadle as his tutor, and he started his training behind his father’s back and against his wishes.

What causes a young boy to want to be a religious figure in the community so much that he would defy his father’s wishes to pursue his future in his beliefs? Strong faith. Elie had an undoubtedly strong faith and it would seem that nothing in the world could shake that faith. “He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain. I succeeded on my own in finding a master for myself in the person of Moishe the Beadle” (Wiesel. 4). Elie couldn’t imagine anything changing his faith, but he hadn’t known the biggest crises he would survive, but his faith