A fascinating theme in the passage from the “Oven Of Akhnai”, found in the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Metzia 59b:Bava Metzia 59a-59b), is the rabbis’ unusually stubborn devotion to their legalistic conclusion regarding the cleanliness of the oven of Akhnai. They are so dedicated to their ruling that not even impossible miracles or God’s own voice (Bat Kol) can change their minds. This passage shows how tenacious the ego and power of a majority can be. I will begin by talking about the miracles and God’s message to the Sages. Then I will discuss why this seemingly simple and uninteresting argument meant so much to these sages and how they are so steadfast in their opinion that they contradict God with his own words. My next argument is that …show more content…
All of the sages except Rabbi Eliezer declared the oven impure. Rabbi Eliezer answered every single question the Sages had but they would not change their minds. Rabbi Eliezer then performed miracles in an attempt to convince the other Sages that he was right. He uprooted a carob tree 100 feet and reversed a flow of a water channel. The Sages claimed that these miracles did not prove that he was right. Then Rabbi Eliezer called on the walls of the house of study to prove him right and they began to fall. However, Rabbi Joshua protested the walls and because of the honor of both Rabbis, the walls stayed inclined at an …show more content…
Rabbi Joshua completely takes this verse out of context. Exodus 23:2 says, “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.” This is the exact opposite of the point Rabbi Joshua was trying to make. The idea that Rabbi Joshua was trying to convey was that the law should follow the majority. The majority crowd is perverting justice by refusing to admit they are wrong even in the face of all the answers and signs that were provided to them by Rabbi Eliezer and God (Greenwood 352). Exodus 23:2 is about not following the crowd in doing any or bad things. Rabbi Eliezer did the right thing. He knew the crowd was wrong and he stuck with what he knew was right and what God told him was right. The other Rabbi are wrong and hypocritical for quoting Exodus 23:2 and then excommunicating Rabbi Eliezer for not conforming to the crowd. This story also deals with the topic of majority rule. It shows that the majority is not always right. Obviously Rabbi Eliezer is the only correct Rabbi in interpreting what God’s intent for the law is. The story also shows that being right is not always powerful enough to beat the majority that is wrong (Greenwood 340). Even though they have a majority, it was not good enough for Rabbi
When asked by Moshe the Beadle the reason why he prayed, Eliezer could not come up with an answer. Even before being deported to concentration camp, Eliezer still prayed. Things begin to change when Eliezer arrives at concentration camp in Auschwitz. After witnessing the incineration of small children, Eliezer expresses deep resentment towards God for remaining silent and allowing this to happen.
This poem is related to night and the idea of not giving up when all seems lost. The people of Sighet never lost hope until the end, sometimes they are ever too optimistic, “Every encounter filled us with joy-yes joy: Thank God! You are still alive!” (pg. 35). When Elie thought about giving up, dying, whether it be in the last few months of Buna, on the death march to Gleiwitz, or the trains to Buchenwald, he did not give up because of his father, which motivated him to keep on surviving and not give up. And what if he were dead, as well? I called out to him. No response. I would have screamed if I could have. He was not moving. Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight.” Elie without
While facing struggle and adversity, a spiritually connected person may battle with his or her faith. In chapter 5, the Jewish prisoners are all gathered together and are a little anxious on whether or not this will be their last day on earth. They have been tormented because of their beliefs and now there are many questioning their quarrels with God. Elie is struggling to understand why God himself is rejecting and punishing those who serve him and give him his grace but yet are rewarding those who permits others to be gassed and killed.
An estimated 11 million people died in the Holocaust. 6 million were Jews. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel tells his story as a Holocaust survivor. Throughout his book he describes the tremendous obstacles he overcame, not only himself, but with his father as well. The starvation and cruel treatment did not help while he was there. Elie makes many choices that works to his advantage. Choice plays a greater factor in surviving Auschwitz.
Elie Wiesel writes about his personal experience of the Holocaust in his memoir, Night. He is a Jewish man who is sent to a concentration camp, controlled by an infamous dictator, Hitler. Elie is stripped away everything that belongs to him. All that he has worked for in his life is taken away from him instantly. He is even separated from his mother and sister. On the other side of this he is fortunate to survive and tell his story. He describes the immense cruel treatment that he receives from the Nazis. Even after all of the brutal treatment and atrocities he experiences he does not hate the world and everything in it, along with not becoming a brute.
A statement from the nonfiction novella Night –a personal account of Elie Wiesel’s experience during the Holocaust—reads as follows: “How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou. Almighty, Master of the universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces” (67). War is a concept that is greatly looked down upon in most major religions and cultures, yet it has become an inevitable adversity of human nature. Due to war’s inhumane circumstances and the mass destruction it creates, it has been a major cause for many followers of Christianity, Judaism, and other religions to turn from their faith. Followers of religion cannot comprehend how their loving god could allow them to suffer and many devout
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
Eliezer was a strict Jew who practiced religion and observed all Jewish holidays. As a child he was very devoted and focused all his energy to study Judaism. He grew up loving God with the belief that God is more powerful than anything else in this universe. He believed that with all the power God has, he is capable to put an end to all this awful suffering. Living and witnessing all this misery and have God not do anything about it makes him questions God.
The significance of night throughout the novel Night by Elie Wiesel shows a poignant view into the daily life of Jews throughout the concentration camps. Eliezer describes each day as if there was not any sunshine to give them hope of a new day. He used the night to symbolize the darkness and eeriness that were brought upon every Jew who continued to survive each day in the concentration camps. However, night was used as an escape from the torture Eliezer and his father had to endure from the Kapos who controlled their barracks. Nevertheless, night plays a developmental role of Elie throughout he novel.
The Role of Food in Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet in the Western Front and Elie Wiesel’s Night
Eliezer was very religious but his father was very unsentimental and didn’t support him in his beliefs. When rumors started to arouse, he begged his father to leave, but he wouldn’t. Once the curtain finally rose, it was too late for the Jews. They were kept in ghettos until they were to be transported. They had to pack up their things and then were sent to the smaller ghetto. Now they are in the cattle cars, waiting for their departure.
Inked on the pages of Elie Wiesel’s Night is the recounting of him, a young Jewish boy, living through the mass genocide that was the Holocaust. The words written so eloquently are full of raw emotions depict his journey from a simple Jewish boy to a man who was forced to see the horrors of the world. Within this time period, between beatings and deaths, Wiesel finds himself questioning his all loving and powerful God. If his God loved His people, then why would He allow such a terrible thing to happen? Perhaps Wiesel felt abandoned by his God, helpless against the will of the Nazis as they took everything from him.
At the beginning of the book, Eliezer was in the higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy starts at the bottom with physiological needs, and progresses upwards with safety needs, belonging and love, esteem, and finally self-actualization. Eliezer was working with his love and belonging needs with respect to his religion. He was obsessed with the Jewish scripture. He wanted to learn. He was an extremely intellectual teenager. He would study the Jewish scripture with Moche the Beadle. "We would read together, ten times over, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by hear, but to extract the divine essence from it." His views on the divinity of God do not endure through the Holocaust and the concentration camps.
Eliezer loses faith in god. He struggles physically and mentally for life and no longer believes there is a god. "Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to dust..."(pg 32). Elie worked hard to save himself and asks god many times to help him and take him out of his misery. "Why should I bless his name? The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer is confused, because he does not know why the Germans would kill his face, and does not know why god could let such a thing happen. "I did not deny god's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice..."(pg 42). These conditions gave him confidence, and courage to live.
As humans, we require basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter to survive. But we also need a reason to live. The reason could be the thought of a person, achieving some goal, or a connection with a higher being. Humans need something that drives them to stay alive. This becomes more evident when people are placed in horrific situations. In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he reminisces about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. There the men witness horrific scenes of violence and death. As time goes on they begin to lose hope in the very things that keep them alive: their faith in God, each other, and above all, themselves.