Elie Wiesel’s the Trial of God represents the age-old question: how can a righteous God allow evil and suffering? Written as a play based on a real event, Wiesel tries to capture the myriad of emotions and theological arguments that were present. Though the trial, in Wiesel’s play, takes place during the seventeenth-century many cultural aspects overlap with twentieth-century Europe and World War II. Similarities between Wiesel’s fictional world and his life experience involve events such as violent actions against the Jewish community. The events of Elie Wiesel’s life heavily influenced the creation of his play the Trial of God. To many in the United States and Europe, World War II is an icon that represents unimaginable turmoil and tragedy. The hardships brought about by World War II raises the theodicy question of how a righteous God could allow the Nazi’s to reign. Elie Wiesel was one of the many Jews who were persecuted during this period of history. When he was fifteen years of age, Wiesel was a prisoner in the infamous Aushwitz concentration camp (Brown vii). In an introduction to the trial of god, writer Robert Brown takes note of what Wiesel witnessed. Once night the teacher took Wiesel back to his own barracks, and there... three great Jewish scholars, master of Talmund, Halakhah, and Jewish jurisprudence put God on trial... Witnesses were heard, evidence was gathered, conclusions were drawn, all of which issued a unanimous verdict: the Lord... was found guilty of crimes against creation... (vii) The events experienced in Auschwitz by Wiesel would influence him to write about this moment. Though Wiesel had difficulty expressing the trial that he experienced, he discovered that formatting the event into ... ... middle of paper ... ...on of Berish’s plea to accuse God; Job also gives a similar lament, “I would lay my case before [God], and fill my mouth with arguments" (NIV Job 23:4). These arguments made by Berish and Job boil down to the question the theodicy, “why do good people suffer? Where is God in all this? Where is justice” (Fox 173). Elie Wiesel provides an answer that parallels once again with the book of Job. Embodied in the character of Sam, who claims that suffering is, “all because of our sins” (Wiesel 134). Similarly Jobs friends give a similar answer to the theodicy question by saying, “Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same” (Job 4:7). The answer to the theodicy question in t The Trial of God is that suffering occurs because of the sins committed by individuals.
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.
The Holocaust took place during World War II, when Adolf Hitler became the dictator of Germany in 1933. Would your identity change, if you were put through an epidemic. In the first section of the book, Eliezer Wiesel is a twelve year old boy who studies Judaism, but he wants to study Kabbalah, Wiesel described himself as faithful religious man. However, throughout Night, the evolution of Wiesel’s religious beliefs, symbolizes the struggle of the Holocaust.
Faith is tough to keep strong, especially because it is difficult to trust something you cannot see. In the nonfiction historical account “Night,” Elie Wiesel discusses what he went through in the tragic tale of the German concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buna, and Gleiwitz. Throughout this novel, one defining theme is shown throughout the rest. No matter how devout one is, most will doubt their god in the face of such atrocities. The best example we have is from Elie himself, especially right after entering the first camp, when he was walking toward the flames, expecting to die.
Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish people’s outlook on life. Wiesel’s identity transformed dramatically throughout the narrative. “How old he had grown the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed.
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lives changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before the German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4).
...n the world. Job questions what god is really doing for him. Then god talks to job in question form about the creation of the earth. This shows that jobs is very small compared to god, so small that he cannot even being to understand some of the the things god is telling him. Chapter 38 proves to job that humans are far below the power of god then in chapter 42 job quickly shames himself for the previous things he said.
The Holocaust survivor Abel Herzberg has said, “ There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times.” The Holocaust is one of the most horrific events in the history of mankind, consisting of the genocide of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally handicapped and many others during World War II. Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany, and his army of Nazis and SS troops carried out the terrible proceedings of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel is a Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps, and suffers a relentless “night” of terror and torture in which humans were treated as animals. Wiesel discovers the “Kingdom of Night” (118), in which the history of the Jewish people is altered. This is Wiesel’s “dark time of life” and through his journey into night he can’t see the “light” at the end of the tunnel, only continuous dread and darkness. Night is a memoir that is written in the style of a bildungsroman, a loss of innocence and a sad coming of age. This memoir reveals how Eliezer (Elie Wiesel) gradually loses his faith and his relationships with both his father (dad), and his Father (God). Sickened by the torment he must endure, Wiesel questions if God really exists, “Why, but why should I bless him? Because he in his great might, had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? (67). Throughout the Holocaust, Wiesel’s faith is not permanently shattered. Although after his father dies, his faith in god and religion is shaken to the core, and arguably gone. Wiesel, along with most prisoners, lose their faith in God. Wiesel’s loss of religion becomes the loss of identity, humanity, selfishness, and decency.
...see the inner reckoning of Wiesel to the conflict he has been fighting within himself. Until now, Wiesel has felt guilty about his growing distrust in God. Since childhood, the focus of the young boy’s life has been spiritual- and now he feels betrayed. He even goes as far as saying that he, the accuser, is accusing God himself.
When a person's faith is also an alternative for their culture and morals, it proves challenging to take that sense of security in that faith away from them. In Night, Elie Wiesel, a Jewish student living in Sighet, Transylvania during the war of 1942, uses his studies in Talmud and the Kabbalah as not only a religious practice but a lifestyle. Elie and his fellow civilians are warned, however, by his Kabbalah teacher who says that during the war, German aggressors are aggregately imprisoning, deporting, and annihilating millions of Jews. When Elie and his family are victim of this aggression, Elie realizes how crucial his faith in God is if he is to survive the Holocaust. He vows after being separated from his mother and sisters that he will protect he and his father from death, even though as death nears, Elie gradually becomes closer to losing his faith. In the end, to Elie's devastation, Elie makes it out of the Holocaust alone after his father dies from the intense seclusion to malnutrition and deprivation. Elie survives the Holocaust through a battle of conscience--first by believing in God, then resisting his faith in God, and ultimately replacing his faith with obligation to his father.
In the first chapter of God Behaving Badly, David Lamb argues that God is unfairly given a bad reputation. He claims these negative perceptions are fueled by pop culture and lead many to believe the lie that the God of the Old Testament is angry, sexist, racist, violent, legalistic, rigid, and distant. These negative perceptions, in turn, affect our faith. Ultimately, Lamb seeks to demonstrate that historical context disproves the presumptuous aforementioned. In addition, he defends his position by citing patterns of descriptions that characterize God throughout the Old Testament. “Our image of God will directly affect how we either pursue or avoid God. If we believe that the God of the Old Testament is really harsh, unfair and cruel, we won’t want anything to do with him” (Lamb 22). Clearly, they way Christians choose to see God will shape their relationship with Him.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
He wants to find a way to justify God’s actions, but he cannot understand why there are evil people who “harm the childless woman, / and do no good to the widow,” only to be rewarded with long, successful lives (Job 24:21). Job’s friends, say that God distributes outcomes to each person as his or her actions deserve. As a result of this belief, they insist that Job has committed some wrongdoing to merit his punishment. God himself declines to present a rational explanation for the unfair distribution of blessings and curses. He still suggests that people should not discuss divine justice since God’s power is so great that humans cannot possibly justify his
Mr. Wiesel had intended this book to describe a period of time in his life that had been dark and sorrowful. This novel is based on a survivor of the greatest Holocaust in history, Eliezer Wiesel and his journey of being a Jew in 1944. The journey had started in Sighet, Transylvania, where Elie spent his childhood. During the Second World War, Germans came to Elie and his family’s home town. They brought with them unnecessary evil and despair to mankind. Shortly after young Elie and thousands of other Jews were forced from their habitats and torn from their rights of being human. They were sent to different concentration camps. Elie and his family were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration and extermination camp. It would be the last time Elie sees his mother and little sister, Tzipora. The first sights of Auschwitz were terrifying. There were big flames coming from the burning of bodies and the crematoriums. The Jews had no idea of what to expect. They were not told what was about to happen to them. During the concentration camp, there was endless death and torture. The Jews were starved and were treated worse than cattle. The prisoners began to question their faith in God, wondering why God himself would
The first commentator under consideration is Martin Buber in an excerpt from his Darko shel miqra'4. Buber draws an apt parallel between the Book of Job and the proceedings in a court of law, casting God as judge and Job as prosecution. In Buber's legal parallel, Job demands what in an earthly court of law would amount to due process, or a fair trial. And yet, even as Buber confers the legitimacy of a court of law on Job's complaints, Buber suggests that Job knew his appeal was "suppressed from the start."5 Buber cites Job: "Though I am right, my mouth will condemn me!"6 By highlighting the justness of Job's claims and the non-existent chance of a divine finding in Job's favour, Buber stresses how human justice and divine justice diverge. This difference is highlighted further by discussion of how Job is made to suffer hinnam, or gratuitously, from both God and Job's perspective.7
In the book The Trial of God, the author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the aftermath in Shamgorod, Ukraine following a pogrom on the Jewish community. An innkeeper named Berish and his daughter Hanna are the last two remaining Jews in the village. During Purim the following year of the pogrom 3 Jewish minstrels find themselves in Shamgorod looking for a place to celebrate. Though they offend Berish deeply for unknowingly coming to Shamgorod for Purim, he agrees to let them stay if they perform for him and his Christian waitress Maria. While being unable to find a topic to perform that they all agreed upon they decide to hold a trial instead. Berish wishes to put God on trial for allowing his people to be murdered, raped and hated continuously