How Did Elie Wiesel Lose Faith In Night

Words: 494
Pages: 2

One wouldn’t expect faith, or the idea of it, to be as changeable as it was in chapter five of Night. This chapter highlighted two examples of losing faith in G-d, demonstrated by Elie Wiesel and a someone he described as a faceless neighbor. While this loss left the former unable to believe in anything, it brought the latter to devote his faith entirely to Adolf Hitler.
His declaration was as surprising as the justification behind it, when on page 81, that neighbor explains, “‘I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.’” As shocking as his words were, they were the truth, or a crooked version of it. Hitler kept most of his promises, although they were sinister and deadly. However, the prayers recited by Wiesel and the other prisoners in Buna were never answered by their G-d, who was supposed to protect His people from any threat.
…show more content…
That doubt plagued Wiesel until he decided to abandon his faith and walk away from it. That neighbor he encountered in the infirmary not only walked away, but followed an entirely different path, a path where the sole figure he believed in was the man intending the slaughter the Jewish people.
This situation introduced two completely opposite situations–a loss of trust in what is unseen versus a change of trust in what is seen. In both cases, the decision to make those life-altering changes was a burdensome one. To renounce your faith is a struggle, especially when that faith has been a part of you since childhood. For that reason, it makes sense that on page 69, Wiesel felt as if a void had ripped open inside him when his trust in G-d was destroyed. On the other hand, to refill that hole with trust for another man, one as cruel and wicked as Adolf Hitler, is something I couldn’t begin to