Introduction
Faith entails loyalty to a person or thing or the secure belief in God, the Supreme Being, which goes hand in hand with a trusting acceptance of God’s will. There are various things that help us keep our faith in God while others tend to make us deviate from our belief. In this peace of work, we see how Eliezer Wiesel struggles to keep his faith in God in relation to what he faced in life and how his understanding of God changed.
Eliezer’s Struggle
The book, night, by Wiesel talks of the holocaust during the second world war when Hitler opted to make all the Jews suffer by sending them to extermination camps where they were subjected to very harsh treatment which in most cases caused death. “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself, Never” (Lombardi 1).
This shows the extent of the suffering. Eliezer Wiesel was lucky to have survived and he wrote of his experiences in the camp where they were poorly treated due to the fact that they were Jews and not because they had committed any offenses. It shows the awfulness he endured, for example, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a hostile world where humanity, faith and dignity were undermined (Wisel and Wisel 10). It shows the hardest life of human beings and how hope is essential in keeping us going.
The expression, ‘‘a universe where God betrayed his creatures and covered his face in order not to see’’ can be explained through the scenario where Job experienced a lot of suffering and illness as his faith was tested and also in Wiesel’s experiences in the concentrated camp. They both suffered having not committed any crime and God did not rescue them when they expected him to do so despite the fact that he had the Power.
Wiesel was a very strong believer and believed that God was everything and that He could save him from all evils. It was after he joined the camp that his faith decreased as he could not clearly understand why God could not rescue him and others that he deemed to have suffered more than he did, “I was thinking of my father. He must have suffered more than I did” (Lombardi 1). Despite the suffering, he never stopped believing in God completely, “I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.” (Lombardi 1).
Conclusion
Eliezer’s experience in the camp teaches us on the complexity of the journey of faith. It is through his experiences that he discovered that God is always present even in our suffering.
He therefore encourages us to always have hope in whatever we do having the confidence that no matter the challenges and suffering we experience in our lives, there is a powerful God working out good plans for us in mysterious ways which we cannot understand and that He wants the best for us. He also emphasizes on remembering the past for it is through this that we can see the far that God has brought us and have hope of having a better future.
Works Cited
Lombardi, Esther. “Night’ Quotes – Elie Wiesel.” About. 2011. Web.
Wisel, Elie and Wisel, Marion. Night. New York: Penguin Group, 2008.