Night

by Elie Wiesel

In days gone by, Rosh Hashanah had dominated my life. I knew that my sins grieved the Almighty and so I pleaded for forgiveness. In those days, I fully believed that the salvation of the world depended on every one of my deeds, on every one of my prayers.

Weisel was a devout Jew as a young man. He loved and was devoted to God. He had devoted his being to God.

My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.

This was Weisel's existential experience, a belief in God without God.

unable to detach ourselves from this surreal moment.

no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him.

But as soon as he felt the first chinks in his faith, he lost all incentive to fight and opened the door to death.

We promised: in three days, when we would see the smoke rising from the chimney, we would think of him. We would gather ten men and hold a special service. All his friends would say Kaddish.

Ten men is enough for a synagog? Weisel shows his ambivelance. Now he promises to say Kaddish for his fellow prisoner.

And three days after he left, we forgot to say Kaddish.

“I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”

This is the most disturbing dialogue in the book, yet.

AFTER THE WAR, I learned the fate of those who had remained at the infirmary. They were, quite simply, liberated by the Russians, two days after the evacuation.

A twist of fate for Wiesel. We make the best decisions we can with three knowledge we have.

The prisoners showed up in all kinds of strange garb; it looked like a masquerade.

Reminiscent of Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse 5.

When I awoke at daybreak, I saw Juliek facing me, hunched over, dead. Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.

A man so devoted to his music, he played, as he was dying, for the dead and dying.

Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight.

But that is the miracle that Elie Wiesel lived and developed a psychology of finding something to live for to keep oneself alive.

If only I didn’t find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself … Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever.

He had prayed earlier that he would not do this. :'(

Just like Rabbi Eliahu’s son, I had not passed the test.

It was the thought of Eliahu's son, who had allowed his father to fall behind, that prompted Wiesel to pray he would not do the same.