Night; Keeping Faith with Elie Wiesel in our Present Day

Night; Keeping Faith with Elie Wiesel in our Present Day
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It was a family of Jews that lived in “Sighet—the little town in Transylvania where I spent my child-hood” in peace        After Hitler came to power and everything went down Nazi members took all the people from the village where all the Jews lived. Jewish people were scared at first because none of them knew where they will be placed. Some of the people left the place before the Nazis arrived. Elie Wiesel was the autobiographical voice of Eliezer.  He and his family could have escaped before 1941 but his dad did not want to leave the people.  This is where life has meaning; in the people who we are with.  His father saw the good in people.   The Nazis arrived and everybody was placed into a concentration camp.

At this point the holocaust started for them and Eliezer is shaken by the evil that causes him to question his faith.   Why pray to a God that would allow such evil acts?  The Jewish people were asked to give up everything that they own, jewels, money, everything that had value. They just could bring clothes and that is all.

‘’The ghetto was not guarded. One could enter and leave as one pleased. Maria, our former maid, came to see us. Sobbing, she begged us to come with her to her village where she had prepared a safe shelter.

My father wouldn’t hear of it. He told me and my big sisters, “If you wish, go there. I shall stay here with your mother and the little one…”

Naturally, we refused to be separated. (1.170-171).

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Night.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2002. Web. 29 Apr. 2019.

Unfortunately, we are still living in a world where hate is not going away.  All it takes is the sharing of hate speech to people who think differently, act different, and have belief in different ideologies.  Just a few days ago, in a California Synagogue there was a shooting by a young man who was influenced by hate speech online and by acts of hate.  He walked into a California Synagogue and fired his semi automatic rifle. Fortunately it jammed but not before the murder of a mother and wife by a person with so much hate. Even though, the Holocaust happened 60 years ago we can unfortunately still relate to this event in the present day.

“It was horrific, utter horror,” Rabbi Goldstein said. “It was like images out of the Holocaust.” -Rabbi Goldstein. 

Ultimately the increasing violence is less about religion than about fomenting fear and keeping people in a heightened sense of vulnerability, she said. People of faith need to reiterate one message, she said: “We were not given from God this spirit of fear, but of love and of courage.  -NY TIMES 4/28/2019

What would Elie Wiesel advise in our current times?  He would agree with the quote above.  From his father and in the face of suffering Elie learned a valued lesson, that they must always trust God, and not let fear take over them. It was a hard time for all the Jews but they never gave up. Love and courage was a key in their lives. There are a lot of people that have so much hate but we do not have to fear those kind of people. Instead the only solution or progress will come with loving courageously.  Faith makes people stronger in the face of suffering and the loss of faith leads to fear.  Society and government must not react to these violent acts with fear.  If there is some way to reach people who are consumed by messages of hate and fear we must find it.

http://time.com/5579893/california-shooting-suspect-parents/