After reading the story, "Night", I feel great sympathy for those who practice Judaism. The author, Eliezer Wiesel, was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and describes the horrific experiences he went through as a young man during the Second World War. In this story, Wiesel recounts the path he took toward understanding his faith in God. .

             When "Elie" was a boy, he trusted in God, knowing that the Jews were considered the chosen people of God. As a boy, he lived by the canon, studied the Talmud, the secrets of Jewish mysticism, and discovered the essence of divinity(3). At this point in his young life, his belief in God could not be changed, even though he faced misfortunes. Because of his his race and his environment, he loved in God - and loved Him deeply. The Jewish people believed that obeying God would would bring them a future filled with hope. .

             God is the spiritual sustenance in a Jew's daily life. However, sometimes God seems far away, if not gone altogether. As I read the story, the Elie was angry with God when the selection of Jews to be sent to concentration camps was in place. He believed that it was God who created the "death factories". He was convinced that God chose them among all peoples to be tortured day and night, to watch their family members be persecuted and sent to die horrible deaths in the Nazi furnaces (67). On account of of the trauma he was facing, Elie lost faith in God and decided that the most reliable thing in his life was himself. .

             It seemed that God did not play a role of Eliezer's survival. He rescued himself. Wiesel states, "We were the master of nature, the master of the world. We had transcended everything; death, fatigue, our natural needs. We were stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but numbers, we were the only men on earth" (87). He tried to survive by depending on his own faith.