Night+Project+VTHW

Journeys of Religion Journeys take place in one’s life to find one’s self, as journeys provoke conflict and deep thought. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, //Night//, he shared his experience while undergoing his journey through concentration camps during the Holocaust. Through the course of his journey, Elie notices God’s extreme silence, and lack of helping the millions killed during this time. This silence drastically changed Elie’s perspective on religion. Alike Elie, I endured my own journey, in which I learned about myself through developing what I believed in. My journey took place on the sand of New Jersey’s Wildwood beach, where I spent a week at a Christian bible camp. Through many silent screams of disagreement with the Christian religion, and noticing God’s lack of presence in my life, I accepted myself for what I believe. __As Elie and I underwent similar religious internal conflicts throughout our journeys, the outcome of our views on life were immensely different.__ Elie Diesel lead a life of prayer and religious study of Judaism until his world was struck by the fist of Nazi Germany. His “race toward death” (Wiesel, 10) began on the seventh day of Passover in 1944, when Nazis began arresting officials of the Jewish Community. Eli’s family and Jews alike were stripped of their rights, and eventually taken to various concentration camps. Elie and his father were transported to a string of concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Burkina, Buna, and Buchenwald. Silence, a common theme of //Night//, lead to Elie’s rebellion against God and humanity. He felt God was silent during the Holocaust, as He did nothing to put a stop to Nazi Germany. This feeling is represented here, as Elie develops questioning thoughts about thanking God. "The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?" (Diesel 113). After surviving the Holocaust, Elie was never the same person he was before. Elie also presents his thoughts later in the memoir, telling how he has given up on God completely, as God had failed him and so many others. "I no longer accepted God's silence" (Diesel 69). The opinions Elie developed throughout his journey negatively affected the rest of his solemn life. What was disguised as a normal four day summer bible camp getaway, was really a Christian brain washing event taking place on the sand of Wildwood beach in July of 2010. After many hours of uncomfortable speeches during church services about living our lives solely for God, I started thinking. Why would I want to give up my life to live for God, who had remained silent in my life, and not myself? These thoughts consumed me throughout the four days of camp. I soon realized that I was the leader of my own life, and I didn’t have to live for a stranger named “God” if I didn’t want to. Both my and Elie Wiesel’s journeys made us seriously think about our faith, and in the end, he and I both came to similar terms with our religion. In Elie’s journey, he experienced God’s silence which shaped his opinion on religion. Ultimately, he grew a hatred toward God for doing nothing to save the lives of millions, who would’ve died for Him. In this excerpt from the memoir, Elie tells how the inhumanity of Nazi soldiers, as they killed innocent children, ruined him. “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes” (Diesel 34). My journey was much less extreme than Elie’s, but it too has molded a part of who I am today. I also came to the realization that I did not favor the faith I was brought up to obtain. Through my camp experience, I tried to examine the evidence of the presence of God in my life, and noticed His silence. However, unlike Elie, I did not extremely turn my back on God and religion. I simply accepted the fact that I am young, and I have plenty of journeys ahead of me. Whether I heard God’s voice or not, I continued living life for myself. Journeys can supply a moral answer to life’s many questions. However, to some, a journey can alter their view on certain aspects of life so drastically, they can never return. Regardless of the outcome of one’s journey, one can never fully understand themselves until they’ve been through it.