Night Questions

Questions for Night

1. Wiesel’s childhood home is in Sighet, Transylvania which is near Austria and Romania.
2. As a child Wiesel explains his desires to study the cabala, which is a doctrine of Jewish mysticism. Not many people study the cabala and Wiesel’s father does not particularly want him to study the doctrine but Wiesel finds Moshe the Beadle to help him study.
3. Wiesel says that when he was young he wanted to study the cabala in order to know the truths of this world. The truths he is referring to are the truths about God and about Heaven and the orchard of mystical truth. Elie was ignorant to the truths of human kind and that the world is unforgiving no matter how hard you try to be a superior person.
4. Moshe the Beadle is an important character because he assists Wiesel in his study of the cabala and helps strengthen Wiesel’s faith in God. He states that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. He also tells Elie that man questions God and God does answer him but that men cannot always understand His answers. Moshe says that there are numerous gates to the mystical truth and that everyone must try and find their own gate to enter. Moshe was prescient in his admonition to Elie because he experienced the wrath of the Nazis before they spread.
5. The people of Sighet ignore Moshe after he returns form his escape because the Jewish people choose to be optimistic and believe that nothing that horrible would ever happen to any of them. Their faith in God also supports their beliefs that they will not be harmed.
6. Madame Schachter is a Jewish woman from Sighet who was put on the same train cart as Elie and his family. During the train ride she goes mad and claims that there are fires burning outside the train, although, there are never any fires apparent and the people ignore her. Later, when the train arrives at Birkenau, the Jewish people are faced with real flames that burn people like themselves. Moshe the Beadle and Madame Schachter are alike in the way that the Jewish people tend to ignore the predictions that are presented to them and face the consequences of their ignorant choices.
7. This passage that expresses Elie’s true feelings about his life at that point is very powerful and truly gives an insight to the impact of the concentration camps on his beliefs. It explains his dying but still present feelings for his God and his broken dreams of his life that is threatened everyday.
8. The contexts of this passage explain Elie’s struggle with his faith in God which is slowly vanishing the longer he is put through the tortures of the concentration camps. Elie’s theology was changed from believing that God held all the answers and cared about his people but Elie realizes that he has nothing to thank the all powerful and great God. This passage speaks for the rest of Night because Elie’s life now revolves around his struggle for faith in God and his desire to live.
9. Elie’s understanding of God changes throughout the book because in the beginning of Night Elie believes in God fully and tries to learn more about God. In the middle of the book Elie’s belief in God slowly begins to decrease because of all the torture that is brought to the Jewish people. Toward the end of the book Elie has no faith in God at all because he has lost everything in his life except for his father, but he ultimately loses him too. Elie is most angry with God when the Jewish people first arrive at the concentration camp and Elie asks himself what he has to thank God for. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, when the Jewish people should be fasting, Elie does not even care that he should be fasting; he even eats to prove his lost faith in God.
10. The darkness of night has different significant meanings in the book but one important connotation is that night represents Elie’s world without the existence of God. Night is when the Jewish people first arrive at Birkenau and travel to Auschwitz for their permanent stay. Night also occurs when the surviving Jews began their run from Buna.
11. Night must be a slim book because Wiesel must have wanted to emphasize his symbols and theme that are shown throughout the book instead of writing about all of his experiences.
12. Night is a memoir of both tragedy and triumph because Elie lost his entire family, his faith in God, and his dreams to the war and he will never get any of them back. On the contrary the book can be seen as a triumph because Elie survived through all his losses and his injuries, both mental and physical.