Night - Questions

1. Elie Wiesel's hometown was Sighet, Romania.



2. Cabala is considered to be many of the teachings of the Torah. It is the study of the inner secrets of the Torah.

3. Eliezer wants to learn the truths of this world. These truths are the truth about God and his existence or non-existence on this earth.


4. Moshe the Beadle is significant to the novel because he is the very frist one to be sent away and witness the evils of the cremetory and concentration camps. Luckily his escape made it possible for him to be able to warn the other people, unfortunately they did not believe him. Moshe the Beadle tells Elie that "There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of of mystical truth. Every human being has his own gate. We must never make the mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any other gate than our own..." Moshe is persistent about his adomination to Elie because he believed if Elie were able to believe him than others might also. Plus the fact that Moshe did not talk to many, and had opened up to Elie and took him under his wing to teach him the Cabala had made Moshe more worried about Elie. So he felt the need to caution Elie for himself and his life.

5. Moshe the Beadle is poor and allegedly insane. Therefore, the people of Sighet were less likely to believe him. If Moshe were a higher staure, such as Elie's father then maybe they would, but he wasn't, so they didn't. Also, probably because the Jews were afraid to believe him.

6. Madame Schachter is the woman on the train that kept screaming about the crematories and the fires. Warning people. She is very much like Moshe because their cries were left unheard and ignored. Poeple had assumed them to be crazy.

7. The passage on page 32 talks about how Wiesel’ s faith was snatched from him. How God no longer existed in his world and how alone he was without a God. How fear was so instilled into his mind that after that point in the camp he knew that he had entered a world without a God, without faith without humane morals

8. In this passage Elie is referring to his first Night watching the childeren be burned. Elie's belief in God is slowly slipping and later he slowly gives up on believing that God is around.

9. In the exposition of the Night Elie gradually changes his perception of God. When his world collapses he soon finds himself as a non believer.

"Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desires to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never"(32).

10. The symbolism of night is ongoing in the novel. When day becomes night the conidtions become more worse. People suffer more during the night than the do during the day.

11. Night is a slim book because Wiesel probably couldn't handle adding more. He had already suffered so much and by writing this book he was reliving all of those moments. Maybe he wasn't ready to relive all of them.

12. Night is more of a tragedy. It has all the elements of tragedy. The pain, the suffering and the death. Also the denial.