Saturday, May 18, 2013

In the book Night, what are the results of the struggle of faith in Akiba Drumer?

When Eliezer says that he will never be able to forget
that first night in Auschwitz because it "murdered" his faith in God, I think that Akiba
Drumer's predicament speaks loudest to such a condition.  When Akiba loses his faith, it
is a moment that there is little redemption in the Holocaust.  The source of so much in
way of spirituality, Akiba continues to encourage those around him that all they endure
is simply a test.  Akiba's boundless faith is a faint hope that there can be spiritual
redemption and that the Nazis have not succeeded in murdering God.  Yet, when he loses
faith, and ends up wandering in a daze, caused by a lack of direction and an abdication
of spiritual self, it is another confirmation that God is absent for those who suffer in
the Holocaust.  The "murder" of God is something that is seen with the loss of Akiba's
faith.  It helps to be reinforce the idea that the horror of the Holocaust is something
whose true terror resided in the level of psychological or emotional cruelty that the
perpetrators were able to inflict on the victims.  The physical violations were on the
same level as the internal ones, as demonstrated through the character of Akiba
Drumer.

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