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Kimmi Jensen

Miss Swanson

English 10

29 August 2011

God is Silent

“First it is necessary to stand on your own two feet. But the minute a man finds himself in that position, the next thing he should do is reach out his arms.” Kristin Hunter’s quote holds a simple truth. Men have found themselves in trouble for generations standing on their own, so they are often reaching out their arms to ask God to lead them. Unfortunately, many times in life, God is silent. The book Night by Elie Weisel shows the devastation of a boy trying to have God lead him and speak back to him from Elie’s abyss. Unfortunately, God gave him no response. The silence of God is a theme that is ever present in life; God was silent just before the Holocaust when Hitler was taking over Germany, He was silent in the book Night, and today He is silent in Africa where there are many starving.

The theme God stayed silent was shown before the Holocaust when Hitler was taking power and God did nothing to stop it. Within two years, 1933 to 1934, Adolf Hitler changed the façade of Germany and no one could stop him. In 1933 Hitler had been elected chancellor and by 1934 he had combined the chancellor position and the president position to become the “Furhere” of Germany. He created power so fast that there was no one to stop him, not even God (“The Timeline”). Over 400 new rules and regulations were put upon the Jewish people in Hitler’s first six years of ruling Germany (“Anti-Jewish Regulations). Clearly, God was silent for the Jews during this time, as they were obviously struggling to survive Hitler’s rules and keep their faith strong during the creation of the Nuremberg Laws. During Hitler’s rules prior to the terror of the full-blown Holocaust, God was giving Jews no reprieve. They were being punished, and God wasn’t speaking up to stop the power of Hitler.

The theme “the silence of God” was one of the strongest themes in the book Night. Day one in the camp, seeing children burned alive, Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes” (34). His God was lost to him because God would not help those children going into the fire. Even during Rosh Hashanah in the block, the Jews were praising God and praying for the glory of God (67). God did not listen to those prayers from those men who were made prisoners simply because of their faith. God was so silent, in fact, that later that day, selection occurred and many of those same men died at Nazis hands, yet He still did not speak. Wiesel begging God to help him and God being silent in return finally ruined Weisel’s faith in a loving God. God was silent.

The theme silence of God is also strongly present today in the starvation crisis in Africa. The drought in Africa is the worst in 60 years, and up to eleven million Africans will be on the brink of death struggling from starvation and malnutrition (“Horn of Africa”). God is not listening to His people if He is allowing eleven million people to starve to death and do nothing about it like giving them rain they so desperately need. Humanitarian aid groups have the ability to help all of the starving people in Africa, but there is a lack of money available to the groups to be able to help the Africans (“Horn of Africa). The only thing the Africans need is for wealthy people in other countries to step up and give money to organizations and they could be saved. God is again staying silent and not speaking directly to people with the wealth to support their fellow man. God is silent still today in instances like the African Famine of 2011.

All in all, the world is in a treacherous place with God staying silent through major catastrophes in many peoples’ lives. God was silent when Hitler came to power to eliminate Jews. He wouldn’t help in Night when Elie Weisel asked for His help and the Holocaust was in full swing. Finally, He is not helping now in the Africa crisis; He is just watching it happen. Humans have been reaching up to ask for God’s help for generations of atrocities, maybe it is time for God to start reaching back.

Works Cited Page

“Holocaust Timeline.” The History Place. 1997. The History Place. 26 August 2011

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Sachs, Jeffery. “The Horn of Africa crisis is a warning to the world.” The Guardian Online. 28

July 2011. The Guardian. 26 August 2011 .

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.

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