Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Night
I often feel so uneducated. How is it that I went through 19 years of schooling and not once did someone make me read Night by Elie Wiesel? It's such a small book but has taken me a week. I don't know a book that has left me so speechless.
For those of you, like me, that know nothing of Elie Wiesel, he is a holocaust survivor, and Night is his honest, brutal account of what happened to him. It's hard to read, hard to imagine. Everything in me want to dismiss him -- to accuse him of overexaggeration. And yet it really happened. 6 million Jews were slaughtered. The magnitude of that atrocity is overwhelming to me.
I wonder if God's hearts hurt...
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7 comments:
I took a whole class at ISU on Holocaust Literature and Film. It was one of my favorite classes because it prompted us to ask these same questions. If you're interested in more reading, let me know.
I think God's heart did break to see the human race turn on itself, especially in His name! The Nazis claimed that God made them superior to the Jews and justified genocide in that way. It is sad but understandable that someone like Elie Weisel, who was so faithful in his Jewish studies prior to his incarceration, would feel abandoned by God. I think the spiritual hurt felt by the Jews would hurt God's heart just as much as the physical hurt inflicted by the Nazis.
Hey bro! As you know I will be walking the silent grounds of Auschwitz next week with our high school students on our trip to Poland. I've walked the grounds for several years and I still can't believe what I see and what I feel when I walk on the ground where so many who died passed over on their way to death or burial.
Great read for reality!
i think God's heart hurt more when his only son died on the Cross. Why did the Jews suffered so much? Remember, the pharisees and the leaders of the time rejected their saviour. "All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" Matthew 27:25. So it was.
I had to read that book in 8th grade and it was the most emotionally draining thing I've ever read. I'd get off the bus and my mom would ask me what had happened. My day had gone great until I opened that book. It really is powerful. Elie Weisel is a professor at Boston University and gives amazing lectures. I'm a loser and always miss his seminars... I hope everything's going great in P-town. Take care Charlie Dean
I hope, I hope, I hope, I misunderstand you anonymous. Some people have said similar things in defense of anti-semitism. You seem to be insinuating that the Jews have deserved abuse -- I really hope you are not.
Anyways, if we look at the whole of Scripture, I believe that Jesus forgave his oppressors, because they didn't understand what they were doing!
I agree with you Charlie - I can't imagine how much damage has been caused by a blind misinterpretation of Matt 27:25 by Christians because we fail to recognize the setting and history behind the words and actions.
The only thing that could make God's heart hurt more than the Holocaust is a latter claim that they deserved it.
On another note, I had to read Night when I was in junior high (I think I still have it on my shelf). I hated it at the time for the sole reason that I was forced to read it. I hope I can find a way to teach my children a love for literature that I don’t think can be gained by forced reading assignments.
On a last note - I have to comment that I hate the word verification in blogger.com. Apparently I'm an idiot because I can't ever read the letters correctly.
No, my brother, rather, you are insinuating that I am anti-Jews.
You were questioning whether God's heart hurt, so in MY opinion, as a mother who has just given birth on 2nd June, nothing will break my heart more than this: to see my newborn suffer; but restrain from doing anything. Even the smallest cry of my baby will stir up the deepest emotion in my heart towards him, what's more for God, to let his only son die, atoning the sins which he commited not, so that I might be SAVED, RIGHTEOUSLY SAVED!! Can you imagine that? The most wicked act of human towards God (again in MY opinion, some might argue it's Holocaust) brings salvation to me!? How great the Love is that?
Does the Jews deserve it? We all deserve HELL. But because of his grace, we instead were guaranteed a place in heaven!
All the more, I am just a Gentile, wild olive branch grafted in the olive tree because the nature branches were broken off.
I hope you understand my English, though. It's not my mother tongue. By the way, sincerely, I enjoy reading your blog far far from Borneo. =)
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