Skip to main content

How would one describe his or her response to the paragraph in Elie Wiesel's Night about the character of "Moshe the Beadle"? What was Wiesel...

The significance of the opening paragraph of Elie Wiesel's Night only becomes apparent later in the chapter. By beginning his narrative with a brief description of a nondescript figure, Wiesel is preparing the reader for the full measure of Moshe the Beadle's importance as the story develops.


The paragraph in question describes a seemingly innocuous figure in the small town in which Elie's family lives. Poor and idiosyncratic, Moshe is also among the more religiously observant in this town, and he would be an object of ridicule were he not so clearly harmless, pious and committed to his temple, or house of worship. While the paragraph that opens Chapter One, and that is the subject of the student's question, introduces the reader to Moshe the Beadle, it is the following paragraph that truly serves to emphasize this character's benign and optimistic nature:



"Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. His waiflike shyness made people smile. As for me, I liked his wide, dreamy eyes, gazing off into the distance. He spoke little. He sang, or rather he chanted, and the few snatches I caught here and there spoke of divine suffering, of the Shekhinah in Exile, where, according to Kabbalah, it awaits its redemption linked to that of man."



Wiesel introduces the character of Moshe the Beadle right at the outset because it is Moshe the Beadle who will be among the first from Elie's village to bear witness to the horrors that will befall all of the town's Jews. More importantly, it is Moshe who will represent God's failure to protect His people. Moshe speaks of God reverently and as an omniscient presence. When the Jewish population are forcibly evicted from their homes and placed in concentration camps, condemned to die of starvation, disease, or execution at the hands of German soldiers, Moshe's early commitment to God rings, to the young Elie, hollow. Very quickly, within the book's opening passages, Moshe's significance changes, and, with it, Elie's perceptions of God. Early on, Elie emphasizes Moshe's importance to his own spiritual journey: "I became convinced that Moshe the Beadle would help me enter eternity, into that time when question and answer would become ONE." After Moshe and other Jews are deported, with Moshe surviving the mass execution of the others, the change in this character is palpable:



"Moshe was not the same. The joy in his eyes was gone. He no longer sang. He no longer mentioned either God or Kabbalah. He spoke only of what he had seen."



Moshe the Beadle represents not only Elie's profound disappointment in God—a disillusionment that will only grow as his own situation worsens—but the failure of Europe's Jews to accurately perceive the extent of the danger to their existence. Contrast the "Moshe the Beadle" of that opening paragraph with the one described in this latter quote. The fate of Moshe the Beadle represents the fate of Elie's own spiritual journey.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more