Destruction of Faith: How Elie Wiesel's 'The Fifth Son' Tells of the Jew's Estrangement From God

"Absolute Evil was opposed by a Good that was only theoretical," Wiesel writes, "therein lay the tragedy." (19) This quote provides strong evidence of the idea that Wiesel believes the intangible God of the Jews has been defeated by the very real evil of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Through his personification of God as his own father and the literal parallels drawn between the two entities, Wiesel argues that the absence of God after the Holocaust is proof of His defeat.

From the very first page, Wiesel uses his biological father as a metaphor for God. While standing at the train station in Reshastadt, the son apologizes by saying: "Forgive me, Father, for having brought you back here." (1) The capitalization of the word "father" and the liturgical phrasing of the sentence implies that the son is speaking directly to God. The son also paints his father to be an omnipotent being. For example, the son describes his father by saying: "I know that he sees everything, that he is aware of everything, that nothing escapes him." (18) The personification of the father as God can also be seen in the letters from the father to his son. The father writes: "Do you know that I am looking at you? I would like so to listen to you, but you are silent. Are you afraid to speak to me?" (24) This letter can be read as God yearning to understand the pain of mortals but is unable to because of his "knowledge comes between us as a wedge." (25) This repetitive use of God-like descriptions and insight into the father's character is key to understanding how Wiesel makes the argument that God has been defeated and no longer exists for the Jewish people.

After creating strong parallels between the father and God early in the book, Wiesel uses that metaphor to explain how God has been defeated through the Holocaust and left the Jewish people abandoned and alone. He begins by detailing the defeat of God by stating: "Poor father. He thought he was strong, stronger than the enemy." (15) This is a powerful statement that shows the lament of the Jewish people after the Holocaust had ended. After holding out hope for so long that God would save them they were thrust into the life of spiritual nomads with no place to go and no guidance from God. Wiesel goes on to describe the emptiness felt by the Jewish nation after seeing God be defeated: "My father broke my heart...were he here I would break down and weep." (15) Wiesel then continues to explain how God has disappeared: "He has mastered the art of leaving, my father. You speak to him, he seems to listen to you, but suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, you sense his disappearance." (17) These lines effectively sum up the point Wiesel is trying to drive home. God has always been a flitting entity and has finally disappeared for good in the face of such tangible evil.

So the question becomes: What do the Jews do now, after God has abandoned them? On the last page of the book, Wiesel provides an answer: to take ownership of their own lives. Wiesel writes: "I have moved heaven and earth, I have risked damnation and madness by interrogating the memory of the living and the dreams of the dead in order to live the life of those who, near and far, continue to haunt me." (220) The Jewish people and Wiesel himself are tired of living life to the expectations of their God when He has failed them so many times in the past but now face a new era after seeing Absolute Evil trump "a Good that was only theoretical." That, truly, is a tragedy.