Just finished "The Trial of God"
I just finished reading the play "The Trial of God" by Elie Wiesel. The play is set during the pogroms in the 17th century against the Jews. The characters are mulifaceted and interesting. There is the Innkeeper (Berish), Maria his servant, three rabbis: Mendel, Yankel, Avramel. Added to these characters are the cowardly, and immoral priest, and Sam the stranger of the play. Maria tells of how bad the pogram was when she tells the story of what happened to Hannah, Berish's daughter, who was to be married, but the pogrom mobs came and killed her husband, and they assaulted Hannah for hours while they made her father watch, Maria says,
"He twisted, and twisted; he looked and looked, and I shouted, and yelled, and the beasts sneered, and little Hanna was covered with blood. Did she know who assaulted her first? And how many followed? It lasted an hour or two, and more, it lasted a hole lifetime, and they left."
The play is based off of an event in the life of Wiesel himself. Wiesel was in the holocaust as a young child, and one night he witnessed three rabbis put God on Trial for the deahs of the many Jews where slaughtered.
The three rabbis have come the the town a year after the pogrom in Shamgorod, during purim to perform for the festival of masks. All the Jewish families where slaughtered in the town, the only two jews left where Berish and his daughter Hannah. Most of the play is concerned with the Rabbis, and Berish setting up a mock trial of God. They have all of the positions they need, except one, that of the defendant of God. At the last moment when the reader is lead to believe that the characters are going to have to end the idea, Sam steps forward, the mysterious man that no one knows, but everyone believes that they have seen somehwhere. Maria knows him because he seduced her one night, and then left. The reader is lead to think that the Jews believe that Sam is a holy man, but the reader know better, because Sam does a very heinous thing, which was the rape (?) of Maria. At the end of the play as they are finishing the trial, the priest comes in and warns them that the mob is outside and hungry for blood. At this point the Rabbis plea for Sam, who had talked them out of fleeing, to protect them because he was a "holy man". When they realize that they have nowhere to go, Yankel and Avramel announce that they want to put on their Purim masks. When Sam does the mask is a mask of Satan, and then the candles go out. The whole thing turned out to be a trick by Satan himself.
Berish is beside himself with anger toward God, because of what happened to his daughter. The argument implied through out the book is that of Hume, "If God is unable to end evil then he is not omnipotent, if he can stop evil and chooses not to then he is evil." Wiesel uses a literary art form not theological treatise because literature makes us feel injustice in our gut, and forces us to consider the problem of evil not as an abstract concept, but as a concrete reality that we as human beings, and those of us who are Christians must face in everyday life. I am not going to "answer" Wiesel's objection to God, but leave that for the reader to ponder.
Blake
"He twisted, and twisted; he looked and looked, and I shouted, and yelled, and the beasts sneered, and little Hanna was covered with blood. Did she know who assaulted her first? And how many followed? It lasted an hour or two, and more, it lasted a hole lifetime, and they left."
The play is based off of an event in the life of Wiesel himself. Wiesel was in the holocaust as a young child, and one night he witnessed three rabbis put God on Trial for the deahs of the many Jews where slaughtered.
The three rabbis have come the the town a year after the pogrom in Shamgorod, during purim to perform for the festival of masks. All the Jewish families where slaughtered in the town, the only two jews left where Berish and his daughter Hannah. Most of the play is concerned with the Rabbis, and Berish setting up a mock trial of God. They have all of the positions they need, except one, that of the defendant of God. At the last moment when the reader is lead to believe that the characters are going to have to end the idea, Sam steps forward, the mysterious man that no one knows, but everyone believes that they have seen somehwhere. Maria knows him because he seduced her one night, and then left. The reader is lead to think that the Jews believe that Sam is a holy man, but the reader know better, because Sam does a very heinous thing, which was the rape (?) of Maria. At the end of the play as they are finishing the trial, the priest comes in and warns them that the mob is outside and hungry for blood. At this point the Rabbis plea for Sam, who had talked them out of fleeing, to protect them because he was a "holy man". When they realize that they have nowhere to go, Yankel and Avramel announce that they want to put on their Purim masks. When Sam does the mask is a mask of Satan, and then the candles go out. The whole thing turned out to be a trick by Satan himself.
Berish is beside himself with anger toward God, because of what happened to his daughter. The argument implied through out the book is that of Hume, "If God is unable to end evil then he is not omnipotent, if he can stop evil and chooses not to then he is evil." Wiesel uses a literary art form not theological treatise because literature makes us feel injustice in our gut, and forces us to consider the problem of evil not as an abstract concept, but as a concrete reality that we as human beings, and those of us who are Christians must face in everyday life. I am not going to "answer" Wiesel's objection to God, but leave that for the reader to ponder.
Blake
posted by Blake | 8:58 PM
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