The Trial of God: (As It Was Held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod)

by Elie Wiesel

Book Overview

The Trial of God (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod) A Play by Elie Wiesel Translated by Marion Wiesel Introduction by Robert McAfee Brown Afterword by Matthew Fox Where is God when innocent human beings suffer? This drama lays bare the most vexing questions confronting the moral imagination. Set in a Ukranian village in the year 1649, this haunting play takes place in the aftermath of a pogrom. Only two Jews, Berish the innkeeper...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805210539
• ISBN13: 9780805210538
• Release Date: November 1995
• Publisher: Schocken Books Inc
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

They made my world better!

The seller has a fun, customer focused demeanor. Their automatically-generated follow up message (from Indaba the emailing robot) made me smile--just like the book I ordered. My book arrived promptly and in the condition stated in the description.

Disturbing

This is a disturbing book that tells a disturbing story. Since other reviewers have done a great job providing a synopsis of the book I will go right to the matter of what I think of it. In many ways I was dissapointed. I would have much rather that Wiesel wrote about the trial that he witnessed in Auschwitz rather than placing it in a Ukrainian villege. However, I think he tried and for some reason could not do it. My personal opinion is that the original trial was too painful. So, the play seems to have been inspired by actual events but goes off in another direction entirely. Or does it? I have trouble deciding. There are many layers to this play - just like the four levels introduced by Bachya ben Asher for the interpretation of scripture: peshat, or "plain meaning"; derash, or "rabbinic aggadah"; derekh hassekhel, or "philosophical"; and sod, or "kabbalistic." The discerning, or knowledgable, reader will find all those levels present in this work. Wiesel is never an easy writer to read or to understand, and this play is no different.

Judgment at Night

As with all of Elie Wiesel's work, the central premise is to explore the question of Jews and their suffering throughout history. "The Trial of God" is an interesting departure from his better-known works, in that it is a drama, a play staged during the Jewish holiday of Purim. Based on events that Wiesel witnessed while in Auschwitz, "The Trial of God" accuses the Creator of the Universe of being guilty of neglect to his chosen people. And even though the trial takes place in the seventeenth century, the modern world is very much alive in the facts and accusations. The trial takes place in 1649, in a Ukrainian village that has been decimated by a pogrom; only two Jews remain, Berish the innkeeper, and his silenced daughter Hanna. Three traveling minstrels arrive and upset Berish. They want to stage a Purim play for all the Jews in the village, without knowing about the devastation of the recent raids. Berish allows them to enact a play as long as he can choose the subject matter; he wishes for a trial to condemn God over what has happened to the Jews and he will serve as prosecutor. The minstrels accept, but can find no one to play the defense attorney for God, until a stranger (who seems to be known by all) arrives to defend God and his actions (or inaction). Much of the course of the play is devoted to setting up the trial (which doesn't begin until Act Three). Until that time, the reader learns much about the history of Berish and what he witnessed, as well as what makes him so angry towards God. When the stranger arrives to defend God, he does not allow Berish to use the dead as proof or witnesses for one must only think of the living. Tension mounts throughout the course of the play, thanks to news that a mob is gathering once again to kill the remaining Jews. Finally the trial must be abandoned in order for the men to defend themselves, and the play ends, questions unanswered, no verdict given. The ending may seem like a disappointment to some readers, but it is the only one that is realistic. As Mendel (the minstrel who acts as head judge) puts it, "The verdict will be announced by someone else, at a later stage. For the trial will continue - without us." For how can humanity cast judgment upon God, upon themselves, when they don't have all the answers? As Wiesel once said, "I do not have any answers, but I have some very good questions." The most important thing is that questions are raised, even when the may go unanswered. It is not for us to explain away and answer the desperate plight of the Jewish people, but it is for us to ask and question and to make sure that what has happened is never forgotten.

Amazing and Insightful

As in all his works, Elie Wiesel shares with his readers in "The Trial of God" the simultaneous pain and hope that he feels when he thinks about the role that God has played in his life. This play--and it's exactly that, a play--is full of banter between the characters, humor, and even sexual innuendo, but it also addresses a very serious issue... one man's conflict with the God that he feels has betrayed him. I am a Christian, but I still truly enjoyed reading this and thinking about my personal relationship with this same God. I would encourage anyone to read this - it's a great purchase!

A Trial of Faith

While interred in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel witnessed a trial. While such things are not unusual, this trial was. It was unusual because of the defendant: God. God was tried for violating the covenant by turning his back in silence on the Jewish people in their greatest hour of need. God was tried in absentia, without anyone present being willing to take on the role of God's defense attorney. God was declared guilty, after which the "court" prayed. Contradiction? Perhaps. But this incident, which served as the inspiration for *The Trial of God*, is part of the long Jewish tradition of arguing with God. While Job is God's most famous interlocuter, we cannot forget the dispute the founder of the Jewish people, Abraham, had with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The trial of God is really a trial of faith; this is why the "court" prayed. They are torn between their devotion to God and their complete disappointment in God's silence. This struggle of faith is the story of *The Trial of God*, in which it is the least faithful of all, Satan, that comes to God's defense. Wiesel is fond of retelling a story about two Holocaust survivors, one a rabbi, who meet after liberation. The survivor asks the rabbi how, after all that has happened, he can continue to believe in God. The rabbi retorts by asking how, after all that has happened, can the other *not* believe in God. Wiesel has often echoed this paradox in his own sentiments. This is the paradox which *the Trial of God* presents us; it is a story of doubting trust and trusting doubt which, as Wiesel suggests, might be reconcilable only in protest. Perhaps *The Trial of God* is Wiesel's act of faith; perhaps it is an act of condemnation. I suspect that for Wiesel it is both. Anyone who pays careful attention to this work will be highly rewarded by it, not because of the answers it gives (for it gives none), but (in good Wieselian style) for the questions it raises.