Where is God when innocent human beings suffer? This question plagues the minds of people everywhere following disasters and the death of innocents. After the 9/11 attacks, people wondered to themselves why did these people have to die. This type of contemplation is nothing new, for people have been suffering for centuries, often needlessly. Elie Wiesel was a fifteen-year-old Jew who was sent to Auschwitz, a death camp in Nazi Poland. While he was there, he witnessed three Jewish scholars who put God on trial for crimes against humankind. Even after they convicted him, they all said their evening prayers. This duality of mankind's perception of God is what influenced Wiesel to write his play, "The Trial of God."

This play was set in a 1649 Ukrainian village known as Shamgorod, shortly after a murderous pogrom. The survivors hold their own trial of God as a play in honor of the Jewish feast of Purim. Three minstrels, an innkeeper and his mental wreck of a daughter, along with a slut servant, an Orthodox priest, and a mysterious man in black make up the motley crew of participants in this tragic farce of a trial.

The Trial of God and the Book of Job raise important questions about life, and the nature of God. On a personal level, they both struck a chord in the way they portrayed the suffering of man in the face of God's intentions. I realized that someone like Wiesel would have a better understanding of what Job experienced, and as a result had a better comprehension of the true meaning of suffering. The profound question of whether or not God is the enemy is still a valid question even today. There are still people suffering throughout the world, and they all wonder to themselves is there a reason for this pain they are experiencing. Is God responsible? Is man responsible? This question will not be answered while we are here on Earth, and we can only hope that God will one day explain himself while we are seated next to him in Heaven.

After the crowd makes its decision, Sam reveals himself to be Satan, and the townspeople charge into the inn and finish off the surviving Jews (This goes to show, never trust a man in black before Labor Day.) In reality, Satan's defense of God was unwarranted, regardless of God's absence. Wiesel is trying to point out that we need not make apologies for God, due to the fact that God is beyond our understanding. To make any excuses for him would be inadequate, because we are simply humans, not divine creatures.

If anyone present in the Shamgorod Jewish Motor Inn had a biblical understanding of God, they would n

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Approximate Word count = 975
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)