A friend told me about having read this short book after coming across a reference to it. He hadn't known it was a play but read through it in two sittings. He gave me a review he'd found of the book that made sense of it for him, while advising me to hold off reading it until I'd finished the play. I did hold off, which let me assemble some impressions of my own. As far as I was concerned, this book is part of the genre known as "Holocaust theology;" the title gave that away. I also saw allusio...

I'm speechless. Every person who seeks to know God should read this. It will challenge you, it will make you question. It may make you cry, even as it makes you laugh. This dark dark comedy reveals truths about the struggles of remaining faithful even in the midst of the deepest of tragedies. I would recommend to all.

If man is made in God's image (or vice versa) then to put God on trial is to indict Man. Wiesel's powerful drama invites reflection on mankind's inability to live up to God, or to fashion gods that are truly worthy. Most damning of all, no person is found to stand as God's advocate at the trial, except for Satan himself. Powerful and provocative.

Many times after the Syrian revolution I held such a trial in mind...but with different outcomes.

Elie Wiesel has, in "Night," his autobiographical account of his Auschwitz experience (1972), and in his essay on the Book of Job in "Messengers of God" (1976), expressed his searing anger at the Jewish God’s seeming indifference to the pain He causes to those who worship him. Wiesel took on this theme again in "The Trial of God" (published 1979), but this time he seemed far more tentative and uncertain, setting the book, which is actually a play, in 1649, and offering both a confusing prosecuti...

Elie Wiesel was a boy at Auschwitz when he watched prisoners convene a traditional Hebrew court to try God of breaking his sacred covenant with the Jews. PBS's "Masterpiece Theater" excellently dramatizes the trial in its movie "God on Trial", which bears strong influence from Wiesel's play.Wiesel's 1979 original is not set at the concentration camp. The book's introduction documents his struggles to find a suitable setting for his story; he finally settles on the late middle ages, at an inn of

It is so hard to rate this book. (So hard in fact that I'm just not going to rate it.) On one hand, I was sometimes a bit bored and some of the characters angered or annoyed me. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that was the point? Also, my edition has an essay at the end of the play which really made me appreciate the play more even though I wouldn't call this an 'enjoyable' read.

Some books are a waste of time. This one wasted 3 hours of my life :/ *Spoiler alert*70% of the book will be done and the trial of God does not even start 😅 And the rest 30% there is barely any noteworthy argument for God or against God. The only purpose that this book serves is that it can be a gift to a person, whose time you want to waste. There was one beautiful thought in the book though. ‘When one man kills another, is God on the side of the killer or is God actually the victim? By allowin...

This play is a testament to the depth and complexity of Elie Weisel. I liked two particular elements of the story, the historical and the theological. The author, a survivor of the Holocaust, analyzes Jewish tragic history as a continuum by placing the Trial of God (itself a result of feelings of abandonment) after a Medieval Pogrom instead of in Auschwitz, where it actually happened. Secondly, the characters examine the figure of God in his humanity, channeling the Bible on the “image and liken...

This book is a complex play, surveying many of the theological arguments questioning God's existence in the face of catastrophic human suffering - set in 1649, it describes a Purim play occurring in a Jewish community recently decimated by a pogrom, although it is loosely based on real-life events which happened in the concentration camps. I got an enormous amount out of this, and found it much more readable than most of his other works (with the exception, possibly, of the iconic 'Night'). A mu...

I finished the play in just a few days because it moves so quickly, and want to read it again and again. It's a story that is profound but accessible and even hours after finishing it I can't seem to pick my jaw up off of the floor. Mind-blowing and awesome.The Trial of God is a perfect vehicle for a subject beyond weighty, and it is an incredible way to honor and preserve the ideas shared by the Rabbis during the trials they held in concentration camps and ghettos for future generations.

I feel that I am treading on holy ground when I approach the depth of suffering and horror that the Jewish people endured during the Holocaust, and that I have little right to express any thought on the matter at all; I would rather listen, listen to what they have to say and to teach us. The U.S. school system does a good job and introducing young students to the matter. I have read "Number the Stars" and "The Diary of Anne Frank," as well as a few others. I am glad that as a society, we are st...

This is a play of Jewish people putting God on trial in 1649 for refusing to do anything while his people are killed. While preparing the trial, they struggle to find a prosecutor for God. At the end of Act 2, a “stranger” shows up and volunteers to defend God. At the beginning of Act 3, we learn that the “stranger's name is Sam. And at the very end, we learn who Sam actually is and what he spends his time doing when he isn’t defending God. For the duration of the trial, they debate over the pos...

This is a fast read and like many books of its sort, I feel I could read over and over and each time gain more insight into the author's purpose. Set in Shamgorod in the 17th Century, the play is set after a series of pogroms that have devastated Jewish villages leaving only a handful of survivors. God is put on trial for allowing the horrors inflicted upon the people to happen. As a boy in Auschwitz, Wiesel witnessed a similar occurrence carried out by some rabbis which haunted him his entire l...

I wrote a paper on this book my freshman year of college, and then I decided to major in religion. This book deeply challenged me.

I reckon it might be better to watch than to read but it is not a very pleasant little play.

After finishing Jonathan Ames' book Wake Up Sir I wanted to read something very different from the current novel style in vogue. I was scanning my bookshelf and came across this, a play, by Elie Wiesel. I recalled a friend of mine telling me he really liked it, and it gave him a few things to think about. I picked it up and finished it in just one shift at my coffeeshop, as I set it down, finished, a different friend of mine noticed it for the first time even though we were reading at the sa...

nice, quick read for a play...interesting concepts. interesting retelling of Job.

One can tell in looking at this book that the author is aiming at a play that hits much like the book of Job does in light of the horrors of the Holocaust, which are hinted at, at least in foreshadowing, in this tale of a dark night where a pogrom stalks the survivors of previous pogroms committed by Poles and Ukrainians in what later became the Pale of Russia who hated each other but ended up killing the (generally harmless) Jews who happened to be around.  It is easy to see what the author is

I’ve enjoyed Wiesel’s brilliance again and again, and I’m cautious to leave any kind of review here. He speaks with an experience that now very few humans possess today. And while I appreciate that he placed his experience of suffering not in his own context, but in the context of a decaying, persecuted village in the 17th century, he spends far too much time developing character’s wit and jovial bickering, and far less time exploring the themes of God’s justice. However, when he finally arrived...