Night opens with a brief description of a poor man named Moché the Beadle, who lives in the narrator's hometown of Sighet, Transylvania (modern-day Romania; at the time that the novel opens, the town is under Hungarian control). Moché is generally well liked, works in the Hasidic synagogue, and is a very pious and humble individual. In 1941, when he is twelve, the narrator, Eliezer Wiesel, wants to study the cabbala (a form of Jewish mysticism), but his father tells him that he is too young. In this passage we le…
