Dawn

by

Elie Wiesel

The Grizzled Master Character Analysis

The grizzled master is Elisha’s childhood Cabala (Jewish mysticism) teacher. Elisha looked up to the master as a mentor and guide; he was especially influenced by the Master’s teaching on the sixth commandment—that it’s wrong to take God’s prerogative into one’s own hands by killing another. He also told Elisha that Death is “all eyes” and taught him other Jewish legends, like the story of a little boy who was turned into a prayer in the night sky. The ghost of the grizzled master appears the night before Dawson’s execution, though he remains silent.

The Grizzled Master Quotes in Dawn

The Dawn quotes below are all either spoken by The Grizzled Master or refer to The Grizzled Master. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Revenge, Terrorism, and War Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

I remembered how the grizzled master had explained the sixth commandment to me. Why has a man no right to commit murder? Because in so doing he takes upon himself the function of God. And this must not be done too easily. Well, I said to myself, if in order to change the course of our history we have to become God, we shall become Him. How easy that is we shall see. No, it was not easy.

When Elisha trains to become a terrorist, he doesn’t just discover new ideas about what it means to live in Zion (the Holy Land). He also discovers new interpretations of the religious teachings on which he was raised. Here he explains how his childhood mentor, a rabbi known as the grizzled master, taught him to understand the sixth of the Ten Commandments, the one which prohibits killing. The grizzled master explains that life and death are in God’s hands, so killing someone means wrongly playing the role of God. As Elisha becomes indoctrinated into the Movement’s ideas, however, he looks at the sixth commandment in a new way—accepting that in order to secure a peaceful future, the Jewish people have a responsibility to “become God,” even if that includes killing. If they don’t do this, he reasons, they will continue to be at the mercy of history and may eventually cease to exist as a people. Dawn as a whole is the story of Elisha learning just how difficult it is to live out such an idea.

Related Characters: Elisha (speaker), The Grizzled Master
Page Number: 23
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Dawn PDF

The Grizzled Master Quotes in Dawn

The Dawn quotes below are all either spoken by The Grizzled Master or refer to The Grizzled Master. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Revenge, Terrorism, and War Theme Icon
).
Chapter 3 Quotes

I remembered how the grizzled master had explained the sixth commandment to me. Why has a man no right to commit murder? Because in so doing he takes upon himself the function of God. And this must not be done too easily. Well, I said to myself, if in order to change the course of our history we have to become God, we shall become Him. How easy that is we shall see. No, it was not easy.

When Elisha trains to become a terrorist, he doesn’t just discover new ideas about what it means to live in Zion (the Holy Land). He also discovers new interpretations of the religious teachings on which he was raised. Here he explains how his childhood mentor, a rabbi known as the grizzled master, taught him to understand the sixth of the Ten Commandments, the one which prohibits killing. The grizzled master explains that life and death are in God’s hands, so killing someone means wrongly playing the role of God. As Elisha becomes indoctrinated into the Movement’s ideas, however, he looks at the sixth commandment in a new way—accepting that in order to secure a peaceful future, the Jewish people have a responsibility to “become God,” even if that includes killing. If they don’t do this, he reasons, they will continue to be at the mercy of history and may eventually cease to exist as a people. Dawn as a whole is the story of Elisha learning just how difficult it is to live out such an idea.

Related Characters: Elisha (speaker), The Grizzled Master
Page Number: 23