Why do you pray?' [Moishe] asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?  ... [Moishe] explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer ... The real answers, Eliezer, you will find only within yourself" (5). 

This is the first conversation between Eliezer and Moishe the Beadle, who is Elie's Kabbalah mentor. The moment is significant because it shows how devoutly religous Eliezer is at the beginning of the story. He says that prayer, to him, is as essential and necessary to his life as breathing. It is also important because in this moment, Moishe teaches Elie an important lesson: to trust only in himself, and that the key to survival, the key to life, isn't inside any book or temple or rabbi, but inside of himself. Moishe pushes Eliezer to think more critically and helps his develop both mentally and spritually. 

They made prisoners line up and were forced to get tatted on their left arms and get a number which is their name forever, they no longer had a name it was numbers it changed Elie because hes no longer a person just a number