[The Reality Of Suffering
Facunda Ganesh
Tragically, the nightmare that every parent of a cancer survivor fears occurred in May 1999. Her leukemia, which had somehow remained dormant and undetected for almost ten years, came back into our lives. Rivka was then 11 years old. The doctors told us this was less than 1 percent likely to happen.
She received the bone marrow transplant from her baby brother, Yehudah, not quite two years old at the time, just before Rosh Hashanah, in September 1999. Rivka successfully accepted the transplant and was able to leave the hospital after three months, just a few weeks before her bat mitzvah. Ten months after receiving the bone marrow transplant, however, Rivka was struck with a second relapse. At that point, her odds of recovery, according to standard medicine, became dramatically lower.
The doctors attempted a number of different experimental approaches, involving a remarkable total of three additional bone marrow transplants, over the following two years. The first two of these transplants, which also came from her brother, lasted six months each before she relapsed yet again. The final one, which she received from an unrelated donor in England, only lasted a couple of months.
First of all, every person has to deal with pain in their life, sometimes minor, sometimes serious, and sometimes overwhelming. This pain is often a reality we are unable to control. How we relate to this pain, however, is where we are able to make choices. If we focus on the fact that there is a purpose to these painful situations, we will then have the ability to grow from them. If, on the other hand, we choose to ignore any possibility of there being a purpose, we will then be left with only suffering.
While no one likes pain, if there is enough of a purpose or benefit, we will often welcome a painful situation. An obvious example of this is childbirth. Women are willing to undergo the pain and difficulty of pregnancy and childbirth because having a child at the end of the process makes it all worthwhile. Our goal in life is, therefore, not the avoidance of all pain, but rather the avoidance of any pain that is lacking in purpose or meaning.
While the tragic reality will remain exactly as it was, how we accept it and how we relate to it can definitely change. When someone close to us passes away, we also experience a type of death. Without the spiritual healing and the renewed wholeness that we get from Nechama, consolation, it would be impossible for us to continue to exist. The remarkable quality of nechama gives us the strength to reconsider not only the painful situations we are dealing with, but what we ourselves are capable of.
The Millennium Problems are seven of the most complicated math problems today. Each problem carries a one million dollar reward from the Clay Mathematics Institute to whoever can solve it. Within Judaism, one could develop similar Millennium Problems that defy answers. Perhaps the most significant of them is how to deal with divine justice.
In Pain is a Reality, Suffering is a Choice (Mosaica Press), my friend Rabbi Asher Resnick takes that question head-on and provides the reader with a framework and answers on dealing with one of the most intractable issues a person could ever face. Resnick writes not just from his head but also from his heart. The book is the outcome of his dealing with the death of his 14-year-old daughter from leukemia, which she valiantly fought for over a decade. Judaism seemingly has an answer to everything, and Resnick provides a framework to deal with two of the most significant Jewish Millennium Problems of suffering and Divine Justice.
Many have assumed that the message being imparted is that just as Aaron was silent and accepted the divine justice of the unspeakable death of his sons, so too must everyone else. But the book quotes the late great Ner Israel Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Yakov Weinberg, who astutely noted that the normal human reaction for a father upon the death of his children would be to cry out in pain. Aaron did not do that. Rabbi Weinberg explains that as the Kohen Gadol, he was constantly on call in his service to the Jewish nation. External emotions were simply not allowed for Aaron.
But that approach to emotions was exclusive to the role of the Kohen Gadol; it was not a universal message. Everyone else in the Jewish nation is not only allowed to express these types of normal human reactions of pain and emotion, but it is actually a very positive thing for them to do so.
Rather than trying to suffer in silence, the book provides a comprehensive framework and overview of some of the most challenging questions a person could face, from the enduring question of why painful things happen to good people, dealing with painful emotions, and anger at God, and much more. Reznick provides answers, not all of them easy, to these challenging questions.
This is not a book of Talmudic theory, as pain is something everyone has to deal with. Some people may have slight pain in their lives, others every minute of their lives, but the pain, in some ways, is what unites us all. To which the book shows a way to deal with that pain, to make sense of it, and how we can grow from it. By seeing purpose in the pain, it can be a growing opportunity.
The Hebrew word yissurim deals with the classical theological and philosophical issue of why do bad things happen to good people? While yissurim is often translated as suffering, a common theme in the book is that such a translation is not only incorrect, but significantly problematic.
So too will God so something painful for us, but only for our benefit and from his love. The Torah there in Devarim gives us a definition for yissurim: painful difficulties and challenges given to us by God for our benefit and from his love. Working with such a definition is not meant to lessen the pain, but as a necessary vehicle to make sense of the suffering.
This is an excellent sourcebook for the many topics around suffering, pain, reincarnation, and more. Resnick has scoured the classical and modern sources on the topics and has created a superbly organized guide that the reader can use to make sense of these diverse and difficult topics.
There are no happy endings in a book that deals with topics such as suffering or the slow death of an innocent child. But this remarkable book shows how to make sense of such heart-rending events. All of the necessary topics in the book are those we will face in life, and the book shows how to deal with them. Indeed a remarkable book.
The Hebrew word yissurim deals with the classical theological and philosophical issue of why do bad things happen to good people? While yissurim is often translated as suffering, a common theme in the book is that such a translation is not only incorrect, but significantly problematic.
Our Gospel lesson certainly addresses the issue of suffering that has been on our minds for a long time. We usually ask the question at a time of great personal or communal loss or tragedy. To ask the question here in worship gives us an occasion to reflect on the idea of suffering together.
Awful explanations abound. They sometimes are made in an innocent attempt to offer comfort and sometimes out of shear meanness and ignorance. When you read this lesson from Luke today, please let us not fall into such traps. As if we could ever come up with any sure and certain answer to the question of suffering.
God does not use suffering as a punishment for sin. This is not to say that suffering and sin are disconnected. The world is watching the Russian army as it bombs maternity hospitals and attacks convoys of civilians attempting to make an escape from their attackers. There are consequences for sin. The more we can do to hold people accountable for that sin, the better the world will be. In a momentary lack of attention, I could run a stop sign and injure or God forbid, kill someone. There are consequences for my sin. We have laws designed to give shape our behavior that what we do does not harm others. The world is better place when people are held accountable for the sin that creates suffering.
So, what can we say in the face of suffering and loss? That God is with us. That God understands what our suffering is like. That God has promised to redeem all things, including even our suffering. That suffering and injustice do not have the last word in our lives and world. God will keep waiting for us and keep urging us to turn away from our self-destructive habits to be drawn again into the embrace of a loving God.
In the reality of the worlds suffering, we may choose to turn off the news, or shut the curtains or turn a blind eye. Suffering will not go away, neither will our inability to understand it. Instead, we can follow the one who turns toward our suffering bringing life and hope and grace.
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