Rabbi Harold Kushner: "When Bad Things Happen to Good People"

I no longer hold God responsible for illnesses, accidents, and natural disasters, because I realize that I gain little and I lose so much when I blame God for those things. I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die, for whatever exalted reason. . .

God does not cause our misfortunes. Some are caused by bad luck, some are caused by bad people, and some are simply an inevitable consequence of our being human and being mortal, living in a world of inflexible natural laws.

The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God’s part. Because the tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.

Rabbi Joseph Soleveitchik: Kol Dofek Dodi

“To what may the matter be compared? To a person gazing at a beautiful rug, a true work of art, one into which an exquisite design has been woven – but looking at it from its reverse side. Can such a viewing give rise to a sublime aesthetic experience? We, alas, view the world from its reverse side. We are, therefore, unable to grasp the all-encompassing framework of being. And it is only within that framework that it is possible to discern the divine plan, the essential nature of the divine actions.”

Rabbi Benjamin Blech If God is So Good, Why is the World So Bad

Clearly, the Talmud is saying that no individual can judge anyone else and deduce from the mere presence of suffering that this is God's punishment for sin. It may or may not be true. Someone can suffer and still be good. Even the pious know pain, and even the saintly endure sickness. There are a whole host of reasons that might explain this, as we will discover, all of which in no way reflect on the virtue of the person who is suffering. You don't dare condemn and malign a decent human being.

But if you are the individual who is suffering, you do have an obligation to ask yourself: what might I have done to deserve this? What could I have done to bring this on? Is it possible that my suffering is a punishment from God.? Or is it possible that my suffering is perhaps a message a wake-up call to which I must respond?

Kushner:

Let me suggest that the bad things that happen to us in our lives do not have a meaning when they happen to us. They do not happen for any good reason which would cause us to accept them willingly. But we can give them a meaning. We can redeem these tragedies from senselessness by imposing meaning on them.

The question we should be asking is not, “Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?” That is really an unanswerable, pointless question. A better question would be “Now that this has happened to me, what am I going to do about it?”

Soleveitchik

Woe unto the man whose suffering has not precipitated a spiritual crisis in the depths of his being, whose soul remains frozen and lacking forgiveness! Woe unto the sufferer if his heart is not inflamed by the fires of affliction, if his pangs do not kindle the lamp of the Lord that is within him! If a person allows his pains to wasted about the vast empty spaces of the cosmos like bling, purposeless forces, then a grave indictment is drawn up against him for having frittered away his suffering.

Blech

And how can we know whether our own suffering is divine punishment or heavenly warning? When God intervenes, when He is sending you a message, you will know it. How? There is one sure way to tell—God is very specific and leaves no doubt about His meaning if you merely give it a little thought.