An ancient belief of 'Reward and Punishment'
"If you listen to the calling of the commandments...then I will provide rain for your land and its proper time, the early and late rains, that you may gather in your grain, your wine, and you oil. I will provide grass in your field for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied." (Devarim 11:13-15)
The Sacrifice of Suffering
Rabbi Nechemiah taught "afflictions are more acceptable that sacrifices, since sacrifices affect only a person's money, while afflictions affect the whole person." (Mechilta DeRabbi Yishmael Bachodesh 10)
The reward of the Good.
"You shall keep My laws...through which man shall live."- 'Shall live' refers to the future world. Should you think in this world? But he will surely die. Thus, the phrase 'shall live' must mean in the future world." (Sifra Acharei 85)
"The reward of a Mitzvah is another Mitzvah." (Mishnah Avot 4.2)
Rabbi Yakov taught "There is no reward for the commandments in this world. For each commandment, the reward depends on resurrection." (Talmud Kiddushin 39b)
Rabbi Natan said "For each and every commandment of the Torah, its reward comes in this world; as for the future world, there is no calculating what lies in store." (Talmud Menachot 44a)
Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi taught "These are the deeds, the fruits of which a person enjoys in this world, while the principal is saved for him in the future world." (Mishnah Peah 1.1)
An ancient belief in the face of cruelty and atrocity.
'The sufferings that Israel shall have endured may be divided into three equal parts: one part was the lot of the Avot and all subsequent generations; one part was the lot of the Hadrianic persecutions and third will be the lot of the generation of the messiah...What occurred during the Hadrianic persecutions? the Romans took iron balls and bought them to a white heat. they then put them under the armpits of their victims, thereby slowly torturing them to death. Or they would take bunches of reeds and drive them under the victims fingernails..." (Midrash Tehillim 16:4)
"Consider the foreign pagans, worshiping idols, offering incense to their gods, who live in peace and security; and look at us- our holy Temple, God's footstool, is consumed in flames." (Talmud Makkot 24a)
"A prospective proselyte should be addressed so: 'Do you not know that at the present the people Israel is persecuted and oppressed, despised harassed and overcome by afflictions?'"(Talmud Yevamot 47a)
"Is this the reward of a people that remains faithful to its God and His covenant? Where is the God of justice? Some say: Elisha ben Avuyah left the fold of the tradition when he saw the tongue of Hutzpit the Interpreter one of the ten Sages martyred by the Romans, lying in a dunghill, and he cried: 'Shall a tongue which uttered pearls of wisdom now lick filth?" (Talmud Chullin 142a)
"Who is like You, God, among the mighty [ba'elim] - Who is like You among the mute [be'ilemim]! Who is like You in how you see the humiliation of Your children and remain silent!"(Mechilta DeRabbi Yishmael Shirata 8)
The question of personal suffering.
"Rabbi Chiya bar Abba, Rabbi Yochanan, and Rabbi Eleazar were each asked: 'Are your afflictions beloved to you?' and each answered: 'Neither them nor their rewards!"(Talmud Berachot 5b)
Rava's prayer included the following line: "May it be Your will...that I abstain from further sin and cleanse the sins I have already committed before You, though not by means of affliction." (Talmud Berachot 17a)
The suffering of Rabbi Akiva
"Master of the Universe, such a person exists and you convey the Torah through me? God responded : Silence! Such is My will. Moses then said: Since you ahve shown me his great teaching , now show me his reward. God told him to turn around and he saw Akiva's flesh being weighed out in a meat market. Moses asked: Master of the Universe, can this be Torah and its reward? God responded: Silence! Such is my will!" (Talmud Menachot 29b)
Two Reflections:
-This distress and dismay concerning the death of Rabbi Akiva was a reflection of the generation.
-The irony is that it was the Sage Rabbi Akiva who introduced a new approach to suffering and the teachings of reward and punishment.
Rabbi Nachum Ish Gamzu- "afflictions are precious!"
Once Rabbi Akiva came to visit his teacher and exclaimed "Woe to me that I see you in this condition: blind, amputated, lame." Nachum Ish Gamzu replied "Woe to me that I see you with arms and legs." Rabbi Akiva replied "Are you cursing me?" Said Nachum Ish Gamzu "And are you spurning afflictions that you say 'Woe to me, because of your suffering?" (Talmud Shekalim 5:6, 49b)
In time, Rabbi Akiva came to both accept and adopt this view of suffering.
"'You shall love God with all your heart, soul and might' With all your 'soul' having been said is not with all your 'might' trivial? Why is with all your 'might' then said? To teach us that God is to be loved irrespective of what measure He metes out to us."(Yalkut Shemoni Va'etchannan 837)
"Rabbi Akiva said 'let a person rejoice more in affliction than in fortune." (Sifre, Va'etchanan 32)
When God revealed Himself to Moses at the thornbush, He said to him "Do you not sense that I dwell in sorrow just as my people dwell in sorrow. Know that in speaking to you here in the midst of the bush, I participate in their suffering."(Midrash Tehillim 20.3)
Rabbi Eleazar Hakkapar said "Whoever attaches the Name of Heaven to his pain will in the end have his sustenance doubled, for 'I will be with him in his suffering'."(Talmud Berachot 63a)