When pain is real and answers feel inadequate, Rabbi Gershon Schusterman explores how faith, prayer, and a lived relationship with Hashem can steady us through uncertainty.
Who among us does not feel pained when we hear of another tragic terror attack in Eretz Yisroel? And after we hear the details of the murdered and injured, so often children, or a few members of the same family, we cannot but silently ask ourselves, why, G-d, why? Why them, why now, when will this stop? When will the world be just? These are rhetorical question for two opposite reasons: First, because we know the answers (yet the heart cannot but protest), and second, because even as we know the answers we know that the questions remain unanswered.
The subject of why the righteous suffer and why the wicked prosper has a name. “Theodicy” (G-d + justice) is the scholarly term for this age-old question. We believe in a just and kind G-d Who is in charge of the world, so it perplexes us to see what seems to be unwarranted suffering. We are confused and pained by life’s apparent injustice. Truth be said that to explain the issue philosophically is one thing while to digest it personally, especially when one is faced with the need to cope with life’s crises, is an entirely different matter.
One’s bias makes up one’s vocabulary: Someone else’s problems are written off as nisyonos (tests). One can ask the question, why are they suffering, and a question gets an answer. One’s own problems, on the other hand, are defined as tzaros (troubles). They are not questions that need answers; they are problems that needs solutions.This distinction is illustrated by the following story:
A wealthy talmid chochom of the last generation in Poland was also a Rosh Yeshiva in the community’s small Yeshiva. He earned his living from a timber business. He would buy the trees of an entire forest and have them cut down, made into logs, tied together as rafts and floated down the river to their destination. There the timber would be sold at a handsome profit.
Once, when a special deal was offered to him, the Rosh Yeshiva used all his money and even borrowed more to maximize his profit. All went well until an unexpected storm hit the river region as the rafts were passing through, destroying the timber completely. Suddenly the rich man was penniless — and deeply in debt.
The disastrous news reached his friends first, who were afraid to tell him about his devastating losses. They decided to ask his brightest student, a brilliant young man, to tell him the news. The talmid went to his Rosh Yeshiva with the passage from the Gemara (Brachos 61a) that says, “A person is mandated to bless [Hashem] for bad events just as he must for good ones.” The talmid asked the Rosh Yeshiva to explain how this is possible. When the talmid received the pat answer about all “bad” news event being really good, only good comes from G-d, etc., he persisted and questioned more deeply. He kept prompting the Rosh Yeshiva to develop the subject with brilliance and clarity.
The talmid persisted. “So, Rebbe,” he said, “If I understand you correctly, it means if you were to find out that all your timber was destroyed, you would dance for joy?” Still believing that the question was purely academic, the Rosh Yeshiva responded, “Certainly!” Then the talmid said, “In that case, Rebbe, start dancing. All your timber has been actually destroyed by a storm.”
When he was revived, the Rosh Yeshiva looked at his talmid and said, “Suddenly, I don’t understand the Gemora that well…”
Sometimes people find themselves in the Rosh Yeshiva’s dilemma. Suddenly, when they are challenged to cope with a crisis in their own lives, yesterday’s wisdom, which they may have so glibly dispensed to others, is inadequate to sustain them today.
In the agony of the tzarah there are two components. The pain itself (be it physical, as in an illness, or emotional, as in a loss) is the first component. Then there is the uncertainty and insecurity that it brings to one’s life (Will the illness go away? How long will it last? When will I find a new job?). In this state of insecurity we ask, “Why is this happening to me?” and feel dejected. We wonder, “Does anyone care how I am doing?” and feel lonely. It is the second component, the uncertainty and insecurity that are part of a tzarah, which is often much worse than the pain itself, excruciating though it might be. If one knew with absolute certainty how things would eventually work out, the trauma, dejection and loneliness would be minimized greatly. But since mortals cannot see beyond the present, we are anxious and fearful as we face what seems to us to be the great unknown.
Witness the difference between a child and an adult in dealing with a minor, though painful, medical procedure, such as a blood test. The child is in a state of terror and is likely to cry hysterically and beg to be freed from this ordeal. The adult does not enjoy being stuck with a needle and seeing his blood drawn either, but he is calm. The pain is the same for both of them, but the adult is not also experiencing fear of an unknown.
It has been said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Likewise when one has a focus on the why of one’s pain, the how is that much more bearable. Usually, however, it is difficult to grasp the why of one’s suffering, and that makes the suffering worse.
It is however, a mistake to think that if one only had proper awareness of Hashem, if one only had more bitachon, more emunah, or more of some other lofty quality, the pain would be lessened, or would never have come in the first place. Indeed, that was true for Reb Zushe of Anipole, who did not recognize his tzaros as such at all. (Reb Zushe was painfully poor, but when asked how he dealt with his tzaros, he answered, “Why would you ask me such a question? I don’t have any tzaros.”) However, since we are not expected to be on Reb Zushe’s high level but to be ourselves, our expectations need to be realistic for who we are. Speaking for most of us, when we experience pain, it hurts.
Suffering the pain and having true faith in G-d His hashgachah pratis are not incompatible. The Frierdiker Rebbe (Likkutei Dibburim 34) describes his thoughts shortly after he was arrested. He imagines the feelings of those near and dear to him, his mother, wife, daughters, sons-in-law, chassidim, etc., and he bursts out crying. His pain was overwhelming. Then, the Rebbe states, “Suddenly, as a lightning bolt, a thought hit me! Who did this? Hashem! I did that which was my responsibility, and Hashem does as He sees fit. And at that moment I was elevated from my lowly situation and I ascended heavenward in thoughts higher than those who dwell in the material world, with pure faith and complete confidence in the living G-d…”
When the Rebbe cried, it wasn’t for lack of faith, chas v’sholom. Yet even for a Tzadik and a Rebbe, the pain is real and intense that it bursts out in tears. And then, the painful challenge propels one to greater heights (“Suddenly…I was elevated...”) of bitachon.
Those of us who feel the pain need to recognize that the pain itself must be addressed directly, and wise words can soften but cannot lessen it, but solutions do. The uncertainty, however, can be ameliorated — even when there are no answers forthcoming. How? Let us look at a verse from “the wisest of all men.”
Shlomah Hamelech (Mishlei 17, 17) tells us: “At all times love a friend, and in time of tzarah a brother will be born.” Someone who remains a friend even in time of tzarah becomes close like a brother.
Of course, this is true in the basic, obvious sense. But in a deeper sense, the commentaries say that the Friend regularly mentioned in Mishlei is the Al-mighty; He is the friend of every Jew. If one maintains a personal relationship with Hashem during tranquil times, that friendship will blossom into the loving support necessary to sustain one through rough times.
We often fall into a rut in our association with Hashem. When things are going well, we may take Hashem for granted and relegate Him to the background; familiarity breeds content. Life is good, so we are complacent and smug, thus blocking Hashem from having an active role in our lives. A crisis changes that. A crisis shatters our smugness; it challenges our relationship with Hashem and forces us to reevaluate our basic values, to reacquaint ourselves with our real selves more honestly. We may find ourselves wanting. The process is a difficult one, for it forces us to soul-search as never before. But when this process is undertaken with commitment, we often find that our bond with Hashem is (or needs to be) much deeper than it had been up to then, and we feel the need to renew the bond in a profoundly different manner.
In this process of soul-searching we realize that sechel (reason), though one of man’s most important faculties, is inadequate to deal with all of life’s issues; there is more going on here than we can grasp with our understanding. Life transcends reason. To be smart is not synonymous with being wise. In times of distress, wisdom, maturity, experience and faith are more meaningful than critical analysis. In the depth of one’s pain, one comes to realize that Hashem is with one in one’s distress and that He cares.
One’s faith-bond with Hashem exists on two planes: before and below sechel, and above and beyond sechel. The former is sincere but simplistic (“Why do I need depth? I believe!”), the latter, deep and transcendent. The challenge of the tzarah raises one’s relationship with Hashem to heights otherwise unattainable. Only when this has been worked through can the survivor say, “I’ve taken the working relationship (sechel) to its limits, I’ve come to recognize its limitations, and I can now relate to Hashem in a deeper, closer and more personal way.” As the Tikkunei Zohar (17a) states: “No thought [wisdom] can comprehend Him at all; but He can be grasped in the heart’s will.”
This is what is meant in Chassidus that the purpose of a nisoyon is to achieve a greater level of daas (of Hashem); daas is the faculty of recognition, realization and closeness.
The realizations achieved by this experience clear up the uncertainty by substituting the need for answers with the knowledge and sense of certainty that one’s suffering is purposeful in Hashem’s plan, even though it may be unfathomable to the person. An example of this would be a child who falls and hurts himself, then runs to his mother for comfort, and when held for a few moments, becomes calmer. Has the scrape on his knee gone away? No, but the child’s sense of security is reestablished in his mother’s embrace. Likewise in Shlomah HaMelech’s analogy: does expressing what is on one’s heart to a supportive and sympathetic brother make the problem go away? No. But it does give one the strength to cope. So it is with us, in dealing with our scrapes and bruises as we go through life. We need at all times to maintain a close relationship with Hashem so that when we need it, we can sense His embrace—even as the tzarah is at its worst.
This is one reason that we daven every day. We know that we do not constantly generate our full kavanah-potential. But we daven nevertheless, we talk to Hashem daily and thereby we know Hashem and He knows us; after all, we have just spoken. We touch base. Then when there is a difficulty and we say refoeinu for health, or boraich oleinu for parnassah, suddenly, the words that we said by rote yesterday now become larger, highlighted and personal… and we sense that Someoneis listening.
In fact, this deeper bond with Hashem arrived at through the tzarah initiates an actual solution to the tzarah. Dovid Hamelech says in Tehillim (91:14-16) that Hashem says about the person who trusts in Him and reaches out to Him: “Because he desires Me, I will deliver him, I will fortify him because he knows My name. When he calls on Me, I will answer him, I am with him in his distress, I will deliver him and I will honor him. I will satiate him with long life and show him My deliverance.”
Perhaps this will give us a glimpse into the souls of those giants of spirit who went to the crematoria singing Ani Maamin. Today, the bereaved and maimed in the slow-motion terror in Eretz Yisroel, who experience their agony yet express sincere emunah, bitachon and ahavas Hashem even as they challenge Hashem to bring an end to the travail.
Very soon, when Moshiach comes, we will merit to be in Hashem’s Presence constantly. Then there will be no more tests; we will see everything from the vantage point of the Divine. But until Moshiach’s times —may He come speedily in our days now— in the last days of golus, we can get strength from knowing that Hashem is with us.
