Original subtitles

when tragedy strikes us the first question usually asked is why me dr.

harold kushner in his book when bad things happen to good people explores some of the thinking concerning loss and

suffering for his own personal tragedy of his son's death dr. Kushner tries to bring some sense

and meaning to those bad things please join us as WT VI presents dr. Harold

Kushner in the discussion of when bad things happen to good people this

program was recorded at Evans auditorium when dr. Harold Kushner was the keynote

speaker for the 6th annual living Chile died conference in Charlotte North

Carolina sponsored by to life good evening Thank

You Howard bishop Begley and colleagues in the clergy all of you there see there are a lot of you out there tonight I

hope you can all hear me if there's anybody here tonight who can't hear me buy my book everything I have to say is

it bad I'm really very pleased to be here

tonight and just so delighted that all of you would come out it never fails to amaze me that I can come to a city where

I've never been before like Charlotte where I virtually don't know anybody and there'll be hundreds and hundreds of

people who know me who feel that they knew my son Aaron and who want to come out and and hear me talk about what the

experience has taught me when I find myself contemplating the remarkable

success of my book but a book of 150 pages by an unknown New England rabbi

becomes an international bestseller to my total amazement to the astonishment of my publisher and for that matter to

the astonishment of the two publishers who turned it down while he could have had it birthday well that's another

story and I asked why I think there two reasons and the first reason is implicit

in the Ginsburg story I think my book reached people because it raises a question which sooner or later we all

have to confront you live long enough you care about enough people and

inevitably you will find yourself asking why good people have to suffer you will

see the wrong people sick and the wrong people dying the wrong people divorced and the wrong people unemployed and the

wrong people earth by life you will look at that and you will say why I don't understand it if there is a God in this

world why do things like this happen and why do they happen to her why do they happen to him you will go home tonight

and put on the eleven o'clock news and inevitably one of the first stories will be a story

of tragedy a house fire in which children die a fatal automobile accident

you will pick up tomorrow morning's newspaper and somewhere in the first few pages today's Charlotte Observer I happen to

see the lead story college student killed as a st. Patrick's Day party explodes into a fight same thing will be

in tomorrow's paper it'll be a different tragedy it'll be an automobile accident it'll be a murder someplace and you will

look at each other and you say you know Robert Kushner was right every day there's another story like this how does

it keep on happening day after day in this world that's the

first reason for the impact of my book the question it deals with is a question we all find ourselves asking the second

reason is that when we ask the question we rapidly find out that the conventional answers are not

satisfactory if you've read my book or the publicity about it or Howard alluded

to this in his introduction you know the personal background out of which I wrote it the death at age 14 of our son Aaron

from that rare growth disorder progeria the rapid aging syndrome which turned

his body into the body of an old man when he was still a child you may remember about two-and-a-half years ago

the two boys who came to Disney World the boy from South Africa the boy from Texas they had that same illness

progeria that our son Aaron had died of four years before we found out when

Aaron was three what his life would be like how short it would be and how full of pain it would be and that was hard to

take but what made it even harder was that when I as a clergyman tried to say

to myself the same things that I was used to saying to other people in their sorrow when I gave myself the same

answers I've been giving them I found out with a shock that these words were

not comforting all those years I thought I was helping people when I would sit

with them and explain to them why this was happening in their family but when I was on the receiving end of those words

I wasn't helped at all people came when they found out how sick Aaron was and

they sat with my wife and myself friends neighbors family colleagues and the

clergy and they tried to make us feel better and make sense of it and we heard all the conventional explanations and

none of them made us feel better people said to us God is sending this to your

family because you're so strong in your faith that you can handle it and you'll

be an inspiration to others and all I could think of at the moment was I wish

I were a less religious and let God make an example of some other family and I would have a healthy

son about the time that Aaron was dying I read a wonderful book the bereaved

parent by Harriet ship and if any of you have god forbid lost a child or if you

know someone who's lost a child they've got to read Harriet ships book the bereaved parent well I met Harriet ship

shortly after that we were on a panel together she told me what happened the day her son died during emergency

surgery to correct the congenital heart defect her clergyman came over to her in the hospital and said Harriet I know

this is a hard time for you but you'll be all right because God never sends us more of a

burden than we can bear sounds very pious very comforting very appropriate

unless you've been in her situation you can't possibly imagine what went through Harriet ship's mind at that moment she

told me her first reaction to her rabbis words was it's my fault it's my fault

that Robbie died if I had been a weaker person God would never have done this to

me he would send us a scare and then he'd recover people said to us if you're

a man of faith you don't question God you bow your head before his will but I

was full of questions and I was full of rage and pain and I didn't want anyone

to take away my right to feel hurt and to feel angry people said to us there

are reasons for it which you can't understand now someday you'll understand them I was doing a radio program in

Chicago one night on WGN one of these call-in shows you know listeners call in with our questions woman called in and

said to me rabbi Kushner why can't you accept the idea that God wanted your son

to die so that you would become a more sensitive person and write this

wonderful book which is going to enrich the lives of thousands isn't it worth one life to enrich the lives of

thousands I said to her remember we're in Chicago now I said to her ma'am do

you remember john gacy wonder how many of you remember john gacy this this man who killed those little boys and

buried them in his basement in Illinois I said suppose John Casey's defense

attorney had gotten up in an Illinois Court or suppose Wayne Williams defense attorney had gotten up in Atlanta and

said instead of pleading insanity had said sure my client killed those children but he's not a murderer he's a

hero look at what he's achieved all over America tens of millions of parents are

grateful that their children are alive and well because my client never got his hands on them all over America parents

are going to be much more vigilant where their sons go when they leave the house because they've read about John Wayne

Gacy well we wouldn't take that line of reasoning seriously in court for a

moment it's ridiculous why should we take it more seriously when

word-for-word somebody says the same thing about God that God would torture

and kill an innocent child so other people would grow and benefit that God

does not hold every human soul to be uniquely precious if a human being were

to do that it would be a sin if a human being were to use a person as a means to

an end if you were to get involved with a member of the opposite sex without

taking him or her seriously just to stir own ego if you were to make friends with

somebody not because you liked them but because you wanted to use him you wanted to sell him something take advantage of

his friendship that would be blessed theming against the divine image in every human how could God do such a

thing how could God torture one person so that other people would grow as a

result I have never been impressed with the argument that God causes some

children to be born so the woman next door will feel grateful that

her kids are normal that God strikes one man blind so we can feel virtuous

dropping a quarter in his cup I'm not moved by that you know that sounds like

to me that sounds like the story that Sammy Levinson used to tell remember Samy Levinson used tell the story when he

started first grade his mother came and said to the first-grade teacher if my

boy Sammy ever misbehaves hit the kid next to him he learns by example

we heard all the conventional answers the explanations the justifications that

tried to make sense of our tragedy and none of them made us feel any better and one day I realized why you know why it's

really very simple they weren't supposed to comfort us they weren't supposed to

make us feel better they were intended to defend and justify God to say to

hurting people you have nothing to complain about you have no right to cry

out what's happening to you is right and good and it makes sense God knows just what he's doing and I'm sorry I would

like to think if we could ask God that God would say forget about me forget

about my reputation really I can take care of myself you bring healing and comfort to my

bleeding children on earth but nobody who sat with us was that wise I went

through a very serious crisis when we found out what our son's life would be like I found myself asking can I continue as

a religiously affirming person or is everything I have spent my life teaching

a lie I asked myself can I continue as a rabbi watching other people's children

grow up and knowing that my son would never grow up and what helped me through

my crisis was going back to the Bible and rereading the book of Job the

classical biblical discussion of the good man who suffers it was a book I

thought I knew I had studied it in rabbinic seminary I had written papers on job I had taught job but now I was

reading job not as a Bible student I was reading it as job as the man who raised

his hand to heaven and said why why me why my children and I found things in

the book I've never found before you remember the story don't you job is this totally righteous completely innocent

man whose world falls apart his wealth is destroyed his children are

killed he comes down with this terrible sickness three friends come and they try and comfort him and make him feel better

they say to job cheer up job nobody ever suffered unless there was a good reason for it and job

says strange thing I don't find that a cheering thought I thought it useful to

diagram the philosophical argument 38 chapters of brilliant philosophical

poetry in the book of Job in the following way there are three ideas which everyone in the book wants to

believe first God is in charge God is

all-powerful nothing happens in this world unless God wants it to happen that's number one - God is good he is

kind and fair and just he gives us what we deserve or better than what we

deserve he gives us the benefit of the doubt and a second chance and three job is a good

person got that straight one God is all-powerful - God is good three job is

a good man as long as job is healthy wealthy and respected you can believe

all three of those with no conflict no problem right when job starts to suffer when he gets sick when his children die

you can no longer affirm all three of those simultaneously you can affirm any

to figure it out all combinations work you can affirm any to only by denying

the third and the drama in joke the argument in the biblical book of Job is

over which of those three are you prepared to give up so that you can

affirm the other two job's friends the three who came to comfort him have no

problem it is so important for them to affirm what they were taught in Sunday

school God is good and God is powerful the only possible conclusion is to deny

proposition number three that job is a good man and so they say the job come off at stop complaining

God doesn't make mistakes people make mistakes we've read Sigmund Freud

we know how human beings repress things that are ashamed of you must have done

something really terrible in your past and you hid it from us and you hid it

from yourself but you couldn't fool God and he has come to chastise you and to

force you to confront your sin stop acting so self-righteous stop feeling sorry for yourself get down on your

knees and beg God to forgive you and then he will stop teaching you a lesson and they call that comfort you know what

they're doing they are playing the game that we today have learned to call blaming the victim making sense of

life's tragedies by saying to the person who is suffering you must have done

something to deserve this otherwise why would God make it happen to you hurting

the person a second time because now he not only has to suffer the original crime scene misfortune he has to suffer

our condemning and judging him as well a woman is attacked and assaulted on the

street and instead of saying to her what a horrible defiling experience that must

have been we say to her why were you walking alone at night why were you

dressed so provocatively you must have done something terrible to provoke this

kind of attack and that's why it happened to you and not to us because there is nothing that goes on in the

world that we don't deserve I tell the story in my book of the young woman whose husband walks out on her and she's

crushed and rejected and she goes home to her parents and all her mother can

think of to say to her is what did you do wrong did you nag him too much did

you spend too much of his money what did you do to force him to do this to you the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust

instead of saying to them you have endured the most horrible nightmare that

any human being has ever experienced instead of that we say you know maybe if

the Jews of Germany happened so conspicuous you would not have become Hitler's targets blaming the victim

because we can't let ourselves admit that good people suffer in this world

when we find a person suffering we say well I guess he's really not good I

quote this horrible proverb in my book I forgotten where I read it now that goes if you see a blind man kick

him why should you be kinder than God that is if you see a person who's

suffering and you believe in God you must believe that there's a good reason for his suffering whose side are you

going to be on job can't accept that answer he is not prepared to purchase

the world's innocence the world's integrity at the cost of his own maybe he's not perfect but really is he so

much more a sinner than the people across the street their children are alive is he so much more terrible than a man

next door he still got his business flourishing why is this happening to him job's answer is to deny proposition

number two that God is good I'm innocent says job and God is great God is so

great that he is not limited by considerations of justice and fairness

because that would be a limitation on God's power to say that God can't do

something to us because we don't deserve it is to limit God's power job would say

if we buy our righteousness could compel God to give us what we want if we could

come to church on Sunday or to synagogue on Friday night and say now look here

God I have been honest I have been faithful I have been religious I have been generous you owe me a week of good

health and seeing my money market funds go up and God had to do it because we

turned it is he still God or have we reduced God to a kind of cosmic vending

machine you put in your tokens you pull the lever and if you don't get what you ask for you're entitled to kick and

curse the machine and take your business elsewhere job would say God is so great he doesn't

have to be fair he can't be limited so in the book he is always saying things

like would that there were an umpire between us to make God play fair would

that somebody could force God to come down and justify himself explain himself

but nobody can make God do anything he can do whatever he wants he is so great

that he is not obliged to be kind or fair or anything good answer

I think it's a terrible answer I don't like that answer to say that God is not

committed to justice and mercy as you and I understand those words great who

wrote all those words in Scripture justice justice shall you pursue do

justly in love mercy and walk humbly with your God deal kindly with a widow the orphan the stranger if God doesn't

stand for those things more importantly if God is not committed to justice and

compassion who teaches us to be righteously indignant when we read about

injustice being done who teaches us to reach out in compassion to people who

are suffering if this has nothing to do with God my traditional friends my

Orthodox Jewish friends my fundamentalist Christian friends if I still have any they're always saying to

me Kushner if something happens if God does something which you can't understand maybe the problem is not with

God maybe it's with you maybe the problem is you can't understand it can't

God do things too wondrous for you to comprehend and I say well of course God

can that's not the issue that's not what I'm talking about yes God can do things I can't understand my plumber does

things I can't understand my 17 year old daughter does things I

can't understand sure God can do things I can't understand that's not what we're talking about the question I'm raising

is not that God does things to wonderous for me a child falls into a swimming pool and drowns what's to understand

we understand it all too well a young husband and father is killed by a drunk

driver what is it that is too wondrous for us to understand we understand it

perfectly clearly the issue is will God do things which he himself has said are

wrong I locate myself in the Honourable Jewish tradition which says it is

legitimate to call God to account in the name of his own standards of justice

from Abraham in the Bible who says to God at Sodom and Gomorrah how can a God

of justice do things which are unjust you can't destroy that city if there are innocent people living there - Jo - Rev

Livie it's Huck of Berdichev who says God if you don't treat your people Israel better than this we're gonna stop

worshipping you and go see what kind of world you live then my answer and I

think it may be the answer of the author of the book of Job I'm not totally sure but I find this answer there whether he

put it there or not my answer is the one alternative that nobody else has taken if job's friends solve the riddle by

denying proposition number three job is not a good person if job himself solves it by denying

proposition number two God is great but he's not just and I don't like either of those answers my answer is to deny

proposition number one and to say maybe God isn't all-powerful maybe he is very

great but not totally in control I confess it is an answer I was very

reluctant to come to like all of you I was raised to believe that everything

that happens is God's will and if we don't understand that it's our limitation like all of you I would

rather believe that somebody is driving the bus but if I see innocent people suffering

and to understand it I have to choose between a powerful God who is not kind

and just or else a kind and just God who is not powerful you tell me which is the

more religious alternative which is a greater religious value to be so

powerful you can disobey the law and take things which don't belong to you is

that our image of the divine or to be so totally committed to justice and

kindness even if you can't always make it happen I was speaking one night at a synagogue

in New Jersey and a young woman asked me the first question she said rabbi Kushner you're describing a God who is

smaller than the God I was raised to believe in I don't know if I can worship a diminished God I said there okay let's

talk about it am I really diminishing God do we make God greater when every time a child dies

of leukemia we say God wanted that to happen do we enhance God's greatness if

we hold him responsible for every heart attack every malignant tumor every plane

crash every flood every fire every tornado every hurricane every automobile accident if we keep saying this is the

will of God that those people should suffer what kind of God would want those

things to happen I got a letter from a Lutheran minister in a small town in

Nebraska who told me the following story he had to do a funeral one day for a 26

year old man who was scheduled to be married in his church the same weekend

the man had gone out with a few friends for a bachelor party leaving the restaurant they were run into by a drunk

driver and killed the same day the same church almost the same hour for which

his wedding had been scheduled they did the funeral buried him in the church

courtyard came back to his office and the man's fiancee is waiting for him there says to

him pastor if one more person tells me it was God's will

I'm gonna scream why are they teaching me to hate God because I think that's

what we do when we attribute every undeserved tragedy every disaster to God's will

we teach people either to hate themselves for deserving it or to hate God for doing it to them when they

didn't deserve it but if God doesn't cause these things if he doesn't want

them to happen and can't prevent them where do they come from what could possibly make them happen if they're not

the will of God a couple of possibilities sometimes I believe bad

things happen to good people because laws of nature can't tell the difference

between a good person and a bad one a falling rock has no way of knowing whom

it's falling on and whether he deserves to be hit by the rock or not you cross a

busy highway at peak traffic time and you run the risk of being hit and injured by a car even if you're a good

person whose family loves you and even if you have the best reason in the world for having across that road in a hurry

you go into a house where there's a contagious disease and you run the risk

of contracting that disease irrespective of why you're there you can be a doctor

you can be a burglar germs don't know the difference thin ice

speeding bullets falling rocks out-of-control automobiles they don't know the difference either this by the

way is my argument with the insurance companies what they call acts of God I think is taking the Lord's name in vain

a flood is not an act of God a forest fire is not an act of God it's an act of

nature blind a moral nature churning its way through the world and not knowing

whose home is getting in its way but the community that pulls together to rebuild

itself after the flood after the fire that I believe is the act of God I

believe God created this world I have to believe that I mean look at the world it is so complex so intricate it works and

it is so beautiful you can sit and look at the mountains for an hour and you

feel tranquil and a television program that cost three million dollars to

produce you get bored with after five minutes no this has to be God's world but I believe that when God created the

world he withheld from the natural world one of his divine blessings that he only

shared with you and me and that is the ability to know the difference between good and bad human beings have that

capacity falling rocks speeding bullets disease germs don't have it and

sometimes good people suffer in this world because laws of nature don't make

any exception for the fact that they're good sometimes I believe bad things

happen to people who deserve better because it's very important for me to affirm God created us free to choose how

we want to live and if we choose to be good honest helpful people we get the

credit if we choose to be bad dishonest destructive deceitful people we not God

get the blame a man goes into a late-night convenience store to hold up the store shoots the clerk don't ask why

would God do this to an innocent child put the blame where it belongs not on God on the robber in my book I quote a

German Christian theologian a Lutheran woman named Dorothy Zola writing about

the Holocaust asking the question that every one of us has asked where was God

at Auschwitz her answer you want to know what she says her answer is where was

God God was at the side of the victims grieving and hurting and dying with them

not on the side of the murderers Dorothy solace says to suggest by word

or implication that what the Nazis did to innocent men women and children was

in any way God's will that he wanted it to happen as part of some master plan

is to offer us a God so cruel that no

decent person should ever worship Him and I agree with Gareth Isola for me the

Holocaust is not a theological question where was God for me it's a psychological question how could people

have done such things to each other how could human beings have so grossly

misused the freedom to choose which God gave us but I don't want you to go away

tonight thinking that I believe in a God who is an innocent bystander a God who

created the world and gave it a push and then retired and from time to time looks down from heaven shakes his head and

said what a pity I hoped it would turn out better no I believe in a god I believe in a God who actively intervenes

in the lives of people who are suffering he does not send the pain the problem the tragedy he sends us the ability to

transcend and survive it what does God do for us first of all I suspect he's

given us a world where natural laws apply regularly and constantly I don't

understand why one person gets cancer and another person doesn't I don't

understand why one person comes down with Alzheimer's disease and another

doesn't but I suspect that somewhere and the laws of biology there are answers to that and when we care enough to spend as

much money on medical research as we spend on cigarettes and cosmetics to make us sick we will start finding the

answers when we start paying medical researchers what we pay quarterbacks and

left fielders in the United States we will find the answers some of you who

are here tonight

some of you in the audience who are my age will understand and remember why my

mother wouldn't let me go swimming in Brooklyn in June when I was 16 years old

do you remember we were afraid of polio every summer there would be a polio

epidemic and you had to watch over your children to make sure they didn't get chilled god forbid they could be

crippled or worse what happened we cared enough to give our dimes and our dollars

and somebody found out what causes polio and how you prevent it and our mothers don't have to worry about their children

being crippled by polio in the summer as they don't have to worry about being disfigured by smallpox or laid low with

yellow fever or a long list of ailments which used to wipe out whole communities

which used to cause people to raise their hands to heaven and say God why are you doing this to us but instead of

asking God why we applied our god-given intelligence to the problem and we

reduced the amount of undeserved suffering that goes on in this world

what does God do for people who have been hurt by life and who deserve better I think sometimes the best line in my

book is a line I didn't write I quote a 19th century Hasidic rabbi who said

human beings are God's language do you understand what he meant by that human

beings are God's language you are hurting you cry out to God how did you

expect God to answer did you think he would send you a letter from heaven written in Latin English or Hebrew

depending on your religious preference God answers our cry by coming to us in

the incarnation of caring people doctors and nurses who work through the night to

help us really did you ever think about that that a person with a expensive car

and a six-figure income will get up at 2:00 in the morning and come sit with us because we are in pain God comes to us

in the incarnation of friends and neighbors who overcome their natural squeamishness to sit with

us to know that we're not alone I love the story of the little boy whose mother sends him on an errand and it takes him

a long time to come home when he finally gets back his mother says hey where were you I was worried about you and the boy

says oh there's this kid down the street whose tricycle broke and he was crying because he couldn't fix it so I stopped

to help him mother says wait a minute don't tell me you know how to fix a tricycle the boy says no of course not i

sat down and I helped him cry and you know he's right he's right that

is what helps would you think back for a moment to the last time you were really down the last time you were feeling

lousy rejection frustration bereavement sickness whatever it was that had you

feeling bad what got you out of that bad feeling your theology or your friends I

would bet it was your friends people who sat with you and helped you cry so that

you wouldn't have to cry alone for the

next five minutes I want to stop being philosophical and become very practical and if you forget or if you reject

everything else I say tonight and only remember the next five minutes it will

have been worth my coming to Charlotte should you know anybody who's going

through a hard time and you're not sure whether you ought to intrude because you

don't know what to say that will help her because maybe she wants her privacy at a time like this because you only

make her feel worse you're happily married and she's divorced or widowed your kids are on the honor roll and your

friends children are in trouble with the police you've got a good job and your friend has been laid off if you're not

sure if you ought to do something please listen to this you must reach out and

show that person that you care that you're thinking about her stop in and talk call send a card ask what you can

do please don't wait for your friend to pawn his dignity and ask you for help

you reach out first it's so important you know why when something bad happens

to us there's a crazy little corner of our brain that says to us aha you did

something wrong and now you're being punished for it and now that your punishment is public and everybody sees

what you're going through they will know what a sinner you are and they will reject you too when we stay away because

we don't know what to say we understand it's our own limitation that's keeping us from our friends side

but our friend doesn't know that he thinks we're rejecting him the woman who has been widowed or

divorced her friends are uncomfortable around her because she represents a

threat a potentiality so scary they can't handle it they know it's their own

weakness that keeps them away but she doesn't know that she feels she's been rejected by her husband rejected by God

and now she's been rejected by her friends too that's why it's so important we reach out and show that we care you

don't know what to say I'll give you a quick course in what to say to a friend who's going through a

hard time if you want to take notes so you'll remember this you can write it down listening

say I'm sorry and then keep your mouth shut and hold somebody's hand and listen you

will help more by listening than by trying to explain the most important

thing I have learned is that when a person says why me why my family that's

not a question it's not a question it sounds like a question it is a cry of aim and you help the person who says why

is this happening to me not by answering his question but by easing his pain you

know that you just didn't realize you know it your best friend says to you what did I ever do to deserve this does

he want you to give him a list of things he did to deserve this

people going through a hard time don't want explanation they want consolation

they don't want theology they want reassurance they don't want to be told

that there's a good reason why this is happening to them they want to be told that you care about them that there's no

good reason that they don't deserve it that you can't understand it you know what you do with suffering with tragedy

you don't explain it you don't justify it you survive it that is the only thing

you do with it tell you how I became so smart when I was a young naive

inexperienced rabbi I would go to a home where there had been a tragedy I would

walk in and people would say to me rabbi why would God let this happen to such a good person and I thought they were

asking me a question about God and it's fine because I know about that I've taken courses in it so I would give them

a 15-minute summary of my senior course in theology from rabbinic seminary when

I finished and their eyes had glazed over I would say to them no I know this is a

little bit technical maybe you didn't understand it the first time would you like them to repeat it and they would

say rabbi please we've suffered enough I've learned I don't do that anymore I

have overcome my natural inclination to give long complicated theological

answers I've learned to keep my mouth shut and hug people and hold their hands and sit with them and not try to make

sense of it and not try to explain it but simply be there and say I'm sorry for you you don't deserve going through

this you're too nice a person human beings are God's language let me tell you one story it may be my most

favourite story of all it's true our son Aaron played the violin and

because he was so small because the progeria kept him the size of a

three-year-old even when he was a teenager he had to play this tiny little almost toy sized fiddle got a very tinny

scratchy sound out of it one day the bridge on his violin broke do you know what that is it's that black piece of

wood that holds the strings up and all of Boston we could not find a replacement bridge for it so we had to

wait to the next time we were in New York went into the biggest best known musical supply store in all of New York

City to see if they had a replacement bridge they did while they're putting it on the daughter of the owner of the

company comes out sees this strange-looking child with his tiny little violin introduces herself we

introduced her to Aaron he plays a little bit for her she is so moved by this physically handicapped child trying

to lead a normal life but a week later we get a letter from her asking if we'd

be willing to accept as a gift the violin which had been hand made for her

as a four-year-old prodigy in Germany so Aaron could get a better tone when he

practiced human beings are God's language people who would sit with us

and help us cry so we would know we were not left to cry alone

and one more thing that God does for us when we're hurting it maybe the most important of all I have to introduce

this with a story which she may have trouble believing it was June 1981 and I

announced to my family that my goal for the summer of 1981 was to get into shape

to run the Falmouth Road race this is a mini marathon a seven mile race that takes place in Cape Cod every August

it's a big deal everybody in Falmouth is involved in it everybody else has to choose between participating in the race

or watching it I'm lucky the way I run I get to do both to encourage me in my

efforts to get into shape to run seven miles my daughter bought me a t-shirt which I still have and I still wear when

I work out and on the back of this t-shirt she had imprinted Isaiah 40:31

that's what it says on my t-shirt Isaiah 40:31 if you check your Bibles you will

see that the verse in question reads those who trust the Lord will have their strength renewed they shall run and not

grow weary didn't work that is to say it didn't

helping the summer I ran Falmouth it's helped me a lot ever since I guess that verse that verse has become the

cornerstone of my biblical faith that when we run out of strength when we have used up all our strength and all our

hope and all our patients we turn to God in trust and he gives us more so we can

continue people are constantly asking me if I believe in miracles I say yes of

course I absolutely do believe in miracles but I believe in big miracles not small ones small miracles you know

splitting the Red Sea making the Sun stand still no I'm sorry those those are not miracles those are special effects

you don't have to be God to split the Red Sea sessile be the mill does it just

as well Steven Spielberg does it better you know it's a real miracle when timid

people become brave and when weak people become strong and when selfish people

become generous that's a miracle says we'll be the mill can't make that happen you have to be God to make that happen

when people suddenly come up with qualities of soul that they know they

did not have last week or the day before yesterday and today they have them where

do they get those qualities from you know why I can believe in God after

everything that's happened in my family and in the families of other people I care about I believe in God

not because of the cosmological proof of the ontological proof or the the argument from design or the first cause

you know all those things we learned about in philosophy one they're really very important for passing philosophy

wanted for nothing else in life I believe in God because I am constantly

seeing ordinary people do extraordinary things and if you think about it you're

constantly saying it - if a plane crashes in Washington and hits the 14th

Street bridge that's not God's will that's just physics but that Lenny Skutnik should be walking by at that

moment and for the first time in his life this very ordinary bureaucrat does something

heroic and without knowing what he's doing he finds himself in the Potomac saving the stewardess that's an act of

God that's God intervening to give us a quality of strength we never had before I think of the family in my congregation

who eleven years ago gave birth to a brain-damaged child and every day for 11

years they get the child up they dress him because he's never learned to dress himself and they feed him breakfast

because he can't feed himself and they sing to him and they play with him and they look for a school where he can be

with other children I look at these people and I say what's going on here I thought I knew these people very

ordinary average people not particularly religious not particularly spiritual not

terribly well-educated it is inconceivable to me that 11 years ago

they had an endless supply of patience and love and strength I don't know

anybody who has that it must be that when you have been as brave as you can

be for as long as you can and you've used up all your courage and all your love and all your strength you turn to

God and he gives you more so you can continue I think of people who never got

along that well with their parents and their parents become old and sick and have cancer and the children have to

drive them to radiation therapy and take them home and help them up the stairs and help them go to the bathroom and

cook for them and all of a sudden these people develop a capacity not just to feel obliged but authentically to love

their parents and to sacrifice for them without feeling like martyrs where does

somebody suddenly come up with qualities of soul they did not have before unless

that verse on my t-shirt is really true when you trust in God you can turn to

him when you've run out of strength then he renews your strength so you can run and not grow weary so you can walk and

not feel faint but you know I could tell you stories like that all night long and I would not have answered the question

that most of you brought here tonight why do good people have to suffer in God's world I'll tell you something I

don't have an answer for it I don't know why they have to suffer and if I did I wouldn't tell you because telling you I

would be like jobs comforters I would be like all the people who sat with my wife and me when they found out Aaron was

sick and tried to persuade us that it really made sense there was a good answer for it it doesn't make sense and

there is no good answer for it it's rotten and painful and unfair and you shouldn't accept it if my answer we

mean explanation I don't have an answer but you know the word answer doesn't

only mean explanation an answer can also be a response not why did it happen but

what are we going to do now that it has happened I could have called my book why bad things happen to good people but I

called it when because I don't want to talk about why I want to talk about what you do when you find yourself in sorrow

people come to me and they say rabbi why why me why my mother and I say to them I

understand how you feel I've been there and I've asked that question too but please understand why is the wrong

question because why focuses on the past and the longer you focus on the past the

more helpless you feel no matter how smart you are no matter how pious you are you can't change the past it's

already happened so turn around and don't look only at the past look at the future and instead of asking why ask

what am I going to do now how do I find the strength and the grace to go on I

got through my crisis by reading the biblical book of Job and one other book

Archibald MacLeish is play JB is modern telling of the job story for the first

two-thirds of the play Archibald MacLeish tells the Bible story in modern dress his hero his job figure is a

modern affluence somewhat complacent businessmen whose world falls apart one

day his children are killed his business is destroyed he gets sick three friends come to try and console him and McLeish

is so wonderful with what he does with the three friends one is a Marxist one is a psychiatrist and one is a clergyman

they all try to make sense of job suffering and none of them makes Jo feel any better till now McLeish is just

repeating the Bible story when he comes to the end he changes the ending do you remember how the story ends in the Bible

remember at chapter 42 of Job God appears and God says to job it's time to

let you in on the secret this was all an experiment I wanted to see if you would

get upset if I killed your children I wanted to see if you would question your faith if you suffered job I'm proud of

you you passed the test here's your reward twice as much health twice as much wealth twice as many children you

see you're better off than you were before MacLeish like me and I suspect like many

of you doesn't like that ending what does it say about God about a God who

would kill innocent children as part of a sadistic experiment on his most

faithful follower and then thinks you make it up to him by giving him more children so he changes the ending and

instead of God rewarding job job forgives God job forgives God for not

making a perfect world for putting us down in an unfair world where no matter

how good how innocent how pious you are illness and accident and human cruelty

happened to you as much as they happen to anybody else job goes back to his

wife and they're going to go on living together it is their love for each other not God's generosity which will make new

children happen life has hurt them so badly life has taken away everything

they held precious and their response is to say yes and we want more of it now

that we have seen how painful and unfair life can be we want to go on living

job's wife says to him on the next to last page of the play you looked for justice didn't you well there is no

justice there is only loved and then she has these wonderful closing lines the

candles and churches are out the stars have gone out in the sky

blow on the coal of the heart and we'll see by-and-by great do you understand what she means

by that she's saying to job don't look for answers why we had to suffer like this why our children had to die don't

look for answers why not in theology and not in science the candles and churches

are out the stars have gone out in the sky the only place to look for an answer and it won't be an explanation and

answer why it'll be a response and answer what are we going to do about it now the only place to look is in your

own heart blow on the coal of the heart it would be nice if we could count on

the world to keep us warm and safe I wish it were that kind of a world my

life my job would be a lot easier and so would yours but it's not that kind of a

world and the sooner we realize that the better we'll be able to cope with it blow on the call of the heart don't ask

the world to keep you warm you shed your warmth on the world have you suffered

have you known tragedy in your life take the white heat of your pain and your

anger and turn them into something which will send light and warmth into somebody

else's life the widow whose husband has died of cancer I would understand it if

she stayed home and mope all day never put on makeup never put on a dress but

she doesn't she goes out and becomes neighborhood collection chairman for cancer research the family whose story I

tell in my book whose son is run over by the school bus coming home from school one day I would have no argument with

them if for the rest of their lives they were bitter and jealous of other people because every time they buy a pack of

gum and give it out and they have one stick of gum left over they're reminded of a child who was killed but they don't

do that they go out and they work for a higher school bus safety standards so no

other family will have to suffer what they've suffered this is blowing on the call of the heart even if the only

difference your own sorrow has made to you is that now you know what the soul of

the grieving person feels like so you will reach out and not hold back so you

will say the right things enough or wrong things this is blowing on the call of the heart you know for 3000 years

we've been asking the question why do good people suffer in God's world and

nobody's been able to answer it not rabbi Akiba and not st. Augustine and

not Maimonides and certainly not harold kushner we haven't been able to answer it

because it's the wrong question why is not the question the question is what

are you going to do about it how will you respond the question perhaps becomes this are you capable of forgiving the

world for being an unfair unpredictable place and loving it and wanting to go on

living in it anyway no matter what happens to you because god help us it

may be the only world we have are you capable of forgiving people who didn't

know what you needed or couldn't give it to you because you know that's what love is love is not admiring somebody for

being perfect love is accepting somebody with all of his imperfections and

praying that he accepts you with all of yours and finally the hardest question that I

have to ask you tonight and the hardest question for you to hear can you forgive

God can you forgive God for choosing not to create a perfect world where the

right thing would always happen and we would be safe can you get over your disappointment in him because God loves

goodness more than he loves perfection and instead of creating a predictable

world where the right thing had to happen he created an unpredictable world where the right thing will only happen

if you and I make it happen so that as the Talmud says when a man chooses to do

something right God looks down from heaven and says for this moment alone it

was creating the world but in the meantime all sorts of terrible things have

happened to good people along the way if you can do that if you're capable of

that kind of forgiveness and that kind of love will you recognize your own capacity to forgive and to love will you

recognize your own ability to survive to transcend and to reach out to others

will you recognize them as the divine gifts that God has given you so that you

can go on living meaningfully no matter what the world deals you can you do that

blow on the coal of the heart and we'll see bye and bye thank you

you