When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Rabbi Harold Kushner, the author of the 1981 bestseller “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” has died at 88. Kushner wrote this book—still talked about today—after his son tragically passed away at age 14 from progeria, a disease that causes premature aging. The pain of this loss prompted the rabbi to write this book as a consoling aid to others also struggling through unexpected and devastating loss.

Kushner’s thesis was that bad things happen to good people simply because God didn’t have control over all the evil in this world. He wrote, "God does not, and cannot, intervene in human affairs to avert tragedy and suffering. At most, He offers us His divine comfort and expresses His divine anger when horrible things happen to people. God, in the face of tragedy, is impotent. The most God can do is to stand on the side of the victim; not the executioner." Kushner also asserted that “the purpose of religion is that it should make us feel good about ourselves,” and if it doesn’t, it has failed in its mission.

In Kushner’s view, tragedy boils down to bad luck. God doesn’t run the world, leaving us all vulnerable to chance, nihilism, or fate.

I walk a fine line here because as a rabbi who has been in the “consolation business” for over a half a century, the last thing I would ever do is discount the feelings of anyone who endured the tragedy that Kushner and his wife did. However, despite his own theological training and good intentions, the rabbi’s response to this existential question about how to deal with suffering and evil is not a Jewish, or even a religious, response. Nor is it psychologically satisfying.

Like Rabbi Kushner, I have also experienced tremendous tragedy in my life. When I was 38 years old, my 36-year-old wife passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving me a widower with many children to raise on my own. Along with being a married couple and parents of 11 children, my wife and I were also partners in teaching and directing our local Jewish day-school. With Rochel Leah’s passing, our community lost a teacher, a mentor, and a guiding light. I also lost my rock and my partner in love and life.

In my pain, I began to dig deeper for Judaism’s answers to the existence of evil and tragedy, and how we are meant to view it. I learned that we are not the center of the universe—God is. If there is a God, the central mission of humankind is to find Him, to get to know Him, and to serve Him. The word God evokes in some a sense of exaltedness, etherealness and distance. This needs to change. The wisdom and disciplines of Judaism make God relatable, enabling us to expand our sense of self through diminishing our ego and creating a personal, dynamic relationship with God. This lifelong exploratory journey is the destination, one that can be fulfilling and even exciting.

Feeling good about ourselves is a by-product of a life lived purposefully, with God as one’s ballast and compass.

We all want to feel good about ourselves—healthy self-regard is important. But feeling good about ourselves is not the purpose of religion. It is a by-product of a life lived purposefully, with God as one’s ballast and compass. Each of us will be bruised by life’s bitter challenges at one time or another. God wants to be at our side, helping to steer us through life’s traumas and storms without keeling. But if we are the center of our universe, and believe that stopping evil and heartbreak is above God’s pay grade, then a life well-lived means nothing more than that the one who ends up with the most toys, wins.

Kushner once acknowledged that understanding tragedy boils down to only two possibilities: God’s will or bad luck. In Kushner’s view, it was bad luck. God doesn’t run the world, leaving us all vulnerable to chance, nihilism, or fate. A neutered God could only offer comfort during moments of crisis. But this approach makes human suffering meaningless and purposeless, with human beings as hapless victims. Judaism believes that life has meaning. Therefore, human suffering must also have meaning.

Finding Meaning and Comfort

The trauma of tragedy can understandably cause one to become myopic in their pain. They can feel that nobody else can understand or help—not even God. This closes the door on God, telling Him, "Don't mix into my pain; You can't help me anyway!"

As I found in my own experience and through counseling and consoling hundreds of others, I know that our greatest possible comfort and way forward through grief is to submit to the Master of the Universe and let Him in. When I made my relationship with God a more personal one, I was no longer relating to the “To-Whom-it-may-Concern-God” but to the God who knows me and cares for me; I’m no longer alone in my travail.

Struggling with God and trusting in God are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they can be complementary. The very name of the Jewish people is Israel, which means to struggle with God. Abraham and Moses challenged God’s tough justice and their ongoing difficult life tests. King David did the same through the Psalms. Crying out to God, challenging God, and demanding His help are signs of a secure relationship that can handle the friction.

Judaism believes that life has meaning. Therefore, human suffering must also have meaning.

If a person can cry out to God about their enormous problems, a person can also tell their problems how great God is. We may be incapable of embracing Him in all His greatness, but that doesn’t stop Him from embracing us. We can grant Him authorship of what we are going through and recognize that there is ultimate meaning and purpose in our pain. We are not victims of chance. As King David wrote in Psalms 91:14, “I—God—am with him—the sufferer—in his distress.” In this way, we can lean on God to give us strength to find purpose and meaning in this dismal chapter, and the resilience to endure what we have been dealt, confident that ultimately, we can carry on with purpose and even optimism.