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Why do bod things happen to good people?...
By Katharine Bird
NC News Service
...That question has come up in
“virtually every meaningful con
versation I have ever had with
people on the subject of God and
religion,” says Rabbi Harold
Kushner in his book, “When Bad
Things Happen to Good People”
(Avon paperback, 1981).
For him, the question arose
starkly when his 3-year-old son,
Aaron, was diagnosed with pro
geria. This disease causes rapid ag
ing so that a young child looks
elderly and usually dies in the
teens. Aaron died at 14.
“I was a young, inexperienced
rabbi, not as familiar with the pro
cess of grief as I would later come
to be,” Rabbi Kushner says, “and
what I mostly felt that day was a
deep, aching sense of unfairness.
It didn’t make sense.”
Rabbi Kushner says his son’s
illness “contradicted everything I
had been taught” about the world
and God’s place in it. The rabbi
grew up thinking of God as “an
all powerful parent figure” who
always rewarded the deserving
and disciplined those who got out
of line.
But in the face of his son’s ill
ness, Rabbi Kushner began to
ponder these previously unques
tioned beliefs. Struck by the lack
of books on the subject, he decid
ed to write about his experience.
“lam fundamentally a religious
man who has been hurt by life,”
Rabbi Kushner explains. He says
he hoped to reach others who feel
hurt “by death, by illness or in
jury, by rejection or disappoint
ment.”
He intended to write for people
who wanted to go on believing
but whose anger at God “made it
hard for them to hold on to their
faith and be comforted by
religion,” the rabbi says.
His personal tragedy made Rab
bi Kushner tune in to the
widespread suffering humans ex
perience. Without pretending to
offer a final solution to the an
cient problem of evil, Rabbi
Kushner says he gradually rejected
the idea that God wills suffering.
The rabbi observes that from
the very beginning of Genesis,
biblical passages teach “us about
being human and tell us how we
as human beings relate to God
and to the world around us.”
Being made “in the image of
God,” Rabbi Kushner says, means
“being free to make choices.” But
because humans are free they can
By Father John Castelot
NC News Service
When a census was announced
in biblical times, people began
shaking in their sandals. If the
government was counting heads, it
almost certainly was getting ready
to levy new taxes. Or draft young
men for military service. Or both.
But in Israel, census taking not
only alarmed the people, it was
considered an affront to God.
For the Israelites were God’s
people. And God had no need to
count them.
Moreover, their earthly king was
not supposed to act like the kings
of other nations. He represented
the true king, the Lord.
As such, the king was supposed
to trust that God would supply the
resources necessary to run the
make evil choices as well as good
ones.
“Being human leaves us free...to
cheat each other, rob each other,
to hurt each other,” he says.
Rabbi Kushner believes God
always takes the side of victims.
The rabbi points to those in the
Jewish and Christian traditions
who speak about a God who suf
fers, a God “who weeps when he
sees what some of his children are
doing to others of his children.”
Rabbi Kushner sees a relation
ship between what God does by
standing with those who suffer
and the vital support individuals
and religious communities have to
offer sufferers. “I would like to
think that the anguish I feel when
I read of the sufferings of inno
cent people reflects God’s anguish
country.
So why should the king need a
census? Was he checking to see if
the Lord was doing his job?
Census taking was a definite no-
no for the Jews. This helps us
understand the rather strange
passage in 2 Samuel 24:1 and 10:
“The Lord’s anger against Israel
flared again and he incited David
against the Israelites by prompting
him to number Israel and
Judah...Afterward, however, David
repented having numbered the
people and said to the Lord: ‘I
have sinned grievously...Lord,
forgive the guilt of your servant.’”
Why did David feel guilty if the
Lord prompted the census?
This apparent contradiction is
just one example of ancient Israel
wrestling with a difficult problem-,
how to reconcile God’s activity in
and God’s compassion,” he
writes.
“I would like to think that he is
the source of my being able to
feel sympathy and outrage, and
that he and I are on the same side
when we stand with the victim
against those who would hurt
him,” he says.
Rabbi Kushner concludes: It is
exactly when “we feel so terribly
alone, singled out by the hand of
fate...(that) we need to be remind
ed that we are part of a communi
ty, that there are people around
who care about us and that we
are still part of the stream of
life.”
(Ms. Bird is associate editor of
Faith Today.)
our world with human freedom.
•The Israelites were convinced
that in some mysterious way God
caused everything that happened.
•But they also knew people
were responsible for their actions.
The Israelites never really tried
to solve this problem in a
speculative way. But they were
uneasy with it.
This is suggested when the
author of Chronicles attributes
David’s action to an evil force: “A
satan rose up against Israel, and he
enticed David into taking a cen
sus” (1 Chronicles 21:1).
The later prophets had to come
to grips with this problem. Crush
ed at being taken into captivity in
Babylonia, the people were blam
ing everyone but themselves.
They blamed the preceding
generation, muttering the old pro-
Puzzling over God's role in the