When Bad Things Happen to Good People

“I knew then that one day I would write this book. I would write it out of my own need to put into words some of the most important things I have come to believe and know. And I would write it to help other people who might one day find themselves in a similar predicament. I would write it for all those 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. And I would write it for all those people whose love for God and devotion to Him led them to blame themselves for their suffering and persuade themselves that they deserved it.”

The immensity of Kushner’s pain over the health condition and death of his son has nowhere to go but into words on a page. As a rabbi, he wants to help others who face similar agonies and confront doubts about whether they or God might be to blame; equally, he needs to explain the tragedy to himself. 

“They sat there angry at God for having exacted His pound of flesh so strictly, but afraid to admit their anger for fear that He would punish them again. Life had hurt them, and religion could not comfort them. Religion was making them feel worse.”

A couple whose young daughter suffers a stroke and dies at college cannot resolve their guilt over the possibility that they lost her because they weren’t observant Jews, yet they also struggle with anger toward a God who would visit death upon an innocent. This tragedy serves not to bring them closer to God but to divide them further from Him. It exemplifies the problems that arise from expecting that God should reward and punish people for their actions. 

“I am offended by those who suggest that God creates retarded children so that those around them will learn compassion and gratitude. Why should God distort someone else’s life to such a degree in order to enhance my spiritual sensitivity?”

If tragedies and suffering are visited on people to teach them a lesson, but the lesson is obscure or makes no sense, how does this justify all that pain? If a parent punishes a child without explanation, the child learns not to obey but to despise the parent.