A group of friends were discussing what they would do differently if they were running the world instead of G‑d. One said: “I would eradicate disease, hunger, and poverty.” Another said: “I would get rid of natural disasters.” A third suggested: “I would abolish bigotry and prejudice of all kinds!” The last of the group, who had sat silently listening to the others, finally said: “I would keep the world exactly as it is, except, I would understand why.”
It is physically impossible for the human brain, with its limited abilities, to grasp an infinite G‑d, or, for that matter, to understand His ways. Put plainly in a well-known idiom first cited by medieval Jewish philosopher R. Yosef Albo1 : “If I knew Him, I would be Him.”
As a result, we have great difficulty coming to grips with the inevitable pain and suffering of life, primarily because we only have access to a partial view of the big picture. We are thus left with only a portion of the story in which we are playing an integral part.
This can be compared to a patient who goes in for a surgery and suddenly wakes up on the operating table with no recollection of the procedure for which they came in. All they see is their body opened on the table and a bunch of masked people hovering over them and wielding knives. Of course they are horrified! Until the doctor explains to them the purpose of this painful process, after which they can calm down and allow the doctor to finish his job, which saves or at least improves their life after the fact.
Simply put, our finite perspectival limitations hinder our ability to understand the deeper significance of our painful experiences, which then leads to a feeling of affliction. It is no exaggeration to say that few things in life cause more suffering than the feeling that our pain is in vain.
This existential predicament is alluded to in the Hebrew word for misfortune, tzarah, which is etymologically rooted in the word tzar, narrow. In Jewish thinking, we are prone to psychological and spiritual suffering on account of our painful or challenging experiences because we can only see a narrow sliver of the bigger picture. Therefore, the antidote to tzarot, the existential feeling of misfortune, is to zoom out and try to see life and the world from G‑d’s perspective, so to speak.
Learning to view reality in this light is not easy. It requires a firm trust that G‑d is in control of everything—including the minutiae of one’s daily life—that G‑d is ultimately good, that G‑d only wants good for us, and therefore everything that G‑d does is intended to bring us closer to the ultimate good that awaits us. The idea that there is inherent good in all that G‑d does is powerfully reflected in the Talmudic dictate2 that “One should recite a blessing for the bad that befalls him just as he does for the good.” Indeed, the words “Blessed is the true Judge” are recited upon hearing bad tidings—for example, when receiving news of someone’s passing3 —emphasizing the Jewish belief that even when we don’t understand why certain things occur, we have faith that there is a Divine purpose behind it all.4
That, in a nutshell, is the foundation of the Jewish worldview.
This worldview teaches that we each have the ability to overcome or transform any hardship or adversity we may experience by actively choosing to find the meaning and the good that is concealed within it.
This certainly does not mean that we won’t ever experience discomfort or even excruciating, seemingly intolerable pain. However, when we are able to contextualize our pain as part of a greater good, even if it is beyond our understanding, it can empower us to endure such suffering, or even inspire us to harness it as fuel for future growth and evolution. As Victor Frankl puts it5 : “In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it finds a meaning.”
Indeed, the very same letters in the Hebrew word for why, lamah, also spell l’mah, which means for what? or towards what end? This conveys the Jewish approach to strife and challenge, which is not to ask, “Why me?” but “What now?” In other words, how can I use this setback as a springboard for growth and self-development?
Interestingly, the letters of the word tzarah also spell tzohar, a window.6 In other words, suffering opens a window into our deepest recesses, allowing us to become aware of and gain access to dormant potentials and deeper reservoirs of energy and insight that might have otherwise remained unrealized.
This is one of the hidden blessings of pain and challenge in life—they give us the opportunity to pause, reflect, dig deep, and grow beyond what we ever thought was possible. Pain pushes us out of our comfort zone and goads us to do the hard work of adaptation and evolution. Without it, we might simply stay safe in our own status quo and never risk becoming who we were ultimately meant to be.
Moreover, pain can create a window into other people’s experiences, as well. Therefore, another blessing of pain is that it can serve as an agent of empathy, enabling us to connect, relate, and understand suffering and situations other than our own, thus expanding our heart and worldview. An interesting example of this is found in the Midrash.7 After the sale of Joseph by his brothers, his older brother Judah—who was, in some way, responsible for selling Joseph into slavery—marries and has multiple children, who then die at a young age. The Midrash comments that this series of painful events in his own life was intended to give Judah a deeper understanding of what his father, Jacob, had gone through following Joseph’s sudden disappearance—the pain of losing a child.
This idea is deepened and reflected in the Hebrew word for feelings, regesh, which is composed of the same letters as the word for bridge, gesher. The intense feelings we experience during difficult times not only provide us with empathetic insight into what others have endured, but they can also build a bridge between our experience and theirs, revealing the commonalities we share with so many whom we may think of as being very different.
So pervasive is this redemptive, process-oriented approach to pain and suffering in Judaism that one may find traces of it encoded within various letter-root structures throughout the Hebrew language.
For instance, the letters of the Hebrew word for bad, ra, also spell er, which means to awaken.8 In other words: When bad, difficult, or painful things happen, they are meant to awaken us, to activate something deeper within us, and to connect us with ourselves and others in more profound ways.
Similarly, the word avak, which means to wrestle, shares the same letters with avukah, bonfire, possibly indicating that our existential wrestling with life and its obstacles is what ignites our inner flame.9 This exact dynamic is reflected in the single word ptil, meaning both wrestling and wick, as in the wick of a torch or candle.
Amazingly, all of these can be found yet again within the word tzarah when you permute its letters to form the word ratzah, meaning want or desire. Experiencing misfortune can help us clarify what we truly want in life. Furthermore, ratzah is also connected to the word ratz, running, which is similarly related to the word ratzon, willpower. When we desire something, we will exert our willpower to run after it.
Taken all together, we can say that grappling with our personal challenges ignites the wick of our soul with the fire of our desire and the will to change, grow, and evolve our life for the better.
This idea that there may be something positive hidden within suffering itself is alluded to in the letters that comprise the word pesha, affliction, which, when rearranged, spell shefa, abundance. Depending on the way we respond to the trials of our life, every ordeal has a potential blessing for us, if we can but unlock it by awakening our hidden reserves of energy, faith, love, strength, etc. This is reflected in the exchange between Jacob and the angel he wrestled, when Jacob refused to let the angel go until he blessed him. Jacob’s seemingly eccentric insistence in the midst of such a charged moment demonstrates a profound lesson—we must never move on from a struggle or challenge without putting in the effort to extract its hidden blessing.
In addition to accessing previously untapped capabilities, rising to meet the challenges we encounter also has the potential to yield a unique kind of existential pleasure or delight. This, too, is reflected in a pair of words that share identical letters—nega, affliction, and oneg, pleasure. Concealed within what feels like a plague, we may unearth a rare spiritual pleasure, even if it is just the satisfaction of overcoming our seemingly insurmountable challenging circumstances.
When we do not succumb to our own suffering but instead strive to rise above it, we are able to reverse the letters of the word mar, meaning bitter, and transform them into ram, uplifted.
Poetically, the Talmud10 compares suffering to crushing an olive in order to access its oil. It is only through the painful process of being plucked, tossed, stored, and squashed to the point of dissolution that the inner oil—which provides rich flavor, nutrition, lubrication, and illumination—emerges from within its previously bitter, hard, and inaccessible encasement.
Herein lies the difference between being broken and being broken open. When one’s heart is simply broken, they are fragmented, in pieces, destroyed. In this state, many fall into deep depression and are unable to carry out even the most basic functions. When one’s heart is broken open, however, they become more receptive, empathetic, and expressive. From this place, new realizations and connections can be made that would have been impossible in their previous state of being—a new world and reality are now able to emerge.
This paradigmatic process of purposeful brokenness is illustrated poignantly within a single Hebrew word: The words for both broken and birthstool share the same root, reminding us that within every breakdown lies the potential for birth and breakthrough.
In fact, it is often the very stories we tell about ourselves that end up confining rather than defining us. Similar to contractions during labor, the discomfort we experience in painful or challenging situations has the power to push us out of our self-contained comfort zones, giving us the space to become more than we ever dreamed possible.
Ultimately, we may never grasp the mystery of all mysteries—why pain exists and why good people suffer—but we can learn how to respond to pain, choosing to heed its call to peer more deeply into ourselves, make changes in our lives, and reclaim the greater good and pleasure that G‑d intended for us. As Leonard Cohen put it so poignantly: “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”
The spiritual approach to strife and challenge is not to ask, “Why me?” but “What now?”
“It was taught in the name of R. Akiva that one must always accustom oneself to say: Everything that G‑d does, He does for the best.
“R. Akiva was once walking along the road [with a small band of travelers]. They came to a certain city, and he inquired about lodging, but they did not give them any. He said [to his distraught companions], ‘Everything that G‑d does, He does for the best.’ They all went and slept in a field. R. Akiva had a rooster with him, as well as a donkey and a candle. A gust of wind came and extinguished the candle; a cat came and ate the rooster; and a lion came and ate the donkey. He said again, ‘Everything that G‑d does, He does for the best.’ That night, an army came and took the city into captivity. It turned out that R. Akiva and his companions alone, who were not in the city and had no lit candle, noisy rooster, or donkey to give away their location, were saved.
“R. Akiva said to [his traveling companions], ‘Didn’t I tell you? Everything that G‑d does, He does for the best.’”11
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