There are no words to adequately describe the horror caused by the tsunami. Watching the disaster unfolding on the film taken by an amateur cameraman in Aceh, Indonesia, left me shaking. How quickly the terror struck! People were going about their daily lives one second and drowning the next. Over 100,000 people are now reported to have lost their lives in this exceptional tragedy. We all have one question on our lips: why? Why did innocent babies and children have to die such a painful death? For those of us who believe in God the question is: how could He have done this? And for those who do not, this just seems to reinforce their scepticism.
Many religious people feel guilty asking God these types of questions but in fact asking why is not only acceptable but it is in the best of orthodox Jewish tradition. Sent by God, Moses implored the Pharaoh to emancipate the Israelites but instead of acquiescing, the Pharaoh increased the already too-heavy burden of work upon the Hebrew slaves. Moses poses the million-dollar question to God: “Why have You done evil to this people?” Disappointingly, God seems to evade the question and merely answers, “Now you will see what I shall do to Pharaoh, for through a strong hand will he [Pharaoh] send them out, and with a strong hand will he drive them from his land.” What kind of answer is this? It does not answer the question! Surely God could have caused Pharaoh to redeem the Israelites without causing them further suffering and misery. Why did God not answer the question as Moses posed it to Him?
According to the Talmud (Menachot 29a), there was another occasion when Moses posed the “why?” question and again God refused to answer it. On one of Moses’ ascents to heaven God showed him how Rabbi Akiva, the great Talmudic sage, would, in the future, expound the intricacies of Torah law. Moses was duly awed by Rabbi Akiva’s brilliance. Moses turned to God and said, “You have shown me his Torah, now show me his reward.” God showed Moses that R. Akiva would be cruelly murdered by the Romans during the Hadrianic persecution. “Lord of the Universe”, Moses cried, “Such is Torah, and such its reward!” “Silence,” God replied, “these are my thoughts.” God seems to be totally unreasonable here. Moses poses a perfectly legitimate question, only to be told by God to shut up.
But if one looks below the surface one finds a very profound idea.
When one is the recipient of tremendously good luck, one may lightheartedly ask, “What did I do to deserve this?” However, not having a sufficiently good answer to this question does not usually trigger a crisis of faith in God. When something bad happens – God forbid – one has a need to know why. One may ask, “Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?” We do not seem to be able to live comfortably without knowing why bad things happen to us. A person came to see me recently after his long-term girlfriend left him without telling him why she did so. He was obviously devastated, but what hurt him the most was that he would never find out why she did not want to be with him any more. This innate human need to know why negative things happen to us is why all religious philosophers and theologians, Jewish, Islamic and Christian, have throughout the ages tried to explain why God allows bad things happen to good people. According to Saadiah Gaon (d. 942), in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions (Treatise 9), and Nahamanides (d. 1270), in his Gate of Reward, for example, the concept of a world-to-come explains suffering in this world.
However, when God Himself was asked the question,“why?”, He never gave a straight answer. Surely if God is going to make us suffer, He should not exacerbate it by not giving us an adequate reason?
This question takes us to the heart of the answer: it is precisely because we have such a powerful need to know the reason for our suffering that we cannot be told the reason. When we are in pain we cannot be objective. For a person who is undergoing severe suffering and pain, no reason can ever be good enough. The suffering individual may feel the need to know why, but deep down s/he will never fully accept any answer. Moses, the loving shepherd of the Jewish people, needed to know why God made his people suffer. Indeed, Moses cried out indignantly to God and God did not scold him for doing so. Who could blame a parent for crying about the suffering of his children? Who could ever give parents an adequate reason why their children have to suffer? It is wrong to try and legitimize or rationalize human suffering. No justification in the world could console mothers in Asia whose children were killed last Sunday. Thus, any answer that God would give would not be good enough for us. We humans could never be objective enough to accept it. Ironically, the answer given by God to Moses, “Quiet, I know best”, is the most appropriate for the occasion. It is like a child who is given bitter medicine by her parent: the child may scream because of the bitterness but because she trusts that there is a good reason to swallow the medicine, the ordeal is tolerable for her.
Knowing that there is a good reason for our suffering, one that is beyond us at this moment but nonetheless known by a trustworthy power infinitely greater than ourselves, is a source of comfort. At least we know that we do not suffer and die in vain. So, paradoxically, by asking, “why?”, we allow ourselves to be comforted by the answer God fails to give us.
