Judaisms beliefs on suffering by Alex Barnett
Why do the innocent suffer? This question has been asked for ages. Jewish sources, from the earliest to the latest, have tried themselves to answer this. It occurs to every single person with an interest in religion or not. We all know cases of good people who suffer terrible pains for no obvious reason. From a religious side of life this disturbs me because it seems to contradict certain basic Jewish beliefs. In particular, we believe: God is omniscient (He knows everything), God is omnipotent (He can do anything), and God is just. If these beliefs are right then how is it possible that innocent people suffer?
In this essay I am going to briefly tell you what Judaism says about the concept of suffering and then I?m going to attempt explaining the two main explanations!
The firstly and the most widely used answer across many religions is ?We simply do not know. Our rabbis (teachers) tell us that god?s logic and actions are way, way, way more advanced than us, physical human beings would ever be able, even to attempt trying to understand. We simply will never understand until we meet the big guy in heaven! Also some people although may seem innocent may actually not be so great and are punished for the things they do wrong.
For me in Judaism by far the more impressive explanation is free will, God made Satan, he is not a rebellious angel. God created both good and evil. The Bible says so, in Isaiah 45:?God created the universe because God wanted to do good.? So there had to be people to receive that goodness. But God does not want to just give away good as a present. God wants people to appreciate it. Something you get for free you do not appreciate. And in fact, if you got something amazingly good for free, and you were allowed to enjoy it for all eternity, you would not appreciate it. If you didn't work for it, you don't deserve it. So G-d decided that people would have to work for it, and receive the ultimate goodness as a reward for hard work. People are tempted every day by their yetzer tov and yetzer horah, whether to do good or bad things, you need to overcome your yetzer horah to become a great person and receive reward in the afterlife. Say, for example, you have a desire to tell harmful gossip about someone.
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
wonders how there can be a loving and caring God when he has created such a brutal
The core ethical teachings of Judaism are the Commandments of the Torah, the Prophetic Vision and the Book of Proverbs. These ethical teachings are all ultimately derived from the Jewish Bible or Tanakh. The importance of these teachings are to provide Jewish adherents with informed moral choices. One of the most important ethical issues that a Jewish adherent may face is pollution, decisions must be made in favor of methods that involve less rather than greater destruction to the earth because according to Bal Toshkit in the Prophetic Vision, the destruction of God’s creation is prohibited.
These arguments made by Berish and Job boil down to the question the theodicy, “why do good people suffer? Where is God in all this? Where is justice” (Fox 173). Elie Wiesel provides an answer that parallels once again with the book of Job. Embodied in the character of Sam, who claims that suffering is, “all because of our sins” (Wiesel 134). Similarly Jobs friends give a similar answer to the theodicy question by saying, “Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same” (Job 4:7). The answer to the theodicy question in t The Trial of God is that suffering occurs because of the sins committed by individuals.
People can’t even be bothered to give up one hour a week and go to
The Jews are a first example of characters who are impacted from physical suffering. This is shown when the Jews were on the street and people noticed they were very unhealthy and physically unstable. The fact that they’re physically suffering was made certain when the author wrote, “The noise of their feet throbbed on top of the road, their eyes were enormous in their starving skulls … Their legs staggered to
The question of suffering comes up much when talking about, or practicing any religion. Many ask why people suffer, and what causes suffering? The various religions try to answer these questions in their own way. Pico Iyer’s editorial, “The Value of Suffering” addresses the questions of suffering and how it is handled. This article could be compared to the Bhagavad-Gita which also addresses and explains suffering through different stories of the interactions of humans and different Gods. One can specifically look at “The Second Teaching” in the Bhagavad-Gita, which explains the interaction between a man named Arjuna and the god Krishna. In it Arjuna is suffering because he does not want to fight in a war and with people whom he should be worshiping. Krishna says to fight because the souls of the people will forever live on, and because he needs to fulfill his Dharma. With what is known about the Bhagavad-Gita and how Iyer thinks about the subject, Iyer would agree with how the Bhagavad-Gita address suffering.
Trip, D. (1999), “The Christian view of suffering” [Online], Exploring Christianity. Available from: http://www.christianity.co.nz/suffer4.htm [Accessed 18 April 2008].
Adam and Eve were expected to stay innocent but once Eve took a bite of the apple on the forbidden tree, we were seen as sinners and by default our children had to carry that with them. This self-inflicted pain was not manipulated by him but rather recognized and accepted as part of life once we chose to neglect his expectations. Many times we see that pain affects our lives in a negative manner and the atheist would assume that God should alleviate if not eliminate the pain since he is all powerful, good and knowing. Yet by intruding our lives in such a manner, He would be violating the birth given right of free-will. We will no longer have the ability to choose our pathway or learn from our mistakes because God has predestined our
God is the source of evil. He created natural evil, and gave humans the ability to do moral evil by giving them a free will. However, had he not given people free will, then their actions would not be good or evil; nor could God reward or punish man for his actions since they had no choice in what to do. Therefore, by giving humans choice and free will, God allowed humanity to decide whether to reward themselves with temporary physical goods, and suffer in the long run from unhappiness, or forsake bodily pleasures for eternal happiness.
As previously, stated God uses difficult situations as a way to improve the relationship we have with Him. Why suffering though? Frederick Sontag wrote in his book that evil or suffering are the best circumstances in which to find a God, unlike times where everything goes well
Milton shows that the potential for evil was innate in these beings and was not the result of corruption from an external force. Lucifer believes himself to be God’s equal and desires omnipotence for himself. Lucifer’s pride is his undoing, and he is cast into hell where he becomes Satan. The pride is intrinsic to Lucifer’s nature and results from God giving angels free will. Indeed, Satan later considers repenting and seeking God’s forgiveness upon seeing Earth and all of God’s creation and being overwhelmed by emotion. However, he realizes that even if he did receive forgiveness, he would grow dissatisfied with his position in heaven once again and fall a second time “book four quote “ . This establishes evil as being a constant part of Satan; the evil could not exist without the good, but it is an inherent part of
Suffering can be defined as an experience of discomfort suffered by a person during his life. The New York Times published an article entitled what suffering does, by David Brooks (2014). In this article, Brooks explains how suffering plays an important role in our pursuit of happiness. He explains firstly that happiness is found through experiences and then, suffering can also be a motivation in our pursuit of happiness. In other words, suffering is a fearful but necessary gift to acquire happiness. This paper is related to motivation and emotion, two keys words to the pursuit of happiness (King, 2010).
Ask anyone to draw Satan and you 'll get a red snake-like figure with horns and a pitchfork. Satan, as introduced in the Hebrew bible is an unworthy adversary of God. His longing to be like God is quickly recognized and dealt with. God banishes him from Heaven and sends him to Hell. That 's the last we see of him until he talks with God about his faithful servant Job. In each interaction we see Satan in, we get only a glimpse of who he really is. Satan 's motive is not developed and we assume he does evil simply because he is evil