When Bad Things Happen to Good People

In his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner says that he believes there are some terrible things that God is not able to stop. When members of his synagogue ask him, "Where is God when...(Jews are being slaughtered in Auschwitz, our daughter is raped, your son is born with a terrible disease...) Rabbi Kushner tells them that God is right beside them, holding their hand and helping them cry.

I very much recommend all of Rabbi Kushner's books. He is very wise, and his words are very uplifting. In fact, let me quote something for you that I just read. This is from a book called The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal. Mr. Wiesenthal is a concentration camp survivor. One day when he was on a work detail at a hospital, a nurse came and got him and took him to the bedside of a dying SS soldier. The soldier confessed his crimes to Simon and begged for his forgiveness. Simon was unable to give it. He spent many years wondering if he had been wrong.

This book begins with his story, then his dilemma is addressed by several religious, philosophical, and political leaders. Rabbi Kushner is one of them. This is what he says about forgiveness. It is a valuable point of view for survivors of any kind of abuse.

"Forgiving is not something we do for another person, as the Nazi asked Wiesenthal to do for him. Forgiving happens inside us. It represents a letting go of the sense of grievance, and perhaps most importantly a letting go of the role of victim. For a Jew to forgive the Nazis would not mean, God forbid, saying to them "What you did was understandable, I can understand what led you to do it and I don't hate you for it." I would mean saying "What you did was thoroughly despicable and puts you outside the category of decent human beings. But I refuse to give you the power to define me as a victim. I refuse to let your blind hatred define the shape and content of my Jewishness. I don't hate you; I reject you." And then the Nazi would remain chained to his past and to his conscience, but the Jew would be free."

When I read this I was stunned. Surely it is very different from the typical Christian view of forgiveness! And it can work for me! In thinking about my father and the things he did to me, not only physical and emotional abuse, but coldly calculated damage to my social development and education, this point of view works for me.

When parents don't behave the way they are supposed to, when they not only shirk their responsibilities but do everything they can to show contempt for them, their children do not grow up to be the people they could have been if allowed and encouraged to fulfill their potential.

People who are not trained to their talents often suffer physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. But there is hope. Each of these areas can be addressed, one small bit at a time. We can gain control over them bit-by-bit, by putting ourselves first because no one else ever has, and knowing that we deserve it!

Over many years, I feel that I have been able to gain control over my physical well-being, and my spiritual well-being. I have made the conscious decision to take control of my financial life, and that involved sitting down, and writing a budget that would work, and making a true commitment to it, and accepting the fact that it will take me years, to get ahead. In the meantime, I still work on my physical self, and my spiritual self, and my emotional self.

Each of these successes has and will depend upon setting firm, attainable goals, and then identifying the steps I must take to achieve them. A commitment is a choice we make again and again and again. In each situation I encounter, I must take the time to examine the steps I can take and take the next right step! And sometimes, as you note, that next right step is to hand it over to God.