Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People

March 21, 1999 by J. David Hoke

There is a fundamental question that all of us ask. It is the question "why?" And when it comes to suffering, it is an emphatic question indeed. Why is there pain in the world? Why do tragedies happen? Why do "innocent" people suffer? Why is there war, racism, social injustice, and suffering? And why doesn’t God do something to intervene?

These questions become very real when they are applied to us. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? The truth is that bad things do happen to us even when we do not think we deserve them. This brings us to the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Before we seek to answer that question, consider the presuppositions that lie behind it. Warren Wiersbe claims that there are several assumptions that lie behind our even being able to ask that question. These assumptions reveal our view about the universe. Aldous Huxley wrote, "It is strictly impossible to be a human being and not have views of some kind about the universe at large."

When we ask the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people," we are basically assuming five things. The first is that there are values in life. In other words, there are some "good" things and some "bad" things. How we define what is good and bad is another question altogether. But however we define good and bad, we would rather have the good things happen to us than the bad. The second assumption is that the universe is logical and orderly. We believe in a universe that "makes sense." When some sort of tragedy occurs, we look for some explanation. We believe that there is a cause for things happening in the universe. The third assumption is that people are important. We are fairly unconcerned when bad things happen to ears of corn, or fish, or cows. People are different, in our estimation, from plants and animals, and are more important. The fourth assumption is that we believe life is worth living. If we judged life not to be worth living then why should we bother to ask questions at all? We believe life is worth living otherwise we would just end it all. And finally, the fifth assumption is that we believe we can find answers that will help us in understanding life. These are the assumptions behind the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

The Problem of Suffering

Whatever are our assumptions, the truth is that we all have a problem with suffering. We don’t understand suffering very well. At times we cannot see why suffering should exist at all. We can attempt to avoid the issue altogether, but this gives us little comfort when we visit an Intensive Care Ward or stand beside an open grave.

The reality of tragedy sooner or later will come to us all. It is in those times we find ourselves asking why. And for those of us who believe in a personal God, we find ourselves asking why God doesn’t do something to intervene. This is especially true when the person is a "good" person, or a person who is a believer in God. In any case, we want answers.

There is a classic statement of the problem, which has its basis in the thought of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. The reasoning revolves around whether God is all-powerful and all-good. If God is all-powerful and all-good, then why doesn’t He stop evil? Either God is all-powerful and not all-good, and therefore unwilling to stop evil, or God is all-good but not all-powerful, and therefore unable to stop evil. This is the stuff of sophomore philosophy. It appears logical but it was proposed by one who had already made up his mind that God does not exist. Epicurus believed that the existence of evil in the world was evidence that God did not exist. The tendency is to blame God.

Thomas Hardy wrote these lines in a pessimistic and agnostic poem entitled, "Nature’s Questioning":

We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!
Has some Vast Imbecility,
Mighty to build and blend
But impotent to tend,
Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

But before we blame God, we should ask a more fundamental question. How do we define good? You see, many of us define good in terms of happiness. We want to be comfortable, secure, and enjoy life. We want to earn our living without too many hassles, pay our bills, raise a stable family, and have our share in the "good life." We are not talking about extravagance here. We just want to be happy. It is good to be happy, and anything which disturbs that happiness and discomforts us is bad. But is happiness the goal in life?

Indeed, this brings us to an even more fundamental question. What is the purpose of life? This is the really big question. As a matter of fact, it is a far more important question than the question of why bad things happen to good people. If we know the purpose of life, then we might understand why things happen as they do. Nietzsche, a man definitely not a Christian, wrote, "If we have our own why of life, we shall get along with almost any how." A Roman proverb put it this way, "When the pilot does not know what port he is heading for, no wind is the right wind." Unless we know the purpose of life, we truly grope in the dark. Nothing else will make sense.

But is happiness the purpose of life? I do not believe it is. In fact, there are many people who have made happiness their goal who have ended up miserable. In fact, making happiness your goal in life may cause you to be one of the most selfish people around. You become self-centered as you continually consider how you can make yourself happier. Helen Keller wrote in her journal, "Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." In other words, happiness is not a goal to pursue, but rather a by-product of a life invested in something worthwhile.

Is there a worthy purpose to life? Is life worth living? Some have thought not. Bertrand Russell once called man "a curious accident in a backwater." And the cynical American editor H.L. Mencken called man "a local disease of the cosmos." I do not agree. Despite all of our problems, we were created in the very image of God and have a worthy purpose for living. People are valuable because they are created in the image of God. God gives us our worth.

This brings us back to the question of why God doesn’t intervene. God could intervene. He has the power. But God created all of us with the freedom to choose. He did not make us machines, like robots. He gave us the ability to choose between right and wrong, good and evil. He could have created us without that freedom of choice. But then, would life be worth living? You can go to the store and buy a baby doll that speaks when you pull the string. You pull the string and she says, "I love you." Does that mean anything to you? Is that really love? Certainly not! Love is a choice. We want to hear those words when someone has chosen to say them. Only then do they have real meaning. God created us with the freedom to choose. And the choices we make now impact our lives both today and for the future. Our lives have a purpose, and our choices determine whether we fulfill that purpose.

I read of an epitaph on a tombstone in an old cemetery, which read, "Pause, my friend, as you go by. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be. Prepare, my friend, to follow me!" Quite a challenge, isn’t it? I also read that someone added this footnote to that epitaph: "To follow you is not my intent, until I know which way you went!" Choices. We are all faced with them. They impact our lives forever. God has given us this freedom.

But sometimes God may have a purpose beyond our hurt and unhappiness. In the Bible we find a story of Joseph. What happened to Joseph could be construed as "bad." He was hated by his brothers. They threw him into a pit and sold him to an Egyptian caravan as a slave. He was torn away from his aged father. While he was in Egypt he was wrongfully accused and thrown into prison where he spent several years. Finally he was elevated to the position of Prime Minister of Egypt. All of this was for the purpose of eventually providing for the needs of his family and the household of Israel. In fact, Joseph said to his brothers, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is know being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20). God is working out a purpose in all things. It says in Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

The Predicament of Sin

Let me ask you another important question. What would happen if God did right now eradicate all evil? Would that be good? More personally, what would happen to you? You see, there is another reason why God does not intervene and simply wipe all evil from the face of the earth. The problem is our predicament. If God were to eradicate all evil He would have to eradicate us. In asking the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" we must also ask ourselves "Who are these good people?" Are we really totally good?

The answer seems obvious. All of us have done things that are not right. The Bible calls this sin. Sin is defined as falling short of the mark. All of us fall short of the mark. We have done things that are wrong, thought things that are wrong, said things that are wrong. In short, we have sinned. In fact the Bible says that all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This is our predicament. It is the predicament of sin.

One of the reasons that suffering is in the world is that sin is in the world. When God created us with the capacity to choose between good and evil, we choose evil. Adam, the first man, chose to disobey God. All of us have ratified that choice.

When Adam sinned, he caused the entire world to come under the effects of sin. We live in an imperfect world, everywhere infected by wrong attitudes, and wrong deeds. Evil is in the world. And none of us are exempt from it. Bad things happen because bad people do bad things. There is also a powerful evil force in the universe. He name is Satan. He is also a creation of God. He was created, like we were, with the freedom to choose. He chose to rebel against God. Thus, he became the evil force behind so much of the wickedness we see in this world. All of us are aware that there is a depth of wickedness which cannot be explained in any other way. There are people who engage in such violent and cruel acts that we must conclude that they are demonic.

At times all of us are touched by the effects of sin. It is nothing unusual really. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put it this way,

Be still, sad heart! And cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Things happen to us because we live in an imperfect world. Our challenge is to come to an understanding of how to deal with the trouble that comes our way. Sometimes there are not neat, simple explanations.

The Hindus developed a law of Karma which says that all of the actions in this life are the result of actions of a previous life. The tragedies of life such as blindness, poverty, hunger, and physical deformity are simply the outworking of punishment for evil deeds in a previous existence. It is a neat little explanation, but too neat.

There is a sense in which some suffering can be a judgement or punishment from God. But in every case in Scripture where there was such punishment there was also a warning beforehand. God does not haphazardly punish people. His punishment, or chastening, is designed to draw people out of bad situations. But whatever happens to us, in any case, we do not get what we truly deserve.

The Provision of a Savior

God has not dealt with us according to our iniquities. God has, in fact, provided a Savior for us. Because sin has infected this world, God sent His only Son Jesus to suffer along with us. Jesus came into this world and was tempted in every way as we are. He suffered cruel treatment, mocking, ridicule, rejection, and the scorn of men. He was beaten, bruised, spit upon, and finally nailed to a cruel cross, all for us. Jesus endured the effects of this sinful world to a greater degree than any of us every could. He knows what it’s like to suffer. And He knows how to comfort all of us who suffer.

I suppose the hardest hurdle to overcome is the hurdle of our own lack of understanding. Somehow we think we have to understand the why of everything. Rather, what we really need to do is to trust. We must trust that God is good. We must trust that He is working out His purpose in our lives, even through the darkest difficulties. Sometimes that is a difficult task indeed. When we are in the midst of suffering, it is tempting to rise up in rebellion against God. It is easy to blame Him for our suffering. And sometimes it is hard to believe that He is good. But it is at this point where we must choose. You see, our own reaction to suffering, rather than the suffering itself, may determine whether we experience grace or despair. It has been said that the same sun which melts the butter hardens the clay. Our reaction to suffering may determine the result of suffering. God asks us to trust Him.

The greatest evidence we have that God is good is found in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus died on the Cross for us. There, on the Cross, is the greatest evidence of the pure love of God. While we might not see the details of all God is working out, through the Cross we understand that God will do what is right. In the Cross we come to understand that "In everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose." If we can catch a vision of the goodness of God in the Cross, we will be able to trust the Lord in spite of the most difficult times.

The prophet Habakkuk was one who had come to an understanding of the goodness of God. He wrestled with the question of good and evil. His book ends with a tremendous testimony of faith. Listen to the words in Habakkuk 3:17-18,

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

What a testimony to the grace of God! You could put that testimony into modern English this way,

Though the stock market crashes,
and there is no money in the banks;
though the oil wells dry up,
and there is no gas in the car;
though I am fired from my job,
and there is no food in the house;
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my savior!"

You can only come to this kind of attitude about life through knowing Jesus, who will walk with you through the darkest times. I must confess, I do not know how someone without a firm faith in Jesus Christ can endure the trials of this world. Pain and suffering apart from Christ is enough to lead anyone to despair. Without Christ there is no purpose to life. Without the reality of eternity and a home in heaven when you die, life is a futile and vain endeavor. But in Christ, and through Christ, life has meaning. And in Christ even the deepest pit of despair can have meaning. He may not give you all the answers here and now, but He Himself is the answer to life. Jesus is acquainted with grief and sorrow. He endured it. He can give you the grace to endure it and come out on the other side with a life worth living.

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Ask Rabbi Simmons

Question – My cousin was murdered last month. He was working the late shift when someone came in and stabbed him.

I know God gives us the free will to commit evil, but why does he let people murder other people?

Answer – My sympathies for the murder of your cousin. It is an unfathomable tragedy and I share your grief.

Your question is a complex one, and the answer contains many variables. I will present them all for you here. I hope that something I have written helps to console you and your family.

First , we have to clarify what question we're actually asking. When we say "Why do bad things happen to good people," this can mean one of two things. If you listen to the question carefully, it's assuming God's existence. People say: I know there's a God, but I want to understand: Is this God good? And if he is good, then why do bad things happen to good people?

Alternatively, the question "Why do bad things happened to good people," may really be asking "I'm not sure that God exists." That's a completely different question. The question of God's existence has nothing to do with the issue of suffering. It has to do with creation, revelation at Sinai, world history, etc. So we should be clear that the question we are dealing with here is not "Does God exist?" It's "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

* * *

THE GENERAL AND THE SPECIFIC

In order for us to be able to "judge God," we have to be able to look at what are God's "ground rules" for existence. Using this premise, it becomes very difficult to judge God. Why? Because we are stuck in a finite perspective of time and space, and we can therefore never be sure which rules God is employing at any given moment.

In discussing this issue, we're not going to give an answer as to why particular things happen in a particular situation. Only a prophet can do that and it's been a long time since God spoke to me! What we can do is look at general approaches that Judaism offers, to at least get a general sense of what the possibilities are for why things happen.

Here's an analogy: A physicist can tell you why a leaf will fall in a particular place - it has to do with the aerodynamics of the leaf, the force of gravity, and the direction and velocity of the wind. But if you ask that physicist where a certain leaf is going to fall, he is not going to be able to tell you, because he can't precisely quantify the different forces that make a leaf fall in a particular place. He can give you the general principles, but he can't give you a precise analysis of a specific situation.

It's the same idea here. We won't be able to say why specific things are happening in a specific situation, but we will be able to speak about general principles that can lead us to understand the workings of a good God.

* * *

CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCES

One crucial idea to get us started:

The Torah tells us: "God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him" (Genesis 1:27). What does it mean that man was created in God's image? Human beings are finite and corporal. So how are we created in God's image?

Obviously the "image of God" is dealing with the non- physical part of us - the soul. Where do we get our drive for morality and meaning, our drive to make a difference? That drive is from the soul which is in the "image of God."

But there's more to it than that. Just as God has independent choice, so too does each human being have independent moral choice. The image of God means that we have the ability to choose.

Why is choice the essential issue of what makes us special? Because if you think about it, life only becomes meaningful because of our ability to choose. For example, the difference in being "programmed to love" and the choice to love, is precisely what makes love significant. Similarly, if I don't have the choice to do good, but am programmed to do good, then there's nothing meaningful about it. Whereas if I have the ability to do good or evil, then good becomes significant.

But it goes deeper still. For choice to be authentic, there have to be consequences. If every time I get in trouble, dad comes to bail me out, that's not really choice. Choice means consequences. Think about it. All of history - whether in our personal lives or from a global perspective - is based on the decisions that human beings have made - and the consequences that flowed from that.

So now we can understand that "image of God" means that God created beings who have the ability to make decisions, and those decisions will create consequences that will make this being a co-partner in the development of the world. This has many ramifications as far as "why bad things happen to good people" and certainly you can start seeing it already.

Now I think we're ready to examine eight ground rules which Judaism spells out for how God interacts with the world.

* * *

GROUND RULE #1 - THE POSSIBILITY OF EVIL

For free choice to operate, it's obvious that evil has to have the possibility of existing. If every time someone chooses to do evil, God is going to interfere, then there's no moral choice. If every time the gun is pointed, the turret points backwards, after a few times you get the message. If you eat pork and get struck by lightning, then you're not "morally choosing," you just see it doesn't work. It simply becomes pragmatic not to do evil.

If the lives of the righteous were obviously perfect, that too would destroy the possibility of choice. Pragmatically, we'd figure it pays more to be righteous because look at the millions of bucks that come my way! That's not choice. That's not becoming God-like.

A world where a human being can create himself into a Moses, also carries the possibility of a person creating himself into a Hitler.

Sometimes God does make a miracle, but it is always in a way that is not obvious, that enables us to retain free choice.

After the Exodus from Egypt when the Red Sea split, it was obvious to everyone that God had performed a miracle. Yet the Torah tells us "that a strong east wind blew all night" (Exodus 14:21). Why was there a strong wind blowing? Because God had to leave open at least the possibility for someone to say, "No, there was no miracle. It was a fluke of nature and the wind split the sea."

In the recent Gulf War, 39 Scud Missiles rained down on Israel and only one person was killed. What would it take for that to happen? Guaranteed you would have told me it would take a miracle, but it happened and we still have doubt.

* * *

GROUND RULE #2 - INTERVENTION

In Genesis 15:13, God tells Abraham, "Know that your descendents are going to be enslaved in a land they don't know," which of course ends up being Egypt. So the Jewish philosophers ask: "If God wanted the Jewish people to be enslaved in Egypt, why did he punish the Egyptians?" Tough question!

Nachmanides explains: "All God said is that they would be enslaved. He said nothing about torture and murder. God only said that he wanted a certain something to happen, but the Egyptians took it beyond that."

Now the question is, "Do the Jewish people deserve intervention or not?" Different story.

In Deuteronomy, Moses says that the fate of people depends on our relationship to God. The more we move closer to Him, the more He moves closer to us. The more we move away from him, the more He does the same. The language used is "God hides His face." And when that happens, this leaves us open to the free will decisions of human beings. At times God does not intervene.

We have to appreciate that in the Holocaust, it was not God who built the crematoriums, it was the Nazis. It is not God who is massacring Moslems in Bosnia, it is the Serbs. Which of course raises the question: Why isn't God interfering? But do you see the difference between "God doing this" and "why is God not interfering?"

King David said, "God, I'd rather have direct punishment from you than to fall into the hands of a human being." Because that's dangerous stuff. Will you merit to have God intervene?

* * *

GROUND RULE #3 - ETERNITY

The question of "why do bad things happen to good people" has a lot to do with how we look at existence. The way we usually perceive things is like this: A "good life" means that I make a comfortable living, I enjoy good health, and then I die peacefully at age 80. That's a good life. Anything else is "bad."

In a limited sense, that's true. But if we have a soul and there is such a thing as eternity, then that changes the picture entirely. Eighty years in the face of eternity is not such a big deal.

From Judaism's perspective, our eternal soul is as real as our thumb. This is the world of doing, and the "world to come" is where we experience the eternal reality of whatever we've become. Do you think after being responsible for the torture and deaths of millions of people, that Hitler could really "end it all" by just swallowing some poison? No. Ultimate justice is found in another dimension.

But the concept goes much deeper. From an eternal view, if the ultimate pleasure we're going after is transcendence - the eternal relationship with the Almighty Himself, then who would be luckier: Someone who lives an easy life with little connection to God, or someone who is born handicapped, and despite the challenges, develops a connection with God. Who would be "luckier" in terms of eternal existence? All I'm trying to point out is that the rules of life start to look different from the point of view of eternity, as opposed to just the 70 or 80 years we have on earth.

* * *

GROUND RULE #4 - THE BIG PICTURE

I heard a cute story I'd like to share. There once was a farmer who owned a horse. And one day the horse ran away. All the people in the town came to console him because of the loss. "Oh, I don't know," said the farmer, "maybe it's a bad thing and maybe it's not."

A few days later, the horse returned to the farm accompanied by 20 other horses. (Apparently he had found some wild horses and made friends!) All the townspeople came to congratulate him: "Now you have a stable full of horses!" "Oh, I don't know," said the farmer, "maybe it's a good thing and maybe it's not."

A few days later, the farmer's son was out riding one of the new horses. The horse got wild and threw him off, breaking the son's leg. So all the people in town came to console the farmer because of the accident. "Oh, I don't know," said the farmer, "maybe it's a bad thing and maybe it's not."

A few days later, the government declared war and instituted a draft of all able-bodied young men. They came to the town and carted off hundreds of young men, except for the farmer's son who had a broken leg. "Now I know," said the farmer, "that it was a good thing my horse ran away."

The point of this story is obvious. Life is a series of events, and until we've reached the end of the series, it's hard to know exactly why things are happening. That's one reason the Torah commands us to give respect to every elderly person - because through the course of life experience, they have seen the jigsaw puzzle pieces fall into place.

The Torah itself makes this point very clearly. Jacob is raising the next generation of the Jewish people, bringing to the world the message of Ethical Monotheism. And the key character in that picture is his son Joseph, who is kidnapped by his own brothers and sent down to Egypt. Imagine you would come to Jacob at that point in time and ask him about a good God. What's he going to answer?

In Egypt, Joseph became Prime Minister, and when a grave famine hits the entire world, Joseph is a unique position to rescue his family.

When we look at the whole story in retrospect, everything that happened to Joseph was for the good. It set into motion a chain of events where he ended up saving and building the Jewish people.

It is interesting that one of the weekly Torah portions, "Miketz," ends on a bad note, and is then resolved at the beginning of the following week. Why didn't the Torah simply extend "Miketz" a few verses and have it end good? Because the Torah wants to communicate the lesson that we don't always see the whole picture. Sometimes you have to wait to see how "things turn out good in end."

* * *

GROUND RULE #5 - OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

Sometimes what we perceive as punishment is really an opportunity for growth. In the story of the "Binding of Isaac," the Torah says that "God tested Abraham." The question is: Doesn't God know what Abraham is capable of? So who's the test for? It can't be for God. It must be for Abraham.

What does it mean to be tested? You have potential. Now the question is can you actualize your potential? We grow when we have to extend ourselves. The Hebrew word for test - "Nisa," is the same as one of the Hebrew words for flag - "Nes." What's the connection? You hoist a flag; so too through being tested, we become hoisted to higher and higher levels. Was this test a "punishment" for Abraham? Of course not. It was an opportunity for growth. The Abraham before the test is not the same Abraham after the test.

Imagine a track coach training an athlete in the 110- meter high hurdles. The coach would start with the hurdles low, and then raise them steadily as the athlete progressed. Raising the hurdles is not a punishment; rather it shows the coach's increasing confidence in the athlete's ability.

As a rabbi, I hear this over and over again: "When this event happened in my life, it seemed so negative; now I understand why it was there and how I grew from it.

Three years ago, a very dynamic woman I know almost died. Her heart stopped on the table. She tells me it was the best thing that ever happened to her. "I was in overdrive, running and doing. That event got me to think: What's it all about?" And what this woman has accomplished in the last few years in personal growth is unbelievable. She's convinced that her suffering was integral to the growth process.

In Judaism, we look at life as "I'm here for growth, so how does this situation help me to change and grow?" When God is telling you to sacrifice your only son, can there be any greater punishment? Yet it changed the whole future of the Jewish people. "Tests" can change your future, too.

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GROUND RULE #6 - BORN TO SUFFER

The Talmud (Yoma 35) tells the famous story of the sage Hillel. At the time, the head of the yeshiva wanted to make sure that the people who came to study Torah wanted it for the right reasons, and not for self-aggrandizement. So in order to test people's motivation, he charged money to enter the yeshiva.

Hillel was as poor and impoverished as they come. In the winter, he wanted so much to study that he climbed up to the roof by the skylight, and then became so enraptured with his studies that he didn't realize he'd become frozen in. The next morning it was dark in the study hall. So they looked up and saw a person's body. They brought him down and thawed him out.

The Talmud states: "Hillel obligates the poor." That means that Hillel takes away the excuse that we didn't accomplish what we were supposed to in life due to lack of money. Hillel serves as a beacon that even in poverty, one can still become the greatest of the great (which Hillel was).

Was Hillel punished or was this his reason for being here? The Talmud tells us this was his reason for being here. You don't know why a particular situation might be happening. We each have our own package. Each one of us is put here for a particular purpose. Sometimes "suffering" may actually be the reason we were put here. Maybe this is, so to speak, our glory, our unique contribution.

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GROUND RULE #7 - INDIVIDUAL & COMMUNITY

We are living in a very complex world and in a complex world, God doesn't only deal with individuals, he also deals with nations.

When God decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorra, Abraham complained. He asked God, "If I can find 50 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorra, will you spare the cities?" God said, "No problem, I won't destroy it." Abraham bargained with God until he got down to 10 righteous people and God said, "Okay, if you can find 10 righteous people I won't destroy it."

Why did Abraham stop at 10? Why didn't he go down to one?

Because Abraham knew if there's a group of people who are righteous, then society might turn around - you can't destroy them. Ten is still a group, under 10 is just individuals. A few righteous individuals is not enough to save Sodom and Gomorra.

Another question: Now that God decided to destroy it, do these righteous individuals merit to be spared themselves? The answer is that while these individuals were not the catalyst for the disaster, but now that the disaster is going to happen, you need a tremendous amount of merit to be saved from it in a miraculous way. God deals both on a national realm and on an individual realm. And that complicates our understanding of the equation.

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GROUND RULE #8 - THE BENEFITS OF PUNISHMENT

Unfortunately, the way a lot of Jews relate to punishment has been very heavily influenced by Christianity, which is that God is always ready to get me with "fire and brimstone." No offense, but the Jewish idea is much different. God is our merciful Father. He's an infinite being that has no needs. Punishment cannot mean that He's "getting something." And this is the key to understanding the concept of chastisement.

When you think about it, all relationships are based on reward and punishment. When I bring my wife flowers, she smiles. If it's her birthday and I don't bring her flowers, I get punished, either by a burnt dinner, cold shoulder, etc. Relationships that are based on love always play themselves out in terms of reward and punishment. When I do what's right, I receive positive reinforcement, when I do what's wrong I receive "punishment."

What happens if my wife would always react the same regardless of whether or not I bring her flowers? That's the worst possible thing in a relationship - indifference.

Judaism says that punishment exists because God is reacting to the fact that I've done something wrong and He wants me to change. Hopefully I'll hear the message and learn from that. God is not out for revenge. He's doing this for my own good. If He wouldn't react to my negative behavior that would be the worst punishment of all - because that would mean indifference. This is why King David says in Psalms (23:4): "Your rod and your staff comfort me." Even though I may get "hit" once in a while, I know it is ultimately for my own good.

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Remember our original premise? That it is very difficult for us to "judge" God because we are stuck in time and space. And because our view is so limited, we are therefore limited in terms of knowing which ground rules God is employing. When "bad" things happen, there are so many possibilities of why it's happening. "Is this a challenge in life that was given to me so I could become an example to inspire others? Or is this to get me to fix a wrong I've done? Or is this due to historical/national forces that are affecting me as an individual? Or is what's happening to me now through a choice that I've made? Or that I'm on my own because I've distanced myself?"

The fact that there are so many possibilities makes it easier to come to terms with the question, to be more comfortable realizing that if I had God's infinite view I would understand.

In Exodus 33:13, Moses asks God, "Make Your ways known to me." The commentators explain that there are "50 Gates of Wisdom," and Moses had reached the 49th Gate. This means that only one aspect of existence was still unknown to him. And which was that? The issue of "why bad things happen to good people." So what was God's answer? "I'm sorry, but this is the one thing that no human can ever comprehend." (see Exodus 33:20)

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ATTITUDE

I've seen so much suffering, and it seems to me that the key is "attitude." How people deal with it depends on what attitude they have. I have seen people whose attitude was of anger or hurt to such an extent that they never got beyond a particular event - which then became the defining moment of their lives. In a certain sense, life stopped at that particular moment.

On the other hand, I have seen people who have gone through the most horrendous things, but their attitude was a positive one of believing that there is an ultimate good, of asking how I can learn and grow from this. It was incredible to see their sense of dignity, and the inspiration they gave to others. How they moved on with their lives. The contrast is so unbelievable between these two attitudes. Living with the concept of a good God is so much more uplifting and gives a person the ability to remain joyful and hopeful and have the strength to go on and fight.

Some people that have suffered similar tragedies have found some degree of solace by setting up some time of a fund or organization to help people, in memory of the departed one. This enables them to channel some of the great emotion that have into an area that offers them some degree of comfort.

I want to share a story that I heard from a friend who experienced the following incident. If you've ever ridden a bus in Israel, you know how people enter the bus from the front door and pay the driver, and people exiting the bus do so from the back door. Sometimes the crowd is so great that people will also enter from the back door, and then pass their money up front to pay the driver. Well, this one time the driver decided he wasn't going to allow that. So he announced that whoever had entered from the back door, must now get off the bus and walk around to the front. Everybody complied grumpily, except for one very old man who could barely walk in the first place. Well, the driver stuck to his guns and announced that the bus would not move until this old man came on through the front door. So slowly slowly, one small step at a time, the old man got off the bus and walked around. And all the while, the people on the bus were shouting at the driver for not only his insensitivity to the old man, but for wasting everyone else's time!

Finally, the old man managed to make it up through the front door and pay the driver. And then he turned toward the bus full of angry people and told them: "Please, don't be upset. We should be grateful that my legs still work and I still have the strength to walk. Thank God!!"

I want to conclude with the following poem I once read:

I asked for strength and

God gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom and

God gave me problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity and

God gave me brawn and brain to work.

I asked for courage and

God gave me dangers to overcome.

I asked for love and

God gave me troubled people to help...

My prayers were answered.

With blessings from Jerusalem, Rabbi Shraga Simmons

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Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

Source: Christina SnyderSometimes asking the right questions is as important as being brutally honest with the answers. They tell us that if you pray to God that you will eventually get what you pray for. Others tell us that there is some unseen flow called karma that ensures doing good will cause good to return, and that bad will lead to bad. It’s very easy to want to believe such things.

However, some have questioned how a God could allow tragic events to happen to good people. Personally, I know of enough bad things happening to good people to question this thing called karma. If the rules of the game are not fair, then why would you want to stick to the rules? I’ve been struggling with this question for years, and now I think I’ve seen enough to take on an honest attempt to answer this question.

Life’s Not Fair

At one time I was an extreme optimist, but Life has battered me down enough times to temper this optimism down a bit. I try to balance being an optimist with being a realist, but sometimes I find myself being quite pessimistic. The more that I live and see what Life can do to people and what it already has done, sometimes I question the notion of God, of karma, or simply question the goodness in people.

For example, I heard about a story of this one girl from a poor family that had an alcoholic and abusive father. The mother died when this girl was eight, and two years later the father abandoned the two children. Shortly after the two kids were sent to a foster home, her brother passed away. And on top of all that, earlier at the age of three, the girl was having vision problems which eventually became worse in spite of multiple surgeries trying to save her sight. Her vision became so bad that they had to send her to the school for the blind. What kind of God would let this happen to an innocent girl?

What about that story of the black eight year-old girl, also from a poor family, who was molested and raped by her mother’s boyfriend, which psychologically traumatized the girl and became mute? Turns out that years later when she was 17, she became a single mother and had to work as a shake dancer to make ends meet. What kind of karma could she have gotten as a little girl to deserve all this?

Consequences When Bad Things Happen

I have seen many people who were once good individuals, but the unfairness of life has jaded them and influenced them to be the kind of people that they are now. I do sincerely believe that we all have some inherent good in us, but sometimes it’s difficult to keep that good in us when bad things happen. Sometimes there are events that happen to us that we don’t deserve and can’t control, but we can control how we respond to them.

The orphan girl that was becoming blind did not lose her vision completely, and she eventually became the valedictorian of her class. Anne Sullivan became a tutor and mentor for the blind, and her life experiences helped her to connect to this one particularly difficult blind, deaf, and mute student named Helen Keller.

The mute girl that became a single mother is not a mute anymore and eventually moved on into theater, music, and poetry. Her words have been credited to heal and inspire many generations of people. She has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She has been on two presidential committees and even read one of her own poems for a presidential inauguration. Maya Angelou touched many people’s lives, including mine.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Because it helps them to see how to make this world a better place. Because that’s what separates the truly good people from those who only think they are good people. Bad things happen to good people because it is a necessary part of making a good person great.