The Gemara continues to address the issue of suffering and affliction: Rabbi Yoḥanan’s student, Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba, fell ill. Rabbi Yoḥanan entered to visit him, and said to him: Is your suffering dear to you? Do you desire to be ill and afflicted? Rabbi Ḥiyya said to him: I welcome neither this suffering nor its reward, as one who welcomes this suffering with love is rewarded. Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: Give me your hand. Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba gave him his hand, and Rabbi Yoḥanan stood him up and restored him to health. Similarly, Rabbi Yoḥanan fell ill. Rabbi Ḥanina entered to visit him, and said to him: Is your suffering dear to you? Rabbi Yoḥanan said to him: I welcome neither this suffering nor its reward. Rabbi Ḥanina said to him: Give me your hand. He gave him his hand, and Rabbi Ḥanina stood him up and restored him to health. The Gemara asks: Why did Rabbi Yoḥanan wait for Rabbi Ḥanina to restore him to health? If he was able to heal his student, let Rabbi Yoḥanan stand himself up. The Gemara answers, they say: A prisoner cannot generally free himself from prison, but depends on others to release him from his shackles.
The Gemara further asks: And does anyone who performs one mitzva in addition to his other merits have goodness bestowed upon him in this world? The Gemara raises a contradiction from a baraita: Anyone whose merits are greater than his sins is punished with suffering in order to cleanse his sins in this world and enable him to merit full reward for his mitzvot in the World-to-Come. And due to this punishment he appears to observers like one who burned the entire Torah without leaving even one letter remaining of it. Conversely, anyone whose sins are greater than his merits has goodness bestowed upon him in this world, and he appears like one who has fulfilled the entire Torah without lacking the fulfillment of even one letter of it. Abaye said: When the mishna said that he is rewarded, it means that he has one good day and one bad day. He is rewarded for the mitzvot he performs; nevertheless, occasionally he also has bad days which cleanse him of his sins, and the baraita is referring to those days. Rava said that the mishna and this baraita represent two different opinions. In accordance with whose opinion is this baraita? It is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Ya’akov, who says: There is no reward for performance of a mitzva in this world, as one is rewarded for mitzvot only World-to-Come.
(יא) כי כל דרכיו משפט - למחר כשהוא יושב בדין עם כל אחד ואחד, ונותן לו את הראוי לו: אל אמונה - כשם שמשלם שכר צדיק גמור, שכר מצוה שעשה בעולם הזה לעולם הבא - כך משלם לרשע גמור שכר מצוה קלה שעשה בעולם הזה. וכשם שנפרע מרשע גמור, מעבירה שעשה בעולם הזה לעולם הבא - כך נפרע מצדיק גמור על עבירה שעשה בעולם הזה:
(11) In the future, when God sits on the seat of justice, viz. "for all of God's ways are justice." In the future, when God sits in judgment with each one, God gives him what he deserves. "God is a God of trust": Just as God rewards an absolute tzaddik in the world to come for the "lightest" mitzvah that he performed in this world, so, God "rewards" an absolute evildoer in this world for the lightest mitzvah that he has performed. And just as God punishes an absolute evildoer in the world to come for a transgression that he performed in this world, so, God punishes in this world an absolute tzaddik for a transgression that he has performed.
(א) בהנחל עליון גוים - עד שלא בא אבינו אברהם כבר היה המקום דן את העולם כאכזרי. חטאו אנשי דור המבול - הציפם בזיקים על פני המים.... אבל משבא אברהם אבינו לעולם זכה לקבל יסורים ממשמש ובאים, כענין שנאמר ויהי רעב בארץ וירד אברם מצרימה. וא"ת מפני מה יסורים באים? מפני חבתן של ישראל: יצב גבולות עמים למספר בני ישראל!
(1) (Devarim 32:8) :When the Most High caused nations to inherit": Before the advent of our father Abraham, God judged the world with severity: The [people] of the flood sinned — God flooded them like sparks on the face of the waters. [Same with Babel and Sodom] But when our father Abraham came to the world, afflictions materialized (in place of destruction), viz. (Bereshit 12:9) "And there was a famine in the land, and Avram went down to Egypt." And if you would ask "Why are there afflictions?" (the answer is) Because of God's love for Israel (i.e., to avoid destroying them!)
5 Options
In his book, Harold Kushner, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People Kushner offers suggestions of rationale the rabbis give for why bad things happen to good people.
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Grass v. palm metaphor (Isa 3:10-11, Ps 92)
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Overtime, the palm grows bigger..meaning God has reasons and eventually we’ll find them, we are right now in/actually the grass.
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Two sides of tapestry (Thornton Wilder)
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Suffering is a contribution to the greater whole. We can only see the messy side of the tapestry, not the finished product
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God as parent, providing punishment when necessary and we learn the wisdom of why later
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God wants to help us see how strong our faith is
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God is bringing them to a better place
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God doesn’t make evil/suffering, but God is ready to guide us when we are ready.
“My Father’s Death”
The survivors [of the Holocaust]...are aware of the fact that God's presence at Treblinka or Maidanek - or for that matter [God’s] absence - poses a problem which will remain forever insoluble.
- Legends of Our Time by Elie Wiesel (p. 6)
Moral Responsibility
“[Levinas says that] the only moral response we can make to suffering...is to do all we can to alleviate it. In fact, only in being present to the suffering of other people do we become completely human, It is upon us to relieve suffering wherever the ravaged face of the other lifts itself to yours, even when we ourselves are suffering...We can leave ourselves open to compassion and to hope by the practice of lament and by a life of active caring.
--Rachel Adler in “Bad Things Happen”
Meaning
In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
-Viktor Frankl, Mans Search for Meaning
Lament
According to [the Protestant theologian Walter] Brueggeman, the lamenter refuses to present a compliant false self to God while repressing her genuine feelings.... Instead, the lamenter confronts God with the immediacy of suffering in a way that renders retribution unjustifiable.
-Rachel Adler, "Bad Things Happen"
Seeing Suffering
R. Meir said: when human suffers, what expression does the shechinah use? My head is too heavy for me, my arm is too heavy for me. And if God is so grieved over the blood of the wicked that is shed, how much more so over the blood of the righteous.
-b. Sanhedrin 46b
(21) Isaac pleaded with God on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and God responded to his plea, and his wife Rebekah conceived. (22) But the children struggled in her womb, and she said, “If so, why do I exist?” She went to inquire God, (23) and God answered her, “Two nations are in your womb, Two separate peoples shall issue from your body; One people shall be mightier than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.”