Religion: Dear Rabbi - Why Me?

Helping victims of personal tragedies regain their faith in God

In addition to his full-time duties as rabbi in a suburban New England town, Harold Kushner has become rabbi to a nationwide congregation. It all began in 1966 when Kushner's son Aaron was found to have progeria, a rare disease that drastically accelerates the aging process. Aaron died in 1977 at the age of 14, with the body of a small old man. The depression and grief threw Kushner into a shock of theological doubt: How could God be a force for good if such an unwarranted horror could be visited on one of his own ministers? For a year Kushner wrestled with the question in writing. The result, published in 1981, was When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Schocken Books; $10.95). It is an odd book—part classical theology, part cracker-barrel, self-help philosophy. But when an excerpt appeared in Redbook in the October 1981 issue, it made the author a national figure. Kushner, 47, the rabbi of Temple Israel in Natick, Mass., remembers the turning point well: "It was Rosh Hashana. We had just come home from services and were very tired. Suddenly the phone started ringing off the wall. All afternoon long. And from non-Jews, not realizing it was a Jewish high holy day. These were phone calls from people with problems."

Since then the book has climbed the national bestseller charts (23 consecutive weeks on the New York Times list, ranked sixth last week), while Kushner has received a growing volume of mail and phone calls. The letter writers and callers—whether Jew, Catholic or Protestant—are people who have suffered some personal tragedy and found themselves questioning basic, long-held beliefs about the goodness or even the existence of God.

"I lost my son to cancer two years ago," wrote a Chicago woman. "He was only 3½ when he died. I hated and blamed God. But your book was the real turnaround in my mourning. You let me love the Lord again." Said a mother from Nevada: "I gave birth to a Down's-syndrome baby and have been hunting [for God] ever since. You were the person to express to me that I have a right to feel anger. Maybe now I can believe in a more realistic God." Wrote a reader in Pennsylvania: "I wish I had had your book 20 years ago. I offer you my agreement and thanks."

Kushner had coped with his own doubts about God's goodness through months of soul searching and Bible reading. He found particular comfort in the Book of Job. In Kushner's view, Job, who underwent unspeakable suffering, was faced with competing and mutually exclusive perceptions of God—one who is all powerful but not totally good, and one who is good but not completely powerful. Kushner decided that this biblical story best advises us to accept a God who is good but less than omnipotent. Bad things thus happen in situations not within God's direct control. This conclusion became the central thesis of his book.