The woman had blond hair, neatly tied into a bun on the top of her height head. Hands fiddled nervously as she sat down across from the desk and said, “Thank you for making time to meet with me.”
At the time I did not know Sheila. She was not a member of my congregation and, to my knowledge, had never come to a service. She simply walked in off the street and asked to talk.
In a very small voice Sheila said that she had trouble with God and that she desperately needed to see a Rabbi.
”My father left when I was child,” she began. “Mother told me he was a gambler and an alcoholic. For all of my life we struggled to be together and keep it together. My mother worked so hard - she had no time for herself. She was both my mother and father. More, she was my friend, cook, confidante and even my date. She held me up all those long years. But I still missed and wanted my father …”
Sheila continued telling that her life was brutish and tough. She had recently come off a relationship with an abusive man. After taking lots physical and mental pain, he finally walked out on her. Just got up, left and she has not heard from him since.
She paused. “I do not think God cares about me. He does not help. Where is the kindness he is supposed to give? I feel so alone.”
Gently, I questioned Sheila.
God, she revealed, was always a kind and good force that had always sustained her. Now she wanted to know if all those years of trust had been misplaced. Was God uncaring? Spiteful? Aloof?
Sheila is not unique. Many of us express deep doubts about God and mercy at painful moments in our lives. At those times we need to hear that our faith, our religion, has not betrayed us and that we have not been fools throughout our lives.
To Sheila, and all those who have filled the terrible white heat of pain I offered a compassionate ear and understanding. God hears. He listens. God, being compassionate, feels the intimacy of our internal angst. He experiences the marvelous uplifting joy of our achievements and the despair of our crushing defeats.
And yet. He also weeps as his children are bent, wracked by pain. As the good suffer, the Holy One understands their pain intimately in the same measure that they do. In the celestial vault, God is witness to the traumas, injustice, capriciousness and wicked fate of this world. Can a father not cry when his children are afflicted?
Why, you ask. Why does God only feel your pain and not do anything to assuage the anguish?
The Torah is explicit. Man’s job is to govern in this world, to follow God’s laws and ease the burdens of our fellow. Were God to intervene in this world, enacting justice, punishing, rewarding the good, healing the sick, we would cease to exist as human beings. God governing our lives, pushing the buttons of existence means, by extension, that we are no longer in charge of our own destiny. We would have lost our independence, our ability to choose right from wrong. If wrong is removed as an option, choice is removed. We are then no longer free.
For example, if God stopped cars from running over innocent victims we would cross streets without glancing in either direction. After all, God would save us, wouldn’t He?
Or maybe He should just save the pious, the righteous and blameless? Then when someone was run over we would at least know they deserved it. Should only the pure be saved? If that were true there would be no opportunity to do teshuvah.
God rescuing the good and punishing the wicked is something we should not want. We aspire and covet the freedom to choose. We want the ability to be able to do wrong. Even it will break God’s heart. Through it all, the door is always open to teshuvah.
In my mind’s eye I can see God dancing when our yetser ha-tov(our good side) makes the world a more wholesome place. I picture God proud as his children become healers and dispensers of goodness. There is also the image of the Holy One, blessed be He, ceaselessly weeping as the innocent are hurt and moral decay consumes the fabric of society.
Sheila touched my hand. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue, got up from her chair and said, “Thank you,” and then “goodbye.”
