fering.” But the two knew that, from the day he was
born to this day, Rabbi Zusya’s life had been a web of
need and anguish. Then they knew what it was to ac-
cept suffering with love. (Buber, 1947, pp. 217–218)
Innumerable midrashim embrace the doctrine of vicari-
ous suffering. With regard to the Song of Songs, Raba states:
“As the dove stretches out her neck to the slaughter, so do
the Israelites, for it was said, ‘For thy sake we are killed all
day long’ (Ps. 44:22). As the dove atones for sins, so the Isra-
elites atone for the nation.”
In this process of the transformation of the world
through vicarious suffering, the role of the suffering individ-
ual and that of the prophet become linked with the idea of
the suffering people. This concept appears in the passages in
Isaiah 53 on the suffering servant, who is the great symbol
of vicarious suffering. The controversy over whether the
phrase suffering servant refers to an individual or to the peo-
ple as a whole can be resolved once it is seen that it stands
for both: the prophet is to the people as Israel is to the na-
tions. Just as the nations resist the witness of Israel, so the
people resist the word of the prophet.
Jewish tradition affirms that there is a correlation be-
tween one’s suffering and one’s actions, that suffering is self-
inflicted. There is, therefore, a just order of things, in the
sense that evil acts bring about evil consequences. However,
in late biblical and postbiblical Judaism, the doctrine of im-
mortality and resurrection was introduced to account for the
suffering of the innocent, which saves the justice of God by
positing perfect retribution and reward in the world to come.
It is often suggested that the wicked flourish because they are
allowed to consume, while still in this world, whatever re-
ward may be due to them, and the righteous suffer because
they are exhausting whatever penalties they may have in-
curred. In qabbalistic (mystical) Judaism, the doctrine of re-
incarnation was accepted as a means of solving this problem,
in that human souls were given repeated chances to atone in
this world before a final judgment.
Nevertheless, Judaism finds suffering to be a very harsh,
crippling, and disastrous experience—one that a person
should strive to avoid whenever possible. Throughout their
long history of suffering, persecution, exile, torture, and
death, the Jewish people have wrestled with the perplexing
problem of why they seem to have experienced such a degree
of suffering. Even “the resolve to observe the command-
ments was, in itself, the cause of death and suffering” (Ur-
bach, 1975, p. 442). Faced with the choice of disobeying
God or submitting to the ultimate suffering of martyrdom,
the rabbis refused to be swayed into any kind of masochistic
fervor; they still realistically recognized how dreadful suffer-
ing is. All sufferings, as well as terrible martyrdoms, were not
simply acquiesced to, but fiercely questioned.
Jewish teaching clearly acknowledges that there is great
injustice in the world and great suffering on the part of the
innocent. The pain and death of children is a frequent exam-
ple, as is the slaughter of millions in wars, political upheavals,
and concentration camps. Jewish tradition deals with this
problem of mass suffering, of the undifferentiated fate of the
innocent and the guilty, by claiming that this is an unfin-
ished world in which justice and peace are not given, but
have to be won. Suffering is a necessary part of completing
this world, and the individuals who take up the burden of
striving to perfect it also suffer.Such a concept, however, does not explain why God
would so constitute the world, nor does it fully account for
the sufferings of those ordinary people who are caught up in
wars, earthquakes, or other human or natural catastrophes.
Therefore, a tendency can be found in the rabbinic tradition
to consider the problem of suffering as one of the areas be-
yond full human comprehension. In the popular tractate
Avot (c. 200 CE), a portion of the Mishnah, Rabbi Yanna’i
states: “It is not in our power to explain either the prosperity
of the wicked or the affliction of the righteous” (4.19). The
terrible death by torture of the venerable ‘Aqiva’ ben Yosef
at the hands of the Romans (second century CE) illustrates
the point. It is said that, on Sinai, Moses was granted a vision
of the learning and wisdom of ‘Aqiva’ in expounding Torah
and then was given another vision of the rabbi’s martyrdom.
When Moses protested to God, “Master of the Universe, is
this the Torah and this its Reward?” he was told, “Be silent,
for this is the way I have determined it” (B. T., Men. 29b).God also suffers: he is a God who cares for his creatures
and yet is unable to prevent their suffering. He is so intimate-
ly concerned with human destiny that what men and women
do affects him directly: “In their afflictions I was afflicted”
(Is. 63:9; cf. Ps. 91:15, Gn. 6:5–6). This is also poignantly
illustrated in various midrashim where God is pictured as
weeping and needing consolation because of all the suffering
and tragedy in the world: “When God remembers his chil-
dren who dwell in misery among the nations of the world,
he causes two tears to descend to the ocean and the sound
is heard from one end of the world to the other” (B. T.,
Ber. 59a).
CHRISTIANITY. Many of the same responses to suffering
found in Judaism are also quite understandably evidenced in
Christian thought. For example, the statement in Proverbs
22:8 that one brings about one’s own suffering (“He that so-
weth iniquity shall reap calamity”) is paralleled in Matthew
26:52: “They that take the sword shall perish with the
sword.” In his letter to the Galatians, Paul concurs: “Whatso-
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Nu-
merous passages, both in the New Testament and in other
Christian writings, indicate that suffering is the just payment
for sin. Such a penalty may even come in the form of a swiftly
executed death sentence, as in the cases of Ananias and Sap-
phira (Acts 5:1–11) and the profanation of the eucharist ( 1
Cor. 11:29–30). However, in John 9:3, Jesus specifically re-
jects the notion that suffering is always the result of sin, as-
serting that a man’s blindness was caused neither by his own
nor his parents’ sin.8806 SUFFERING