“What happened to you? Why does your heart ache?”

I was talking with a woman recently who faces a lot of challenges. She struggles with a physical disability, is prone to depression, has had some significant losses in her life over the past year and recently lost part of her income due to a computer glitch (which she will get back but it causes short term hardship). And then during the recent heavy rains, her roof started leaking.  In the course of our meeting, she joked, “I bet that even Job wouldn’t trade places with me!”

Today’s first reading is from the book of Job, and this is one of the more complex stories of the Hebrew scriptures. God is kind of boasting to Satan what a great guy Job is, and Satan basically says, “I bet I can get him to curse you if his luck changes…” God says, “You’re on!” And then Satan sends a whole bunch of calamities Job’s way.

Some of us probably feel similar to Job – the bad news seems to keep coming our way, and when it rains it pours! 

Now I don’t think that God really acts upon human lives the way we see God portrayed today. The book of Job was trying to answer the very real question, “Why do people suffer?”

I wonder what ways you have found to answer that question for yourself.

It is significant to note that at the end of the book of Job no clear response is given to him as to why he suffered. It may not be that different for us as we are likely met with a deafening divine silence when we ask God, “Why?” during our prayer.

I know that in my role as a counselor this question of “Why?” comes up constantly and can take up a lot of space in our head and hearts.

People ask questions like: 

The only thing in life I wanted was a child. Why can’t I get pregnant?

Why did my partner have to die?

Why was my parent so abusive?

Why did I get cancer?

I’m not sure any reason we come up with will help to ease the pain very much. But we ask anyway.

I also think about not just why we suffer but what happens to us when we suffer.

This week marks the start of the high holidays in the Jewish tradition, and I know that I have found some incredible wisdom related to suffering from Jewish authors. I have been particularly taken recently by a story told by Rabbi Sharon Brous.

She writes about a Jewish pilgrimage ritual that emerged out of the second temple era in Jewish history (6th century BCE).  She says, “Several times each year, hundreds of thousands of Jews would ascend to Jerusalem, the center of Jewish religious and political life. They would climb the steps of the Temple Mount and enter its enormous plaza, turning to the right en masse, circling counterclockwise.

Meanwhile, the brokenhearted and the mourners (and here I would also include the lonely and the sick), would make this same ritual walk but they would turn to the left and circle in the opposite direction: every step against the current.

And each person who encountered someone in pain would look into that person’s eyes and inquire: “What happened to you? Why does your heart ache?”

“My father died,” a person might say. “There are so many things I never got to say to him.” Or perhaps: “My partner left. I was completely blindsided.” Or: “My child is sick. We’re awaiting the test results.”

Those who walked from the right would offer a blessing: “May the Holy One comfort you,” they would say. “You are not alone.” And then they would continue to walk until the next person approached.”

This story brings me to tears every time I read it. One of the reasons I find it so powerful is that when our suffering is acknowledged by others, I think the why questions fade a bit. We know we’re not alone in whatever we’re going through, and so we get less caught up in why it’s happening because we know that others might bear it with us somehow.

Rabbi Brous goes on to draw two fundamental conclusions about this story.

First, while we may never know “Why?” what happened to us happened, we can be held and hold each other in it. The beauty of the ritual pilgrimage is that – at certain times – we will ALL be walking on the left. And at other times, we will be the ones on the right. We can offer small, heartfelt gestures to each other that provide comfort in the midst of not knowing and uncertainty.

Rabbi Brous goes on to say that one of the categories of people who went “to the left” each year were the ones who were ostracized (for various reasons).  These were the people who were exculded, banished or excommunicated from the wider community – the people who no longer were recognized.

We hear echoes of this in today’s gospel from Luke 9 where the disciples witness someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name (whom they did not recognize) and try to prevent this person because they were not part of the identified “Jesus-club.” Instead of getting curious about that person, they move to exclude.

And so the second main purpose of this ritual, says Rabbi Brous, is to make sure no one’s pain is excluded from the community. Those who have hurt us, those with whom we disagree, those whom we despise all walk in the circle. They, too, are asked, “What has happened to you?” and they, too, will ask this of others.

Like Job, we’re probably never going to get answers for our suffering where we say, “Oh, phew, that makes sense!” Pain hurts, and at times it cuts pretty deep. But what I hope is that we can create communities of people who recreate the ritual that is described where those in pain are held and those who are doing well in this moment help to hold the pain of others (knowing full well that if we’re doing well now, we might be turning left next year!).