It is typical of people facing challenges and difficulties to ask: “Why me?”  It is the human condition to feel undone by the suffering and to question G-D and His fairness.  At those moments, one’s faith is seriously undermined.   The psalmist offers us a different approach.  “I have kept faith although I say: “I suffer exceedingly (Psalm 116:10).”   To keep one’s faith in Hashem, it must be the yardstick by which all else is measured.  If faith is immutable, then suffering can be endured even as it is not understood.   One does not have faith despite the suffering.  Instead one has faith and one suffers.  Faith does not preclude the possibility of pain.  Faith is compatible with life and life inevitably has its painful moments.

Copyright, 2009 Rachel Lerner