We Will Survive—Once Again

The Book of Job offers a mystifying tale.

We are introduced to Job and learn he is a righteous and blameless man. And yet he suffers unimaginable pain. His children are killed. His wealth is plundered. He is afflicted with a debilitating disease.

He wonders aloud about his horrifying plight and cries, “Perish the day on which I was born.” (Job 3) The remainder of the book offers a litany of responses to his cries of pain. All prove inadequate. Job’s friends suggest he is responsible for his own troubles.

Their theology is simplistic. Their words add to their friend’s pain. There are no words that can adequately respond to such suffering.

Perhaps this is why Sephardic congregations read Job this coming Tuesday, on Tisha B’Av. This day marks the destruction of the first and second Temples, as well as countless other Jewish tragedies such as the expulsion from Spain. And if one is to believe news reports Iran is also plotting to attack Israel on this day. Even though we know it was the Babylonians and then the Romans who destroyed the Temples and forced the Jewish people into exile, the reasons how this was allowed to happen remain mysterious.

Historians, and rabbis, debate. They argue about explanations. The rabbis suggest it was internal strife that provided the opening for the Romans to level Jerusalem. Jeremiah, like Job’s friends, suggests the Babylonians were God’s instruments chastising Israel for its sins.

After nearly forty chapters of give and take between Job and his friends, God finally responds and thunders, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Speak if you have understanding.” (Job 38) God’s answer does little to quell the mystery.

Suffering persists. Its pain lingers.

Professor Jack Miles in his fascinating book, GOD: A Biography, writes,

Within the Book of Job itself, God's climactic and overwhelming reply seems to silence Job. But reading from the end of the Book of Job onward, we see that it is Job who has somehow silenced God. God never speaks again, and he is decreasingly spoken of. In the Book of Esther—a book in which, as in the Book of Exodus, his chosen people faces a genocidal enemy—he is never so much as mentioned. In effect, the Jews surmount the threat without his help.

And once again, we are left on our own.

The suffering and pain continue to defy explanation.

Tisha B’Av represents God’s withdrawal from history. The story we fashion since that terrible day is how we manage to defy history.

The threat lingers. We will surmount it once again.