The most recent installment was last Friday (12 March 2010) and featured Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of a dozen books including When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1983), When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough: The Search for a Life That Matters (2002); Overcoming Life's Disappointments (2006), and Who Needs God (2002)?
That last one, by the way, is available on Playaway.
If you missed the NPR segment when it aired, you can listen to it online.
Kushner, wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People after the death of his first-born child. He realized then that the words he'd been using to console members of his congregation when they faced tragedy seemed remarkably empty when he faced such a tragedy himself.
The result, Kushner explains, was a modification of his personal theology. Not necessarily one that would be embraced by all segments of Judaism, but, for him, the only view that made sense. Essentially, it required him to revise the view of an omnipotent God that he had learned in seminary.
Says Kushner, "If I, walking through the wards of a hospital, have to face the fact that either God is all-powerful but not kind OR thoroughly kind and loving but not totally powerful, I would rather compromise God's power and affirm his love."
Kushner goes on to say, "I've had people from a more traditional perspective saying to me, 'Don't you think maybe this was God's plan -- that by going through this terrible tragedy you would be stimulated to write this book which has brought comfort to millions?'"
"And my answer [is]: If that was God's plan, it's a bad bargain. I don't want to have to deal with a God like that."
"I don't believe that God sends the tragedy so that we will grow spiritually," says Kushner. "Once it happens, I think God's role is to give us the strength and the vision to come through it and come through it with our faith intact."
Clearly this isn't everyone's idea of faith or even everyone's idea of Judaism, but it's a point of view expressed with great thoughtfulness and great compassion by a brave spiritual thinker who clearly takes "the long view."
What's your view? Click on the COMMENT link to share your thoughts.
Posted by David Perrotta, MLIS
Playaway Senior Content Strategist
Twitter: david_perrotta
