when our lives are new, when we have just become adults, it is hard to look backward to see the pattern which exists in our lives. but when we've lived a little longer, the pattern becomes clear.

for example, in junior and high school, i studied many things. still in school, i was convinced that some of these things were useless. i believed my art and languages would be useful. but as to some of the other things, i wasn't so sure.

as it turns out, i've run a company for a friend ... i used my knowledge of bookkeeping (also in my checking account too), i started a couple small businesses, and used that knowledge again. i used every single language i've studied while working in law and much to my surprise, i've used some of them while working as an engineer. my skills as a housewife were less critical.... but helpful. my experience in facing severe emotional traumas in my family stood me in good stead, because no matter what happened later, it wasn't that bad. and i knew how to weather storms in life. when i lost my job, then lost my home and lived on the streets for more than a year, i learned that that which i believed to be the absolute worst wasn't ... indeed, it was survivable... and much to my surprise, i had time to really look around me and see the beauty in my world.

you see.... the world is a very very good place. the trees stand tall in all kinds of weather. rain drops sparkle at night on glass when city lights shine through them. snow insulates and actually warms....

.... i have survived. and i have seen a part of gd.'s face.... there are still many things i do not understand. but i know my husband's death was a blessing. my son's death, i'm not so sure. but life goes on. birth is a doorway. and who isn't to say that birth is actually a 'death' of another kind of life about which we've forgotten and death the beginning of a life we have yet to reach.

I'm no longer a believer in a literal, anthropomorphic God, so the question of theodicy doesn't interest me in more than an academic way. I did want to comment, though, that Rabbi Blech's article employs a form of the "hidden harmony" argument explicitly and eloquently rejected by Rabbi Harold Kushner in his When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

If I were still a theist, I might be more partial to Kushner's understanding of human suffering than to Blech's, though I found much to like about Blech's article, including the anecdote from the Besh't.

One thing I've found profoundly disturbing is Peter Berger's treatment of theodicy in The Sacred Canopy (Chapter 3, I think). Berger envisions something like an abuse dynamic, in which the powerless craft explanations that keep them from hating the all-powerful abuser. Berger's definition of theodicy is wide enough to include nontheistic religions, which I suppose is why I mention it.

"Hidden harmony" would be, by Berger's reckoning, just such a coping strategy. God doesn't need to justify himself when we rush to do his work for him.

I suppose my own response to Berger is that he makes a mistake: he tries to paint our tendency to craft theodicies as somehow perverse. The problem is that, if so many people do it, then this isn't exactly a marginal phenomenon. Far from being perverse, it's actually pretty natural to "theodicize" (if that's a word).

A really interesting take on the theodicy question is from a "theological science fiction" novel called Blameless in Abaddon, by James Morrow. It's the second in a series, but can be read alone. I highly recommend it, but you have to be able to stomach morbid humor. The book can be hilarious, but it can also make you squirm.

Hapjang,

Kevin Kim