Wrestling with the divine

the long version

Rabbi Shmuel Boteach, author of The Wolf Shall Lie with the Lamb: The Messiah in Hasidic Thought, addresses the fundamental Jewish question of reward and suffering in this enlightening and riveting new volume. This book sheds light on the collective suffering of nations in general and on that of the solitary human being in particular. It also offers a lengthy rebuttal to the "powerless God" thesis of Rabbi Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Judaism sees death, illness, and suffering as aberrations in creation that were brought about through the sin of Adam in Eden. In Wrestling with the Divine, Boteach claims that man's mission was never to make peace with suffering and death, but to abolish them from the face of the earth by joining God as a junior partner in creation. By using such physical tools as studying medicine, giving charity, and being there in times of need and by using such spiritual means as protesting to God against injustice and demanding that He correct the flaws of the world, we help usher in an era when only goodness will prevail over the earth.