Harold Kushner

But through this suffering, we become transformed and we can then be married to Christ in a more significant way.

And I think just to double back to another rabbi, Rabbi Harold Kushner, who I think a lot of people have read because he wrote, why do bad things happen to good people? And it's a valid question.

Why do bad things happen to good people? And if you know Rabbi Kushner's story, you know that he had a son who had progeria, which is a genetic disorder where children age very, very quickly.

And recently, one of the oldest survivors of progeria passed away at the age of 28.

Here's another book.

Enthusiastically endorsed by Rabbi Harold Kushner is Forgiving for Good, a Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness by Dr. Fred Lutskin, director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project.

Several chapters are devoted to exploring the reasons you are better off, on page 236 at the top, when you choose to forgive.

The Good Doctor offers this virtual guarantee.

But this is, by the way, this is the reason of...

I think his name was Harold Kushner, if I'm not mistaken.

He was a conservative slash reform so-called, I think, rabbi.

And he unfortunately, unfortunately had a disaster occur to him in his life.

I mean, I'm not posting exercises so much these days.

I'm posting thoughts I have, quotes from other people, and the one that I posted today was from one of Harold Kushner's books, and it just really resonated with me.

It's like when I was younger, I really thought highly of people who were clever in certain ways, and now I really gravitate and find value in people who are kind.

Right.

Do you read a lot of fiction? I don't think I've heard you reference many fiction books.

Not a lot, but I feel like I've read all these spiritual philosophy, humanity, self-help books, and the stories are just repeating, repeating.

I love Harold Kushner's stuff.

I've been deep diving all of his stuff.

And how often are we guilty of saying these words? Should, ought and must.

Can I say that the Christian faith here offers some help? I've read books by Rabbi Harold Kushner.

And he once said that my religious faith satisfies the most fundamental human need of all.

That is, he said, the need to know that somehow we matter, that our lives mean something, that they count as something more than just a momentary blip in the universe.

We all have these mysterious chapters, things that seem painful and pointless and impossible to explain.

And we wonder if there really is a good sovereign God directing all of this, why doesn't he show up more often? Why doesn't any of this make sense? In the 1980s, there was a Jewish rabbi named Harold Kushner who wrote a New York Times bestselling book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

It was prompted by the tragic and untimely death of his teenage son.

It became a classic book in our culture, one that's still referenced down to this day.

The prisoners were all average men, but some at least, by choosing to be worthy of their suffering, proved by serving against unsurmountable odds man's capacity to rise above our outward fates, whether they are deserved or undeserved, explained or unexplained, just or unjust, or from sources unknown, good or evil.

In the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, one of the concluding remarks is by Harold Kushner.

In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how will we respond, what we intend to do about it now that the tragic event has happened.

Are you capable of forgiving and accepting in love a world which has disappointed you because it isn't perfect, a world in which there is so much unfairness and cruelty, disease, poverty, crime, earthquake, flood, and accident? Can you forgive the world's imperfections and love life because it is capable of containing great beauty and goodness and moments that are literally heaven on earth and because it is the only world we have? Are you capable of forgiving and loving the people around you, even if they have hurt you at times and let you down for not being perfect? Can you forgive them and love them because there aren't any perfect around except you and I, and I'm not too sure about you? And because the penalty for being able to love imperfect people is condemning oneself to loneliness, are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found that his world is not perfect and free from pain and But understand it is for our growth in this mortal probation.