This article appeared on Page One of the Dec. 25, 2003 Jewish Advocate.

Kushner speaks and signs volumes at KI

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

On Sept. 10, 2001, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner was speaking at the Brookline Booksmith. He was full of optimism as his newest book, “Living A Life That Matters,” was about to come out. The next morning, everyone’s world was in chaos. “Everyone, from (my next door neighbor) Tom Brokaw, to Larry King, was asking ‘where was G-d, how could he have allowed this to happen?’ he recalls. The answer came to him. “G-d’s promise was never that life would be fair,” he thought. “It was that when it was time to face the unfairness of life, he would always be there.” Kushner realized he was quoting the 23^rd Psalm – “I will fear no evil because G-d is with me.” G-d, he felt, was on our side, not the side of the hijacker, the criminal, the disease.

Kushner’s “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” first published in 1981 and translated into 12 languages, established him as a bestselling, internationally-known author. He followed with a succession of similarly popular books: “Who Needs God” in 1989, “To Life! A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking” (1993). “When Children Ask About G-d: A Guide For Parents Who Don't Always Have All The Answers” (1995), “How Good Do We Have to Be? A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness” (1996), “Living A Life That Matters” (2002), and this year’s “The Lord Is My Shepherd” (2003), which Kushner says is different from all the others.

“All my other books began with a question, be it seeking integrity, coming to terms with our imperfections, etc.,” he said at his Dec. 18 Kehillath Israel speaking date. However, this book begins with an answer. Kushner says he came to see the 23rd Psalm, which is only 57 words in Hebrew, as a “compact masterpiece – a drama in three acts where the psalmist begins in a perfect, sun-drenched world of green pastures, then goes through the valley of the shadow of death, and emerges with the inner knowledge that no matter what, he is never alone.

Kushner, a graduate of Columbia University, holds six honorary degrees and has received numerous awards, including the Christopher Medal and The Yitzhak Rabin Award. He was honored in 1995 as one of 50 people who have made the world a better place over the past 50 years. He serves on the Board of Directors for the non-profit Giving Back Fund, which promotes philanthropic efforts of professional athletes and entertainers.

“There are people in this world who derive pleasure from seeing an award-winning movie,” said Rabbi William Hamilton, who introduced Kushner. “There are others who derive pleasure from attending a sporting event and still others from going to the symphony,” he continued. “Personally, I derive pleasure and meaning whenever one of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s books comes out. To have the opportunity to read what he has to say to me and to us is an incredible gift, a great source of satisfaction to those who read his books and are changed by them.”

Hamilton referred to Kushner’s appearance a part of a circuitous path. In the 1980s, Kushner took a sabbatical from his position at Temple Israel in Natick, where he remains Rabbi Emeritus today, to teach at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where Rabbi Hamilton was a student. In addition, Rabbi Manuel Saltzman, who was a predecessor Rabbi to Hamilton at KI, was a mentor to Kushner at his native Brooklyn Jewish Center. “Rabbi Kushner not only has written magnificent books on biblical figures, but he has also been the chief editor of the commentary in the Eitz Chayim Chumash, which we use in this synagogue on Shabbat and in Torah Portion classes,” Hamilton added, noting that “magan,” in the 23^rd Psalm, means circle. “Rabbi Kushner suggests that G-d is leading us in circuitous routes, without foreseeing outcomes, in ways that we least expect it,” he remarked.

Kushner spoke at KI of the need to fight the human tendency to wallow in misery, pessimism and dissatisfaction, and instead, to be grateful for what one has. “The woman whose mother and sister have died of breast cancer, the gay man who knows he is one blood test away from AIDS, know what it is to live in the valley of the shadow of death,” he said, relating how his own father, who fully recovered from a stroke, nonetheless spent his final five years in fear over every minor ache or twinge. He detailed widows who remained in a widowed state and parents who could not move on following a child’s death, believing themselves fated to be stuck in misery and loss, afraid that if they ever got over it, they would lose the person permanently. But it is not disrespectful to the loved one’s memory to continue with life, said Kushner. “When my 14-year-old son died 22 years ago, my wife and I joined Compassionate Friends.” They felt the group was therapeutic and valuable, but after a time, they “graduated” and went on. However, there were members who had not missed a meeting in over 10 years. “If the sun has gone out of your life, we still cannot turn our back on it, because by its nature, it casts shadows,” he said. “But the key to the psalm’s line is ‘through’ – ‘I walk “through’” the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Human beings are not meant to dwell in darkness.

“People lose faith when something bad happens; the reality is that people lose their naïve faith, and gain a different faith,” he said, noting G-d is not a G-d who promised no happy endings, but that even if there isn’t a happy ending, he would be there. The function of religion, he cautioned, was not to explain, or to justify, but rather, to comfort. In the case of a retarded person, he said, “a religious person should ask not why did G-d permit this, but what can be done to give this person a fulfilling life. Not to explain, but to comfort.”

Harvard Divinity School instructor Harvey Cox, Kushner said, commented that seder attendees just don’t get that Elijah is not coming. “You have to be Elijah,” said Kushner. “You have to be the Messiah. If you wait for someone to come and fix what is wrong with the world, you’ll be waiting a long time. People believed that G-d in his time would end the Diaspora and return us to the land, but ultimately, they took it into their own hands and established the state of Israel. You want a world where the rich don’t take advantage of the poor, where there is less crime – but it’s not going to happen until the majority of the people insist on it and do what has to be done,” he said, calling it a transition from waiting for the Messiah to working in the Messianic era. It will be when people are inspired by G-d to make it happen.

The line “my cup runneth over,” Kushner said, meant that if you cannot control what happens to you in your life, you can always control how you feel about it. “The poet Auden wrote that ‘weather is what nasty people are nasty about and nice people celebrate,” he said. “Some people are simply kvetches.” They gloat over others’ wealth and happiness, wish they were smarter, better looking. He cited the pills he himself takes for blood pressure and cholesterol, declaring his gratitude that he had lived long enough to experience the infirmities of age.

“Goodness and mercy shall follow me” - this, Kushner interpreted, called for people to stop chasing rainbows and successes and rather, slow down and let goodness chase them. “There are some blessings that you can’t chase down,” he said. “The only way you can get them is if you stop and let them find you. Stop and say I have enough.”

While we can’t avoid the pain in the world, he said, we can survive it, “Bad luck should never cause you to lose faith in yourself; bad people should never cause you to lose faith in humanity. The human spirit will always rise above failure. Fear will assault us, but we will not be afraid.”

“Rabbi Kushner writes in the Chumash – ‘I have enough, my brother,’” said Hamilton. “Rabbi Kushner comments there is an art to accepting gifts and compliments, just as there is an art to extending them. Tonight, there is a gift.

It is no accident, as the phrase says, that not only do I have enough, but I have a Rav, our Rabbi.”