How do we deal with pain and tragedies?

Emotional anguish is much greater than physical pain. The question of why an innocent person’s life had an early and abrupt ending will hurt much more than the actual pain resulting from the loss. Conversely, when someone passes away at a ripe old age the blow is much easier to deal with since there’s no anger, indignation, and feelings of injustice.

The key to dealing with this is to remember that everything is directly and constantly being controlled by God, nothing happens without His will and without a purpose. While we may never understand the reason behind a specific event, just knowing that everything is part of God’s master plan and wasn’t for nothing or part of a random and meaningless string of events can reduce the emotional pain and achieve a certain level of comfort. This in turn will make the physical ache resulting from the loss and void much more tolerable. Just as the trauma of a child receiving a vaccination needle will be less when being held and reassured by a loving parent, so to if we feel the loving embrace of God even during painful times, we will be in a much better position to endure it.

To really live with this mindset, one must have faith (“Emunah”) that everything G-d does is for the best, and that everything that happens comes from His true love of us. However, we are also required to constantly pray to God and implore Him that the future should only bring events whose goodness is apparent to us in a very revealed way. Ultimately, we must demand the end of the exile that we’re all in whereupon the reason behind all events will become revealed to us and goodness that we can all appreciate will be the only thing that occurs.

Join Rabbi Silberberg in examining all of the above in very rich detail.