Word: rabbies
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...Rabbi Harold Kushner's effort to restore religious faith to those whose personal calamities have caused them to forsake it is desperate and misguided [July 19]. Giving up belief ought to be seen as the valid conclusion to a tragedy. It is remarkable that disasters of every sort can be contorted into reasons to continue, rather than abandon, religious conviction...
...Rabbi Pinchas Stolper Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations New York City
...addition to his full-time duties as rabbi in a suburban New England town, Harold Kushner has become rabbi to a nationwide congregation. It all began in 1966 when Kushner's son Aaron was found to have progeria, a rare disease that drastically accelerates the aging process. Aaron died in 1977 at the age of 14, with the body of a small old man. The depression and grief threw Kushner into a shock of theological doubt: How could God be a force for good if such an unwarranted horror could be visited on one of his own ministers...
...Bloesch's understanding of evil requires, in the final analysis, almost unquestioning trust. But, he says, "we can only trust a God who is omnipotent as well as all loving. A God who isn't quite in control would be a God who is unworthy of worship. Rabbi Kushner's answer is unsatisfactory...
...Rabbi Neil Gillman, a philosophy professor at Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City, says flatly, "Kushner misunderstands Job. He is willing to do away with God's omnipotence, and this is a radical break with the Jewish past. All the traditional answers say that God is in some way responsible for suffering; Kushner says, 'Maybe he's not.' His position is very problematic as a solution to the problem of evil, and a lot of my students find it very difficult to take. I personally would have trouble gaining comfort and consolation from...