On Suffering ~ A Message From Rabbi Burt

Going through hardship, difficult and painful times is inescapable. As such, a religious philosophy has to honestly deal with suffering as well as the myriad joys we celebrate as  part of our lives. The closer we are  to difficult times, the more we can become aware of spiritual and religious teachings that help us to see more clearly how to relate to pain and suffering. In today’s blog, I’d like to emphasize our relationship to the suffering of other people, rather than our own. Through our own experience of suffering, our hearts can be softened and can become more sensitive to the suffering of others.

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The past few years, I think everyone knows, have been difficult because of health problems. I’m blessed with resilience and an abundance of optimism, so I can see this time of my life beginning to fade and a time of renewed health about to dawn. My resilience and optimism are nothing I take any credit for; they are a gift from Nature and God.

Without pretending to be humble, I have a long way to go in my spiritual growing before I can say that I’m anything more than a few steps along on the spiritual path I envision for myself. But, I have learned a few spiritual lessons that I try as best as I can to weave into the fabric of my life. I believe that I can understand suffering more easily.

As I think about the suffering of others, I realize how vital it is to try the very, very best we can, to not inflict suffering on other people. I know it’s not always easy. We have our moods, our dark days, our wounds and our “boiling points.” And sometimes it’s very hard to know what will cause suffering to someone else. Usually it’s quite obvious, but there are scars and vulnerabilities that people have that we just can’t see or understand.

Given all our challenges that make it impossible to never cause pain to others, we just have to live with the problematic reality that it will sometimes happen, like we have to live with lots of thorny realities. We hope we can learn, more and more as the years go on, to mercifully forgive ourselves. If you feel guilty, try to think of it as a positive sign that you are really trying to be a decent person. Guilt can be seen as a guide, not a punishment.

Sometimes all we have to do, if we unintentionally hurt someone, is to say, “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” It’s of very great importance not to blame the other person for having been hurt. Sometimes we do that. We simply will never know what might truly hurt someone.

I hope that some of my thoughts have been helpful. The thoughts I offered are, for me, religious thoughts. They embody deep levels of what religion most genuinely is. Genuine religious thoughts and spiritual insights are the foundation of the Shul. That’s why we call it “The Synagogue for Spiritual Judaism.”