Finding Light in the Darkness
A Book Review
Who does not feel a sense of dread when hearing of a friend or acquaintance stricken with cancer – especially if they are young, especially if they have children, especially if they are ordinary people, just like us? Could it happen to me or my loved one? we wonder. And how would we cope? Surely, it is a test too great to bear.
It happened to Elana Rosenblatt. She and her husband discovered that she had cancer at the age of 27. They were affiliated with Aish HaTorah in England, and both Elana and her husband wrote about what they were going through on the Aish web site. Many people around the world were davening for Elana. Unfortunately, she was nifteres on August 8, 2001, leaving a heartbroken husband and four small children.
Six years later, Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt has written a book, Finding Light in the Darkness: The Toughest Challenges and How to Grow From Them. Although it starts off with a short summary of his life with Elana, most of the book is devoted to such issues as why do bad things happen to good people? What is the purpose of pain? Is G-d fair? Can a person be happy knowing that his life will soon end? Can a person understand his own suffering? Is pain or death a punishment? What is the purpose of prayer, if our request is not fulfilled?
These are basic though not simple questions that no human being can escape as he or she goes through life. They are questions that get to the heart of Judaism and, indeed, all world religions. Never has there been an individual or a generation that has not struggled to understand the painful reality of suffering. What I found so moving and riveting about this book is that it is written in a way that anybody can understand. Most important is that the answers that Rabbi Rosenblatt gives are not theoretical; they are tested by true experience.
One of the techniques that Rabbi Rosenblatt and his wife worked on to increase their awareness of G-d in their lives was learning how to be grateful for the good that they had. They made a decision when she first became sick that they didn’t have a choice about whether or not she would have cancer, but they did have a choice about how they would respond to that cancer. Instead of letting angry and bitterness overcome them, they developed mechanisms to deal with their incredibly difficult circumstances. Their deep trust in the goodness of G-d and their belief that there are answers humans can understand helped them face this terrible test in a way that I found very inspiring. Amazingly, even amidst the chemotherapy and all the accompanying illness and fear, they did find things to be grateful for. They realized that the fact that there is a commandment to be happy proves that happiness is in our control and is not dependent on outside circumstances. The book talks about many techniques that can help a person cultivate that feeling of gratefulness and happiness.
I have often wondered whether it is possible for an ordinary person who lives in our times to reach such closeness to G-d in a time of true suffering. When I read about great people who lived a generation ago – and certainly many generations ago – it is hard to feel connected to their reality. But in this book, it is obvious that we are talking about an ordinary contemporary family. Shaul Rosenblatt’s insights are so much more meaningful in that context. The questions he raises are difficult enough to answer in theory (and could even be offensive if written by someone who never went through such a challenge), but when a person is actually living through a terminal illness and is still able to think about the meaning of his or her own suffering, it is quite remarkable.
The author describes how he struggled with the words in Psalms, “G-d is our savior. Our King will answer us on the day that we call.” He had called and called for almost three years, and he had not been answered. His wife had still died. Rabbi Noah Weinberg gave him an answer that felt right to him. He had been praying for G-d to heal his wife. While she was not healed physically, she was healed spiritually. As he writes “While her body was as sick as a body can be, her soul was healthier than anyone I had ever met. Even two days before her passing, she told me that she would not swap places with anyone.” A young mother on her death bed feels that her close connection to G-d developed over the years of her sickness is worth more than life itself!
How can bad things happen to good people? That really depends on how you define the word bad. If the goal of our sojourn on this earth is to become close to G-d, then maybe the definition of bad is not events that we perceive as unpleasant but, rather, anything that takes us further away from G-d. If so, any situation in which we find ourselves can be either good or bad, depending on what we do with the situation: using it to come closer to G-d or succumbing to negativity and letting ourselves be drawn further away. This way of approaching the question that has bothered humanity since the creation of the world was new to me. The question and much more are explored in this book in a clear and moving way. When I finished reading it, I was filled with awe at the great heights a person, even in our days, can reach when they search with honesty for answers.
