Rabbi Harold Kushner

Rest in Peace

I was saddened to read the news of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s death. A monumental thinker and writer for the current generation of American Jews since the publication of his 1981 bestseller, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Kushner has reached millions of people who wrestle with faith find language for their doubts, fears and arguments with God about human suffering.

I began reading him myself when the book first came out. An 18 year old at the time, I was consumed with questions of theodicy: Where was God in the Holocaust? Why do the innocent suffer? Do we humans who seek the good have agency in a world seemingly run by evil people?

(Believe it or not, I was, despite these questions, still fun to hang out with.)

There are thus far two excellent obituaries about Rabbi Kushner and more sure to follow. One is in the New York Times by Sam Roberts and another in the Washington Post by Emily Langer. Both are very much worth reading.

Around the time of the publication of his 2015 Nine Essential Things I Learned About Life, I had the privilege of interviewing Rabbi Kushner for the Brooklyn by the Book series we launched at CBE (a brainstorm of the great Cindy Greenberg, Stephanie Valdez of the Community Bookstore and the amazing team at the Brooklyn Public Library).

A wise, brilliant, seasoned veteran of the pulpit doesn’t need too much prompting to bring his teaching to a congregation of listeners in a synagogue. So the approach with Rabbi Kushner was to let him teach. Of the many profound things he shared about his life — his own suffering and the lessons he learned from others who had suffered as well — was a rather original teaching of Psalm 23. His lesson remains with me to this day.

Psalm 23 is typically a part of the Jewish funeral liturgy. It is recited at funeral services; at the graveside; in houses of mourning; and at memorial ceremonies and services for the dead. Its words are familiar to us. (I’m choosing to use the classical translation for sake of deploying the words that are most traditionally well-known.)

מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִ֑ד יְהֹוָ֥ה רֹ֝עִ֗י לֹ֣א אֶחְסָֽר׃

A psalm of David.

The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.

בִּנְא֣וֹת דֶּ֭שֶׁא יַרְבִּיצֵ֑נִי עַל־מֵ֖י מְנֻח֣וֹת יְנַהֲלֵֽנִי׃

He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me to still waters

נַפְשִׁ֥י יְשׁוֹבֵ֑ב יַֽנְחֵ֥נִי בְמַעְגְּלֵי־צֶ֝֗דֶק לְמַ֣עַן שְׁמֽוֹ׃

He restores my soul;
He guides me in straight paths for His name’s sake.

גַּ֤ם כִּֽי־אֵלֵ֨ךְ בְּגֵ֪יא צַלְמָ֡וֶת לֹא־אִ֘ירָ֤א רָ֗ע כִּי־אַתָּ֥ה עִמָּדִ֑י שִׁבְטְךָ֥ וּ֝מִשְׁעַנְתֶּ֗ךָ הֵ֣מָּה יְנַֽחֲמֻֽנִי׃

Yea, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.

תַּעֲרֹ֬ךְ לְפָנַ֨י ׀ שֻׁלְחָ֗ן נֶ֥גֶד צֹרְרָ֑י דִּשַּׁ֥נְתָּ בַשֶּׁ֥מֶן רֹ֝אשִׁ֗י כּוֹסִ֥י רְוָיָֽה׃

You prepare a table before for me in front of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.

אַ֤ךְ ׀ ט֤וֹב וָחֶ֣סֶד יִ֭רְדְּפוּנִי כׇּל־יְמֵ֣י חַיָּ֑י וְשַׁבְתִּ֥י בְּבֵית־יְ֝הֹוָ֗ה לְאֹ֣רֶךְ יָמִֽים׃ 
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Rabbi Kushner pointed out that when we first experience death, when we try to absorb the impact of its irreversible reality, we are often in shock and denial, a state of mind first described by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 work, On Death and Dying.

Using Psalm 23 through the Kubler-Rossian lens, Rabbi Kushner argued that the Psalmist too begins the mourning experience this way. He showed how the Psalmist first refers to God in the third person, erecting a kind of barrier to intimacy that is a reflection of our own state of denial over this stunning reality. As if to say, “I know who You are God and what You are supposed to be, but right now I have my doubts about Your power. I need to keep you distant because if you are so near, why didn’t you prevent this?”

“The Lord is my shepherd; He makes me lie down; he leads he; he restores me; he guides me.” Rabbi Kushner conjured an image of a person who first faces death’s reality by reciting the theological claims about God but in the third person — a kind of admission of God’s distance from us at that moment. The inexplicability of death and the inexplicability, even inallowability of an all-powerful God who could allow it happen. The third person, Rabbi Kushner said, allows us the full range of motion to mourn. To pray aloud about Gods’s distance while also yearning for God to be near, to walk with us in our grief.

It is precisely at this moment: the inconsolable intensity of our most severe sadness, the admission to ourselves of this terrible, final blow, this walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that we switch our language from the distancing third person to the intimacy and nearness of addressing God as “You.” You are with me. Your rod and staff comfort me. You prepare a table of food for me, You anoint me, my cup overflows with your acts of chesed, kindness.

Throughout his remarkable career, Rabbi Kushner never shied away from teaching the idea that as believers we make a bargain about the God we believe in. To expect God to save us from all harm, to step in miraculously, he argued, is to subscribe to life where we have no agency or independence to choose our own path. But to live the uncertainty of God’s omnipotence to intervene directly and to take full responsibility ourselves for our fate with our fellow human beings — this is, what the theologian Emanuel Levinas referred to as a “Judaism for adults.”

Emily Langer’s obit in the Post puts it more eloquently in Kushner’s words:

“If I, walking through the wards of a hospital, have to face the fact that either God is all-powerful but not kind, or thoroughly kind and loving but not totally powerful, I would rather compromise God’s power and affirm his love,” Rabbi Kushner once told NPR.

“The theological conclusion I came to is that God could have been all-powerful at the beginning, but he chose to designate two areas of life off-limits to his power,” he continued. “He would not arbitrarily interfere with laws of nature, and secondly, God would not take away our freedom to choose between good and evil.”

Since that conversation with Rabbi Kushner, I have used versions of that teaching whenever I have used Psalm 23 at funerals, shivas, and memorials. And while I never got a chance to thank him personally, I mention his name each time so as not to run afoul of the rabbinic dictum, “Teaching another’s Torah without mentioning their name is equivalent to theft.” (Eek.)

Rabbi Kushner, thank you for the brilliant teaching you gave me; for the words you have written and spoken that have comforted and held close innumerable congregants and readers from every walk of life. May your soul find comfort in the bonds of Eternal Life and may your memory be an enduring blessing. Amen.

===

NB: I got Covid again last week and am currently on Paxlovid, the miracle drug which was designed to shorten the severity of Covid’s effects as well as hopefully prevent “long-Covid.” Paxlovid is made from a combination of protease inhibitors, Ritonavir, and Nirmatrelvir. Ritonivir has been critical in HIV treatment and both drugs were critical to fighting the SARS virus. Scientific research is an amazing human endeavor and I for one am very grateful to those who pursue it as well as to sane governments which foster such research.

Disease is disease and people are people and when we cooperate and unite to simply preserve life no matter who we are or where we come from, the world can be a very beautiful place. It’s a simple lesson that’s important to remember.