Adult Education
27th Annual Spring Class with Marc Ashley
Exiled Because of Our Sins: Jewish Perspectives on Evil and Suffering
Four class sessions on Sunday mornings at 10 am
April 12, April 19, April 26, and May 3 (Zoom only)
Click HERE to join Zoom.
Is God fair? Classical Jewish thought posits a God that is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good. Yet the enduring existence of evil and suffering in the world, on both individual and communal levels, poses a formidable challenge to the logic and viability of religious faith. How can a wholly good and just God allow the wicked to prosper, the righteous to suffer, and injustice to prevail? Even more pointedly, how can a merciful and attentive God – who established a special covenantal relationship with Jews – allow his chosen people to experience innumerable calamities?
Jewish thinkers have grappled with the thorny persistence of bad people doing evil things, causing distress to those who deserve a better fate. Jewish tradition, reflected in festival liturgy we continue to chant at Or Zarua, has often rationalized Jewish suffering as punishment for sinning. Yet cumulative atrocities – most recently the Holocaust and October 7th – make that causal connection appear theologically obscene. The perennial problem of seemingly ineradicable evil and resulting heartrending suffering can threaten Jewish belief in a caring God and puncture simple optimism in a bright future. Justice in the world may seem remote or illusory; traditional Jewish texts may offer a measure of clarity and comfort.
Please join congregant Marc Ashley as he explores these pressing issues, an inescapable feature of our fraught times, on four successive Sunday mornings between Passover and Shavuot.