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When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Paperback)
by Harold S. Kushner
| Category:
Spirituality, Inspiration |
| Market price: ¥ 118.00
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¥ 108.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Wise and compassionate advice on how to cope with tragedy, what to do about anger and how to keep from feeling guilty. |
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Author: Harold S. Kushner
Publisher: Anchor
Pub. in:
ISBN: 1400034728
Pages: 176
Measurements: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00123
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- Awards & Credential -
The inspirational #1 bestseller with over 4 million copies sold. |
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- MSL Picks -
Harold S. Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a highly recommendable book, which addresses questions that arise from the occurrence of certain sufferings. Kushner adeptly assesses these sufferings, especially with a focus on a reassessment of faith and comes up with possible answers to the previously unanswerable. Kushner reflects on his own tragic loss of his son in compiling his compelling book.
Kushner's book is written in a style and with a reading ease, which allows a greater portion of readers from disparaging reading levels to complete this book. Since there is no point in writing a self-help book, concerning human tragedies, which requires potential readers first to read a self-help book on reading skills, it is apparent that the resulting reading level of When Bad Things Happen to Good People is more so a calculated result, rather than a reflection of author Harold Kushner's writing abilities. The mere fact that this book has sold over four million copies speaks volumes about its effectiveness as a self-help book.
The first words in Kushner's book relay to readers, "This is not an abstract book about God and theology." However, Kushner makes countless references to theologies concerning abstract thoughts about god. For example, Kushner has this to say about suffering, "God does not cause our misfortunes. Some are caused by bad luck, some are caused by bad people, and some are simply an inevitable consequence of our being human and being mortal, living in a world of inflexible natural laws." This view was forged in Kushner's mind from the point that he was a theological student; therefore, this represents a theology, which Harold Kushner assured his readers would not be a concern of his book. Even so, Kushner's use of basic theological commentary plays an integral role in communicating his message to readers, even if he had not intended to include theological content.
One of Kushner's greatest motivations for writing this book was for "the people who wanted to go on believing, but whose anger at God made it hard for them to hold on to their faith and be comforted by religion." Kushner conveys to readers his acknowledgement of God's limitations to the "laws of nature, the evolution of human nature and to human moral freedom." Instead of denouncing God's existence or his faith in God, Kushner denounced the idea that everything happens for a reason, according to God's plan. Instead, Rabbi Kushner portrays much of life's occurrences and happenings to be completely random and outside the realm of God's control.
Utilizing ancient texts as well as modern occurrences, Kushner provides examples to support a theory, which concerns suffering made popular by existentialists like Victor E. Frankl, who believes that meaning can be found in suffering. Furthermore, that once meaning is discovered in a certain social ailment, suffering ceases to be suffering at all. Kushner confers with Frankl's sentiment, adding his own thoughts when he says that bad things happen to us and "do not happen for any good reason, which would cause us to accept them willingly... We can redeem these tragedies from senselessness by imposing meaning on them." Kushner's reference to examples from ancient texts, like when Moses was able to descend a mountain with two heavy tablets inscribed by God, fighting through pain and mental anguish and fueled by hopes of conveying the inscriptions to his people, portrays the worth of a continuation of faith in God and his teachings.
If you or someone you know is suffering from a physical or mental ailment, Harold S. Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People will serve as a viable coping and healing tool. Even though Rabbi Kushner is of the Jewish faith, he portrays his message in a way, which does not favor a single religion, creating a feeling of belonging amongst readers, despite their religion. People need not wait for some tragedy to come along to pick up this book. Personally, I am not currently dealing with a loss; however, after completing this book I feel more prepared to take on the burden of coping with any unfortunate occurrences, which the future may hold.
(From quoting Jared Ballin, USA)
Target readers:
General readers.
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From Publisher
As a Young Theology Student, Harold Kushner puzzled over the Book of Job. As a small-town rabbi he counseled other people through pain and grief. But not until he learned that his three-year-old son, Aaron, would die in his early teens of a rare disease did he confront one of life's most difficult questions: Where do we find the resources to cope when tragedy strikes?
"I knew that one day I would write this book," says Rabbi Kushner. "I would write it out of my own need to put into words some of the most important things I have come to believe and know. And I would write it to help other people who might one day find themselves in a similar predicament. I am fundamentally a religious man who has been hurt by life, and I wanted to write a book that could be given to the person who has been hurt by life, and who knows in his heart that if there is justice in the world, he deserved better... If you are such a person, if you want to believe in God's goodness and fairness but find it hard because of the things that have happened to you and to people you care about, and if this book helps you do that, then I will have succeeded in distilling some blessing out of Aaron's pain and tears."
Since its original publication in 1981, When Bad Things Happen to Good People has brought solace and hope to millions. In his new preface to this anniversary edition, Rabbi Kushner relates the heartwarming responses he has received over the last two decades from people who have found inspiration and comfort within these pages.
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WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
THIS is not an abstract book about God and theology. It does not try to use big words or clever ways of rephrasing questions in an effort to convince us that our problems are not really problems, but that we only think they are. This is a very personal book, written by someone who believes in God and in the goodness of the world, someone who has spent most of his life trying to help other people believe, and was compelled by a personal tragedy to rethink everything he had been taught about God and God's ways.
Our son Aaron had just passed his third birthday when our daughter Ariel was born. Aaron was a bright and happy child, who before the age of two could identify a dozen different varieties of dinosaur and could patiently explain to an adult that dinosaurs were extinct. My wife and I had been concerned about his health from the time he stopped gaining weight at the age of eight months, and from the time his hair started falling out after he turned one year old. Prominent doctors had seen him, had attached complicated names to his condition, and had assured us that he would grow to be very short but would be normal in all other ways. Just before our daughter's birth, we moved from New York to a suburb of Boston, where I became the rabbi of the local conger- gation. We discovered that the local pediatrician was doing research in problems of children's growth, and we introduced him to Aaron. Two months later - the day our daughter was born - he visited my wife in the hospital, and told us that our son's condition was called progeria, "rapid aging." He went on to say that Aaron would never grow much beyond three feet in height, would have no hair on his head or body, would look like a little old man while he was still a child, and would die in his early teens.
How does one handle news like that? I was a young, inexperienced rabbi, not as familiar with the process of grief as I would later come to be, and what I mostly felt that day was a deep, aching sense of unfairness. It didn't make sense. I had been a good person. I had tried to do what was right in the sight of God. More than that, I was living a more religiously committed life than most people I knew, people who had large, healthy families. I believed that I was following God's ways and doing His work. How could this be happening to my family? If God existed, if He was minimally fair, let alone loving and forgiving, how could He do this to me?
And even if I could persuade myself that I deserved this punishment for some sin of neglect or pride that I was not aware of, on what grounds did Aaron have to suffer? He was an innocent child, a happy, outgoing three-year-old. Why should he have to suffer physical and psychological pain every day of his life? Why should he have to be stared at, pointed at, wherever he went? Why should he be condemned to grow into adolescence, see other boys and girls beginning to date, and realize that he would never know marriage or fatherhood? It simply didn't make sense.
Like most people, my wife and I had grown up with an image of God as an all-wise, all-powerful parent figure who would treat us as our earthly parents did, or even better. If we were obedient and deserving, He would reward us. If we got out of line, He would discipline us, reluctantly but firmly. He would protect us from being hurt or from hurting ourselves, and would see to it that we got what we deserved in life.
Like most people, I was aware of the human tragedies that darkened the landscape - the young people who died in car crashes, the cheerful, loving people wasted by crippling diseases, the neighbors and relatives whose retarded or men tally ill children people spoke of in hushed tones. But that awareness never drove me to wonder about God's justice, or to question His fairness. I assumed that He knew more about the world than I did.
Then came that day in the hospital when the doctor told us about Aaron and explained what progeria meant. It contradicted everything I had been taught. I could only repeat over and over again in my mind, "This can't be happening. It is not how the world is supposed to work." Tragedies like this were supposed to happen to selfish, dishonest people whom I, as a rabbi, would then try to comfort by assuring them of God's for- giving love. How could it be happening to me, to my son, if what I believed about the world was true?
I read recently about an Israeli mother who, every year on her son s birthday, would leave the birthday party, go into the privacy of her bedroom, and cry, because her son was now one year closer to military service, one year closer to putting his life in danger, possibly one year closer to making her one of the thousands of Israeli parents who would have to stand at the grave of a child fallen in battle. I read that, and I knew exactly how she felt. Every year, on Aaron's birthday, my wife and I would celebrate. We would rejoice in his growing up and growing in skill. But we would be gripped by the cold foreknowledge that another year's passing brought us closer to the day when he would be taken from us.
I knew then that one day I would write this book. I would write it out of my own need to put into words some of the most important things I have come to believe and know. And I would write it to help other people who might one day &d themselves in a similar predicament. I would write it for all those people who wanted to go on believing, but whose anger at God made it hard for them to hold on to their faith and be comforted by religion. And I would write it for all those people whose love for God and devotion to Him led them to blame themselves for their suffering and persuade themselves that they deserved it.
There were not many books, as there were not many people, to help us when Aaron was living and dying. Friends tried, and were helpful, but how much could they really do? And the books I turned to were more concerned with defending God's honor, with logical proof that bad is really good and that evil is necessary to make this a good world, than they were with curing the bewilderment and the anguish of the parent of a dying child. They had answers to all of their own questions, but no answer for mine.
I hope that this book is not like those. I did not set out to write a book that would defend or explain God. There is no need to duplicate the many treatises already on the shelves, and even if there were, I am not a formally trained philosopher. I am fundamentally a religious man who has been hurt by life, and I wanted to write a book that could be given to the person who has been hurt by life - by death, by illness or injury, by rejection or disappointment - and who knows in his heart that if there is justice in the world, he deserved better. What can God mean to such a person? Where can he turn for strength and hope? If you are such a person, if you want to believe in God's goodness and fairness but find it hard because of the things that have happened to you and to people you care about, and if this book helps you do that, then I will have succeeded in distilling some blessing out of Aaron's pain and tears.
If I ever find my book bogging down in technical theological explanations and ignoring the human pain which should be its subject, I hope that the memory of why I set out to write it will pull me back on course. Aaron died two days after his fourteenth birthday. This is his book, because any attempt to make sense of the world's pain and evil will be judged a success or a failure based on whether it offers an acceptable explanation of why he and we had to undergo what we did. And it is his book in another sense as well - because his life made it possible, and because his death made it necessary.
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| View all 9 comments |
Norman Vincent Peale (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
This is a book that all humanity needs. It will help one to understand the painful vicissitudes of this life and stand up to them creatively. |
Norman Cousins (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
Almost every great novelist has dealt with the theme of inexplicable illness... Harold Kushner deals with this question with deep insight and provides invaluable reassurance. |
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
Offers a moving and humane approach to understanding life's windstorms. It raises many questions that will challenge your mind and test your faith regarding the ultimate questions of life and death. |
Andrew M. Greeley (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-27 00:00>
A touching, heart-warming book for all those of us who must contend with suffering, and that, of course, is all of us. |
View all 9 comments |
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