This paper attempts to answer the question: Can a purpose be found in incredible suffering? The purpose of suffering will be examined with special reference to the Jewish people.

INTRODUCTION:
The Jews are an ancient race. Abraham is considered to be their patriarch. According to the Old Testament, the Lord God blessed Abraham and entered into a covenant with him, that he would bless him and all his descendants and that they would be his chosen people. Subsequently, the Jewish race has faced many trials, of which the mot agonizing was the Holocaust during the Second World War. Six million Jews were killed, and had to undergo suffering and tribulation such as never before.

SUFFERING:
Life is not a bed of roses. Man, as a human being, knows that he must go through trials and painful tribulations during his life. When these experiences cause emotions of fear, agony and pain, then he is said to be suffering. Can anything positive be born out of such a negative, pain wracked emotion? Many a time, Man is forced to cry out to his Maker with the plaintive cry, Why, Lord, Why?
Why indeed?

Of all the peoples and races on this Earth, it is perhaps the Jews most of all who cry out: Why, Lord, Why? When God blessed the children of Israel, why are they persecuted so? Why did the so-called ‘chosen race’ experience such incredible suffering as in the Holocaust?
The answer lies in the History of the Jews.

ANALYSIS OF SUFFERING:

THE ORIGIN OF SUFFERING IN THE JEWISH RACE:
God blessed Abraham and said to him: “Thy name shall be Abraham, for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee and kings shall come out of thee.” (Genesis 17: 5-6)
God entered into a covenant with Abraham and told him: “This is my covenant which you shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised.”
An everlasting covenant with God Almighty and the comfort of his blessings invoked the requirement of – circumcision. The infliction of pain. A young Jewish baby boy begins his suffering almost as soon as he has left the safety of his mother’s womb.
The inference that may be drawn is this – in order to draw man to Himself, God often demands a degree of suffering.

HISTORY OF SUFFERING OF THE JEWISH RACE:

The Jewish race is considered to be the ‘chosen race’. Yet they suffered for decades as the slaves of the Egyptian Pharaohs. Moses, their deliverer, was also exiled to the desert and had to wander about in the desert until he was an old man of eighty. God performed wonderful miracles for the Jews, but again, after he led them out of bondage into the desert, they disobeyed him and their punishment was to stay in the Desert of the Sinai for forty years. Throughout their history, the Jews were persecuted and have been the slaves of other races.
EXAMPLES OF EXTREME SUFFERING:
1. THE STORY OF JOB:
The Book of Job in the Bible deals with the story of suffering of Job, who used to be a very happy and prosperous man, but he lost everything. “Terrors are turned upon me, they pursue my soul as the wind; and my welfare passeth away as a cloud, and now my soul is poured out upon me, the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.” (Job 30:15-16)

2. THE HOLOCAUST:
How can anyone ever begin to explain extreme suffering such as that endured by the Jews during the Second World War under Adolph Hitler? Jews were beaten and starved, raped and humiliated, tortured and used as guinea pigs for all manner of hideous, barbaric experiments; gassed in ovens, buried in mass graves and exterminated like flies.

A Jew may indeed ask, Why Lord, Why?
If God had made the Jews his Chosen People and entered into a covenant with them to always protect and bless them, why do they need to experience so much suffering and misery?

DO WE NEED TO SUFFER?
Let’s consider a simple example – the pruning of a rose plant. The procedure is painful, the result is beauty. Consider the gold that is sifted out from sand – dull and rather uninspiring. Yet when it is sent through burning flames, it becomes precious and valuable.
If Man’s life were to remain happy always, how would he ever realize the value of what he has? Human nature is such that man is easily discontented, always seeking more, always bearing complaints to his Maker every day. If he had everything, would he even remember God? Thousands of average people lead average, mediocre lives; incessantly busy with mundane chores – where is the time for God? However, when Man is suffering, he will most assuredly turn to God.
So perhaps the answer to the Jews question “Why, lord, why, when we are the chosen race?” is because they are the chosen race. Therefore who needs to remember God the most? Why, the Jews.
When we examine the history of the Jews, it is possible to discern that some of the early Jews were God fearing and ‘hearkened’ unto God whenever he called. For example, Abraham and Noah. But the specter of suffering loomed large on Abraham’s life as well – when God called upon him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. But it is noteworthy that God did not allow this to actually happen and blessed Abraham ever more for his faith.

WHY DID THE HOLOCAUST HAPPEN?
How did Hitler succeed in his mad inhuman ambition? Perhaps the answer lies in the Gospel of St. Matthew (Ch. 27, verse 25), when the priests said: “Then answered all the people and said, ‘His blood be on us and our children’.”
The Jewish priesthood sanctioned the heinous crucifixion of Jesus, and the passage quoted above would appear to suggest that the Jews brought their suffering upon themselves and their descendants. By crucifying their messiah they had violated the covenant that God made with them. Therefore when evil struck, God’s protection was not available for the Jews and the priests’ sin of challenging God as quoted above actually brought down evil upon their descendants.

Ever since Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, the Jews were searching for their promised land. But they never found it for generations. Yet after the sacrifice of six million Jews, the country of Israel came into being, Jews today have found fame, wealth and comfort in the United States and other nations, and at last they have a homeland that they can truly call their own. Blessings have begun to come to them.

According to the Old Testament, the Jews have not been faithful to God. Several references are made in the Bible to the obdurate nature of the Jews and their refusal to be obedient to God. Since they are the chosen race, God tries to mould them throughout their history – and fails every time, for they are a hard people – and, sadly, they choose to learn the hard way.
Great suffering leads to great rewards. This can be illustrated by he story of Job. When Job remains faithful to God despite his misery, God rewards him finally for his demonstration of faith. “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends, also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10)

AN OPINION ON THE PURPOSE OF SUFFERING:
Is there a purpose in extreme suffering? Yes, there indeed is, and it could be nothing more than the process of ‘refining by fire.’ The Bible says, “he whom he loves he disciplines.” And “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Suffering builds strength, it builds resilience and most of all, it builds courage, which shapes a man’s character. If we consider great men and women throughout history, they have always experienced suffering and that has made them strong enough to achieve success. Nothing in this world comes easy. To quote a few examples:

(a) President Abraham Lincoln:
He was poor and illiterate and slogged away his childhood in his father’s fields. Yet he struggled through his suffering and taught himself to read. He went from one achievement to another, never pausing to look back, until the Presidency was finally his. Had he not been toughened and tempered like steel by suffering, would he have been able to achieve that high position in the White House? Possibly not, for success does not belong to the faint hearted.

(b) Helen Keller:
She was deaf, dumb and blind. The extent of her suffering would be quite unimaginable.

Many such examples may be quoted of men and women who have experienced enormous suffering, and who emerged strong and victorious. Every instance of suffering strengthens and purifies man’s soul, and makes him more worthy a receptacle of God’s mercy and blessings.

Another very important aspect that must be considered is the Point of View. When we consider suffering, and its purpose, whose Point of View are we to consider – Man’s or God’s? What would be the desirable goal in each case? Naturally, if we take man’s Point of View, the extreme suffering seems to have no purpose that is a desirable one. Man’s Point of View is from an earthly level. He sees suffering as a loathsome affliction and longs for it to be put away as quickly as possible. His goals are wealth and fame, and acceptance among other men. He is content to allow his potential to lie fallow and wade through life in the safety of shallow waters. He desires a medium, mediocre life, sans suffering.
However, when the suffering is viewed from God’s Point of View, it’s a different matter. God is not really concerned about man’s material or mundane worldly achievements – his concern is for the soul of man. Therefore, from God’ s Point of View, the suffering would be in the form of a spiritual ‘cleansing’, much to be desired in the interest of strong and wise Man. This Man will learn to look beyond this world and its circumscribed borders, to aim and reach for greater heights – heights of spiritual strength.

Therefore the greater the suffering, the greater is the degree of spiritual progress. Perhaps from God’s Point of View the Holocaust would have been the spur to strengthen his chosen people – to make them strong as steel, ready and able to do spiritual battle. Of course many innocent people – women and children included – died, but they did not die needlessly. Their descendants, who have been left behind, will always remember the suffering of their forebears. Those who went through the Holocaust experience would have imparted some of their wisdom and strength gained from the experience to their children, and through them, to the next generation.

Perhaps, most important of all, its necessary for man to believe that there is some sort of spiritual purpose in extreme suffering. Man needs to hold fast to the following thoughts:
After the storm is the calm.
After the rain, the rainbow appears.
This is the only way to garner strength and moral fiber to go through life and the suffering that goes with it. Maybe the suffering person cannot see the purpose behind it – but God can, and he is always looking out for us, whether we see him or not, whether we realize it or not. Without such a belief system it would be impossible to conceive of a valid reason for a human Hitler to have behaved as little more than a beast – on a mindless, killing spree. Man needs hope to survive, and as the Bible tells us, God is hope.

CONCLUSION:

To suffer is a part of every living man’s lot. But whether he chooses to see a higher purpose and power behind it and thereby derive strength to live, or whether he chooses to succumb to despair and drive himself mad with grief – that is up to the individual.