“Avinu malkainu, our Father, our King, I shall continue to call you Father until You become our Father.”
–Rebbe of Kotzk, a village destroyed in the Holocaust
There are times when I feel utterly powerless, and so utterly purposeless, and even more so for not understanding the world. No matter which nice explanations are offered, I keep coming back to the question: how can God allow such suffering? If God loves creation and God’s children half as much as I love my friends, how can God watch them torn and rent in body in mind in spirit, how can God let ignorance prevail while those who struggle for light and breath are brought low? Omniscience is no solace. A greater plan is no comfort, because it means that God finds the chaos and hurt acceptable means to an end. And so I spiral down, questioning and then despising the questions for putting into peril the beliefs that hold me stable.
In such times, the only relief to be found is in honesty and in presence: to have another person sit with me in my doubts and admit that they don’t know, and eventually to find a way for me to accept the reality of these questions without fleeing. Bringing your entire self to bear in the face of deep-seated doubt and anger is an act of great faith. It is an act in which one acknowledges the real danger of finding only chaos, but places one’s bet on God nonetheless. Like the rabbi of Kotzk, then, I pray to God in the breach, praying that God will be God.
Elise Alexander
American University
Lenten Devotional 