When suffering becomes sacred ground

1/17/25

One of the perks of living on Martha's Vineyard is being surrounded by many talented writers and authors. Their works grace our home, adding to our growing library of Island books, and hopefully, they teach me something along the way.

In her book Motherhood Exaggerated, Island author Judith Hannan writes about her daughter's struggle with cancer and how she found herself "squirming" during the recital of Unetaneh Tokef.

Recited on the High Holidays, this well-known and haunting prayer professes G-d's omniscience over our fate and all that happens in the world. Considering her daughter's looming diagnosis, Judith felt its message was tone-deaf to a young girl's suffering.

These thoughts are echoed in Island author Nancy Aronie's writings, where she reflects on losing her dear son, Dan, and her distaste for people attempting to comfort her by saying things like, "he's in a better place now."

I've been thinking about Judith and Nancy's words recently, especially this week, as the exciting and hopeful news of hostages returning home is paired with the pain for those who will remain and anguish for those who will return dead.

Questions about G-d's relationship with suffering are all too present.

In this week's parsha, we read how G-d appeared to Moses for the first time, and while doing so, the Torah teaches, in a very profound way, how one ought to respond to tragedy and suffering—or perhaps more importantly, how one ought not to. 

The Torah writes that G-d appeared to Moses in a burning thorn bush. But would it not have been more appropriate for G-d's first revelation to Moses to be in a more conducive environment? Perhaps a fruitful tree. Why, of everything, did G-d choose a thorn bush?

The Talmud suggest that with this choice G-d was trying to teach a powerful message to the Jewish people. Their future would be filled with growth, happiness, and victories, but also with pain, suffering, and hardship. It would be, at times, a thorn bush.

And G-d was teaching Moses, that even in the darkest places, even in the thorniest spaces, G-d is present, at our side, suffering along with us. On his first encounter with G-d, Moses was taught that belief in G-d's omniscience and omnipresence is the bread and butter of Jewish faith.

But before Moshe approached the burning bush, and before G-d taught Moses the Jewish perspective of finding meaning in suffering and how He is a witness to our pain, G-d first told Moses to take off his shoes.

In Jewish thought, shoes serve as a barrier separating you from the ground upon which you stand and which you share with others near you. Your shoes separate you from others, placing you on your own platform—elevated, distant, numb, and indifferent.

At the burning bush, G-d shared with Moshe the deepest and most sensitive truths about his relationship with the Jewish people: The Jews would suffer, and G-d would always be there at our side despite our pain.

But first, G-d taught Moses, and by extension all of us, that before sharing Judaism's truths and messages of comfort with those who are grieving, we must first remove our shoes.

Before attempting to console someone, we must step down from our elevated platform—the one which contains all our pre-memorized answers and makes us indifferent. We must remove our shoes, be a little humble, and try to feel the pain of the people we are comforting.

And then, and only then, might we share with them that G-d appears to the Jewish people in a thorn bush, that he is present within our struggles, and that while we may not understand, there is meaning to our pain.

But until we remove our shoes and attempt to feel a bit of their pain, we dare not approach someone who is grieving and try to comfort them with religious theology.

"For the land upon which you are standing is sacred," G-d tells Moses. A place where people are suffering is a sacred space—a place where you, on your elevated platform of indifference, are not permitted to invade.

The Torah’s truths are meant to be shared. But the way these truths are shared is a Torah truth, no less.