When the Righteous Suffer: A Talmudic Window

Why do the righteous suffer? It is one of the oldest and hardest questions of faith, and the rabbis of the Talmud wrestled with it directly. The thoughts presented in these stories are thoughts that run remarkably close to the heart of the New Testament, and it opens a window onto how Yeshua's first followers might have understood pain, sin, and the world to come.

The Talmud, in a number of sources and locations and tractates, oftentimes mentions R. Eliezer, who fell sick. There are numerous stories of R. Eliezer falling sick. Let me read two of them, from p. 101a in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Sanhedrin.

"For That Very Reason I Rejoice"

This last verse is taken from Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 20. Now to the second story.

"Suffering Is Precious"

This last is a quotation from 2 Chronicles chapter 33 verse 10 and following.

R. Akiba's Different Perspective

We have now seen two different stories about R. Eliezer falling sick. There are a lot of things in common in these stories. First of all, there are two main figures in both of these stories that the Talmud brings. One is R. Akiba, who seems to be the bright, smart, intelligent disciple of R. Eliezer; the second is R. Eliezer. In both stories we see another point that is in common: in both stories R. Akiba has a completely different perspective from the rest of the rabbis. And in both stories R. Eliezer, who is sick, is interested to hear R. Akiba's viewpoint. In other words, these stories were not written to tell us how sick R. Eliezer was, but how smart and intelligent R. Akiba was in comparison with the other rabbis who were there — R. Tarfon, R. Eleazar b. Azariah, and R. Joshua. It is worth noting the conceptual things that these stories bring.

In the first story all the disciples of R. Eliezer cried. Why? They said: 'How could we see the Scroll of the Torah lie sick and not weep?' But R. Akiba laughed. It is an interesting thing, because we know that R. Akiba's character was very, very different. When all of Israel, on the 9th of Av, Tisha b'Av, was mourning the destruction of the first Temple and the destruction of the second Temple, R. Akiba also laughed and rejoiced and celebrated. So, when they asked him, 'Why are you rejoicing and celebrating, when all of Israel is fasting and mourning for the destruction of the Temple?' — his answer was, 'As the promise of God to destroy the Temple was fulfilled, so we also know that his promise to rebuild it will be fulfilled.'

So R. Akiba's perspective on many things was very different from the rest of the rabbis, and we see this in these stories. When all the rabbis are weeping for R. Eliezer's sickness, he laughs, he comes rejoicing, and his perspective is interesting. He says: 'Listen, till now I have not seen R. Eliezer suffer, and if I don't see him suffer, I have a fear that maybe he is receiving the reward of all the good that he has done now, in this life. Therefore now, when I see him sick, then I know he is paying for some of his sin in this world, and all of the good that he has done is stored up for him for the world to come.' We are going to talk about this concept, because it is a very New Testament concept — very different from what we are used to thinking on this matter.

The Suffering of the Righteous

The second story has some similarity. Again, R. Eliezer is falling sick. He must have been a very sickly man, this R. Eliezer, because as I said, there are many stories in the Talmud and in Jewish sources that talk about R. Eliezer falling sick. Four of his disciples come, among them R. Akiba. Three of these disciples praise R. Eliezer, saying that he is like the rain for Israel, he is like the sun for Israel, he is better than a father and mother for Israel — and, of course, the point that they all bring is that the sun is for this world, the rain is for this world, father and mother are for this world, but R. Eliezer is also of benefit to the world to come. Not just for now, but later in the world to come.

R. Akiba comes in, and instead of offering this platitude, this great compliment to R. Eliezer on his sick bed, he says: 'Suffering is precious.' 'Oh, how wonderful that you are suffering!' He comes to the sick man and says to him: 'Listen, it is wonderful that you are suffering.' The other rabbis are shocked; they don't know how to understand this. And R. Akiba doesn't explain it until R. Eliezer rises from his sick bed and says: 'Let me hear what you have said, R. Akiba. Why are you saying "Suffering is precious"?'

Then R. Akiba brings two verses: one from 2 Kings chapter 21 verse 1, talking about Manasseh going into exile, and another from 2 Chronicles, that we mentioned before, talking about Manasseh coming back from exile to Jerusalem. R. Akiba says this: 'I interpreted these two verses to mean that the suffering that Hezekiah had, and the suffering that Manasseh had that took him out to the Galut, was not because they were evil people, but because they were righteous people' — like the verse spoken in the first story, taken from Ecclesiastes, "For there is not a just man upon the earth, that doeth good and sinneth not."

The Same Formula in the New Testament

In other words, we are not talking now about people who are suffering because they are evil people; we are talking now, R. Akiba says, about the suffering of the righteous — like R. Eliezer, like Manasseh king of Judah. Their suffering is for the purpose of allowing them, in the world to come, to inherit only good. The formula that is behind these two stories is the same formula that is behind the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke. The formula is that the righteous pay for the evil that they do in this world, so that when they come to the judgment day of the world to come, all they have is reward, without any blemish — because whatever blemish they had, they have already paid for by their own suffering in this world. Suffering, the Talmud says, smooths out sin. It offsets sin.

We see this, by the way, in the New Testament — not only in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, which we will elaborate upon later, but also in the epistle of James. In chapter 5 verses 13 and 15 we read: "Is any among you afflicted [suffering]? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms [praise]. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." It seems here to indicate that the suffering of this man came as the result of his sin. The prayer and the anointing of the elders bring forth healing, and his sins are forgiven. For there is a relationship between the believer (we are talking about believers now, not unbelievers), between his suffering on earth and his relationship to God, and the cause — sin. The believer falls sick, he calls the elders, they come and anoint him with oil, and the believer's sins are forgiven by the prayer, by the anointing of oil, and, of course, the implication here is, by the sickness, by his affliction — and the affliction brings forgiveness of his sin.

Reward Stored Up in Eternity

That is a very similar concept to the one we read here, the one that R. Akiba brings — the concept, reiterated, that in this world the righteous suffer. Why? Because there is no righteous person in this world who does not sin. The deeds of a righteous man may be very good, but he will surely have some sin. And Jewish literature recognizes that the opposite is also true: there is no one so evil that he does not do some good. So, of course, any good that such a person does has to receive its reward in eternity — because if he is in eternal hell, when will the evil man receive his reward? The answer is, in this world, as we see in the story of Lazarus.

The rich man lived in wealth; Lazarus was poor, and he suffered in this world, eating the crumbs off the rich man's table. But in the world to come, Lazarus was rewarded in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man was in Hades, in hell, and when he asked for Lazarus to come to him, Abraham told him: 'You have already received your reward in your lifetime. Lazarus suffered. So now, Lazarus is in heaven, in the bosom of Abraham — as the text literally says — and the rich man is suffering.' This is the concept that R. Akiba brings in relationship to R. Eliezer's sickness.

A Word for the Believer Today

What began at the sick bed of an ancient sage turns out to touch something the New Testament knows well. The rabbis around R. Eliezer wept; R. Akiba, alone among them, saw something else in the same scene. Whether or not we would put it as he did, the questions these old stories raise are the ones every believer eventually meets — about pain, about what it might mean, about a God who keeps a fuller account than we can see. They are worth sitting with, unhurried, the way R. Eliezer's disciples sat with him.