Ways of Looking at Suffering - Part Two

 I’m sharing, in my words at this time of year, insights sparked by Scott Samuelson’s newly published, Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering.

Samuelson suggests that there are primarily two human responses to suffering; fix-it and face-it. He grants a third response; forget-about-it - which he acknowledges is practically common, but philosophically “not significant.” “Thanks to our fix-it energies,” he writes, “we’ve used our creative fire to forge all sorts of inventions to better our lives. A large portion of civilization arises out of the fix-it attitude, including a fair amount of science and politics, and nearly all technology.” Fixing things is good. But, Samuelson goes on to suggest, because up to the modern period we weren’t actually particularly good at fixing things we also had to develop our skills in facing-suffering.

Nowadays we are so much better at fixing things. Marvellously, infant mortality rates are down, desperate poverty is on the decline, we have and we are achieving so much. Our fix-it muscles are honed, taut and powerful. Long may they continue to be so.

But our face-it muscles have atrophied. In our fix-it obsessed modern age, we seem surprised we can’t fix our mortality and we don’t know what to do about it. We’ve lost our face-it fitness. Facing-suffering is a powerful skill to possess. Samuelson suggests facing-suffering “characterizes much of religion, art, and the humanities, as well as a certain significant portion of science and politics.” Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are face-it moments in the year. We are called to feel fragile, as if we pass before our creator like sheep on a narrow path, each falling under the eye of a watchful shepherd, none knowing of its fate. But we don’t know how to do this well. “Rather than confront our anxiety at the sadness, we fidget on our tools of infinite distraction.” Yes, leave that mobile-phone at home when you come to shul.

Here are my three top tips to strengthen the face-it muscles we will need in our lives just as surely as we need strong fix-it muscles. Sit. Put everything down and sit in one place for a while without trying to do more things. Try - even if just for these coming awesome days of prayer - not to treat life as something to be fixed. It’s OK not to always be doing something. It might be the most important spiritual gift you can give yourself. Reflect on how you treat your life and the lives of those around you. And do something decent and kind for those less fortunate than yourself. Or, as the Rabbis put it, try Teshuvah, Tefillah and Tzedakah.

The best place, the best time to begin this face-it training, is Saturday evening, 1^st September, 10pm at the Shul. Do come, do support our Slichot service. It is a wonderful way to enter the spirit of the time.