The Book of Job wrestles with a most basic human question: why suffering? If someone wins the lottery they will often comment that “the Lord is blessing me.” What happens when tragedy strikes? Does that mean that the Lord does not bless me? These questions took on existential importance when the Jewish people lost their land, their nation, their temple during the time of the Babylonian exile. Did all of that loss mean that they were no longer God’s chosen people? When tragedy first struck Job he said: The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD! However, as we will read in the days ahead there is a very human endeavor to understand the ways of God.
