Solzhenitsyn and the Rhetoric of Suffering
August 1973: after 120 sleepless hours of brutal interrogation by Soviet Security officers, the Leningrad woman with whom Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had entrusted a portion of his unpublished manuscript finally collapsed and revealed where she had hidden it. Shortly thereafter, she committed suicide. In the rather glum “author’s note” to The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn wrote, “For years I have with reluctant heart withheld from publication this already completed book: my obligation to those still living outweighed my obligation to the dead. But now that State Security has seized the book anyway, I have no alternative but to publish it immediately.”
Solzhenitsyn’s book, a vast and deeply troubling work, opens a window onto the gruesome world of Soviet prisons—in all actuality death camps—where the author himself had survived a ten-year stretch for a political crime: privately criticizing Stalin’s policies in correspondence to a friend. But despite the oceans of darkness and horror that wash over the uninformed reader of this work, other themes manage to surface. One gets, for example, a real sense of the Russian character and comes away with heartfelt admiration for this people. Another, rather unexpected, theme is Solzhenitsyn’s account of the spiritual transformation that some (not all) experience after their incarceration. It is the liberating effects of suffering on the human soul that he speaks of, and that is our focus here.
Undoubtedly, much resistance to this notion of “noble” or “redemptive” suffering will be heard in protest, best exemplified by Bunyan’s Worldly Wiseman: “…hadst thou but patience to hear me, I could direct thee to the obtaining of what thou desirest, without the dangers that thou in this way wilt run thyself into; yea, and the remedy is at hand. Besides, I will add that instead of those dangers thou shalt meet with much safety, friendship, and content.” What person in his right mind would not prefer “safety, friendship, and content” to a life of hardship and humiliation? And what can a communist gulag possibly do to a man but break him in half? Indeed, the materialist society we’re all familiar with champions these very sentiments.
If there were no God, such arguments would ring true. And if man were nothing more than a highly-evolved beast, they would surely be true. The great spiritual traditions of humanity tell us otherwise, however. Eastern and Western systems alike eschew the arguments of worldly wisemen, calling the material world Maya (illusion) and asking, “What hath a man profited, to gain the world and lose his soul?” The spiritual life, the religious life, the life that results in greatness of soul (“mahatma” in Sanskrit) is diametrically opposed to the “way of the world”—and always has been. Holiness—that elusive word—means to be “set apart,” to live in the world and yet not be of it. First, a single man must be set apart; then a family and a clan; finally a people and nation. That is the essential story of the Hebrew Bible.
The “single man” I referred to is Jacob.
Jacob the Redeemer
Genesis 46 and 47 tells the story of Israel’s (Jacob’s) immigration to Egypt, along with 70 members of his household (not counting womenfolk). When summoned before Pharaoh he is asked about the days and years of his life, to which he responds, “…few and evil have been the days and years of my life…” (Gen. 47: 9). This is an odd thing for him to say, and easily overlooked in the overall sweep of the story. What could he have meant by the “evil” days of his life? One senses the bitterness of his words.
Jacob is traditionally portrayed as a controversial figure, one whose ethics are frequently called into question. In Genesis 25 he persuades Esau to sell the birthright for a pottage of lentils, and in 27 obtains Isaac’s blessing through trickery—actions for which narrow-minded moralists usually condemn him. Prenatal prophecy notwithstanding (Gen. 25:23), there is more at stake here than one brother outwitting another or the misdirection of primogeniture. Recovery of the original—meaning “divine”—human nature is the issue. The loss of that nature was the consequence of Adam’s downfall, who degraded from an original, pristine state to that of a barbarian. All of his descendents are “cursed” with a highly corruptible nature—men with a spiritual sensibility as dull as animals.
The birthright, therefore, symbolizes the original nature. Esau “despised his birthright” (Gen. 25:34), thinking so little of it that he sold it for supper. Jacob—the man chosen by God—understood its value and fought to obtain it, risking his life. That same theme of perseverance and eventual victory characterizes Jacob’s whole career. According to Auerbach, “…it is this history of a personality which the Old Testament presents to us as the formation undergone by those whom God has chosen to be examples.” One might ask: an example of what? What can the life of a herdsman who lived 4000 years ago possibly mean to us today?
The story of Jacob as recorded in Genesis is not simply a history of one man—it is in reality a model course for all men: the course of subjugating evil. To “subjugate evil” means that it must be made to naturally surrender. We’ve already considered the fundamental difference between the “way of the world” and the “narrow way” that Jesus so eloquently spoke of (Matt. 7:13-14). Evil subjugates good through force—with threats, intimidation, fear, violence, murder, even genocide. Good, however, cannot use these methods, even in the course of subjugating evil. Good uses the method of self-sacrifice; and herein lies the profound reason that good men must often suffer.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
This is the great fork of camp life. From this point the roads go to the right and to the left. One of them will rise and the other will descend. If you go to the right—you lose your life, and if you go to the left—you lose your conscience.
One’s own order to oneself, “Survive!,” is the natural splash of a living person. Who does not wish to survive? Who does not have the right to survive? Straining all the strength of our body! An order to all our cells: Survive! A powerful charge is introduced into the chest cavity, and the heart is surrounded by an electrical cloud so as not to stop beating. They lead thirty emaciated but wiry zeks three miles across the Arctic ice to a bathhouse. The bath is not worth even a warm word. Six men at a time wash themselves in five shifts, and the door opens straight into the subzero temperature, and four shifts are obliged to stand there before or after bathing—because they cannot be left without convoy. And not only does none of them get pneumonia. They don’t even catch cold…
Let us admit the truth: At that great fork in the camp road, at that great divider of souls, it was not the majority of the prisoners that turned to the right. Alas, not the majority. But fortunately neither was it just a few. There were many of them—human beings—who made this choice. But they did not shout about themselves. You had to look closely to see them.
Solzhenitsyn observes that despite the horrific conditions of the gulags (where the prisoners are simultaneously starved and worked to death—literally), suicide rates were remarkably low. Much lower than in the general population. In an environment where death is all around—and some would even think, welcome—men tenaciously cling to life. It seems the residual power of the human spirit thrives in circumstances where the flesh is shackled and tormented. This is one reason that religions not only survive but prosper under persecution. It was not the greatness of the Gospel that enabled Christianity to conquer Rome, but the blood of its martyrs. Indeed, had Rome only tolerated early Christianity it would likely have died out.
At the same time, one might ask: what was it that finally defeated the Soviet Union? Credit is usually given to Ronald Reagan, or factors such as economic pressures. These are but surface phenomena, however. The deeper, underlying cause has to be the suffering of Russian people themselves—and the blood of the uncounted millions who perished.
Refuge in Haran
The story of Jacob’s twenty years in Paddan-aram (Haran) is truly heroic: he becomes a servant to Laban for seven years in exchange for Rachel, but at the end has Leah forced on him too—for which he must serve an additional seven years. During this time children are born, but there is little domestic bliss. Another dispute arises over his “wages” of livestock. His desire to return home is again thwarted by Laban’s deceit, but he manages to outwit his uncle with an ingenious breeding program. All the same, it tacks another six years onto his sentence. Genesis 30:43 concludes, “Thus the man [Jacob] grew exceedingly rich, and had large flocks, maidservants and menservants, and camels and asses.”
The story is heroic, but just reading the text hardly gives one a taste for what he must have gone through. There is the matter of the twenty years, for example. Twenty years takes one from the ebullience of youth to the onset of middle age. Thus, the prime of Jacob’s life is poured not into self-aggrandizement, but virtual slavery. He becomes a husband and a father but his family is torn by jealousy (among the wives) and enmity (among his sons). Disharmony in the home is a miserable thing. Then there was the animosity that had grown between him and Laban. Such was the rancor between them that Jacob flees in secret—as he once fled Esau—fearing for his life. Laban and his sons are soon in hot pursuit (and it is not merely to bid Jacob goodbye!); if not for God’s intervention, that might have been the end for our hero. Once again, “…few and evil have been the days and years of my life…”
From The Gulag Archipelago:
No one is going to argue. It is pleasant to win. But not at the price of losing one’s human countenance.
If it is the result which counts—you must strain every nerve and sinew to avoid general work. You must bend down, be servile, act meanly—yet hang on to your position as a trusty. And by this means…survive.
If it is the essence that counts, then the time has come to reconcile yourself to general work. To tatters. To torn skin on the hands. To a piece of bread which is smaller and worse. And perhaps…to death. But while you’re alive, you drag your way along proudly with an aching back. And that is when—when you have ceased to be afraid of threats and are not chasing after rewards—you become the most dangerous character in the owl-like view of the bosses. Because…what hold do they have on you?
This is a variation of the “ends versus means” debate: do the ends justify the means? If the result is an Aristotelian good (towards which all things strive), why wouldn’t virtually any means to get there be permissible? Totalitarian ideologies use this argument religiously—e.g., the “dictatorship of the proletariat” may be a harsh and unfortunate stage of the Revolution, but in the end the dictatorship will “wither away” as pure communism blossoms. So if 5 million, 10 million, or 15 million people die in the meantime, that is a tragedy…but think of the larger good! Stalin destroyed perhaps 20 million lives in his (successful) modernization program, using the gulags as a source of free labor. And their usefulness as a sort of shredding machine into which political opponents (real or imagined) could be fed must not be overlooked.
But on the other side of the barbed wire fence, and on a much smaller scale, the zeks facing ten-year or twenty-year sentences had to resolve that debate on their own. Once the irrevocable command “Survive!” becomes the center of one’s being, the great fork in the road appears. Solzhenitsyn writes, “But simply ‘to survive’ does not yet mean ‘at any price.’ ‘At any price’ means: at the price of someone else.” Those who took the left road—the one descending into hell—were those who avoided general work, seeking soft, “cushy” jobs (hospital orderlies, office workers, cooks, mess hall attendants, etc.), and were more likely to survive. These were the hated pridúrki—translated into English as “trusties.”
The less traveled road—the one of ascent—most likely had death waiting somewhere along the way. The man with a clean conscience takes this road; he does not shirk general work but embraces it. His reward: suffering and deprivation. The zeks on this road died off much quicker. But as Solzhenitsyn notes, this sort of person is the greatest threat to the Authorities.
Receiving the Name “Israel”
The question may arise: why does God choose one particular man (and by extension, a people) for blessing, while apparently ignoring untold millions? Many factors may be involved, but undoubtedly a certain disposition is required: one that places a higher value upon spiritual things than upon creature comforts; a willingness to sacrifice and deny the self; the ability to endure long years of toil and loneliness with little or no reward. The sad truth is that most people are too self-centered and too immersed in their own desires to be of much use to God. For the “chosen one” is invariably placed in dangerous and miserable situations—such as that of Jacob in Haran—where he must endure many things. In other words, blessing is not automatic: it only comes after a long period of suffering.
The most important thing: the man must not collapse or cave in under pressure. He must resist to the very end, even unto death if need be. Only a man with a real backbone can be called victor. Genesis 31 describes the final confrontation between Jacob and Laban, after which Laban relents, saying, “‘The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these my daughters, or to their children whom they have born? Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I; and let it be a witness between you and me.’” (Gen. 31:43-44). Thus, Jacob brought evil to a natural surrender—the first instance of three.
At the ford of Jabbok, during the night, he was attacked by an angel (referred to as “a man”) whom he wrestled. When Jacob prevailed—getting him into an unbreakable grip—the angel dislocated his thigh. But he was forced to bless Jacob, saying, “‘Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’” (Gen. 32:28). The second instance of three.
Messengers had been sent ahead, warning Esau of Jacob’s imminent arrival. Nursing a twenty year-old grudge, Esau assembles a force of 400 armed men—his little “welcoming committee.” Jacob’s response is a classic example of how good triumphs over evil: first he presents Esau with a gift of vast wealth—hundreds of animals from his flocks, along with servants bearing rehearsed messages of good will (fine use of rhetoric here); finally, he humbles himself—bowing to the ground seven times when face to face with his brother. This was more than even Esau could bear, and “…Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and they wept.” (Gen. 33:4). The third instance of three.
Thereafter, the destiny of God was with the people of Israel.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
And as soon as you have renounced the aim of “surviving at any price,” and gone where the calm and simple people go—then imprisonment begins to transform your former character in an astonishing way. To transform it in a direction most unexpected to you.
And it would seem that in this situation feelings of malice, the disturbance of being oppressed, aimless hate, irritability, and nervousness ought to multiply. But you yourself do not notice how, with the impalpable flow of time, slavery nurtures in you the shoots of contradictory feelings.
Once upon a time you were sharply intolerant. You were constantly in a rush. And you were constantly short of time. And now you have time with interest. You are surfeited with it, with its months and its years, behind you and ahead of you—and a beneficial calming fluid pours through your blood vessels—patience.
You are ascending…
Formerly you never forgave anyone. You judged people without mercy. And you praised people with an equal lack of moderation. And now an understanding mildness has become the basis of your uncategorical judgments. You have come to realize your own weakness—and you can therefore understand the weakness of others. And be astonished at another’s strength. And wish to posses it yourself.
The stones rustle beneath our feet. We are ascending…
It all seems counterintuitive: by refusing to seek rewards, one finds an unexpected reward—the greatest of them all. By surrendering to the enemy one wins the war. By embracing the chains and fetters (instead of struggling against them) freedom emerges. This is not a call to pacifism, but to subjectivity—meaning: each man is the captain of his own soul. Contrary to traditional religious teachings, God does not “judge” anyone, sending them to heaven or to hell. Each individual makes that choice for him or her self. Like prisoners in the gulags, each person at some point comes to a moral fork in the road—and not just once, but many times in life. The pathway of the righteous is far less attractive than the other: there is no material gain here, no praise of one’s fellows, no recognition and acclaim; friends are few (or non-existent), families torn asunder; only suffering and privation seem assured. The reward, however, is so priceless that all the wealth on earth cannot buy it: inner peace. And there is an accord with God that is so subtle and sublime that one does not even need to believe in God to achieve it!
Subjectivity does not mean, of course, that one can control one’s environment. In fact, such control may be an impossibility. Struggling against one’s surroundings in that sense is a bit like resisting the aging process. Nothing can stop you from getting older (except death), so a wise man will anticipate it, embrace it, and try to learn from it. Likewise, no one can avoid moral dilemmas and the anxieties that accompany them. It is not what happens to you that counts, but how you choose to respond.
The Will Passes to Joseph
The suffering of Jacob was far from over, however. The time of sojourning in Haran and in the land of Canaan was a time of building and accumulating: He built a family that could inherit the tradition of God; he sired the Patriarchs of the Chosen People; he accumulated great wealth and prospered in Canaan—for a time. One might think that his remaining days would be carefree and blessed. But seldom is that so for those who embrace the Will of God.
Through twenty years of suffering and endurance he emerged victorious over his adversaries and established a spiritual foundation—a foundation that would one day erect a nation, and in fact lay the cornerstone of Western Civilization. But the program of expansion and development had to pass to the next generation. Just as the Will had passed from Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob, it now passed to Joseph.
According to Genesis 37:3, “…Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age…” One may notice the pattern of God favoring the younger son over the elder: Abel, Isaac, Jacob—all were younger than their “troublesome” brothers (Cain, Ishmael, Esau). The pattern repeats itself with Joseph, only he has eleven brothers to contend with—all except Benjamin are older than he. Israel’s favor takes the form of a special robe with long sleeves, but not surprisingly, “…when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (Gen. 37:4). Another pattern: conflict and potential fratricide. At first they decide to kill the seventeen year-old and claim that a wild animal did it, but then think better of it (the problem: what to tell Dad…) Of the brothers, only Reuben seems conscience stricken, yet is so intimidated by the others that he uses subterfuge: later, when no one is looking, he plans to rescue Joseph and get him back to the house, safe and sound. But Judah suggests selling the boy into slavery to a group of Ishmaelites passing by on their way to Egypt. And they do.
The deceit of the brothers—showing the torn robe with goat’s blood smeared on it—was a crushing blow to the father: “Then Jacob rent his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, ‘No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.’ Thus his father wept for him” (Gen. 37:34-35).
After all Israel had accomplished for God over many years, his reward took the form of even more grief.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
[These are the last words of a man killed in prison, spoken to Solzhenitsyn]: “…I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this life on earth which is undeserved. Superficially it can have nothing to do with what we are guilty of in actual fact, but if you go over your life with a fine-tooth comb and ponder it deeply, you will always be able to hunt down that transgression of yours for which you have now received this blow.”
…I would have been inclined to endow his words with the significance of a universal law of life. However, one can get all tangled up that way. One would have to admit that on that basis those who had been punished even more cruelly than with prison—those shot, burned at the stake—were some sort of super-evildoers. (And yet…the innocent are those who get punished most zealously of all.) And what would one then have to say about our so evident torturers: Why does not fate punish them? Why do they prosper?
And the only solution to this would be that the meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but…in the development of the soul. From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing downward from humanity. From that point of view punishment is inflicted on those whose development…holds out hope.
What is this heresy? —the meaning of earthly life is not for material prosperity? In George Orwell’s Animal Farm the animals—led by the pigs—stage a revolution and create a “worker’s paradise” (after getting rid of the farmer). At first, everything is idealistic: equality for all animals! But slowly, gradually, the pigs consolidate their power and reduce all the other animals to slavery. In the final, disturbing passages of the book, the pigs—the swine—dine at a table with men, gorging themselves on fine cuisine; and it is noted that the men have come to resemble the swine so closely that it is hard to tell them apart.
Prosperity, it would seem, comes to those with the temerity to take—and not with bullets and knives, but with legislation; with torts; with diplomacy; with laissez faire. Stealing with a fountain pen, as Woody Guthrie put it. The illusion of power, of influence, of gratification, of possession, is belied by the corrupting effect on the human soul and by the remorseless passage of time: everyone repays their debt to Mother Earth. And we leave this world as empty-handed as when we entered it—without even a stitch of clothing. What then remains?
Reunion of Father and Son
One sees the recurring theme: loss of a son. The Bible may not be explicit, but we can assume that human nature is much the same now as it was then. What can be more grievous than the death of a child? When Cain murdered Abel, Adam lost a son; Noah had to curse his son Ham after the flood; Abraham was required to sacrifice Isaac; Isaac went to his grave with his sons fighting, and Jacob in exile; now Jacob suffered the (apparent) loss of his favorite, Joseph.
God knew that Joseph was in fact alive, but allowed Jacob to grieve his loss nonetheless—for twenty long years. What kind of cruel God is this? Rabbi Harold Kushner addresses this very question in his profound book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner—a good and decent man—lost his beloved son, and had to struggle with these questions (not to mention people’s clumsy attempts to “comfort” him). In the end he came to two possible answers: 1) God is all-powerful but allows good people to suffer nonetheless; therefore, His “goodness” should be called into question; 2) God is completely good and would not allow people to suffer needlessly; therefore, His “omnipotence” should be called into question. Kushner decided that #2 was the most likely truth: God is not as “all-powerful” as we customarily imagine. Even God has limits; there are some things even He cannot do.
Such a Supreme Being is much more human than we typically think. If there is such a thing as “human nature,” then it had to have come from somewhere. Actually, it originates from God Himself, a fact that Genesis 1:26 alludes to: the “image” in this passage means essence (rather than form)—God and man are fundamentally alike. And if man has the capacity for grief, so does God. If God’s central figures have to endure the loss of their sons, perhaps there is a meaning in that. Perhaps God had to endure something like that too.
Like his father, Joseph grew to manhood in exile and managed to prevail over his enemies, eventually becoming governor in Egypt at age thirty (Gen. 41:46). As promised to Pharaoh, during the seven years of plenty he stored away grain and provisions—knowing that seven years of famine were coming. And when the famine came, Egypt was about the only place around that had food. This brought the sons of Israel down from Canaan, and Joseph one day found himself looking into the faces of his treacherous, deceitful brothers. Instead of taking revenge upon them, however, he jerked them around for a while (taking advantage of the fact that they didn’t recognize him), and finally revealed himself. Genesis 45:14-15 recounts a scene reminiscent of the Jacob-Esau reunion: “Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.”
When Israel heard this news—after twenty years of sorrow—“…his heart fainted, for he did not believe them. But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived; and Israel said, ‘It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive; I will go and see him before I die.’” (Gen. 45:26-28). So the Israelite clan gathered in Egypt with Pharaoh’s blessing—centering on the father and son reunion—as the hard and almost thankless life of Jacob neared its end.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
Along our chosen road are twists and turns and twists and turns. Uphill? Or up into the heavens? Let’s go, let’s stumble and stagger.
The day of liberation! What can it give us after so many years? We will change unrecognizably and so will our near and dear ones—and places that were once dear to us will seem stranger than strange.
And the thought of freedom after a time even becomes a forced thought. Farfetched. Strange.
The day of “liberation”! As if there were any liberty in this country! Or as if it were possible to liberate anyone who has not first become liberated in his own soul.
The stones roll down from under our feet. Downward, into the past! They are the ashes of the past!
And we ascend!
…With the years, armor-plated restraint covers your heart and all your skin. You do not hasten to question and you do not hasten to answer. Your tongue has lost its flexible capacity for easy oscillation. Your eyes do not flash with gladness over good tidings nor do they darken with grief.
…And now the rule of your life is this: Do not rejoice when you have found, do not weep when you have lost.
Your soul, which formerly was dry, now ripens from suffering. And even if you haven’t come to love your neighbors in the Christian sense, you are at least learning to love those close to you.
Those close to you in spirit who surround you in slavery. And how many of us come to realize: It is particularly in slavery that for the first time we have learned to recognize genuine friendship!
Why Man Must Suffer
All this is not to glorify suffering as an end unto itself. On the contrary, it is the means to an end—reunion with God. And ultimate joy. Or, to be more specific, recovery of the original human nature. After the period of suffering ends (and for some, unfortunately, this will coincide with death) comes blessing, and transcendence. The great religious institutions that have developed around man’s encounter with the Divine, frankly, don’t do justice to that encounter. Doctrines, dogmas, rituals, and creeds (upon which institutions depend) tend to calcify and ultimately entomb the experience. God is just as alive today as he was in biblical times, but the fundamental difference between good and evil is unchanging over time.
It is not that some are good and others are evil—all individuals are an admixture of both—but how a person becomes one or the other. Solzhenitsyn recounts his journey:
It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an unuprooted small corner of evil.
There is no magic transformation—sinners becoming saints overnight. Auerbach points out that, “Each of the great figures of the Old Testament, from Adam to the prophets, embodies a moment of this vertical connection. God chose and formed these men to the end of embodying his essence and will, yet choice and formation do not coincide, for the latter proceeds gradually, historically, during the earthly life of him upon whom the choice has fallen.”
I wanted to examine Jacob’s life because it exemplifies the principle of victory through suffering most clearly—but any historical figure could have served: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, King David, any of the prophets. None of this, however, answers the central question of… why? Why the misery and suffering? The answer—which may be surprising to some—is because God suffers. The Creator has suffered in terrible silence from the time of Adam’s downfall. The nightmare of human history as it has unfolded—filled with war and bloodshed and cruelty—is a source of untold grief to God. The earth was created, after all, to be a paradise—for God and man. One who would be called a “man of God” or “patriarch” or “saint” must inevitably taste of God’s unending grief. How can we be related to the Creator without also sharing his burdens? At the same time, however, God cannot be defeated: good will ultimately prevail over evil, even if we do not live to see it. Therefore, Jacob’s historic victory was both a sign of things to come and an example for all humanity.
Solzhenitsyn’s book, a vast and deeply troubling work, opens a window onto the gruesome world of Soviet prisons—in all actuality death camps—where the author himself had survived a ten-year stretch for a political crime: privately criticizing Stalin’s policies in correspondence to a friend. But despite the oceans of darkness and horror that wash over the uninformed reader of this work, other themes manage to surface. One gets, for example, a real sense of the Russian character and comes away with heartfelt admiration for this people. Another, rather unexpected, theme is Solzhenitsyn’s account of the spiritual transformation that some (not all) experience after their incarceration. It is the liberating effects of suffering on the human soul that he speaks of, and that is our focus here.
Undoubtedly, much resistance to this notion of “noble” or “redemptive” suffering will be heard in protest, best exemplified by Bunyan’s Worldly Wiseman: “…hadst thou but patience to hear me, I could direct thee to the obtaining of what thou desirest, without the dangers that thou in this way wilt run thyself into; yea, and the remedy is at hand. Besides, I will add that instead of those dangers thou shalt meet with much safety, friendship, and content.” What person in his right mind would not prefer “safety, friendship, and content” to a life of hardship and humiliation? And what can a communist gulag possibly do to a man but break him in half? Indeed, the materialist society we’re all familiar with champions these very sentiments.
If there were no God, such arguments would ring true. And if man were nothing more than a highly-evolved beast, they would surely be true. The great spiritual traditions of humanity tell us otherwise, however. Eastern and Western systems alike eschew the arguments of worldly wisemen, calling the material world Maya (illusion) and asking, “What hath a man profited, to gain the world and lose his soul?” The spiritual life, the religious life, the life that results in greatness of soul (“mahatma” in Sanskrit) is diametrically opposed to the “way of the world”—and always has been. Holiness—that elusive word—means to be “set apart,” to live in the world and yet not be of it. First, a single man must be set apart; then a family and a clan; finally a people and nation. That is the essential story of the Hebrew Bible.
The “single man” I referred to is Jacob.
Jacob the Redeemer
Genesis 46 and 47 tells the story of Israel’s (Jacob’s) immigration to Egypt, along with 70 members of his household (not counting womenfolk). When summoned before Pharaoh he is asked about the days and years of his life, to which he responds, “…few and evil have been the days and years of my life…” (Gen. 47: 9). This is an odd thing for him to say, and easily overlooked in the overall sweep of the story. What could he have meant by the “evil” days of his life? One senses the bitterness of his words.
Jacob is traditionally portrayed as a controversial figure, one whose ethics are frequently called into question. In Genesis 25 he persuades Esau to sell the birthright for a pottage of lentils, and in 27 obtains Isaac’s blessing through trickery—actions for which narrow-minded moralists usually condemn him. Prenatal prophecy notwithstanding (Gen. 25:23), there is more at stake here than one brother outwitting another or the misdirection of primogeniture. Recovery of the original—meaning “divine”—human nature is the issue. The loss of that nature was the consequence of Adam’s downfall, who degraded from an original, pristine state to that of a barbarian. All of his descendents are “cursed” with a highly corruptible nature—men with a spiritual sensibility as dull as animals.
The birthright, therefore, symbolizes the original nature. Esau “despised his birthright” (Gen. 25:34), thinking so little of it that he sold it for supper. Jacob—the man chosen by God—understood its value and fought to obtain it, risking his life. That same theme of perseverance and eventual victory characterizes Jacob’s whole career. According to Auerbach, “…it is this history of a personality which the Old Testament presents to us as the formation undergone by those whom God has chosen to be examples.” One might ask: an example of what? What can the life of a herdsman who lived 4000 years ago possibly mean to us today?
The story of Jacob as recorded in Genesis is not simply a history of one man—it is in reality a model course for all men: the course of subjugating evil. To “subjugate evil” means that it must be made to naturally surrender. We’ve already considered the fundamental difference between the “way of the world” and the “narrow way” that Jesus so eloquently spoke of (Matt. 7:13-14). Evil subjugates good through force—with threats, intimidation, fear, violence, murder, even genocide. Good, however, cannot use these methods, even in the course of subjugating evil. Good uses the method of self-sacrifice; and herein lies the profound reason that good men must often suffer.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
This is the great fork of camp life. From this point the roads go to the right and to the left. One of them will rise and the other will descend. If you go to the right—you lose your life, and if you go to the left—you lose your conscience.
One’s own order to oneself, “Survive!,” is the natural splash of a living person. Who does not wish to survive? Who does not have the right to survive? Straining all the strength of our body! An order to all our cells: Survive! A powerful charge is introduced into the chest cavity, and the heart is surrounded by an electrical cloud so as not to stop beating. They lead thirty emaciated but wiry zeks three miles across the Arctic ice to a bathhouse. The bath is not worth even a warm word. Six men at a time wash themselves in five shifts, and the door opens straight into the subzero temperature, and four shifts are obliged to stand there before or after bathing—because they cannot be left without convoy. And not only does none of them get pneumonia. They don’t even catch cold…
Let us admit the truth: At that great fork in the camp road, at that great divider of souls, it was not the majority of the prisoners that turned to the right. Alas, not the majority. But fortunately neither was it just a few. There were many of them—human beings—who made this choice. But they did not shout about themselves. You had to look closely to see them.
Solzhenitsyn observes that despite the horrific conditions of the gulags (where the prisoners are simultaneously starved and worked to death—literally), suicide rates were remarkably low. Much lower than in the general population. In an environment where death is all around—and some would even think, welcome—men tenaciously cling to life. It seems the residual power of the human spirit thrives in circumstances where the flesh is shackled and tormented. This is one reason that religions not only survive but prosper under persecution. It was not the greatness of the Gospel that enabled Christianity to conquer Rome, but the blood of its martyrs. Indeed, had Rome only tolerated early Christianity it would likely have died out.
At the same time, one might ask: what was it that finally defeated the Soviet Union? Credit is usually given to Ronald Reagan, or factors such as economic pressures. These are but surface phenomena, however. The deeper, underlying cause has to be the suffering of Russian people themselves—and the blood of the uncounted millions who perished.
Refuge in Haran
The story of Jacob’s twenty years in Paddan-aram (Haran) is truly heroic: he becomes a servant to Laban for seven years in exchange for Rachel, but at the end has Leah forced on him too—for which he must serve an additional seven years. During this time children are born, but there is little domestic bliss. Another dispute arises over his “wages” of livestock. His desire to return home is again thwarted by Laban’s deceit, but he manages to outwit his uncle with an ingenious breeding program. All the same, it tacks another six years onto his sentence. Genesis 30:43 concludes, “Thus the man [Jacob] grew exceedingly rich, and had large flocks, maidservants and menservants, and camels and asses.”
The story is heroic, but just reading the text hardly gives one a taste for what he must have gone through. There is the matter of the twenty years, for example. Twenty years takes one from the ebullience of youth to the onset of middle age. Thus, the prime of Jacob’s life is poured not into self-aggrandizement, but virtual slavery. He becomes a husband and a father but his family is torn by jealousy (among the wives) and enmity (among his sons). Disharmony in the home is a miserable thing. Then there was the animosity that had grown between him and Laban. Such was the rancor between them that Jacob flees in secret—as he once fled Esau—fearing for his life. Laban and his sons are soon in hot pursuit (and it is not merely to bid Jacob goodbye!); if not for God’s intervention, that might have been the end for our hero. Once again, “…few and evil have been the days and years of my life…”
From The Gulag Archipelago:
No one is going to argue. It is pleasant to win. But not at the price of losing one’s human countenance.
If it is the result which counts—you must strain every nerve and sinew to avoid general work. You must bend down, be servile, act meanly—yet hang on to your position as a trusty. And by this means…survive.
If it is the essence that counts, then the time has come to reconcile yourself to general work. To tatters. To torn skin on the hands. To a piece of bread which is smaller and worse. And perhaps…to death. But while you’re alive, you drag your way along proudly with an aching back. And that is when—when you have ceased to be afraid of threats and are not chasing after rewards—you become the most dangerous character in the owl-like view of the bosses. Because…what hold do they have on you?
This is a variation of the “ends versus means” debate: do the ends justify the means? If the result is an Aristotelian good (towards which all things strive), why wouldn’t virtually any means to get there be permissible? Totalitarian ideologies use this argument religiously—e.g., the “dictatorship of the proletariat” may be a harsh and unfortunate stage of the Revolution, but in the end the dictatorship will “wither away” as pure communism blossoms. So if 5 million, 10 million, or 15 million people die in the meantime, that is a tragedy…but think of the larger good! Stalin destroyed perhaps 20 million lives in his (successful) modernization program, using the gulags as a source of free labor. And their usefulness as a sort of shredding machine into which political opponents (real or imagined) could be fed must not be overlooked.
But on the other side of the barbed wire fence, and on a much smaller scale, the zeks facing ten-year or twenty-year sentences had to resolve that debate on their own. Once the irrevocable command “Survive!” becomes the center of one’s being, the great fork in the road appears. Solzhenitsyn writes, “But simply ‘to survive’ does not yet mean ‘at any price.’ ‘At any price’ means: at the price of someone else.” Those who took the left road—the one descending into hell—were those who avoided general work, seeking soft, “cushy” jobs (hospital orderlies, office workers, cooks, mess hall attendants, etc.), and were more likely to survive. These were the hated pridúrki—translated into English as “trusties.”
The less traveled road—the one of ascent—most likely had death waiting somewhere along the way. The man with a clean conscience takes this road; he does not shirk general work but embraces it. His reward: suffering and deprivation. The zeks on this road died off much quicker. But as Solzhenitsyn notes, this sort of person is the greatest threat to the Authorities.
Receiving the Name “Israel”
The question may arise: why does God choose one particular man (and by extension, a people) for blessing, while apparently ignoring untold millions? Many factors may be involved, but undoubtedly a certain disposition is required: one that places a higher value upon spiritual things than upon creature comforts; a willingness to sacrifice and deny the self; the ability to endure long years of toil and loneliness with little or no reward. The sad truth is that most people are too self-centered and too immersed in their own desires to be of much use to God. For the “chosen one” is invariably placed in dangerous and miserable situations—such as that of Jacob in Haran—where he must endure many things. In other words, blessing is not automatic: it only comes after a long period of suffering.
The most important thing: the man must not collapse or cave in under pressure. He must resist to the very end, even unto death if need be. Only a man with a real backbone can be called victor. Genesis 31 describes the final confrontation between Jacob and Laban, after which Laban relents, saying, “‘The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to these my daughters, or to their children whom they have born? Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I; and let it be a witness between you and me.’” (Gen. 31:43-44). Thus, Jacob brought evil to a natural surrender—the first instance of three.
At the ford of Jabbok, during the night, he was attacked by an angel (referred to as “a man”) whom he wrestled. When Jacob prevailed—getting him into an unbreakable grip—the angel dislocated his thigh. But he was forced to bless Jacob, saying, “‘Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’” (Gen. 32:28). The second instance of three.
Messengers had been sent ahead, warning Esau of Jacob’s imminent arrival. Nursing a twenty year-old grudge, Esau assembles a force of 400 armed men—his little “welcoming committee.” Jacob’s response is a classic example of how good triumphs over evil: first he presents Esau with a gift of vast wealth—hundreds of animals from his flocks, along with servants bearing rehearsed messages of good will (fine use of rhetoric here); finally, he humbles himself—bowing to the ground seven times when face to face with his brother. This was more than even Esau could bear, and “…Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and they wept.” (Gen. 33:4). The third instance of three.
Thereafter, the destiny of God was with the people of Israel.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
And as soon as you have renounced the aim of “surviving at any price,” and gone where the calm and simple people go—then imprisonment begins to transform your former character in an astonishing way. To transform it in a direction most unexpected to you.
And it would seem that in this situation feelings of malice, the disturbance of being oppressed, aimless hate, irritability, and nervousness ought to multiply. But you yourself do not notice how, with the impalpable flow of time, slavery nurtures in you the shoots of contradictory feelings.
Once upon a time you were sharply intolerant. You were constantly in a rush. And you were constantly short of time. And now you have time with interest. You are surfeited with it, with its months and its years, behind you and ahead of you—and a beneficial calming fluid pours through your blood vessels—patience.
You are ascending…
Formerly you never forgave anyone. You judged people without mercy. And you praised people with an equal lack of moderation. And now an understanding mildness has become the basis of your uncategorical judgments. You have come to realize your own weakness—and you can therefore understand the weakness of others. And be astonished at another’s strength. And wish to posses it yourself.
The stones rustle beneath our feet. We are ascending…
It all seems counterintuitive: by refusing to seek rewards, one finds an unexpected reward—the greatest of them all. By surrendering to the enemy one wins the war. By embracing the chains and fetters (instead of struggling against them) freedom emerges. This is not a call to pacifism, but to subjectivity—meaning: each man is the captain of his own soul. Contrary to traditional religious teachings, God does not “judge” anyone, sending them to heaven or to hell. Each individual makes that choice for him or her self. Like prisoners in the gulags, each person at some point comes to a moral fork in the road—and not just once, but many times in life. The pathway of the righteous is far less attractive than the other: there is no material gain here, no praise of one’s fellows, no recognition and acclaim; friends are few (or non-existent), families torn asunder; only suffering and privation seem assured. The reward, however, is so priceless that all the wealth on earth cannot buy it: inner peace. And there is an accord with God that is so subtle and sublime that one does not even need to believe in God to achieve it!
Subjectivity does not mean, of course, that one can control one’s environment. In fact, such control may be an impossibility. Struggling against one’s surroundings in that sense is a bit like resisting the aging process. Nothing can stop you from getting older (except death), so a wise man will anticipate it, embrace it, and try to learn from it. Likewise, no one can avoid moral dilemmas and the anxieties that accompany them. It is not what happens to you that counts, but how you choose to respond.
The Will Passes to Joseph
The suffering of Jacob was far from over, however. The time of sojourning in Haran and in the land of Canaan was a time of building and accumulating: He built a family that could inherit the tradition of God; he sired the Patriarchs of the Chosen People; he accumulated great wealth and prospered in Canaan—for a time. One might think that his remaining days would be carefree and blessed. But seldom is that so for those who embrace the Will of God.
Through twenty years of suffering and endurance he emerged victorious over his adversaries and established a spiritual foundation—a foundation that would one day erect a nation, and in fact lay the cornerstone of Western Civilization. But the program of expansion and development had to pass to the next generation. Just as the Will had passed from Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob, it now passed to Joseph.
According to Genesis 37:3, “…Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age…” One may notice the pattern of God favoring the younger son over the elder: Abel, Isaac, Jacob—all were younger than their “troublesome” brothers (Cain, Ishmael, Esau). The pattern repeats itself with Joseph, only he has eleven brothers to contend with—all except Benjamin are older than he. Israel’s favor takes the form of a special robe with long sleeves, but not surprisingly, “…when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (Gen. 37:4). Another pattern: conflict and potential fratricide. At first they decide to kill the seventeen year-old and claim that a wild animal did it, but then think better of it (the problem: what to tell Dad…) Of the brothers, only Reuben seems conscience stricken, yet is so intimidated by the others that he uses subterfuge: later, when no one is looking, he plans to rescue Joseph and get him back to the house, safe and sound. But Judah suggests selling the boy into slavery to a group of Ishmaelites passing by on their way to Egypt. And they do.
The deceit of the brothers—showing the torn robe with goat’s blood smeared on it—was a crushing blow to the father: “Then Jacob rent his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, ‘No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.’ Thus his father wept for him” (Gen. 37:34-35).
After all Israel had accomplished for God over many years, his reward took the form of even more grief.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
[These are the last words of a man killed in prison, spoken to Solzhenitsyn]: “…I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this life on earth which is undeserved. Superficially it can have nothing to do with what we are guilty of in actual fact, but if you go over your life with a fine-tooth comb and ponder it deeply, you will always be able to hunt down that transgression of yours for which you have now received this blow.”
…I would have been inclined to endow his words with the significance of a universal law of life. However, one can get all tangled up that way. One would have to admit that on that basis those who had been punished even more cruelly than with prison—those shot, burned at the stake—were some sort of super-evildoers. (And yet…the innocent are those who get punished most zealously of all.) And what would one then have to say about our so evident torturers: Why does not fate punish them? Why do they prosper?
And the only solution to this would be that the meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but…in the development of the soul. From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing downward from humanity. From that point of view punishment is inflicted on those whose development…holds out hope.
What is this heresy? —the meaning of earthly life is not for material prosperity? In George Orwell’s Animal Farm the animals—led by the pigs—stage a revolution and create a “worker’s paradise” (after getting rid of the farmer). At first, everything is idealistic: equality for all animals! But slowly, gradually, the pigs consolidate their power and reduce all the other animals to slavery. In the final, disturbing passages of the book, the pigs—the swine—dine at a table with men, gorging themselves on fine cuisine; and it is noted that the men have come to resemble the swine so closely that it is hard to tell them apart.
Prosperity, it would seem, comes to those with the temerity to take—and not with bullets and knives, but with legislation; with torts; with diplomacy; with laissez faire. Stealing with a fountain pen, as Woody Guthrie put it. The illusion of power, of influence, of gratification, of possession, is belied by the corrupting effect on the human soul and by the remorseless passage of time: everyone repays their debt to Mother Earth. And we leave this world as empty-handed as when we entered it—without even a stitch of clothing. What then remains?
Reunion of Father and Son
One sees the recurring theme: loss of a son. The Bible may not be explicit, but we can assume that human nature is much the same now as it was then. What can be more grievous than the death of a child? When Cain murdered Abel, Adam lost a son; Noah had to curse his son Ham after the flood; Abraham was required to sacrifice Isaac; Isaac went to his grave with his sons fighting, and Jacob in exile; now Jacob suffered the (apparent) loss of his favorite, Joseph.
God knew that Joseph was in fact alive, but allowed Jacob to grieve his loss nonetheless—for twenty long years. What kind of cruel God is this? Rabbi Harold Kushner addresses this very question in his profound book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner—a good and decent man—lost his beloved son, and had to struggle with these questions (not to mention people’s clumsy attempts to “comfort” him). In the end he came to two possible answers: 1) God is all-powerful but allows good people to suffer nonetheless; therefore, His “goodness” should be called into question; 2) God is completely good and would not allow people to suffer needlessly; therefore, His “omnipotence” should be called into question. Kushner decided that #2 was the most likely truth: God is not as “all-powerful” as we customarily imagine. Even God has limits; there are some things even He cannot do.
Such a Supreme Being is much more human than we typically think. If there is such a thing as “human nature,” then it had to have come from somewhere. Actually, it originates from God Himself, a fact that Genesis 1:26 alludes to: the “image” in this passage means essence (rather than form)—God and man are fundamentally alike. And if man has the capacity for grief, so does God. If God’s central figures have to endure the loss of their sons, perhaps there is a meaning in that. Perhaps God had to endure something like that too.
Like his father, Joseph grew to manhood in exile and managed to prevail over his enemies, eventually becoming governor in Egypt at age thirty (Gen. 41:46). As promised to Pharaoh, during the seven years of plenty he stored away grain and provisions—knowing that seven years of famine were coming. And when the famine came, Egypt was about the only place around that had food. This brought the sons of Israel down from Canaan, and Joseph one day found himself looking into the faces of his treacherous, deceitful brothers. Instead of taking revenge upon them, however, he jerked them around for a while (taking advantage of the fact that they didn’t recognize him), and finally revealed himself. Genesis 45:14-15 recounts a scene reminiscent of the Jacob-Esau reunion: “Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.”
When Israel heard this news—after twenty years of sorrow—“…his heart fainted, for he did not believe them. But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived; and Israel said, ‘It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive; I will go and see him before I die.’” (Gen. 45:26-28). So the Israelite clan gathered in Egypt with Pharaoh’s blessing—centering on the father and son reunion—as the hard and almost thankless life of Jacob neared its end.
From The Gulag Archipelago:
Along our chosen road are twists and turns and twists and turns. Uphill? Or up into the heavens? Let’s go, let’s stumble and stagger.
The day of liberation! What can it give us after so many years? We will change unrecognizably and so will our near and dear ones—and places that were once dear to us will seem stranger than strange.
And the thought of freedom after a time even becomes a forced thought. Farfetched. Strange.
The day of “liberation”! As if there were any liberty in this country! Or as if it were possible to liberate anyone who has not first become liberated in his own soul.
The stones roll down from under our feet. Downward, into the past! They are the ashes of the past!
And we ascend!
…With the years, armor-plated restraint covers your heart and all your skin. You do not hasten to question and you do not hasten to answer. Your tongue has lost its flexible capacity for easy oscillation. Your eyes do not flash with gladness over good tidings nor do they darken with grief.
…And now the rule of your life is this: Do not rejoice when you have found, do not weep when you have lost.
Your soul, which formerly was dry, now ripens from suffering. And even if you haven’t come to love your neighbors in the Christian sense, you are at least learning to love those close to you.
Those close to you in spirit who surround you in slavery. And how many of us come to realize: It is particularly in slavery that for the first time we have learned to recognize genuine friendship!
Why Man Must Suffer
All this is not to glorify suffering as an end unto itself. On the contrary, it is the means to an end—reunion with God. And ultimate joy. Or, to be more specific, recovery of the original human nature. After the period of suffering ends (and for some, unfortunately, this will coincide with death) comes blessing, and transcendence. The great religious institutions that have developed around man’s encounter with the Divine, frankly, don’t do justice to that encounter. Doctrines, dogmas, rituals, and creeds (upon which institutions depend) tend to calcify and ultimately entomb the experience. God is just as alive today as he was in biblical times, but the fundamental difference between good and evil is unchanging over time.
It is not that some are good and others are evil—all individuals are an admixture of both—but how a person becomes one or the other. Solzhenitsyn recounts his journey:
It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an unuprooted small corner of evil.
There is no magic transformation—sinners becoming saints overnight. Auerbach points out that, “Each of the great figures of the Old Testament, from Adam to the prophets, embodies a moment of this vertical connection. God chose and formed these men to the end of embodying his essence and will, yet choice and formation do not coincide, for the latter proceeds gradually, historically, during the earthly life of him upon whom the choice has fallen.”
I wanted to examine Jacob’s life because it exemplifies the principle of victory through suffering most clearly—but any historical figure could have served: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, King David, any of the prophets. None of this, however, answers the central question of… why? Why the misery and suffering? The answer—which may be surprising to some—is because God suffers. The Creator has suffered in terrible silence from the time of Adam’s downfall. The nightmare of human history as it has unfolded—filled with war and bloodshed and cruelty—is a source of untold grief to God. The earth was created, after all, to be a paradise—for God and man. One who would be called a “man of God” or “patriarch” or “saint” must inevitably taste of God’s unending grief. How can we be related to the Creator without also sharing his burdens? At the same time, however, God cannot be defeated: good will ultimately prevail over evil, even if we do not live to see it. Therefore, Jacob’s historic victory was both a sign of things to come and an example for all humanity.
posted by Carl Miffleton | 12:31 PM
1 Comments:
This is great work, Carl.
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