Sunday, July 11, 2021

Interpreting Job

I am reading this interesting article: "Advice to Job from a Buddhist Friend" by Sandra B. Lubarsky. [Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 1999, pp. 58-68 (Article) Published by Purdue University Press]
"God comes to Job and Job feels God as personally present, as one who knows and cares for him. It may be that the "answer" to such a fundamental question as suffering finds expression in relational terms because the existential need that arises from suffering is ultimately for relationship and care, not for logic. Perhaps it is the case that though there is much that we do not understand, this much we can understand--that we are connected, each to each, to all of creation and (for Jews) to the Creator and that that connection is permeated with God's presence and care. Here Judaism and Buddhism meet--though the one is theistic and the other not--in the belief that the heart of understanding is relationality."