My son turned to me and said, “why is it necessary to suffer?  Why can’t we just be happy?”

“I don’t know the truest absolute answer to that,” I replied. “Here is what I perceive.   When I read the Torah, when I read the story of Jesus, when I think of founding myths in other religions, there is a common theme:  there is no redemption without suffering.   There is no being found without being lost.   There is no salvation without giving up something valuable.”

“But Abraham did not kill Isaac.”

“Actually, the Torah itself is not completely clear on this.  There are some commentaries which indicate that Abraham did indeed kill his only begotten son, that Isaac died and was later resurrected.

And let us not forget that pagan kings and societies often sacrificed another human being to ward off evil.  Phoenicians and Carthaginians apparently sanctified a new house by burying the body of the sacrificed eldest child in the door way.

Jews smeared the blood of a slaughtered lamb on the door posts to ward off the angel of death during the last plague of the Passover.  And what is the lamb but the metaphor for the first born son?  And do we not address God as ‘our Father’ in many of our prayers?  Indeed, the motive was so strong that still today we have to pay money to a Cohen to redeem our first born sons.  True the religion has sublimated the urge to sacrifice humans into other directions like animal sacrifice and monetary payment, but the original fundamental need still seems to be there.”

“What does this mean?”

“To me it means that there is something about human experience of life, of the cosmos, that has communicated to them a message as universal as mathematics or physics: there is no salvation without sacrifice.   There is no reward without loss.”

“Does this mean that God is bloodthirsty?”

“God himself is bound by the rules of the cosmos he has created.   Humans have free will.   God cannot break the chains that constrain us in this existence without unravelling the fabric of existence itself.  He looks at His children from afar with pity and sympathy even though he lives with us every day.  He suffers with us because it as much a part of his nature as the proton is part of the atom.”

“Well, at least Buddhists do not have this concept.”

“Are they not called upon to give up their egos to achieve Nirvana?  Is this not the same concept, that there is no ultimate salvation without giving up something valuable?  For what do we hold more dear than our own selves?”

“But for them this does not involve others, it is carried out spiritually within.  It is a more objective process.”

“What is more subjective than what one experiences within oneself?  But this is beside the point.   The main point is that this religion also has perceived the connection with reaching the ultimate and the need to give up something.”

“I cannot accept this.  There is something about it I find repugnant.”

“I do not like the fact that I cannot defy gravity anytime I like.  I do not like the fact that gravity will eventually force my bones to press closer to the earth until, at the end, they are buried in it.  I do not like it.  It is just a fact.  In the meantime, I get on as best as I can.  I even fight against gravity as long as I can although I know, objectively, I cannot win.  This is what I call faith.”

“So, are you asking me to accept the concept that sacrifice and suffering are required for redemption?”

“No, I hope you fight against  this.  I hope that you struggle to build something in the world that will contradict this principle, to try to live your life in defiance of this universal truth.   I am certain God wrestles with Himself on this point and in the end must give in to His own Nature.   After all, He is both the Eternal Judge and the One who offers us Rachmonis and redemption.  ’Yisra El’.  Existence is about struggle and wrestling with contradiction.  There are some things which seemingly cannot exist together, yet they do.   It is this struggle which we as humans dimly perceive and which we will continue to reflect in our own lived lives.   May your struggle be meaningful and your efforts crowned with success.”