By Ben Harris and Philissa Cramer
Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the 20th century whose works of popular theology reached millions of people outside of the synagogue, has died.
Rabbi Kushner, who turned 88 on April 3, died on Apr. 28 while in hospice care in Canton, Massachusetts, just miles from the synagogue where he served as rabbi laureate for more than three decades.
Rabbi Kushner’s fairly conventional trajectory as a Conservative rabbi was altered shortly after arriving at Temple Israel of Natick when, on the day his daughter Ariel was born, his 3-year-old son Aaron was diagnosed with progeria, a fatal premature aging condition.
Published in 1981, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” represented Rabbi Kushner’s attempt to make sense of Aaron’s suffering and eventual death, just days after his 14th birthday. It was turned down by two publishers before being released by Schocken Books, a Jewish publisher.
In the book, Rabbi Kushner labors to reconcile the twin Jewish beliefs in God’s omnipotence and his benevolence with the reality of human suffering. ”Can I, in good faith, continue to teach people that the world is good, and that a kind and loving God is responsible for what happens in it?” he writes.
Ultimately, he concludes that God’s ability is limited when it comes to controlling the hazards of life that result in tragedy on a widespread and smaller scale, such as the Holocaust and the death of a child.
It is a view that runs afoul of traditional Jewish teaching about God, and it earned Rabbi Kushner a number critics among some Orthodox Jews and also drew rebuttals from other Jewish theologians. But it resonated widely for a long time and with many people, Jewish and non-Jewish, rocketing to the top of the New York Times’ best-seller list. More than 4 million copies have been sold in at least a dozen languages.
He scaled back his duties at his synagogue, then stepped away, as 13 other books followed, tackling topics equally as daunting — the meaning of life, talking to children about God, overcoming disappointment and fear. “To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking,” published in 1993, became a go-to resource for people exploring Judaism, while “Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success,” published in 1986, was another best-seller.
“I think that Rabbi Kushner was successful because he catered to everybody,” Carolyn Hessel, director of the Jewish Book Council, said in 2017 when it revived the Lifetime Achievement Award to honor Rabbi Kushner. “He reached everybody’s heart. It wasn’t just the Jewish heart. He reached the heart of every human being.”
Rabbi Kushner was born in Brooklyn and educated in the New York City public schools. After his ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1960, he went to court to have his military exemption waived.
For two years he served as a military chaplain in Oklahoma before assuming his first pulpit, as an assistant rabbi at another Temple Israel, this one in Great Neck, New York.
Four years later he moved to Natick, where he remained even as he became a celebrity. In 1983, with his book a bestseller and demanding more of his time, Rabbi Kushner cut back to part-time at the synagogue. Seven years later he stepped down to devote himself fully to writing.
The congregation, believing that their then-55-year-old rabbi was too young to be named rabbi emeritus, made Rabbi Kushner their rabbi laureate, a title held by only a handful of American spiritual leaders.
It would be one of a growing number of accolades: Rabbi Kushner was honored by the Roman Catholic organization the Christophers as someone who made the world a better place, and the organization Religion in America named him clergyman of the year in 1999. In 2004, he read from the Book of Isaiah at the state funeral of President Ronald Reagan.
Rabbi Kushner remained involved in the Conservative movement after leaving the pulpit, serving as a leader in the New England region of its rabbinical association and, with the novelist Chaim Potok, editing its 2001 Etz Hayim Torah commentary.
“My seminary training was all about Jewish answers. My congregational experience has been more in terms of Jewish questions,” Rabbi Kushner told the JTA global Jewish news source in 2008. “I start with the anguish, the uncertainty, the lack of fulfillment I find in the lives of the very nice, decent people who are in this synagogue and who are my readers. And Judaism is the answer.”
He added, “How do I live a fulfilling life is the question. And Judaism is the answer.”
Rabbi Kushner’s wife, Suzette, died last July, 45 years after their son, Aaron. Rabbi Kushner is survived by his daughter, Ariel Kushner Haber, and two grandchildren.
Israeli-Americans Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin talked about the pain of losing their 23-year-old son, who was kidnapped and later murdered in the Oct. 7th tragedy.
A committed philanthropist and community leader, Russel was president of R&H Motors.
The mother of four was a native of Winchester, Virginia, who spent most of her life in Northwest Baltimore.
Rabbi David Wolpe looks at the recent interest in Hollywood productions about King David and why the story is resonating now.