When Bad Things Happen to Good People
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4.2 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The inspirational classic from a renowned spiritual leader that "offers a moving and humane approach to understanding life’s windstorms” (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross).
When Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease that meant the boy would only live until his early teens, he was faced with one of life’s most difficult questions: Why, God? Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote this straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. In these pages, Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being. Often imitated but never superseded, When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a classic that offers clear thinking and consolation in times of sorrow.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, this book features Rabbi Kushner's perspective on how people can better deal with evil that enters their lives.
Customer Reviews
Honest and Heartfelt
Kushner's writing is at once probing and comforting. One senses a great deal of intelligence, compassion and yes, soul-searching behind the words on the page. This is not a book which provides easy-to-digest pat answers to the question inferred by the title
"When Bad Things Happen to Good People". It takes the reader through the difficult parts of life - loss, disaster, grief, in all its many guises - and does so unblinkingly, never once swerving into the self-satisfied religious pronouncements that are so often used to explain tragedy when it strikes the lives of ordinary, essentially good people. In place of those platitudes, it slowly reveals a worldview that gives the reader a sensible way to reconcile the pain and suffering in the world, with the belief in a caring God. You don't have to be Jewish (as Mr. Kushner is - many of the stories revolve around situations he has faced as a rabbi trying to help those in his congregation manage tragedy), in fact you don't even need necessarily to be religious at all to gain a great deal of insight into the psychological aspects of how to cope with pain and loss and grief. I (an agnostic) read it after my 20-year-old son died of cancer, and found it very helpful in coming to terms with the enormous loss I was feeling, and my anger at the universe for allowing it to happen. Highly recommended.