Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

The great 12th century Jewish philosopher Maimonides noted that although Job is described in the beginning as being a very upright and decent individual, the one characteristic he lacked was the quality of insight![1] In the beginning, Job feared God and did not act out of love. Despite Job’s devoted religious behavior, he did not have a personal religious experience. Maimonides suggests that much of Job’s own suffering was due to wrongful notions and beliefs he had regarding the ways of Providence. Much (but certainly not all) of human suffering is often attributed to the dysfunctional images people have inherited concerning God. Ignorance conditioned Job into thinking that he was a separate entity, apart from God pitted against a hostile world. Job’s ordeal represents the painful journey of all sufferers; for this reason Job’s transformation is most instructive.

In classical Maimonidean theology, the journey to God requires a purging of our preconceived images, sensory perceptions, and affective attachments—all that is not God. As we enter the “Dark Night of the Soul,” we are emptied of all preconceived “graven” images of faith we have held fast of. In the Dark Night, we experience loneliness and separateness. Darkness fills our intellects because our hearts yearn for something infinitely more satisfying than reason alone—God’s love. Amidst our pain, we yearn for friendship and companionship. As the days go by without so much as a Divine response, we feel restless, spiritually impotent, tired and discouraged. We feel as if our souls are caught within a maze that we will never escape. Worst still, we experience the bitterness and pain of feeling utterly abandoned by God and from humanity. From the depths of our being, we cry out that God should illumine our life with the radiance of the Shekhinah (Psa. 146:2).

Yet, we must not let despair or hopelessness have the final word; from out of these sufferings, we must choose to grow and develop a new response to faith based on our innate capacity to experience hope and love. Granted, this journey is certainly not something we willfully embark; rather God throws us into the darkness. In Kabbalistic terms, we enter into the mysterious realm of “Ayin” of Nothingness, to be reborn as a new creation (yesh m’ayin).[2] Job’s journey through the Dark Night changed him and his relationship with God, his family, and his community forever. Using today’s terms, we could say that Job had a profound religious experience. By the end of the story, Job exclaims:

I had heard of you by the

hearing of the ear,

but now my eye sees you;

Job 42:5

What did Job discover? According to Rashi, Job received a revelation of God’s Shekhinah (Divine immanence). The Shekhinah represents the maternal nurturing Presence of God. Yet the Shekhinah’s appearance is not an unconditional thing. Human behavior determines to what degree God’s feminine Presence is revealed in the world. Every action of compassion and justice reveals God’s immanence in the world. All of Job’s friends consistently portrayed God in solely masculine terms (and dysfunctional masculinity at best!). After he experiences God’s immanence, Job feels his heart filled with love; he became reconciled with his human mortality. Whereas others spoke about God, Job in the end experienced God’s majestic Presence. He came to see that all God-talk pales before the actual experience of God’s Shekhinah. Job discovered an interconnectedness that weaves all aspects of creation together. It is the Shekhinah’s love that keeps the world intact despite itself. Job came to the realization that at the core of human suffering is the delusion that one is separate from God. It is humanity’s grandest illusion that situates God against His Creation.