To the giant of medieval Jewish theology, Moses Maimonides, human suffering is—to simplify greatly this sage’s sophisticated reasoning—a result of man’s inability to grasp the intricacy of God’s creation. But to the great 20th-century Maimonidean Joseph B. Soloveitchik, such an response to the problem of human suffering is inadequate. Reuven Ziegler, drawing on years of work organizing and editing Soloveitchik’s manuscripts, explains how this rabbi’s understanding of the theological problems posed by worldly suffering evolved following his encounters with the Holocaust, his own battle with cancer, and the illness and death of his wife. Ziegler then goes on to contrast Soloveitchik’s approach to these issues to that of one of his foremost disciples, Aharon Lichtenstein. (Interview by Aryeh Grossman and Alex Drucker. Audio, 67 minutes.)
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