Why Do Good People Suffer While the Wicked Prosper? A Jewish Perspective on Reward, Punishment, and True Happiness

We all know righteous, honest, kind-hearted people who help others at every opportunity, but experience suffering for most of their lives. On the other hand, we also know plenty of negative people who enjoy success, flourishing careers, beautiful families, and all the pleasures this world has to offer.

The obvious question is why? If there is a Creator of the world and a system of reward and punishment, why don’t we see it operating clearly?

Rabbi Yitzhak Gabay begins by discussing the meaning of “good” and “bad” and explains: “Many people think ‘good’ means fulfilling their desires and cravings, while "bad" refers to having many expectations that can't be fulfilled. However, there’s a difference between wanting something and it actually being good. When I eat chocolate, for example, it may taste good, but in the long run, it’s harmful. When God says the righteous will have good in this world and in the next, He’s referring to true good.”

Rabbi Gabay adds that we cannot truly know who is righteous and who is not. "I know someone who seems very righteous but suffers a lot. Is he really a tzaddik? Who said the wicked person is truly wicked? Are we the heavenly court? We don’t know God’s calculations.”

But still — why do good people suffer?

“First of all,” says Rabbi Gabay, “who says that the righteous who ‘seem’ to suffer are really suffering? If you look deeper, you’ll see that in the ultra-Orthodox community, even though many are in poor financial situations, they actually enjoy life more. True, they may not travel abroad every couple of months, but they have other sources of joy.

“There are people who fly all over the world, pampered from head to toe, but feel deep suffering and emptiness. In contrast, the righteous person, can accept even his troubles with faith. Even if his entire family perishes, he can stand at the funeral and say: ‘The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’”

He lost his entire family — where is the good in that?

“We see only part of the picture,” Rabbi Gabay explains. “Jewish faith requires us to believe that in the end, the circle will be closed, and all the bad we experienced in this world will turn out to have been for our benefit. Regarding the World to Come it is said: "Then our mouths will be filled with laughter", because we will finally see how everything in this world was ultimately for the good.

How reward and punishment really work

Rabbi Eli Amar explains that there is often a misunderstanding of the Divine system of reward and punishment. “Our world operates with two combined systems — the attribute of justice and the attribute of mercy.

“Justice is like immediate payment. For example, someone does a mitzvah such as helping an elderly woman cross the street, and then suddenly finds $1,000 in an envelope. Likewise, if someone sins, justice would dictate an immediate punishment. If the world worked that way, there would be no free will and everyone would feel forced to do mitzvot.

Furthermore, God also uses the attribute of mercy, where payment is delayed, giving time for a person to repent.

“God might give a righteous person, who naturally sometimes stumbles, a little suffering in this world to atone for any sins, so that in the World to Come he can receive 100% of his reward. The wicked person, however, mostly sins. God gives him a yacht, a pool, and all sorts of pleasures as payment for the few good deeds he did. But after receiving all that, he’s left with nothing but his sins. This is just a small glimpse into how the system works.”

Suffering is relative

Rabbi Gabay tells the famous story of Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli, one of the great Chassidic masters. Rabbi Zusha was so poor he couldn’t even afford wood to heat his home in the freezing winter.

One day, his teacher, the Maggid of Mezritch, sent to him a person who struggled to understand the teaching, “A person must bless God for the bad just as he blesses Him for the good”. When this man explained the reason for his visit, Rabbi Zusha replied: “I think there’s been a mistake. The Maggid couldn’t have been referring to me, because I’ve never had anything bad happen to me in my life.”