Donate
Archive

Finding God in Tragedy

Read the essay that won Micah Jackson first place in the 2026 Essay Contest

10 May 2026
sky close far distance reach hashem spirituality god hand

This essay is one of the winning submissions to the Rabbi Sacks Essay Contest. Drawing on the teachings and writings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l, students were invited to reflect on contemporary questions through the lens of his ideas. This piece reflects the voice and perspective of its student author.

Author: Micah Jackson (Amit Kfar Batya Science & Technology School, Israel) - First Prize

“Will You sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
…Far be it from You to do such a thing - to kill the righteous with the wicked,
treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from You!
Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

Genesis 18:23-25

This passage from Parashat Vayera holds a remarkable amount of significance. Abraham, a mere man, challenges the Creator of the world. I believe this is the defining moment of the Jewish people. So many others have questioned God in Abraham’s footsteps, most notably Moses, Jeremiah and Job. This dialogue between a human being and God is the paradigm that we hold ourselves to to this day: the ability to change the world for the better, even through changing the actions of the One who created it.

However, is this not in conflict with Abraham’s later actions? God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, who was promised to him. Abraham accepts without so much as a word, even waking up early the next morning to carry out the command! What is the point of dialogue with the Almighty if you don’t use it when the thing you love most is about to be taken from you?

To understand this, I believe we need to examine what was behind Abraham’s argument for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. In one of Rabbi Sacks’ lectures on confronting the problem of injustice, he brings a fascinating idea. The Midrash Rabbah suggests how Abraham was chosen. The parable goes like this. A man is on a journey and on his way he sees a palace on fire. The man asks, “How is this palace in flames? If it has an owner, surely he would be looking after it?” At that moment the owner appears and says “I am the owner of this palace.” Abraham then thought to himself, “Does this world not have a ruler?” and God said to him “I am the Owner of the universe.” But this is a paradox! For if the palace had a ruler he would have put out the flames, and so if there are flames perhaps that means there is no ruler?

This problem influenced later philosophers. Nietzsche believed the strong will always overpower the weak, and so injustice will always find ways to be dominant; hence the palace will forever burn. Leibniz believed injustice was an illusion - the palace was never burning at all. And so it is one or the other, either God exists and there is no injustice, or injustice exists and there is no God.

Yet through a Jewish lens, I refuse to believe either of these explanations. We live in a world in which Auschwitz was able to exist. If we choose to believe that injustice is an illusion, then what of the six million Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust? And, if we choose to believe that there is no God in the world, then the Holocaust was an accident of history, a meaningless tragedy. Both beliefs are logical but extremely disturbing. Hence, we Jews believe something in between: that the fire and the palace - both evil and God - coexist. We are still left with our paradox.

Rabbi Sacks suggests a solution: “Abraham says: God, why did you abandon the world? God says to Abraham: Why did you abandon Me?” When we fix the world and rid it of injustice, then there will be no paradox, for the fire will be gone. This is Abraham’s belief when he converses with God about Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, there is injustice in the world, but it is our job to fix it.

In light of this, we can understand why Abraham did not protest the sacrifice of Isaac. As Rabbi Sacks explains: The akedah is not merely a test of Abraham’s faith. In the biblical world, child sacrifice was the norm and the Torah’s moral message was that this is immoral. Your child is not your possession. Many of our matriarchs were infertile until God decided to bless them with children. When God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, the message is that Isaac does not belong to him, he belongs to God. The reason it is not wrong for Abraham to be commanded to sacrifice Isaac is because Isaac is God’s property. The akedah teaches us a double lesson: On the one hand, all children belong to God first and foremost. This is reflected by the words of the angel: “You have not withheld from Me your son, your only one.” On the other hand, God instructs Abraham not to kill Isaac. This is the Torah’s moral stance on child sacrifice.

This is the bottom line: there is no inconsistency in Abraham’s actions. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, God declares that they have sinned, so there is room for Abraham to argue about the justice of their punishment. But in the case of the akedah, God does not argue that Isaac must die because he has sinned. He simply states that Isaac is His, and if He wants him sacrificed, Abraham must sacrifice him. Both these stories are necessary. If we had Sodom and Gomorrah without the akedah we would have learned activism without humility. If we had the akedah without Sodom and Gomorrah we would have learned to have faith without moral courage.

In my opinion, Rabbi Sacks’ analysis of the seeming inconsistency of Abraham’s actions can teach us a lot about how we should react to suffering in the world. When we believe there is injustice we learn from Abraham that it is our mission to help. Yet, there will also be times which are like the akedah, when we may not be able to understand why good people suffer, such as in the Holocaust. Whether suffering is caused by clear injustice or it is beyond our understanding, the Jewish response is the same: we run towards the flames.

For a long time now I’ve been troubled by the reality that bad things happen to good people. As I write this essay I can’t help but think about Hadar Goldin who was returned to Israel recently, after falling in Gaza more than a decade ago. I feel so thankful for having the opportunity to study at the same high school as him, and I hope to follow in his footsteps and join a combat unit in the army. Even so, seeing his family so heartbroken at the funeral, I couldn’t help but wonder how God could have taken him from us.

This essay has certainly helped me get my thoughts in order, and Rabbi Sacks’ Torah has been so incredibly insightful as always. I would like to end with a quote from Rabbi Sacks, “That is what happens when we see the palace and we see the flames. We call out to God and we find Him calling out to us saying, “You must fight the fire. You, human beings, must put out the flames and I will show you how”.” Hadar Goldin and so many others heard this calling. They chose to put out the flames.

Bibliography

To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacksquired.

Faith Lectures: Judaism, Justice, and Tragedy (2) - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Arguments for the Sake of Heaven - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Answering the Call - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The Binding of Isaac - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The Binding of Isaac: A New Interpretation - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Read the other prize-winning essays from the 2026 Contest