Non-Useless Suffering

What does it mean to suffer? How are we to understand the sufferings we undergo? Etymologically, to suffer signifies to undergo and endure. Is there a sense, a purpose to our sufferings or does the very passivity, which they etymologically imply, robs them of all inherent meaning? In this paper, I shall argue against this Levinasian interpretation. My claim will be that suffering, exhibits a meaning beyond meaning, one embodied in the unique singularity of our flesh. This uniqueness is, in fact, an interruption. It signifies the suspension of all systems of exchange, all attempts to render good for good and evil for evil. It is in terms of such suspension that suffering – particularly as found in selfless sacrifice – finds its »use«. This »use« involves the possibility of forgiveness.

For It Is God’s Way to Sweeten Bitter with Bitter

In accounts of Emmanuel Levinas’s relationship to the Jewish theological tradition, scholars often analyze Levinas’s essays about Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin, and specifically his 1824 book Soul of Life (Nefesh ha-Ḥayyim). This article treats two essays that Levinas wrote in the mid-1980s on that book, and shows that Levinas’s praise for that book involves coming close to endorsing its theology of suffering, a theology that strikes this article’s author as obscene. In Nefesh ha-Ḥayyim, those who suffer deserve their suffering, their suffering is in proportion to the sins that gave rise to it, and their suffering purifies and atones for their sin—in the language of the Jewish theological tradition, “it is God’s way to sweeten bitter with bitter.” This marks a departure from Levinas’s standard treatment of issues of theodicy in essays such as “Useless Suffering” (1982). In the article’s conclusion, the possibility is raised that Levinas’s account of divine illeity liberates theologians from problems of theodicy.

The poverty of resilience: On memory, meaning, and well-being

Along with risk and trauma, resilience and well-being are key terms for understanding and responding to disaster and suffering in the contemporary world. This article not only explores how memory can be brought into the discourse of post-disaster resilience but also critiques the very language of resilience and well-being as part of an ideological cluster with problematic implications. Resilience is a peculiarly modern form of theodicy, an explanation of misery and suffering that seeks to make sense of these fundamental, but ultimately inexplicable, human experiences. To demonstrate the limits of therapeutic discourse, the article explores Jean Amèry’s account of resentment as well as Emmanuel Levinas’ concept of “useless suffering.” Placing these concepts in the longer discourse about theodicy, the article argues for a wary contextualization of the discourse on resilience, which risks exacerbating exactly that which it seeks to aid.

An Interreligious Funeral for a Taiwanese Centenarian and the Mystery of Useless Suffering

Interreligious ritual and Christian preaching within it often devolve into generic theological expression. Liturgical attempts to share hospitality, unity-in-difference, and love of God end up clouding the distinctive and illuminating features of neighboring religious traditions and shrouding Christian particularity. Yet even when efforts falter to convey the love of God and neighbor with theological clarity, identifiable holiness that outshines human ingenuity can still pierce through the most opaque of prayers, ritual, and homiletic practices. In the essay below, the author engages Tom Long, Don Seaman, and John McClure, with focus upon the Levinasian idea of “useless suffering,” to explore how messianic healing became believable in the difficulties and insufficiencies of his Asian American Buddhist grandfather’s funeral and plausible for other contexts of mourning more tragic and profound.

Is Levinas’s Philosophy a Response to the Holocaust?

Some commentators have claimed that Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy should be understood as a response to the Holocaust. This study assesses that claim. It begins by clarifying what it means to call his philosophy a “response.” The bulk of the article then analyzes his essay, “Useless Suffering,” one of the few works in Levinas’s philosophic oeuvre where he discusses the Holocaust. Levinas is widely read as claiming that there can be no explanation for the Holocaust—that it marks “the end of theodicy.” It is shown, however, that his point is not that it cannot be explained, but that we misjudge the nature of evil when we view it as calling for explanation rather than practical activity. Based on this analysis, it is argued that Levinas’s philosophy can be understood as a response to the Holocaust in the sense of being a performative writing that sought to address the evil that occurred in the Holocaust by transforming the ethical sensibilities of his readers.