Educational and Moral Functions of Suffering in Jewish Theology

Suffering and pain have always been present in human life. They have also faced the human mind with many questions and challenges. Thus, despite their all difficulties, if suffering and pain are proved to be useful, informative and functional, human beings will become released of this concern. Finding a solution for the man's troubled mind as well as the reasons of these sufferings have long been the concern of many theologians in such divine religions as Judaism. The present study attempts to find the educational and moral functions of suffering in Judaism by studying the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish sources. Accordingly, it is attempted to prove that the human sufferings are useful and functional in human spiritual and moral perfection