We have been suddenly plunged into an existential crisis, and we're not a society in general

that turns to deep questions of life meaning.

We are a society more of doing things and achieving things and less reflective.

And this has forced us back to be reflective.

And I think that's an uncomfortable position for a lot of people.

Hello, I'm Sean Elling, co-host of The Way Through.

This summer, Segal, Samuel, and I are taking turns, talking to contemporary spiritual

leaders and philosophers who can help us put our questions in a larger context and maybe

even find something meaningful and ennobling in this experience.

My guest today is David Wopje, the senior rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, and the author

of many, many books on a wide range of topics.

One of those books is called Making Loss Matter, Creating Meaning in Difficult Times.

It was published back in 1999, but it feels relevant for reasons that I hope

are clear. These are hard times and we're surrounded by pain and anger and the way forward is

very much uncertain. This is an unusual conversation in that it goes a little deeper and a little

broader than most, but that's sort of the point of the series.

I reached out to Wope in part because I think there's a natural impulse to turn away from suffering or to look for ways to rationalize it.

In this conversation, we lean into it.

There are plenty of smart people thinking and writing about what we ought to do

and how we ought to do it. This is not that. This is an attempt to dig into the theology of

suffering and ask how it can point us in a more fruitful direction. I found this conversation

cathartic and it went in some directions they

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