When bad things happen to us, God forbid, there are three possible responses.

Number one, we can suffer. Number two, we can endure.

But the real call of Chuba is number three. we can grow.

In Judaism, we recognize that bad things really are bad things. It is part of Judaism's greatness that it never said otherwise, that he never saw the world

through tinted glasses.

The Mishner says,

Kishen shem, shem abhorakim al-hattot, just as we make a brahma over the good,

so we make a brahma over the bad, but it never confused the two. It isn't the same blessing.

Over good, we say, Shehanyahu, Hatova, Maitiv, over the bad, we say, Baruch, Thayana,

we never tried to use religion to mitigate the pain of suffering and of loss.

When bad things happen, we suffer.

That is the first level.

However, there is a second response, profoundly true, which is, despite all the suffering, we

endure.

I used to ask myself, what is the greatness of Yaakov of Vinu, the third of our patriarchs?

He did not do what Abram was called to do, leave his land, his birthplace, his father's

house, and travel to an unknown destination.

Number two, Yaakov was not Yitzchak, not called on to do what Yitzhak had to do.

Risk his very life as a possible sacrifice.

What was Yaakov's greatness?

And then I thought to myself that extraordinary answer he gives to Pharaoh when Pharaoh asks, how old are you?

And he says,

...