Dear Rabbi Lamm, I would very much like one day, to discuss the contents of this letter with you. There is no immediacy to this request, the dilemma has been around for centuries. Respectfully, [redacted]. Dear Master of the Universe, It is not a very humble gesture on my part to address this letter to you; please forgive me. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to elevate myself to peaks where I do not belong. This letter will never be published. It will not be included in my memoirs. Since you alone know the contents of my memoirs I decided to break formal boundries and address my thoughts to you. This is not a form of prayer, my pen is incapable of prayer. I am merely expressing my thoughts, and you are looking over my shoulder, that is all. It is easier for me to compose my thoughts to another being other than myself. I decided to choose you, the eternal being. Dear G-d, please excuse my familiar tone.Lord of this great universe, I must ask you a personal question – Do you value life? You have been around for awhile, maybe once in a while you loose grasp of perspective. What do a few lives mean to you? In the millions of years that you have been around, possibly the few years that people suffer here and there can be paralleled to a healthy man receiving a small scratch.If you sometimes loose perspective about the importance of a small scratch, I can forgive you. A sense of perspective is sometimes hard to keep. I can forgive you for these past and future mistakes. What upsets me is that you are not supposed to make mistakes. Have my teachers misguided me to believe you are perfect? Whatever you do is for the best. What is best? I have been taught that in the scheme of the universe, you alone know what is best, Please do not find me irreverant to you or my teachers, but something is amiss in this explanation.Maybe it is for the best that my grandmother is suffering to an inexplicable degree while she slowly disintegrates, dying of cancer. In the scheme of the world it is…

Dear Uncle Norman, I received your letter and thank you for answering. Over the weekend I read over some of your sermons you sent. I specifically enjoyed the one about – "Till a hundred & twenty." Today however we received a most interesting piece of work – a letter from Shelley to "The Master of Universe" and you answer בשמו. It really קלע למטרה, and I have a few more question בנדון.1) How come G-d doesn't stop the suffering at a certain point & make it well again? Why can't He make the condition better to show His greatness & to לחזק the person's sick parent or relative or friend and he prays to G-d constantly (הרי זוהי המטרה) and even has a נצוץ של תקוה, and the end this sick person dies –הרי שבסופו של דבר, אמונתו של אדם נקטעת באיזשהו מקום. האדם סמך על הקב"ה שיעזר, התפלל בתמידות וסופו שלא נתקבלו תפילתיו. והוא אמנם אמר ומודה שהכל לטובה אך סך הכל זהו דבר שקשה מאד להבין בעצם מיואש זה ובמקום מסוים הוא מאד מאובזם וזה עלול בהחלט לערער את האמונה. אם כך אז הוא התקרב למשך התקופה שסמל ואחר כך מתרחק שוב מהקב"ה, או באופן קיצוני יותר.2) Why על חשבון the sick person? Why does he have to be sick & die if G-d wants to לקרב the other people to him? Does he get repayed בעולם הבא?Anyway, those are my questions for now. I would appreciate if you'd answer them when you have some time.Israel is beautiful obviously. There is "יריד שבוע הספר העברי" now and of course I spotted your book on one of the counters.Last night, ל"ג בעמר, the whole country was lit up with מדורות, even Shelli and Mommy made one. I went out to the Chasidic Festival and has a great time. Today, however, we just stayed home.Okay, that all for now. להשתמע!Wish you were all here.Bye, Love,YaelP.S. I notice that I should've written in Hebrew. It would've been more מובן & in only one language.

Dear Maeir לאוי״ט: During this past Pesach, Josh showed me your essay on R. Akiva and theodicy, and I found it most impressive. At first I thought that your eclectic use of sources constituted a weakness, but then I reconsidered and realized that this is the only way to find some rational and coherent explanation of R. Akiva’s remarkable optimism – because I too would love to know the answer. Offhand, I prefer to think that R. Akiva came out of the Pardes the same way he entered – no solutions, but with the satisfaction of knowing that there is a solution, but the Almighty has chosen not to reveal it to us, perhaps to leave place for freedom of the will. In that case, R. Akiva merely experienced anew the “solution” that the Almighty gave to Job. (Not every knshia has a terutz...) Yeyashar kochakha, and keep it up – and do try to develop the idea further. All the best to all the Becker generations.