How do we find comfort? And how do we find meaning in our pain?

I had a difficult childhood – the kind where people drive into a ditch or commit suicide before they reach adulthood. And it was a coincidence – or a miracle – that saved me.

When I was eight, the Jewish Publication Society published a new translation of the Torah. If you lived in New York, the news was everywhere. “A translation so simple that a child could read it,” the headlines said. And so I insisted. My parents had to get me a copy.

At first, my parents were resistant. Who could imagine an eight-year old reading the Torah. But I had every newspaper on my side, and finally they relented.

It looks me months to read it, learning about the story of creation, and the patriarchs, and the descent into Egypt. And finally, I got to a verse in this week’s Torah portion.

The Israelites cried from the servitude, and their moaning went up to God from their labors.  And God heard and God remembered.

For the first time in my life, I had hope. I realized that this is a world where the voice of the oppressed is sometimes heard, and that the Holy One might someday take me out from my own suffering, just as He had taken us out of Egypt.

And somehow, I realized that others in my family might need to hear those words, too. So I would sit in a corner and read parts of Exodus out loud. And I would notice that my father – normally a loud, angry man – would become quieter and softer. I was only eight, but my father became my first student.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if that translation had been published a year earlier or a year later. If it came out earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to read it. And if it had come out later, it might have been too late. God really heard my voice, and in hearing me, He saved my life.

To this day, I don’t know which was the greater miracle – whether it was that translation appearing at just the right moment, or whether it was the miracle of the human spirit, the spark that God has placed within each of us. But more than sixty years later, that translation sits on my bookshelf, with a bookmark on that verse – a message of hope from my eight-year old self.

For me, it’s a story of divine grace – perhaps even divine intervention. But much more often, comfort comes through human hands – through the hugs when we are lonely, through the person who listens, through the moments when one human heart opens to another. And perhaps, this is the way God meant it to be.

Rabbi Naomi Levy teaches that whenever we reach out to help someone who is suffering, God speaks words of gratitude to us. She writes:

Whenever we rise above indifference and complacency, whenever we refuse to ignore the cries of suffering, whenever we make the choice to help any human being in need, we become God’s partners. And a sacred voice echoes across the world speaking softly, “Bless you, thank you for saving My life.”

This, perhaps, is the greatest miracle of all.  No matter how much we have suffered, no matter how much pain we have experienced in our lives, we can become God’s partners.  And we can cause a sacred voice to cry out “Thank you for saving my life.”