So Debbie Friedman Died... Perhaps God was Too Busy Arranging the Outcome of the BCS Football Championship Game

At the end of the Auburn-Oregon BCS college football championship game, many winning Auburn players - including the coach and the quarterback - thanked God for being with them so that they could win the game. In fact, following the win, the Auburn team huddled together in a prayer circle.

At the moment, tens of thousands of people around the world were facing the sad painful reality that in spite of all the Mi Shebeirach healing prayers sung according to

Debbie Friedman (e.g. to her tune), Debbie died nonetheless.

Two groups praying; two different results. What gives, God?

It makes me kind of wonder:

OR

OR

A few years back, when the Red Sox were playing in the World Series, I wrote a post entitled: "Can I pray that my Red Sox will win?"  I wondered: Is there a one to one relationship between our prayers and the results? Or said differently, how does it work? Is it "We pray and God responds"? Then why didn't God respond to the Mi Shebeirach healing prayers for the very woman - Debbie Friedman - who brought the Mi Shebeirach back into vogue?

Here's how I answer that questions:

• First, read my answer to Why Do the Good Die Young?

• Then, peruse my article "God is a Fraud!" Cries the Woman Caring for her Elderly Mother

• Now, consider this:

Perhaps God does respond, but differently than we hoped. 

The Mi Shebeirach is about healing, not necessarily curing. In my reading of Jewish tradition, I have not found any guarantee that God offers a cure. To cure is to remove the illness, the depression, or the disease from our bodies and minds. But the One Who Heals always offers us, and our loved ones, the promise of

, of healing. Healing is about finding a way to face whatever is ahead. It is about shalom, that sense of wholeness, amidst the brokenness of our lives. Healing is about

, the courage to go on and face the new day.  And its about

- wholeness and peace.  

So healing sometimes means that death comes and through it, a return of peace and tranquility, a return to the arms of the Holy One.

Which means that we, who are left behind, must face life without Debbie, even as we remain open to our still loving, ever caring God.