We may not always be the authors of our own misfortunes, but we are their interpreters. It is ourselves and ourselves alone who decide what sense we will make of our pain, suffering and crises. This was strikingly brought home to me on a recent visit to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Under the auspices of the Council of Christians and Jews, and with 19 other British clergy, I was invited for a nine-day seminar at Israel’s memorial to the martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust. What we witnessed was a powerful interpretation of a horrific event in order that its perpetrators might not have the final word. We witnessed a desire to respond to the Holocaust – the Shoah – in such a way that none of its victims is forgotten, nor any of its survivors. We saw an interpretation that resolved itself in a commitment among the Jewish people to continue bravely on the path of life, even in the shadow of their history.

At the same time it has to be acknowledged that ultimately there can be no real response to the Shoah – any real response must lie in the realms of silence – but there can, and should, be attempts at a response. Part of such an attempt is to realise that it must never seek to explain away suffering or to accord suffering in and of itself any intrinsic meaning or value, whether redemptive or otherwise. This is one of the problems with the word “holocaust”. It means “burnt offering” or “sacrifice”, and by inference something that God demands or even ordains. The word more common in Israel and among many Jews is “shoah”, a biblical word that carries the resonances of utter catastrophe; its implication being that like most catastrophes it has no rhyme or reason, no meaning.

Any attempts at meaning are interpretations we may discern after the fact and in order to make a stand against the devastating powers of catastrophe. Not that these interpretations may not be powerful or even “true” in a more profound sense than simply factual, but they are only that. They are interpretations in order that we can somehow live with the ineffable reality of suffering and disaster.

We may snatch significance and even life from suffering – as a brand is snatched from the fire – but to give suffering intrinsic meaning, or worse, divine purpose, is to attribute to God a property that hopefully even God would want to reject, and it is an affront to those who have suffered and those who continue to suffer.

Still, we do interpret our suffering and that of others. We do this as individuals and as communities. In fact, we have to do it if we are to keep our sanity in the face of catastrophe. The real challenge is to create interpretations that are life-giving and life-enhancing; interpretations that salvage human wellbeing from the meaninglessness of human suffering.

We have not always been able to do that well. We have interpreted, and still do, suffering as divinely ordained whether for our punishment, our salvation or our sanctification. Worse, we have interpreted the disasters of others in ways so as to feel ourselves superior or chosen. When all else has failed, we have given to suffering meaning while at the same time admitting that we cannot yet understand it: “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.”

Yad Vashem stands out as a place where the interpretation of suffering has been “done well”. While giving no meaning to suffering itself, it has given meaning to the lives of the millions who suffered and died, by keeping their memory alive to stand as reminders and as warning of our human capacity for cruelty. It has given those lives meaning beyond that of victims, working to recover their identities as fully human persons. It stands firmly as an advocate for life in the face of death.

There is no mystery or glory to suffering. It is simply a vicissitude of human existence. The glory lies in our interpretation, in the meaning we make of disaster in order that real life can flourish.

Luis Rodriguez is an Anglican priest, counsellor and spiritual director