Our Gemara on Amud Aleph uses an idiom that refers to skin healing and growing back, “Ma’aleh Arucha,” literally “bringing up or out a sheet of skin.” This phrase comes from Yirmiyahu (33:6):

“I am going to bring her relief and healing (Ma’aleh Arucha). I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of true favor.”

The Malbim (ibid.) explains that sometimes, to promote healing of an internal injury, an area might be injured externally. (Presumably this stimulates some kind of increased immune response and other scar-tissue formation that helps the internal injury which is not accessible directly.) The message was that the pains suffered by the Jews in the exile were the factors that would eventually bring them to healing and redemption.

There are certain patterns that repeat throughout nature, from the physical to the spiritual. When there is a pattern that repeats itself consistently in various dimensions, even though there is no reason for them to cross into different dimensions, it is a hint at a larger purpose—a grand design, some underlying morality or destiny. A pattern where there needs to be a break or deconstruction in order for healing to come about is true in relationships; it is true physically, such as when we may need to tear down a building in order to renovate it, or biologically as we saw; and spiritually as well.

Our sages say that God creates the cure in advance of the disease or punishment (Megillah 13b). This is one step further. This is the idea that such a disease is part of the cure. The Hafla’ah on the Haggadah states this clearly and sees it hinted in the phrase “and their cries rose up to God from their labor.” He asks, shouldn’t the correct order of the text be, “and their cries rose up from their labor to God”? Meaning, to emphasize that they called out to God during their extreme labor. However, this order hints at the idea that their connecting to God came from the labor—meaning to say that the suffering was designed to bring them closer to God.

A similar and related pattern is what is stated in Berachos (34b): “In the place where the baal teshuva (penitent) stands, even the fully righteous cannot occupy.” The experience of failure and recovery from that makes a stronger, wiser person. Once again, this pattern is true spiritually, relationally, and physically.

No one wants to suffer or experience betrayal. On the other hand, in the big picture, we can take comfort that almost anybody who has survived a challenge, painful situation, betrayal, or setback will sincerely declare that what happened to them made them a better person. Never say such a thing to a person when they are in the throes of suffering; otherwise we commit the sin of the friends of Iyov (Bava Metzia 58b), because timing matters. However, it is fundamentally true.