In the Talmud, the death of a child is taken as proof that there is such a thing as meaningless, irredeemable suffering. Whenever one rabbi tries to see meaning in suffering, some hidden benefit or a course correction when we've gone astray, another rabbi will bring up the death of a child, which the Talmud takes as an unassailable refutation that suffering could have any meaning at all. Suffering is just suffering. According to Buddhists, suffering is the first noble truth, and it is relentless. We can never escape it or explain it away.
— Alan Lew, Sherril Jaffe, One God Clapping