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I recently was humbled and honored to speak to a group of parents who have experienced the death of a child. I shall try to address some of their questions in the weeks ahead but nothing I can write will adequately convey the deep and hard-earned wisdom they shared with me.

Q: “I am so angry at the death of my son I don’t ever want to let go of my anger. What can I do with my anger and how can I heal myself?”

Q: In a recent NYT op-ed essay Peter Wehner interviews the philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff whose book, “Lament for a Son” is an expression of his grief at the death of his 25-year-old son, Eric.“To the most agonizing question I have ever been asked,” Mr. Wolterstorff wrote,“I do not know the answer. I do not know why God would watch him fall. I do not know why God would watch me wounded. I cannot even guess. My wound is an unanswered question. The wounds of all humanity are an unanswered question.”

All human questions are either problems or mysteries. A problem is a question about something outside of us and a mystery is a question about something in us. As Gabriel Marcel wrote,“A problem is something we constitute. A mystery is something within which we are constituted.” Problems have answers and mysteries just have responses. Even when we don’t know the answer, a problem is different than a mystery. What is the cure for cancer is a problem without a complete answer yet. When we find the cures the problem will vanish. However, “Why do the innocent suffer?’ or “Is evil punished?” are mysteries and they will never disappear from our minds and souls.

How can we heal from grief is a mystery. Our responses to the death of a loved one depend upon what we already believe about the meaning of life. If we are cynics who believe the worst about people and life before catastrophic loss, we are likely to become even more despairing after death and even more broken by grief. If, on the other hand, we have lived a hopeful, faithful, compassionate life before loss, it is likely that our response will make us even more saintly. That was true for my pal, Father Tom Hartman. In life he was habitually happy and so in his last days he was spiritually luminous. What I have seen and what I know is that people of faith who believe in Heaven handle death better than people who believe that death is the complete end of us.

What if you feel that your response to the mystery of grief is not hopeful or productive? Can faith change you and heal you and transform you into a person more able to accept the highs and lows of human existence? Yes! Yes, I do believe that faith is healing but faith needs help. In my experience one cannot heal from grief alone. You need to be loved. That love can come from family or a faith community or close friends, but it must be a constant love that pulls you out of the darkness of loneliness and despair. That is what I suggested to the angry man in the Compassionate Friends. He could be healed but he most likely could not heal himself. This ability to create healing communities of faith is in my view one of the greatest contributions to human civilization.

In addition to finding healing communities, there is a deeply personal exercise to heal us from grief. This lesson is best conveyed by one of my favorite stories. I heard it as a story from the native Cherokee people:

“An elder Cherokee chief took his grandchildren for a walk into the forest. He sat them down on the banks of a river and said to them, ‘My children I want you to know that there are two wolves fighting inside me. It is a terrible fight. One wolf is the wolf of anger and fear. The other wolf is the wolf of love and hope. And that fight between the two wolves that is going on inside of me is also going on inside of each one of you.’ Then one child spoke up and asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf will win?’ The old chief was quiet and then said, "The wolf that will win is the wolf you feed.’”

So, for those of you struggling with grief, I pray that you might find ways to feed the right wolf. Go serve other people in a soup kitchen. Join people in prayer even when you cannot pray. Spend a day with a friend who has a natural smile. Adopt a guide dog for the blind. There are lots of good wolves waiting to be fed.

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including “Religion for Dummies,” co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman. Also, the new God Squad podcast is now available.)

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