Toward the end of bentching, we recite a pasuk from Tehilim (37:25):
נַעַר הָיִיתִי גַּם זָקַנְתִּי וְלֹא רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק נֶעֱזָב וְזַרְעוֹ מְבַקֶּשׁ לָחֶם
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread.
On its face, this verse seems preposterous. All of us have seen good people suffering. The author of this Psalm, King David himself, suffered throughout his life. According to tradition, Moshe Rebbeinu wrestled with this very question and wrote the Book of Job to address it. (Berachos 7a; Bava Basra 14b.)
There are two approaches to resolving this problem. According to the Talmud, “bread” in the Psalm is a metaphor for observing the commands of God. Thus, when King David has not seen the tzadik’s “seed begging bread,” he means that he has not seen a righteous person raise his children to spiritual poverty. A tzadik always provides spiritual direction and guidance for his sons and daughters, even if they often suffer literal hunger.
According to this reading, this verse in the Psalms is a play on the verse in our parsha: “man does not live by bread only, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Hashem.” (Dev. 8:3.) In the Psalms, David reverses the metaphor. Now bread stands in for “everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Hashem.” (Yevamos 16a.)
Ramban, however, takes another view. Ramban says that this verse refers to a specific time period in Jewish history when Hashem exercised a unique providence over his people. During the time of the Avos, the righteous did not always prosper, nor did the wicked always suffer. People did not always get what they deserved, because the Judge of the Universe was, as it were, at a distance from his creations. However, this changed when God’s presence descended to earth. On Sinai and in the mishkan and mikdash, God exercised a full and true judgment. God, residing among humanity, rewarded the righteous and punished the wicked in a readily apparent manner. During the time of the mishkan and mikdash, the Psalm could be understood literally: the righteous did not suffer, because God’s true judgment was sovereign. (Ramban at Dev. 8:2-3 and Introduction to parshas Terumah.) However, after the destruction of the beis ha-mikdash, we return to the state before matan Torah. God is at a distance; we do not always get what we are owed; and the verse in the Psalms is an aspiration for the future. (Eichah Rabbah 1:3.)