Theodicy - Why isn't the World Perfect?

The theme of Shavuot (Pentacost) is revelation, which is a hard issue for anyone who's read and been convinced by Hume.
One woman who spoke in our synagogue tried to make the point that the Holocaust makes it very difficult to believe in God. I don't think it was any easier before the Holocaust, if the issue blocking belief is the suffering of innocent people, or the persecution of people who regard themselves as God's chosen. This sort of thing has been going on since time immemorial.
Many of us manage to maintain a belief that the world is pretty well-ordered because we haven't suffered ourselves very much. I strongly recommend a recent article in the New Yorker by James Wood for a very cerebral but elegant treatment of the topic. Wood mentions some of the recent natural disasters in Asia - the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China - as examples of human suffering that it's pretty hard to justify theologically. As he points out, all you have to do is open your daily newspaper to find abundant demonstrations of the world's cruel imperfections.
You might say that our family's bereavement is deluxe. We didn't lose our homes and all our possessions, along with the son who died. We are surrounded by thoughtful friends. We were able to hold a funeral for Asher and work through the mourning process. But of course we weep. And if we weep, for a loss that did not destroy everything we had in the world, can we begin to imagine the grief of a woman whose house was destroyed, with all her loved ones, the grief of the people of Darfur and Zimbabwe, or Gaza and Sderot, or any of the other countries where violence strikes fiercely and blindly every day?
The sorrow we bear in our heart now is more the rule than the exception.
As for belief in God, I think it's more a matter of one's personal and social identity than anything else, more about who I am than about what the world is really like.
The main Jewish prayer begins with a passage that includes these words: "The great, powerful, awesome, supreme God, who provides good rewards, who owns everything, who remembers the good deeds of the fathers and brings a redeemer to their children's children, for the sake of His name, with love."
It's a wonderful set of ideas. Maybe prayer is an expression of the wish they were true.