Bad things happen to everyone, good and bad alike. The priest shrugged his shoulders. The ways of Yahweh are not our ways. What we think is good is often times bad, and what we think is bad is good. Look at Joseph in Egypt.
Life is a mystery.
Lev rubbed his chin, then asked. Some winters passed in this way. Lev became a man with downy pelt of hair on his chin. He helped the priest carry out his duties in the temple and learned all that he had to teach him about God and Torah. And one day, one raw winter day when the wind moaned across the barley, Lev and the old priest trundled along the road to Jerusalem.