Portion Lech L'chah: Emunah/Faith

This year’s E-Torah approaches the weekly portion through the lens of Mussar, a practice of spiritual/ethical discipline developed in 19th century Lithuania by Rabbi Israel Salanter.  The path of Mussar is one of refining our actions and attitudes by focusing on midot—soul traits such as humility, patience, forgiveness, gratitude, etc.  Our Jewish Community School and Lifelong Learning programs for 2020/2021 are also grounded in the Mussar tradition.  As we learn this tradition together we deepen our Jewish roots and grow, as individuals and as a community.

Faith is often contrasted with doubt.  In this understanding, faith means absolute certainty, usually around the existence and lovingkindness of God, while doubt is defined by skepticism about those things.  In truth, however, many people of deep faith live with a great deal of doubt.    For instance, Mother Teresa’s private writings reveal that she struggled mightily to find the faith that she embodied for so many of her followers: “I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one.  Alone.  Where is my faith?  Even deep down, there is nothing.”  Thankfully, our Jewish tradition does not depict faith in this manner. For us, faith and doubt can go hand in hand.  As Rabbi Daniel Gordis notes: “Uncertainty is not the enemy of religious and spiritual growth.  Doubt is what fuels the journey.”

For us, the opposite of faith is not doubt.  The opposite of faith is fear.

********

A Jewish understanding of faith—in Hebrew, emunah—as moving forward despite our fear, stands at the center of this week’s Torah portion, Lech L’chah.  The parshah opens with God’s challenging call to Abraham:

The Eternal said to Avram: “Go forth from your native land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. . .”  Avram went as the Eternal had commanded him, and Lot went with him.  Avram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.

Abraham’s journey demands an enormous amount of courage and trust.  God tells him to go, on short notice, with no map or clear destination.  And though he undoubtedly felt a great deal of trepidation around leaving his homeland and kin, Abraham complies.

Sarah’s departure demands even more faith, because she agrees to embark upon the same journey--without the benefit of Divine reassurance. Sarah only hears God’s call secondhand, through her husband. Yet she goes, too.

********

We can learn a great deal from Abraham and Sarah, for most of our major life decisions involve this same sort of faith.  No matter how much preparation and research we may do, we are never really aware of what we’re getting into when we first leave home, or get married, take a new job, move to a different city, or decide to have children.  These journeys always begin with a leap of faith.  Like Abraham and Sarah, we move forward despite our fear, trusting that things will somehow work out.  

And it’s not just the big transitions; most of our ordinary actions are also, ultimately, based on trust.  One of my favorite descriptions of this reality comes from the poet Tomas Transtromer: 

How much we have to trust, simply to live each day without

      sinking through the earth!

Trust the piled snow clinging to the mountain slope above the village.

Trust the promises of silence and the smile of understanding, trust

      that the emergency telegram isn't for us and that the sudden

      axe-blow from within won't come.

********

In the Mussar tradition, emunah—faith in the face of fear—is a very important midah, which we develop through years of dedicated practice.  This is a good week to concentrate on trusting the Holy One, or, if you prefer, the Universe.  Consider some of the things that you take on trust, consciously or unconsciously.  Notice the earth, firm beneath your feet.  And, as Mussar teacher Alan Morinis suggests, “Stretch into the territory of risk, not recklessly, but with trust.”

Mussar Practice for this Week:

Write yourself a note with the phrase, “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you.”   Taken from Psalms 56:13, the “you” traditionally refers to God, but feel free to redefine the grounding for your faith however works best for you.   Carry the note around and read it regularly over the course of each day.  What does the practice of emunah/faith look like for you in your work and/or family life?

Portion Noach: Anavah/Humility

This year’s E-Torah approaches the weekly portion through the lens of Mussar, a practice of spiritual/ethical discipline developed in 19th century Lithuania by Rabbi Israel Salanter.  The path of Mussar is one of refining our actions and attitudes by focusing on midot—soul traits such as humility, patience, forgiveness, gratitude, etc.  Our Jewish Community School and Lifelong Learning programs for 2020/2021 are also grounded in the Mussar tradition.  As we learn this tradition together we deepen our Jewish roots and grow, as individuals and as a community.

This week’s portion, Noach, concludes with the succinct tale of the Tower of Babel.  When the narrative commences, with Genesis 11, “everyone on earth had the same language and the same words.”  By its conclusion, just a few verses later, humanity is dispersed all over the world, with each nation speaking its own language, unable to understand its neighbors.

What is the human failing that carries such profound consequences?  Overweening haughtiness.  God scatters humanity and confounds our speech in response to our conceit, as expressed in our desire to erect a tower in the center of a large city, with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves. The building is a tangible symbol of our arrogance.

**********

Humility—in Hebrew, anavah—plays a central role in the Mussar tradition. Among the midot, it is foundational because a person who lacks humility—who thinks they are better than others—cannot really learn and grow.  It is no coincidence that humility is the only character trait that Torah directly attributes to Moses, describing him as “the humblest person on the face of the earth.”  Our Sages add that a person who is too full of him (or her) self does not leave room for God to dwell.

But it is important to avoid confusing humility with humiliation, which is all too common a mistake.  Being humble does not mean being a self-debasing nobody; real humility is, instead, grounded in healthy self-esteem.  As with most midot, the goal is to maintain a proper balance between arrogance and self-loathing.  Humility is about occupying the proper amount of space in one’s life: stepping up when called upon to do so, while also leaving room for others.  As the contemporary Mussar teacher Alan Morinis puts it in his beautiful book, Everyday Holiness: “No more than my space, no less than my place.”

**********

After God scatters the generation of the Tower of Babel, our portion ends with a long genealogy listing the ten generations from Noah to Shem to Abraham.  Most of the people in that list are long-forgotten, but their legacies live on in the enduring story of the Jewish people.  Each of them had a role to play, a time to step forward, a space to occupy. So, too, for each of us: when we live with humility, we do not always see the fruits of our labors, but this does not make them any less real.

Mussar Practice for this Week:

Write yourself a note with the phrase, “No more than my space, no less than my place” and carry it around with you, reading it regularly over the course of the day.  

What does the practice of humility look like in your work and/or family life?

Bereishit 5781

Portion B’reishit: Acharayut/Responsibility

This year’s E-Torah approaches the weekly portion through the lens of Mussar, a practice of spiritual/ethical discipline developed in 19th century Lithuania by Rabbi Israel Salanter.  The path of Mussar is one of refining our actions and attitudes by focusing on midot—soul traits such as humility, patience, forgiveness, gratitude, etc.  Our Jewish Community School and Lifelong Learning programs for 2020/2021 are also grounded in the Mussar tradition.  As we learn this tradition together we deepen our Jewish roots and grow, as individuals and as a community.

This week’s portion, B’reishit, opens the Torah; it is also a perfect place to introduce the mission of Mussar.  While the portion begins with the creation story, I would like to start a few chapters later, with Cain and Abel.

When each of the world’s first brothers brings a good will offering, God inexplicably accepts Abel’s gift but rejects Cain’s.  This understandably sends Cain into a jealous rage.  God takes note and warns Cain not to give in to his violent impulses, saying: “Surely if you do right, there is uplift.  But if you do not do right, sin crouches at the door.  Its urge is toward you, yet you can master it.”

Cain hears God’s words, but he doesn’t listen.  He recognizes that it’s wrong to kill his brother, yet he does it anyway.

Why does Cain fail to heed God’s warning?  Why would he—and why do we—choose to act unethically, knowing full well that we are in the wrong?

********

This story takes me back to my years as a student of philosophy.  As an undergraduate and in rabbinical school, I expended a great deal of time and effort studying ethics.  I learned a lot but the philosophers’ writings always left me rather dissatisfied, because their core inquiry felt far removed from my own ethical concerns.  They focused on moral reason, parsing out how we know the good and what would constitute the right course of action in all sorts of complicated hypothetical situations.  I found this intellectually interesting, but when I honestly considered my own misdeeds and poor choices, they invariably felt like failures of will rather than knowledge.  When I asked friends and family to reflect upon their own mistakes, they confirmed my hunch.  Four decades later, I am ever more convinced that in the vast majority of cases, we know the right thing to do.  The problem is that we so often fail to muster the will and master the tools that would enable us to actually do it.

********

That’s why I was drawn to Mussar.  As Rabbi Ira Stone notes in his book, A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar, this Jewish discipline starts by asking, “What prevents me from doing what is good?  If I know what is right, if I espouse a set of values that describe the good, why is it so difficult to act on that knowledge and those values?”  There are, of course, a host of answers to these questions, but at its heart, Mussar offers us a set of tools to help us not only know what’s right but actually live it.  To improve our souls, we examine our unique array of personal traits, duly consider where we are out of balance, and commit to spiritual practices that strengthen our capacity to choose the good. 

********

Viewed through this lens, God’s words to Cain in our parshah falls woefully short.  God delivers admonition when Cain needs a toolkit.   A good Mussar teacher might have offered Cain a short course on anger management, with concrete strategies on how to overcome his evil impulse rather than a vague and ineffective warning against it.

********

Mussar empowers us to take responsibility for our actions by giving us tools to scrutinize and correct them.  Over the coming weeks, we’ll be looking to each week’s portion as a source for those tools, and for examples—good and bad—of their application.

I look forward to sharing the journey with you.