The Test of Isaac (Part 3)--Rabbi Yitzhak Miller--Yom Kippur 5770/2009

(...The Test of Isaac (part 3) click here for part 1)

In the title essay of his book “Floating takes Faith”, Rabbi David Wolpe talks about how difficult it is for us to trust the universe.  “I remember when I was learning to swim,” Wolpe recalls, “The hardes part was floating…[To swim] one must kick, stroke, move…But floating asks us to be still, to trust in the buoyancy of the water.  Swimming is work.  Floating takes faith.”  Why would we choose to do this?  Wolpe asks.  He uses the metaphor of swimming in the ocean to remind us that our human efforts are most effective when they are aligned with the natural and supernatural movements of the universe: “In the ocean it is sometimes necessary to swim,” Wolpe admits, “but the swimmer goes [uncomfortably] beneath the wave while the floater rides its crest.”

True faith is very different than blind faith.  Who does Fowler hold as examples of true faith?  Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Dag Hammarskjold, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Thomas Merton.  What does true faith look like?  Fowler describes adherents of true faith as “persons in which their felt sense of an ultimate environment is inclusive of all being.”  In other words, adherents of true faith align themselves and their actions with the ultimate movement of the universe.

“Faith,” Fowler says, “is not to be equated with belief.  Faith is a person’s way of leaning into and making sense of life.  The ultimate manifestation of faith is less a noun and more a verb. Faith is the dynamic system of images, values and commitments that guide one’s life.  Faith is universal.  Every person who chooses to continue living each day operates by the basic premise of faith.”

Our society is re-learning a lot about faith this year.  Our society—after decades of living in the unconscious illusion that we humans were in ultimate control of our destiny—is re-acquiring the ability to place one foot in front of the other, to take one step at a time, even when we have no idea where those steps may take us. 

Our country is re-learning the difficult lesson that a house of cards will ultimately crumble; that our actions have consequences; and that a society is only as strong as its most vulnerable members.  This year, as it has many times in the past, our society is re-learning to align itself with the universe—to have faith.

Does Judaism expect us to walk blindly?  Absolutely not.  Judaism expects us to consciously look around every time we take a step.  Judaism expects us to use every resource at our disposal to see the movement of the world around us, to align our actions with the movement of the universe, and to evaluate how our single next step can best serve the Divine mission we strive to achieve. 

But perhaps more than anything, Judaism expects us neither to get bound up in blind faith nor blind rejection.  Judaism expects us to lean into life and to strive every moment of every day to make sense of it.  Each of us, all of us, and the universe itself.  And they walked on together.

G’mar Chatima Tova—May You be sealed for a year of goodness.