Parashat Yitro 5773

There is a midrash that teaches that there are שבעים פנים בתורה, seventy faces of the Torah. For many of us Rabbis, I think that means that we have one core piece of Torah that we can teach in seventy different ways. We may teach it in relation to different current events, or like a gem, we may turn it to see different facets of it depending on where we are in our lives, or what the community needs. For me, this core Torah is emunah. Loosely translated as faith, emunah is much richer than that–sharing a root with the words אומנות (art), אמן (artist), אֵמוּן (confidence), and (my personal favorite) לְהִתְאַמֵן to practice. Embodying emunah takes deep and committed practice throughout our lives. Like art, emunah is not about reaching toward perfection but toward expression. 

For me, my struggle with emunah often manifests in difficulty making decisions. In my work as a rabbi and teacher, I feel grateful that clarity and decision making comes easily. In my personal life however, I am not always so lucky. The act of simply buying a plane ticket for a personal trip recently sent me into a mild frenzy. Am I sure I want to go to this destination? What time is the best time to fly? How long of a trip is too long? In the end, I bought the ticket, but I paid more for it to be refundable because I didn’t quite trust my choice. At its core, this fear sounds something like,“What if I make the wrong choice?” Going even deeper, there is a fear that I won’t be able to handle the outcome if I do make the “wrong” choice. More often than not, there is no wrong or right choice to be made, because, as the word emunah points us to, life is like art. A lack of emunah is just a loss of touch with the art of life–which is often messy.

This week, the Israelites get their collective plane ticket, so to speak, and it is nonrefundable. After preparing for three days, as they approach the fiery, thunderous Mount Sinai they are swept up in an immersive and all-encompassing experience of the divine. They can see the sounds, a blending of senses called synesthesia. Freshly freed from their shackles in Egypt, they hear and see the aseret hadibrot, the ten commandments, entering into a covenant with Hashem.

The 19th Century Hasidic master the Sfat Emet explains this synesthesia, 

“All the people saw the voices.” The voice was that which said, “I am the Lord your God.” in the singular. Each one of Israel saw the root of their own life-force. With their very eyes each one saw the part of the divine soul above that lives within. They had no need to “believe” the commandments, because they saw the voices. That’s the way it is when God speaks.

When God speaks to us, it is like our own soul speaking to us. The Israelites saw their own soul-root reflected to them through the sights and sounds at Mt. Sinai. The Sfat Emet is teaching us that they didn't have to "believe" in anything outside of themselves. God was within them. So too in our own lives when we are able to trust ourselves, it is akin to trusting the divine. It's not an external leap. It's an internal affirmation of the godliness in us all.

Perhaps another way to translate emunah would be radical acceptance. Contemporary meditation and mindfulness teacher Tara Brach writes in her book titled Radical Acceptance, “We practice radical acceptance by pausing and then meeting whatever is happening inside us with [a] kind of unconditional friendliness.” Radical acceptance is embracing the messiness of life, embracing the paint that is on our hands and jeans as the artist and craftsperson of our own experience.

And yet, sometimes (or maybe always) embracing life in this way is challenging. Moses’ father-in-law Yitro reminds us, through his tough love of Moshe, that as leaders of our own lives we sometimes need help. 

Sometimes, to use Yitro’s words, 

כִּֽי־כָבֵ֤ד מִמְּךָ֙ הַדָּבָ֔ר לֹא־תוּכַ֥ל עֲשֹׂ֖הוּ לְבַדֶּֽךָ׃

“The matter is too heavy for you and you cannot do it alone.”

May we be blessed with the ability to hold and befriend our own life experiences, trusting ourselves that even if and when we make the “wrong” decision, we will be okay. May we keep practicing the art emunah, slowly learning how to play in the gray. And, when holding the messiness of life feels unbearable, may we be able to borrow some emunah from one another, Shabbat Shalom.