Elul reflections 2: trusting God and going all-in

As I continue to prepare for a New Year, the Melekh Ha'Olam has been sending me a couple of messages that I am not especially comfortable with: trust me, and slow down. I'm having trouble with both of those, but I'm going to focus on the first one today.

The "trust me" message has come from a couple of unusual sources of life-career-faith advice: the admissions professionals at the two AJR rabbinical schools. 

There are, as it happens, two completely unrelated schools, one on the East Coast and one on the West, both named Academy of Jewish Religion, both experimenting with the radical idea of offering their entire catalog of courses online via teleconference to those of us poor souls who live in Middle America, far far away from any of the brick-and-mortar rabbinical schools. And so I, naturally, inquired into both of them.

The admissions professionals from both places scheduled initial phone interviews with me just a few days after I inquired. And there were certainly some differences: one admissionist focused on asking me questions, the other on describing her school; one focused more on the "brass tacks" of getting an education at her school, the other more on their philosophy of education; one wanted me to work on my biblical Hebrew before I enroll, the other wanted me to develop skills in modern Hebrew; one wanted me to visit and apply as soon as possible, the other wanted me to try a class first before I spent any time on application essays and interview visits. So the schools, despite having the same name, were far from identical.

But what strikes me most about this story is how much of the two interviews were the same. Both admissionists invited me to "Zoom in" on a class or two this semester to get a sense of the flavor of their school, both were up-front and honest about the (astronomically high) cost of a rabbinical education (and I mean you could buy a small house in one of the more affordable neighborhoods of my Houston suburb for what this coursework -- the equivalent of a half-decade of full-time study -- is gonna cost me), both had a couple of mandatory fly-in events over the course of each year that are not well-timed for a community college professor to attend, and - most remarkable of all - both admissions professionals played down the challenges of making ends and schedules meet for a rabbinical education with almost exactly the same words: 

Take little steps, one step at a time. Take the first step, and have faith that each next step will somehow be made possible. Notice that once you start down this path, doors start to open. Trust that when people are supposed to be here and really want to be here, when it's one of those things that is really meant to be, problems have a way of somehow working themselves out.

And that is a challenge for me. I mean, I'm really not good at it. 

Trust (in God, however we understand that concept) is the mussar value that, I suspect, comes as the biggest challenge for the largest number of Jews. We are a nation of worriers. I mean, I once saw a church signboard that said something to the effect of "Don't worry, pray instead" and I was instantly amused at what a clearly non-Jewish sign that was.

And yet, Alan Morinis devotes an entire chapter in Everyday Holiness to trying to convince us to, as he quotes from the book of Proverbs, "Trust God with all your heart, and on your own understanding do not lean." But the Jewish definition of this divine trust is not the familiar Christian one encapsulated by the 12-step movement in their slogan "let go and let God." We are to make every effort we can toward the goal we have in mind, and we are to throw the whole of our being into it, trusting all the while that God will be the bridge between those seemingly insufficient efforts and the hoped-for result. He tells of one student's life savings "going up in smoke" as he tried to found a community theater, a metaphor the student's wife had reframed as "incense being offered up to God" -- and he tells of how, reframed thus, the project was able to continue and ended up being a success.

Morinis sums up the necessary balance this way: "It is right to put all your powers into taking action to better your own situation and that of the world...but do not succumb to anxiety and desperation. Your obligation is to act, not to determine the outcome. Once you have made all the efforts you can...then you hold in mind that the ultimate outcome is in the hands of HaShem, not you."

And he points out that we cannot live in that sort of faith and trust while hedging our bets. If we really trust God to make the right outcome emerge from our efforts, why would we hold a little back? Or, as the Alter of Novarodok once put it "a person who tries to practice trust in God while leaving himself a backup plan is like a person who tries to learn how to swim but insists on keeping one foot on the ground." 

It reminds me of my youngest son, who was so reluctant to take the training wheels off of his bicycle. As long as he had those extra wheels on, they dragged him back, slowed him down, made his turns rougher, kept him from going off-road. Once he built the confidence that his pedaling and his balance and his forward movement would hold him up, once he took the leap of trust and let me take the training wheels off of his bike, he became unstoppable. He was faster, more agile, more versatile, and had way more fun. Trust, confidence, was the missing ingredient that moved him from learner to bike-rider.

What could we accomplish if we really went all-in and trusted that the Universe would take care of what came out the other side? If we stopped holding one foot on the ground? If we took the training wheels off of our spiritual bicycles?

Elul Tov, y'all, and may the New Year bring you the trust that makes you unstoppable...