Faith in Doubt/Doubt in Faith
Faith in Doubt/Doubt in Faith

Faith in doubt/doubt in faith – Sh’mot

In Ex. 4:8-9, God gives Moses various signs by which he can prove his credibility to the people. Hopefully the Israelites will read the signs and believe in Moses. The text however, recognises that the people may not believe and may not be convinced.

This, of course, is the way of human experience. Some people see – physically or metaphorically – and believe. Some see but do not believe. These two categories are not all that there can be. A third option is possible – believers who cannot believe in this instance.

As the rabbis put it, there are moments of gadlut emunah (greatness of faith) and moments of katnut emunah (littleness of faith). Believers all have these latter moments from time to time. Doubt is part of the faith experience. Generally one gets through the moment of doubt and one’s faith suffers no permanent injury.

There is an aspect of the faith-doubt-faith process that is not often recognised. As believers have times of doubt, so non-believers have times of faith: moments when they are almost ready to believe. Rav Kook would have added, they are bound to believe in due course. He thought that, deep down, everyone is a religious person and wants to come to faith.

Rav Kook is criticised as over-optimistic by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and others who argue that the Kook approach ignores the existence of ideological atheism. But someone ought to study the phenomenon which might be called “greatness of doubt” and “littleness of doubt”. What is it that sometimes motivates a doubter to see possibilities in faith, even if he/she is not prepared to do anything about it?

Gratitude

When Moses was a child, the waters of the Nile saved him. Later, when the water had to be turned to blood in the first of the ten plagues, Moses could not be involved. It wouldn’t be fair for him, even indirectly, to bring suffering upon the waters that had done him a good turn.



There is a lesson to be learned from this episode – gratitude. One should not repay good with evil: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. It’s a good rule, but what happens if the person you show gratitude to didn’t really mean to do you a favour?



Take the case of the Egyptians. The Torah commands us, “Do not hate an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land” (Deut. 23:8). “A stranger in his land”? When the Egyptians were treating us so harshly and we were downtrodden slaves in their midst? What were we – their pampered guests? Are we meant to say, “Thank you, Egyptians, for making our lives hell?”



Nachmanides, on the verse in D’varim we have quoted, says that the Torah meant what it said. There were things about the Egyptians which we can never forgive and forget... but there were also (admittedly) minor things which in the end brought us at least a modicum of benefit. According to Nachmanides, in time of severe famine – which must have destroyed many other peoples – the Israelites survived because they were in Egypt where they did not go hungry, even though it was poor-men’s bread that they ate.



We have to be thankful for small mercies.



Lessons from the Burning Bush


Sh’mot chapter 3 is one of the most memorable sections of the Bible. Moses saw a burning bush and God spoke to him out of its midst. The crucial feature is that “the bush burnt, but the bush was not consumed” (verse 2).



Here are some ideas that the event suggests:

  • The people of Israel may suffer but they will survive.
  • God is with Israel even (or especially) in times of persecution.
  • God chooses lowly things and humble people as His agents.
  • There is no place devoid of the Divine Presence.
  • Small things like a bush in the wilderness can carry a great message.
  • Moses had defects like a stutter but he would be a successful leader.