Tag Archives: faith and doubt

May 31, 2010 · 1:32 pm

Faith and Doubt

by Bruce Black (Sarasota, FL)

The Ten Commandments are the bedrock of Judaism, the cornerstones of our heritage, the foundation of our faith, yet few Jews talk of them as such or of the revelatory scene that took place–if it took place– atop Mt Sinai.

Every year we read the words of the Ten Commandments on Shavuoth, believe in the truth of them, live our lives by them throughout the rest of the year… whether or not the event atop Sinai actually occurred.

In some sense, maybe it doesn’t matter if it occurred because the Ten Commandments in and of themselves are truth. That is, they contain truth, and it’s irrelevant where the commandments came from–from God or from Moses or from some anonymous scribe who wrote them.

On the other hand it seems essential to believe not only in the truth of the Ten Commandments but in the truth of how they came into being, even if we can never know the full story.

We know (or think we know) that Moses ascended Mt. Sinai. And we know (or want to believe) he returned holding the tablets. But what happened between those two events… in the time it took for him to climb up and down the mountain?

Those moments–were they moments or hours or days?– are shrouded in mystery, in the fog of history and time.

Did Moses “see” God? Did he “hear” God’s voice? Or did Moses merely imagine God speaking the words to him?

And did Moses write the words down himself? Or did God hand him the tablets already inscribed?

There’s no transcript, no record of the event that we can turn to in order to learn what happened. All we have are the words of the tablets, and the record of the event as its presented in the Torah.

Does it matter if we know the whole story or just part of it? Does our lack of knowledge–or our limited amount of knowledge– change how we live our lives as Jews?

If the event–the revelation atop Sinai– didn’t happen, if it’s just a figment of someone’s imagination, does that mean the commandments are worthless, not to be taken seriously, not to be followed?

What rules–if any–would we replace the commandments with?

What would become of us–as Jews, as human beings–without them?

Standing in front of the open ark on Shavuoth, I thought about the Torah and the Ten Commandments and wondered if the words had passed from God through Moses to my ancestors to me, or if they might have originated in Moses’ heart, or in the heart of some unknown writer.

No matter where the words may have originated, they possess the ring of truth in the way all great literature contains the ring of truth.

But is that ring of truth enough?

When I left the temple after services, I still had no answers, only more questions.

I’m still learning how to live with faith and  doubt simultaneously, and how to balance knowing and not knowing.

Bruce Black, the founder of The Jewish Writing Project, is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in Jewish publications such as The Jewish Week, The Jewish Exponent, Reform Judaism Magazine, and The Reconstructionist, and in secular publications such as The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Cricket and Cobblestone magazines. Online Education News ranked his blog on writing, Wordswimmer (http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com) , among the top 100 creative writing blogs of 2009.

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August 24, 2009 · 8:23 am

Writing Practice: Simple Acts

The simplest acts in our lives–from breathing to brushing our teeth to bending over to lace our shoes–are sometimes taken for granted.

Can you think of an act that you perform daily or weekly which you may overlook in your rush to catch the bus on your way to school or as you hurry to your next office meeting?

Maybe it’s the moment at your desk when you take the first sip of your morning coffee.

Or maybe it’s when the phone rings and you hear a loved one’s voice.

Or see a rainbow from your car window.

Or hear a new song on the radio.

Take a moment to think of the blessings in your life… and then write about a specific moment in which you first recognized that moment as a blessing.

Once you’ve written down the bare bones of the moment–go back and re-read what you’ve written.

Can you find a Jewish element in the moment?

And can you flesh out that Jewish element as part of that moment?

Here’s the beginning of a draft that I came up with:

Sunday Morning Doughnuts

It’s early Sunday morning, and I’m sitting at Dunkin’ Donuts after dropping my daughter off at Hebrew school.

On the table in front of me I’ve set a medium cup of coffee (extra light, no sugar), steam rising above the rim, and, on a paper napkin, a chocolate frosted doughnut.

I lift the doughnut to my lips and, before biting into it, say a blessing to thank God for allowing food to be grown and processed and made into something as delicious as a doughnut.

This simple act of blessing the doughnut–or any food that passes my lips–is my way of acknowledging God and reminds me of  all that flows out of God and how I’m as much a part of that flow of energy as the wheat and sugar and chocolate (not to mention the human labor) that goes into the creation of the doughnut.

But part of me wonders–in the very act of saying the blessing– how I can say such a blessing if I doubt God’s existence?

Does my doubt–as slight or great as it may be on any given day– make the blessing hollow, hypocritical?

These two conflicting poles–wanting to acknowledge and thank God on the one hand, but doubting God’s existence on the other–pull me in different directions.

On some days I gravitate toward one pole; on other days, toward the other. The tension is always there. It’s part of my Jewish identity, an internal debate reflecting, perhaps, my American-Jewish soul.

As an American, I try to be open to the world. I want to be free of the shackles of the Old World, to explore new ways of living. But as a Jew I look a bit dubiously at the New World. I want to be faithful to the past and to the faith of my forefathers and my Jewish heritage.

How am I supposed to reconcile these two conflicting impulses? Are they conflicting impulses or simply different sides of the same issue regarding faith?

Do I just learn to live with them or, ultimately, must I choose one or the other?

Can both–faith and doubt– co-exist simultaneously, or must one conquer the other and emerge the victor?

And then I take a bite of the doughnut, and all my questions of faith and doubt dissolve in the moment of savoring the taste of chocolate frosting.

Let us know what you discover about being Jewish in the simple acts of your daily life when you get a chance.

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