Lonely Woman of Faith

Monday mornings for the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to give a shiur on emuna for any of the English-speaking women in my community who might be interested. Some weeks I get 6 or 7, sometimes I get 3 or 4; occasionally, I’ve even had one. I didn’t mind – I even enjoyed the one-on-one learning, as it meant we could really dig things out and chew them over.
 
The shiur is quite a lot of work: I spend hours pondering what to talk about in my personal prayer; I spend hours going through Rav Arush’s books, and Rebbe Nachman’s books, or listening to emuna CDs, trying to pull things together. I spend hours writing the thing – and then I go over it again before the shiur starts, because I don’t want my poor delivery of the material to detract from the absolutely brilliant insights of the Rabonim I’m quoting.
 
Breslev torah is so powerful, that it’s very easy to get all puffed-up with how much you know, and how clever you sound – which is why I’ve always told G-d that I’m trying to do the shiur for Him, and not me. I always ask G-d for help while I’m researching it and writing it and giving it, and I’ve always told G-d that I don’t care how many people show up for it, as I know the outcome is not up to me.
 
Today, He tested me to see if I really meant it: I prepared my shiur – the last in the series, the big ‘finale’ –  I swept my house, I arranged the table nicely and put out the cups and water – and not a single person showed up for it.
 
I don’t have internet at home, so I didn’t know that someone in our community was having a brit milah celebration this morning, and that pretty much everyone who comes to my shiur was going to it.
 
I only found out about the brit a few minutes beforehand, when a couple of people phoned to give me a heads-up that they wouldn’t be coming.
 
It was an interesting experience. On the one hand, I knew it was a ‘test’, so I was kind of watching myself from the outside, to see how I was going to react to it. On the other, my evil inclination spotted a great opportunity to start up again about how ‘pointless’ I seem to be at the moment.
 
The battle raged all day.
 
One minute, I was calm, serene, grateful I’d got an extra couple of hours to do my household chores. The next minute, I was on the verge of tears, that I was so clearly unsuited to giving the shiur that Hashem was arranging big, communal events to clash with it.
 
All day, I was doing a lot of introspection: am I really giving the shiur because I altruistically want to spread Rebbe Nachman’s torah, or am I just trying to find something to make me feel ‘useful’ and ‘important’?
 
It’s 6.30pm, and I still don’t know what the answer is.
 
Ironically, throughout most of the shiur, we’ve been learning through Rav Arush’s book the ‘Garden of Wisdom’ (soon to appear in English, G-d willing), which explains Rebbe Nachman’s tale of the Simpleton and the Sophisticate.
 
The story talks about a clever ‘Sophisticate’ who has wealth, brilliance, respect – and who is constantly filled with misery and philosophical ‘issues’. It also talks about a ‘Simpleton’, who can’t so much as make a decent pair of shoes, and who is living well below the poverty line – but who is filled with happiness and joy.
 
I must have read this story tens of times already, and each time, I find another ‘sophisticated’ character trait of mine, that’s lurking underneath all my efforts to have emuna, and to live my life in simplicity.
 
Sometimes, I can get quite despondent and down about it all – until I remember that that is also a ‘sophisticated’ character trait, and I have to do my best to ignore all the voices in my head trying to make me feel bad about myself. But recently, it’s been quite a struggle to stay positive.
 
My father-in-law unexpectedly died a few weeks’ ago, and since then, both me and my husband have been stripped down to our spiritual core and squeezed hard to see what is really going to come out of us.
 
Thank G-d, there’s been a lot of emuna. But there’s also been a lot of confusion; a lot of doubt; a lot of loneliness and a lot of pain and disappointment.
 
Why couldn’t things have been different? Why is there still so much darkness and evil in the world? Why haven’t I had enough emuna to keep the smile on my face 24/7?
 
These are tough questions. I don’t know what the answer is to them. But when I think about the ‘Sophisticate and the Simpleton’, I know which one would get stuck on all these ‘issues’ and get profoundly miserable, and which one would ignore them, and do their best to carry on with life, and to be genuinely happy for each extra day, each simple meal, each heartbeat.
 
G-d, I want to be simple. I want to have simple emuna, and to spend my day smiling about all the goodnesses and kindnesses You do for me all the time. But right now, I need some help.
 
Right now, I feel a million miles away from you. Right now, I look around me and I see so many Jews who are a billion miles away from you – and I don’t know what to do about it all. I don’t know how to fix the problem. I don’t know how to get back to that place where everything You do – whatever it is – is fine by me.
 
In Rebbe Nachman’s story, the Simpleton hung on through the hard times, and eventually, G-d turned everything around for him, and the rest of his life was absolutely amazing.
 
That story is what’s keeping me going at the moment. That’s what’s been keeping me going the last two months.
 
Emuna is not something you suddenly acquire. It’s not something you learn once and then you sit back and start telling everyone else how to do it. It’s a process – a very long process; a life-long process – and that process is full of ups and downs.
 
The one thing that experience gives you is the knowledge that the ‘down’ is always the springboard for the ‘up’. A lot of people don’t realize that, because they fall so far that they give up before it all turns around for the best.
 
Don’t give up. Hang on, and hang on to G-d, because He is going to get us all out of the mess we’re in. But only if we really believe that He can, and that He wants to.