Rubber-band Emuna
Hashem sends a big test; after nothing else helps, the person under fire prays frantically. Then, after Hashem sends relief, he pings back to his old self...
As small children, most of us, at some time or another, played with rubber bands. Whether we were flicking them at siblings (yes, something else I need to make teshuva for…) wrapping them into ‘rubber band’ balls or trying to tug them out of our hair, all of us will have observed the amazing rubber properties of the rubber band: you pull it in all different ways, and it pings back into shape as soon as you let go.
Of course, pull it too hard or too far, and the thing snaps, giving you a nasty shock. You have to be careful.
I’ve been thinking about rubber bands a lot the last week, and more particularly, I’ve been thinking about how so many of the people I know seem to have ‘rubber band emuna’.
Hashem sends a test. The people try every usual, normal, well-worked, tried-and-tested avenue to solve, avoid or evade the test. Nothing works. In desperation, they listen to a few emuna CDs, even read a book on emuna, and start to pray. Hashem, in His magnificent kindness and mercy, sends them a miracle and gets them out of the difficult situation. Literally turns a terrible situation into a sweet one, overnight.
What happens? Very quickly – normally even within a week or two – they ‘ping’ straight back into their old habits and arrogance. Rubber band emuna.
It’s understandable; but it’s not good. What’s worse, though, is when they start to talk disparagingly about ‘Breslev’; about how they’ve tried it and it’s not for them; how hitbodedut (talking to Hashem in your own words) is not for them – even though they’ve seen miracles from doing it! How ‘everyone has their own path’ – and that path, apparently doesn’t need to include Hashem, even if you are otherwise impeccably ‘frum’.
I worry so much about these people. Because I know that sooner or later, they’ll be faced with another test. If they are
lucky, they’ll make teshuva and they’ll understand that talking to Hashem is the ONLY real solution for any real problem. If they aren’t, they’ll have discounted the only way to get through the test and grow from it, instead of being weighed down and embittered for the rest of their lives.
lucky, they’ll make teshuva and they’ll understand that talking to Hashem is the ONLY real solution for any real problem. If they aren’t, they’ll have discounted the only way to get through the test and grow from it, instead of being weighed down and embittered for the rest of their lives.And then I realize just how lucky my husband and I are that Hashem never let us get away with only having ‘rubber band emuna’. He kept the pressure up, unremittingly, for years and years, until we both realized that there was no ‘quick fix’ here. There have been many, many times in the last four years that I, too, would have pinged back into arrogant ‘don’t need Hashem’ mode, as soon as the pressure was off.
I guess that’s human nature: our sages teach that even at Sinai, where the Jews came face-to-face with Hashem, they couldn’t wait to get away. They ran away from Sinai like children running away from school, because they didn’t want to hear about any more rules or mitzvot. Underneath it all, they wanted to do what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it. But they all kept Shabbat and kosher, of course…
That was certainly my own mind-set. Until very, very recently, any time the situation started to ‘look up’, in any way, I could feel my ego and arrogance trying to reassert themselves.
Thank G-d, He didn’t let it. I’ve pinged from one thing to another: from financial worries to fertility problems to social issues to ‘what am I doing with my life’ angst to health scares and back. And now, thank G-d, I can really see what an enormous blessing it’s all been!
Now, if anything, I’m a bit nervous of things ‘working out’ in any remotely normal or successful way, because after four years of being stretched and stretched to my limits, I’ve come to understand how easy it is to make teshuva – and to keep making teshuva – when the pressure is on.
Without all the ‘tension’ of the past four years, I wouldn’t be talking to Hashem for an hour a day, every day. I wouldn’t be working on my humility, my anger, my sadness, my impatience – or a million and one other character traits that needed some major improvement.
I wouldn’t be letting Hashem run the show (of course, He’s really running it even when we think He isn’t, but that’s a discussion for another day) and I’d be stressed out to my eyeballs, running around in circles, running away from Hashem and running straight into the arms of my yetzer hara and so many more worries, fears and problems.
Recently, I was listening to another brilliant shiur by Rav Arush, where he talks about the real essence of teshuva. Teshuva means doing what Hashem wants. It means keeping Shabbat and kosher, and covering your hair and going to mikva. But Rav Arush explains that teshuva is so much more than that. Real teshuva, the kind that’s going to lead to the emancipation of the Jewish people and Mashiach, also – especially – means working on your bad middot. It means putting aside what you want to do – whether you want to scream at your kids, slander your friend, watch a movie, or listen to a Michael Jackson CD – and thinking about what G-d wants.
But if you’re already ‘frum’ – and you’re uninterested in or unaware about the importance of talking to Hashem for an hour or day, that level of ‘real’ teshuva is simply beyond you. Not only will you never get there, you’ll never know that THAT is the whole point of being here. And it’s much harder than simply eating glatt or putting on your tefillin. It requires constant prayer, constant siyatta dishmaya and constant emuna.
Every time we are being stretched, every time we are being sent a test, it’s because Hashem is encouraging us to grow towards Him. If we realize that, we can see the test as a blessing from the start – it’s a call to action, not a punishment. It’s an opportunity to knuckle down, and to start doing what we really sent down here to do – to fix our bad character traits and develop emuna, and a real relationship with the Almighty.
But the people who ‘ping away’ from G-d and emuna, as soon as the pressure is off, are missing all that. Their yetzer hara gives them the false sense of relief that their ‘test’ is over, and that now, they can go back to their books, and their coffees, and their sporting events. The pressure is OFF! But really, their test just got that much harder. Really, the pressure is on in a much more profound and insidious way. The pressure to really live as a G-d fearing Jew. The pressure to really meet the challenge of fixing ourselves, and our bad middot – which is a far harder task than learning a blatt of Gemara or avoiding a bit of bacon.
There’s hope; there’s always hope. Just as a rubber band can ping away from a person, it can also ping towards them – it all depends where they aiming it. Similarly, just as a person with rubber band emuna can ping away from Hashem – if that’s where they are really pointed, despite all their external piety – they can also ping closer. If this test doesn’t do it, maybe the next one will. But without that tension, that stretching, that tautness and tightness of spirit – the rubber band can’t move. It can’t go anywhere. And to be comfortably inert, stuck far away from Hashem, is the biggest test of all.
12/23/2009
Just what I needed to read! I have been very stressed for the last 4 months with a scary health problem. I have asked Hashem for healing, but things aren’t happening as fast as I would like. I have gradually been giving up praying and just accepting that I will be in pain for the rest of my life. Your article has restored my belief that this is a test, and that He is just trying to pull me closer to Him. Thank you so much for putting into words what I always knew, but could not verbalise. G’d bless you and your loved ones!
12/23/2009
I have been very stressed for the last 4 months with a scary health problem. I have asked Hashem for healing, but things aren’t happening as fast as I would like. I have gradually been giving up praying and just accepting that I will be in pain for the rest of my life. Your article has restored my belief that this is a test, and that He is just trying to pull me closer to Him. Thank you so much for putting into words what I always knew, but could not verbalise. G’d bless you and your loved ones!