Trust - a little caution and a lot of courage

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The topic was the challenge of broken trust. It was discussed by a group of Jewish school girls, sitting in a circle, with Calisha, a Muslim woman in a hijab who was co-facilitating the session with me.

Trust is earned, they said. When I lose trust in her, it is because of what she did, they asserted. We insisted that this was not the whole story. Trust is not just the result of other people’s choices. Trust is sometimes a choice we make and a gift we give.

We asked the girls if they ever noticed teenagers yelling at their parents, “You don’t trust me!!” It is screamed accusingly, with great emotion, usually anger and indignation. It is as if the teenagers are saying, “How dare you do this terrible thing to me and withdraw your trust in me?”.

Calisha and I are both parents of teenagers. We put it to the teenage girls that the accusation seems ridiculous. Isn’t the reason the parent doesn’t trust the child because the child behaved in an untrustworthy way?! 

The girls reflected on this. One girl suggested that sometimes the child feels that they are more mature now than when they let their parents down last time. Perhaps. At its core, it is because the child wants the parent to not think about what went wrong last time, and the time before, and instead to give the gift of trust this time. It is hard to feel loved and mistrusted at the same time.

I am thinking about this. Each of us has been let down so many times. There is an almost irresistible urge to take charge, take control, and refuse to let anyone hurt us again. I trusted before. I showed goodwill. I hoped. I was disappointed. I will not be hurt again.

To be at peace and in friendship with our peers or others we might need to apply a little caution to protect ourselves, but we must also show a lot of courage.  

C.S. Lewis wrote: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…”. [1]

In the spirit of this quote, told them a story about a magnificent tree in a forest.

The tree was delightful. Its leaves and flowers were the most beautiful colour, and dense. Its shade was cool. Its trunk healthy and radiant.

Mr Wombat, waddled over to the tree, and looked up with deep appreciation and joy. Wombat said to the tree, you are beautiful and I feel such joy just looking at you.

Magnificent Tree said to Mr Wombat. I feel so touched and loved. The tree opened its heart and invited the wombat inside. Wombat was amazed by the beautiful diamonds inside the tree’s heart. Magnificent Tree said to Wombat, please take one diamond home. Wombat reluctantly agreed. As soon as Wombat returned home, he gave the diamond to Mrs. Wombat.

Fox saw Mrs. Wombat’s diamond and was envious. He too went up to Tree and offered gushing compliments, none of which were sincere. Magnificent Tree was naïve and invited Fox inside. Fox did not wait for an invitation to take diamonds, he grabbed diamonds right and left, tearing and breaking Magnificent Tree’s delicate heart. The tree was hurt and furious. Its heart snapped shut, trapping Fox inside.

And from that day on the tree’s leaves were mostly drained of their colours, there were fewer leaves, the trunk lost its shine and the tree smelled vaguely awful. A really skilled nose would pick up the scent of dead fox. Like CW Lewis’s heart in a coffin, refusing to trust and love hurts us badly.

As believers, we are invited to trust God. Despite natural disasters and human ones, God did not stop. We are still called to believe in his infinite kindness. This is not easy.

Trust and faith are practices, not static states. Our behaviours build our faith and trust or allow them to wither and die.

Every seventh year the Israelites would not plant or harvest [2], pausing their “hustle” to make a statement of trust in God. “You might ask what will we eat [3]?” God says trust me. Many Jews trusted God and downed tools for the Sabbatical year, some do so to this day, but some did not trust or stop farming.

The fury of God’s disappointment in the failure to observe the Sabbatical year is intense. “I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled by it…And you, I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheath the sword against you…Then shall the land make up for its sabbath years throughout the time that it is desolate and you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land …observe the rest that it did not observe in your sabbath years [4].

Failure to give God the gift of trust leads people in a hustling [5] mode, or a controlling mode of being, working the land hard, refusing to take time out for spiritual reflection [6], and being unwilling to “let go and let God”.

This is hard work and I hope we all respond with compassion to anyone struggling to trust after heartbreak. It is cruel to judge people for failing to do this hard work. On the other hand, the consequences of not letting go and trusting again are devastating.

A few minutes before the session ended with the girls, Calisha and I gave them one last gift of trust. The game, Pattern-Ball, can become rowdy and silly but we chose to trust them that they would do it sensibly, even though some of them were unsettled after over an hour of learning with us. One girl reminded us that we “do not want to smell like a dead fox”. There was no way to know if the trust in the girls would be vindicated. It was.   

 

Notes

[1] C.S. Lewis - The Four Loves https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3058-to-love-at-all-is-to-be-vulnerable-love-anything

[2] Leviticus 25

[3] Leviticus 25:20

[4] Leviticus 26:32-35

[5] Brown, Brene, Rising strong

[6] Seforno

Women and men in Jewish marriage has anything changed

 On Wednesday, a group of Muslim students, a learned Muslim colleague and I discussed marriage. A question from one of the students was “how has Jewish marriage adapted to modern understandings of gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights while maintaining traditional marital practices? are there any contemporary interpretations or adaptations within Jewish communities?” The timing was great because I am currently reading “This Is How Your Marriage Ends” by Matthew Fray about how men fail to honour women’s perspectives and pull their weight in thinking about and doing housework.

While the positions of Orthodox and Progressive Judaism are clear regarding same sex marriage, other adaptations are more subtle.

The most interesting of these are two ways of interpreting a traditional phrase about marriage:

“Who is a Kosher woman? The one who does [whatever is] her husband’s will”. [i]

In 1962, a whole new way of reading this same verse was put forward by the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The new reading involves some word play made possible by the fact that the Hebrew word for “does” also means “makes”.  “Who is a Kosher woman? The one who makes [moulds and influences] her husband’s will” [ii].

In the Rebbe’s new interpretation, a wife is encouraged to influence her highly hassled husband who lacks the will to do what is appropriate. She is “obligated, in ways of pleasantness and peace” to “make and reveal” the husband’s will to do what God wants of him.

It can be argued that this is not a completely modern innovation. Abraham was instructed by God that everything Sara tells you, obey her voice [iii] . But there is a reasonable counter argument, in quoting God’s words to Eve. Your longing will be to your husband, and he shall rule over you [iv]. I would argue that the phrase that a man will rule over his wife is a curse and a prediction, rather than a prescription. As much as I don’t like it, it is hard to escape the sense that Judaism sees a man as having authority in the home. Consider this disturbing law written by Maimonides: “Whenever a woman refrains from performing any of the tasks that she is obligated to perform, she may be compelled to do so, even with a rod [v] ”.

I explained to the students that Jewish law responds to the context of when it is applied. I can’t imagine any Rabbi today would be ok with a man hitting his wife with a rod for failure to do the dishes.

Mathew Fray has much to say about dishes. Before his transformation into a reflective remorseful ex-husband, he was a bitter man who blamed his ex-wife for his problems in a blog post entitled, “my wife divorced me because l left dishes by the sink [vi] ”. He now realises that the dishes by the sink represented something more - a lack of consideration of her needs and perspective. He wrote, “I remember my wife saying how exhausting it was for her to have to tell me what to do all the time… She wanted me to figure out what needed to be done… without making her responsible for orchestrating everything”.

In 2024, for many women to feel respected and loved, a man needs to do more housework and more of the thinking and orchestrating than their parents or grandparents did. This is not a reform of Judaism, but the application of timeless principles to our time. The commandment to love others like ourselves [vii]  requires all of us taking other peoples’ wants, needs and points of view into account as much as we want ours taken into account. This applies to spouses as well.

Similarly, when couples disapprove of each other’s behaviour, rather than find a rod, it is appropriate to draw the spouse’s attention to whatever we are concerned about [viii] , but in a way that does not humiliate them [ix].  

Also on Wednesday, it was Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of a new month when Jewish custom dictates that women not do house work if possible. I won’t disclose too much personal, but I did pay extra attention to this custom this time. Hopefully, I will make a habit of it.

Another modern Rabbi pointed out that when the Torah described the role of women as helping men, it states that she would be “opposite him”. A marriage partner is not a geisha girl or guy who serves drinks and sets the table.  A life partner must be able to say no if necessary—the ‘kenegdo- opposite’ part—because if you marry a yes-sayer, you aren’t really being challenged by another. Moreover, the lips may be moving one way, but the heart may be saying ‘no’ silently until the heart breaks from the weight of ’nos.’ In the end, a "help-opposite" creates its own synthesis, and a new oneness is born. The couple must drink together but not always from the same cup, so that one can correct the other, complement the other, cheer and comfort the other, help and be helped by the other. Only then is the one not alone [x].

My scholarly Muslim colleague shared her perspective on all these matters as it relates to nuances and misunderstandings of Islamic traditions, but that is her story to tell.

The students were delightful.

 

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[i] Tana Dbei Eliyahu Rabba 9

[ii] The Lubavitcher Rebbe, (1962), a talk on parshat Balak and Likutei Sichos vol 4. איזוהי אשה כשרה? כל שעושה רצון בעלה" (תדא"ר פ"ט). שני פירושים למאמר זה. א.   הבעל ברובו של היום אינו בבית, צריכה איפוא האשה "לעשות" את רצון בעלה - להוריד את הרצון לידי עשיה בפועל. לבעל יש רצונות טובים בעניני חינוך הילדים, הכנסת אורחים, נתינת צדקה וכדומה; אך ההוצאה לפועל של רצונות אלו תלויה באשה. ב.   לפעמים, צריכה האשה "לעשות" - ליצור - את רצון בעלה. כשהבעל טרוד מאד וחסר לו הרצון לעשות את הראוי, חייבת האשה, בדרכי נועם ובדרכי שלום, לעשות ולגלות את רצונו הפנימי של הבעל, שהרי כל יהודי רוצה לעשות רצון קונו...(משיחת ש"פ בלק תשכ"ב - לקו"ש ד עמ' 1069

[iii] Genesis 21:12

[iv] Gensis 3:16

[v] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, laws of Marriage 21:10

[vi] Fray, M. (2022), This Is How Your Marriage Ends, Souvenir press, p. 50

[vii] Leviticus 19:18

[viii] Leviticus 19:17 see

[ix] Arakhin 16b

[x] Rabbi Shlomo Riskin – I believe. I have been unable to find the source. 

The Complexity of Self Esteem and Humility – Nadab and Abihu Acharei Moss 2024

There is no simple formula for navigating self-esteem and humility.

Creative Commons license -2.0 

Judaism mandates humility, and psychology promotes self-esteem. I am not satisfied with the synthesis that humility and self-esteem are simply two sides of the same coin.  Instead, I suggest that to live virtuous lives we need to see ourselves as being of limited importance, and we also need to appreciate our worth. These virtues sometimes compete, and at other times complement each other. Let us begin with a scenario.  

“Name drop”
At the Passover Seder last week, I made a point that compassion for refugees is one implication of retelling the Exodus story. In illustrating this point, I mentioned that I met a past Australian Prime Minister who was vocal about refugees. “Name drop!” one guest called out.

Neither humble nor esteemed

It was light-hearted banter, but assuming that it was a “name drop” and not an innocent legitimate comment, it contravenes the requirement, to “walk humbly with your God”   [i] or, more precisely, to “walk in a hidden manner”. Jews are also urged to be of “very, very lowly spirit, as the hope of man are the maggots (that will consume his/her corpse when buried) [ii] ”. But according to a popular understanding of psychology, my problem was not actually regarding myself too highly, but a lack of self-esteem (iii). The name drop would be interpreted as an attempt to overcompensate for my low self-esteem. While this explanation is sometimes true for some people, I am sceptical of it as an explanation for everyone, all of the time.    

The Lure of the Synthesis
The synthesis between the virtues of humility and self-esteem is attractive to the modern Jew. Our generation is a generation of psychology rather than philosophy.  Psychology, or at least pop psychology, is what determines the essence of the human experience in the world [iv].  For the religious Jew to insist on humility as a stand-alone virtue is to sound like a flat earther. It seems easier to conform to the norm of emphasising self-esteem. Yet, to hold humility and self-esteem as separate virtues is to have a fuller spiritual toolbox for navigating our lives.

Humility and Nadab and Abihu
For the person of faith, humility is essential. We are invited to be of lowly spirit before every person [v] and never see ourselves as superior to anyone else.  Humility also enables us to truly worship God, on God’s terms, rather than our own terms. Nadab and Abihu were two men who lacked such humility [vi]. Rather than obey God, they brought fire to God’s temple that God did not command [vii]. They failed to respect that there are special times when God invites a select person into the temple [viii]. In their self-directed, overly entitled, drunken [ix], exuberant religious ecstasy, they displayed their arrogance. They were overheard saying that soon their elders, Moses and Aaron, would die and they would replace them to lead the Israelites[x].

For me, the lesson from this story is if I think too highly of myself, it can make it harder to restrain my desires. However, when I see myself as of low status, this can help me regulate my impulses to comply with the will of God and ethical imperatives.

Self-Esteem required for Moral Conduct
Sitting on a plane flying to Perth, I was surprised to read a Fifteenth Century Torah text that argued that regarding ourselves highly is essential for virtuous living or self-regulation. If we see ourselves as valuable, we will behave as befitting someone of high status; conversely, if we see ourselves as lowly, this could lead us not to bother doing what is right [xi]. The example of King Saul is cited. He failed to appreciate the importance of his office as King, and humbly followed the will of the people. The prophet reprimanded him for his humility with the words “If you are small, from your perspective, [don’t be] you are the head of the tribes of Israel, God has anointed you as a King over Israel!” [xii]. 

 

Conclusion

Every human, regardless of ethnicity, beliefs, achievements, or virtues is intrinsically valuable. We are cherished by God in whose image we were all created [xiii]. We never deserve to be hated by anyone, including ourselves. It is ok to be temporarily shamed when our choices fall short of our ideals. Like an email delivering a message, once the shame delivers the message about the gap, it can be deleted. And, at the same time, each of us is profoundly insignificant. We are mere mortals making some noise and doing a few meaningful things that are not such a big deal, as we are only doing what we were created to do [xiv]. Does this all fit neatly? Of course not, because life is complex, not neat.

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[i] Micah 6:8

[ii] Pirkey Avot, 4:4

[iii] Lieberman, D. J. (2022), Mindreader: The New Science of Deciphering What People Really Think, What They Really Want, and Who They Really Are. Harmony/Rodale

[iv] https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5099355/jewish/Can-Kosher-Make-Sense.htm

[v] Pirkey Avot, 4:10

[vi] Leviticus, 10:1-2 and 16:1-2

[vii] Leviticus 10:1

[viii] Leviticus 10:2

[ix] Midrash Tanchuma, Acharei Mot.

[x] Torah Cohanim, in Kasher, Rabbi M., (1978) Torah Shlaima, volume 27, p. 2

[xi] R. Yitchak Arama, Akedat Yitzchak, gate 64

[xii] I Samuel, 15:17

[xiii] Pirkey Avot, 3:14

[xiv] Pirkey Avot, 2:8