Shoftim
Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9
Isaiah 51:12-52:12
Last Shabbat I heard a beautiful story about a brilliant scholar at the University of Judaism, Eliezer Slomovic. As the storygoes, a young rabbinic student sat in Slomovic’s office, awash with self-doubt. She felt that she could never know enough to live up to the role of rabbi, never be learned enough to adequately represent the great tradition of our people.
There was nothing unusual in a rabbinical student having such feelings. What was remarkable was that she had the courage to speak of them out loud to a renowned scholar, who had been recognized for his erudition while still a child in a European yeshiva.
I sat spellbound as I heard of Slomovic’s response to her. He said, “It’s true that I know more of the sacred literature of our people than you do. But when it comes to what we do not know, you and I are the same.”
A similar lesson came to me in a very different way, when a lovely woman who came to me for spiritual direction told me how she finds herself responding whenever she makes a mistake at work. She occupies a position of significant responsibility in her workplace, and often presents reports to the board and high-level staff of her organization.
From time to time, someone in the group finds a mistake in one of the handouts she had prepared. When such a thing happens she told me that she exclaims, “Oh! I made a mistake!” At this point in her life, she has no need for her work to appear perfect. On the contrary, a moment when her imperfection is revealed is a moment when she is reminded that only God is flawless. She can rejoice in her finitude, which is exactly how God created her to be.
This week I am particularly drawn to an oft-overlooked verse in Shoftim. In the midst of detailed descriptions of the Israelite juridical system comes the following instruction: “If a case is too baffling for you to decide … you shall promptly repair to the place which Adonai your God will have chosen.” (Deut. 17:8)
If we rush too quickly to the end of the verse, we miss an essential piece of wisdom. The Torah is reminding us that there are times when we will not know what to do.
One Chassidic master takes note of the Torah’s instruction to go to God’s chosen place to receive divine guidance on the matter in question. This leads him to suggest that in life, there are some things that we can only understand at a certain time or at a certain place. (Hesed Le’Avraham, in Itturei Torah volume 6, page 113)
We may want or need or think we should understand everything immediately. We may be ashamed of not knowing, or fear dire consequences for our lack of certainty. But sometimes the information we desire is simply not available to us and we have no choice but to wait. Learning to live gracefully with the limits of our knowledge is a mark of wisdom.
Rachel Naomi Remen teaches that our society makes a distorted and harmful mistake by valuing mastery over mystery. Growing up in this culture, we learn early on to pretend to know far more than we do, expending substantial effort to fake a level of perfection that human beings can never attain.
We fear being caught without the right answer. However, our moments of ignorance, forgetfulness, and confusion can be vectors pointing to the divine, wake-up calls to the fact that God is God and we are just what we were created to be. Precisely in those moments when we cannot know what we would like to know, we may be standing in the presence of mystery, a recognition of that in life which is much larger than we can ever be.
Some of the wisest people I know insist that they have come to feel stupider as they age. This is a light-hearted way of describing a kind of deepened humility and wise acceptance of what we cannot know. May we always seek knowledge that is truly enriching and ennobling, and may we accept ourselves as the finite creatures that we are.
Rabbi Amy Eilberg is a spiritual director in private practice.
EDITORS NOTE: This will be Rabbi Amy Eilberg’s last Torah column. J. will have three new Torah columnists in the next few weeks. We wish to thank Rabbis Eilberg, Stephen Pearce and Pinchas Lipner for sharing their thoughts with us for so long.