Torah for Christians: Overcoming Doubt
TORAH FOR CHRISTIANS
SEASON FOUR EPISODE NINE
First broadcast on August 15, 2022
OVERCOMING DOUBT
But Moses spoke up and said, “What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me, but say: The Eternal did not appear to you?” Exodus. 4.1
Remember the children’s story of The Little Train That Could. “I think I can, I think I can.” “I know I can! I know I can!” That little train overcame its doubt and got up that hill.
Let’s talk about doubt. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
MUSIC
Welcome to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr
In our previous episode, we discussed the “I’m not worthy” phenomenon. In this episode, we will ask “Can I really do it?” While related, they are different issues. The former refers to one’s soul; the latter to one’s ability. You may feel worthy of the challenge yet doubt that you can do the job. Conversely, you may feel up to the challenge – but not feel deserving of it. Or perhaps you doubt you are worthy of a challenge which you think you cannot do. That’s double jeopardy, to be sure.
Moses felt both unworthy and doubtful of his abilities. This is a killer combination. In both instances, God reassured him that he deserved to be God’s messenger and that he was capable of being God’s messenger. Fortified with God’s blessing, Moses moved forward.
Overcoming doubt is quite difficult. Often, we must fight against decades of people telling us that we cannot do something. Haven’t you heard some of these horrible sayings in the past? I certainly mean no offense; quite the contrary. I offer these simply to illustrate a point.
- Jews can’t be athletes.
- A black man cannot be President.
- A woman cannot fight in the Army.
- Only boys take Calculus.
- Cooking classes are for girls.
All these are hateful stereotypes, of course, and can be easily and rightly disproved. But when I was growing up, most people believed them. Of course, Aly Reisman and Sandy Koufax proved that Jews can be elite athletes; Barak Obama became President of the United States; a woman commands the U.S. Coast Guard and is on the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the women of Hidden Figures did the math for the Apollo lunar missions and Gordon Ramsey is a pretty good chef.
But when we hear statements like these however, doubt is certain to creep into our minds – even if we know them to be untrue. As infants, we had no doubts. We started crawling and climbing as soon as possible. What did our parents do? They locked everything away and started to tell us “NO!” That “NO” began the cascade of negative attention thrown our way, attention that led to doubting our very existence – even when that “NO” was meant to protect us.
After years of this attention, fueled as well by teachers and others who, to be sure loved us, we began to doubt that we could do much of anything. It was as if our parents couldn’t wait for us to walk and talk; then they – along with our teachers – spent years telling us to sit down and shut up! Certainly, discipline and limits are important – but they cannot be allowed to kill the spirit.
Later, we were steered toward certain classes because our teachers and parents doubted that we could thrive elsewhere. Instead of fighting and going for the gold, we settled for the bronze, doubting that we could do what we really wanted to do. Perhaps we wanted to be artists but were told that “in our family, you have to be a doctor or a lawyer.” Our academic success was cause for praise; our watercolors, not so much – even if we excelled in this medium. We became mediocre lawyers with an incredible art studio out in the garage where we spent as much time as possible.
Tom Peters tells a great story about Fred Smith, the founder of Federal Express[1]. While a graduate student at Harvard, Smith submitted a term paper detailing the entire concept and an operating system for Federal Express. The genius of his plan was a central hub, through which all packages come and go. His professor failed him; he never thought this would work. It was much more efficient for a package to go directly from San Francisco to Los Angeles, he thought, then for it to travel with a stop in Memphis, Tennessee.
Fred Smith had two choices: he could accept the grade and live with the F, or he could use the grade as motivation and make the project come to life. He, of course, chose the latter option – and the rest is history.
Perhaps that failing grade propelled him to create FedEx. But what if he had accepted the grade, walked home with his head down and tried to think of a different, more conventional plan? Would we have Federal Express today? Fred Smith overcame his doubt and revolutionized the global economy.
Since we are so used to others doubting us (parents, teachers, bosses, clergy, etc.), we start to doubt ourselves – often for no apparent reason. When I was 17 years old, I was working as a waiter in an ice cream parlor. I had to fight to become a waiter; I was the top busboy in the store and the managers wanted me to keep clearing tables and washing dishes. I wanted to climb the totem pole of promotion at this store. We came to an agreement and I spent about half my time waiting tables and half my time cleaning them.
The first night that I worked as a waiter, there was a large group of about 12 patrons. I was working the big room with two other servers and doing well with small parties. So, I thought that I could handle this big party. Remember, I was a cocky 17-year-old, ready to rule the world.
Of course, it was a disaster! It was so bad; they didn’t even leave me a tip – the dining equivalent of the death penalty. I certainly doubted my abilities at that time. The manager would have been more than happy to put me back as a full-time busboy, where I excelled. But I stepped back, realized that I wasn’t ready for large parties and overcame my doubts by working smaller parties and gaining experience.
After a few more weeks on the job, I took another large party. This time, I did w; I even got a large tip. By the end of the summer, I was routinely able to handle parties of over 20 people by myself. I overcame both failure and self-doubt to become a top-level waiter – at least in a casual, family-oriented, full-service ice cream parlor.
Doubting ourselves is normal, though. When we first approach a new task, be it a job, a marriage, a newborn baby, anything, we wonder if we are up to it. Most of the time, we are. We simply take a deep breath, rely on our intuition, our education and our life experiences and dive right in.
But sometimes we fail – spectacularly! What do we do then? I have learned that failure is an opportunity that God has given us to learn something new. We should embrace failure. We should welcome it. We should celebrate failure as the key to our future success.
To me, failure is discovering an improper solution so that the proper solution becomes evident. Thomas Edison, as is famously told, did not sit down one afternoon in his laboratory, and invent the light bulb. It took him over 100 tries until his invention worked. And with every failure, he said that he was one step closer to the solution. To Edison, each failure was a learning opportunity, an incremental step towards the incandescent light bulb. 100 failures changed the world.
It took Michael Jordan six years to win his first National Basketball Association Championship. For several years, the Chicago Bulls were little more than the Michael Jordan Show. Slowly, the Bulls acquired the talent necessary to make a title run. At first, they lost in the early rounds of the playoffs. But in Jordan’s sixth year, it all came together. Those years of failure turned into the first of six NBA Championship rings for Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Without that failure, victory would not have tasted so sweet. Without that failure, we would not think of Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball player of all time.
What if failure had consumed Thomas Edison and Michael Jordan? Would we have electricity to light the arenas in which Jordan starred? Could there be indoor sports at all? Or would Jordan have simply quit after my Detroit Pistons had beaten the Bulls in the playoffs yet again?
When we embrace failure, we overcome our self-doubt and the doubts of others. To succeed in life, we must first fail. Failure in a project is not the same as failure as a person. When we realize that it’s not personal, we can shed our doubts and move forward.
God assured Moses that he would be successful. With God at his side, Moses could not fail; he was bound to succeed. God even taught Moses a magic trick: the staff that turned into a serpent. It must have been a great trick – but it was designed to show God’s power and to indicate that Moses was an authentic Messenger of God. It was the first of many steps towards removing doubt in Pharaoh’s mind that God demanded he let the Israelites go.
When we act as Messengers of God, we too cannot fail. We can erase our doubts and move forward into greater glory. Imagine if the homebuilders at Habitat for Humanity, that magnificent volunteer organization that provides shelter for the needy, let failure stop them. What if they only built half a house? Sure, there would be disappointment, but doubt would not enter the equation. Perhaps there were not enough volunteers, perhaps the money ran out; perhaps the scope of the project was bigger than expected. After analyzing this failure, they could do one of two things: abandon the project or come back the following week to finish it.
Of course, they will choose the latter option. Perhaps two more weeks and a larger cohort of volunteers were needed. But a delayed schedule is not a catastrophe; it is just an opportunity to regroup and do the job correctly.
What happens when doubt creeps into our spiritual life? All of us can, and should, question the essential tenets of our beliefs; doing so will make us people of deeper faith (even if our faith is atheism!). But when our beliefs are shaken to the core, such as after a death or divorce, doubt comes rushing in like water bursting through a dam.
This is when we realize that our beliefs are there to support us. They will help us deal with the harsh realities of life. If we thank God for a newborn baby, we must also recognize the Divine element in death. As Job said, “The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away, blessed be the Name of the LORD[2].”
Doubting the Divine is natural, overcoming that doubt is essential. If we are to develop a leader-servant mentality, when we lead from a grounded set of principles, we must be people of faith.
Moses wondered: Can I do what it takes to be successful? It was a legitimate concern. But the answer was a resounding YES. Our answer should be a resounding YES, as well! When we attack our fears and our doubts, and do not let them consume us, then we will be just as capable as Moses. We might not be called upon to lead 600,000 Israelites through the desert for 40 years, but we will be called. When we emerge as confident human beings, God will call us to act upon our newfound strength to go out and change the world. And we will be ready to answer the call.
Here are today’s Moses Principles:
- Doubt is normal.
- Like Moses, we can overcome our doubts by reliance on our instincts, education, and life experiences.
- God will help us to overcome our doubts.
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I want to thank you for listening to Torah for Christians. If you enjoyed this podcast, tell your friends, and spread the word. You are the reason for our success. And whether you identify as a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim or even as a skeptic, we are all in this together. So please remember: Hinei Mah Tov… L’hitra’ot, till we meet again. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
