This past Sunday, students in our Camp Wise Sundays program studied the Jewish value of trust, bitachon, examining how trust shaped Jewish history – from Hanukkah to the present – as well as the role trust plays in our everyday lives. In this week’s Daily Kavanot, we’ll also examine how trust shapes our people’s history and present.
Though we exercise trust in so many aspects of our lives, from performing the everyday tasks of life to conquering new and exciting challenges, our lives are also filled with moments when our trust falters. What do we do when our trust is betrayed?
This is the fundamental question posed by the Book of Job. We regularly quote snippets from the book in our daily prayers (including the Oseh Shalom prayer which concludes the Amidah), in our High Holy Day prayers, and in moments of loss. However, there is no set time in the Jewish calendar to read Job in its entirety, though its subject matter seems pivotal to religious life.
Job, an individual of righteousness, faith, and renown, suffers a crisis of faith after experiencing a series of unspeakable tragedies, losing his wealth, his family, and his health. Ultimately, God answers Job’s cries, and Job decides that his trust is misdirected. Though God, as presented within the book, is capable of miraculous wonders, Job’s idea of justice and fairness has no relevance to the Divine.
“Who am I to obscure counsel without knowledge? Indeed, I spoke of wonders beyond my comprehension, but did not understand.” (Job 42:3)
For Job, trust in God remains possible once he lets go of his assumption that God shares his sense of fairness and justice. Job responds to the seemingly unjust tragedies he suffers by reexamining, with precision, where he can reliably place his trust, and he decides that he can continue to trust in God and in life, despite its apparent injustice.
Though we may not arrive at the same conclusions as Job, his process is instructive. Circumstances will ultimately call our trust into question, from our trust in our bodies or minds, to our trust in one another, to our trust in the systems and knowledge we share. Like Job, we deserve time to mourn our loss of trust before ultimately deciding where we can reliably place our trust.
— Rabbi Josh Knobel