By Kiki Arochas, Opinions Editor
I woke up one night in a cold sweat. I was starving. Although my brain activity wasn’t at full capacity yet, my seven-year-old neurons transmitted one message with frightening clarity: GET CHEEZ–ITS. So, like a sleepwalker, I arose, winding my way down the stairs, careful to take each step delicately; I didn’t want to wake my parents, after all.
Once I slipped into the kitchen, I carefully slid open a snack drawer, reaching for the delicious Cheez-Its. Just as my hand closed on them, I heard a noise coming from my parents room. Someone was sniffling. My curiosity got the best of me. I peeked in the direction of the door, with its peeling white paint slowly falling off. I gently pushed it open. I saw my Dad, sitting up in bed, visibly crying. I was stunned. I’d never seen my Dad cry before.
“Hey Kiiks,” he said, smiling through the tears. “What’s wrong, Daddy?” I said. “Why are you crying?” He looked at me with a mixture of pain and pride. “I was thinking about my parents,” he told me. “I’m crying because I’m never going to see them again.” I was genuinely confused. “Of course you’ll see them again!” I said, laughing. “They are in shamayim!”
There is a truism that it’s not possible to reclaim the emunah you had when you were a child. In the words of Christian Wiman in his book My Bright Abyss, “In fact, there is no way to ‘return to the faith of your childhood,’ not really, unless you’ve just woken from a decades-long and absolutely literal coma.”
The absolute faith that you have at that childhood stage is like a cocoon that envelopes you entirely. There are no doubts, because belief is as inherent to your experience as the clothes on your back. Hashem is as real to you as your hands, as your parents; He is a very real being who is constantly present and aware.
But then you grow older. And the cocoon begins to crack.
Suddenly things that were as apparent as the night sky are as obscure as a cloudy one. Suddenly the nature of your existence weighs heavily on your shoulders, and the burden of consciousness pushes you down. You see things in ways you never had before. You realize there aren’t just 70 faces to the Torah alone – everything has 70 faces. There is nothing in this world that has a straightforward answer.
And, as your world perspective changes, so does your faith.
Perhaps you come to realize that the way in which you observed your faith in the past doesn’t feel as right anymore. Perhaps you don’t wish to observe at all. Or perhaps you wish to observe more strictly than ever before.
Whatever the case, a person is not worse off due to his newfound doubt that emerges when the cocoon is cracked. Quite the opposite actually. The butterfly that flies from this cocoon is far more beautiful than the caterpillar. The vibrant colors of the wings show newfound reasons for living, a resilience and a purpose unseen by the caterpillar.
Your perspectives must change, because to change is to live. If you have not changed, you haven’t truly lived.
This is why, when Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin asked his IBC class to state the time when we felt most religious, I did not answer, “when I was seven years old:” the time that I was so certain in my faith I could look in the face of tragedy and laugh. No, I answered that I felt my most religious right now. At this very moment, today, tomorrow and the next day. Even though I hadn’t put my tefillin on that morning. Even though I didn’t make brachot on my breakfast. Even though I frequently doubt God.
I am at my most religious right now because my religiosity does not stem from dogmatic notions of absolute faith. There is room for questions. There is room to doubt. There is room for growth. There is room to forge my own path. There is room for change.
If you’re reading this and feel remiss toward a time not so long ago, whether that’s when you were a child, when you were in high school, or your first year in Israel, thinking that that’s when you were at your most religious: change your perspective. There is nothing more religious than embracing religious change. Do not feel lesser because your observance may not come as naturally as it once did. Do not feel lesser because others may present a more religious front than yourself.
Embrace the uncertainty that life has thrown at you. Whichever path you walk – observant or not – know that the choice is yours. Your life is completely in your own hands. You are a butterfly. Go out and soar.