I Have Faith, So I Have Hope

October 26, 2001
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

As these days unfold with their attendant difficulties, I am inwardly directed to express my personal way of coping with the stresses under which we live. These are not academic exercises. We all live together. We all read the same papers and hear the same news. We all receive mail and handle it with care. But we must live constructively, positively and optimistically. Several weeks ago, as we were greeting people after Erev Shabbat services at the door, somebody asked me: "How can you speak this way?" I will confess that I am just as human as the next. I cry with the best. This sermon, following last week's about fear, is an answer to that question.

Unlike last week, I don't have any Chelm stories tonight, but I begin these remarks and will end them with two stories from volume two of Chicken Soup for the Soul. The first is entitled: Discouraged.

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As I was driving home from work one day, I stopped to watch a local Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-base line, I asked one of the boys what the score was.

"We're behind fourteen to nothing," he answered with a smile.

"Really," I said. "I have to say you don't look very discouraged."

"Discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. "Why should we be discouraged? We haven't been up to bat yet!"

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What a marvelous attitude! Such power of positive thinking! What enabled the boy to respond this way? From the mundane to the sublime: In tomorrow morning's Torah portion of Lech Lecha, Abraham leaves the place of his birth, his family, his culture and all that was known to him, to trek across the desert to an unknown destination, just because God told him: "Lech Lecha" – "Get going." How did he do it? And this question is no different from our existential dilemma. This Shabbat we celebrate a Bar Mitzvah. Elsewhere there are other simchas. I will soon be working on the B'nai Mitzvah dates of 2004. How do we do this? How do we face the day?

My personal answer is faith.

I believe, I have faith, that there is a higher power, which, while unseeable, exists, and to which I pray daily, for which purpose we are gathered in this room, and turn to in happy times as well as days like these.

I believe, I have faith in God guides us, heals us, and elevates us.

I believe, I have faith that people-of-faith can conquer any obstacle and triumph.

I believe, I have faith, that I, we, can have faith in God and allow its power to work in me, in us.

The boy on the baseball team wasn't naïve, and neither am I. He had faith in himself, that he could personally exert himself to change the microcosm of the world – the game. He had faith in his teammates, that, likewise, they had inner power to influence the outcome. Collectively the team had faith in each other and optimistically look forward to the future – their time at bat. These were boys of faith.

Abraham and Sarah didn't have the foggiest notion of where they were going. God says "Go where I will show you, eventually." The Torah strings together six verbs of action that portray the immediacy of their response, the directnessof their deeds, and their faith in the divine. There are times that Abraham will argue with God – the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And there are times when he will act with faith, leaving Mesopotamia and the Binding of Isaac. This faith posits that there is a higher powerin which to trust, a divine existence, which infuses our lives, there is a God, who guides us, loves us and accompanies us on the journey. Like the boy in the story, this faith empowers us,uplifts us, and strengthens us, even in the darkest hours. It wasn't easy being that boy, down fourteen to nothing. It wasn't easy being Abraham and Sarah, the only ones of their faith, and it isn't easy living in these days either. Like them, we, too, must live with faith.

Faith is powerful. We can do things, which we otherwise never thought possible.

Faith is vital. The conclusion of a long story from the Holocaust has the father saying to his son that they can live so long without food and longer without water. But they cannot live without faith.

Dr. Abraham Heschel wrote much about faith. From his book Man is Not Alone, I cite just a few lines:

To have faith is to perceive the wonder that is here, and to be stirred by the desire to integrate the self into the holy order of living.

We live by the certainty that we are not as dust in the wind, that our life is related to the ultimate, the meaning of all existence.

Faith means to hold small things great, to take light matters seriously, to distinguish the common and the passing from the aspect of the lasting.

Faith is an awareness of divine mutuality and companionship, a form of communion between God and man.

Its power is revealed when man is able to exercise defiance in the face of adversity.

It is faith from which we draw the sweetness of life, the taste of the sacred, the joy of the imperishably dear. It is faith that offers us a share of eternity.

 

It is because I have faith that I have hope.

It is because I have faith that I can remain positive.

It is because I have faith that I can face each, each headline, each news report.

I have faith in each of us.

I have faith in our congregation, in our community, in our nation.

I have faith in God, and thus I live with the confident hope

That we will surmount the evil of these days,

That like Noah from last week's sedra, we will see the rainbow

In our lifetime.

I do not know how I would live without faith. I share with you this insight how I live these days and share with you the path of faith, with my personal unshakeable belief in the God who loves us and encourages us to live with heads uplifted and spirits unbowed. I encourage you, I urge you to find the path, and hold fast.

A second story of faith from Chicken Soup for the Soul, entitled The Bike Ride.

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At first I saw God as an observer, like my judge, keeping track of things I did wrong. This way, God would know whether I merited heaven or hell when I died. He was always out there, sort of like the President. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I didn't really know Him at all.

But later on, when I recognized my higher power better, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike ride, on a tandem bike, and I noticed God was in the back helping me pedal.

I don't know when it was that He suggested we change places, but life has not been the same since….life with my higher power, that is making life much more exciting.

When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring but predictable. It was always the shortest distance between two points.

But when He took the lead, He knew delightful cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places and at breakneck speeds; it was all I could do to hand on! Even though it looked like madness, He kept saying, "Pedal, pedal!"

I worried and became anxious, asking, "Where are you taking me?" He just laughed and didn't answer, and I found myself starting to trust. I soon forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure, and when I'd say, "I'm scared," He'd lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts that I needed; gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey. Our journey, that is, God's and mine.

And we were off again. He said, "Give gifts away, they're extra baggage, too much weight." So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light.

I did not trust Him at first, in control of my life. I thought that He'd wreck it. But He knew bike secrets, knew how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear places filled with rocks, fly to shorten scary passages.

And I'm learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I'm beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, my higher power.

And when I'm sure I can't go on anymore, He just smiles and says, "Pedal…"

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Because I have faith, I have hope.

When in the news is too much, when doubt troubles our hearts, listen carefully for the divine voice that just says, "Pedal."

Amen.