Living with uncertainty.

“Faith is not certainty; it is the courage to live with uncertainty. Faith does not mean seeing the world as you would like it to be; it means seeing the world exactly as it is, yet never giving up the hope that we can make it better by the way we live – by acts of chesed (loving-kindness), graciousness, and by forgiveness and generosity of spirit.” — Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

“How can a rabbi not live with doubt? The Bible itself is a book of doubt…The Bible is never about certainty. And a rabbi who has no doubt is not a rabbi.” —Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg

Do you have certainty within yourself that could use a healthy challenge in today’s complicated times?

“Don’t be so sure of yourself!” My father used to say those words to me often as a teenager. After all, I knew everything when I was 16! As the years went on, my surety led me to many successes, and some disastrous failures of marriages, jobs, and relationships. I began to doubt. I had lost control. Did I ever really have it in the first place? Gradually, through a process that would last until my early thirties, along came a wise old man who got through to me, and began the process where I find myself today, appreciating the healthy voice of doubt. That man passed away nearly thirty years ago, yet the lessons remain. A new philosophy is emerging.

Not that we should doubt ourselves at every turn. Being uncertain doesn’t mean you are lost, it simply means that you are living, and have given up some control. At times uncertainty seems to consume me. I am learning to lean into the discomfort. I am learning that in order to succeed, I must accept adversity. The trick is not to get lost in uncertainty. Dealing with life on a day to day basis, handling what I can, how I can, and making sure to have a practice that allows for vital rest, seems to be working well. Trusting my intuition and instincts are very useful in many situations. But, (behold the ultimate truth) to never doubt is as foolish as to lack all certainty and believe you have all the control.

The ancients demonstrated this. The San Bushman, the oldest inhabitants of Southern Africa, primarily hunters and gatherers, lived pretty much like our ancestors lived for 99 percent of the human story. They had been doing their rituals and customs for tens of thousands of years. They constantly devised unique ways to handle conflict. They knew what worked in the past, and were continually realizing that what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow, and the world was always changing, the sand ever shifting beneath their feet. Want to hear a great TED Talk on successful conflict negotiation, check out “The walk from ‘no’ to ‘yes’” here. It is a fan favorite of my Intercultural Communication students at Texas Christian University.

As Carl Jung taught, “..what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.” We need to constantly adjust our horizons as we walk our path. A healthy dose of self-doubt can help to keep us from stumbling too badly.

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Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks, (born March 8, 1948-November 7, 2020 was a British rabbi, philosopher and scholar of Judaism. He served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth of  the United kingdom from 1991 to 2013.

Arthur Hertzberg (June 9, 1921 – April 17, 2006) was a Conservative rabbi and prominent Jewish-American scholar and activist.