By Ilan Feldman
HOW DO WE INSTILL IN OUR
EMUNAH CHILDREN? THE BEST WAY TO INSTILL EMUNAH IN CHILDREN IS TO PICK THEM UP WHEN THEY CRY. There is a common misconception about emunah. People think of emunah as the result of philosophic inquiry. If that were the case, no real emunah is possible for children; all we can hope for is to get them to talk as if they have emunah and sing songs that assert that God is here and everywhere. Actually, while contemplation might result in emunah, emunah is far more commonly a natural expression of the human condition. When it is absent, it is because something has happened that damages the natural capacity a person has to appreciate and trust his or her Source and Essence. Emunah is not a mimetic behavior or a skill—or even an attitude. It’s not a thought a person draws upon when encountering tough times; it’s a way of being. For those who live with emunah, emunah is like gravity. Awareness of Rabbi Ilan Feldman has been the rabbi of Congregation Beth Jacob in Atlanta, Georgia, since 1991 and has been struggling with emunah since he was five years old.
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I JEWISH ACTION
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God as one Who exists, Who knows and cares, Who responds to my existence, Who believes in me and expects things from me as much as I believe in Him—all this is so real that decisions are made and actions are performed much the same way that the laws of physics are taken into account before passing the butter. It is so much a part of reality that one need not think about it. Emunah is not so much a belief as it is a context or a prism through which the world is filtered. Yet, to live with emunah is to be clear about, and profoundly related to, an ephemeral, non-physical, invisible, unprovable realm whose existence has non-immediate consequences. For emunah to be present, an individual has to be sensitive to the presence of something beside, and beyond, the physical world. This is the challenge of life, felt more acutely in our modern world than ever before, where physical pleasure, power and fame are the currency of value: to live lives in a physical world that are devoted to a mission that exists in a nonphysical world. The mishnah in Avot (4:21) asserts that three things “chase a person from
the world,” meaning, put one out of touch with reality: jealousy, desire and pursuit of honor. Any one of these three obsessions blinds a person to anything spiritual. They are the result of a single-minded focus on material things. They make it impossible to develop the senses needed to perceive the spiritual dimension of life—the reason for life—or even to be aware that there is such a realm. When material things become the currency in which we deal, emunah becomes impossible. For children to live with emunah awareness, we must reinforce their natural tendency to trust, to depend on their parents. When a child cries, it is not the bottle that makes the difference, but the context in which the bottle is delivered—with love, reliability, connection and nurturance. These are all abstracts, and they point to a domain that is not physical, yet is as real as the bottle. As the child grows, she learns that she is loved, is provided for and can afford to trust without fear of betrayal. The child learns to appreciate, and the child learns that she is loveable as well. These are the foundations of emunah.