Monday, May 5, 2008

Mental Wrestling is Physically Tiring

I was speaking with my rabbi several months ago. The week before he had asked me several difficult questions about my desire to pursue Judaism, and I had been near tears while expressing my answers. The following week I walked into the Hebrew class calm and in a pleasant mood. After the lesson was through and we were packing our things to leave, he asked how I was doing. When I told him simply, "doing pretty well," he smirked (yes, my rabbi is capable of smirking, as horribly disrespectful as that sounds) and observed that I must have decided to put the mental, emotional, spiritual fight to the side and not think about it. I had to agree with him.

Choosing to stop believing and living in the way you were raised is not easy. Making a decision as to whether that is the right thing or not is even more difficult. I find myself wishing I could let go of this tug-of-war and simply be whatever it is I am meant to be. There are times when my soul cries out for relief, for peace, for G-d to step in and put me on the right path for me. How am I ever to know I am on the right path? Unlike a path through the woods, which can be lost but retraced to restore one to the original way, a life cannot be relived. Once a decision has been made, a path has been chosen, there is no turning back for a "redo" or "do-over." There is no way of knowing which spiritual path is "correct" until one reaches the end and steps over that threshold into what lies ahead. Many times I've wished nothing lay ahead...how easy to fall into a conscious-less slumber, with nothing to answer for and no one to please.

I don't know what to think. I don't know what to believe. I am frightened by my own ignorance, and disempowered by confusion. Will I ever find my way out of this labyrinth I've entered, or will I wander here forever? How can I lead my children if I can't find the way myself?

I am at a loss.

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