Today, I got an 85 on a quiz. Yesterday, I got an 85 on a discussion board. Last week, I got an 85 on a different quiz. I don’t do 85’s. I don’t do B’s in general. Over the past 10 years, I have tied my identity to the concept that I am an A+ student. It’s a compensatory mechanism that evolved after a tough time in my life when baseline functioning was beyond reach.
During that time, I lost my trust in my own understanding of the world. I did not trust my evaluation of right and wrong or good and bad. I found solace in school, because school tells you definitively yes or no. Correct or incorrect. Nobody grades you on friendships, relationships, volunteering, etc. I think that’s why there’s such a big trend in biometrics and personal data collection. Folks are motivated by the data the can gather from instagram likes, FitBit steps, ability to adhere to their macros for the day. It’s because we need quantifiable evidence that we are excelling in the curriculum of life.
So, I’ve knocked out almost four degrees in 11 years. Because school gives me grades, and it’s a predictable grading pattern. I know exactly the steps I have to take to be a successful student. Until this semester. This semester, I did something radical. I didn’t construct my life around my schoolwork. I signed on to a bunch of diverse life things. So, turns out I might be a B student. I might be a B student, but I am also finding all of this space in my identity that I haven’t enjoyed in a really long time.
I’m being a better friend. I’m spending more time outside. I’m dating. I’m engaging in my synagogue in deeper and more meaningful ways. I’m doing this really crazy work on my relationship with food and my body. I’m seeing a therapist again. I’m s l o w l y and painfully excising my identity and self-worth out of the confines of academic and professional performance. It’s painful. The rest of life is not nearly as predictable.
So, what does Judaism have to say about all of this? Yesterday at Torah study, we studied beshalach. This is when the Hebrews leave Egypt through the crossing of the Sea of Reeds. We get the words that come to be the mi chamocha. The prayer begins:
Mi chamocha ba’eilim, Adonai?
Mi kamocha, ne’edar bakodesh,
Even without an understanding of Hebrew, you can see that the first two words are very similar in the verses. Why does one say “cha” with the guttural grunt while the other has the clear and crisp “k” in the next verse?
The rabbis tell us a midrash about Nachshon, the man who was brave enough to jump in the sea before it parted. Nachshon, a slave, is with the other Hebrews at the shore of the Sea of Reeds, with the Egyptian closing in behind him. They’ve been told the sea would split, but it remains very intact in front of them. Nachshon decides to jump into the water and the water rises up his body until he starts singing. The first verse is muffled by the water that is literally up to his nostrils, but then the seas part and Nachshon is able to sing the second verse clearly.
One blogger, Stacey Zisook Robinson, writes of this moment so beautifully. She states
I’m in one of those places: stuck, prickly, at the very edge of letting go, trembling with the effort to not tip over the edge into the abyss of the unknown, desperate to take that final leap of faith and soar towards light and wholeness. I am astounded, as always, when I think how inextricably intertwined my fear and my faith have become. I have heard that fear is an absence of faith, but I don’t think so. I am too intelligent – and God is too intelligent – to demand blind faith like that, to insist that faith is a guard against fear.
I am sitting here, with my 85’s. I am sitting here, trying scary brave things. I have been feeling the cold shock of the water as it moves up my body. I feel the salty choking of my fear. I am moving forward with faith. At a certain point, I have to release my delusion that I have control, that I can manually part the seas in front of me. All I can do is move forward in faith, knowing I have done my part. I have stepped in the water. I have surrendered.
And You Shall Love 