Imposter Syndrome, a GPS & Bo

Do you think it’s normal to suffer from imposter syndrome when you’ve just been ordained as a rabbi?

Maybe.

Especially over the past ten years, as I’ve prepared to become a rabbi, I’ve felt like I had to prove that I could be one.

I continually felt like I’d never match up to those who had grown up with this stuff.

When I was in Colorado for my ordination, I woke up in a panic in the middle of the night in my hotel room. I was dreaming that the next day I was being ordained—but it had already happened!!

Last night I dreamt that all my personal identification and money was stolen by a taxi driver who took my wallet.

I didn’t know where he was taking me, and when I asked for my money, he gave me fake bills that were pieces of folded, painted cloth.

I insisted that he let me out so I could find my own way, and when he did, I didn’t even know what city I was in.

I didn’t have a GPS to help me, either.

So here I am, and it looks like I’m still questioning if I'm worthy, even after I’ve been ordained.

Moses, too, questions his validity as the leader of the Israelites to freedom.

As Avivah Zornberg points out, Pharaoh is effectively his grandfather.

Talk about feeling like an imposter!

Moses is caught between being the birth child of a Hebrew woman and the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

He has grown up in Pharaoh’s palace in the lap of luxury. Why wouldn’t he question his legitimacy as the leader of his people?

Is he even sure who his people are?

We might see Moses’ inner conflict about his identity sometimes play out like that of a teenager trying to assert his independence.

There’s an interaction between him and Pharaoh right before the last plague is announced where Pharaoh yells at him; “Let me not see your face again!” to which Moses responds, “Don’t worry, you won’t!” and he storms out.

And God?

What about His imposter syndrome?

From the beginning of Exodus, God spends a lot of time proving himself and his worthiness as the greatest god of all.

Plague after plague fails to produce the effect God aspires to.

Yet, He also does a fair amount of self-sabotage, hardening Pharaoh’s heart repeatedly.

But perhaps there’s a purpose and a message in this.

There’s a Hasidic teaching that says that God hides the Divine spark from humans because we can’t handle it; it’s too overwhelming to us.

I love the midrash Rabbi Shefa Gold tells or some jealous angels who are asked to hide the spark of the Divine in the world (in her book, Torah Journeys; the Inner Path to the Promised Land):

Where shall these angels hide the spark of the Divine, they ask each other?

"Let’s put it atop the highest mountain,” offers one.

“No,” says another, “The Human is very ambitious; he will find it there.”

“Well then, let’s bury it beneath the deepest sea.”

“That won’t work either,” another chimes in. “The human is very resourceful. She will even find it there.”

After a moment’s thought the wisest angel says, “I know. Put it inside the Human heart. They will never look there.”

Shefa uses this story to explain God saying to Moses, “Bo! Come to Pharaoh.”

For her, the implication is that God is waiting for us inside the heart of Pharaoh, which is our own heart as well: underneath the hardened, heavy shell with its unhealed grief acquired from life; “…you must come if you are to know Me, if you are to find your freedom.”

She challenges us to “acknowledge the hard shell of a self-image that has become too small” so we can soften the hard surface.

If we can soften the hard surface, perhaps we can uncover the darkness and allow some light in.

The darkness in our hearts is reflected not only in Pharaoh’s heart, but in the plagues of this week’s Parsha.

There are three plagues of darkness, as Avivah Zornberg explains:

“The locusts ‘cover the eye of the earth, so that it cannot be seen’ (10:5); the plague of darkness, which is palpable,’ ‘the darkness shall be felt’…they did not see one another, and they could not stand up form a sitting position” (19:21, 23); while the plague of the firstborn happens at midnight…the word for night is repeated with a redundant and subliminal insistence.”

Darkness causes the greatest fear, with a total paralysis; those enveloped by it can not even move.

Yet it seems that the darkest of the plagues is the death of the firstborn in every single Egyptian home; the cries that can be heard are the pain of loss, a darkness so deep, they could be heard all over Egypt, even in the palace—because there was death there as well.

It is only then that Pharaoh finally relents, for this pain is even too much for Pharaoh’s heart.

If we use Shefa Gold’s analogy about “a self-image that has become too small,” Bo l’Paraoh might be an invitation to Moses to decide who he really is and represents once and for all; it might be God saying, you will keep coming back to this inner conflict of your identity until you confront the darkness that is in Pharaoh’s heart—which reflects your own.

Pharaoh is furious that Moses refuses to accept his terms to leave women, children, and cattle behind in Egypt while going out to sacrifice to the Hebrew god.

But Moses has insisted enough (and the plagues have worn him down enough) that Pharaoh comes to the point of accepting that Moses will get his way; the women and children and livestock will leave with him to travel three days’ distance.

As part of the work of freeing ourselves of the darkness of Pharaoh’s heart, Shefa Gold says:

“One of the keys to freedom lies in Moses’ insistence that the whole of the people must be freed together”—including the feminine and child parts, for Moses has refused to leave behind the women and children; “to be free is to be whole and integrated,” including our animal selves. Without all of us, “we cannot serve God.”

The darkness in Pharaoh’s heart is the darkness in ours that returns again and again.

And the darkness that surrounds the Egyptians is the same darkness that we also are constantly striving to escape.

By accepting the darkness as part of us that we need to open to and confront, we are opening to the Divine spark hidden beneath it.

Yet, especially we scientifically-minded, “modern,” “Enlightened” people insist that if we can’t see it, touch it, or hear it, it must not exist.

We are not comfortable with not knowing.

But when Moses insists that Pharaoh allow all the Israelites and animals go make a sacrifice to their god, his reasoning is, “We do not know how we will worship God until we get there.” Ex. 10:26 לֹֽא־נֵדַ֗ע מַֽה־נַּעֲבֹד֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֔ה עַד־בֹּאֵ֖נוּ שָֽׁמָּה׃

We are always looking for proof.

We look for the miracles and wonders, because they offer some kind of proof of something.

And we should keep looking, and keep uncovering those hard layers, seeking to bring light to our hearts, and to those who need it in our world.

The cries we hear these days, if we allow them into our hearts, are sometimes too great to bear.

We often don’t know what we are meant to do or how, whether we are worthy of the job, able to fulfill it, and whether we can solve the problems of darkness and suffering in the world.

And it seems that we have to be okay with not knowing; we don’t have a GPS to guide us through the journey of life—but the messages are there if we open to them along with the light.

And please say, Amen.