Trust the Love & Nitzavim-Vayelekh

I have a problem.

I tend to talk to a lot of different people in my life, probably too many people, when I have a problem I’m working out, but also when new and exciting prospects are coming my way (and, no, I won’t tell you until I’m on payroll…).

The problem is, then I get lots of opinions.

And I take them all to heart.

What happens is, I stop trusting my own heart, and begin doubting myself.

Then I go and share the various opinions with my husband, who then tries to weed through all of them and help me figure out who to trust and what to think and what to do.

And if he takes someone else’s opinion more seriously (especially those that are more cynical and wary, because he tends to be that way, too), I get really confused. And I lose sleep over it.

That’s what happened this week.


I finally got angry, because I realized what I needed was for him to take my side—-to trust me and my instincts, my intuition.

So I went back to him and yelled at him, and said those things to him.

And he stopped suddenly, and thought for a second, and said, “You’re absolutely right. You do have good intuition! When you wanted to marry me, everybody was telling you not to, that it was a bad idea, but you fought to marry me. You followed your own intuition. And look! You didn’t do so bad! So I trust you! You need to trust your own intuition!”

This week’s parsha, as we come towards the end of the Torah and Moses is about to die, is about faith.

Faith in our God, but also faith in ourselves.

It questions whether (and when) we should follow our own hearts.

It’s a warning about becoming too sure of our own thoughts and beliefs, our own “willful hearts.”

It reminds us of the blessings we can have, and also the curses, if we turn our hearts towards or away from our One True God, to go and "worship the gods of other nations."

It goes on, “perchance there is among you a stock sprouting poison weed and wormwood…[one who] may fancy himself immune, thinking, “I shall be safe, though I follow my own willful heart.”

How do we know when “other gods” are leading us away from the “One True God”?

What are these “other gods” in this day and age?

What is the poison infecting our souls, our beings?

As more poison sprouts up and spreads, what is that?

There is a poison of hatred, of cynicism, of rejection of the Oneness of all living creatures, which leads us to the poison of violence and war, which in turn poisons our Earth.

It seems that we need to remove the layers of cynicism, of lack of trust in each other.

Then, perhaps, we can trust our own intuition better.

In this new year, may we take the time to really examine our hearts and see what’s there underneath the layers of hatred and cynicism.

Are the layers so thick that the love underneath is so far that it lies beyond the sea, or so high in the heavens that we cannot reach it, as it says in the Torah?

No, the Torah answers, it is right here, very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to hear it.

Hear the love.


What traumas and pain prevent us from trusting the love, so that we may end this insanity once and for all? 

That’s all I’ve got for this week as we head into the new year.

Shabbat Shalom, and dare I ask for a sweet year?