“Do you see yourself as a leader?”If this were an episode of The Apprentice, this is the point at which Donald Trump would get all red in the face and scream, “You’re Fired!” But in the Torah, when Moses encounters God at the burning bush, Moses gives answers like just these and God gives him the job! Our society sees vulnerability as a weakness – but in the Torah humility and vulnerability are the highest virtues. For God, Moses’ humility makes him the best candidate to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and later when God wants to define Moses’ greatness, God calls him עָנָיו מְאֹד מִכֹּל הָֽאָדָם, “The most humble person.”1
“Not especially – I mean, I grew up in the palace, but I left all of that behind when I became a shepherd.”
“This job will require a lot of negotiation, with powerful and important people. Do you have experience with that sort of thing?”
“I’m not much of a talker, really – never have been.”
“Tell me, Moses, what makes you the most qualified candidate for this job?”
“Actually, I don’t think I am all that qualified.”
We have all been in the situation Moses faced at the burning bush: a life-changing opportunity arises, and all we can think of is how unqualified or unprepared we are. This vulnerability is profoundly uncomfortable: we want to believe that we are powerful, capable, ready for anything life might throw at us, and our vulnerability upsets the illusion of our perfection. We look to Moses as the ultimate exceptional individual, the greatest leader our people ever had. But when we read his story carefully, we see that Moses had all the same doubts, insecurities, and challenges that each of us carry; the crucial difference, in Moses’ case, turned out to be his willingness to openly acknowledge his self-doubt and share, rather than hide, his vulnerability.
When we shy away from vulnerability, we lose our sense of intimacy. The feeling of connection we get from our closest relationships – with our partners, family, and good friends – is a universal human need;2 but without a measure of vulnerability, we can’t establish the trust that underpins those relationships.3 We understand this intuitively: imagine what your life would be like if you behaved with your family the same way you would on a job interview! In openly acknowledging his vulnerability, and sharing it with God, Moses invested his relationship to God with true intimacy.
Properly understood, vulnerability is not weakness; it takes tremendous courage to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.4 Vulnerability is what we feel when we fall in love, when we sit at the bedside of a dying friend, when we watch our children grow up and our parents age, when we risk sharing our creativity with the world. Vulnerability is neither good nor bad, dark nor light; it is the heart of our emotional lives, an inextricable part of the human experience.5 In the words of Brene Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston who has dedicated her career to studying vulnerability:
Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.6And what, ultimately, brings us here today, if not a search for “greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives?”
Sharing vulnerability is one of life’s greatest challenges; we are afraid, above all, that we will reach out in search of connection and experience rejection instead. Brown, in her recent book Daring Greatly, cites dozens of examples, but for me this one sums it all up perfectly: vulnerability is “Saying, ‘I love you,’ first and not knowing if I’m going to be loved back.”7 Right there, in three small words – I love you – you have the dual flavors of vulnerability: hope and trepidation. Offering our vulnerability to the people in our life holds the promise of connection and intimacy; but it also exposes us to the risk of rejection, and our fear of that rejection leads us to hold back, to limit how much vulnerability we share. In holding back, we slowly close off parts of ourselves that don’t fit with the image we want to project, with the things we expect will win approval from others, until our spiritual and emotional lives become fragmented and diminished.
I first found the spiritual power of vulnerability not in a synagogue or outdoors in front of some natural wonder but in an otherwise ordinary room in the oncology ward of a Los Angeles hospital.
Midway through my second year of rabbinical school, one of my classmates, Joel – a father of three in his late thirties – was struck with a particularly aggressive form of leukemia. The hospital was just a few blocks from my apartment, but for weeks I put off visiting Joel. I had plenty of good reasons for avoiding a visit: I didn’t want to impose on his family as they were coming to terms with his condition; I had a lot of stress in my own life at that time; other, closer friends, were already visiting. But the truth is, I felt vulnerable in the face of a peer confronting a life-threatening illness. When I saw his wife, I thought of my wife; when his kids were around, I thought of the children I hoped to have; and I couldn’t think about Joel without also facing my own frightful mortality.
Finally, I could wait no longer. I dropped by the hospital and made my way up to Joel’s floor. I walked back and forth past his room a few times, so anxious that I couldn’t make sense of the room numbers. Having found the room, I waited outside his door for a few minutes, getting up my nerve, and finally knocked. I was more than a little surprised when he called out, “Come on in!” as if he were perfectly at home. Entering the room, I struggled to make sense of what I found: physically, my friend was lying in bed attached to machines and tubes – but his spirit was as large and vibrant as it had ever been. I won’t lie: that visit was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. After an eternity that probably amounted to less than twenty minutes, a nurse came in to run some tests and I took the opportunity to excuse myself. As I walked back to my car, however, I noticed I felt a deep sense of calm – not just relief at having dispatched my responsibility to visit a sick friend, but a deeper peace that seemed to envelop my whole being.
The memory of that peaceful feeling stayed with me and within the week I was back visiting again. This time, I felt a little more comfortable to ask Joel about how he was doing, what his boys were up to, what he was reading all day; and as the weekly visits went by, I started to open up about my life as well. With Joel, I could talk freely about the strains in my personal and professional lives. As I started sharing with him, I thought I was crazy – I’m coming into the hospital to tell him about my problems? – but Joel just listened, smiled, and held the space for me. No advice. No judgment, positive or negative. No optimistic pick-me-up. Each visit was different – sometimes we were alone together, sometimes other friends and teachers were there; sometimes we talked, sometimes we sang; and sometimes, especially in the later months, I would just sit by Joel’s bedside as he slept. But no matter what, each time I left with that same deep peaceful feeling.
Looking back, I now understand what that feeling was all about: vulnerability. The space around Joel – no matter which hospital, or even outside the hospital on those rare occasions when he was allowed out – felt calm, prayerful, sacred even, because of Joel’s willingness to show and share his vulnerability. I could safely talk about my vulnerabilities because I knew that Joel would love and honor me even with my vulnerability. I saw his courage in talking about his trials, his honest reflections on a difficult situation, and I wanted to be brave also. I see now that Joel was able to create a prayerful space around himself because of his willingness to share his whole self. No pretense, no concern for image or ego, just the complete truth of where Joel was that day: hopeful and afraid, solemn and silly, tender and caring, sometimes all at once. In offering his whole self to me and his other friends, Joel taught us how to share our vulnerabilities as well; and although, years later, I still struggle with sharing my vulnerability, I know my path toward greater openness started at Joel’s bedside.
I believe that prayer offers us a safe space where we can engage with our whole selves, practice sharing our vulnerability, and begin to reverse the withdrawal process that starts in our fear of rejection. When we pray – not when we just say the words, but when we give ourselves over fully to standing in the presence of our Creator – we face our own vulnerability. Even our Bible heroes – who did not pray in the way we do, but who nevertheless entered into intimate and awesome relationship with the Master of the World – they too felt this vulnerability, and they too sought to shy away from it. Moses, standing before the burning bush and hearing God’s voice directly, tries four different ways to get out of the Exodus mission. While he dances around his real concern the first few times, in his fourth and final objection he comes right to the heart of the matter: I have never been a man of words, either in times past or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.8 In other words, Moses tells God, “I hear that you want me to go free the Israelites from Pharaoh, but I am just not good enough.” The great prophet Jeremiah, who brought God’s word to the Jewish people during the destruction of the First Temple, also tried to decline: Ah, Lord God! I don’t know how to speak, for I am still a boy!9 I don’t have the experience, the qualifications, the gravitas, to succeed at what you, God, ask of me. I’m not good enough.
Let us take comfort that even the greatest leaders in our people’s history felt as we sometimes do, wondering if they truly had what it takes to succeed in life. But even more striking is how God responds – not with a counter-argument, but with compassionate reassurance. To Jeremiah, God declares: Before I created you in the womb, I selected you; before you were born, I consecrated you... Do not say, “I am still a boy,” but go wherever I send you and speak whatever I command you.10 “I knew you before you were you,” God tells Jeremiah. “I know you even better than you know yourself; I chose this mission for you, and I chose you for this mission.”
Similarly, God asks Moses, Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with you as you speak and will instruct you what to say.11 You, Moses, say you are not a man of words; but it was I, God, who made you this way, who gave you your challenges and abilities. If I wanted someone else, I would have chosen them; and if I wanted you to be different than you are, I would have made you that way.
We, too, hear God’s loving voice when we are vulnerable in prayer. For Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, one of the greatest Jewish minds of the twentieth century, true prayer constitutes “[an] unrestricted offering of the whole self”12 – precisely the vulnerability that Brown’s research points to as the source of a “meaningful spiritual [life].”13 To offer this vulnerability in prayer, we first need to acknowledge those things that trigger our feelings of vulnerability and then articulate them in a direct and meaningful way – whether through the language of our prayerbooks or in our own personal words. The “unrestricted offering” God seeks is our willingness to be brave, to face our vulnerability with compassion instead of judgment and love instead of shame. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, elaborating on Soloveitchik’s teaching, captures this beautifully:
In the lonely, unmediated act of standing before God, we discover the courage of honesty. God knows us, loves us and listens to us as we are, not as we would wish to seem. Prayer lies at the heart of self-discovery. In offering ourselves to God, we are able to know ourselves without the evasions and self-deceptions into which we would otherwise be led by fear or shame.14Even in a moment of private reflection, we don’t want to let our guard down, to set aside our masks; after all, we built our defenses for a reason. “Prayer lies at the heart of self-discovery” because it invites us to acknowledge truths that we otherwise might wish to avoid: hopes and regrets, fears and aspirations, the very building blocks of our humanity.
This process begins even before the prayer itself. If you look in your Mahzor, you will see that at the beginning of each Amidah, we recite in a whisper a verse from the Psalms: אֲדֹנָי שְׂפָתַי תִּפְתָּח וּפִי יַגִּיד תְּהִלָּתֶֽךָ; “Adonai, open my lips, and my mouth will speak Your praise.”15 Traditionally, as we recite these six words, we take three steps backward אֲדֹנָי שְׂפָתַי תִּפְתָּח, and then three steps forward וּפִי יַגִּיד תְּהִלָּתֶֽךָ. Symbolically, we step out of the ordinary world around us – the pressures and stresses of everyday life – and step into God’s presence. In taking those three steps back as we ask, אֲדֹנָי שְׂפָתַי תִּפְתָּח, “Adonai, open my lips,” we step out of our usual way of thinking. We take three steps back from a worldview that penalizes humility and rewards pride, a society that discourages honest sharing of vulnerability. We take three steps into our Creator’s presence, וּפִי יַגִּיד תְּהִלָּתֶֽךָ, “my mouth will speak Your praise.” Stepping forward, into a frame of mind that values humility and honors vulnerability, we begin to see ourselves not from our usual perspective but in the way that God sees us. Seeing ourselves through God’s eyes, we can not help but see our vulnerability – and the courage it takes for us to comfort, love, create, live, each day.
As God told Jeremiah, Before I created you in the womb, I selected you.16 God knows us better than we know ourselves; God sees our imperfections, just as God saw Moses and Jeremiah, and God responds with love and compassion. But God’s love is boundless and unconditional; when we enter prayer with three steps back and three steps forward God doesn’t change – we do. The vulnerability of prayer asks us to trust in our own worthiness, to believe that we are deserving of love and belonging – from God and from our fellow humans. “Prayer is the most intimate of all conversations,” Rabbi Sacks teaches. “In it we hide nothing. We stand fully exposed in the sight of God with all our faults and failings, doubts and indecisions. Only unconditional love makes such exposure possible, our love for God and [God’s] for us.”17 True prayer demands that we, like Moses at the burning bush, stand before the Divine Presence and acknowledge, openly and honestly, those parts of ourselves that we see as fault, failure, imperfection. In that moment of honesty and intimacy with our Maker, God extends God’s hand to receive us with love; but God asks something of us in return: that we have the courage to be ourselves, to embrace our own vulnerability and support our loved ones in theirs.
When we enter prayer, three steps back and three steps forward, we change ourselves on a fundamental level. “In the lonely, unmediated act of standing before God, we discover the courage of honesty;”18 and that discovery of honesty and courage – vulnerability, as Brene Brown presents it – stays with us when our prayers are finished. Just like Moses, Jeremiah, and our other Biblical ancestors, the direct encounter with God gives us a safe space to embrace vulnerability. That embrace, coupled with the full expression of God’s unconditional love for each and every one of us, gives us the strength to accept our limitations and imperfections with love; the courage to continue sharing our vulnerability with the people who love us most: partners, family, friends; and the compassion to hear their vulnerability and support them.
In just a minute, we will stand together for the personal Amidah. As we step back and ask God to open our mouths, אֲדֹנָי שְׂפָתַי תִּפְתָּח, as we step forward and open ourselves to an awareness of God’s love and compassion, וּפִי יַגִּיד תְּהִלָּתֶֽךָ, we have an opportunity to embrace our vulnerability in a way that can transform our spiritual lives. Today, in the dawn of a new year, our hearts are filled with dreams and worries of what lies in the coming months. May we have the strength, courage, and compassion to offer God our whole selves – including our vulnerability – and may the courage of our vulnerability remain with us as we begin the new year.
גמר חתימה טובה, may you be inscribed for a year of blessing.
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If you're interested in hearing more, Rabbi Abe suggests that you check out this video of Brene Brown:
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1 Numbers 12:3.
2 Brene Brown, Daring Greatly (New York: Hoptham Books, 2012), 8-11.
3 Brown, Daring Greatly, 45-53.
4 Brene Brown, "On Vulnerability," interview by Krista Tippet, On Being, National Public Radio, 21. Nov. 2012, transcript p.3 (Available online: http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/4932#main_content).
5 Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, 33.
6 Brown, Daring Greatly, 34.
7 Brown, Daring Greatly, 36.
8 Exodus 4:10.
9 Jeremiah 1:6.
10 Jeremiah 1:5, 7.
11 Exodus 4:11-12.
12 Joseph B. Soloveitchik, "Redemption, Prayer, Talmud, Torah," Tradition 17:2 (Spring 1978), 70-71.
13 Brown, Daring, 34.
14 Jonathan Sacks, "Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik on Jewish Faith and Prayer," in The Koren Mesorat HaRav Siddur (Jerusalem: Koren, 2011), xxv.
15 Psalm 51:17.
16 Jeremiah 1:5.
17 Sacks, "Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik on Jewish Faith and Prayer," xxxiii.
