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When 20-year-old Agam Berger was released from captivity in January, she walked onto an Israeli military helicopter, and—like the other released hostages—was handed a small white board so she could write a message to the world. Cameras were waiting, her family was waiting, Israel was waiting. She could have written anything, or nothing at all. But her words reverberated around the Jewish world, as we watched with tears in our eyes.
In shaky handwriting, she wrote words of gratitude to Am Yisrael, the Jewish people, and the IDF heroes who had risked their lives to rescue her. But above that, her first words, she wrote, “I chose the path of faith, and in the path of faith I returned.”
Mind-blowing. She had been kidnapped, lived in terror, held underground for weeks, and subjected to things beyond imagination. What does it mean to choose faith, when there is every reason to despair? What does this mean for us, sitting here today on Yom Kippur?
Because I bet if I took a straw poll right now—of the many reasons why you are here today, faith would not even register in the top five.
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“What are you writing your sermon about?” a friend asked me on the phone the other day. “Faith,” I told her. “Isn’t that for Christians?” she asked. I laughed and thought: Exactly.
My dear friend Rabbi Lori Koffman once told me about her very first days of chaplaincy training at a hospital in New York City. She was still a student then, still trying to figure out what it meant to be a rabbi, when she stepped into an elevator one afternoon and found herself standing with a woman she had never met.
The woman turned to her and asked, “Do you know where the chapel is?” Rabbi Koffman nodded, ready to point the way—but before she could answer, the woman continued: “My sister just gave birth, and the baby is struggling. I just need a place to pray.” Rabbi Koffman hesitated for a moment, then leaned into her new role and said, “If it would help, I’d be glad to come sit with you and your family.”
The woman’s face lit up: “That would be great.”
They got off the elevator together and entered the chapel, where the whole family had gathered. The woman announced to everyone: “You won’t believe what happened! I was on my way to pray, and the chaplain was right there in the elevator. God sent her to us—just when we needed her.”
Later, Rabbi Koffman reflected: I didn’t see it that way. To me, it felt like coincidence. But for her, it was God’s hand, clear as day. And that made her wonder: What if she was right? What if God was there, and I did not know it?
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Or take my friend Jeff, an Episcopalian minister whose wife went in for routine surgery and never made it out. Who just married off a daughter who lost her mother only a few months before the wedding. Who went on vacation by himself because he’s widowed now and has no one to go with.
At the pool one day, he watched a woman helping an old man into the water. And in that moment, he felt—he knew—that God was there with him. That the simple act of kindness he was witnessing was a portal into God’s presence. Despite his grief and loneliness, he felt God was with him, poolside.
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We have so many reasons not to believe. We’re smart, educated, skeptical. We pride ourselves on our intellect. We know science, physics, biology. Who needs God? It makes zero sense, and we went to college and university, and we’re not that dumb.
Also, we know Job’s ancient question: if there is a God, why do good people die young, why Holocaust, why war and tsunamis, catastrophes that insurance won’t cover because they are “acts of God”? I mean, who wants that God in their life? No, thank you.
Or, we look around and see religious zealotry, the ways religion gets twisted, Jewish or otherwise, into something harsh and fanatical.
But here’s the thing: all of our skepticism and shifting around in our seats, avoiding the topic, is the answer to the wrong question. I’m not here asking why do you believe or not believe. I’m asking: what would it do for us, for the world, if this Yom Kippur we chose to believe? Like Agam’s handheld sign – we might choose the path of faith.
After all, Judaism does not require belief as a membership card—so it is going to have to be a choice that we make. Yes, there are certain beliefs that disqualify—belief in more than one god, for example, or worshipping gods of another religion. But beyond that, there are so many choices, so many ways to choose faith.
Jewish faith is not about certainty. Faith is about possibility. It is about choosing to live as if.
And yet—we psych ourselves out of it.
I’ll tell you a story I love. Some Jewish friends ended up in conversation at some kind of function with a group of people who weren’t Jewish. These people were full of questions about Judaism, and so the Jews are explaining about peoplehood and history and community and holidays and food. Then came the question: “What about God?”
“Oh, we don’t believe in God,” they said. The people who weren’t Jewish looked puzzled. As they continued asking, the Jews found themselves explaining that Judaism is more than “just” a religion, it’s a culture, it’s a values system, etc, etc, and finally one of them said: “So wait, are you saying that in Judaism, God is a bonus?”
Yes. Exactly. I love that line! God is a bonus. You can be Jewish without faith. But why would you do it without the bonus? It costs you nothing and gains you so much! For me, God is the bonus that makes the whole thing stick together. I know that’s not true for everyone, though. The story is funny because we can feel the truth in it, how there are so many ways to be Jewish and live a rich Jewish life, and even come here on Yom Kippur that have nothing to do with God, but let me say, as your rabbi: we are also a faith. Why are we giving up on that? Why wouldn’t we give ourselves the bonus?
I laughed recently when I looked at the books on my night table. On one side: Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein. On the other: Emunah v’Bitachon—Faith and Trust—by the Chazon Ish, Rabbi Avraham Karelitz z”l. One’s a bestselling self-help guru from Westchester who has her face on the cover; the other, an early 20th-century Orthodox rabbi from Belarus who made aliya in 1933, settled in Bnai Brak and became one of the leaders of the Haredi ultra-orthodox community who is known by the name of his series of writings on Jewish law, who also sold millions of books. They could not be more different.
And yet—they’re saying the same thing. Gabby (as she calls herself) invites millions of people to “trust the Universe.” – capital U on Universe. You can go on her website and join the 21-day Trust the Universe Challenge, or you can buy her journal, where you list what you want to manifest in your life. The Chazon Ish wants you to take on pray every day and adhere to Jewish rituals as a means of cultivating emunah (faith) and bitachon (trust). She has a 3-step process she calls Choose Again – where, get this, you first notice the negative thoughts patterns or feelings, then you forgive yourself for it, and then you choose to do it differently. I’m sorry, but isn’t that exactly what we are doing here? Isn’t that teshuvah? His recipe would be what Maimonides teaches: you do teshuva, but asking forgiveness for the thing you did, and then when you’re in the same situation next time you don’t do it. It’s the exact same thing. Both tell us that if we do these things, then we will achieve a sense of serenity and calm. She talks about manifesting abundance; he talks about seeing God’s goodness everywhere so you feel the abundance of God’s blessings. Different words, different audiences, but over and over again the same messages.
Here’s the question: why can we stomach “trust the Universe” when it’s in English, but psych ourselves out of it when it’s in Hebrew? (And it’s not just that Hebrew is hard for us, I don’t buy that it’s just a linguistics issue.) Why do we embrace a secularized faith, the “Believe: sign over Ted Lasso’s locker room, or insist with the Mets “You Gotta Believe”, but deny ourselves Jewish faith? Why do we let ourselves be spiritual everywhere except here?
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Our Torah gives us some helpful models.
Jacob. On the run from his brother Esau, Jacob lay down in the wilderness with nothing but a stone for a pillow. In his sleep, he dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. God appeared to him with words of blessing and promise. When Jacob awoke, shaken, he declared: “Surely God was in this place, and I did not know it.” His story teaches that faith can come not in grand temples, but in lonely, ordinary places where we least expect it.
Aaron. After the unimaginable loss of his two sons, Nadav and Avihu, Aaron might well have turned away from God altogether. Instead, the Torah tells us that on Yom Kippur, Aaron dressed once more in his priestly garments and stepped into the Holy of Holies to perform the sacred service on behalf of the people. We do not know what was in his heart—perhaps silence, perhaps doubt, perhaps anger—but outwardly he continued to serve. His story shows us that sometimes faith is not certainty or joy, but simply the courage to stand and act k’ilu—as if we still believe.
Hannah. Despairing at not having children of her own but turning to God and praying for help, with bitachon— trust—that an answer would come in some way.
Job. When Job loses everything—his wealth, his health, his children—he sits in ashes, broken and despairing. His friends insist he must have sinned, but Job refuses to accept easy answers. Instead he cries out, raging at God, demanding justice, demanding to be heard. What is striking is not his patience, but his refusal to let the relationship die. Job’s story teaches that faith is not quiet resignation, but the audacity to keep speaking to God, even in anger and anguish.
Faith, in Torah, is not about never doubting. It is about daring to keep praying, keep acting, keep living as if. K’ilu, in Hebrew, “as if.” K’ilu is used in modern Hebrew the way we use “like” in English – like, it doesn’t really mean anything, but like, k’ilu, it does. Can we live as if God existed, k’ilu God hears our prayers. Because we don’t know—but we might choose to believe anyway.
So let’s try this together. A small experiment, because try as he might, Maimonides’ 13 Articles of Faith never took off, we never really wanted to agree to believe just one thing about God. We have so many choices in our choosing to believe. So here we go. Everyone:
a) Point one finger straight up. That’s the God who is above and beyond. Theologians call it supernaturalism, God up there outside of nature and us.
b) Now spread your arms wide. That’s the God who is everything. Pantheism, God might be everything, wherever you look, whatever you touch, it’s all God.
c) Next, cross your arms in an “X.” That’s no God at all.
d) Now: place one hand on your heart, and lift your other hand upward. Panentheism, this one is called. God is in everything, but also beyond everything. God is both with us and bigger than us.
e) And one last one: Swirl your hands – this is process theology – God in process, always changing and now hold hands with the person next to you – process theology holds that God and the world are in relationship, we influence each other, and as we change and grow, so God changes and grows. [release hands]
This is the wide range Judaism allows. No catechism, no one right answer. Just the courage to live as if.
Our ancestor Jacob said, “God was here, and I did not know it.” That could be our line too.
Agam’s whiteboard. The elevator ride. Jeff at the pool. Aaron in his grief. Job in his cries.
Yom Kippur asks us: Will we dare to live as if God is here?
Not because we solved the problem of evil.
Not because we figured out dinosaurs on the ark.
But because faith might just light us up inside, comfort us in sorrow, and strengthen us for tikkun olam.
So today, I don’t ask for belief. I ask you to consider the possibility of faith. To live, this year, as if.
Because maybe—just maybe—God was in this place all along. And we did not know it.