Language, and how we use it, has such an impact for good and for worse. It can cause hurt when it was never meant to. It can cause someone to create a truth about you that is no where near your truth. And it can cause people to think they are not spiritual when in fact, they have been their entire lives.

The word faith is an example of language that has skewed so many people’s perception of themselves as spiritual people. As people who seek, and trust, and love, and maybe even hope. This is especially true for those who have lived their lives through the lense of logic. “If it makes sense, I’ll buy into it. If it doesn’t make sense I’m out.” I truly believe that what they have learned about faith doesn’t make sense. But that doesn’t mean that faith doesn’t make sense. They just haven’t accessed it from the place of logic.

Logic is all about reality. And faith is mostly drawn from reality. If I told you to “just have faith,” I wouldn’t in a thousand years expect you to just be able to access it at the flip of a switch. But if I said “look at your reality. Look at what your life is, how you have come to this point, the things you’ve overcome, the ability to laugh even when times are hard. Have you made mistakes? Have you gotten through them? Will you make mistakes again? Will you get through them again?” If I took that approach, maybe, just maybe you’d see that THAT is faith. A logical knowing that calms you down when faced with new challenges. Faith. It’ll turn out the way it’s supposed to turn out because in actuality, you only have so much control over how it does. And I think you know that. Anyone who has ever stopped to think about it knows that.

I want us to stop saying that logic and spirituality/faith don’t go together. I want us to stop saying that science is the complete opposite of spirituality and religion. Because all that does is close you off from the possibility that they could go hand in hand. And what’s the harm in being open to it.

I love you all. I think you all have portals to your own spirituality. And if you haven’t found yours yet, and you’d like to, you will.

Rabbi Gabi