I speak passionately. I speak boldly what I feel and believe. This reality often times frustrates people, thus the blog called "Shut up, Sharon!" I find particularly that the strength of my voice and my personality threatens those who maintain certainty in their beliefs. The thing about my speaking, even when it is passionate and bold, is that I hold these most sacred thoughts in open hands. I am willing to let them shape and transform and in speaking them I am actually inviting doubt and questions to enter the equation of my thoughts. My passion and boldness must not be confused with certainty or rightness. It instead speaks to my faith and strength, not necessarily wisdom or knowledge.
I am currently reading a book by Rabbi Hayyim Angel called, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi: Prophecy in an Age of Uncertainty, as I prepare for a sermon series on the book of Haggai. As we develop our faith, we must not hold to things, moments, ideas with such great certainty. We cannot reach a mountaintop and camp out there, like Peter attempted at the Transfiguration. We must seek the value and treasure of each moment and allow them to speak to our faith and strength, building us up, but not binding us to that place.
In a sense, true learning is unsettling, since it is difficult to maintain a view passionately when we are conscious that at any moment we may learn a new opinion that challenges our conviction. At the same time, precisely this energy is one of the most invigorating aspects of Torah study. When kept in balanced focus, the tensions and conflicts that confront us in traditional study afford constant opportunities to learn from the past wealth of interpretation, while forging ahead in our attempts to enter the infinite world of Tanakh, so that we may encounter God in His palace.
The life of faith is one of continual motion, of constant transformation, of perpetual wrestling or it is simply not a life of faith at all.
May I be a person who continues to hold open my heart, mind and soul to the mysteries of faith, embracing doubt and living passionately.
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