A long time ago I was studying with a group of kids preparing for their upcoming celebrations on becoming Bar Mitzvah. We were looking at the components of the Torah service. One blessing we noticed was an additional prayer that is not recited every time one is called to the Torah. It is a special blessing called the “Gomel Blessing.” The person who recites it praises God “Who bestows—gomel—so many good things upon the unworthy and Who has bestowed such goodness upon me.” It is a prayer of humble gratitude.
I explained to these young boys that the blessing was specially recited after a person had undergone a frightening or dangerous experience. I asked them to think of examples that might be occasions for such a blessing. As pre-teenage boys, they excelled in imagining surviving some pretty cataclysmic scenarios of battles and earthquakes and the like.
But then one quiet boy raised his hand and asked: “Is there a blessing to recite for going through an experience which other people don’t see as frightening or dangerous, but which you are scared of doing or living through?”
I was taken by surprise. I had not really thought of that kind of case. And I was deeply touched by the honest openness of this young person, who was willing to expose his private feelings of fear and vulnerability to me and to his peers. I had to respond to this genuine question with as true an answer as I could muster. Thankfully, God was gracious to me and placed this answer in my mouth even before I could think of it on my own: “Yes, there is such a blessing. We recite it every day, and not just on special occasions, because everyone has some stuff that makes them afraid or anxious. The blessing is recited at the beginning of the morning prayers. It is the blessing for courage. We thank God for “binding Israel with courage–g’vurah.” By reciting the ‘courage blessing’ we hope to ‘encourage’ ourselves–to give ourselves more courage to face anything that may frighten us or make us feel at risk.
I do not know whether that response soothed the young man. But it opened up for me a new understanding of a blessing that I had been reciting every morning for decades. Many prayer books translate the word g’vurah as “might” or “strength.” (Sim Shalom chooses “courage” as the translation.) And the blessing was often thought of in a national/collectivist way, as an expression of our undaunted determination to survive as a people. But this young man’s honest, self-revealing question turned the blessing into a personal expression of hope and striving for inner strength.
The need for courage is a daily need, as fundamental as our daily need for food and air. And the greatest expression of courage is honest self-examination. That boy’s question about being fearful was actually a true example of courage. The courage blessing can help us recognize the concealed dimensions of courage that we are capable of. But courage is also something we must work toward. Our tradition defines true courage this way: “Who is courageous – gibbor? The one who subdues his or her usual inclinations.” (Avot 4:1)
In our daily lives we operate most of the time on “auto-pilot,” with a set array of attitudes and perspectives toward our surroundings and toward the greater world and its challenges. We get involved in certain things and go certain places and we avoid others. When we become aware of unsettling events or situations, our inclination is fear. And fear, when it is not subdued, creates the basis for foolish, hateful and self-destructive behavior. The views we cultivate out of fear give us a false sense of comfort and strength. But the effect is to weaken us and make us more vulnerable to harm.
The courage blessing operates on the individual and on the collective level. It can be meaningful for a person confronting a personal challenge, a situation that others take for granted but which scares him to death! And it can also be meaningful for an entire people. When the challenge of courageous decision-making is placed before leaders of a people, the two dimensions of the issue–the personal and collective–come together.
Last month Shomrei and JStreet co-hosted a showing of the documentary The Gatekeepers. It presented six individuals–heads of the Internal Security Forces of Israel, now retired—who have had to live courageously on behalf of the people of Israel. To a man, they all spoke about the need for a different kind of courage on the part of Israel’s political leaders. They all explained, thoughtfully and painfully, that g’vurah does not mean military or physical might and strength alone. Without the moral self subduing of our inclinations we are condemned to eternal bloodshed and terror. But this message goes against entrenched attitudes held by so many, attitudes that define reality through the lens of fear. JStreet has the courage to listen to the considered judgment of these courageous leaders. But such courage is frightening to many.
This month another giant who fought for Israel’s security captured our attention. Ariel Sharon died after eight years of semi-comatose endurance. His complex life and legacy will be discussed for a long time. I found him to be deeply appalling in almost everything he did. He was known and admired as a person who never subdued his inclinations, and many saw this as courage. But many have pointed out that—like his friend and political opponent, Yitzhak Rabin—he came to realize later in life that he had to subdue his most basic inclinations about how to protect Israel and courageously reassess the reality before him. He had the courage to admit that Israel was engaged in an “occupation.” This word was considered unutterable by many defenders of Israel. But he had the courage to say it and to try to end it. Will Israel’s present leaders be blessed with courage?
We cannot know what will happen. But the courage blessing is ours to recite, for ourselves. Whether we need to confront our choices regarding far away Israel, or national challenges here in the US, or more local questions or, most intimately, those within our own families and selves, we are bidden to recite the courage blessing so that we will not continue to live through fear, nor subject others to the effects of our fear-driven decisions.
What would it look like to make decisions out of courage rather than fear? The answer is given in another blessing, the second blessing of our Amidah prayer, called G’vurot. It celebrates God’s own g’vurah by describing how God acts from this special quality. It tells us that, because God is strong and courageous, God “sustains the world with love, saves lives with great mercy, supports those who fall down, heals the sick, frees the captives.” May we have the courage to emulate that model of true courage. We can help ourselves get there by reciting the ‘courage blessing.’
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