June 26, 2022|כ"ז סיון ה' אלפים תשפ"ב Religious Impostor Syndrome By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Neil Gaiman is a popular British author. In a blog post, he described his own battle with impostor syndrome and told the following story. “Some years ago, I was lucky enough invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realize that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things. On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.” And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”” Neil Gaiman wrote that he felt a little better after that. After all, “if Neil Armstrong felt like an impostor, maybe everyone did.”

This phrase, impostor syndrome, was coined by clinical psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes in 1978. It identifies within each of us the fear that, at work or within our relationships, any achievements are somehow fraudulent, and any successes undeserved. Do we really deserve a promotion? Do we deserve the happiness in a relationship? We are terrified that people around us will realize how inadequate we are. Research shows that sixty to seventy percent of people experience impostor syndrome. Of course, social media contributes to the insecurity that we may often feel about ourselves when we view the presentation by others on social media living their “perfect” lives and accomplishments, even though we know that their social media reality does not really reflect reality. How do we fight impostor syndrome and not allow it to paralyze us into doing what we are capable of doing?

Maybe the answer is to just ignore our feelings, and just do what we have to do. Fake it until you make it. There is an old story about the Jewish atheist who is excited to meet the Great Heretic of Prague. He arrives at the great man’s house on a Friday night, and is immediately told to shush while the Heretic lights Shabbat candles. Then they sit down for the Shabbat meal, during which the Heretic says the motzi over the bread and the kiddush over the wine. The atheist visitor can’t take it anymore. “You’re the Great Heretic of Prague and you follow the Shabbat commandments!?” “Of course,” says the host. “I’m a heretic, not a gentile.” Maybe the answer is simply to ignore the feelings of worthlessness and fraud, and simply fake it. Maybe this is especially true when it comes to religious impostor syndrome. Let’s say we don’t feel connected to God. We just don’t. We have issues of faith. We tried to feel connected and it isn’t working, so why bother practicing Judaism? Maybe tomorrow we will feel adequate, but today we feel like a fraud. Now maybe the answer to this problem is to be like the Great Heretic of Prague. Fake it until you make it.

However, there may be a different approach, not just in terms of what to do, but how we think because the spies in this week’s parsha clearly suffered from impostor syndrome. They report to the Bnei Yisrael that when they spied out the land:

“וְשָׁם רָאִינוּ אֶת הַנְּפִילִים בְּנֵי עֲנָק מִן הַנְּפִלִים וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם:”

“And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” The spies don’t just report that the giants in the land saw that the spies were grasshoppers. First, וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים – first, we, the spies, saw ourselves as grasshoppers, and secondly, the giants also saw us as grasshoppers. But that’s secondary. The first statement of the spies, their primary statement, was an expression of impostor syndrome. “We are frauds. There is no way that we can conquer the land. This whole mighty nation of Israel backed by God is a fallacy. We are a slave nation that cannot conquer and settle a land that is currently inhabited. We cannot stand up to the mighty armies of Eretz Yisrael.”

Both Kalev and Moshe provide a similar response to this feeling of impostor syndrome. Kalev tells the people and Moshe expands upon this response in his conversation with God. Kalev tells the people not to be afraid. He says, “וה׳ אתנו אל תיראם” – “God is with us. Have no fear of them.” What is Kalev’s response? You are not an impostor. God knows exactly who you are. He is aware of your strengths and weaknesses and nevertheless, He has deemed you worthy to conquer Eretz Yisrael, so there is no need for anxiety and no need to feel you are a fraud. You are not a grasshopper. You are a giant because God has chosen you. We shouldn’t fake it until we make it. We fight impostor syndrome when we accept that we are not perfect, that life is journey and God understands that. God understands that people are complex and He loves us and chooses us anyway. Kalev couldn’t convince the people to snap out of this feeling and the result was nothing short of tragic.

Now Moshe extends this argument when he turns to God and pleads that God spare the people. Moshe turns to God and says, “If you destroy this nation then the Egyptians will tell their neighbors what happened” and that “אתה ה׳ בקרב העם הזה” – that, you, God, are in the midst of this nation. Then if God destroys the Bnei Yisrael, then the nations of the world will say, “מבלתי יכלת ה׳ להביא את העם הזה אל הארץ אשר נשבע להם וישחטם במדבר.” They will say that God destroyed His nation because He is powerless to bring this nation into Eretz Yisrael. Then Moshe says a shortened version of the thirteen attributes of mercy that he heard at Sinai when the Bnei Yisrael sinned by the Golden Calf and God tells Moshe, “סלחתי כדבריך” – I forgive you. God decrees that the adults must die in the desert, but He won’t destroy the nation. I find it interesting that Moshe does not even invoke the zechut avot, the merit of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, as a reason for Bnei Yisrael to be saved, nor does he argue that God Himself chose the Bnei Yisrael. His strongest argument is what will the neighbors think. Why does Moshe invoke this argument?

Rashi points out that Moshe’s argument is that if God destroys this nation, it will reflect badly on God, that maybe God is stronger than the pantheon of Egyptian gods but He is not stronger than the thirty-one Canaanite kings. Additionally, Moshe highlights that God dwells in the midst of the people. Moshe cannot invoke zechut avot, the merit of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, because the Bnei Yisrael rejected the gift that God promised to their forefathers. Moshe cannot invoke the love that God should have for His chosen nation because the nation betrayed Him. Moshe solely invokes the concern of chillul Hashem, the desecration of God’s honor, as a reason not to destroy this nation. God accepts this argument. And if God accepts this argument, then we must also accept this argument. We do not ignore our failures and our inadequacies. We are God’s nation when we accept the Torah and we are God’s nation when we sin with the spies. We are not frauds. We are giants for the very simple reason that God is בקרב העם הזה. He is in the midst of our nation. His destiny is impacted by our destiny. As much as a child thinks that what he does or what he says may not be a reflection on his parents, the perception in this world is that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We are a reflection of our parents to some degree, and certainly Bnei Yisrael are a reflection of God once He chose us, no matter how much we want to renounce this connection.

We can successfully fight impostor syndrome. We can do this when we realize that we don’t need to be perfect to get a promotion and when we realize that life is a journey full of mistakes and that’s okay. We can also fight religious impostor syndrome, feelings of not wanting to daven or learn or just to grow religiously because we feel like a fraud and we feel inadequate. We can do this when we realize that halacha does not provide an exception to practice Judaism if we feel like a fraud, precisely because we are not a fraud. Kalev tells us in this week’s parsha to accept our feelings of inadequacy and at the same time realize that God loves us notwithstanding our failures. Moshe tells us in this week’s parsha that no matter what we do, God, as it were, can be found inside each one of us. Don’t be like the Great Heretic of Prague. Don’t simply fake it until you make it. Believe in yourself because God believes in you and His destiny is tied to you.