Is this faith or insanity?

We’re often told that: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” 

This quote is often (mis?)attributed to Albert Einstein, but regardless of the source, it does seem somewhat logical. 

Yet as Jews of faith, we are taught to pray and yearn daily for Mashiach (Messiah, also called Geula- redemption, and sometimes, Tikkun Olam- global repair). 

Opinions vary about what exactly will happen in this long-awaited post-diasporic era, ranging from the miraculous to the idyllic, but the consensus is that it will bring an era of peace, healing, enlightenment about G-d and Truth, and will include an in-gathering of Jews to our homeland. 

We were raised to believe (completely) that this salvation can come every day, despite the fact that each day so far, for millenia, it has not come. 

Is this insanity? 

Or maybe it’s something else?

As a Jewish person of faith, I’ve often struggled with how to properly “await redemption” with both sincere spiritual integrity and intellectual honesty.

I do pray for it, multiple times daily, yearn for it constantly; that’s not hard for me- when you  acutely see and feel the pain of global suffering and, with it, a deep desire for human healing, the vision and hope of such complete and clear convalescence is an emotional lifeline. 

But I also wonder: 

If we make plans for the weekend, is that a breach of this faith that it could come daily? 

What if I make plans for next year? 

Does that imply that I don’t really believe Mashiach could come any day? 

Would it be pious or irresponsible to live with such a degree of Messianic conviction that we don’t plan beyond this moment?

How devastated are we meant to feel each night, each year that it didn’t come (again)?

Have you ever heard of the “Stockdale Paradox”?

In his book, Good To Great, author Jim Collins shares a conversation he had with former prisoner of war, Admiral Jim Stockdale. They are discussing how Stockdale survived the years of captivity, torture, and uncertainty. While it seems logical that despair can lead to deterioration, Stockdale also noted that the optimists didn’t fare well either. He explained that the soldiers who had expressed the type of confidence where they proclaimed predictions such as: “We’ll surely be home for the holidays” ended up crushed and defeated when that time passed and they were not released. 

The extrapolation is that there is a golden mean between the poles of giving up and a false sense of optimistic certainty: 

Believing that help would never come would deprive those suffering of the motivation to keep going. 

But believing that they would definitely be saved on or by a specific date was also a recipe for despondency, because that date was actually not guaranteed, and their resilience was dependent on a false promise (that they made to themselves). 

The effective kind of hope was believing that their salvation could potentially come any day, in an open-ended vision of ongoing possibility, while reserving energy each day to survive and endure the here and now. 

Regarding yearning for Mashiach, I try to allow myself a balance of both kinds of consciousness: 

1 Hoping that each day in this version of our collective existence is the last one, to be replaced tomorrow (or even later today) with revealed, apocalyptic Divine love and light; seeing this as a genuine possibility (with no guarantee). 

2 And, at the same time, recognizing that part of living in this exilic moment of history involves functioning proactively within the parameters of the iteration of reality as it is now. This includes planning for the observable, empirical future, even as we fervently hope for it to be disrupted by Mashiach. 

(It’s a bit like the opposite rationale of why we have life insurance and a will now, despite the sincere hope to not need to use them any time soon.)

Too much optimistic certainty, especially when not based on any evidence or promise, can, over time, run out of steam, and can easily give way to disillusionment. 

And so maybe this faith that the world can get better, a whole lot better, even entirely better, every day and any day, that we can actively be part of this change, and that it's not "not happening again" every day, but that it's happening gradually, in part every day- maybe that ongoing faith is not repetition that denotes insanity.

Maybe instead, it's the continuous, cumulative perseverance of faith and resilience which itself generates the healing which leads to salvation. And maybe it's the definitive, consistent maybe-ness of this belief, which allows for the longevity of this faith.

When I first heard this Stockdale Paradox construct, it helped me conceptualize and resolve the ostensible contradiction between living, working, and making plans in life as we know it, while simultaneously anticipating, never giving up on striving towards for Geula, constantly and consciously.