By Nathan Wojcik & Jarod Golub

Faith in people can be trying at times, but in some ways, it is more important than faith in a God or higher power. You can put a face to people, there is someone physically there to take the blame when your faith is broken. The Jewish people today need faith in others because it is people who are going to bring us out of the hard times that we are in. Given the turbulent history of the Jewish people (of Jewish memory) it is imperative that we rely on one another. By relying on each other, we are trusting, hoping, that someone else will be there to pick us up when we get knocked down. Its how we’ve survived. Because having faith in other people not only puts a face to failure, but it puts a face to success too.

Being able to see who is helping you get up off the ground is what instills a sense of community and camaraderie in all of us. Faith isn't about blind trust. Faith is about blind hope. It's the implicit hope that when we, when the people we love, crumble, there will be someone there to help them pick up the pieces. Faith isn’t the belief due to fear, faith is the understanding that you need to make mistakes to succeed. In that sense, God loses faith in the Jewish people on Mount Sinai. However, God and the Jews share faith in one person: Moses. We may not have faith in everyone we interact with, but we all have faith in someone, who in turn has faith in someone else, and that is the basis of community. God understood that faith is hard. But I think that God also knew that when the fire burns out, faith leaves behind a beautiful thing: Hope. Without Hope, without Faith, no matter how far we come, as individuals, as kvutsot, as a society, our vision will never come to fruition. Without Faith - in whatever higher being (if any) we may believe in, in each other, in humanity as a whole - we will always be blinded by our Golden Calves.

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