d’var torah
Our Religious Imposter
Syndrome BY RABBI DANIEL YOLKUT
I Parshat Shoftim
n establishing the authority of
judges in halakha, the Torah uses
an apparently unnecessary phrase:
“to the judge who shall be in those
days.” (Devarim 17)
Somewhat incredulously, the Talmud
(Rosh Hashana 25b) asks:
“Can it enter your mind that a person
can go to a judge that is not alive in his
days?” The Talmud answers that the Torah
is here empowering the judiciary in
each generation, even if perhaps of
lesser eminence than their predeces-
sors, with the authority and obliga-
tion to fill their leadership role in the
time they find themselves. Earlier, the
Talmud illustrated this principle with
the phrase “Yiftach in his generation
is as Shmuel in his generation,” that
notwithstanding the clear differences
in stature between two Biblical leaders,
both had identical roles to play in their
respective eras.

On the surface, this concept is prin-
cipally directed to the populace, who
could understandably chafe at accept-
ing a lesser light as a judge if they
perceive them as not measuring up to
past luminaries. At the same time, this
can be read as a message to the leaders
themselves. It is certainly easy for a
leader to be painfully aware of their
own shortcomings and of how over-
whelming the abilities of others can be.

While humility is certainly a trait
to be cultivated, when it spirals into a
sense of a paralyzing lack of self-worth,
leaders themselves need to be reminded
that the very fact that God placed them
in that time and place means that they
have a mission to carry out and the
inner abilities to rise to that occasion.

One doesn’t need to be a formal
judge to struggle with “imposter syn-
drome”: a lack of belief in one’s ability
to measure up to others’ perceptions,
the persistent internal sense of being
a fraud. On the surface, we actually
The real challenge is not measuring
ourselves by someone else’s yardstick,
but accepting the role that God expects
from us “in these days.”
give voice to such a self-assessment of
worthlessness every Yom Kippur:
“God, before I was formed, I was
unworthy, and now that I have been
formed it is as if I had not been formed.”
On the surface, this is a devastating
admission of human frailty. However, the
great 20th-century thinker Rav Avraham
Yitzchak haKohen Kook (Siddur Olat
Reiya’h) read this difficult text as a
response and a challenge to our imposter
syndrome. He interprets “before I was
formed, I was unworthy” to mean that
each and every one of us enters the stage
of life at the exact moment when we are
needed. Before we were formed, Rav
Kook taught, there was no need for us.

However, God sends us into His world at
the exact moment when we are worthy —
that our skills and talent and abilities and
even our challenges are uniquely needed
by the universe.

We may not be the great Jews of pre-
vious generations, but we are precisely
the ones needed at this moment. It is
our calling to live up to that potential
once we have been created in the here
and now. Hence, this admission of Yom
Kippur is not an admission of failure,
but is rather a statement of resolve to
appreciate our calling for the future
and not to squander our potential and
mission “as if we had not been formed.”
The real challenge is not measuring
ourselves by someone else’s yardstick,
but accepting the role that God expects
from us “in these days.” JE
Rabbi Daniel Yolkut is the rabbi of
Congregation Poale Zedeck. This col-
umn is a service of the Vaad Harabanim
of Greater Pittsburgh.

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