Street Farbrengen Episode 100 - Faith, Helplessness and the Quest for Control

This week on Street Farbrengen, we start with an uncomfortable moment in shul.
Someone tells me straight out: “My problem with Chabad is you think you have the emes – the truth of truths.” And I answered him, “You’re right. We do.” But under that answer is something much deeper: Chabad doesn’t live with a transactional relationship with Hashem.

From there, we open up a raw conversation about what most people call emunah. For many, emunah has quietly turned into a coping mechanism: the holier you are, the more helpless you feel, the less you act, and the more you tell yourself “I just have to have faith.” We contrast that with the Rebbe’s vision of emunah and bitachon as a power to go into the ring, to take risks, to act in the world – not to disappear from it.

Along the way we ask:

• Is the essence of galus really this learned helplessness?
• How did Gimel Tammuz super-charge that helplessness for many Chabad chassidim?
• And on a very personal level: what happens when your unconscious identity is “I am unseen” – and Chassidus demands you step into being a lightning rod for Geulah?

If you’ve ever felt stuck between “having emunah” and actually having a role, this farbrengen goes right into that tension.