I often have conflicts with people who are my superiors. They’re not just more successful in life (they’re married with children) than me, they’re finer. Kinder. More mentchy. More moral. More Jewish. More knowledgeable of Torah.
It leaves me with a very sick feeling, an insecure feeling, the opposite of feeling you are on the right path.
What shores me up is that I have a clear hierarchy of values. I’m about my writing. I’m committed to Judaism but I’ve chosen not to have a rav. There isn’t any rabbi whose decisions I consider binding on me. I take them into consideration, but in the final analysis, I do what I think is right and what fuels my writing.
