A personal perspective on faith
John Steinberg© 2026
What is faith? The simple definition is: trust in someone or something. Other definitions go further, describing it as a strongly held belief in a set of doctrines. In both cases, the absence of proof seems to be the determining factor. However, that can be a double-edged sword. Some devout individuals who have been imbued with an unwavering commitment to those same principles might actually regard the existence of proof as an unwelcome or unnecessary imposition; while I suspect the majority of others – either not having had the same exposure to those teachings or, maybe worse, having suffered an unfortunate personal experience – would likely regard the lack of proof as consistent with the absence of any divine intervention.
While this essay is mainly addressed to the second set of people, among whom I was included, it also aims to show that proof can often be subjective and is not necessarily mutually exclusive to faith but may well provide part of its sustainability.
From my own standpoint, I had been saddled with a cynical predisposition towards anything termed remotely spiritual, and it didn’t exactly leave room to be open-minded to another possibility. Far easier to attach blame to the so-called all-encompassing merciful one than to admit I might have got it wrong.
So, you might ask, what brought me to the realisation that the latter? Unfortunately, the answer is far from straightforward, except for the one thing that has always seemed a common prerequisite whenever it comes to a change of personal direction – namely, adversity.
I’d often wondered, superficially at least, about the fact that one of the attributes of the human condition is that we tend to take good things as the norm. We do not expect things ever to go wrong and consequently are not adequately equipped to deal with the situation when they do. But then, how could it be otherwise? For example, would it be possible to live a normal life if we knew what trouble was lurking around the corner? Of course, forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes, but if we’re to be completely honest, we never really expect the worst to happen.
So, when an undesirable thing happens for no obvious reason and of which we have no real understanding, it is not surprising that for many people it presents an unsurmountable obstacle to moving forward in any meaningful way.
However, that is not always the case, and it does depend on one’s reaction to adversity. It could very well provide a sufficient jolt to precipitate a personal reassessment. For example, if one has survived an unexpected life-threatening experience, one might wonder whether there was more to it than just a lucky escape. At the very least, it’s highly likely to result in a change of mindset. A little self-reflection may also result in the question of why things had to go so wrong in order to gain a greater appreciation of what’s important.
But it’s too simplistic to assume adversity always triggers a direct response, let alone a positive one. In my case, for example, suffering two momentous events in close succession – a bereavement and commercial upheaval – left me no room for elevated thoughts when my sole priority was to get my life back together again. Little could have I predicted that it was only a matter of time before I not only came fully to terms with the loss I’d experienced but was able to find a constructive path ahead.
Although it came through a circuitous route, my reinventing myself as a writer could never have been foreseen, since up to that point, twenty years ago, exposure to the arts had been no more than an enjoyable pastime. And it was made more unlikely by the fact that it was an area I’d excelled least at academically.
A couple of fortuitous introductions, first to a theatre director and later to a publisher who thought there was potential in some of the ideas I’d conjured up, managed to change that negative perception.
Trying my hand at a skill I never thought I possessed brought unexpected therapeutic benefits, in that the fictional characters I invented in search of identity, having suffered a series of misadventures themselves, were also mirroring my own experience, with which I hadn’t yet fully come to terms.
Putting pen to paper also provided a more discernible benefit in the form of a higher level of self-esteem than I’d ever been able to attain in the competitive world of business, where comparative success was simply regarded as the norm. Left unchecked, a lack of awareness of the impact of underachievement on the way you respond to those around you can so easily becomes a vicious cycle of despondency from which there appears little escape.
That a fresh sense of mental well-being manifested itself as a shift in emphasis from a focus solely on myself to a new-found interest in others, with all they had to offer, opened my eyes to what I’d missed out on as a result of my previously defensive stance.
The practical difference this made, however, was not without its problems. My new attitude attracted a mixed reaction from many of those around me, who could only conclude that I’d either gone completely off the rails or else had profited from such a large windfall that it had enabled me to leave the real world. Although neither theory was true, this feedback did provoke some contemplation as to whether I really was open to the charge of undertaking some weird egotistical pursuit to the detriment of my other everyday responsibilities. But, since I felt happier internally than I could ever remember, it didn’t require any persuading that I was on the right track.
And there was something else, in that the writing process opened my mind to a higher level of consciousness. It’s worth clarifying that up to this point, as a non-observant Jew, adherence to any sort of religious doctrines, apart from the same perfunctory festivals as when I was growing up, was mainly confined to setting a moral code for my children, where continuity was probably more the result of habit and a reluctance to go back on what I’d taken on.
However, as I progressed as a writer, with no one to ask about the difficulties encountered in plot or character development – difficulties which, admittedly, were of my own making – I learnt to devise a mechanism to solve certain problems myself which l leant on later in my spiritual journey.
Several years later, when I’d developed a body of work, it was clear to me there was not only a driving force behind this latent pursuit but also something running much deeper. It had begun to dawn on me that there was a huge gap between what I had considered my abilities and what I was actually capable of. In other words, I had failed to recognise the role of potential. The fact I didn’t possess the insight to make an accurate assessment of what it entailed wasn’t particularly encouraging, until I began to appreciate that was the only way it could be. In order to exploit our true capabilities, they have to be concealed. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be sufficiently motivated to reach further – in other words, to fulfil the unique purpose for which we were created.
Much as I had done by taking the first step, albeit fortuitously, I now had sufficient proof to believe I was being helped along the way.
Then, as one thought followed on from another, it was if something had suddenly released a paradigm of otherworldly possibilities.
Even now I had the evidence, where this odd ability came from still confounds me. It then occurred to me that if I didn’t know myself, how could I possibly expect to understand the bigger questions in life, which are totally out of my control? Worse, I’d allowed a skewed judgement to detract from positive things that I had every reason to be equally grateful for but which, as I alluded to earlier, I had taken for granted.
Gradually, I was able to set aside the unknowable, this time not deterred but strangely comforted by the fact that the reasons were beyond me. Now I was able to take advantage of the infinite amount of knowledge and wisdom that were more within my level of understanding. But that was only the first stage.
Under the valuable guidance of a group of teachers, ensuring that what I was attempting to personalise remained within the permitted boundaries of the respective religious texts necessitated a stricter adherence to the 613 Jewish Commandments (Mitzvot) than it would have done hitherto. Simply, for fear of falling short as a purely academic exercise, everything I’d learnt to date needed to be put into practice, with all the changes in lifestyle that it involved.
So, after I’d witnessed what I’ve coined as my Abraham moment of revelation, the question was: what to do about it? Having discovered something of incredible value, it occurred to me I had an obligation to share it. In the same way that the rest of our resources, as I’d come to realise, have been bestowed to us from above to be used in the right way, knowledge has to be at the forefront. Having developed the means of communicating those insights through writing, I busily began devising a short series of fables depicting my ongoing spiritual journey, in the hope that the message contained within would resonate with others who might follow a similar trajectory. Whereas some may well regard this as a step too far, to be fair, going back to the start of this process, if it had been possible to project myself to where I am today, wouldn’t that have seemed just as unlikely?
The truth is, we don’t know how we’re going to react in any given circumstances. The only thing we can be sure of is that there will never be any shortage of challenges to be confronted on the way to reaching the next level of our potential and then, with the help of G-D, doing what we can to make a difference.
Stories by John Steinberg 