30 Sep IMPOSTER SYNDROME AND THE REAL YOU

Have you ever felt like
a fraud?
Ever experience that
sentiment that you’re a
fake, that you are
making this up as you
go and, eventually will
be found out and
exposed? It could be in your professional
life, your private life, your religious life, or
really anything. If you have felt this way,
you are not alone. Studies have shown that
40% of successful people do not believe they
deserve success. As many as 70% of people
have felt like an imposter at some time or
other. But we aren’t the first to struggle with
this phenomenon, some of our greatest
leaders did too.
When it is time for Aharon to approach the
Mishkan, Opening Day of this house for
Hashem, he hesitates and demurs. Moshe
says, don’t worry, come, come, you are in
charge, you got this. Why was he resisting,
why did Aharon keep his distance? Rashi,
quoting Chazal, explains that Aharon felt
like a fraud, he was ashamed and fearful to
approach. Moshe knew that feeling, he was
familiar with that sensation. When Hashem
had tried to recruit him to lead he replied, לא
אנכי דברים איש, I am not a speaker, not a

leader, this isn’t for me. Hashem said, you
got this, I know you better than you know
yourself. And so having been there himself,
Moshe turns to Aharon and says “אתה למה
נבחרת לכך בוש, why are you embarrassed,
you were born for this role.”
There is a name for what Aharon, and earlier
Moshe, was feeling. It is called imposter
syndrome, coined in 1978 by two clinical
psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne
Imes. People who suffer from it feel that
they don’t deserve success. They attribute
any success not to their effort and ability but
to luck, or timing, or to the fact that they
have deceived others into thinking they are
better than they actually are. Those who
suffer from imposter syndrome feel like they
are making it up as they go, in contrast to
everyone around them who really know
what they are doing. Husbands and wives
feel it, mothers and fathers feel it,
accountants, lawyers, businesspeople,
doctors and yes, rabbis feel it. A feeling of
faking it on the outside while imprisoned by
a gnawing feeling of unworthiness on the
inside.
On Rosh Hashana, the birthday of humanity,
we remember the truth and the truth is that
Hashem knows us, loves us, believes in us,
and needs us. The truth is when we are

successful in our relationships with Hashem,
those around us and ourselves, we aren’t
imposters or fakers. That is our reality. It is
when we come up short, give up or give in,
fail to fulfill who we are meant to be, slip and
indulge an urge to say, watch or do the wrong
thing—that is when we are frauds, that is
when we are fakers, because that isn’t the
real us.
We aren’t defined by our worst moments, or
our worst thoughts, actions or attitudes. The
truth is that Hashem sees the best in us, holds
on to our best moments, our glimpses of
greatness. We mistakenly think the real us is
the one who loses our cool with our spouse
or children, the one who looks at the wrong
things when nobody is looking or indulges
the urge to say the wrong thing to curry favor
with the listener. We also mistakenly think
that when we show up despite our
shortcomings that this makes us imposters.
But that thinking is wrong, it simply isn’t the
emes! The emes is that when we are able to
stay calm and be patient with those we love,
when we have the discipline to do the right
thing despite being tempted to follow our
urge, that is who we really are, this is in fact
the true us.
translate usually we ,”לצופה נסתרות ביום דין”
as “He looks for and sees the hidden on
judgment day” but Rav Avraham Zvi
Kluger understands it as, “He longs, looks,
digs up our purest intentions.” Similarly, in
ִּכּי ֵאֵין ִׁשְׁכְָחָה ִלְִפְֵנֵי ִכִֵּסּא :say we Zichronos
usually We ְ.כְבוֶדֶָך ְוְֵאֵין ִנְִס ּ ְָּתר ִמִֶּנֶּגֶד ֵעֵיֶנֶיָך
understand these words to mean that we
can’t hide things from Hashem, for He
remembers all that we have conveniently
chosen to forget. But Rav Kluger says we
are misreading, misunderstanding, and
misrepresenting what Rosh Hashana is
about. The Torah doesn’t call Rosh
Hashana Yom Hadin, it calls it Yom
Zikaron, not only a day to remember there
is a Hashem, but it is a day for us to
remember who we are and who we could
be, to recognize we aren’t imposters but
are leading lives filled those good moments
that represent who we truly are.
We may feel like imposters, we may
sometimes feel useless or invisible, we
may look back and see mistakes and have
regret but, ein shichecha lifnei kisei
kevodecha, from Hashem’s vantage point
we are each unique, inimitable, we are
each here for a reason and our best moment
as a man or woman, as an eved Hashem, as
a mother or father, as a son or daughter, as
a davener, learner, chesed doer or charity
giver, and that is the real us, that is who we
can be, that is the emes. We are defined by
our strength not our weaknesses, we are
our best moments, not our worst. While we
have to take ownership and responsibility
for our failures, we deserve the success
and achievements we have earned.

In Oros HaTeshuva, Rav Kook writes: “The
primary role of Teshuva…is for the person to
return to their true selves, to the root of their
soul. Then we will at once return to Hashem,
to the Soul of all souls.”
In 1977, Laura Schultz, 63, was in the
kitchen of her home in Tallahassee, Florida,
when she heard her 6-year-old grandson
screaming from the driveway outside.
Schultz ran to the door to find her grandson
pinned beneath the rear tire of a full-size
Buick. Giving no consideration to limitations
or barriers, Schultz ran to the car, used one
hand to lift the rear of the vehicle and used
the other hand to drag her grandson to safety.
For years, Schultz refused to speak about
the incident. After finally agreeing to an
interview with peak performance coach Dr.
Charles Garfield, Schultz was asked why she
had remained silent about her miracle.
Schultz revealed that the incident had
actually scared her and reminded her that
she’d wasted most of her life living far
beneath her true potential. If she had that
strength inside her all along, why hadn’t see
realized it or utilized it more often or more
fully?
With a little coaching from Garfield, Schultz
returned to college, earned her degree and
went on, at nearly 70 years of age, to fulfill
her long-held dream of becoming a college
professor.
Like Schultz, we often deny our strengths,
we think the rare moments where we shined,
we thrived, we excelled as parents, spouses
and in our relationship with Hashem, they
are aberrations, they aren’t true, we shouldn’t
speak about them.
But we are wrong! See in yourself what
Hashem sees, know who you are and what
you are capable of. Don’t ignore the strength
that is inside you. Your best moment as a
mother or father, as a husband or wife, as an
eved Hashem, that is the real you. Believe it,
embrace it, nurture it, and grow it.
Whatever you may now be telling yourself
that you can’t do, do it! It’s never too late to

summon forth the full extents of your God-
given potential. Your best moment, your

strongest moment is the real you, your real
potential, the gift that you are to the world.