By 
Choosing Faith Over Fear in the Season of Exodus
By Dr. Shayna Kaufmann
I looked to my left and saw the sign, “Faith Over Fear.” This was eight months ago, as a nurse was habitually wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I was at my first oncology appointment, still stunned from being diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic cancer, and from learning that the average life expectancy for my diagnosis is seven months.
Fear was gushing through me. Faith, on the other hand, was not even on the radar. And yet, I couldn’t stop staring at those words. Faith over fear. In that room, at that moment, they felt absurd, and at the same time, like a beckoning north star.
Little did I realize that faith was already my modus operandi. Thirty minutes later, my oncologist told me that I needed to begin chemotherapy immediately. I could choose between a protocol involving three drugs or a more aggressive one involving four, which had statistically better outcomes.
“Four,” I said without hesitation.
He looked at me. “Most people choose three.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Fear,” he replied. “Of the drugs’ intensity, of side effects, of whether it will work.”
As treatment and months went by, I faced countless junctures of choice: faith or fear. The most striking was when another oncologist insisted on telling us my prognosis – something I asked not to know.
“Less than a year,” he said objectively. My husband and I emotionally collapsed and cried the entire weekend. Sorrow, and yes, fear, took the reins. For a few days, the weight of that timeline squeezed the breath out of my chest. And then something shifted. I decided to reject his prognostic destiny. Not out of denial, but out of my quest for possibility. I became determined to heal. I locked into Faith, and never looked back.
At Passover time, I am reminded that Exodus was a journey of faith over fear: The midwives who defied Pharaoh’s order to kill the Israelite baby boys. Moses, who argued with G-d at the burning bush about his inadequacy, went to Pharaoh anyway. The Israelites who fled Egypt without knowing their destination, who walked into the Red Sea before it split and who gathered manna daily rather than hoarding it, trusting that tomorrow’s nourishment would come.
These were existential acts of faith—bold, terrifying, life-altering ones which often carried the real prospect of death.
Choosing faith does not mean the path is easy. In fact, it is often harder because the course and the consequences are unknown. Choosing faith does not mean fear disappears. It means we move forward anyway, towards a hoped-for outcome. And choosing faith does not insure a happy ending. But this much I know for sure: faith can open doors that fear seals shut.
Eight months after that terminal diagnosis, following surgery on February 18, my faith blossomed into a medical miracle: “no evidence of disease.” That is as good as it gets with Stage 4 cancer.
On this holiday of Liberation, I ask you: where is fear sealing a door you haven’t tried to open? Choosing faith offers no guarantees. Life may not unfold as we hope. But faith expands possibility. When we remain frozen in fear, we limit what might be. When we choose faith, we allow for what could be.
Wishing you a joyful, meaningful Pesach and a gradual liberation from whatever fears may be limiting your life.
Dr. Shayna Kaufmann is a clinical psychologist, author, certified mindfulness meditation teacher, decades-long Zen practitioner, and Founder of Embrace the Middle—a company dedicated to serving women in midlife. Learn more at EmbraceTheMiddle.com.
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