Gidon and Doubting God (Chapters 6-9)

First, a quick note---I have a draft or two of big ideas covering all of Sefer Shoftim, quoting prooftexts, etc., but I can't quite find the time to ever post them.  That, of course, is not helpful to me or to you, (dear readers).   Dr. Michael Loren suggested I just put out short blog posts more frequently, and get the long ones out when and if I am able.    So here it goes:


I am always struck by Gidon.  Here is a leader who rescued the Jewish people from Midian.  Yet he seems to exemplify the difficulties modern man has with faith:
1) When the angel says to him, "God is with you," Gidon responds "Is God with us?  [If so} why has all this befallen us?   And where are all of His wonders that our fathers told us about, saying, 'didn't God take us out of Egypt', and now God has abandoned us and put us in the hands of Midian." (See Chapter 6, verses 12-15)

Not very frum.  Yet God chooses him.

2)  Gidon asks God for a sign in order to show that God is actually talking to him (contrast with Avraham, for whom God's communication was sufficiently self-evidently from God that he was willing to sacrifice Yitzchak).

3) Perhaps not related to faith, in Chapter 8, he turns down an offer of Kingship from the people. 


Gidon's lack of simple faith is helpful for me personally.  I have a skeptical personality that does not really fit the certainty that seems to be de rigeur in religious circles today.   But Gidon shows that faith is broader and deeper than that, that there is room for me as well.  (Perhaps more on this in a future post-- I think Rabbi Norman Lamm's essay on Faith and Doubt (in the book of the same name) is a must read and perhaps I'll post on it in the future).

On another level, there is Gidon's humility.   In Chapter 6, he states that he is unworthy of the task of leadership because a) he lacks yichus and b) he is not so great himself.   Is this connected to his faith issues?  Is it that he simply lacks confidence generally, (in both himself and others, including God), and therefore his faith is not so certain?