Someone commented that Kabbalah presently has no place in the Litvish yeshiva world. This is true. But...
In the field of Jewish philosophy, kabbalah is the massive winner over Maimonidean rationalism and philosophic mysticism. Or, Plato is more popular than Aristotle. Or, France and northern Spain beat out Andalusia.
Rambam, for all his brilliance, expressed a philosophy of Judaism that was incomprehensible to the masses. At the same time, however, kabbalah was being developed in France and northern Spain. As a comprehensive religious philosophy that informed every mundane activity with religious meaning, it was much more attractive to most, than a cold intellectual contemplation of the ultimately unknowable God.
Rambam, if anything, was speaking to intellectuals, who were already attracted by Muslim philosophy, and needed a counterbalancing intellectualism to pull them back towards Torah. However, clearly from the Chasidic texts, lots of people can come to some grips with Kabbalistic emanationism.
I'm sure the Rambam would have regarded kabbalism as some kind of shutfut, partnership between the demigod partzufim and the unknowable Divine, akin to gnosticism's division between the evil creator god, and the unknowable god of goodness above it.
But like it or not, Kabbalah is the regnant paradigm, except in the Litvish world.
Certainly it's popular among Sephardim, and among Chasidim. The Litvish stopped teaching it, apparently to stem the tide of Sabbateanism (which was based on misreadings of Kabbalah), which seems to have worked. The 18th century was rife with it, as it is known that almost all of R' Yonatan Eibeschutz' immediate family, sons-in-law, etc. were Sabbateans, if not RYE himself. By the late 19th century, it was gone. Chassidism remapped it as a psychological guide and meditation scheme, and created the godly rebbe system, which defused the messianic impulse. I don't know how the Sefardim defused the Sabbatean bomb.
Meanwhile, today, there is lots of spiritual searching. The Kalte Litvaks have failed to impress the emotional content of a true insular Yiddishe life on their students. Rav YBS often complained about this - they have the knowledge, but not the emotional connection, they don't cry on Yom Kippur. So, naturally, we are turning once again to the emotional frameworks of Kabbalah and Chasidut, to inform our observance with love, with dveikus, etc. Temimus isn't enough, if there isn't an emotional component, so we turn to dveykus.
Even aside from the Bergian cultists, there is a tremendous resurgence in Kabbalism, both in the Orthodox world (Bnei Baruch, followers of R' Baruch Ashlag, opponents of the Berg co-optation of R' Ashlag pere, and others) and in the secular world (Bergism).
BRGS seems to finally be stepping into this, recognizing that kabbalah has become a real force in even the Misnagdish world again (the Vilna Gaon was a major kabbalist, R' Chaim Volozhin wrote in Kabbalistic metaphor in Nefesh HaChaim), requiring some familiarity with these schools of thought. It's a good thing, a broadening thing, that will help them speak to their congregants.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Antinomies Inform Us
Parshat Shoftim
In memoriam Richard Norman Wisan, PhD.
In memoriam Richard Norman Wisan, PhD.
Looking through the Israeli Chabad pamphlet “Hiskashrus”, I noticed two ideas attributed to the Tzemach Tzedek, Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch, on the idea of “two witnesses”.
The verse says, (
Philosophically we are a religion of distinctions, of opposites, of thesis and antithesis which must be held in mind together, not synthesized into an artificial harmony. Holy and profane, tameh and tahor, man and woman, immanent and transcendent, all are dealt with in different ways according to the philosophical position of the explainer. Paradox, tzvei dinim (Neo-Kantian dialectic), and balance, characterize the Chasidic, Litvish and Mussar approaches to the ideas we all hold necessary.
The Rebbe says, on the one hand,
“Two witnesses – these are tzimtzum (contraction) and hispashtus (expansion) (two stages in Kabbalistic creation – the contraction of God to make room for the Universe, and the expansion of matter throughout the space left for it). The thing (word) – hints at the Word of God which caused Creation to happen.. By two witnesses is the thing established – For Creation to happen, both are necessary. Without expansion, there would be no physical Universe. Without contraction, there would be no space for the Universe to form.”
On the other hand,
“Thing – hints at the words of prayer. Two witnesses – these are Fear and Love. By two witnesses the word is established – Only through both Fear and Love is Prayer established.”
The editors of Or Hatorah brought both ideas on the same page (Devarim 997), and they came from the same mind, so what’s the connection? Let’s free-associate about other antinomies.
Constriction-expansion: this brings to mind (since it’s Rosh Chodesh Elul) the verse in Hallel, “From the narrow place (meitzar) I called, O God, in the broad place (merchav) You answered me, O God.” R’ Meir Goldwicht of YU, in his Pesach tape two years ago, tells us that this is our personal Exodus, that we are to experience on Pesach at the Seder. From the meitzar, the narrow place,
Fear-love: these are motivators of action in prayer and mitzvoth. In a way, fear comes first, fear of punishment, the motivator of perfect behavior, of not violating any mitzvoth. But that is not the goal of Judaism, simple behavior. No, whether for the Rambam (perfect philosophy) or for most others (kabbalistic ascents), there is a further level of perfection, born out of love for God, and desire to cleave to Him, to know Him as the Rambam requires. This is the level of Ahavah. And according to the Rebbe, both Fear and Love are necessary for prayer.
So we have fear/love as aspects of total prayer, and we have Creation (constriction/expansion), and the Exodus (narrow-wide). They all come together. Both Creation and the Exodus are motivating factors in our relationship with God. We remind ourselves of them all through the davening, in the brachot surrounding Shma, in the Pesukei Dezimra – we keep recounting our history, and marveling at the wonder of Creation as motivators for proper intention in the central prayers – Shema and Shemoneh Esreh. Further, fear and love, fear of the Creator God who is all-powerful over the Universe, and love of the Savior-God who brought us out of the narrow place, the house of bondage, come together in our prayers, motivating us to rise ever higher in our service of the Divine.
As we enter the Teshuvah Season, in the beginning of Elul, we start to think about the coming Judgment, and the ideas of repentance, prayer and charity, all of which avert the stern decree. By balancing these antinomies in our consciousness, we can inform our prayers with the intensity needed for them to be heard.
We remember the peshat in the verse, that it takes the exactly parallel testimony of two witnesses in order to convict others, be they criminals or other false witnesses. By the same token, then, witnesses that disagree will necessarily acquit the sinner. These antinomies, then, certainly disagree, and will, God-willing, when properly meditated upon and brought into conscious reality, help to acquit us, to avert the stern decree.
May our prayers be heard as this season progresses, and all throughout the year.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
KOE Succession II
Responding to Rabbi Jay Lapidus on his list, "ocrjewish":
> But is the congregation "Orthodox"?
> NEW YORK TIMES | August 21, 2006
> An Orthodox Jewish Woman, and Soon, a Spiritual Leader
> By MICHAEL LUO
> A wife, a mother of three and an expert in Jewish bioethics will become
> the spiritual leader of Kehilat Orach Eliezer, a small Upper West Side
> congregation.
That's the key question, isn't it? By all accounts, in ritual practice, the congregation is Orthodox. But they aren't affiliated with any of the Orthodox organizations. And they were founded as the private minyan of one of the big JTS people. Who davened in an O synagogue when he was able to get out of the house.
She's Orthodox, all her training came from left-wing Mod-O institutions.
But their previous rabbi was the head of the UTJ yeshiva, which is decidedly unOrthodox, as is his view of textual transmission.
Then there are the reports that they couldn't afford a rabbi, so they took on a woman who, not having the "title", could be paid less. A correspondent with connections to UTJ claimed that the UTJ rabbis wanted only full-time positions, so they didn't apply. Their loss - my last two synagogues have had part-time rabbis with (fairly prestigious) day jobs.
So is the synagogue defined by affiliation? If so, not O.
by rabbi? If so, no rabbi to define it.
by practice? If so, O.
by affiliation of earlier rabbis? If so, not O.
I've belonged to unaffiliated Orthodox shuls, but they still made a point of advertising themselves as Orthodox. KOE calls itself "halachic". What's in a name? When one is claiming great strides for a movement to which a label applies, much.
Is it the great stride forward for Orthodox Feminism that its Orthodox Feminist congregants claim? Is it a step backwards for Orthodox Feminism in terms of classical "equal pay for equal work"? Is it irrelevant for Orthodox Feminism because a) the shul doesn't want to be called "Orthodox" or b) because the spiritual leader refuses to be called "rabbi"?
> But is the congregation "Orthodox"?
> NEW YORK TIMES | August 21, 2006
> An Orthodox Jewish Woman, and Soon, a Spiritual Leader
> By MICHAEL LUO
> A wife, a mother of three and an expert in Jewish bioethics will become
> the spiritual leader of Kehilat Orach Eliezer, a small Upper West Side
> congregation.
That's the key question, isn't it? By all accounts, in ritual practice, the congregation is Orthodox. But they aren't affiliated with any of the Orthodox organizations. And they were founded as the private minyan of one of the big JTS people. Who davened in an O synagogue when he was able to get out of the house.
She's Orthodox, all her training came from left-wing Mod-O institutions.
But their previous rabbi was the head of the UTJ yeshiva, which is decidedly unOrthodox, as is his view of textual transmission.
Then there are the reports that they couldn't afford a rabbi, so they took on a woman who, not having the "title", could be paid less. A correspondent with connections to UTJ claimed that the UTJ rabbis wanted only full-time positions, so they didn't apply. Their loss - my last two synagogues have had part-time rabbis with (fairly prestigious) day jobs.
So is the synagogue defined by affiliation? If so, not O.
by rabbi? If so, no rabbi to define it.
by practice? If so, O.
by affiliation of earlier rabbis? If so, not O.
I've belonged to unaffiliated Orthodox shuls, but they still made a point of advertising themselves as Orthodox. KOE calls itself "halachic". What's in a name? When one is claiming great strides for a movement to which a label applies, much.
Is it the great stride forward for Orthodox Feminism that its Orthodox Feminist congregants claim? Is it a step backwards for Orthodox Feminism in terms of classical "equal pay for equal work"? Is it irrelevant for Orthodox Feminism because a) the shul doesn't want to be called "Orthodox" or b) because the spiritual leader refuses to be called "rabbi"?
Sunday, August 20, 2006
KOE Succession
Rabbi Gil Student, at Hirhurim, notes the Jewish Week story about Congregation Kehillath Orach Eliezer's new spiritual leader, Dina Najman-Licht. He opines that this story is irrelevant for Orthodoxy, as the synagogue in question is "halachic", but does not affiliate with any of the Orthodox movements.
Carol Newman, president of JOFA, and Devorah Zlochower, teacher at Drisha, think this is a positive thing, in the article.
On the contrary, I think it shows the weakness of both right-wing Conservative (which KOE is, owing its origin to the then-ailing Rabbi Louis Finkelstein of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and having had Rabbi David Weiss-Halivni, also Rosh Metivta at the Institute for Traditional Judaism, the seminary of the UTJ, as its spiritual leader since R' Finkelstein's passing) and the left-wing Orthodox.
Conservative Judaism has long called itself a "halachic" movement, even though they left halachic process behind 50+ years ago, with the separation widening ever since. Modern Orthodoxy has grown a left wing, which seeks (among other things) to maximize women's participation in communal life within halacha. The Union for Traditional Judaism split off from the right wing of the Conservative movement in 1983 over the departure from halachic process, although in many respects UTJ has followed the structure of Conservative halachic process, with a Committee on Jewish Law taking the role of a Sanhedrin for the movement, but not establishing its own true batei din. This issue deals with the intersection of all three.
Ms. Najman-Licht received all her training in Orthodox institutions, such as Drisha, Nishmat and Torat Miriam, and her bioethics from Einstein med school. Still, she had to go to a Conservative synagogue to find a compatible place. Contrariwise, KOE didn't evidently find a simpatico candidate among recent graduates of ITJ and JTSA. That a right-wing Conservative, or UTJ, synagogue had to get a spiritual leader, who by definition would not be a rabbi, from left-wing Modern Orthodox institutions, speaks to the weakness of both: she couldn't find sufficient opportunities among those who had trained her, and KOE couldn't find suitable candidates in their own movement, but had to look beyond their rightward edge.
Why is this taken as a positive, rather than the negative reaction of Alice Shalvi's defection to become rector of Neveh Schechter, JTSA's Israel branch? It seems an almost exact parallel, in small.
Carol Newman, president of JOFA, and Devorah Zlochower, teacher at Drisha, think this is a positive thing, in the article.
On the contrary, I think it shows the weakness of both right-wing Conservative (which KOE is, owing its origin to the then-ailing Rabbi Louis Finkelstein of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and having had Rabbi David Weiss-Halivni, also Rosh Metivta at the Institute for Traditional Judaism, the seminary of the UTJ, as its spiritual leader since R' Finkelstein's passing) and the left-wing Orthodox.
Conservative Judaism has long called itself a "halachic" movement, even though they left halachic process behind 50+ years ago, with the separation widening ever since. Modern Orthodoxy has grown a left wing, which seeks (among other things) to maximize women's participation in communal life within halacha. The Union for Traditional Judaism split off from the right wing of the Conservative movement in 1983 over the departure from halachic process, although in many respects UTJ has followed the structure of Conservative halachic process, with a Committee on Jewish Law taking the role of a Sanhedrin for the movement, but not establishing its own true batei din. This issue deals with the intersection of all three.
Ms. Najman-Licht received all her training in Orthodox institutions, such as Drisha, Nishmat and Torat Miriam, and her bioethics from Einstein med school. Still, she had to go to a Conservative synagogue to find a compatible place. Contrariwise, KOE didn't evidently find a simpatico candidate among recent graduates of ITJ and JTSA. That a right-wing Conservative, or UTJ, synagogue had to get a spiritual leader, who by definition would not be a rabbi, from left-wing Modern Orthodox institutions, speaks to the weakness of both: she couldn't find sufficient opportunities among those who had trained her, and KOE couldn't find suitable candidates in their own movement, but had to look beyond their rightward edge.
Why is this taken as a positive, rather than the negative reaction of Alice Shalvi's defection to become rector of Neveh Schechter, JTSA's Israel branch? It seems an almost exact parallel, in small.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Ralph Nader '55*: Threat or Menace
Well, I haven't gotten much response to my religious posts, so here's a political post.
A number of political blogs and media websites have, over the years, taken issue with Ralph Nader's financial disclosures, calling him a hypocrite, or a non-enemy of corporations, or a corporate whore, for holding stock in big corporations, some of which espouse policies which he opposes.
Ya know, you can talk about Nader stealing the election (or was that Buchanan? or Katherine Harris? or the Supreme Court? or the RNC operatives who disrupted recounts?) for Bush. You can talk about his anti-corporate stance and how genuine it is, or not. You can talk about financial decisions.
But I really don't see the crime, or even the hypocrisy, in owning individual-level numbers of shares (albeit rich-individual, you don't run for President if you're not very rich - it's very expensive to run, and very expensive to lose) in corporations with whose policy he disagrees.
You've got to remember, the stock-market, at least for us individuals, is an aftermarket. You're not paying $25,000 to Microsoft to buy 1000 shares of Microsoft, you're paying it to some other guy, or some mutual fund, who has decided to reduce his holding in Microsoft.
You buy the rights to some small percentage of the profits, and the right to vote at the annual meeting. But we all know that, absent a truly massive shareholder campaign, shareholder opinions have no chance of being heard. And many corporate meetings are set up to minimize that possibility.
Yes, it's common to say "you're investing in Microsoft", but really, you're not giving them any money, since individuals don't generally have access to IPOs.
Second, this is a mutual fund. Yet another remove from the corporation. You pay money to the fund, the fund pays some small fraction (and most mutual funds don't hold more than 2% of their money in any given stock) to buy stock in some company.
Holding a mutual fund is completely divorced from any control one might hope to gain from a company. It is also completely divorced from any control the company might wish to exert over its stockholders.
As I see it, it's completely consistent: Nader has money, and wants to make more of it. So he invests in a good mutual fund. That cleanly removes him from association with the companies owned by the mutual fund. That some pundits don't see that, seems to show their hatred of Nader overshadowing their common sense.
For instance, I own stock in various corporations which have outsourced jobs to India. As a programmer and pro-American-worker person, I oppose that. But so what? They all do it, and we keep doing business with them - the phone companies, the drug companies, the computer companies.
* * *
Update. I just checked out his 2004 financial disclosure form.
1) He has evidently sold his Fidelity-Magellan fund.
2) His holdings are mostly in technology companies: Cisco, Ciena, OpenTV, CNET. Note: he opposes offshore outsourcing, which some of these companies do.
3) His big holding is now an index fund - one which shifts stocks in & out to keep up with an index.
* * *
So what do we have? Someone who complains about corporate policy, owning stock in those companies, such that he
a) milks them for money without actually having given them any,
b) gives himself a platform such that, if he really wanted to exert himself, he could express an opinion and yet again have it ignored.
I really don't see the hypocrisy. Attack your enemies on one front, and bleed them on another. Makes sense to me.
___
* Nader '55: it's a Princeton thing.
A number of political blogs and media websites have, over the years, taken issue with Ralph Nader's financial disclosures, calling him a hypocrite, or a non-enemy of corporations, or a corporate whore, for holding stock in big corporations, some of which espouse policies which he opposes.
Ya know, you can talk about Nader stealing the election (or was that Buchanan? or Katherine Harris? or the Supreme Court? or the RNC operatives who disrupted recounts?) for Bush. You can talk about his anti-corporate stance and how genuine it is, or not. You can talk about financial decisions.
But I really don't see the crime, or even the hypocrisy, in owning individual-level numbers of shares (albeit rich-individual, you don't run for President if you're not very rich - it's very expensive to run, and very expensive to lose) in corporations with whose policy he disagrees.
You've got to remember, the stock-market, at least for us individuals, is an aftermarket. You're not paying $25,000 to Microsoft to buy 1000 shares of Microsoft, you're paying it to some other guy, or some mutual fund, who has decided to reduce his holding in Microsoft.
You buy the rights to some small percentage of the profits, and the right to vote at the annual meeting. But we all know that, absent a truly massive shareholder campaign, shareholder opinions have no chance of being heard. And many corporate meetings are set up to minimize that possibility.
Yes, it's common to say "you're investing in Microsoft", but really, you're not giving them any money, since individuals don't generally have access to IPOs.
Second, this is a mutual fund. Yet another remove from the corporation. You pay money to the fund, the fund pays some small fraction (and most mutual funds don't hold more than 2% of their money in any given stock) to buy stock in some company.
Holding a mutual fund is completely divorced from any control one might hope to gain from a company. It is also completely divorced from any control the company might wish to exert over its stockholders.
As I see it, it's completely consistent: Nader has money, and wants to make more of it. So he invests in a good mutual fund. That cleanly removes him from association with the companies owned by the mutual fund. That some pundits don't see that, seems to show their hatred of Nader overshadowing their common sense.
For instance, I own stock in various corporations which have outsourced jobs to India. As a programmer and pro-American-worker person, I oppose that. But so what? They all do it, and we keep doing business with them - the phone companies, the drug companies, the computer companies.
* * *
Update. I just checked out his 2004 financial disclosure form.
1) He has evidently sold his Fidelity-Magellan fund.
2) His holdings are mostly in technology companies: Cisco, Ciena, OpenTV, CNET. Note: he opposes offshore outsourcing, which some of these companies do.
3) His big holding is now an index fund - one which shifts stocks in & out to keep up with an index.
* * *
So what do we have? Someone who complains about corporate policy, owning stock in those companies, such that he
a) milks them for money without actually having given them any,
b) gives himself a platform such that, if he really wanted to exert himself, he could express an opinion and yet again have it ignored.
I really don't see the hypocrisy. Attack your enemies on one front, and bleed them on another. Makes sense to me.
___
* Nader '55: it's a Princeton thing.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
All God Wants
All God Wants:
dvar torah Eqev 5766,
Yavneh Minyan of Flatbush
Jonathan Baker
Dt. 10:12-19
יב ועתה, ישראל--מה ידוד אלדיך, שאל מעמך: כי אם-ליראה את-ידוד אלדיך ללכת בכל-דרכיו, ולאהבה אתו, ולעבד את-ידוד אלדיך, בכל-לבבך ובכל-נפשך. יג לשמר את-מצות ידוד, ואת-חקתיו, אשר אנכי מצוך, היום--לטוב, לך. יד הן לידוד אלהיך, השמים ושמי השמים, הארץ, וכל-אשר-בה. טו רק באבתיך חשק ידוד, לאהבה אותם; ויבחר בזרעם אחריהם, בכם מכל-העמים--כיום הזה. טז ומלתם, את ערלת לבבכם; וערפכם--לא תקשו, עוד. יז כי, ידוד אלדיכם--הוא אלדי האלדים, ואדני האדנים: האל הגדל הגבר, והנורא, אשר לא-ישא פנים, ולא יקח שחד. יח עשה משפט יתום, ואלמנה; ואהב גר, לתת לו לחם ושמלה. יט ואהבתם, את-הגר: כי-גרים הייתם, בארץ מצרים. כ את-ידוד אלדיך תירא, אתו תעבד; ובו תדבק, ובשמו תשבע.
What does God want of us?
To fear Him, to imitate Him, to love Him, to serve Him.
To keep His laws and regulations, for our own good.
Note that these first four actions are paired opposites: love and fear, service and imitation. Imitation places us in God’s place, in God’s shoes, as much as we can in this world, while service maintains distance between servant and Master.
· To fear Him – not the lofty fear-from-love of the Chasidim, but plain fear, of punishment, so we do the right thing.
· To imitate Him – are we gods, to do like God? As Herschel Ramis says in Pog’ei Ruchos, “Are you a god? No. Then die.” We are mortals, those who die, which distinguishes us from God. Our thoughts are not His thoughts – how can we imitate Him?
But we only perceive God through His attributes, through His actions in the world – so we are to imitate His actions, His attitudes, as He is merciful, so should you be merciful, as He loves the stranger, so you should love the stranger.
· To love Him – to care for what He wants, to recognize His greatness, care for His will in the world – or the Torah, the blueprint of the world.
· To serve Him – in the temple, but not only that, in our own hearts and souls, internally, wholeheartedly – the service of the heart. Pray to Him, praise Him, glorify Him, and thereby raise ourselves up, by thinking of greatness, by striving for the same attributes in which we imitate Him.
· Summed up: ובו תדבק cleave to Him.
What is cleaving? Meshech Chochma surveys the variants:
· Rambam: cleave to talmidei chachamim – intellectual model, the mind as tool for reaching God
· Ramban : cleave to tzadikim, those who have made their will most congruent with the Torah and Mitzvot, God’s expression of His will for the world
· But these require intermediaries. R’ Meir Simcha tells us, via Saadia Gaon in Shaar haBitachon in Chovos Halevovos, that this mitzvah is for all of us, as individuals, without intermediaries. Cleaving is the attribute of Bitachon, confidence in Hashem, reliance on Hashem and only on Hashem, that He will provide for us today and tomorrow. That He will defend us in our wars of conquest and defense of
The people of R’ Meir Simcha’s time worried too much about parnossah, where tomorrow’s meal was coming from. Through this chisaron emunah (lack of faith), they were led astray from the right path and gave up on Torah and Mitzvot, much as they had given up on God (this is my grandparents’ generation, who were throwing off the yoke of Torah in Eastern Europe 100 years ago)
Cleaving, then, is the result of, the summation of, these required actions. They add together to create a position of bitachon, of cleaving. But they are not just actions, they are abstractions, emotions that are required, in addition to the observance of the commands and rules. How do these two verses relate? How do emotional abstractions relate to concrete mitzvos?
The emotions inform the mitzvos, permeate our performance of mitzvos, imbuing them with holiness and sanctity.
How do we do this? This week’s parsha brings it all home to us – brochos.
1) We have the mitzvah of birkas hamozon:
י ואכלת, ושבעת--וברכת את-ידוד אלדיך, על-הארץ הטבה אשר נתן-לך. יא השמר לך, פן-תשכח את-ידוד אלדיך,
Note what follows it immediately: Guard yourself, lest you forget Hashem.
This bracha, Chazal tell us in Maseches Brochos, this bracha creates the impetus for all the birchos hanehenin. How? If one is to bless God for the food after having eaten, when the food means less כדאמרי אינשי מלי כריסי זני בישי, how much more so should we bless before eating, when we are hungry? We must stop, and dedicate our eating to Hashem. By implication, then, we bless all our appreciations of Hashem’s creation, imbuing our use of God’s world with sanctity and intentionality. By blessing, we insure that we do not forget God.
2) Even more so, we have all the other blessings, the blessings over the mitzvoth, the blessings of praise, etc. right here in our pasuk. Where? Rabbi Meir tells us, don’t read “mah”, read “meah” – 100. We are to recite 100 brachot daily. How did Rabbi Meir know this? The verse has 100 letters in it, explains the Torah Temimah, following Rashi on the Gemara.
This ties it all together for us. How are we to engage in the abstractions, to endow all our actions, both mundane and mitzvadik, with holiness, with dedication to Hashem? By reciting blessings. The word, Baruch, itself, according to R’ Schwab, means to join. He tells us that the bracha formula means, that “we join with You, O God, immanent and transcendent, with whom we have an I-Thou intimate relation, in your being Our God, and even so the King of the Universe, in sanctifying this action, item, or idea.” Just as Hashem is holy and creates items in the world, we imbue the items and the actions with sanctity, we join with Hashem in completing the creation, by pronouncing the bracha over the item or action.
We are to bring passion to our mitzvah observance. We are to imbue our observance, mandated in verse 13, with the attributes in verse 12. We are to create passion in ourselves, for God, forHis Torah, for His universe, through fulfilling His Will for us as expressed in the holy Torah, which predated the world by 974 generations, and thus served as a blueprint for the world as a place where Torah could be fulfilled.
This leads us to devekus. This leads us to cleave to God, through our constant dedication of everything in our lives to Him, we reassure ourselves that we can rely on Him, that He is always there, that He is Our God, that He is the One who is worshiped, praised, the object of our fear and love, whose Will we pursue every minute of every day, through sanctity and sanctification of mundanity.
This is the passion of Torah, the passion of faith. This is the Aish Das, as R’ Micha Berger says,
This is how we must approach the Yomim Noraim. It is not enough simply to repent for past deeds. Teshuvah includes the requirement that when confronted with the same challenges in the future, that we learn not to fail in the same way again. By imbuing our actions with passion, with the attributes of Divine service, with the daily and hourly sanctification of the mundane, kiddush hachol, we might stand a better chance of living a better, more Godly life.
Therefore, come to the AishDas Shabbaton, September 15-16, at the Yavneh Minyan, the Shabbos before Slichos. Teshuvah, Repentance, is not just about regretting past actions, it’s about changing one’s reactions when faced with the same old challenges. Learn to gain passion for the mitzvos, to improve our actions in future. Teshuva: it’s about returning home, to what’s important.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Israel is justified, and now is not the time for a cease-fire
Harold Feld over on LiveJournal wrote a well-thought-out peice on Israel's lack of forward paths in the current crisis, and why we should have a cease-fire now. I take issue with some of his premises, and thus his conclusion as well. My comment was a bit too long for LJ, so I'm posting it over here.
Still, the Hamas folks aren't stupid. To the extent they have a crappy hand, they have tried to play it. The diplomatic end game they have tried to play for is referred to in Arabic as "hudna" and what I refer to as the "Taiwan solution." Fatah, Hamas' predecessor government, basically gave up and decided to lie their butts off while siphoning as much loot as possible for their personal gain.
Hudna doesn't mean "cease-fire while we bilk the world out of money to line our pockets". Hudna means "cease-fire while we re-arm". Which is the game they've played - Israel pulled out of Lebanon 6 years ago, and since then, Hezbollah has re-armed, imported thousands of rockets and launchers and missiles, and has re-started the war against the Northern towns.
Harold states:
Hezbollah, like Hamas, has failed to consider just how thoroughly the Israeli government and Israeli public have been radicalized. After all, Hamas and Hezbollah know that it is the PA, not imperialist Israel, that are the victims here. Israel “knows” it is the imperialist, the bully, and therefore is fully capable of stopping when it wants. And the only way to make it stop is to hurt it.
But Israel doesn’t “know” anything of the sort. What Israel sees is a sudden two front war with an enemy that has built its capacity because Israel pulled out of the relevant geographic territory. For Israel, the only reward for territorial concessions has been an increase in enemy capacity. It must be stamped out NOW, because force is the only thing “these people” understand and negotiating and cease fires only give them time to rearm.
"These people" indeed do view unilateral withdrawal as weakness - again look at the situation in the North. Ruling the buffer zones with an iron hand really does suppress the terrorism, really does suppress the moral ambiguity, really does wag the dog to avoid the internal tensions between the religious and the secular.
Unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon led to re-arming and re-starting the war. Unilateral withdrawal from Gaza led to re-arming and continuing the bombardments of Sderot and other close-by towns.
On the other front, suicide bombing didn't really start until 2000. Suicide bombers are trained in the schools. This training didn't start until Israel showed signs of weakness by attending the Madrid peace conference, and starting the Oslo process, in 1991. Within less than ten years, Arafat's and Hamas' schools started pumping out a never-ending stream of shaheedin. And it would never have started had Israel not shown itself soft and weak, by having peace conferences shortly after Intifada I.
The lesson? Terrorism does pay! So start a program of insane terrorism, with suicide bombers, and the payoff will be tremendous! And the Oslo Process was unstoppable. Even when Israel was changing Prime Ministers every year or two, and each would campaign on a platform of No More Oslo, each time, once they got into office, they had to continue with the Oslo Process, until the great hawk Sharon came, and cynically pushed through the unilateral withdrawal. Only Nixon could go to China? Only Sharon could actually withdraw from Gaza.
And the current crisis proved exactly what the Israeli Right was saying all along - that withdrawal is perceived by the Arabs as weakness, and thus as bait for stepping up the violence, because Terror Pays. Israel ran away from southern Lebanon, was practically routed by Hezbollah, that retreat in disorder was the most shameful thing, unlike the dignified and planned withdrawal from Gaza - it gave the Arabs exactly the wrong message.
Withdrawal now, while accepting an international buffer force, is exactly what led to the current problem. Why do you think a buffer force made up of NATO countries, such as Britain, France, and even Poland, who have no love for Israel or Jews, will be any better than the useless blue-helmet UN force that has been in Lebanon since 2000?
So what is the solution? It is clear that driving Hezbollah out of Lebanon is going to take actual all out war, and may well spill over into other states. It may, in fact, exceed Israel’s military capacity – especially if Syria and Iran become fully engaged. Actually losing such a confrontation would be disastrous for Israel. At the same time, Hezbollah risks suffering the same fate that befell the PLO when Israel drove the PLO out of Lebanon. They survived, but became disconnected from their people and centers of power, ultimately being supplanted by other organizations. Nor can Hezbollah be indifferent to the long-term damage done to Lebanon and how that impacts their popularity (and that of the Shia generally) once passions cool.
As you point out, Hezbollah is backed by foreign powers, which the PLO never was, at least not after 1973. Arafat would go to pan-Arab meetings every few years and beg for aid, and the other Arab countries turned away.Why do you think the West Bankers haven't been able to get any substantial weapons other than what Israel has given them for the PA Police Force? They have no coastline, no common border with a friendly power. Gaza has a coastline, and a weakly-defended border (viz. all the tunnels) with Egypt, which is pretty thinly populated (ever take the bus across the Sinai? It's pretty grim). And even Gaza can't get anything more powerful than Kassams, since the Karine-A was taken.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader, quoted by a commenter:
Two issues cannot tolerate any delay. One is the issue of the prisoners, because of the human suffering. The second issue is any attack against civilians. I told them on more than one occasion that we are taking the issue of the prisoners seriously, and that abducting Israeli soldiers is the only way to resolve it.
The "issue of the prisoners" is yet another smoke-screen. The only Lebanese national in Israeli prisons before this war was one guy, a serial killer, who snuck over the border, killed a family in their house in the North, then killed someone else outside the house. He was apprehended and tried, and is serving multiple life sentences.
Should Israel have killed this guy? That's a separate argument about capital punishment in a non-Torah state. Israel doesn't execute anyone, except Eichmann. If they had executed this guy, though, it would have eliminated that particular Hezbollah claim.
* * *
A cease-fire, yes, eventually, but not until there has been some real change on the ground in Lebanon. Withdrawal now will simply be a replay of 2000, only worse, because it's a retreat under fire - a real rout.
And if it becomes regional war, Bush and the neocons have been champing at the bit to go after Iran. They won't make a direct nuclear challenge, but a [private little] proxy war might be just the ticket. With us caught in the middle, but that's been our fate for thousands of years, between Egypt and Mesopotamian powers.
To go out even further on a limb: the two-state solution is the only solution, even if the Arabs never accept it. Separation is the only way to avoid demographic suicide within Israel. And when the Arabs, in their Pal-Arab state, decide to invade Israel, then, just as with withdrawn-from Gaza and withdrawn-from southern Lebanon, the moral issue will be clear: full invasion, chase them out, or once again rule as an army of occupation.
Still, the Hamas folks aren't stupid. To the extent they have a crappy hand, they have tried to play it. The diplomatic end game they have tried to play for is referred to in Arabic as "hudna" and what I refer to as the "Taiwan solution." Fatah, Hamas' predecessor government, basically gave up and decided to lie their butts off while siphoning as much loot as possible for their personal gain.
Hudna doesn't mean "cease-fire while we bilk the world out of money to line our pockets". Hudna means "cease-fire while we re-arm". Which is the game they've played - Israel pulled out of Lebanon 6 years ago, and since then, Hezbollah has re-armed, imported thousands of rockets and launchers and missiles, and has re-started the war against the Northern towns.
Harold states:
Hezbollah, like Hamas, has failed to consider just how thoroughly the Israeli government and Israeli public have been radicalized. After all, Hamas and Hezbollah know that it is the PA, not imperialist Israel, that are the victims here. Israel “knows” it is the imperialist, the bully, and therefore is fully capable of stopping when it wants. And the only way to make it stop is to hurt it.
But Israel doesn’t “know” anything of the sort. What Israel sees is a sudden two front war with an enemy that has built its capacity because Israel pulled out of the relevant geographic territory. For Israel, the only reward for territorial concessions has been an increase in enemy capacity. It must be stamped out NOW, because force is the only thing “these people” understand and negotiating and cease fires only give them time to rearm.
"These people" indeed do view unilateral withdrawal as weakness - again look at the situation in the North. Ruling the buffer zones with an iron hand really does suppress the terrorism, really does suppress the moral ambiguity, really does wag the dog to avoid the internal tensions between the religious and the secular.
Unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon led to re-arming and re-starting the war. Unilateral withdrawal from Gaza led to re-arming and continuing the bombardments of Sderot and other close-by towns.
On the other front, suicide bombing didn't really start until 2000. Suicide bombers are trained in the schools. This training didn't start until Israel showed signs of weakness by attending the Madrid peace conference, and starting the Oslo process, in 1991. Within less than ten years, Arafat's and Hamas' schools started pumping out a never-ending stream of shaheedin. And it would never have started had Israel not shown itself soft and weak, by having peace conferences shortly after Intifada I.
The lesson? Terrorism does pay! So start a program of insane terrorism, with suicide bombers, and the payoff will be tremendous! And the Oslo Process was unstoppable. Even when Israel was changing Prime Ministers every year or two, and each would campaign on a platform of No More Oslo, each time, once they got into office, they had to continue with the Oslo Process, until the great hawk Sharon came, and cynically pushed through the unilateral withdrawal. Only Nixon could go to China? Only Sharon could actually withdraw from Gaza.
And the current crisis proved exactly what the Israeli Right was saying all along - that withdrawal is perceived by the Arabs as weakness, and thus as bait for stepping up the violence, because Terror Pays. Israel ran away from southern Lebanon, was practically routed by Hezbollah, that retreat in disorder was the most shameful thing, unlike the dignified and planned withdrawal from Gaza - it gave the Arabs exactly the wrong message.
Withdrawal now, while accepting an international buffer force, is exactly what led to the current problem. Why do you think a buffer force made up of NATO countries, such as Britain, France, and even Poland, who have no love for Israel or Jews, will be any better than the useless blue-helmet UN force that has been in Lebanon since 2000?
So what is the solution? It is clear that driving Hezbollah out of Lebanon is going to take actual all out war, and may well spill over into other states. It may, in fact, exceed Israel’s military capacity – especially if Syria and Iran become fully engaged. Actually losing such a confrontation would be disastrous for Israel. At the same time, Hezbollah risks suffering the same fate that befell the PLO when Israel drove the PLO out of Lebanon. They survived, but became disconnected from their people and centers of power, ultimately being supplanted by other organizations. Nor can Hezbollah be indifferent to the long-term damage done to Lebanon and how that impacts their popularity (and that of the Shia generally) once passions cool.
As you point out, Hezbollah is backed by foreign powers, which the PLO never was, at least not after 1973. Arafat would go to pan-Arab meetings every few years and beg for aid, and the other Arab countries turned away.Why do you think the West Bankers haven't been able to get any substantial weapons other than what Israel has given them for the PA Police Force? They have no coastline, no common border with a friendly power. Gaza has a coastline, and a weakly-defended border (viz. all the tunnels) with Egypt, which is pretty thinly populated (ever take the bus across the Sinai? It's pretty grim). And even Gaza can't get anything more powerful than Kassams, since the Karine-A was taken.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader, quoted by a commenter:
Two issues cannot tolerate any delay. One is the issue of the prisoners, because of the human suffering. The second issue is any attack against civilians. I told them on more than one occasion that we are taking the issue of the prisoners seriously, and that abducting Israeli soldiers is the only way to resolve it.
The "issue of the prisoners" is yet another smoke-screen. The only Lebanese national in Israeli prisons before this war was one guy, a serial killer, who snuck over the border, killed a family in their house in the North, then killed someone else outside the house. He was apprehended and tried, and is serving multiple life sentences.
Should Israel have killed this guy? That's a separate argument about capital punishment in a non-Torah state. Israel doesn't execute anyone, except Eichmann. If they had executed this guy, though, it would have eliminated that particular Hezbollah claim.
* * *
A cease-fire, yes, eventually, but not until there has been some real change on the ground in Lebanon. Withdrawal now will simply be a replay of 2000, only worse, because it's a retreat under fire - a real rout.
And if it becomes regional war, Bush and the neocons have been champing at the bit to go after Iran. They won't make a direct nuclear challenge, but a [private little] proxy war might be just the ticket. With us caught in the middle, but that's been our fate for thousands of years, between Egypt and Mesopotamian powers.
To go out even further on a limb: the two-state solution is the only solution, even if the Arabs never accept it. Separation is the only way to avoid demographic suicide within Israel. And when the Arabs, in their Pal-Arab state, decide to invade Israel, then, just as with withdrawn-from Gaza and withdrawn-from southern Lebanon, the moral issue will be clear: full invasion, chase them out, or once again rule as an army of occupation.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
World Wide Talmud
It has often been noted that the Talmud page, with all its cross-references and indexes and rubrics, is an early form of hypertext.
While learning Tr. Kelim (21:1), I came across the phrase, "nefesh hamasechet", the "soul of the web", or set of woof threads on a loom. So the word "masechet", which we use for tractate, or book of the Talmud, also means Web.
So the Talmud is Hypertext as expressed on the Web.
While learning Tr. Kelim (21:1), I came across the phrase, "nefesh hamasechet", the "soul of the web", or set of woof threads on a loom. So the word "masechet", which we use for tractate, or book of the Talmud, also means Web.
So the Talmud is Hypertext as expressed on the Web.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Meditation on a Postage Stamp
I just received a package from Israel. Postage was affixed in the form of many of these stamps. I noticed that they had no denomination, only the legend “מכתב רגיל בארץ” (Ordinary Domestic Letter [Postage]). Interesting, they must have just changed the rate (Israel Philately site says it was denominated ₪1.30, issued about a year ago). The US Postal Service does the same thing – they may not set the rate until a certain date, but they have to print up stamps in advance of the date, so they have a letter on them, or the legend “First Class Postage”, so that whatever rate is set, the stamps will be appropriate.
That got me thinking. Ragil, ordinary, sounds a lot like regular, which means much the same thing. Thinking about it more, though, it’s probably just a coincidence. The Hebrew root RGL carries rather different meanings than the Latin word regula, or “rule”. The Latin word comes from a ruler, or a plank – clearly a straight, flat idea.
The Hebrew word, however, connotes the cyclical, the recurring. The basic word Regel, is a foot. It also means one of the three major pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles (Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot), the three festivals on which one is obligated to walk up to the Temple, on foot, to join in the communal celebrations. Both are cyclical phenomena: the foot goes up, down, up, down, propelling one forward. The festivals return each year, propelling the years forward. Reminds me of the song “Circles:”
All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown
Moon rolls through the nighttime, till daybreak comes around
All my life’s a circle, still I wonder why?
Days keep spinning ‘round again, years keep rolling by.
In fact, the cycle of festivals legally denote a year for some purposes. One is required to pay one’s vows (promised charity) within a year, defined as the passage of three festivals. If one is late, one violates the prohibition of “do not be late in paying your vows”.
The word itself, Regel, contains the word Gal, or circular rock rolled in front of a Tannaitic-period burial cave. Double Gal, and you have Galgal, a wheel, often the wheel of the Zodiac. Change the vowels, and it becomes Gilgul, the transmigration of the soul, returning to this earth however many times necessary for its perfection.
Whether a pair of feet cycling up and down, or festivals cycling around the year, Regel brings about the transformation of circular motion to linear motion (Dean Drive, anyone?), rotation that propels one forward. Regular, on the other hand, is that which is already straight, even, flat. So the words Ragil (ordinary) and Regular are coincidental. Or are they?
This is the strength, and also the weakness, of symbolism: when one thing corresponds to another, which links to another, the correspondences can be endless. On the other hand, it's end-less: one never finds a goal.
* * *
Tbe book, by the way: a Lemberg, 1860 edition of the Maharal's Netzach Yisrael.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Hezbollah is Part of Lebanon
Two days ago, Anderson Cooper of CNN interviewed one Ibrahim Mousawi, news editor of the Hizbollah TV stations. I wrote a response to CNN News Feedback, not that they're likely to pay much attention, but I thought it needed to be said.
Mousawi said, in part,
[COOPER: ...] What would it take to disarm Hezbollah, which was called for in a U.N. resolution, 1559, the disarming of all militias, all private armies in Lebanon. Hezbollah is the only one left who still has their weapons. What will it take to get Hezbollah to disarm?Mousawi said, in part,
MOUSAWI: Well, it comes to Lebanon, the official level, everybody acknowledges here and recognizes Hezbollah not as a militia with arms but as a resistant legitimate movement and ministerial statement of this cabinet, of this new government has given the legitimacy and has given the authorization for Hezbollah to continue its -- the complete liberation of the occupiers of Lebanon.
…
MOUSAWI: It's not that they kidnapped. You're talking about resistance that is trying to ensure the release of Lebanese hostages in the Israeli prisons that they have been there for more than 28 years. This is a resistance trying to attack a military force of the occupation. It's not a matter of kidnap. It's capturing Israeli soldiers to make a swap.
I wrote that Cooper should have pressed Mousawi to clarify what he meant by “the occupation” and “a resistance legitimate movement.” Did he refer to Shaaba Farms, which Israel calls Har Dov, or did he refer to the entire state of Israel – which would indicate unity with the Palestinian Arabs. Even in the first case, the UN certified in 2000 after Israel’s “redeployment” from southern Lebanon that Shaaba Farms was not Lebanese territory under UN Resolution 425.
I further wrote that Mousawi’s characterization of Hezbollah as a “legitimate reistance movement” indicated that, contrary to world opinion, Hezbollah was acting with the full cooperation of the Lebanese government. Either it is a private militia, in which case it should have been disbanded under UN Resolution 1559, and the Lebanese government is complicit in letting it operate freely; or it is an arm of the Lebanese government, as Mousawi claims, since almost 1/5 of the Lebanese parliament (23 of 128 seats) is Hezbollah. Either way, attacking Lebanon and the Lebanese government is entirely proportional, much as the US attacked Afghanistan for hosting the terrorist Al-Qaeda.
Imagine my pleasure, then, to read in today’s Jerusalem Post, my classmate Evie Gordon’s opinion column, “The Innocent Bystander Myth.” She lays all this out in greater detail, quite convincingly (at least to this member of the choir). Perhaps our government and news organizations should read it as well.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
What is Orthodoxy: Edah & UTJ
With Edah's demise and partial merger into Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT), the members of the Union for Traditional Judaism (UTJ) email discussion list raised the old question of why Edah & UTJ were separate groups, why Edah didn't merge into UTJ rather than YCT.
Two ideas to which I respond below:
a) practice is more important than theology;
b) labels are so divisive.
* * *
Thoughts on the current debate...
1) Rabbi Berman (spiritual leader and founder of Edah) told Bill Moyers that Judaism is about practice, not belief. In that, he follows Moses Mendelssohn, who asserted, in debate with non-Jews, that Judaism has no dogmas. I have to believe, given that there is some mandated belief (see Rambam in various guises, including Hilchos Teshuvah, where he legicizes (neologue-ism?) the ideas expressed in the 13 Principles), that this was stated more for effect than as an actual halachic definition.
2) Yes, practice is paramount, particularly as regards individuals. But there are three ways in which things happen: thought, speech and action. Speech sins are not generally punishable. Thought sins are few and far between (piggul being about the only one I can think of at the moment), but can affect practice.
Misguided thoughts (e.g. coveting, atheism, etc.) are not generally actionable until expressed as speech (again, see Sefer haChinuch for various attitudinal sins, such as coveting). So belief is a problem insofar as incorrect belief leads to incorrect actions (improper prayer, expression of improper ideas).
3) There has to be a difference between judging individuals (which has to be on the level of practice, praxis if we want to get all Hellenistic about it), and institutions (which has to be on the level of expressed ideas alone, including expressed support for various actions).
That's where labels become most important, because institutions don't have actions, they have ideas. (Yes, yes, yeshiva fraud, but that's a failing of the officers, for all that they can hide behind the corporate structure, not a failing of the institution). Institutions can, however, put their ideas into action, and that then becomes a basis for judgment as well. E.g., a yeshiva tells its teachers not to teach evolution - that's an action, based on a idea espoused by the institution. That institution could then be labeled as "anti-modern", "obscurantist", "chareidi", or whatever labels fit.
This connection flows both ways: just as the institutions ideas are reflected in the praxis of its employees and members, so too its leadership's ideas become associated with the institution. Thus, if an institution is devoted to a religion, the religious ideas of its leaders are validly associated with the institution: e.g. Mordechai Kaplan's Epicureanism with JTSA, or in this case R' Halivni's maculate textualism with UTJ/Metivta.
4) Orthodoxy, unlike Reform and Conservative (although Conservative is starting to go this way too), is an attribute of a movement, rather than a movement itself. Reform is defined by its institutions: HUC/UAHC/CCAR. Conservative is defined by its institutions: JTSA(&UJ?)/USCJ/RA.
Orthodoxy, well, you have yeshiva orthodox, modern orthodox, chasidic orthodox, mussar orthodox, etc. Orthodox is an attribute all these movements share in common: fealty to Rambam's 13 principles in some form. All of them require synagogues to have a mechitzah. They may not kick out synagogues that don't have one any more, but the rule is on the books.
Each of the other movements defines itself in part by denying one or more of Rambam's principles (pace Marc Shapiro - they may stretch, but the quoted Rishonim don't actually deny any): Reform by denying the binding nature of halacha, Conservative by denying the Divine origin of the Oral Torah, and increasingly, the Divine articulation of the Torah we have today, to within a few letters or words.
And the weakening of these principles leads to, apparently, a weakening of a group's attachment to tradition. Is it any wonder that the greatest liberalization of Conservative halacha has come at the same time as the weakening of attachment to an accurately-transmitted Biblical text? If the tradition is human, then we human rabbis have the authority to change it.
To be Orthodox, then, a movement has to have the attribute Orthodoxy, which is about ideas, or belief. (this idea due to Rabbi Micha Berger)
* * *
So where does that leave our debate? We have to use different criteria for corporate entities and for persons. We know, since the court cases and responsa of the 1950s, that mechitza is the sine qua non of an Orthodox synagogue. A synagogue movement that refuses to articulate a coherent pro-mechitza policy, therefore, is going to have a hard time convincing anyone that it has the attribute "Orthodox". A religious movement, whose primary ideological leader holds by a theory of the Biblical text that denies the accurate transmission of the Sinaitic document, is going to have a hard time convincing anyone that it has the attribute "Orthodox."
I have to figure that the UTJ has something serious invested in not being Orthodox, or they would clarify these issues.
If I had to speculate, I might venture into the ad hominem and wonder if some of the UTJ rabbis who broke with the Seminary might still retain some loyalty to the institutions which trained and nurtured them. Certainly Conservative Judaism of the past 50 years has made itself consciously "not-Orthodox", much as contemporary American Orthodoxies in part define themselves as "not-Conservative". But that's a different essay.
Two ideas to which I respond below:
a) practice is more important than theology;
b) labels are so divisive.
* * *
Thoughts on the current debate...
1) Rabbi Berman (spiritual leader and founder of Edah) told Bill Moyers that Judaism is about practice, not belief. In that, he follows Moses Mendelssohn, who asserted, in debate with non-Jews, that Judaism has no dogmas. I have to believe, given that there is some mandated belief (see Rambam in various guises, including Hilchos Teshuvah, where he legicizes (neologue-ism?) the ideas expressed in the 13 Principles), that this was stated more for effect than as an actual halachic definition.
2) Yes, practice is paramount, particularly as regards individuals. But there are three ways in which things happen: thought, speech and action. Speech sins are not generally punishable. Thought sins are few and far between (piggul being about the only one I can think of at the moment), but can affect practice.
Misguided thoughts (e.g. coveting, atheism, etc.) are not generally actionable until expressed as speech (again, see Sefer haChinuch for various attitudinal sins, such as coveting). So belief is a problem insofar as incorrect belief leads to incorrect actions (improper prayer, expression of improper ideas).
3) There has to be a difference between judging individuals (which has to be on the level of practice, praxis if we want to get all Hellenistic about it), and institutions (which has to be on the level of expressed ideas alone, including expressed support for various actions).
That's where labels become most important, because institutions don't have actions, they have ideas. (Yes, yes, yeshiva fraud, but that's a failing of the officers, for all that they can hide behind the corporate structure, not a failing of the institution). Institutions can, however, put their ideas into action, and that then becomes a basis for judgment as well. E.g., a yeshiva tells its teachers not to teach evolution - that's an action, based on a idea espoused by the institution. That institution could then be labeled as "anti-modern", "obscurantist", "chareidi", or whatever labels fit.
This connection flows both ways: just as the institutions ideas are reflected in the praxis of its employees and members, so too its leadership's ideas become associated with the institution. Thus, if an institution is devoted to a religion, the religious ideas of its leaders are validly associated with the institution: e.g. Mordechai Kaplan's Epicureanism with JTSA, or in this case R' Halivni's maculate textualism with UTJ/Metivta.
4) Orthodoxy, unlike Reform and Conservative (although Conservative is starting to go this way too), is an attribute of a movement, rather than a movement itself. Reform is defined by its institutions: HUC/UAHC/CCAR. Conservative is defined by its institutions: JTSA(&UJ?)/USCJ/RA.
Orthodoxy, well, you have yeshiva orthodox, modern orthodox, chasidic orthodox, mussar orthodox, etc. Orthodox is an attribute all these movements share in common: fealty to Rambam's 13 principles in some form. All of them require synagogues to have a mechitzah. They may not kick out synagogues that don't have one any more, but the rule is on the books.
Each of the other movements defines itself in part by denying one or more of Rambam's principles (pace Marc Shapiro - they may stretch, but the quoted Rishonim don't actually deny any): Reform by denying the binding nature of halacha, Conservative by denying the Divine origin of the Oral Torah, and increasingly, the Divine articulation of the Torah we have today, to within a few letters or words.
And the weakening of these principles leads to, apparently, a weakening of a group's attachment to tradition. Is it any wonder that the greatest liberalization of Conservative halacha has come at the same time as the weakening of attachment to an accurately-transmitted Biblical text? If the tradition is human, then we human rabbis have the authority to change it.
To be Orthodox, then, a movement has to have the attribute Orthodoxy, which is about ideas, or belief. (this idea due to Rabbi Micha Berger)
* * *
So where does that leave our debate? We have to use different criteria for corporate entities and for persons. We know, since the court cases and responsa of the 1950s, that mechitza is the sine qua non of an Orthodox synagogue. A synagogue movement that refuses to articulate a coherent pro-mechitza policy, therefore, is going to have a hard time convincing anyone that it has the attribute "Orthodox". A religious movement, whose primary ideological leader holds by a theory of the Biblical text that denies the accurate transmission of the Sinaitic document, is going to have a hard time convincing anyone that it has the attribute "Orthodox."
I have to figure that the UTJ has something serious invested in not being Orthodox, or they would clarify these issues.
If I had to speculate, I might venture into the ad hominem and wonder if some of the UTJ rabbis who broke with the Seminary might still retain some loyalty to the institutions which trained and nurtured them. Certainly Conservative Judaism of the past 50 years has made itself consciously "not-Orthodox", much as contemporary American Orthodoxies in part define themselves as "not-Conservative". But that's a different essay.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Lonely Man of Faith
Steg described himself in another blog as a "tree-hugging MO". He demonstrated this as follows:
«hugs a tree»
«reads to it a bedtime story from Lonely Man of Faith»
which inspired the following:
The Lonely Bear of Faith
Little JoeBear was looking for his God.
He looked in the toybin,
he looked in the closet,
he looked under the bed,
he even looked in his tatty's bes medresh,
but he couldn't find his God.
But he had faith that there was God.
So he went out for a walk.
* * *
He met a boy, who looked strangely familiar.
Do I know you? JoeBear asked.
I don't know, said the boy. Call me Adam.
OK, said JoeBear. Call me JoeBear. Have you seen God? I'm looking for Him.
No, said Adam. One can't see Him. But I know he exists.
So what does he want of us? asked JoeBear
To do good, to rule His world and build it up.
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.
Yes it is, said Adam.
Can I help? asked JoeBear
Yes, but you have to find your own way, said Adam. My way works for me. It will not work for you, but you must find my way for yourself.
That's confusing, said JoeBear.
Yes it is, said Adam, but that's the way it has always been.
I'll have to think about that, said JoeBear.
Adam said, While you think, I have things to do, so see you around.
OK, see you later, said JoeBear, and continued walking.
* * *
Along came another boy, who also looked strangely familiar.
You look familiar, said JoeBear. Haven't we met somewhere?
Could be, said the boy. Call me Adam.
OK, said JoeBear, but I just met another Adam, so maybe I could call you Adam II?
That's fine, said the boy. What brings you out on this long lonely road?
I'm looking for God, said JoeBear.
Well you won't find him here, said Adam II. I've been looking for him too, and haven't found him yet.
So what keeps you going? asked JoeBear.
My faith that He exists, responded Adam II.
Can we look together, so I don't look everywhere you haven't found him?
That won't help. The quest is a lonely one. Each of us has to look for himself.
That sounds sad, said JoeBear.
Yes it is, replied Adam II, but I rest assured that all of us are engaged on the same journey. I know He exists, because God promised us so.
That makes me feel better, said JoeBear.
I've got to keep looking, said Adam II, but good luck on your quest.
I've got to think about these Adams, said JoeBear, and sat down on a quartered log.
* * *
After a while, JoeBear's Tatty came along.
JoeBear! You're all right! I've been worried about you, gone so long.
Yes, Tatty, said JoeBear, and told him of the Adams he had met.
I don't know which is right, the Adam who is out to conquer the world, or the Adam who shares our quest for God.
Tatty thought about it a while, and said, They're both right.
How can that be? cried JoeBear.
Tatty gave JoeBear an example. A funeral passes a bes medresh. Do we keep learning, or do we follow the funeral? The answer is yes - both have good reasons.
JoeBear thought about that a while.
Finally, JoeBear said, so you mean we have to follow both Adams? That both are trying to do God's will, and God's will is for both?
Yes, JoeBear, that's it. But it is a lonely quest, where you have to find your own way through the tension.
Hmm, said JoeBear. Those Adams looked strangely familiar. I wonder if they were me?
Could be, said Tatty. Could be.
And they went home to conquer a kugel.
The End
«hugs a tree»
«reads to it a bedtime story from Lonely Man of Faith»
which inspired the following:
Little JoeBear was looking for his God.
He looked in the toybin,
he looked in the closet,
he looked under the bed,
he even looked in his tatty's bes medresh,
but he couldn't find his God.
But he had faith that there was God.
So he went out for a walk.
* * *
He met a boy, who looked strangely familiar.
Do I know you? JoeBear asked.
I don't know, said the boy. Call me Adam.
OK, said JoeBear. Call me JoeBear. Have you seen God? I'm looking for Him.
No, said Adam. One can't see Him. But I know he exists.
So what does he want of us? asked JoeBear
To do good, to rule His world and build it up.
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.
Yes it is, said Adam.
Can I help? asked JoeBear
Yes, but you have to find your own way, said Adam. My way works for me. It will not work for you, but you must find my way for yourself.
That's confusing, said JoeBear.
Yes it is, said Adam, but that's the way it has always been.
I'll have to think about that, said JoeBear.
Adam said, While you think, I have things to do, so see you around.
OK, see you later, said JoeBear, and continued walking.
* * *
Along came another boy, who also looked strangely familiar.
You look familiar, said JoeBear. Haven't we met somewhere?
Could be, said the boy. Call me Adam.
OK, said JoeBear, but I just met another Adam, so maybe I could call you Adam II?
That's fine, said the boy. What brings you out on this long lonely road?
I'm looking for God, said JoeBear.
Well you won't find him here, said Adam II. I've been looking for him too, and haven't found him yet.
So what keeps you going? asked JoeBear.
My faith that He exists, responded Adam II.
Can we look together, so I don't look everywhere you haven't found him?
That won't help. The quest is a lonely one. Each of us has to look for himself.
That sounds sad, said JoeBear.
Yes it is, replied Adam II, but I rest assured that all of us are engaged on the same journey. I know He exists, because God promised us so.
That makes me feel better, said JoeBear.
I've got to keep looking, said Adam II, but good luck on your quest.
I've got to think about these Adams, said JoeBear, and sat down on a quartered log.
* * *
After a while, JoeBear's Tatty came along.
JoeBear! You're all right! I've been worried about you, gone so long.
Yes, Tatty, said JoeBear, and told him of the Adams he had met.
I don't know which is right, the Adam who is out to conquer the world, or the Adam who shares our quest for God.
Tatty thought about it a while, and said, They're both right.
How can that be? cried JoeBear.
Tatty gave JoeBear an example. A funeral passes a bes medresh. Do we keep learning, or do we follow the funeral? The answer is yes - both have good reasons.
JoeBear thought about that a while.
Finally, JoeBear said, so you mean we have to follow both Adams? That both are trying to do God's will, and God's will is for both?
Yes, JoeBear, that's it. But it is a lonely quest, where you have to find your own way through the tension.
Hmm, said JoeBear. Those Adams looked strangely familiar. I wonder if they were me?
Could be, said Tatty. Could be.
And they went home to conquer a kugel.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
The Donkey's Miraculous Mouth - Miracles and the Natural Order
D’var Torah
Shaleshudis, Parshas Balak 5766
Before yahrzeit of Joseph Ezra Wisan, 17 Tammuz 5750
Verse under study: Bamidbar 22:28
כח ויפתח יהוה את-פי האתון ותאמר לבלעם מה-עשיתי לך כי הכיתני זה שלש רגלים.
28 And the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Bil`am: 'What have I done unto you, that you have hit me these three times?'
We started to give a shiur in Pirkei Avot this week, after davening, while the rabbi is away. S__ F_______r gave the first class, to great acclaim. In honor of that, I want to link this week’s parsha with Pirkei Avot, particularly the 5th chapter, which is what those who say it throughout the summer are saying. That’s the chapter with all the numbers, and it’s easy to link, since Mishnah 5 tells us that
“Ten things were created at twilight on Friday [of the week of creation]: the mouth of the earth [that swallowed up Korach & Co.], the mouth of the well [that gave water to us in the desert], the mouth of [Bilam’s] donkey, …”
I’m not going to list them all. These three appear in the past three parshiot – Korach two weeks ago, the ending of Miriam’s well last week, and the Bilam story this week.
The phrasing is a bit strange, and calls for comment. Why “created”, when they aren’t mentioned in the Creation narratives? Why specifically “at twilight”? What’s the use of creating them now, when they won’t be used for thousands of years? How do these objects, which will be used in miracles, fit with the natural order?
We need to look creation in terms of Divine providence. Creation gives us the natural order of the world. God created the world ex nihilo, with various physical laws that guide the functioning of the physical universe. Most commentators assume that Genesis describes the natural order – physical law doesn’t change, Torah doesn’t change, God’s will for the Universe doesn’t change. So how do we explain miracles? They must be part of the natural order.
The Tosfos Yom Tov reviews a number of theories of the creation of these objects. First, why were they created “Friday at twilight?” Friday twilight is partly Shabbat and partly weekday, partly holy and partly profane. We add a bit of extra time to the beginning and end of Shabbat, so as to “add from the holy onto the profane”, to bleed over a little holiness to the workaday world. So too here, these items are mostly normal natural items, with a bit more of a holy purpose. A staff is a staff, but Aaron’s staff is created to flower into an almond tree – it’s a bit more holy. A donkey mouth is a donkey mouth, but this one has a holy purpose – it’s created with a bit more holiness. Since, however, Shabbat is the time when God rested from his work, we don’t have a written description of His work during the twilight period. It is necessary that these miracle-objects were created with the holiness of the First Shabbat, but by the same token, it is necessary that their creation was not explicitly written.
The Rambam (1100s), believed that Divine providence only extends to human beings, particularly Jews, as individuals, but to other species as classes. Thus, Rambam holds, in the Guide and on this Mishnah, that the entire class was created with the potential to become miraculous. At the proper time, God changed a particular item so that its miraculous ability shone forth.
The Meiri (1300s) has a problem with the Rambam’s position: it smacks of God changing His Will, that the individual of the class is changed into a miracle-version. This runs afoul of the unchanging Divine Will. Meiri holds that these objects were created al t’nai, with a condition, an idea – that when they are needed for the miraculous, they will behave miraculously.
Tosfos Yom Tov sees God changing His will in either theory. In the first case, the individual ceases to behave as the rest of the class. In the second case, the idea of change exists, but the change does not exist until needed.
Tosfos Yom Tov solves this by taking an intermediate position: that the objects were created with the condition that when Israel needs them, they will do what Israel needs. All is thus foreseen, but free choice is given (Avot 3:15).
How does this work? The Torah predates the physical universe by 974 generations (Shab. 88b). The physical universe was thus created as a place where Torah, an expression of God’s Will, could be fulfilled. Part of that will is that Israel choose to say Naaseh venishma, We will do and listen. God created the Torah, and the Universe, and Israel in it to fulfill the Torah – God, the Torah and Israel are One, as the saying goes. Thus, as Israel goes on its adventures, various miraculous things need to happen, so they do, because they were created to do so. Israel and the Universe are things created to fulfill God’s Will in Torah, so they work together. How is free will preserved? Perhaps other miracle-objects were created, such that had Israel made other choices (not to worship the calf, etc.) those other objects would have been needed, but the ones that were needed are listed in this Mishnah.
The Tiferes Yisroel (19th century) speculated how the miracle-potential became part of the Ten Objects. Where other commentators talk about the potential in the class, or in the creature type, Tiferes Yisroel says that the trait was given to the first donkey, such that in her remote descendent, it would express itself at the proper time.
We know the Tiferes Yisroel followed then-current science. In his Drush Or Hachaim, where he posits a universe older than 6,000 years, he writes that he is responding to recent advances in geological stratgraphy and fossil discoveries. Modern old-earth geology really got started with Lyell’s Princples of Geology published in 1830-33. The Drush Or Hachaim was preached in 1842. Clearly he followed these new ideas.
Is it possible that ideas about inheritance of traits was in the air? The Tiferes Yisroel wrote during the 1830s or early 1840s. Evolution was already in the air, as Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) had published a theory of evolution in 1796, and Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics (since disproven) was propounded in 1809. Perhaps his unique description of the potential for miracles being created in the objects, reflects these ideas.
So these objects fit the natural order, and the Tosfos Yom Tov’s theory preserves the permanence of the Divine Will. They were necessarily created at twilight on the Friday of Creation, and thus their creation is hidden, as the objects were hidden until necessary.
Pirkei Avot also comes up in the latter part of our verse. The donkey rebukes Bil`am in a strange way. Note that the angel has blocked the donkey three times, and only on the third time does the donkey protest. The first time, the angel diverted the donkey into a field, the second time in a vineyard, and the third time in a narrow place with nowhere to go, so the donkey just stops.
The donkey says, “you have hit me three times.” “Three times” is written as “three regalim,” which usually refers to the three pilgrimage festivals. Kli Yakar tells us that this is a warning to Bi`lam, that he wants to destroy the nation that keeps three festivals. This point is reinforced by the circumstances in the narrative. Each stop is linked to a different festival:
- The first stop, in the field: this is Sukkot, the harvest festival, when we build booths in the fields.
- The second stop, in the vineyard, refers to Pesach. Israel is compared to a vine, as in Psalm 80:
80,9 Thou didst pluck up a vine out of Egypt; Thou didst drive out the nations, and didst plant it.
80,10 Thou didst clear a place before it, and it took deep root, and filled the land.
Or in Song of Songs, where the “house of wine” is taken, in Rashi’s allegorical reading, to be the Tent of Meeting. Wine is associated with Israel.
Further, four cups of wine are drunk at the Seder – one of the central mitzvot of the night
- The third stop, in the narrow place, is Shavuot, where we we couldn’t move, being held in place under the mountain, all but forced to receive the Torah.
This reading, of Israel as the nation that keeps the festivals, is strengthened by the allusions in the text.
The Kli Yakar shows this idea alluding to Pirkei Avot 1:2 –
R’ Shimon Hatzadik, one of the last of the Great Assembly, said: On three things does the world stand – on Torah, on Avodah (divine service), and on Gemilut Chasadim (acts of lovingkindness).
The three festivals correspond to these three ideas: Torah is Shavuot, the Time of Giving the Torah. Avodah is Pesach, when we went from avadim (slaves) of Pharoh to servants (ovdei) of God. And Gemilut Chasadim is Sukkot, the harvest festival; the central commands which tell us how to do acts of lovingkindess focus on the harvest. We give Trumah and Tithes to the Kohanim and Leviim, for their support, and we give Leket, Shikchah and Peiah (dropped stalks, forgotten sheaves, and unharvested corners of the field) to the poor.
We thus see a unitary Torah, which is united with science. Narratives hint at greater ethical and ritual truths through careful Divine word choice. The world is a place where God’s Will, as expressed in the Torah, can be fulfilled, mostly by His chosen people Israel. And just as Torah defines a world which fits God’s Will, science allows us to describe that world and understand its workings.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Psalm 68 Criticism
While learning Shabbat 88b this past Shabbos, my hhevrutha & I came across something puzzling: two different texts for Psalm 68:13. The Gemara reads and explicates the verse as if it referred to "מלאכי צבאות", angels in charge of hosts, while the text in the printed Bibles uniformly reads "מלכי צבאות", kings in charge of hosts. The early translations (Targum, LXX) agree with our text, reading "מלכותא" and "Βασιλεύς" respectively. The Rishonim (early medieval commentators) on the page (Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Metzudot) don't see anything to explain. But the BHS notes, while printing מלכי, that multiple manuscripts read מלאכי.
Why this discrepancy? We don't see language in the Talmud reflecting a conscious choice to misread the word, as we often see (do not read banayich, your sons, but bonayich, your builders) for hermeneutic effect.
Do later commentators deal with this discrepancy?
Why this discrepancy? We don't see language in the Talmud reflecting a conscious choice to misread the word, as we often see (do not read banayich, your sons, but bonayich, your builders) for hermeneutic effect.
Do later commentators deal with this discrepancy?
Monday, May 29, 2006
Tzimtzum Kipeshuto - Heresy?
For some reason, commenting was disabled on RYGB's blog, so I'll post my response here.
RYGB, who hails from Lubavitcher (on his mother's side) and Telsher (on his father's side) backgrounds, notes on his blog (and Avodah) that
1) Tzimtzum K'Peshuto is heretical, or close to it;
2) Chabadniks claim that the Vilna gaon (and Misnagdim in general) held of it, but it doesn't seem credible; and
3) RYGB agrees with R' E.E. Dessler that nobody held of it.
Reading the Vilna Gaon's letter of 11 Tishrei 5557 as brought in Wilensky, "Hasidim uMitnagdim", is inconclusive - it doesn't go into detail about exactly why the Gra disagreed with the Chasidim, although Wilensky postulates that the Gra had preprints of the Tanya to which he referred in his letter.
Allan Nadler, in "The Faith of the Mithnagdim," explains the Gra holding like the Chasidim that the tzimtzum was indeed not kipeshuto, but that one shouldn't teach this idea to the unwashed masses, for fear that they would take it wrong and come to worship the trees and stones.
So what is tzimtzum? See R' Moshe Miller's explanation, and his discussion of the controversy over its interpretation. It seems to be about the only non-Chasidic explanation on the Web And I am not going to explain it more.
The Etz Chaim (R' Chayim Vital's transcription of the Arizal's ideas) says of tzimtzum:
דע כי טרם שנאצלו הנאצלים ונבראו הנבראים היה אור עליון פשוט ממלא כל המציאות ולא היה שום מקום פנוי בבחי' אויר ריקני וחלל אלא הכל היה ממולא מן אור א"ס פשוט ההוא ולא היה לו בחי' ראש ולא בחי' סוף אלא הכל היה אור א' פשוט שוה בהשוואה א' והוא הנק' אור א"ס. וכאשר עלה ברצונו הפשוט לברוא העולמות ולהאציל הנאצלים להוציא לאור שלימות פעולותיו ושמותיו וכנוייו אשר זאת היה סיבה בריאת העולמות כמבואר אצלינו בענף הא' בחקירה הראשונה. והנה אז צמצם את עצמו א"ס בנקודה האמצעית אשר בו באמצע אורו ממש (אמר מאיר בערכינו אמר הרב זה וק"ל) וצמצם האור ההוא ונתרחק אל צדדי סביבות הנקודה האמצעית ואז נשאר מקום פנוי ואויר וחלל רקני מנקודה אמצעית ממש כזה <ציור> והנה הצמצום הזה היה בהשואה א' בסביבות הנקודה האמצעית ריקנית ההוא באופן שמקום החלל ההוא היה עגול מכל סביבותיו בהשוואה גמורה ולא היה בתמונת מרובע בעל זויות נצבת לפי שגם א"ס צמצם עצמו בבחי' עגול בהשוואה א' מכל צדדים והסיבה היתה לפי שכיון שאור הא"ס שוה בהשוואה גמורה הוכרח גם כן שיצמצם עצמו בהשוואה א' מכל הצדדים ולא שיצמצם עצמו מצד א' יותר משאר הצדדים.
See here for translation.
So we see the potential ambiguity, in that the paragraph starts out (Etz Chayim Heichal 1 Shaar 1 Anaf 2) saying that the Or filled all of existence. But then the Ari says that the Infinite One contracted HIMSELF. And repeats the nature of that contraction as perfectly circular (spherical?).
It thus seems to me that the Arizal himself may have held of tzimtzum kipeshuto (of Himself) rather than eino kipeshuto (of His Light). It was apparently a bone of contention among his students. Chabad draws more from the kabbalah of Israel Sarug than from Chaim Vital; see the Sources of Chassidus thread on Chabadtalk.com for more on this. Perhaps this insistence on tzimtzum she'eino kipeshuto comes from Sarugian kabbalah, which appears to talk of a double tzimtzum.
Note that R' Aryeh Kaplan in Innerspace translates this passage in accordance with the Chassidic doctrine that the tzimtzum was in the Light, not in the Infinite Illuminator, but that doesn't agree with the simple reading of the passage above. R' Kaplan was a Breslover, and read Kabbalah through that filter.
The Gra's adherence to Tzimtzum Kipeshuto derives from certain passages in his commentary to Safra DiTzeniyusa; R' Moshe Miller agrees that the Gra held of tzimtzum kipeshuto, others maintain that those passages were inserted by a student, not by the Master.
What are we left with, then?
1) we can't say for sure that the Misnagdim held of tzimtzum kipeshuto;
2) it's hard to maintain, given the Etz Chaim text, that tzimtzum kipeshuto is heretical, if the Arizal, who developed the concept, seems to have held of it himself;
3) if R' Chaim Vital held of it, perhaps others did too.
4) this is all very confusing, and I don't really understand it yet.
RYGB, who hails from Lubavitcher (on his mother's side) and Telsher (on his father's side) backgrounds, notes on his blog (and Avodah) that
1) Tzimtzum K'Peshuto is heretical, or close to it;
2) Chabadniks claim that the Vilna gaon (and Misnagdim in general) held of it, but it doesn't seem credible; and
3) RYGB agrees with R' E.E. Dessler that nobody held of it.
Reading the Vilna Gaon's letter of 11 Tishrei 5557 as brought in Wilensky, "Hasidim uMitnagdim", is inconclusive - it doesn't go into detail about exactly why the Gra disagreed with the Chasidim, although Wilensky postulates that the Gra had preprints of the Tanya to which he referred in his letter.
Allan Nadler, in "The Faith of the Mithnagdim," explains the Gra holding like the Chasidim that the tzimtzum was indeed not kipeshuto, but that one shouldn't teach this idea to the unwashed masses, for fear that they would take it wrong and come to worship the trees and stones.
So what is tzimtzum? See R' Moshe Miller's explanation, and his discussion of the controversy over its interpretation. It seems to be about the only non-Chasidic explanation on the Web And I am not going to explain it more.
The Etz Chaim (R' Chayim Vital's transcription of the Arizal's ideas) says of tzimtzum:
דע כי טרם שנאצלו הנאצלים ונבראו הנבראים היה אור עליון פשוט ממלא כל המציאות ולא היה שום מקום פנוי בבחי' אויר ריקני וחלל אלא הכל היה ממולא מן אור א"ס פשוט ההוא ולא היה לו בחי' ראש ולא בחי' סוף אלא הכל היה אור א' פשוט שוה בהשוואה א' והוא הנק' אור א"ס. וכאשר עלה ברצונו הפשוט לברוא העולמות ולהאציל הנאצלים להוציא לאור שלימות פעולותיו ושמותיו וכנוייו אשר זאת היה סיבה בריאת העולמות כמבואר אצלינו בענף הא' בחקירה הראשונה. והנה אז צמצם את עצמו א"ס בנקודה האמצעית אשר בו באמצע אורו ממש (אמר מאיר בערכינו אמר הרב זה וק"ל) וצמצם האור ההוא ונתרחק אל צדדי סביבות הנקודה האמצעית ואז נשאר מקום פנוי ואויר וחלל רקני מנקודה אמצעית ממש כזה <ציור> והנה הצמצום הזה היה בהשואה א' בסביבות הנקודה האמצעית ריקנית ההוא באופן שמקום החלל ההוא היה עגול מכל סביבותיו בהשוואה גמורה ולא היה בתמונת מרובע בעל זויות נצבת לפי שגם א"ס צמצם עצמו בבחי' עגול בהשוואה א' מכל צדדים והסיבה היתה לפי שכיון שאור הא"ס שוה בהשוואה גמורה הוכרח גם כן שיצמצם עצמו בהשוואה א' מכל הצדדים ולא שיצמצם עצמו מצד א' יותר משאר הצדדים.
See here for translation.
So we see the potential ambiguity, in that the paragraph starts out (Etz Chayim Heichal 1 Shaar 1 Anaf 2) saying that the Or filled all of existence. But then the Ari says that the Infinite One contracted HIMSELF. And repeats the nature of that contraction as perfectly circular (spherical?).
It thus seems to me that the Arizal himself may have held of tzimtzum kipeshuto (of Himself) rather than eino kipeshuto (of His Light). It was apparently a bone of contention among his students. Chabad draws more from the kabbalah of Israel Sarug than from Chaim Vital; see the Sources of Chassidus thread on Chabadtalk.com for more on this. Perhaps this insistence on tzimtzum she'eino kipeshuto comes from Sarugian kabbalah, which appears to talk of a double tzimtzum.
Note that R' Aryeh Kaplan in Innerspace translates this passage in accordance with the Chassidic doctrine that the tzimtzum was in the Light, not in the Infinite Illuminator, but that doesn't agree with the simple reading of the passage above. R' Kaplan was a Breslover, and read Kabbalah through that filter.
The Gra's adherence to Tzimtzum Kipeshuto derives from certain passages in his commentary to Safra DiTzeniyusa; R' Moshe Miller agrees that the Gra held of tzimtzum kipeshuto, others maintain that those passages were inserted by a student, not by the Master.
What are we left with, then?
1) we can't say for sure that the Misnagdim held of tzimtzum kipeshuto;
2) it's hard to maintain, given the Etz Chaim text, that tzimtzum kipeshuto is heretical, if the Arizal, who developed the concept, seems to have held of it himself;
3) if R' Chaim Vital held of it, perhaps others did too.
4) this is all very confusing, and I don't really understand it yet.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Chabad, the Rebbe, and God
Ah rebbe iz atzmus umahus vos hot zich areingeshtelt in a guf
A Rebbe is [Divine] Essence and Existence which has clothed itself in a body.
A Rebbe is [Divine] Essence and Existence which has clothed itself in a body.
This line, from the late Lubavitcher Rebbe's "Likutei Sichos", vol 2 page 509 has become the fulcrum on which Lubavitch-watchers argue about the deification of the Rebbe.
R' Dr. David Berger, Broeklundian Professor of History at Brooklyn College, and author of "The Rebbe, The Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference" has argued that this deification is a strong undercurrent in Chabad.
Reacting to the recent New York State court case between the Agudas Chasidei Chabad (the official governing board of Lubavitch), and the openly Messianist elements who have taken de-facto control of the movement's main synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway, Dr Berger wrote an article in the Jerusalem Post reiterating the position that Chabad's equation between their dead Rebbe and God constitutes idolatry.
From R' Berger's article:
: Many, probably most, hassidim of this sort endorse the theology
: expressed in a 2003 article by [R' Yeshavama Segal], who affirmed that
: "we Lubavitch hassidim believe that Lubavitch is Jerusalem, the House
: of our Rabbi in Babylonia (i.e., 770 Eastern Parkway) is the Temple,
: and the Rebbe is the ark of the covenant standing on the foundation
: stone in which (referring to the Rebbe/ark, not the foundation stone)
: God's Being and Essence rests."
: [R' Segal's article]
: From the perspective of Jewish law, there can be no material difference
: between a church and a synagogue in which congregants worship the divine
: Essence manifested in an invisible human being whom they face during prayer.
This quote from R' Berger highlights what I believe to be the fundamental methodological flaw in his book: he consciously did not study Chabad theology/philosophy before undertaking the book. It seems he has still not undertaken such a study.
R' Segal's article states what I do below, and yet R' Berger seems not to have comprehended it, about the Chabad concepts of the tzimtzum and bitul of the Tzadik. He cites the article; and still the article seems to him to advocate identifying the Rebbe with God h"v? I don't understand his perspective on this.
Perhaps he is responding solely to the phenomenology, of people treating the Rebbe as if he were still alive (which is itself bizarre and, as far as I know, unprecedented), leaving an aisle for him to walk from his seat to the Torah-reading platform, as the "Tzfatim" element in 770 has taken to doing over the past 4 years (v. Melech Jaffe). In conjunction with what he appears to hold, that the rank and file of Chabad hold the late Rebbe to be God incarnate, then yes, his claim would be valid.
However, I don't see that the Chabad masses (hamon am) actually hold that the Rebbe is God. That would be based on a literal misreading of the Rebbe's quote at the head of this essay, one which is not supported by a study of Chabad theology, nor by R' Segal's articles on the Hageula.com website. That a large element at 770 holds that he is not actually dead in the ground is troubling enough, but it is not the same thing.
* * *
R' Segal has another article on the same site, a response to a letter on "Emunateinu baKadosh Baruch Hu", where he explains, at some length, the concept of "atzmus umahus haborei melubash beguf" (Divine Essence and Existence enclothed in a body). R' Segal's letter fails, however, to state the acosmism that underlies Chabad theology. Only if one has some clue about that acosmism or panenetheism, does R' Segal's letter really explain the concept.
To explain the "roshei perakim" (bare outline):
Chabad acosmism: God is One and Unchanging both before and after the Tzimtzum and Creation. The Tzimtzum, far from creating a physical space inside Hashem (as the Ari writes plainly in the Etz Chayim), was a spiritual restriction, a veiling, as it were, of the Infinite Light so that the created world could stand it without perishing. Then the world was created after the tzimtzum. However, since God is no different after the Creation than He was before, and since He is the sole Unity, it follows that the world has no separate physical existence. Rather, the world is in some way a part of God. I am part of God, you are part of God, the trees and rocks are parts of God, the PC is part of God, etc. That is the reality of the Universe from God's perspective. It is only from our perspective that we imagine the rock to have physical existence, that I have physical existence, that the PC has physical existence.
This is symbolized by the verse "Hashem is God, there is none besides."
* * *
The Tzaddik: For the Tanya, the rasha is one who sins at all, the beinoni is one who does not sin at all, but fights his yetzer hara about it, and the tzaddik is one who has transcended the desire for sin, so that his yetzer hara no longer bothers him. When the tzaddik has become a tzaddik, his will is entirely shaped by Torah, which is the expression of God's Will in the world. Conversely, then, anything which he wills to do is an expression of God's Will. This is the meaning of "Tzaddik gozer" - that the Tzaddik decrees something and God does it. Not that the tzaddik can "force" God to do anything, God-forbid, but that what the Tzaddik wills is a pure reflection of what God Wills.
* * *
R' Segal in the "Emunateinu" letter: He bases this on a Zohar which says "3 times a year every male shall appear before the face of the Master, Hashem - who is the Master? R' Shimon bar Yochai!"
This is not to say that Hashem has a limited body, H"V, rather, that Rashb"i was so purified that his body was nullifed to, and unified with, the Essence and Existence of Hashem.
So too will Hashem's Essence be revealed in the physical world in the future, as it says "vehayah H' l'melech al col haaretz..."
Thus the Rebbe's body was so purified that it was nullified to, and unified with, the Essence of Hashem.
* * *
Finally, my synthetic understanding: the Tzaddik/Rebbe, who has made his will congruent to, and nullified to, Hashem's Will, is thus the purest expression of God in this universe. It is as if the veils of the tzimtzum were thinned out in his presence so that one could perceive the true Godliness peeking through. So it's not that the Rebbe was *more* God than anyone else, it's that he was *just as much God* as everyone else, but in his case, one who was sufficiently attuned could *perceive* that Essence of God in the Rebbe in the physical universe.
* * *
Now, the Vilna Gaon, in his famous letter quoted in, e.g., E.J. Schochet's book on the arguments with the Chasidim, worried that the Chasidim, by positing that one can perceive the Godliness in the physical universe, would wind up worshiping the twigs and stones. It seems a very simple misreading of this rather difficult concept could easily lead to such worship of physical objects. It seems that some few, perhaps in Kfar Chabad, have in fact made this theological jump, ignoring the real Chassidic theology that explains it away.
I can sympathize with the Vilna Gaon's problems - in the hands of the uneducated, this theology could lead to avodah zarah. I asked R' A. Brill about the possibility of antinomian tension in Chabad acosmism, that since we are all part of God, wouldn't anything we did, even against the Torah, be a part of God's Will? He responded, "they were Yidden, their whole lives were Torah & mitzvot, such ideas wouldn't have occurred to them." The same would seem to apply to the idea of deifying a man. Today, however, when many/most Chabadniks come from the non-frum world, it seems almost a miracle that there isn't more Rebbe-God equation.
If one simply addresses the phenomenon of treating a physical person as a piece of God, yes, it can be understood as idolatrous, as we regard the Catholic practice of Host Adoration - worshipping a cracker as a piece of god, genuflecting before it, etc. However, do we not owe the Chabadniks some measure of good faith, of caf zchus, to investigate their theology and ascertain whether or not they really are doing something heretical?
To the Chassidim (especially Chassidei Chabad) out there: am I understanding this correctly?
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Kol Korei Bamidbar Panu Derech
RYGB has noted that the common phrase for a pashkeville, "kol korei", is a misnomer, probably based on the KJV. It's take as "A voice cries in the wilderness: Pave a road", while the te'amim seem to indicate that it should be, "kol korei: bamidbar panu derech" A voice cries: pave a road in the wilderness.
Enough serious stuff, here's a Purim Pashkeville, responding to the OU's call for moderation in drinking.
The author prefers to remain anonymous (it's not me).
Enough serious stuff, here's a Purim Pashkeville, responding to the OU's call for moderation in drinking.
The author prefers to remain anonymous (it's not me).
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Orthodoxy Test
Gil at Hirhurim posted his result on taking LamedZayin's Orthodoxy test. So I took it, and yes, it's a pretty accurate assessment - verified by my wife.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Chanukah charol
Since Lipman posted his "Chnukke Song", I thought I'd post my wife Debbie's take on the song:
I'm dreaming of a frum Xmas
Just like the ones in Boro Park
Where sheitls glisten
And children listen
To tales of sages long ago
I'm dreaming of a frum Xmas
Ignoring Santa if he comes
May your days be merry, not glum
and may all your Xmases be frum.
(c) 1995 Debra Baker and Nightroads Associates
For other Chanukkah songs, see Lisa Liel's rather militaristic parodies,
and a few others in a thread from soc.culture.jewish.moderated newsgroup.
I'm dreaming of a frum Xmas
Just like the ones in Boro Park
Where sheitls glisten
And children listen
To tales of sages long ago
I'm dreaming of a frum Xmas
Ignoring Santa if he comes
May your days be merry, not glum
and may all your Xmases be frum.
(c) 1995 Debra Baker and Nightroads Associates
For other Chanukkah songs, see Lisa Liel's rather militaristic parodies,
and a few others in a thread from soc.culture.jewish.moderated newsgroup.
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