The Conundrum

I have a friend, a brilliant intellectual, who does not suffer fools lightly. From time to time I invite him to Synagogue and he reminds me that he does not have much tolerance for those who make too much of ritual and pay little heed to its underlying philosophy.

Ritual without meaning saps our spirit. The soul cannot flourish in a straitjacket; it longs for enrichment and meaning. Mindless repetition of ancient traditions is a banal exercise that leaves the soul feeling numb. It is no wonder that such souls come of age with little love for ritual and opt instead for a more spiritual and philosophical approach to religion.

Many are the Jews that have dispensed with ritual and embraced an entirely philosophical approach. There is an allure to the pursuit of knowledge that lifts one beyond the prosaic concerns of here and now; the mystique nurtures the spirit and stirs the passion by endowing life with meaning. The problem is that this non ritual approach is also without staying power because passion without concrete expression is not lasting. This approach rarely survives past three generations; the grandchildren either dispense with religion completely or opt for a more ritualized form.

Ritual without passion fails to thrive, but passion without ritual fails to survive; what to do?

The Politics of Science

I think we can take a lesson from the politics of science. If there were one area that one would hope is without politics it is science. Sadly, this bastion also suffers from the ailment of politics; it is the politics of money.

The scientific community is generally divided into two groups; academia and industry. The academic is driven by the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake; it strives to preserve the purity of science. Scientists employed by pharmaceutical and other industry view science through the prism of its application. They seek to apply knowledge in the way that most benefits society. It is no secret that industry’s motive is financial, but it can hardly profit without bettering the lot of society.

The tension between the two communities lies in its agenda. The academic charges that the private scientist has sold his integrity to the almighty dollar by trying to turn a profit. His interests lie only in subjects with financial prospect; he no longer pursues knowledge for its own sake. The pharmaceutical scientist points out that knowledge without concretized application is of no merit; no public or private agency would award a grant to fund scientific study that is without utilitarian value. The purity of scientific inquiry is laudable in the ivory tower, but in the real world such passion must be given concrete application to survive.

Both points are valid. Academic scientists are only funded when their findings can improve our lot and industry scientists can only be certain of their findings when they are corroborated by those who broaden the search and preserve its integrity by seeking knowledge for its own sake.

Just like our earlier conundrum about ritual and passion; Industry without academia would fail to thrive, but academia without industry would fail to survive. The system requires a combined effort to move forward with success.

We now return to ritual and passion. Ritual and passion are like short blankets, one covering the head, the other, the feet. Opting for either leaves the other end exposed. But we need not select one over the other; we could opt for both. We can enrich the observance of ritual by suffusing it with its underpinning philosophy and we can give concrete application to our philosophy through observing the rituals that express it. This way both sides are covered; the ritual secures our observance so that Judaism can survive, the philosophy nurtures our soul so that Judaism can thrive.

Children raised in this environment learn to love the ritual as much as its philosophy. It touches their soul, inspires their emotions and unleashes their inner core. These children can embrace Judaism to its fullest and are perfectly positioned to achieve continuity. (1)

Build Me A Sanctuary

The last two portions of the book of Exodus discuss the building of the tabernacle. First the Torah describes the building of the tabernacle’s outer shell; its roof and walls. Then the Torah describes the fashioning of the ark, show-table, candelabra and altars. Then the Torah describes the sewing of the priestly vestments. Then the actual assembly of the tabernacle, then the order in which the vessels were brought into the tabernacle and finally the Torah describes the priests as they donned their vestments.

At no point in the narrative does the Torah pause to inform us that these items were sacred or endowed with a Divine aura. It is only after the tabernacle was assembled, the vessels put in place and the vestments worn by the priests in the service of G-d that the Torah informs us of the Divine glory that filled the tabernacle. This is because vessels without vestments just as vestments without vessels can not be used in the service of G-d. To serve G-d we must fulfill every aspect of the commandment and only then are we true servants.

Rituals garb our religious sentiment in practices that express inner beauty just like the priestly vestments gave expression to the nobility of the priesthood; the vestments thus serve as a metaphor for the ritual. The vessels serve as metaphors for the philosophy; the ornate vessels gave meaning and depth to the tabernacle just like our quest for meaning and understanding enriches our otherwise empty ritual.

Ritual and philosophy are wings and just like a bird cannot fly with a single wing so can neither ritual nor philosophy carry us aloft and bind us to G-d. But taken together, the ritual underscored by its philosophy and the philosophy expressed through ritual, the two bind the Jew to G-d.

When the vestments met the vessels in the service of G-d, then “A cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of G-d filled the tabernacle.” (2) It is only through the convergence of vestments and vessels, outer ritual and inner meaning that we truly reach beyond ourselves and connect with G-d. This brings out the innate grandeur of our soul, the towering spirit of our core and the existential bond that we share with G-d. This form of religion is enduring; it not only survives, it also thrives. (3)

Footnotes

1. There is no magic pill that ensures continuity; it all depends on the child’s nature, the family’s dynamics and the circumstances of life. This approach to Judaism, however, adopts the strong points of ritual and passion giving parents a chance to put their best foot forward. In the end success is in G-d’s hands. We can only do our best and then we can pray.
2. Exodus 40:34
3. This essay is based on a talk given by, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe OBM,  on March 11, 1961.

Four Reviews

Our sages taught before appearing at Sinai, G-d reviewed the Ten Commandments four times. (1) What is the significance of these four reviews and what can we learn from them?

Four Stages in Idea Development

1. In the process of preparing for a lecture we tend to review our ideas on four basic levels. The first is purely cerebral; it is our knowledge of the core idea and its attendant questions, contradictions, resolutions, analyses and applications. When we reflect on the ideas at this core level we hardly formulate them into words. Instead, we scan the raw intellectual information and though we must formulate our ideas in some fashion even on this level, the cerebral words that we use are totally transparent to the ideas that they convey. We are barely cognizant of them; our focus is entirely on the ideas.
2. We then move to the point of self articulation. At this point we move beyond scanning the inner core of the ideas to articulating each aspect of the thesis. We articulate the ideas in our own minds exploring each element and layer, spelling out each question and answer and reviewing each application and consequence. At this level we distill the ideas into words. We are actually teaching ourselves; translating the concepts into structured sentences and laying them out in orderly fashion. At this point, our minds become orators, speaking to a most captive audience, ourselves. Letters and words become very much apparent at this point, but still the focus is primarily on the ideas that they convey. One manifestation of the word’s subservience at this point is that the idea can still be formulated in any number of words and sentences. This is because we are focused on the idea; the words serve merely as conveyors.
3. From here we move to the third level - that of transmuting our mental notes into prepared lectures. At this point we are more concerned with the organization of ideas, structure of argument and selection of phraseology than we are with analyses and comprehension. We have moved from exploration of the thesis to its presentation and accordingly seek words that best express its subtlety and distill its complexities. To be sure, we are still concerned with the conveyance of ideas, but our primary focus shifts from the ideas to the words that convey them. This is a paradigm shift; from self to others, from clarity of understanding to clarity of communication. To accomplish this we must move from principles and ideas to sentence and syntax.
4. We now arrive at the fourth and final stage; the actual oration. Standing at the lectern and facing the audience, our minds take a quantum leap outwards. No longer are we thinking of core ideas, comprehension, articulation, organization or even syntax; we are now focused on delivering our lecture with clarity. We strive to communicate and to be understood and to that end we focus almost exclusively on words; the vehicles that carry our thoughts to the audience. At this point, master orators reserve no mind space for ideas. They are consumed almost entirely with their prepared remarks. They focus on proper pronunciation and inflection, all the while feeling out their audience for the most convincing style and persuasive approach.

The Role of The Letter

When we consider these four stages and the evolution of letters from wholly transparent to wholly dominant, we realize that letters, despite being the most important vehicle of communication, are completely subservient and even redundant to the ideas that they convey. In fact, even the audience, who receives the ideas entirely through the vehicle of words, will not require those words one they grasp the essence of the ideas. They will begin by replacing the phrases selected by the orator with ones more palatable to their own style of thought. They will then mature along the intellectual curve till they internalize the teaching on the cerebral level and dispense with the letters completely.

What happens to the letters at that point? Where are they stored? The answer is that they are not stored at all. The properties of shape and sound that ideas take on when they are communicated to others, fade away (metamorphose or coalesce into their ideas) when we think for ourselves. We do not consciously discard them; we simply mature in our thinking till we find ourselves addressing the concepts themselves rather than its letters. At first the letters become transparent to the ideas and then, as their transparency increases, their independent presence decreases, till they merge completely with the concepts that they convey.

The Jew at Sinai

We can now appreciate the lesson derived from the four reviews that G-d undertook at Sinai. By conveying the four stages of preparation G-d illustrated the relation of the letter to the idea, which serves as a metaphor for the relation of creation to its Creator. Just as the letter seems to stand for itself, nearly eclipsing the idea it is meant to convey, so do we, created human beings, appear to be separate entities, completely independent from our creator.

But just as the letter becomes subservient and absorbed within the idea as we mature along the intellectual curve, so do we. As we absorb the Torah and internalize its patterns of Divine thought, we recognize the truth of our existence as mere extensions of the Creator. The rate at which our sense of independence decreases is commensurate with the rate at which our consciousness of G-d increases. We mature along this spiritual curve until we can hardly distinguish between Creator and creation; at this point we coalesce into the Divine beings that, at essence, we truly are.

The dawning of this realization was achieved at Sinai. The culmination of this realization awaits us with the coming of Moshiach. May it happen speedily in our days, Amen. (2)

Footnotes

1. Shemos Rabbah ch. 40. This is based on the following verse from Job 28: 27, “He saw and told, prepared and also researched and [then] spoke to man.”\
2. This essay is largely based on the Chassidic discourse, Basi Legani, 5730.

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