Yom ha'Kippurim 5777: On Being Human

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Artwork: (Unknown Zendikar Art)

Yom ha'Kippurim 5777: On Being Human

There is a passage from Richard Mitchell's The Gift of Fire that I think about going into Yom ha'Kippurim. Here is the excerpt in its entirety:

Chapter 1: "Who is Socrates, now that we need him?" 

I imagine some well-informed and largely wise visitor from another world who comes to Earth to study us. He begins by choosing two people at random, and, since time and place are of no importance to him, but only the single fact of humanity, he chooses Socrates and me, leaving aside for the moment every other human being. He begins with an understanding of the single but tremendous attribute that distinguishes us both from all other creatures of Earth. We are capable of Reason. Capable. We can know ourselves, unlike the foxes and the oaks, and can know that we know ourselves. He knows that while we have appetites and urges just like all the other creatures, we have the astonishing power of seeing them not simply as the necessary attributes of what we are, but as separate from us in a strange way, so that we can hold them at arm's length, turning them this way and that, and make judgment of them, and even put them aside, saying, Yes, that is "me," in a way, but, when I choose, it is just a thing, not truly me, but only mine. He sees, in short, what "human" means in "human beings."

And then he considers the specimens he has chosen, Socrates and me. He measures that degree to which they conform to what "human" means in "human beings." With those superior extraterrestrial powers that imagination grants him, he will easily discover:

That I have notions, certain "sayings" in my mind, that flatly contradict one another; believing, for instance, that I can choose for myself the path of my life while blaming other people for the difficulty of the path. With Socrates, this is not the case.

That my mind is full of ideas that are truly nothing more than words, and that as to the meaning of the words I have no clear and constant idea, behaving today as though "justice" were one thing, and tomorrow as though it were another. That, while wanting to be happy and good, I have no clear ideas by which I might distinguish, or might even want to distinguish, happiness from pleasure, and goodness from social acceptability. With Socrates, this is not the case.

That I usually believe what I believe not because I have tested and found it coherent and consistent, and harmonious with evidence, but because it is also believed by the right people, people like me, and because it pleases me. And that furthermore, I live and act and speak as though my believing were no different from my knowing. With Socrates, this is not the case.

That I put myself forth as one who can direct and govern the minds, the inner lives, of others, that, in fact, I make my living as one who can do that, but that my own actions are governed, more often than not, by desire or whim. With Socrates, this is not the case.

That I seem to have a great need for things, and think myself somehow treated unjustly by an insufficiency of them, and that this insufficiency, which seems strangely to persist even after I get hold of the thing whose necessity I have most recently noted, prevents in me that cheerful and temperate disposition to which I deem myself entitled. With Socrates, this is not the case.

That I seem to know what I want, but that I have no way of figuring out whether I should want what I want, and that, indeed, it does not occur to me that I should be able to figure that out. With Socrates, this is not the case.

And that, in short and in general, my mind, the thing that most makes us human, is not doing the steering of this life, but is usually being hustled along on a wild ride by the disorderly and conflicting commands of whole hosts of notions, appetites, hopes, and fears. With Socrates, this is not the case.

How could the alien enquirer help concluding that there is something "wrong" with me, and that the humanness that is indeed in me has been somehow "broken," which he can clearly see by comparing me with Socrates? Must he not decide that Socrates is the normal human, and I the freak, the distortion of human nature?

When he pronounces me the freak, and Socrates the perfectly ordinary, normal human being, living quite obviously, as perhaps only an "alien" can see, by the power of that which most makes a human a human, shall I defend myself by appeal to the principle of majority rule? Shall I say: Well, after all, Socrates is only one human being, and all the others are more like me. Would I not prove myself all the more the freak by my dependence on such a preposterously irrelevant principle? If that visitor were rude, he might well point out that my ability to see, on the one hand, what is natural to human beings, and to claim, on the other, that its absence is only natural, and thus normal, is just the sort of reasoning that he would expect of a freak, whose very freakishness is seen in his inability to do what is simply natural to his species -- that is, to make sense.

But Socrates would defend me. He would say, for this he said very often:

No, my young friend is not truly a freak. All that I can do, he can do; he just doesn't do it. And if he doesn't do it, it is because of something else that is natural to human beings, and just as human as the powers that you rightly find human in me. Before we awaken, we must sleep, and some of us sleep deeper and longer than others. It may be, that unless we are awakened by some help from other human beings, we sleep our lives away, and never come into those powers. But we can be awakened.

In that respect, my friend is not a freak. He might better be thought a sleepwalker, moving about in the world, and getting all sorts of things done, often on time, and sometimes very effectively indeed. But the very power of routine habit by which he can do all that has become the only government that he knows. And the voices of his desires are loud. He is just now not in a condition to give his full attention to any meaning that might be found in all that he does, or to consider carefully how to distinguish between the better and the worse. He might be thought a child, and a perfectly natural child, who lives still in that curious, glorious haze of youth, when only desire seems worthy of obedience, and when the mighty fact of the world that is so very "there" looms immeasurably larger than the fact of the self that is in that world. He might grow up, and it is the "mightness" in him that makes him truly human, however he may look like a freak just now. From time to time, we are all just such freaks, and mindless, for mindlessness is the great background of noise out of which some few certain sounds can be brought forth and harmonized as music.

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Although Mitchell's words stand on their own, I find that I associate them to a statement from Chazal, which the Rambam brings down in Hilchos Beis ha'Bechirah 2:2:

There is a unanimous tradition that the place on which David and Shlomo built the Altar, the threshing floor of Arnan, is the location where Abraham built the Altar on which he prepared Yitzchak for sacrifice. Noach built [an altar] on that location when he left the ark. It was also [the place] of the Altar on which Kayin and Hevel brought sacrifices.[Similarly,] Adam, the first man, offered a sacrifice there and was created at that very spot, as our Sages said: "Man was created from the place of his atonement" ("Adam mi'makom kaparaso nivra").

Cheit (sin) is unavoidable. Shlomo ha'Melech said: "There is no [entirely] righteous man on earth who does [only] good and does not sin" (Koheles 7:20). Alexander Pope said: "To err is human." However, even though it is natural to sin, this doesn't mean that to sin is our nature.

This, I believe, is what Mitchell was getting at, and what Chazal were alluding to when they said that man was created from the place of his kaparah. Judaism does not entertain fanciful notions of "saints." The cycles of cheit and teshuvah, avon and kaparah, regression and development, are part of what it means to be human. Our struggle to overcome our natural inclinations to live in line with our true nature is by design.

In this sense, it is a mistake to view cheit as an utter failure. Instead, cheit should be viewed as an opportunity for self-knowledge and development. I believe that this shift in our perspective of cheit is essential in order to have a Yom ha'Kippurim that is a "fresh start" day of growth rather than a "dead end" day of guilt and self-castigation.

"I am only human." This argument is, at the same time, our greatest defense, but also our greatest liability - depending on what we mean when we invoke it. And what better time to contemplate that meaning than Yom ha'Kippurim, when we stand before the Creator and beseech Him to help us live as He designed us to live.

May we all attain kaparah this Yom ha'Kippurim and arrive at a truer relationship with our own humanity.

Ralbag: On Akeidas Yitzchak (The Binding of Isaac)

In accordance with (what is apparently) my custom to hurriedly churn out a blog post on the eve of a holiday, mere hours before its onset, I present to you this post on Akeidas Yitzchak. I also urge you to re-read last year's post on Yom ha'Din and Yom Teruah, and ponder the connection between the two.

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Artwork: Nyx-fleece Ram, by Terese Nielsen

Ralbag: On Akeidas Yitzchak (Binding of Isaac)

Disclaimer: Ralbag's Radical Views

The Ralbag has several views which radically diverge from "mainstream Jewish thought," and which some - most notably, the Rambam - might consider to be heretical. Two of these views show up in the Ralbag's treatment of the Akeidah. 

The first of these radical views has to do with God's Omniscience. In short, the Ralbag holds that God does not have foreknowledge of free will decisions made by human beings.  As one can imagine, this premise has a drastic effect on the Ralbag's reading of Akeidas Yitzchak. Unlike the other meforshim, who are confronted with the question of what it means for Hashem to "test" Avraham Avinu, the Ralbag maintains that the Akeidah was an actual test: Hashem did not know what Avraham would do when confronted with such a commandment, and the only way for Him to find out was to actually issue the command. 

The second radical view involves the difference between the nevuah (prophecy) of Moshe Rabbeinu, and the nevuah of other neviim. I am not too familiar with the details of the Ralbag's view here. Suffice it to say, it appears he holds that Avraham received nevuah in the form of words - not merely visions - and that these words were somewhat ambiguous. Not only that, but the Ralbag learns that Avraham was able to receive nevuah while awake and fully conscious. According to my understanding, the Rambam would vehemently disagree on all three scores, and would say that a navi like Avraham would receive his nevuah in the form of images, and that the meaning of these images would be 100% clear, and that this nevuah would occur while the navi was asleep or in a trance. 

I do not plan on taking up these disagreements between the Ralbag and the other Rishonim in this blog post. This is not the place for such an inquiry, and even if it were, I would not be qualified to conduct it. I am only pointing these things out because I want to make several things clear at the outset: (a) the Ralbag differs in a major way on these major issues, (b) the fact that I write about his views without critiquing them should not be interpreted as an endorsement; (c) do not expect me to assess these views at the present time; and (d) for the purposes of this blog post, we will be working within the Ralbag's premises in order to understand what he holds the Akeidah teaches us.

Having said that, let us now begin.

Avraham's Test

Ralbag begins his commentary with an explanation of the nisayon (test):

The substance of the nisayon - according to my opinion - is that the nevuah came to him in an ambiguous language, namely, that Hashem said to him regarding Yitzchak, "ve'ha'aleihu sham l'olah." 

It is possible for this statement to be understood to mean that he should slaughter [Yitzchak] and make him into an olah (burnt offering) OR that he should "bring him up there" (yaaleihu) to do an olah, in order to educate Yitzchak in avodas Hashem (the service of Hashem). 

Hashem tested him [to see] whether it would be difficult in his eyes to do anything that Hashem commanded him, to the point where he would understand this statement to be other than its straightforward meaning - namely, that he would understand from it that he should bring another olah, rather than sacrifice his son.

In other words, according to the Ralbag, Avraham was deliberately given an ambiguous nevuah: "ha'aleihu sham l'olah." The straightforward meaning of the nevuah was "slaughter your son as a korban olah." If Avraham truly loved Hashem, He would take the commandment at face value, and be willing to sacrifice his precious son, despite the difficulty of the task.

But if his attachment to his son were stronger than his love of Hashem, he would look for a different way to interpret Hashem's instructions, and would end up forcing the reading of "bring your son up onto a mountain to teach him how to bring a korban olah." 

[As an aside, the Ralbag raises the classic question: How could Avraham think that Hashem would command him to slaughter his only son, after promising that Yitzchak would be the source of his progeny? Ralbag answers that since Hashem's promises only come true if the recipients are on the level to merit them, Avraham figured that Yitzchak must have sinned in such a way that he was no longer worthy of this promise being carried out through him.] 

Lo and behold, Avraham passed the test. Not only did he interpret the nevuah according to its straightforward meaning, but he fulfilled the mitzvah with zeal, joy, and alacrity. He got up early in the morning, saddled his own donkey, prepared the wood for the olah, and set out to fulfill the will of his Creator. And when the moment came to slaughter his beloved son, he wasn't plagued with despair and suffering. To the contrary, he was ready to perform the mitzvah with love and gladness - even to the point where he was able to receive the nevuah of the malach (angel) calling out to stop him, while he was awake, which would have been impossible had he been sad, despondent, or in pain.

That, in short, is the Ralbag's account of the Akeidah. Are there questions and problems that remain unanswered? Yes. But this sums up the crux of the sipur (narrative) according to his reading.

The Relevance of the Akeidah for Us

The Akeidah takes on a central role on the day of Rosh ha'Shanah. In addition to reading the Akeidah for the krias ha'Torah (Torah reading) on the second day, we also make repeated references to the Akeidah throughout our tefilos (prayers). One of the most prominent references to the Akeidah can be found at the forefront of the Zichronos (Remembrances) section of the Mussaf prayer:

Remember for us, Hashem, our God, the coveneant, the kindness, and the oath that You swore to our father Avraham on Mount Moriah. Let there appear before You the Akeidah when Avraham, our father, bound Yitzchak, his son, upon the altar and he suppressed his mercy to do Your will wholeheartedly. Therefore, may Your mercy suppress Your anger from upon us, and in Your great good may Your burning anger withdraw from Your people, from Your city, and from Your heritage ... For it is You Who eternally remembers all forgotten things, and there is no forgetfulness before Your Throne of Glory, and may You mercifully remember today the Akeidah of Yitzchak for the sake of his offspring. Blessed are You, Hashem, Who remembers the covenant.

The question is: Why do we recall the Akeidah in pleading for mercy before Hashem? There are many events throughout Torah which we could recall in petitioning Hashem to have mercy. What makes the Akeidah special? 

I would like to offer an answer based on the Ralbag's explanation above. At best, this is a true explanation. But if I am wrong, then this will at least be a useful drush. 

According to the Ralbag, Avraham's essential test was whether he would understand and accept the dvar Hashem (word of God) at face value, or whether he would twist it and reinterpret it to bring it in line with his own desires. This, I submit, is the test we face every day in our relationship with Hashem by our adherence to Torah and mitzvos.

We were given the dvar Hashem at Sinai, as we emphasize at the beginning of the Shofros section:

You were revealed in Your cloud of glory to Your holy people to speak with them. From the heavens You made them hear Your voice and revealed Yourself to them in thick clouds of purity. Moreover, the entire universe shuddered before You and the creatures of creation trembled before You during Your revelation, our King, on Mount Sinai to teach Your people Torah and mitzvos. You made them hear the majesty of Your voice and Your holy utterances from fiery flames. 

Like Avraham, we are called upon by the Torah to obey commandments which run contrary to our desires (usually due to our own imperfections). In some cases the Torah merely pushes us slightly beyond our comfort zone, causing us to experience mild frustration, inconvenience, and unpleasantness. In other cases the Torah's demands cause us to recoil with distaste, anger, frustration, revulsion, or horror. And occasionally, the Torah brings us to the very edge, prompting us to confront those aspects of reality - of the world or ourselves - that fill us with absolute dread and terror. It is only through these "skillful frustrations" that we truly grow, but that fact doesn't mitigate the conflict they generate

Like the ambiguous nevuah received by Avraham, the Torah of Moshe is subject to many interpretations - and consequently, many distortions. And, like Avraham, we can choose to flee rather than submit to Hashem. If we so choose, we can warp the dvar Hashem in accordance with our own preconceived notions and values; we can pick and choose within the halachic system to suit our subjective preferences; we can hastily dismiss, deny, or delegitimize those parts of Torah that do not accord with our sensibilities, without conducting an intellectually honest investigation to see whether our understanding is deficient; or we can cope with the cognitive dissonance in the easy way - by violating the dvar Hashem, whether unintentionally, intentionally, or rebelliously, in a particular or with regards to the system as a whole.

By recalling the Akeidah in our tefilos, we are affirming our recognition of this fundamental human choice: will we bend reality to suit our desires, or will we subdue our desires in order to align ourselves with reality? This is the lesson we were taught by Avraham Avinu when he was put to this test in the ultimate way. Most of us would not be able to pass the test that he underwent, but we recognize the correctness of his decision and we strive to live in accordance with his derech to the extent that we can. 

And it is on that basis that we ask Hashem for mercy. We stand before Him and say: "Hashem - we know that we have committed countless errors and sins, and that by our actions alone, we are not worthy of escaping Your anger. But we are Your people, the children of Your covenant, the children of Avraham, Your beloved, to Whom You swore on Mount Moriah - the offspring of Yitzchak, Your akeidah, who was bound on Your altar. We identify with the derech set forth by our patriarch who passed this ultimate test which we have failed, time and again. We aspire to follow in his footsteps because we see with absolute clarity the uprightness of his path at that fateful event. In light of this recognition and longing on our part, please grant us mercy!" 

In other words, it is because the nisayon of Akeidas Yitzchak encompasses kol ha'Torah kulah (all of Torah in its entirety) that we are able to use it as the basis for beseeching Hashem to forgive us for all of our sins. The Akeidah represents the core of zechus Avraham, and by recalling it, we can tap into that zechus and can change the decree. 

May we all merit the rachamim of the Kadosh Baruch Hu this year, and follow in the footsteps of Avraham Avinu!