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Friday, August 12, 2022

Tishah b'Av 5782: Kinnah #28 - Eich Enacheim? (How Can I Be Consoled?)

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Artwork: Rise of Extus, by Wylie Beckert

Tishah b'Av 5782: Kinnah #28 - Eich Enacheim? (How Can I Be Consoled?)

Preface: I'm posting this on Tu b'Av, which is Erev Shabbos Nachamu. Some readers might be "Tishah b'Aved out" by this time, or think to themselves, "I'll save this for Tishah b'Av next year." In my opinion, this would be a mistake. This article is as much about Shabbas Nachamu as it is about Tishah b'Av itself. Read it, and you'll see why.

Kinnah #28 and the Major Questions

The following is an English rendition of Kinnah #28: Eich Enacheim? (How Can I Be Consoled?), based primarily on the Koren and Artscroll translations with a few minor tweaks of my own:

“How can you console me with nothingness” (Iyov 21:34)

when my harp has turned to grief?
In the land of my heritage, an oppressive yoke weighs heavy upon me.

How can I be consoled?

On this day, every year, time changes for me [for the worst].
Behold! I am anguished and abandoned for more than a thousand years.

How can I be consoled?

Fury has triumphed, the Ark has been interred,
disaster has struck twice because of those who defiantly rebelled.

How can I be consoled?

My dwelling is in ruins and my flock is captured,
and the once populous Oholivah (Jerusalem) now sits alone.

How can I be consoled?

The lion [Nevuchadnetzar] arose from his dense brush upon Ariel [the Temple] to strangle it,
and banished from His Tabernacle His meal-offering and His libation.

How can I be consoled?

He killed multitudes of those anointed with oil,
young blossoming kohanim, eighty thousand.

How can I be consoled?

He attacked them from behind like a snake causing [their blood]

to flow in the courtyard of the Temple,
Arioch (i.e. Nevuzaradan) and the lion (Nevuchadnetzar)
[stood] over the blood of the kohen and prophet (Zechariah).

How can I be consoled?

He plowed into a wasteland that city, once filled with multitudes,
with houses for scribes and scholars [numbering] more than four hundred.

How can I be consoled?

Media (Persia) flew swiftly to destroy my dear ones;
she dominated my precious [Temple] as I tore my garments.

How can I be consoled?

She took counsel [with Haman] to strangle the prancing lion cub,
with one bite to tear asunder elder, aged, infant, and nursing babe.

How can I be consoled?

The third [kingdom, Greece,] weighed heavily upon His sacred firstborn,
like a deafening tempest, to devastate it.

How can I be consoled?

[Greece] pressed hard to divide the sons of the smooth-skinned one [Jacob]
from the Apportioner, [saying] “You have no share in the fiery living God.”

How can I be consoled?

Edom [the fourth kingdom] rebelled, she of the red lentils,
and defiantly rushed to destroy throne and footstool.

How can I be consoled?

Allied with Edom were Moav and Ammon,
to eradicate the Torah and demolish the palace.

How can I be consoled?

He trampled all my heroes and all the flocks of my comrades;
All my warriors were vanquished in full view of all who passed me by.

How can I be consoled?

My spirit is exhausted by all the killers, by the number of murder victims
crying lovingly like a deer and slaughtered for Your sake.

How can I be consoled?

They were horrified on the day of battle, in the east and in the west,
[when] the [flowing] blood of congregation and great nation intermingled.

How can I be consoled?

Calamities upon calamities, each one more tragic than the other,
great and mighty, of long and not short duration.

How can I be consoled?

They fastened their shields, girded their spears,
gathered their troops, and made long furrows.

How can I be consoled?

My groans are many, and my laments are mighty,
my moanings are abundant, and You, Hashem, how long?

How can I be consoled?

You heard their insults, how they defamed me with their lips;
sitting or standing, I was the butt of their gibes.

How can I be consoled?

[They said:] “Where is your hope? What are you doing here?
His fury has been aroused [against you], and there is no more cure.”

How can I be consoled?

“Your responses remain a betrayal!” (Iyov 21:34) the worshipers of Baal taunt me.
“Until He looks down and takes notice” (Eichah 3:50) from above,
“He lowers to the grave and raises up” (I Shmuel 2:6).

And then I will be consoled.

Unlike the kinnos which focus on specific eras and episodes in Jewish history, Kinnah #28 spans the duration of all four exiles – from Churban Bayis Rishon and Galus Bavel through Churban Bayis Sheini into the Galus Edom of today. At first glance, the refrain of “eich enacheim?” (“How can I be consoled?”) seems to be a response to the litany of calamities that transpired over the course of Jewish history. But as we shall see, there is more to this kinnah than meets the eye.

The theme of Kinnah #28 is clear: our inability to receive nechamah (consolation). There are two major questions: (1) Why does the speaker believe that nechamah is impossible? (2) What accounts for the change at the very end: “and then I will be consoled”? In other words, if the severity of these tzaros (catastrophes) was such that nechamah seemed impossible, how did the speaker ultimately become convinced that it is possible? And since we ultimately see that nechamah is possible, what was the cause of the initial mistaken belief that nechamah was not possible?

Iyov Chapter 21 as Context

Our first clue emerges from the Scriptural foundation of the entire kinnah. The first stanza opens with a phrase from a pasuk in Iyov: “How can you console me with nothingness?” (Iyov 21:34). The last stanza begins with the second half of that same pasuk: “Your responses remain a betrayal!” (ibid.). The author of the kinnah took this pasuk from Iyov, broke it in half, and used each half to bookend his lamentation. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the nechamah in the refrain of “eich enacheim?” is a reference to the type of nechamah that was given to Iyov, which he found wanting. In order to understand the kinnah, we need to understand Iyov’s statement in context.

Here is a translation of Iyov Chapter 21, which concludes with our pasuk:

Then Job spoke up and said: Listen carefully to my word, and let this be your consolation [for me]. Bear with me and I will speak; after I have spoken, you may mock. Is my complaint directed to a man? So why should I not be impatient? Turn your attention to me and be astonished; set [your] hand on [your] mouth. When I recall this matter] I am confounded, trembling grips my flesh:

Why do the wicked live, become powerful and even amass fortunes? Their offspring are well-established before them, with them, and their descendants are before their eyes. Their homes are peaceful, [safe] from fear; the rod of God is not against them. His bull impregnates without fail; his cow gives birth and does not miscarry. They send out their young ones as sheep; their children prance about. They raise [their voices] like a drum and a harp; they rejoice at the sound of the flute. They spend their days with good fortune, and they descend to the grave in a moment. They said to God, "Go away from us! We have no desire to know Your ways! What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? What will we gain if we pray to Him?"

Behold! Is not their good fortune in their hand? Yet the counsel of the wicked was far from me. How often does the candle of the wicked flicker out? And their downfall come upon them? And [God] apportion their due in His anger? And they be like straw before the wind and like chaff snatched by a tempest? Should God store away his affliction for his children? Let Him pay it to him himself, that he should know this punishment! Let his own eyes see his ruination, and let him drink of the Almighty's wrath! For what is his interest in his household after he [dies], when the number of his months has been cut off?

Can one teach knowledge to God, He Who judges the lofty? One person dies in unimpaired perfection, completely peaceful and serene, his breasts full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist; while someone else dies with a bitter soul, not having tasted good fortune. Together they will lie in the dirt, and maggots will cover them.

Behold! I know your thoughts, the schemes that you wrongfully plot! For you say, "Where is the house of this generous one, and where is the tent of wicked people's dwellings? Did you not inquire of wayfarers? Do not ignore their testimonies! For evil is withheld until the day of calamity, until the day when [sinners] are brought to [face God's] fury. Who is it who can be told to his face about [God's] ways, [about all] He has done, [about] the One Who will requite his deeds? He is brought to the grave, and lies forever upon a mound. The clumps of dirt in the valley become sweet to him; all men are drawn after him, and before him, without number. How can you console me with nothingness? Your responses remain a betrayal!

Iyov is responding to the argument of Tzofar, his “friend,” who attempted to answer the question of “rasha v’tov lo” (“Why do good things happen to bad people?”) by saying that the wicked will eventually get what they deserve. They will die, their wealth will be lost, and their children will suffer. Iyov objects, saying, “Yeah right! Sure, individual evildoers may suffer, but are you really going to tell me that this happens in all cases? There are plenty of wicked people who live long and prosper, then die in peace and tranquility! What do you have to say about them?” It is Tzofar’s dishonest and superficial answer which Iyov rejects when he says, “How can you console me with nothingness? Your responses remain a betrayal!” The response is a “betrayal” in the sense that it purports to provide nechamah, but is built on lies.

How does this knowledge of the pasuk’s context change our reading of Kinnah #28? By adding another dimension to the lamentation therein. This kinnah doesn’t just express the pain of the tzaros we suffered; it expresses a feeling of injustice. For example, the stanza: “The lion [Nevuchadnetzar] arose from his dense brush upon Ariel [the Temple] to strangle it, and banished from His Tabernacle His meal-offering and His libation” is not just bemoaning the destruction of the Beis ha’Mikdash. It is also giving voice to a theodical challenge: “How could Nevuchadnetzar – the evil, murderous, idolator – get away with ransacking Hashem’s Sanctuary and terminating the avodah?” When we say: “My spirit is exhausted by all the killers, by the number of murder victims crying lovingly like a deer and slaughtered for Your sake,” we aren’t just grieving the loss of Jewish life al kiddush ha’shem. We are questioning God’s justice: “How can You allow these evildoers to succeed in slaughtering Your pious servants?” The kinnah doesn’t explicitly talk about evildoers enjoying prosperity, since the focus is our own suffering. The pasuk in Iyov merely provides a theodical undercurrent for the kinnah.

Perhaps this explains why the speaker in the kinnah believes that nechamah is impossible. Time may very well heal all wounds, but it will not mend a betrayal in a relationship. For example, let’s say you discover that your business partner inadvertently caused you to lose a large sum of money. As devastating of a loss as that may be, you’ll probably get over it in time. But if you discovered that your partner had been stealing money from you, that betrayal might very well permanently tarnish the relationship. The same is true here: if we “just” suffered these losses as a people, it would be bad enough, but if we regard these tzaros as injustices on God’s part, then we may feel that nechamah is impossible.

Defining Nechamah

In order to answer both of major our questions on this kinnah, we will need to answer a more basic one: What is nechamah? The root N.CH.M as used in Tanach has three distinct meanings:

(1) “comfort/consolation,” as in: “All his sons and daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be consoled” (Bereishis 37:35) and “Be comforted, be comforted, My people” (Yeshayahu 40:1)

(2) “regret/remorse” as in: “Hashem said, ‘I will erase mankind whom I have created from upon the face of the earth … for I regret having made them” (Bereishis 6:7) and “no man feels remorse over his evil” (Yirmiyahu 8:6)
(3) “to change one’s mind” as in: “Hashem changed His mind regarding the harm He said He would do to His people” (Shemos 32:14) and “Behold! Eisav, your brother, has changed his mind towards you, to kill you” (Bereishis 27:42)

Rav Hirsch (Bereishis 5:29) acknowledges all three meanings and identifies the third as primary:

This root נ.ח.מ. has a unique meaning. נחם in the pi’el means “to comfort.” הנחם in the nif’al means “to be comforted”; another meaning: to alter one’s decision regarding some future action; a third meaning: to have remorse for something one has done … The primary meaning is “to change one’s mind”; by extension, we get the meanings of “remorse” and “change in decision.” “Consolation,” too, changes the way one feels about something that happened.

To spell this out, “regret/remorse” stems from a change of mind: at first the person thought that this was a good decision, but now their view has changed, and they see their past decision as bad. Similarly, when tragedy strikes, the loss can seem unbearable; “comfort/consolation” occurs when the individual is able to change their perspective on what happened in a manner which diminishes or removes the feelings of sadness.

Generally speaking, there are two ways these changes of mind can come about: either through a change in one’s knowledge or a change in one’s emotions. For example, if you make an investment thinking you’re going to double your money and then learn (i.e. acquire knowledge) that it’s a pyramid scheme, you’ll experience regret as a result of this new knowledge. Likewise, if you miss an opportunity for an investment and feel like you lost out on a huge profit but subsequently learn (i.e. acquire knowledge) that all the investors lost their money, then you’ll experience consolation.

Nechamah often comes about purely through a shift in one’s emotions without any increase in knowledge. This is the primary mechanism behind the phenomenon of time healing most wounds: in the immediate wake of the loss, one’s perspective is clouded by the storm of powerful emotions, making it hard to assess things objectively; eventually, the strength of the emotions wane, their cloud dissipates, and when the mind sees things clearly, one experiences consolation.

When Consolation is Impossible

In light of this definition, we are now in a position to answer our first question (“Why does the speaker believe that nechamah is impossible?”). If nechamah is a change of mind, then “eich enacheim?” can only be felt by someone who believes that their mind can never change. Contrast this with the way the kinnah ends: “az enacheim” does not mean “now I am consoled,” but “then I will be consoled.” The speaker goes from a mentality in which consolation is impossible to one in which they see it as possible, even though they have not yet experienced that consolation.

“Eich enacheim?” is a double mistake. It is a mistake about the tzarah itself, deeming the loss to be so terrible and so permanent that there is no road to recovery. But on a more fundamental level, it is a mistake about the self: a belief that “I cannot change.” “eich enacheim?” means “the way I currently see, think, and feel is reality: there is no chance that my viewpoint is being clouded by my emotions, and no knowledge I gain can possibly change my perspective.”

This mentality is, itself, the greatest tzarah. “eich enacheim?” is an anti-growth mindset which is antithetical to teshuvah. The Rambam diagnoses this problem in the opening halachos of Hilchos Taaniyos:

1:1 – It is a positive mitzvah of the Torah to cry out [to Hashem] and to sound the trumpets on every tzarah that befalls the community, as it is stated, “[When you go to wage war in your Land] against an enemy who oppresses you, you shall sound short blasts of the trumpets, [and you shall be remembered before Hashem, your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies]" (Bamidbar 10:9), meaning to say: anything that afflicts you – such as drought, epidemic, locusts, and the like – cry out [to Hashem] over them and sound [the trumpets].

1:2 – This principle is one of the darchei teshuvah (paths of repentance), that at a time of the onset of a tzarah, when they cry out and sound the trumpets, everyone will know that it was because of their evil conduct that this bad occurrence befell them, as it is written, “Your iniquities have inclined these things [towards you]” (Yirmiyahu 5:25), and this will cause them to remove the affliction from upon themselves.

1:3 – But if they do not cry out and do not sound the trumpets, but instead say, “This is minhago shel olam (a natural event) which befell us, and this tzarah is a mikreh (chance occurrence)” – behold, this is a derech achzarius (path of indifference) and will cause them to cling to their evil conduct, and [this] affliction and others will increase. This is what is written in the Torah, “[And if, with this, you do not listen to Me,] and you walk with me with chance, then I will walk with you in the fury of chance, [and I will also chastise you, seven times for your sins]” (Vayikra 26:26-28), meaning to say, when I bring an affliction upon you to cause you to do teshuvah, if you say that it is chance, then I will increase upon you the fury of that “chance.”

According to the Rambam, every tzarah is a crossroads: either we can take the darchei teshuvah, changing our dire circumstances by looking inwardly and changing ourselves, or we can take the derech achzarius and remain obstinate in our refusal to change, ascribing our suffering to external natural patterns or chance occurrences. “Eich enacheim?” is a derech achzarius insofar as it keeps the individual locked in a state which is resistant to teshuvah.

From “Eich Enacheim?” to “Az Enacheim”

Based on everything we’ve said so far, one might expect the transition from “eich enacheim?” to “az enacheim” to occur as a result of an internal change. On the surface, however, the kinnah seems to say the opposite:

[They said:] “Where is your hope? What are you doing here?
His fury has been aroused [against you], and there is no more cure.”
How can I be consoled?

“Your responses remain a betrayal!” (Iyov 21:34) the worshipers of Baal taunt me.
“Until He looks down and takes notice” (Eichah 3:50) from above,
“He lowers to the grave and raises up” (I Shmuel 2:6).
And then I will be consoled.

The kinnah makes it sound like the “eich enacheim?” will persist until Hashem takes action against our enemies and shows us that there is hope for consolation through our salvation and redemption. How do we make sense of this?

The answer lies in the pasuk quoted from Chanah’s tefilah in Sefer Shmuel. Here it is in context:

I Shmuel 2:1-10
And Chanah prayed and she said: “My heart rejoiced through Hashem, my horn is raised high through Hashem. My mouth is wide to bolt down my foes; for I was gladdened by Your deliverance. There is no one holy like Hashem, for there’s no one beside You, and there is no bastion like our God. Do not go on talking high and mighty – arrogance slips from your mouth – for a God all-knowing is Hashem, and His is the measure of actions. The warriors’ bow is shattered and stumblers gird up strength. The sated are hired for bread and the hungry cease evermore. The barren woman bears seven and the many-sonned woman is bleak. Hashem deals death and grants life, brings down to the grave and lifts up. Hashem impoverishes and bestows wealth, plunges down and also exalts. He raises the poor from the dust, from the dungheaps the wretched He lifts, to seat among princes, a throne of honor He bequeaths them. For Hashem’s are the pillars of earth, upon them He founded the world. The steps of His faithful he watches, and the wicked in darkness turns dumb, for not by might will a man prevail. Hashem shatters His adversaries, against them in the heavens He thunders. Hashem judges the ends of the earth: may He grant strength to His king and raise high His anointed’s horn.

The theme of this tefilah is that Hashem is the Cause of all successes, failures, and reversals of fortune. This does not mean to imply that He is the sole Cause, which would constitute a denial of human free will, nor does it mean that He is always the direct Cause through hashgachah pratis (individual divine providence), which would constitute a denial of hashgachah klalis (general divine providence, or the laws of nature). Rather, it means that everything that happens can only happen by virtue of His will (see the Rambam in Shemoneh Perakim Chapter 8 for his discourse on this topic).

Based on the context of tefilas Chanah, I disagree with Artscroll’s rendering of the line in our kinnah as: “[And this will last] until He looks down and takes notice from above, [until] He lowers [our enemies] to the grave, and raises [us out of exile].” Artscroll’s translator thinks that Hashem “lowering to the grave” refers to our enemies. Chana’s tefilah was not expressing a wish for a personal enemy of hers to die. It was about all instances of being brought low and raised up on high.

Accordingly, I would like to suggest that the correct understanding of this line is: “[And this will last] until He looks down and takes notice from above, [until we recognize that] He [is the One Who] lowers [us] to the grave, and [that He is the One Who will] raise [us out of exile].” In other words, as long as we view the defeat of our nation and the victory of our enemies as minhago shel olam (natural patterns) or mikreh (a chance occurrence), divorced from God’s hashgachah, then we will continue to be paralyzed by the overwhelming mindset of “eich enacheim?” But once we see our suffering at the hands of our enemies as an expression of hashgachas Hashem, in accordance with divine justice and the system of sachar v'onesh (reward and punishment), then we will perceive that the derech ha’teshuvah is the path to our salvation and our eventual nechamah.

Once we have this insight, we can go back and reframe all the calamities in the kinnah. Nevuchadnetzar did not destroy the Beis ha’Mikdash because he was the most powerful king; he destroyed it as an agent of Hashem, carrying out the punishment that we, as a nation, deserved, as a means of getting us to do teshuvah. Rome did not succeed in driving us out of our land into a two thousand year exile because that’s just how history played out; the reason we were exiled and remain in exile is because we haven’t engaged in the national teshuvah that would make us worthy of redemption.

Thus, the transition from “eich enacheim?” to “az enacheim” does come about through an internal change on our part, even though the author of the kinnah expresses it as an act on Hashem’s part. This is quite common in the language of tefilah. For example, when we ask Hashem to “remember” us, what we really mean is that we must change to make ourselves worthy of being “recalled” by Him. When we ask Hashem to find favor in us, what we really mean is that we must change ourselves to be favorable in His eyes.

The Path to Nechamah

Let’s take a step back and summarize what we’ve learned thus far. There are three stages of nechamah:

(1) “eich enacheim?”: in which nechamah has not been attained and is regarded as unattainable; this mentality is antithetical to growth (a.k.a. derech achzarius) because it is built on the premise that “my perception of reality is accurate, and nothing can or should change it.”
(2) “az enacheim”: in which nechamah has still not been attained, but is now viewed as a possibility and an imperative; this shift in mentality occurs when we reframe our view of the tzarah as the result of hashgachas Hashem (NOT minhago shel olam or mikreh) which is designed to prompt a national teshuvah-response on our part.
(3) nechamah: the actual attainment of nechamah (i.e. a change of mind which leads to consolation) occurs on two levels:
a. internal: we will experience nechamah on one level when we do teshuvah from our iniquities and seek knowledge of Hashem as “the Rock Whose work is flawless, for all His ways are just” (Devarim 32:4)
b. external: in response to our change, Hashem will respond by bringing about our salvation and redemption.

We all want nechamah. The problem is that we, as a people, are not willing to go through Steps #1 and #2 to obtain it. Specifically, we are not willing to examine our own unwillingness to change and to question the interpretations we have of our tzaros which deflect the blame from ourselves, nor are we willing to through the long and painful process of actually bringing about that change through national teshuvah. We just want the tzaros to end so that we feel whole again.

It is for this reason, I believe, that Chazal designated a far longer period of nechamah than the period of aveilus (mourning) on the tzaros. I am referring to the institution of telasa de’puranusa v’sheva de’nechamta. For three weeks we read haftaros of retribution, designed to induce national trauma and prompt national teshuvah. Then we switch to seven haftaros of consolation. On the surface, this ratio may seem rather odd: Why do we need seven whole weeks from Tishah b’Av through Yom ha’Kippurim to focus on nechamah? According to what we’ve said here, the answer lies in the fact that nechama is a developmental process. The three haftaros of retribution (bolstered by the halachos and minhagim of the Three Weeks, the Nine Days, and Tishah b’Av) are only a prompt to get the national teshuvah started. The real growth as a nation – the actual “changing of minds” – takes a much longer time than the realization of the need for change. It’s no accident that the seven weeks devoted to national teshuvah culminates in the Aseres Ymei Teshuvah and, ultimately, in the “Day of Forgiveness” of Yom ha’Kippurim.

This Shabbos is called “Shabbos Nachamu,” and is the first of the seven haftaros of consolation. To treat this Shabbos as a passive experience of nechamah – or worse, as an ordinary week – would be to miss the entire point. The practical implications of our mourning on Tishah b’Av do not end on the 10th of Av. In a sense, that is when they begin. The only way we can hope to merit actual nechamah is by taking the lessons from the Three Weeks, the Nine Days, and Tishah b’Av, and engaging in the difficult transitionary phase from “az enacheim” to nechamah itself. May we be worthy of receiving true nechamah from Hashem, and a swift redemption in our days.

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Thursday, August 4, 2022

Is it Permissible to Enjoy Learning on Tishah b'Av?

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Artwork: Silence, by Wayne Reynolds

Is it Permissible to Enjoy Learning on Tishah b'Av?

When my rebbi Rabbi Morton Moskowitz zt”l passed away a few months ago, I wrote an article entitled Rabbi Moskowitz Memory #05: Tishah b’Av – the Most Enjoyable Day of the Year, which I began with the following paragraph:

If I had to associate Rabbi Moskowitz with a particular day of the year, that day would be Tishah b'Av: the most enjoyable day of every summer. No, I'm not being facetious. For me, and for those of us who were in Seattle at that time of year, Tishah b'Av was the day we looked forward to the most each summer because we knew we were in for some of the most enjoyable learning of the entire year.

I’m sure some people read this article and wondered, “Isn’t it assur to enjoy learning on Tishah b’Av?” On the surface, it would seem that the answer is a resounding: “Yes!” The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 554:1-3) writes:

On Tishah b’Av … it is prohibited to read Tanach, to learn Mishnah, midrash, Gemara, halachos, and aggados, because it is stated: “The ordinances of Hashem are upright, bringing joy to the heart” (Tehilim 19:9); school children shouldn't learn [on Tishah b'Av], but one may read Iyov and the bad parts of Yirmiyah, and if there are verses of consolation, he must skip them. It is permitted to learn Midrash Eichah and the chapter Eilu Megalchin, and it is likewise permitted to learn the commentaries on Eichah and Iyov. There are those who prohibit learning via thinking (i.e. even without speaking).

The Magen Avraham (ibid. 5) explains the rationale behind that last stringency: “Even though thinking is not equivalent to speaking … this is different, since the essential reason [for this prohibition] is because of joy, and in thinking [about Torah] there is joy.” He goes on to explain that for this same reason, it is prohibited to learn anything in depth: “It seems to me that for this reason, it is prohibited to learn any explanation or question or answer even about the ‘bad things’ because this brings a person joy.” Suffice it to say, the Magen Avraham would not approve of the hours of enjoyable in-depth learning and thinking that characterized my Tishah b’Av experiences with Rabbi Moskowitz.

Thankfully, my posek follows a different view: that of his rebbi, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (a.k.a. the Rav). In a lengthier analysis than I can summarize in a 1-page article (see Sefer Shiurei ha’Rav al Inyanei Aveilus v’Tishah b’Av, by R’ Eliakim Koenigsberg, pp.44-46), the Rav demonstrated that the prohibition is NOT to experience joy through learning. Rather, Torah study has the legal status of “a joyous activity,” due to its very nature, and it is prohibited to involve oneself in that activity on Tishah b’Av, even if one’s personal learning experience doesn’t bring them any joy whatsoever.

What about the areas of Torah which we are permitted to learn on Tishah b’Av? Why don’t they fall under this prohibition? The Rav answered that even though each of these texts constitutes an entity of Torah and learning it would be a fulfillment of the mitzvah of Torah study, nevertheless, these subjects relate to the essential theme of Tishah b’Av. As such, not only is it permissible to learn them, but learning them constitutes an essential involvement in the aveilus ha’yom (mourning of the day). For this reason, they were never included in the prohibition against Torah study on Tishah b’Av in the first place.

Based on this theory, the Rav – unlike the Magen Avraham – permitted in-depth study and analysis of these texts, since this constitutes an even greater involvement in the aveilus ha’yom. The Rav’s grandfather, R’ Chaim Soloveitchik, cited as a proof of this the fact that it is permissible to study the commentaries on Eichah and Iyov, even though such learning would, by definition, constitute an in-depth study.

According to the Rav’s explanation and halachic position, there is no halachic violation involved in deriving enjoyment from one’s learning of the permissible texts on Tishah b’Av. But is it philosophically appropriate to experience such joy on a day of mourning? And even if it is, does that mean we should avoid it or suppress it? The answer to that question will have to wait for another time. But as always, if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them!

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Wednesday, August 3, 2022

How to Make Kinnos Real

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Artwork: Tendrils of Agony, by Rovina Cai

How to Make Kinnos Real

Over these past two summers I’ve been developing a method of utilizing kinnos for their intended purpose (i.e. facilitating aveilus and national teshuvah on Tishah b’Av). The most recent component of this method is EFT (Episodic Future Thinking). For a full exposition of this approach, see The Role of Episodic Memory in the Three Weeks and Tishah b’Av and the articles linked therein. I’d like to provide two examples of what this looks like in action: the first is my own and is based solely on imagination; the second is from my brother and is based on imagination rooted in real-world experience.

I’m currently learning Kinnah #28: Eich Enacheim? (“How Can I Be Consoled?”). The sixth stanza reads: “[Nevuchadnetzar] slaughtered throngs of those anointed with sacred oil. Young budding kohanim, eighty thousand. How can I be consoled?” It would be very easy to read this, intellectually grasp what it’s saying, then move on. Instead, I asked myself, “What would I think and feel if ALL the kohanim I know were killed?” I went further than that: I did an EFT journaling exercise set five years in the future in which all the kohanim in Israel are rounded up and murdered. I came up with a fictional geopolitical scenario in which this outcome was plausible, then journaled as if the event had just happened. I named specific kohanim (friends, chavrusas, students) and wrote about my grief and disbelief that this type of thing could transpire in the modern era. I wrote the religious doubts and questions that were prompted by the occurrence of such a tragedy.

True, this scenario hasn’t happened. But it could happen. Five years might not sound like a long time, but Auschwitz opened less than five years after the Nuremberg laws were passed. The notion of kohanim, specifically, being targeted sounds ridiculous, but history is rife with examples of specific classes of people being treated as symbols of evil and corruption and marked for extermination. This scenario may sound farfetched, but it is not impossible.

If this exercise sounds unpleasant, it was. That was the point: to induce trauma through imagination and knowledge as a catalyst for teshuvah. Now, when I read that stanza on Tishah b’Av, it won’t just be words. It will evoke trauma.

Now for an even more extreme example. My brother, Jonny, is a world traveler and a student of history. Last summer he took a trip to five countries with the objective of studying three genocides: first Rwanda, then Armenia and Turkey, and then Germany and Poland. This was the first time he had visited any concentration camps. Even though none of our immediate family was murdered by the Nazis, it was a deeply emotional experience for him. But the most unexpected part came at the end. Within the span of a little more than a day, he went from Majdanek straight to a wedding. During that wedding, in the midst of the joyous singing and dancing, he was seized with a PTSD-like experience of trauma:

During the first dance after the ceremony, I kept picturing everyone dead. It was involuntary and I was not expecting it when it came. After the pictures I had seen and stories I had heard in the last week of whole communities being wiped out, it was hard not to picture what that would mean if it were my own community. These were not faceless crowds, they were real people expressing themselves, friends celebrating, happy people, laughing people. I imagined my friends as those emaciated prisoners in stripes, or in the piles of open eyed corpses. I ended up having to leave for a minute and take some time alone.

For most of our history, we would not need to artificially induce this type of trauma by visiting historical sites or engaging in exercises of imagination. We would read the horrific passages in the kinnos and identify them as things that could happen to us, or that are happening to us. To an extent, this is true for Jews who have family that were murdered in the Holocaust: the threat is fresh enough to make the world of the kinnos real. But for those like myself who grew up in a world of relative peace and freedom from the antisemitism that characterized most of Jewish history, it is necessary for us to utilize our intellects and imaginations to evoke the feelings that the authors of the kinnos embedded in their poetry. If we are not naturally moved by the liturgy, then it is our responsibility to simulate the type of trauma-response which will lead us to engage in national teshuvah.

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Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Wishful Thinking and Prophetic Interpretation

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Wishful Thinking and Prophetic Interpretation

Last summer, my mom asked me to look through a bunch of random Jewish books in our possession to see which ones we should keep and which ones we should sell or give away. One of the books I found (and have no idea how we came to own) was called, Fascinating Torah Prophecies Currently Unfolding (1997). The contents are exactly what you’d expect from a book with that title – especially one with a teaser banner on the cover advertising “fascinating codes and more.”

I found myself thinking of this book after reading R’ Yosef ibn Kaspi’s introduction to Sefer Yirmiyahu:

This prophet Yirmiyah also did what Yeshaya [did], mentioning at the beginning of his book the name and intent of its author. This prophet also informed us of the intent of his book by stating that his prophecies were from the time of Yoshiyahu until the end of the days of Tzidkiyahu, in whose days and era the Temple was destroyed. Therefore, note that this prophet doesn’t speak at all about the building of the Third Temple, which we undoubtedly yearn for today. This is clear, for he prophesied the destruction of the First Temple and the building of the Second Temple, as Yeshaya did. The general rule is that it is not at all appropriate to ascribe to any prophet a prophecy about the building of the Third Temple unless we first find written in his book a promise about the destruction of the Second Temple. Without a doubt, Yirmiyah did not strive to assure them about the destruction of the Second Temple, even though he undoubtedly alluded [to it] with hints, as Yeshayahu did – just as Moshe alluded to the destruction of the First Temple with hints that would not be grasped by the masses … someone who is an expert in these holy books will understand the truth of our words.

Ibn Kaspi’s “general rule” is not unanimous. Others maintain that prophets do prophesy beyond their stated range. Rashi, for instance, interprets “I shall yet build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel” (Yirmiyahu 31:3) to mean: “You had two buildings made by men. Therefore, they were destroyed. Yet again, I, Myself, will build a third building which will be built forever.” Ibn Kaspi was aware of such views, which is why he stated his objections at the outset of his commentary.

Which side of the machlokess do I think is correct? I have no idea. Why not? Because, as Ibn Kaspi said, only “someone who is an expert in these holy books will understand the truth of our words,” and I am not an expert in prophetic exegesis. Not even close. I have heard it said in the name of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik that “we no longer know how to learn Neviim nowadays.” I was unable to track down a source or a context for this quotation, but I refuse to believe he meant that the ideas and mussar (rebuke) of the neviim is inaccessible to us. Instead, I assume he meant that we, unlike the medieval commentators, are unable to decipher the precise meanings of the prophecies in the Neviim portion of Tanach.

It is very easy for a person to think they’re deciphering cryptic prophecies with their mind when all they’re doing is engaging in wishful thinking with their imagination. Who wouldn’t want to find a message of hope in a pasuk from Sefer Yirmiyahu about yemos ha’Moshiach and the building of Bayis Shelishi? But that’s exactly the point: our interpretation of the neviim should not be guided by hope, but by our knowledge of how nevuah works and how the neviim wrote. Rashi did not interpret the aforementioned pasuk to be about Bayis Shelishi simply because he wanted it to be about yemos ha’Moshiach. His interpretation was guided by his understanding of the subject matter.

Lastly, we must remember the Rambam’s words (Hilchos Melachim u’Milchamos 12:2) about Messianic speculations:

Regarding all of these [details of the time of Moshiach] – no person knows how they will be until they happen, for these things were hidden even from the prophets, and there is no clear tradition from the Sages on these matters. Therefore, there is disagreement about them. Nevertheless, neither the order nor the details of these matters are an essential part of the religion. A person shouldn’t involve himself in the words of the aggados (homiletical teachings), nor should he spend time in the words of the midrashim which were stated about these topics, and he shouldn’t regard them as fundamental, for they do not bring a person to fear [of God] nor to love [of God].

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Monday, August 1, 2022

Review of R' Shagar's book: "Faith Shattered and Restored: Judaism in the Postmodern Age"

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Review of R' Shagar's Book: "Faith Shattered and Restored: Judaism in the Postmodern Age"

Preface: In the summer of 2021 I started writing book reviews for all the non-fiction (and some fiction) books I read. I post these reviews on Facebook (in a publicly shared photo album, which you shouldn't need a Facebook account to view) and in my WhatsApp Book Review group (email me if you want to join). Most of these reviews are relatively short. However, at the beginning of this summer I was exposed to the writings of R' Shagar for the first time through this book. The resulting book review ended up being less of a review and much more of an essay about my first impressions of R' Shagar's overall approach. Because I have referred to his ideas in earlier articles and will likely do so in the future, I decided to share the entire review here.

Title: Faith Shattered and Restored: Judaism in the Postmodern Age

Author: Rabbi Shagar (Shimon Gershon Rosenberg)

Translated from the Hebrew by: Elie Leshem

Editor: Rabbi Dr. Zohar Maor

Publication Date: 2017

Genre: Jewish philosophy

Length: 225 pages (including the 18-page preface)

Status: read for the first time in June 2022

Disclaimer for those who are new to my book reviews or who need a reminder: these should be regarded as nothing more than my PERSONAL reflections and impressions. They are intended to capture what I thought about the books I read shortly after reading them. They are primarily for myself in that they allow me to process what I’ve read – something which I can best do by sharing my thoughts with others. They are not intended to be scholarly articles. If you are looking for a professional review, by all means look to the professional academics and intellectuals – beginning with the comprehensive afterword written by the eminently qualified Rabbi Shalom Carmy.

Note: This book review will be longer than the ones I usually write because I have a lot to say. For this reason, I've decided to divide this into subsections with titles. Buckle up.

I. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

If I had to answer the question: “So, what did you think about this book?” in a single sentence, that sentence would read: "Regardless of what I think about R’ Shagar’s IDEAS, I wholeheartedly support what he was DOING."

Before I elaborate on that sentiment, I think it would be helpful to start by addressing the subtitle of the book: Judaism in the Postmodern Age. Almost everything I know about postmodernism (which is not very much) I picked up through osmosis – more from social media, YouTube videos, and podcasts than from books. Before I read this book, if you had asked me, point blank, what postmodernism is, I'm not even sure I could provide a clear answer. Thankfully, a clear definition is supplied by Aryeh Rubin in his preface (with my emphasis in the underlined portion):

As noted, the heart of the book is Rabbi Shagar's grappling with postmodernism and the cultural and spiritual changes it wrought. In chapter 5, he attempts to get at the foundations of postmodernism: the denial and deconstruction that come from the erosion of belief in any "grand narrative" and in the ability to perceive the truth. Rabbi Shagar distinguishes between "hard" and "soft" postmodernism: While the first leads to utter nothingness, the second does not deny the existence of truth and goodness, but claims that these values are not predetermined, but rather man-made; hence their relativistic nature. According to Rabbi Shagar, the first brand of postmodernism should generally be rejected ... Rabbi Shagar devoted most of his efforts to exposing the positive in soft modernism, which does not necessarily lead to nothingness in that it recognizes beingness – albeit as a human construct (which is thus dangerous in that it can engender relativism and even contempt for morals, norms, and responsibilities).

I am not a postmodernist, but I concede that we are living in an increasingly postmodernist age. I also concede that this recent revolution has given rise to new questions, difficulties, and crises which cannot be adequately addressed by the prior models and thinkers of Modern Orthodoxy, especially by those who are unaware or unwilling to admit that such a drastic paradigm shift has taken place. Moreover, I have seen an increasing number of Orthodox Jews - my age and younger - whose beliefs and/or observance have been shaken or threatened by postmodernist problems, even if they haven't consciously identified them as such. As an educator, it behooves me to familiarize myself with postmodernism for the sake of my students, even if not for my own sake (not that I'm ruling this out, mind you, knowing how formidable postmodernist thinking can be). That was the reason why I chose to read this book at this time. That, and the fact that R’ Shagar’s name has been mentioned by a number of individuals from diverse backgrounds whose minds I respect.

In an ideal world, I would "go forth" and educate myself about postmodernism from firsthand sources. The reality is that I have neither the time nor the interest nor the intellectual processing power to embark on such an immense project. Just as I was happy to allow Mortimer J. Adler to be my introductory guide through Western philosophy up to the 20th century (especially through his excellent book, Ten Philosophical Mistakes), so too, I am happy to allow R' Shagar to be my introductory guide through the alien world of 21st century postmodernist philosophy. And just as I was aware that Adler had his own agenda, as an independent thinker and teacher, I am aware that the same is true for R’ Shagar. The words of all such minds should be taken with a grain of salt.

This book was my first exposure to R’ Shagar. Prior to reading this book, the only thing I knew about R’ Shagar was from hearsay on social media. The impression I had was of a radical, innovative, and controversial genius. After reading this book, I can see why. To borrow a line from R' Soloveitchik from my beloved Footnote 4 of Halakhic Man (rendered into beautiful English by Professor Lawrence Kaplan), the path R' Shagar has taken is "not the royal road, but a narrow, twisting footway that threads its course along the steep mountain slope, as the terrible abyss yawns at the traveler’s feet." It would not be an exaggeration to say that this book is a minefield within a minefield.

Rabbi Carmy acknowledges the enormity of R’ Shagar’s mission: “Jewish thought must boldly go where it has not gone before, both in our analysis of the social world and in proposing fresh ideas about how to live our lives in light of these new experiences.” He also acknowledges the gaps and dangers in R’ Shagar’s philosophy: those inherent in his way of thinking as well as those created by the incompleteness of the legacy he left behind. He writes: “That is not to say that his theses are beyond criticism … In particular, one must be wary of the solipsistic dangers in his sometimes unquestioning reliance on self-acceptance as a key to moral and religious truth and the concomitant downplaying of divine transcendence. That Rabbi Shagar himself seems intermittently aware of these problems himself … does not exempt us from struggling with them on our own.” (Again, I recommend reading Rabbi Carmy’s entire afterword, and making sure to read between the lines, such as his careful use of the word "intermittently" in the foregoing sentence.)

I can understand why a religious Jew would be tempted to push R' Shagar away with both hands. If I may be permitted to butcher a culinary analogy: R' Shagar has taken upon himself the task of extricating Judaism from the fire of nihilistic "hard postmodernism" only to throw it into the frying pan of "soft postmodernism." I sympathize with those who exclaim: "I don't want Judaism in the frying pan OR in the fire! Just get it out of the kitchen!" but for many, that ship has already set sail.

To restate my earlier point in the language of this new idiom I just coined: Judaism is already "in the kitchen.” We may not get to choose whether the Judaism of our children, our students, or ourselves is thrust into postmodernism’s fire, but if that happens, it's good to know that there is a knowledgeable and talented chef who might be able to save it from the flames and, by introducing us to the proper frying techniques, help us to prepare a delicious meal. ::: end of egregiously awkward mashal :::

II. MY GREATEST TAKEAWAY

Even though I am not a postmodernist, this book helped me to realize that there is a surprisingly large overlap between my own epistemology and what R’ Shagar refers to as soft postmodernism. The most important shiur I gave in the 2020-2021 year was titled Of Wolves, Men, and Methodology: An Attempt to Capture and Articulate an Epistemological Upheaval. The shiur examined the limits of human knowledge and warned against unwarranted reductionism and its attendant fallacies – ailments to which the so-called “rationalists” (as people have often labeled me … libeled me?) are particularly prone. That shiur marked a vitalizing revolution in my intellectual and spiritual life which was augmented by my reading of Eastern-influenced Western-trained psychotherapists over the course of that summer. I sense that R' Shagar will usher in the next part of that exhilarating personal journey.

Allow me to stress some fundamental differences in order to better highlight the similarities. The postmodernist thinks we CANNOT know truth, whereas I think we CAN know truth, albeit very little and with very little certainty. The postmodernist regards man-made narratives and theoretical constructs as worthless and harmful insofar as they prop up the illusion that truth is real and attainable, whereas I regard these as the only truth-seeking tools we have at our disposal, making them valuable and necessary. The postmodernist sees the reductionist fallacies I outlined in my Wolves shiur to be lamentably and inescapably hard baked into my “modernist” “rationalist” “realist” worldview, whereas I see them as pitfalls that can be diminished or avoided with proper vigilance.

What interests me is this overlapping space between my “(moderate) modernist rational skepticism” and R' Shagar’s “postmodernist (radical) skepticism.” Despite my being a Modern Orthodox Jew and him being a “Postmodern Orthodox Jew” (a term he didn’t use but which I find useful), we see eye to eye on the need to free ourselves from misplaced feelings of certainty. Of course, I’d say he’s gone too far while he’d say I haven’t gone far enough, but both of us would congratulate each other on the steps each of us have taken in our respective journeys. I sense that there is much common work that can be done in this shared space, despite our epistemological differences, and I am eager to dig into that work. The awareness of that space in all its richness is, I believe, my greatest takeaway from this first exposure to R’ Shagar’s thinking.

III. ANOTHER COMMON FEATURE

Throughout these essays R’ Shagar exhibits a quality which I feel makes us kindred spirits: our intellectual eclecticism. Both of us seem to have a wide range of interests in our reading. Both of us are unabashed when it comes to using what we read to enhance our understanding of Judaism, regardless of its source. I, too, admire Slavoj Zizek and have quoted his ideas while rejecting other elements of his worldview.

My own brand of eclecticism stems from three related sources: (1) my rootedness in the teachings of Bruce Lee, the innovator of the styleless style whose motto was "using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation” and whose mantra was “efficiency is anything that scores,” (2) my personal striving to embody the ideal of, "Who is wise? One who learns from everyone," and (3) my firm conviction in the universality of truth and the common tzelem Elokim nature shared by all human beings.

According to Rubin, R' Shagar's eclecticism stems from his view that "it is faith, of all things, that can redeem postmodernism by imbuing human constructs with new value and validity, as vessels for the divine light" and "can also foster a humility and tolerance capable of greatly enriching the religious outlook." This soft postmodernist lens allows Shagar to see the potential for value and meaning (I almost said “truth”!) in everyone and everything, and encourages a healthy level of discourse founded on mutual respect.

R' Shagar’s essays helped me to articulate an advantage I have as a non-postmodernist teacher in a postmodernist world: the combination of my eclecticism and my belief in the value of every human intellect allows me to connect even with those who deny the entire enterprise of truth-seeking. I was dimly aware of this before reading this book, but I lacked the vocabulary to name it.

IV. MY BIGGEST QUESTION AND R’ SHAGAR’S ANSWER

There is one question that was raised by Rubin in the preface which generated some high expectations on my part:

The religious person's challenge in the postmodern world is to choose and believe in his path, and to trust his creative powers. Paradoxically, Rabbi Shaar argues, it is easier to maintain a religious lifestyle in a postmodern world. For while modernism was characterized by an onslaught against religion and faith - in light of philosophical and scientific discoveries that were perceived as absolute truths - postmodernism's skepticism casts religion as an option no less valid than others. The challenge for us as believers, of course, is to choose religion as the best option.

To translate this challenge into a question: Is there a compelling reason for a Jew in a postmodern era to choose Orthodox Judaism? As I alluded to above, this question is of the utmost importance to me as a teacher of students who were born and bred in a postmodernist age. I didn’t know at the outset of my reading whether Shagar would address that question explicitly, but I sincerely hoped he would, and that his answer would be either true or useful.

Thankfully, R’ Shagar did offer a clear answer to this question. I’m not going to do it injustice by attempting to summarize it here. Instead, I’m going to talk around it. To those who are familiar with his answer, feel free to discuss this with me in private. To those who aren’t, I hope my cryptic treatment will tantalize you enough to read the 3.1 essays in which his answer is most clearly spelled out. (I’m referring to essays #2, #3, #5, and two pages near the end of #8.) Feel free to skip the remainder of this section.

I was surprised and somewhat delighted to see that R’ Shagar’s answer bears a striking resemblance to my own understanding of Sefer Koheles, which I have taught for the past eight years, and which forms the basis of my own limited brand of Jewish existentialism. Those familiar with my high school Koheles curriculum (which, unfortunately, is not available in any written, audio, or visual form) will recognize R’ Shagar’s answer as Stage 7 of my “Nine Stages of Koheles.” He even expresses his solution to the question of religion in an almost identical manner to how I express my solution to the question of happiness. The difference, of course, is that whereas I hold by the existence of Stages 8 and 9, which are decidedly "modernist" and "rationalist" in character, R’ Shagar regards Stage 7 as the end of the road. For him, “there is no spoon” is the end of the movie; for me, seeing past the illusory spoon is a step on the road to grasping the reality of the Matrix. (Yeah, I went there.)

Does R’ Shagar provide an adequate answer to the question mentioned above? I would say both “yes” and “no.” My realization of the “yes” came from a thought experiment I conducted on my Shabbos afternoon walk, which I took after reading the first seven essays. I asked myself, “If I suddenly became a postmodernist who denied the existence of truth or man’s ability to know it, how would I live?” My honest answer to that question – which I arrived at by setting aside everything I had read – ended up aligning with R’ Shagar’s approach. (I also asked myself, "And given that you're not a postmodernist, what relevance do you see in R' Shagar's answer?" The answer to that question was: "Quite a lot of relevance" ... but that is a topic for another time.)

As for the “no”: sadly, I doubt that R’ Shagar’s approach would be compelling enough to keep an on-the-fence Orthodox Jew within the fold, nor do I think his approach could convince a non-religious Jew to become religious. I don’t know what he would say about those two situations, or whether I had the right to expect such results from this book - but expect it I did, and I didn’t find what I hoped to find.

One more word on R’ Shagar’s answer to this question, from the teachings of my rebbi, Rabbi Morton Moskowitz zt"l. Whenever a student made fun of a non-Jewish belief as being “stupid” or fancied themselves superior because of their own conviction, Rabbi Moskowitz would say, “If you were born in Haiti, you’d be sticking pins in voodoo dolls too.” If I could ask R’ Shagar one question in person, that question would be: “What would YOU tell the guy in Haiti sticking pins in voodoo dolls, and would it matter to you if he were Jewish?” I wouldn’t ask him this question out of total ignorance as to how he'd answer. His answer is clear from this book, especially essay #6. I’d ask him this question because of my interest in the discussion that would follow, and because I’d want to see if he really believes his own answer as much as he says he does.

Lest you chastise me for questioning where R’ Shagar stands on his own beliefs, or for wanting to see where he falls out on the spectrum from rationalism to relativism, I’d like to point out that Rabbi Carmy has the same questions.

He writes: “Rabbi Shagar repeatedly insists that he is not a relativist … nor does he disdain the role of rationality in religious discourse. Much of his philosophy stands or falls on whether and how satisfactorily he explains this position.”
Likewise, Rabbi Carmy recognizes the danger inherent in R’ Shagar’s pluralism, citing R’ Shagar himself as a support: “A great danger in this approach is that such a faith, emanating from the bowels of one’s selfhood, would not be religious faith, but merely an act of egocentric self-anointment; in Rabbi Shagar’s words, ‘the tendency to turn oneself into the yardstick of reality’ (p.34).”
Rabbi Carmy also notes the contradictory tendencies in the practical implications of R’ Shagar’s pluralism: “It may seem paradoxical that he is willing, in principle, to take life in the name of his faith, but forbidden to ‘assert that faith in my own way renders other ways worthless’ (p.117). No doubt, one can speak in mystical terms of complementary categories according to which both universal equality and individual commitment can be justified, and there are other ways of dissolving the logical consistency. At a practical level of human relations, the difficulty nevertheless persists.”

Rabbi Carmy is kind in his phrasing of these criticisms. Rabbi Moskowitz (and Socrates) would put it more bluntly by pointing out these contradictions until R’ Shagar either refined his views or acknowledged his errors. Mortimer Adler might invoke a variant on his statement (cited from memory) about relativism: “You can’t convince a subjectivist of objective truth, but you can convince an honest man that he’s not a subjectivist.” (And yes, I’m aware that R’ Shagar is not a subjectivist, but a Realist with a Lacanian capital “R.”) I don’t question R’ Shagar’s honesty from a moral standpoint. He was clearly a man of integrity and courage. Rather, I question whether there is a fundamental dishonesty lurking at the core of his entire belief system. If there is, it would, according to him (according to Rav Kook), be the worst kind of dishonesty: self-delusion, which arises from self-alienation.

I never met R’ Shagar, but in my imaginary dialogue, this is where he smiles at me and says, “Of COURSE you believe that I’m deluding myself and that, deep-down, I’m a modernist who believes in objective truth, because that’s what YOU are” – at which point, we’d both acknowledge that the discussion could proceed no further.

V. A SHIFT IN MY VIEW OF HASIDISM

The most unexpected effect that this book had on me will probably upset some people. Actually, "upset" might be the wrong word. Either “offend” or "vex" would be more accurate. You have been warned.

It is no secret that I have great reservations about ideas that originate in Hasidism, "Kabbalah" (using quotation marks intentionally), and certain other strands of mystical thought within Judaism. This is not the place for me to spell out these reservations. Suffice it to say, I am skeptical of any innovations within Judaism which stake their claim on the basis of what I’ll refer to as “sketchy revelation claims,” whether in the form of mystical visions, transcendental experiences, or books which appear in 13th century Spain that are claimed to have been authored a thousand years prior in the face of abundant evidence to the contrary. Until now, my reservations have caused me to ignore and resist ideas drawn from these sources – not because I deny their possible value, but because of my deep reverence for Hashem and His Torah (to the exclusion of counterfeits), and because I’d rather devote my time to learning that which does not require any leaps of faith on my part. (Okay, HERE you can call me a "rationalist" and I'll bear that label with pride.)

I can't quite explain how, but SOMEHOW, reading this book triggered an epiphany in me: I can maintain my skepticism about the “authenticity” of these thought-systems while simultaneously finding truth and value in them, the same way I do with non-Jewish philosophies. If I can learn from Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca without embracing these philosophies in their entirety and without labeling them as “Jewish,” why can’t I do the same with R’ Shneur Zalman of Liady, R’ Yitzchak Luria, and R' Moshe de León?

I suspect that this shift in my perspective was due to the fact that some of the ideas which R’ Shagar ascribes to Hasidism – most notably, those of R’ Nachman of Breslov, who stands about as far away from the Rambam as you can get – are strikingly similar to the ideas I’ve found to be enlightening in Buddhism and Taoism. What if I regarded R’ Nachman not as an authentic part of our Mesorah, but as an Eastern thinker who expressed and developed his ideas on a Torah scaffolding with Jewish terminology? I don't know how R' Shagar would feel about my endorsement of Hasidic thought NOT on the basis of its alleged Jewishness, but because it resembles the truth I've seen in Eastern thinking. I hope he'd just flash me a thumbs up and say, "Whatever works for you, man."

VI. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

When I set out to write this review, I told myself that I’d hold back and refrain from writing about any specific ideas in the book. Remarkably, despite the length of this review, I’ve held to that decision. There were many ideas and insights I largely agreed with and plan on writing about over the course of the summer, including (but not limited to) R’ Shagar’s statements about Orthodoxy and Modern Orthodoxy, his theory about what sets Conservative and Reform Judaism apart, his postmodernist approach to analyzing mitzvos, his take on Divine providence, his social commentary on media overload and its effects on our very identities, and more.

Of course, there were also ideas I disagreed with, ideas I flat out didn’t understand, and ideas I simply wasn’t interested in thinking about at this time. I don’t know if this was a coincidence or whether there’s a correlation, but I found that I had a very hard time focusing on ideas which he expounded using either highfalutin academic jargon or highfalutin kabbalistic jargon. Maybe it’s just because I’m not used to operating in those worlds. Regardless, there were enough clear and compelling ideas in the parts of the book I found valuable for me to assume that the parts I didn’t find value in are worth rereading at some point. This is definitely a book that merits multiple rereadings, and which I expect to yield new insights depending on where I’m at in my personal development.

I usually conclude my book reviews with a statement of who this book is for. In this case, I think it would be fitting to first state who this book is NOT for, and to do so by quoting one of R’ Shagar’s favorite thinkers. R’ Nachman of Breslov forbade his students to study or even look at the philosophical writings of the Rambam, warning them that “such works only confuse the mind and implant unsound beliefs which are not in accordance with the wisdom of the Torah.” It has been taught in R’ Nachman’s name that “one can tell from a person’s face if he has studied the Guide for the Perplexed ... because they are bound to lose their tzelem Elokim ... Everyone can see that most of the people who study these works today become total atheists.”

Ironically, the Rambam might very well prohibit the reading of R’ Shagar’s book under the Torah prohibition of “lo sasuru acharei levavechem v’acharei eineichem” (“do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes”) – not because it might lead someone to deny ONE of the fundamentals of Torah, but because it might lead them to deny the reality of objective truth altogether, which (he would likely argue) is even worse. I would not feel comfortable recommending this book to those whose minds have not been directly impacted by postmodernism.

At the same time, we are taught that “[Rav Nachman] himself studied philosophical works from time to time; this is the concept of the journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness ... the place of evil forces ... to trample down the forces of evil ... the very great Tzadik is obligated to go into such works in order to elevate the souls which have fallen there.” I’m not a “very great tzadik,” but as I mentioned in my introductory overview, I think it would be prudent for this generation of Torah educators to inform themselves about postmodernism and its impact on Orthodox Judaism, if not for their own sake, then for the sake of their students. I would feel comfortable – even obligated – to recommend this book to them, provided that they would not be in danger of violating “lo sasuru.”

What about those Orthodox Jews who HAVE fallen under the influence of postmodernist thinking, and whose observance and/or beliefs have been threatened? Would I recommend R’ Shagar to them? I don’t think I can give a general answer to that question. For certain individuals, this could make matters worse. For others, this might be the life raft that saves them – or at least, keeps them within the fold and saves their progeny. [Addendum: I would feel much more comfortable recommending Strauss, Spinoza, & Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith (2022), which I've nearly finished reading for the first time, but haven't yet reviewed.]

If you’ve made it to the end of this review, then I think one thing is abundantly clear: this was an exceedingly thought-provoking book. If you seek to be provoked in this manner, and have valid reasons for reading it, and are not in danger of violating Hashem's mitzvos, then I recommend it to you.

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Friday, July 29, 2022

Masei: How to Read the Travels of Bnei Yisrael

The Torah content for this week has been sponsored by Ellis and Janice Cohen in memory of Rabbi Moskowitz zt"l.

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I can't vouch for the accuracy of this map, but it's from Bible-History.com which is linked from AlHaTorah's Olam ha'Mikra

Masei: How to Read the Travels of Bnei Yisrael

Parashas Masei opens with a comprehensive list of the destinations where Bnei Yisrael encamped during their 40-year sojourn in the Wilderness. The commentators are bothered by these seemingly superfluous pesukim. Was it really necessary to “waste” 49 pesukim by listing all 42 destinations? Aren’t the earlier narratives in the Chumash sufficient?

The Rambam (Guide 3:50) takes up this question. He prefaces his comments with an observation about knowledge:

You should also understand that the status of things that are set down in writing is not the same as the status of happenings that one sees. For in happenings that one sees, there are particulars that bring about necessary consequences of great importance, which cannot be mentioned except in a prolix manner. Accordingly, when narrations concerning these happenings are considered, the individual who reflects thinks that such narrations are too long or repetitious. If, however, he had seen what is narrated, he would know the necessity of what is recounted. Hence when you see narrations in the Torah that are not in the framework of commandments and think it was not necessary to set down such and such a narration or that it is too long or repetitious, the reason for this is that you have not seen the particulars that necessitated that the story be told in the manner it is.

The Rambam then notes an inherent difficulty in passing down a miraculous historical narrative from generation to generation, and then utilizes these two points to answer our question:

The need for [writing down these 42 encampments] was very great, for all miracles are certain in the opinion of one who has seen them; however, at a future time their narrative becomes a mere traditional story, and there is a possibility for the hearer to consider it untrue. It is well known that it is impossible and inconceivable that a miracle lasts permanently throughout the succession of generations so that all men can see it. One of the miracles of the Torah, and one of the greatest among them, is the sojourn of Israel for forty years in the desert and the finding of the mahn there every day. For that desert was, as is stated in Scripture, a place … very remote from cultivated land and unnatural for man … God, may He be exalted, knew that in the future what happens to traditional narratives would happen to those miracles: people would think that [the Children of Israel] sojourned in a desert that was near to cultivated land and in which man can live, like the deserts inhabited at present by the Arabs, or that it consisted of places in which it was possible to till and to reap or to feed on plants that were to be found there, or that it was natural for the mahn always to come down in those places, or that there were wells of water in those places. Therefore, all these fancies are rebutted and the traditional relation of all these miracles is confirmed through the enumeration of those stations, so that people in the future would see them and thus know how great was the miracle constituted by the sojourn of the human species in those places for forty years.

The reason for the specification of the 42 encampments is now clear. Had the Torah omitted the names of these locations, and only provided a general description or a partial list, the aforementioned false narratives would have had ample room to flourish. By specifying the names of every single destination for the duration of the 40 years, the Torah is, in effect, challenging the purveyor of these alternative narratives by saying: “Oh, you think they camped at a place where they could raise crops, or near an oasis, or where mahn naturally forms? By all means, take a trip out to those locations and see for yourself whether an entire nation could survive there for more than few days!”

An important ramification emerges from the Rambam’s answer. We might have asked our question expecting a purely intellectual exegetical answer: “The Torah names the encampments because of XYZ.” But according to the Rambam, Hashem named these locations “so that people in the future would see them” and know the greatness of the miracle. In other words, Eleh Masei is a call to action. Ideally, we should go and see these places for ourselves in order to attain firsthand knowledge – if not of the miracle itself, then at least of the conditions which warranted such a miracle. If that is not possible, then we should know that these places can be seen, which will strengthen our conviction in the miracle. And we in the Information Age should use all the tools at our disposal (Google Earth, YouTube, MapFight) to learn about these locations and make them as real as possible to our minds. If we simply breeze through the list, we’ve missed the point.

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