In memory of my Mom -- the importance of positive words

Tomorrow, April 14, 2009 marks the one year anniversary of my mother's death. She was a wonderful woman who loved her children unquestionably and unconditionally. She always had a positive word to say to me in whatever I strived to do.

She also loved to share a positive thought or word to strangers. At times I was even embarrassed at how she loved to speak to nearly anyone and compliment people on their service at a restaurant or the beauty of their baby, whenever and wherever she could.

The importance of positive words cannot be overestimated and it is what I believe is at the heart of the Jewish tradition of avoiding "Lashon hora" -- the evil talk.

Of course all traditions recognize the problem of inappropriate speech, for example in the Rule of Benedict in Chapter 4, "What Are the Instruments of Good Works" Benedict includes these three points:

• (52) To guard one’s tongue against bad and wicked speech.
• (53) Not to love much speaking.
• (54) Not to speak useless words and such as provoke laughter.

But it seems to me that within Judaism the principle of lashon hora is looked at in such detail that one can learn much from it. I have written about lashon hora once before in this post.

On www.yutorah.org I found a number of talks on lashon hora by using the advanced search tool. One talk in particular that I liked was by Rabbi Hanan Balik entitled, "The Gossip Phenomenon and How to Combat It".

He starts it by saying that it is one shiur that can truly change your life. And I believe that, it is amazing to me how we are surrounded by this type of talk and how easy it is to fall into. Truly, these two lines from the Hebrew Scriptures could not be more true and important:

“One who guards his mouth and tongue, guards his soul from tribulations”
(Mishlei (Proverbs) 21:23).

“Which man desires life, who loves days of seeing good? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit...”
(Tehillim (Psalms) 34:13-14).

A friend reflects on the Easter Holy Days

I good friend has been writing a beautiful series of reflections on the Easter Holy Days this week. Here is the link to the first on Maundy Thursday. Here is a link to the blog itself: http://gsk-afterall.blogspot.com/

His reflection on Holy Saturday ends with, "The the "right" way to vigil this day is to let the dreams en-tombed in out heads rise from those tombs -- and to work on Visioning how we will tomorrow (and the day after) own & live our status as...Risen."

Please check them out.

Torah Lishmah -- New Course by VBM

I have written about "Torah Lishmah" (Torah study for its own sake) in other posts. It is a concept that I really love.

Starting today, the Virtual Beit Midrash is offering a class entitled, "Torah Lishmah - A New Horizon" by Rav Elyakim Krumbein -- http://vbm-torah.org/archive/lishmah/01lishmah.htm

I really look forward to it and cannot recommend it enough. In the course Rav Krumbein will be dealing with one of my favorite Orthodox works of commentary -- Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm’s work, Torah Lishmah: Torah for Torah’s Sake in the Works of Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin and his Contemporaries.

In the opening shiur Rav Krumbein quotes Rav Shagar z”l, "One who is not prepared to be part of that tradition and thinks he can begin the Torah by himself, one who is not prepared to reach that intimacy with the world of Torah and with Judaism, one who wants to be an individualist and remain alienated, and study like a 'maskil' – he will never be a ben Torah."

In the footnote to this quote, Rav Krumbein writes, "These words were written by a man who is regarded as a most original thinker and lamdan, despite the tension that he faced between creativity and fealty to tradition, as mentioned in that book." This description makes me want to learn more about Rav Shagar.

What I find interesting is that in David Brooks' Op-Ed column in the New York Times today, entitled, "What Life Asks of Us" he wrote, "In this way of living [living within institutions], to borrow an old phrase, we are not defined by what we ask of life. We are defined by what life asks of us." He goes on to describe how the push toward individualism has degraded and devalued this approach.

For me the words from Rav Shagar and David Brooks resonate together and challenge me to listen.

"Postmodern" Chagigah 3b?

Chagigah 3b

THE WORDS OF THE WISE ARE LIKE GOADS, AND LIKE NAILS WELL PLANTED [ARE THE SAYINGS] OF THE MASTERS OF ASSEMBLIES, GIVEN FROM ONE SHEPHERD [Ecclesiastes 12:11]. WHY ARE THE WORDS OF TORAH LIKENED TO A GOAD? TO TEACH YOU that JUST AS THIS GOAD DIRECTS THE COW ALONG ITS FURROWS IN ORDER TO BRING FORTH LIFE TO THE WORLD, SO TOO, THE WORDS OF TORAH DIRECT THEIR STUDENTS FROM THE PATHS OF DEATH TO THE PATHS OF LIFE. IF the words of Torah are likened to a goad, one might think that JUST AS THIS GOAD IS MOVABLE, SO TOO, THE WORDS OF TORAH ARE MOVABLE. To teach otherwise SCRIPTURE STATES: like NAILS. But IF the words of Torah are likened to nails, one might think that JUST AS THIS NAIL DIMINISHES AND DOES NOT INCREASE the object or wall into which it is driven, SO TOO, THE WORDS OF TORAH DIMINISH AND DO NOT INCREASE those who observe them. To teach otherwise SCRIPTURE STATES: WELL PLANTED. That is, JUST AS THIS PLANT IS FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLIES, SO TOO, THE WORDS OF TORAH cause one to be FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY.

R'Elazar ben Azaryah continues to expound upon the verse Ecclesiastes, which now speaks metaphorically: THE MASTERS OF ASSEMBLIES -- THESE ARE THE WISE SCHOLARS WHO SIT IN VARIOUS GROUPS AND OCCUPY themselves WITH the study of TORAH. There are THOSE scholars who DECLARE a thing ritually CONTAMINATED AND there are THOSE who PRONOUNCE it CLEAN; THOSE who PROHIBIT AND THOSE who PERMIT; THOSE who DISQUALIFY AND THOSE who DECLARE FIT. PERHAPS A MAN WILL SAY: HOW CAN I EVER LEARN TORAH and understand it precisely, when every issue is subject to debate and disagreement? To allay this concern, SCRIPTURE STATES that ALL the various Rabbinic opinions are GIVEN FROM ONE SHEPHERD. ONE GOD GAVE THEM; ONE LEADER PROCLAIMED THEM FROM THE MOUTH OF THE MASTER OF ALL MATTERS, BLESSED IS HE, AS IS WRITTEN, AND GOD SPOKE ALL THESE WORDS. Hence, YOU TOO MAKE YOUR EAR LIKE A MILL-HOPPER, AND ACQUIRE FOR YOURSELF A DISCERNING HEART TO HEAR intelligently THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO DECLARE a thing IMPURE AND THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO PRONOUNCE it PURE; THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO PROHIBIT AND THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO PERMIT; AND THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO DISQUALIFY AND THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO DECLARE FIT.

Just a few lines later is this wonderful question from R' Eliezer:

WHAT NOVEL TEACHING [HIDDUSH] WAS expounded IN THE STUDY HALL TODAY?

These fabulous words from Chagigah 3b are seemingly 1400 years ahead of their time as they seemingly present a postmodern view of multiple meanings. But I belive that the Talmud is able to walk this fine line far better than the postmodern philosophies that emerged in the 20th century. Most of these philosophies have left of with a seemingly meaningless world, while the Talmud intends and succeeds to leave us with an infinitely meaningful world.

Rav Michael Rosensweig in his essay, Personal Initiative and Creativity in 'Avodat Hashem, discusses this passage from Chagigah and the Maharal's discussion of this issue and he writes:

In essence then, what emerges from the Maharal once again, is the doctrine of multiple truths, significant especially outside the area of pesak, and related to individual intellect and the capacity of each individual to discern the complexity and subtlety which exists in every aspect of life.

Still, how is it possible for there to be multiple truths, but only one pesak? The Maharal argues that while there may be multiple truths, all truths are not equal. Life is complex and everything created does obtain of more than one combination of different components. So, for example, it is possible for an object to possess a sense of tum'ah, but its sense of taharah overwhelms the tum'ah.

Happy New Year -- May your 2009 be filled with peace, love and joy and many new discoveries and hiddushim.

The Benefit of the Doubt . . . Madoff

Here is a comment that I added to the Hirhurim blog discussion regarding the NYT article on the Madoff scandal:

I am hoping that at some point we understand why he did it. I recall reading in the Chofetz Chaim about the importance of giving the benefit of the doubt.

It seems clear that Madoff created the Ponzi scheme, but I wonder why. Did he start out with a legitimate fund with which he wanted to support important causes, etc. and then get into trouble? And was then unable to admit his mistakes, which created the need for the scheme. If this were the case, it would be more pride than greed. Perhaps we will never know, but it might be helpful to ask the question.

I know there is a famous story about Rabbi Akiva, who went to great lengths to believe his employer, Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurkanos -- http://www.thejewisheye.com/gosh.html.

I find great lessons from this ability to see the best in others.

Love, Revelation, Christ . . . . Torah?

As may be clear if one wanders around this blog, I have a variety of interests. In fact, my changing interests often drive me crazy, as I move from topic to topic, tradition to tradition. Just yesterday I found an article by professor Antonio Lopez from the John Paul II Institute. I have been interested in his classes and also over the summer purchased his book entitled, Spirit's Gift: The Metaphysical Insight of Claude Bruaire.

The article was entitled ETERNAL HAPPENING: GOD AS AN EVENT OF LOVE. I was very excited to read it, because it was focused on the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of my favorite authors, while also mentioning Martin Heidegger (another favorite).

Here is the opening paragraph from Father Lopez's article:

In order to ponder anew the mystery of love, without which man’s “life remains senseless” and “incomprehensible,” I would like to appeal in this essay to Balthasar’s understanding of God as an “eternal happening.” This insight attempts to bring together what the Triune God reveals of himself in Jesus Christ: he reveals himself as love (1 Jn 4:16), and as a love that is both an eternal being (esse) and an eternal event (Ereignis, Geschehen). In Christ, man has come to learn that love is not a transient emotion, but rather the mystery that encompasses all of being: from the moment when there was nothing but God (Gn 1:1) to the present instant in which man lives out his existence (2 Cor 5:14–15). The essence of being is love. Everything and everyone finds its proper place within this eternal mystery. At the same time, the Incarnate Word has disclosed that the mystery of love that constitutes us (Jn 1:3; Col 1:15–20) is pure gift of himself. Divine love is an ever-new gift of himself to himself (Hingabe) and an undeserved gift of himself to us (Eph 2:4; Rom 8:32). God is an event of love.

While I was excited about this opening, I later felt that Fr. Lopez makes the same move that von Balthasar often does in the sense that after beautifully describing God as love and discussing many of the philosophical issues surrounding it (with far more expertise than I ever could), he then states that the only way we can know this about God is through Jesus Christ (God's speaking about God's self).

Here is a paragraph in which he does that:

To be able to say something about God’s eventful nature without claiming first to hollow out its mystery and then to explain it away, all by the sole means of the fragile tool of human logic, it is necessary to approach the divine mystery by way of the access the divine mystery itself grants: that is, by way of the only mediator between God and humankind, Jesus Christ (1 Tm 2:5–6). There can be no speech about God apart from what the person of Christ reveals of God. What theology manages to express about the godhead, then, will be adequate only if it is rooted in his self-manifestation and not in conceptual logic.

While I understand the distinction with Eastern traditons, such as Buddhism that does not have a belief in a revelatory Creator God and with atheistic systems like Marxism or even purely negative theologies, I am not sure how Father Lopez and my beloved von Balthasar can make this leap to say that Christ is the only revelatory communication from God. What about Judaism and Islam (which I know very little about)?

Isn't the Torah (and all that that word includes: Written Torah - Torah she-bi-khtav and Oral Torah - Torah she-be-`al peh) the revelation of God's love for us? I think the leap to Jesus is fine for one who is already a believer, but as one who struggles with his faith, and one who finds much wisdom within Judaism and philosophy itself, this leap to Jesus seems too fast and too easy. Thereby, undermining the arguments.

I would love to hear others' thoughts.

Halakhah believes that there is only one world

From Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's Lonely Man of Faith

The Halakhah believes that there is only one world—not divisible into secular and hallowed sectors—which can either plunge into ugliness and hatefulness, or be roused to meaningful, redeeming activity, gathering up all latent powers into a state of holiness. Accordingly, the task of the covenantal man is to be engaged not in dialectical surging forward and retreating, but in uniting the two communities into one community where man is both the creative, free agent, and the obedient servant of God.

Talmud as love letter

Some more early thoughts about the Talmud:

A story about Rav Soloveitchik says that he said he learned the most important thing in life from his mother – “to feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of God’s resting upon my frail shoulders.”

Thoughts of the day during my reading of the Talmud: 1) I am amazed at the enormous effort that is spent to try to understand and live out the rules set down by God. This is about what happens when someone enters a house that is afflicted with impurity, which can make one tamei – impure.

But if HE WAS WEARING HIS GARMENTS AND HIS SHOES WERE ON HIS FEET AND HIS RINGS WERE ON HIS FINGER – then HE BECOMES TAMEI [impure] IMMEDIATELY. – BUT THEY [his garments, shoes and rings] REMAIN TAHOR [pure] UNTIL HE LINGERS in the house THE AMOUNT OF TIME THAT IT TAKES TO EAT A HALF-LOAF – of WHEAT BREAD RATHER THAN BARLEY BREAD – eaten while he is RECLINING AND EATING, the bread together WITH a RELISH.

Rashi’s commentary then says, “The ‘half-loaf’ is the amount of bread a person normally eats at one meal, for the reference is to a standard two-meal loaf . . . Wheat bread is eaten more quickly
than barley bread, and that which is eaten in a reclining position is eaten quickly, since the person concentrates fully on the food and does not divert his attention to other things. Similarly, eating the bread together with a relish hastens its consumption.”

When I view these efforts, often torturous efforts, to understand and “follow” the rules “correctly,” I sometimes think how could a loving God want people to struggle so much to understand and in so many cases “fear” God and God’s commandments?

Yet, what struck me today, was that I could also see these struggles as the attempt of a lover to decipher and understand and cherish a love letter. If one sees the Torah (Written and Oral) as this love letter from God, which is not simple and not perfectly clear because of the human agents necessary to create it [and I now would add -- because of the importance that Hashem placed on creativity] – then these struggles to interpret, to understand, to live out – are expressions of profound love and faithfulness.

Then when we study in this way and strive to hang onto every word, every nuance, every clue – these are the efforts of the lover striving to please and love his/her beloved.

It seems to me additional profundity comes when one can also see all of creation and each moment as another Torah, another opportunity to understand and respond to the actions and messages of our beloved.

Early notes about my first volume of the Talmud

A number of years ago I was keeping a fairly regular journal and tonight when I was looking for some quotes about the Talmud, found this that made me smile. So I thought I would share it:

I just got my first volume of the Talmud in the mail yesterday -- and this tractate is about kosher and non-kosher animals at a truly "talmudic" level -- the first page of the tractate I have is about whether an animal is okay to eat if it has been born during the kosher slaughtering process. Why do I care, not being Jewish or keeping kosher? What fasicinates me is sitting with Rebbes as they discuss and struggle to understand God's intentions. Their striving and struggling is so determined, so serious, so multi-sided that it is a marvel to dwell within this atmosphere of debate and dialogue.

For them God is truly present and interested in every element and moment of life.

Importance of Time

Another recent shiur from Rav Michael Rosensweig entitled, "The Importance of Time," looks at Mishna 4 and 5 in chapter two of the Pirke Avos:

4.He used to say: Make His will like your will, so that He will make your will like His will. Negate your will before His will, so that He should negate the will of others before your will.

5.Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community. Do not believe in yourself until the day of your death. Do not judge your another until you are in his place. Do not say something that is cannot be understood, assuming that in the end it will be understood. Do not say "When I have free time I will learn," for perhaps you will never have free time. (translation from Rav Lau on Pirkei Avos)

These lines, of course, begin with the one of the most fundamental and demanding religious challenges, "Make His will like your will," and then ends with a statement about the importance of using our time well, using our time to learn, to study, which of course, represents within the tradition the highest level of honoring and loving Hashem.

In the shiur Rav Rosensweig talks about the risk and wastefulness of procrastination, which I had to smile about, because my wife, Eve, is someone who truly cannot procrastinate and just doesn't understand putting something off. This drive to get things done sometimes drives me a bit crazy, but Rav Rosensweig's words have helped me appreciate how Eve is trulz honoring time by her actions.

What I also get from Rav Rosensweig within this shiur and in his general approach to talmid Torah that sees learning, "as constituting the vehicle for dialogue and encounter with devar haShem—an intrinsically significant spiritual process and religious experience," [1] is that he helps me appreciate the time I have to study and to see it as something profoundly valuable and meaningful.

We live a world, a time, that seems to only value activity and movement. In which, if one isn't busy with work or a hobby or a sport, then one is not using one's time well. This view of accomplishment would not judge my listening and studying of the Talmud very highly. In fact, at times I struggle with its "usefulness" as well. But when I listen to a shiur like this, I am reminded of the intrinsic value of Torah lishmah (studying Torah for its own sake) and challenge myself to truly embrace this reality.

[1] ELU VA-ELU DIVRE ELOKIM HAYYIM: HALAKHIC PLURALISM AND THEORIES OF CONTROVERSY

Rav Michael Rosensweig on Abraham

Rav Michael Rosensweig has been presenting a series of shiurim on Abraham:

• The Emunah of Avraham Avinu Part 1
• The Emunah of Avraham Avinu Part 2
• The Transition from Avraham to Yitzchak to Yaakov

In these talks he moves from Avraham's emunah (faith) to yireh (fear) and ahavah (love) and how each is individual and yet intertwined, particularly fear and love. In each presentation, he makes clear the uniqueness and importance of Abraham to the Jewish people and all people.

Hopefully, Rav Rosensweig will continue this exploration.

"Pray continually" with the help of my iPod and Rav Rosensweig

It has been a long time since I have posted anything, which hopefully I will comment on later. I just had the idea this morning about the concept of "praying continually," which comes from Paul's 1 Thessalonians 5:17, but resonates with most religious traditions I believe.

For example, I believe the Zen tradition encourages a being present in the moment, whether one is walking or driving or doing the dishes, which has a sense of "praying continually."

But I want to talk about how listening to Rav Michael Rosensweig can help me accomplish this -- at least striving to be present to devar Hashem at many moments (even if not "continually"). I often begin listening to the Gittin class first thing in the morning and then on the way to work and back home again, and any time I go for a walk or do various chores around the house. While I should certainly give the shiurim more focused and concentrated time, I find having Rav Rosensweig's analysis and creativity with me so much is quite rewarding.

I have tried to find other sources of this type of constant inspiration or exploration, but have found works like the Catholic Divine Office, which contains prayer, song and reading, as something that just doesn't connect with me. I have also listened to many other talks from the Buddhist tradition, but for me they lack the passion and creativity of the Rav Rosensweig's shiurim. I have even tried philosophy lectures on iTunes U or poetry from Pennsound, but they don't give me that constant, non-stop drive.

While there are obviously, many, many other shiurim on http://www.yutorah.org/, I must declare that Rav Rosensweig is my Rebbe. And like te tradition states, I can learn much from simply being around the rebbe (of course for me, "being around" is been 5,000 miles away and listening on my iPod). Simply listening to the energy and the non-stop exploration, creativity and the commitment to a maximalist spirituality, I learn much and am inspired much.

Rav Rosensweig is back and learning Gittin

Well the summer must be over, because YU is back in session. While I have had a nice summer, I realize that I have been looking forward to Rav Michael Rosensweig beginning his shiur. Even though there are still hours and hours and hours of his shiurim online, there is something about following along "live."

As Rav Rosensweig began to discuss Gittin, he asked a fundamental question -- why is Geirushin (divorce) even permitted? As we all know Judaism does not shy away from defining strict regulations for behavior, as the 613 mitzvas make clear. And in fact, Rav Rosensweig often talks about how one should strive for a maximalist approach to halachah and in the conduct of our lives.

So, why divorce? As you all probably know the Catholic Church does not permit divorce, but instead may "annul" a marriage (basically treat it like it never happened) in some situations. I should know, having been married in the Church over 30 years ago, but divorced a few years later. Therefore, officially not permitted to receive the sacraments. I also wonder if I tried to really get in full graces with the Church through an annullment now, if it would be possible, since I am no longer in touch in anyway with my former wife. To me this is a system that simply doesn't work, which is why Rav Rosensweig's question intrigues me.

So, if we wanted to really be maximalist . . . why not forbid divorce?

While there are a number of answers that Rav Rosensweig discusses, in his own approach he describes how he sees the institution of geirushin as something that in reality helps retain the sanctity and sacredness of marriage, by allowing an out for people, if needed (certainly not encouraged). This "safety value" or "exit clause" helps preserve the choice, the union and the kedusha of the marriage, it does not destroy it.

This line of reasoning, reminded me of some of the Kiddushin shiurim I have listened to from Rav Rosensweig, in which he describes how erusin and nesuin (the two steps of a Jewish marriage that in former times were often separated by about a year of time, but now take place on the wedding day) where introduced by Moses to bring more sanctity to the institution of marriage as compared to those societies around the Jews.

What is clear to me is the importance of marriage for Rav Rosensweig and the tradition as a whole and what a wonderful insight to our human reality, that divorce used responsibily can truly enhance the bonds and faithfulness of marriage and not simply tear it apart.

I am glad he is back . . .

The Humility Of The Journey

I just downloaded this lovely article "The Humility Of The Journey" about one Orthodox rabbi's decision to a Rabbinical Association fellowship that included Reform and Conservative rabbis. In this short piece he writes:

The Torah commands us not to make an idol. An idol, explains the Mei haShiloach, is something which is carved in stone or cast in iron. It has very exact dimensions and clear boundaries; it is solid and unchanging. Don’t make your understanding of Torah into an idol, warns the Mei haShiloach. Don’t reduce Torah to a clear, static and unequivocal package that you can carry around on your shoulder. Never think that your present understanding of Torah is the full and final authorized version.

And why not? Because, according to Rav Mordechai Yosef of Izbich, the author of the Mei haShiloach, God gave us only a partial glimpse of his truth when he revealed the Torah at Sinai, in order that we spend our lives in an eternal search for additional pieces of the puzzle. God wants us to be on a quest, to be involved in a process. We must never rest on our laurels, must never let the Torah become static. The Torah that we know, Torat Haim, the Torah of life, is to always be alive, to always be dynamic, growing and developing. When we think we know it all and there is nothing more to learn, we have reduced our Torah to an idol, a mere graven image. Paradoxically, when we think we have it all, that is when we have lost it all.

I find these words capture very beautifully one the most attractive things I experience in the Talmud.

Infinite and wonderful life

In his editorial entitled, "The Luxurious Growth" from July 15, 2008, New York Times columnist, David Brooks writes:

[S]cience finds itself enmeshed with social science and the humanities in what researchers call the Gloomy Prospect, the ineffable mystery of why people do what they do.

The prospect may be gloomy for those who seek to understand human behavior, but the flip side is the reminder that each of us is a Luxurious Growth. Our lives are not determined by uniform processes. Instead, human behavior is complex, nonlinear and unpredictable. The Brave New World is far away. Novels and history can still produce insights into human behavior that science can’t match.

...

This age of tremendous scientific achievement has underlined an ancient philosophic truth — that there are severe limits to what we know and can know; that the best political actions are incremental, respectful toward accumulated practice and more attuned to particular circumstances than universal laws.

In reading these lines this morning, I could not help but think of the seemingly infinite openness that is the basis of Talmud study as I have slowly learned--an openness that does not allow an "anything goes" type of interpretation or implementation, but one that encourages and nurtures creativity and personal initiative.

Within our finite limits and the infinite possibilities that our imaginations and creativity can produce, we are challenged with the task to strive to build and develop an in-depth, heartfelt relationship with Hashem, with Hakadosh Barukh Hu, with God. We are challenged to find the truth of our lives. It is also my profound belief that that play of poetry, at its best, can also help forge and develop this relationship and help develop this truth.

The philosopher David Michael Levin, who I quote it my essay on the poet Charles Olson, compares this more open sense of truth (in contrast to truth as correctness) that only can emerge is the space of this type of openness:

In poetizing discourse, both sound and sense require a theory of truth which understands and appreciates their ‘ecstatic’ play within an open field. In the phonological dimension, there must be a field for the play of sounds: echoes, resonances, overtones and undertones, onomatopeia, polyphony, emotionally evocative sounds. Similarly, in its semantic dimension, the dimension of signifiers, there must be a field for the play of meanings: ambiguities, allusions, metaphors, shades of meaning, adumbrations of what is to come. Truth as correctness, truth represented in the discourse of statements, assertions, propositions, cannot do justice to the interactive processes essential to poetizing discourse. Truth as aletheia can, because it is hermeneutical: it lets sound and sense play in the interplay of presence and absence, identity and difference. To the poetizing process, the process of bringing experience as it takes shape into words that further shape it, aletheia gives a multi-dimensional field in which to unfold. (437)

Aletheia is the Greek word for truth that Heidegger defined as "unconcealing" and which in some way to my mind expresses the work of Talmud Torah and the creativity that underlies it.

More on multivalence . . . the heart of lomdus

In a recent comment to a post, a good friend wrote:

"Multi-valent" is a good, strong word, though I prefer "particulate", in the sense Blake meant when he referred to 'reality' as made up of "Minute Particulars" . . . Particulars can be collected -- and we don't pick flowers-in-general, we pick these daisies in front of us here and now.

I believe his description of particulars is an important one for each of us to remember in our day-to-day lives as we interact with all the individuals (persons and things) in our lives and strive not to simply generalize or categorize our encounters.

However, for me "multi-valent" has a different meaning. It points to the nearly infinite number of meanings and chiddushim that Rav Rosensweig can seemingly discover within a sugya. It refers to what Shalom Carmy calls "polyphonic diversity" in his essay entitled, "Polyphonic Diversity and Military Music," from Lomdus: The Conceptual Approach to Jewish Learning, edited by Yosef Blau.

Rabbi Carmy opens his essay with these sentences from the Arukh ha-Shulhan, Hoshen Mishpat:

Indeed it is the glory of our holy, pure Torah, for the entire Torah is called a song (shirah) and the glory song is when the voices vary; that is the primary pleasantness. Whoever sets sail in the sea of Talmud will discover varied melodic pleasure in all the varied voices.

A student who is comfortable with the polyphonic world of the Talmud is also comfortable with complexity and ambiguity, and does not seek simple answers, because in the end they do not exist. Rabbi Calmy writes:

Typical of the polyphonic consciousness is the Rav's assertion that when human beings are faced with many crucial dilemmas and orientations of value, Halakhah "tries to help man in such critical moments," but does not provide a formulaic "synthesis, since the latter does not exist."

It is this type of student who appreciates what Rabbi Calmy calls, "the infinite challenge that defines the human endeavor to study Torah."

To help me better understand what lomdus is and how it is lived out, I found this essay on the internet entitled, Humility and Halakah: Placing Derekh Ha-Limud in Perspective, by Rabbi Doniel Schreiber.

At first he describes various types of iyun or lomdus (in-depth gemara study) this way:

• One end of the spectrum, reflective of classic iyun found in Ge'onic times, would place the elucidation of texts as its main goal. All questions and analyses, in this approach, aim to arrive at a better understanding of the texts.
• On the other end of the spectrum, reflective of more contemporary lomdus, is the attempt to understand concepts by classifying, conceptualizing and defining halakhic matter.
• In the middle of the spectrum, one finds a more balanced system embracing both the importance of text and the centrality of concept. The text generates analysis of concepts, while concepts shed light upon new ways of reading text.

He then defines lomdus practiced by Rav Rosensweigh in the following manner;

More recently, mori ve-rabi HaRav Michael Rosensweig shlita, Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University, has catapulted iyun into a new sphere of analysis. It demands, on the one extreme, a microscopic approach. This entails an exhaustive, comprehensive, and often tedious sifting of the most subtle halakhic minutiae and the most seemingly trivial detail. On the other extreme, it requires one to ascend to a macroscopic perspective, in which one, taking into consideration a wealth of sugyot revolving around a broad issue, peers downward upon the sweeping, halakhic landscape. This method, in essence, expands Brisker analysis to the farthest reaches of both ends of the sugya.

These two polar extremes, rigorous scrutiny and panoramic vision, when concomitantly implemented, enable one to integrate and interpret all forms of nuances and detail into the landscape of the sugya in the broadest sense of the term - the meta-sugya.* For example, elements of halakha associated with the process of beit din (courts) may shed light on how to understand the broader concept of din (Jewish civil law); details in the topic of eidim zomemim (false witnesses) could reflect on the larger picture of eidim and eidut (witnesses and testimony); minutiae in the discussion of gittin (bills of divorce), might clarify the wider topic of shtarot (legal documents). The incessant and rigorous investigation of a detail's relationship to the meta-sugya is the hallmark of this system. To some degree, this may represent the pinnacle of lomdus and the Brisker derekh.

*I use the term meta-sugya to refer to mori ve-rabi HaRav Rosensweig's emphasis on analyzing classic sugyot and then treating each of them as a detail within a broader enveloping sugya, which in turn may become a detail in an even broader sugya, and so on.

I am proud to say that I have listened to many of Rav Rosensweig's shiurim in which he has done very similar to the ones described above . . . they truly are quite a ride.

As Rabbi Schreiber continues in the his essay, he also speaks of some of the benefits and reasons for taking such an approach:

When one is involved in conceptual analysis of sugyot, reaching great depths of understanding, one achieves a genuinely rich sense of satisfaction. While this is partially due to the fact that one is involved in the important and basic mitzva to learn Torah, it is largely because one is engaged in something that is the most meaningful and penetrating experience as humanly possible. It is the endeavor, in our never-ending pursuit to draw close to God, to understand Divine intent.

The only real way finite man has to reach God is to be involved in what God has revealed to us. This, to be sure, includes performance of mitzvot, but especially pertains to talmud Torah, because talmud Torah is THE embodiment of the will of God. While thrashing out questions of kinyanei geneiva (theft law) is not as obvious a method of bringing one closer to God as learning the laws of avodat Hashem is, it accomplishes it as effectively.

Although one may be serious about talmud Torah, if one does not relate to this experience, if one is not animated by it, one cannot be passionate about learning Torah. Anyone who is really passionate about his learning, to the extent that he is actually consumed by, and excessive in, his talmud Torah - not just that he derives a certain pleasure from it - has certainly, whether consciously or not, encountered the Shekhina.

As well as these:

Success [in lomdus], inasmuch as there are always new facts, new definitions and new situations, lies in the ability to perceive new concepts in new facts, to penetrate to their meaning as much as possible, and apply them to new situations. This is the pursuit of Divine intent and its inner logic.

and these:

It is important to keep in mind throughout that lomdus is not a formal method which merely requires a series of steps, nor is it an artificial process consisting of stale categories of thought. Rather, lomdus is a response to internal stimuli; one must always endeavor to be creative, open to nuances, formulations, and shifting winds - flexibility is critical. Thus, while these tools are useful, one must not let them dull sensitivity and constrict creativity.

Lomdus, when successfully implemented, allows one to respond to sugyot with intuitive precision and depth of understanding.

and finally these:

A skillful lamdan, thus, transforms the passive absorption of information into an encounter, an engagement with devar Hashem.

To learn more about this approach I came upon this recorded shiurim by Rav Rosensweig, which I intend to listen to shortly: Derekh HaLimud 1 (11/21/05) and Derekh HaLimud 2 (11/28/05).

In a few words, I guess I am drawn to the profound ability and desire to find infinite depths in the finite world around us. While my good friend Gary's words opened this post, about the importance of the particulars around us, which certainly holds much truth, I cannot help but think that a lamdan, might see the same flowers that Gary speaks about and immediately ask him or herself, halakhic questions regarding its permissability to be eaten or planted or uprooted on Shabbat, etc.

To close this too long post, I want to share some quotes from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's Halakhic Man:

When a fruit is growing, halakhic man measures the fruit with the standards of growth and ripening that he possesses: budding stage, early stage of ripening, formation of fruits or leaves, and reaching one-third of complete ripeness. He gazes at colors and determines their quality: distinguishes between green and yellow, blue and white, etc., etc., “between blood and blood, between affection and ffection” (Deut 17:8) p21

There is no real phenomenon to which halakhic man does not possess a fixed relationship from the outset and a clear, definitive, a priori orientation. . . . The Halakhah encompasses laws of business, torts, neighbors, plaintiff and defendant, creditor and debtor, partners, agents, workers, artisans, bailees, etc. p22

When his soul yearns for God, he immerses himself in reality, plunges, with his entire being, into the very midst of concrete existence, and petitions God to descend upon the mountain and to dwell within our reality, with all its laws and principles. Homo religiosus ascends to God; God, however, descends to halakhic man. The latter desires not to transform finitude into infinity but rather infinity into finitude. p45

The study of the Torah is not a means to another end, but is the end point of all desires. It is the most fundamental principle of all. p87

Charles Olson, poetry and multivalence

A number of years ago I wrote an essay for a modern poetry class. The topic was Charles Olson and what I called a "Polis of Attention and Dialogue."

I have been silent on this blog for almost a month now for many reasons, but thinking about what I wanted to say, I returned to this essay, which tried to described the multivalent (many meanings) nature of Olson's poetry and in turn the multivalent nature of our world. And I believe that it is my interest in the viewpoint that drew me to the Talmud's multivalence, and why I have been attracted to it over time.

I thought I would share a number of paragraphs from the essay, the whole piece can be found here.

Charles Olson’s Maximus: A Polis of Attention and Dialogue

Don Byrd in his Charles Olson’s Maximus says this about Olson’s interest in more traditional academic work, “His problem was simple: how does the writer manage to finish a project when every day he discovers information which changes the entire picture?”. This is how I feel about my own work with Charles Olson, every page of Maximus seems to open new angles on Olson, on the world, on reality and on myself.

What draws me to Olson’s work is his ability to hold in tension two apparently opposing messages. The first is that “life is strangled by systems” (Christensen 212) and the second is the importance of “making a mappemunde” that includes his “being” (Olson M II 87). While Olson clearly desires to join with Nietzsche and others in toppling the “whole line of life that makes Delphi that center,” (Butterick 7) he does not simply create a mass of ruins. Rather, he takes those ruins and creates a mythology and cosmology out of them. However, these creations are not a Ptolemaic system of perfect circles. Instead, it is a wild, open, becoming, creative, imaginative, unfinished mythology that asks readers for their attention and participation.

A example in nature of this process of both destruction and creation is a terminal moraine–the geological deposits left at the end of a glacier’s journey. It contains everything that the glacier consumed in its path. This image works on many levels with Maximus. First, on a literal level, the section of Gloucester known as Dogtown is actually a “terminal moraine” as Olson says in “Maximus from Downtown–I.” Second, Maximus, itself, can be seen as a terminal moraine created by the movement of Charles Olson–a glacier of a man, whose interests included:

Hopi language, Mayan statuary, non-Euclidean geometry, Melville’s fiction, the austere thought structures in Whitehead’s philosophy, the fragmentaary remains of the Sumerian and Hittite civilizations, Norse, Greek, and Egyptian mythology, numerology and the Tarot, the history of human migration, naval and economic history, the etymology of common words, pre-Socratic philosophy, the historical origins of the New England colonies, the development of the fishing industry off the coast of Massachusetts, accounts of the conquest of Mexico, the collapse of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. (Christensen 5-6)

Finally, the image of the terminal moraine also resonates with the view of the mythologist, Joseph Campbell, who used this image as a description of the state of myth in our time. Campbell imagined that individuals in the twentieth century were standing on a terminal moraine containing the fragments of thousands of years of myth. And from this great treasure chest of myth he encouraged individuals to create their own personal mythology by picking and choosing from what lies about them. It is with a similar sentiment that Olson writes Maximus.

. . .

Heidegger’s work is immense and extremely complex, but if one turns to his essay on “The Origin of the Work of Art,” one can find some interesting descriptions of truth and the role of the artist in the revelation of that truth. The essential aspect of truth for Heidegger is “unhiddenness,” which Heidegger uncovers within the traditional Greek term for truth, aletheia. It is this sense of truth that Heidegger refers to when he writes,

The art work opens up in its own way the Being of beings. This opening up, i.e., this deconcealing, i.e., the truth of beings, happens in the work. In the art work, the truth of what is has set itself to work. Art is truth setting itself to work. (390)

For Heidegger, art creates an opening out of which truth is unconcealed. Thus, for Heidegger, much like Olson, truth emerges in the openness of a field created by art, by poetry. In a passage that seemingly could have come from Olson, we hear Heidegger say,

What poetry, as illuminating projection, unfolds of unconcealedness and projects ahead into the design of the figure, is the Open which poetry lets happen, and indeed in such a way that only now, in the midst of beings, the Open brings beings to shine and ring out. (72)

Reality, being, truth only emerge in the Open, not within the confines of a clearly delineated system of classification and identification, which stagnates life. The nature of the Open allows for the freedom of creation necessary to bring art to life­–an art not of measure and control, but one of freedom and creativity:

The more poetic a poet is–the freer (that is, the more open and ready for the unforeseen) his saying–the greater is the purity with which he submits what he says to an ever more painstaking listening, and the further what he says is from the mere propositional statement that is dealt with solely in regard to its correctness or incorrectness. (216)

In this passage from “‘. . . Poetically Man Dwells . . .’” Heidegger could have been talking about Maximus, since it certainly requires a “painstaking listening” and cannot be judged on a basis of “correctness or incorrectness.” It also clearly relates to the nature of reality that Olson is striving to give voice to and create a space for–a reality that demands “painstaking listening” and “eyes,” and cannot simply be measured, organized or classified.

. . .

Olson does not simply tell his readers "to find out for yourself." Instead, he forces them to make those discoveries on their own. He does not provide simple answers or solutions. How could he, if he truly believed in the centrality of process and the fluidity of absolutes? By using unorthodox sentence structures, incomplete statements, obscure references, original layout techniques, Olson forces readers to engage the text in an attentive, conversational, dialogical manner in which new meaning is created in the opening of the poem. One cannot assume that the next word will follow from the previous. Each word has to be attended to and given the space to play. Readers must work; they must use their eyes, ears, breath and bodies to engage the text. If they do not pay careful attention to the text and its nuances and participate in a open, transforming dialogue with it, then they will miss its meaning completely, and will fail to create the “polis of the self” (Christensen ix) that it challenges them to create. Eniko Bollobas describes the participatory nature of reading Olson in the following way:

The rich texture of Olson’s poem demands a participatory (creative) reading from the reader rather than “literate” passive listening. Also, it demands from this reader a certain openness and a willingness to resist and ignore prior expectations, preconceptions, prejudices, and routines of apprehension. The multivalent text, the text characterized by free syntactic and semantic valencies, seems a more faithful transcript of the creative moment, and at the same time promises a more active, activating reading experience. (62)

Olson, in fact, gives readers a hint on how to engage his text by how he uses texts within Maximus. Olson makes the texts he reads (e.g. an Algonquin legend in M II, 21) his own by incorporating them into his poem. He may change a word or two, but that is all. However, the new context Olson creates for the story gives it new meanings of which the Algonquins probably never dreamed. Through juxtaposition with other stories and repetition (Olson repeats this legend in M II 142) the meaning of the story is unleashed from its indigenous roots and allowed to float within the readers’ lives where it can possibly plant new roots. In this way Olson demonstrates that reading is not a passive process, but is an active and integrative process in which readers are challenged to unleash Maximus and make it their own in order to give “daily life itself a dignity and a sufficiency” (Christensen ix).

Even the incompleteness of Maximus, which was only gathered together in its current form after Olson's death, provides yet another entrance, another challenge for the reader. In some ways Maximus begs for the reader to complete it. Or perhaps more correctly expressed, to continue it. By engaging the text and attempting to continue it, to make it their own, readers become part of an ongoing conversation, a never-ending process of creating a “mappemunde” out of the terminal moraine on which they dwell.