Embracing the rhizome

As is hopefully clear, while I have a great interest and respect for the Talmud and do study it daily, I am also open to a wide range of other influences and ideas as well. Some of these I hope to share over time.

Today, I would like to share some quotes from the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. They come from his work with Felix Guattari entitled A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

The life and energy and possibilities that they create in this book are a marvelous antidote for the closed-minded, fundamentalist thinking (Right or Left; Jewish or Catholic or Muslim or Buddhist; American or Canadian or European or Asian; etc.) that is engulfing our planet.

Deleuze and Guattari try to paint a path out of this thinking -- creating what they call "lines of flight" and giving us the wonderful image of the "rhizome" as compared to the "tree." I will let them speak for themselves now:

A rhizome as subterranean stem is absolutely different from roots and radicles. Bulbs and tubers are rhizomes. . . . Rats are rhizomes. p6-7

The rhizome includes the best and the worst: potatoe and couchgrass or the weed. p7

Principles of connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be. This is very different from the tree or root, which plots a point, fixes an order. p7

A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines. . . . p9

When we become too attached to our "tree," we restrict movement, growth and life for ourselves and others. Our challenge is to recognize the rhizomatic nature of our lives and embrace it. If we do, we will make and see connections that before we would never dream possible. And NOTHING will be outside us, NOTHING will be excluded because as the D & G state "the rhizome includes the best and worst." Only by embracing it ALL can we create this world anew.

A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The tree is filiation, but the rhizome is alliance, uniquely alliance. The tree imposes the verb “to be,” but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, “and . . . and . . . and . . .” p25

Learning from all people, the sign of a wise person

This line. ''Who is wise, he who learns from all men" comes from the Jewish work Pirkei Avot, also known as the Sayings of the Father, one of the most beloved tractates within the Mishnah.

There is probably no phrase that I love more and feel is more important for today. It seems like we have so many experts, so many people wanting to tell us what to do and how to be. But none of these experts seem ready to listen to the other. And for myself I know that if I can keep this phrase at the tip of my consciousness, my day-to-day world has a whole new light, a new glimmer of significance and importance.

Here is how the Rav, Rabbi Jospeh Soloveitchik uses this line in one of his discussions of the dual nature of the human personality

“God implanted two powers within man. On the one hand, he gave man the power to be a creator of worlds, the power to be master and instructor, to teach, to influence another and change his personality and fashion it anew. This is an incredibly marvelous power. . .

“On the other hand, God endowed man with a second power, the ability to be a student, to learn from someone else: the ability to e influenced and to give oneself up totally, like clay in the hands of the potter, for receiving a form, ‘Male and female created He them’ (Gen. 1:27), activity and passivity, creation and reception, both are rooted with the human personality.

“It is forbidden for a man, be he the greatest of the great, to think that he is ever the master and never the disciple, that he knows all and has nothing to learn from another. The rule, ‘Who is wise, he who learns from all men’ (Avoth 4:1) is a cardinal principle in Judaism. One must never forget that one can learn from others in the same measure that one is able to impart to others.

“Even the smallest of the small, however his spiritual endowment is limited. and his knowledge, no matter how scanty, also has powers of the soul, good qualities and treasure-houses of feeling that he is able to share with others and influence them. Every human being is both master and disciple, influencer and influenced, receiver and bestower. ‘Male and female created He them’” (Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, The Rav Speaks),

Our study upholds the world

From Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin

And the undoubted truth is that were the entire world, from one end to the other, to be, God forbid, empty of our study and contemplation of the Torah for even one single moment, all the worlds, upper and lower, would be destroyed in an instant, and would become as nullified and vacuous, heaven forfend.

Love is wanting questions not answers . . .

It seems like I spend some time everyday listening to Rabbi Shlomo Singer, who is the Rosh Yeshiva of the Passaic Torah Institute. While I must admit that there is much I don't understand, because his shiurim (classes) are quite advanced discussions of the Bava Kama (one of the tractates of the Bavli (Babylonian Talmud)), I love listening to him. He has such a passion for learning and teaching the Talmud that it is quite infectious.

One of the messages that he makes often, but particularly in his shiur from April 10, 2005 is that when we have answers we don't have love. He says, "An answer isn't a relationship. The answer is the finalization of a relationship. You are through. Good Bye."

But a question says that I want to learn more, to spend time with Hashem. The Rosh Yeshiva (the teacher) is not there to give answers, but to stimulate interest and passion to learn more, because from a question one gets more life. A question is a tool to understand the Gemara, because with an answer we stop, we think we are finished -- a question keeps us going. And as Rabbi Singer says, in the study of the infinite Torah of Hashem there are no answers. Hashem does not give us a test, but wants us to strive more and more to understand. With answers we close the door -- the only thing that answers are good for is that they can help us go deeper.

Wanting to spend time with Hashem's Torah, with Hashem, with God is what is important, not answers. Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago that strives to express a fraction of this idea. What is interesting is that I wrote this before discovering the Talmud, which as should be clear by now, I feel captures this sense of eternal, infinite questioning.

Being is a Question

Rilke encourages us to
“Live the questions now”
so that we will perhaps
“live along some distant day into the answer.”

These lines
I have loved
for many years.

Yet, today they seem
too focused on an answer,
even if that answer lies in the distant future.

Instead, what would our lives be like if
we saw each day
as simply a question
without an answer
other than the question itself?

No, I am not
talking about
the meaninglessness
of nihilism.

Rather I speak of a “questionfulness”
that colors each day with
new possibilities,
new insights,
new opportunities
to ask,
to ponder,
to explore
ourselves and our world around us.

A questionfulness
that never stops
and can not be stopped
with an answer,
because it may be only
questions themselves
that drive the sun to rise,
the world to turn,
birds to sing,
and people to awaken.

Questions as Rilke warned
that have to be lived and
not covered over with answers,
solutions and certainties.

A Directionless Direction

This passage was shared by a friend of mine:

"You have a directionless direction. It is an entirely new approach to time and space. . . . There is a direction because there are no directions at the same time. This opens up tremendous possibilities of another way of looking at the whole thing."

It comes from Chogyam Trungpa's Orderly Chaos.

While I am sure the Rabbis would disagree with this idea, this notion of "directionless direction" is something I deeply feel within the Talmudic discussions -- we are moving together, but the movement, the discussion is what is essential, not necessarily the direction and certainly not the answer. The answer can at times serve to stop our movement, our growth, our learning.

The Importance of Debate

At the heart of the Talmud is debate, known by the Hebrew word "mahkolet," which means "division," but is used to refer to the arguments or debates within the Talmud that are one of its primary characteristics.

Here is a lovely Talmudic tale from Bava Metzia 84a about the importance of debate and the problem of "Yes" people.

R' Yochanan who was swimming in the river one day and a thief jumped in the water to attack him, but the rabbi responds "Your strength belongs to the Torah" and after some negotiation the rabbi agrees to marry the thief off to his very beautiful sister, if the thief Reish Lakish agrees to study Torah.

Years pass by and Reish Lakish becomes a great rabbi with whom R' Yochanan constantly discusses issues of the Torah. One day they were discussing the issue of when various knives, spears and pruning forks become able to be tamei (ritually impure)? During this discussion R' Yochanan mentioned that Reish Lakish should know because "a thief knows his tools" and Reish Lakish was offended and responded saying that R' Yochanan had not benefitted him, since he was a "rabbi" among thieves and now he was a "rabbi" among scholars. Lakish's ingratitude disheartened R' Yochanan and so Lakish became ill and eventually died.

At this point R' Yochanan grieves Lakish's death deeply and the other rabbis decide to help comfort him by sending to him someone else who can discuss and debate Torah with him. They send one of their best students. However, when this new student is with R' Yochanan, he constantly says, "I know a saying in the Mishnah and defends your position." This new person does not argue and debate with R' Yochanan. R' Yochanan says, "You are supposed to by like Reish Lakish? With Reish Lakish, whenever I said something he had twenty-four difficulties in regard to that point and I would have to come up with twenty-four solutions and as a result the subject became clear. However, when you simply agree with me, I learn nothing new and the subject does not become clearer." This caused R' Yochanan to grieve even more and he soon lost his sanity and died!

Berachos 3ab

This Daf starts off with an interesting question – why does R’ Meir contradict himself? He is quoted as defending two different times to begin the evening Shema:

• R’ Meir – from the time Kohamin who are tamei (ritually impure) immerse themselves, just a few moments prior to the appearance of the stars

• R’ Meir of the second Baraisa – from the time people enter to eat their meal on the Sabbath eve

The Talmud simply says that the Tanna, those Sages who were commenting about R’ Meir simply differed as to what he actually said and then it leaves it at that.

The next debate recorded is in regard to how many watches during the night are there – three or four? In one answer is that there are three because Hashem [since this is an orthodox translation I use they translate YHVH as Hashem which is Hebrew for “the Name”] roars three times during the night like a lion because of the destruction of the Temple.

The next incident discussion has R’ Yose traveling on a road and going into a ruin to pray. As he comes out he meets Elijah the prophet who warns him about entering ruins and the dangers of praying on the road. R’ Yose says:

AT THAT TIME I LEARNED FROM [ELIJAH] the following THREE THINGS: I LEARNED THAT ONE SHOULD NOT ENTER A RUIN; AND I LEARNED THAT ONE MAY PRAY ON THE ROAD; AND I LEARNED THAT ONE WHO PRAYS WHILE ON THE ROAD SHOULD PRAY THE ABRIDGED PRAYER.

From these three points the commentators conclude that R’ Yose learned three important lessons. “First, it is not wise for a person enter too deeply into the reasons for the lengthy exile and the long delay in the Messiah’s arrival, nor to try and reckon the time of his arrival. Second, he learned that one should pray on the road – i.e. pray for the survival and well-being of Israel along her journey through the exile. Third, that our prayers concerning the tragedies of exile should be intense but not overly long.”

Berachos 2ab

Mishnah – From when may we fulfill the obligation to recite the Shema in the evening. . . . the time of the mitzvah actually extends until the light of dawn rises. If so, why did the Sages say regarding these mitzvos [others were discussed] that they may be performed only until midnight? In order to distance a person from sin.

[Note that the bold text is a translation of the actual Talmud text, while the regular font is additional wording from the translators to help make sense of the cryptic text.]

As is appropriate the Talmud begins with a question, which, of course, has three answers. The differences in the answers primarily focus on how long one has to recite the Shema in the evening. The Sages seem to agree that the time begins at night fall (when the stars appear). However, there is disagreement about until when: one says, “until the end of the first watch” (the hours of night, which varied during seasons where divided into three watches); another says “until midnight”; and another says until “the light of dawn rises.”

One of the things that I find interesting and characteristic of this Mishnah is the line regarding distancing a person from sin. Throughout the Talmud there are discussions about what is Biblically commanded and what is Rabbinically commanded. It seems to me that many, if not most of the Rabbincally commanded actions have this goal in mind – distancing a person from sin. Therefore, they will extend or add to commandments in order to help ensure that there is not even the presumption of sin.

In the Gemara there is a discussion about why they started with the evening Shema and not the morning Shema – one answer given relates to the Jewish view of a day, which starts in the evening and comes from the order “from the Creation of the world, where it is written: And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”

Also in the Gemara there is a discussion of why the time for when one can begin “the time the stars appear” is given in such a roundabout way and not a precise time. The answer, the Sages wanted to teach something else as well—then they go into a discussion of when the Kohanim are permitted to eat terumah (one of the offerings).

This discussion of when can begin goes on for the rest of the daf (sides A and B of the page). In the Artscroll addition in the notes, which are translations of the various commentaries from the page and additional ones, there is a summary of this discussion. I think you will find it interesting.

They summarize the various opinions on the earliest time to recite the evening Shema:

1. R’ Eliezer – from the time the Sabbath is sanctified, i.e. sunset
2. R’ Meir – from the time Kohamin who are tamei (ritually impure) immerse themselves, just a few moments prior to the appearance of the stars
3. R’ Yehoshua – from the time Kohamin who are tamei are permitted to begin eating terumah again, i.e. at the appearance of the stars
4. R’ Chanina – from the time a poor person enters to eat his daily evening meal of bread and salt, which is sometime after the appearance of the stars
5. R’ Meir of the second Baraisa – from the time people enter to eat their meal on the Sabbath eve
6. R’ Achai, and some say R’ Acha – from the time people enter to eat their evening meal during the week, which is even later than the time of a poor person, and the latest time of all.

Perhaps this offers a glimpse into the lively world of the Talmudic Sages and their discussions.

What is also interesting is that Maimonides or Rambam decided to create a compilation of all the Halakhah from the Talmud and various other Rabbinic texts. In the Rambam’s Code, he summarizes this whole discussion this way:

“9. At what time does one recite the Shema in the evening? The obligation obtains from the time the stars come out till midnight. If one transgressed and did not recite before midnight but recited before dawn, he nonetheless fulfilled his obligation, since they only said “until midnight” in order to distance one from transgression.”

Catching Up -- After a Year Away

It has been almost exactly one year since I posted anything on this blog.

I am back and hopefully I will stay back. It is a tendency of mine to change interest and focus often, but I would love to continue to explore the ideas that I started with last year. And in fact, on March 2, it will be one year that I have been reading a page of the Talmud a day (Daf Yomi).

I am using the wonderful Artscroll Schottenstein English Talmud.

For a number of dafs (pages), I wrote a short summary of the information in that particular daf -- I will be sharing some of those over time.

Please -- if you happen to read a page or two of this blog, please go to the comments and say, "Hello."