Texts and creativity -- a response to a comment

I recently received an interesting comment that I would like to share with you along with my response:

Comment:
I find your comments asserting the elevated status of a Jew in sanctifying the physical world a glaring contradiciton to your earlier reflections on creativity and dogma. To suppose that any made [sic] made text, be it Talmud, Torah, New Testatment, Koran, or Vedas, confers any special power to imbue mundane reality with spiritual fullness seems absurd at best.

Response:
Perhaps I agree with you more than you think. In looking back at the quotation your comments are connected to, it clearly is a very Jewish-centric position that I am quoting, which does inflate the value of the Torah.

What I hear you saying is that no "man made" text can do that. First, I do agree that these texts, particularly the Oral Torah (i.e. the Talmud and all its ongoing commentaries) is man made (what else could they be, since as the Talmud says, "The Torah is not in heaven" -- meaning it has been give to humanity to interpret and extend.

However, most interstingly, what I do find incredible is that at its best this Oral Torah is actually a source great of creativity and an antidote to dogma, as a recent shiur on Halakha and Technology reminded me, when it made clear that a 2000 year-old document can be used to define laws for situations unimaginable when it was first written. If that isn't creativity, I don't what is.

I profoundly believe that the creativity that has been at the heart of the Talmudic project has in fact provided a level of "spiritual fullness" for those who believe and follow it. The spiritual fullness only comes from commitment and dedication and is not something that magically occurs. Whether this text "imbues mundane reality with spiritual fullness" for someone outside that group is not really the point.

Overall, I just marvel at the power of texts and those individuals and communities that interpret them to create ever new visions of life and reality.

Warmly,
Jeff

A New Halakha .. a poem

finding a home, a place to rest, a place to act
but there is no home for me here
no place to simply rest

the loneliness is intense,
the depressed feelings of why I don’t do more,
why don’t I contribute more

the world cries in pain
and I sit and read the Talmud
and Rav Soloveitchik

deeply felt traditions, but
isolated, limited,
not expansive enough for me

perhaps that is what I desire
is something to hold me in,
to reign in my wild ride of exploration

yet with the understanding
that love of God, love of the infinite IS everything.
but the word “love” does nothing
to change things

what can change
all levels, all lines, all
scales of magnitude?

they are all changing all the time anyway
must we do anything,
or must we do nothing?

I sometimes feel that everything
rests on me, everything waits for me
to create something new,

don’t we need something new,
but not simplistic, not utilitarian,
but prayerful, hopeful, wonder-full

yet demanding,

demanding faith, devotion, conviction,
passion

passion of love and acceptance and dedication
not the passion of exclusion, isolation, righteousness

perhaps it is this passion, this devotion, this dedication
that I find within the pages of the Talmud and in
words of the Rav and in the restrictions of halakha

but can we create new halakha
that are not simply our own desires,
our own pleasures

but in some way honor
and demand a total commitment
of love and dedication?

a halakha that

“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."

Copyright (c) Jeff Wild, 2006

Yes and No -- a poem

As simple as “Yes” and “No.”
Each moment asks a question:
Love or hate?
Hope or despair?
Possibility or stagnation?
Life or death?

Our choices create the world.
At times it is easier to side
with “No,” with despair, with hate.

But this easy path only leads
to more of the same,
more darkness, more death,
more night.

The path of saying “Yes” to life
may be hard, but it is the only way out –

out to the Light, to Life, to Hope, to Love,
to a future for us all.

With Mary we can say, “Yes” to Love,
to Love that is God,
to a God who is Love,
to the resurrection of Love within us and
a “No” to the crucifixion of Love.

Love will rise only if it rises with us.
We are responsible.
We have the choice
with each interaction,
with each breath,
with each “Yes.”

We are one.
We are held in God’s Love,
we are all expressions of that Love,
needing love, living love.

Humility calls us to love all God’s creation –
God help us, guide us, become us?

God becomes us . . .
Each moment held in God’s hand we have life.

God becomes us at each moment.

Copyright (c) Jeff Wild, 2006