Universalism must flow from our particularism

I just recently listened to the recording of event put on by Yeshiva University entitled, Yehudim V'Amim: Destinies Intertwined?, which was about the Jewish responsibility for the global community from a social justice perspective. It was an evening of very interesting talks given by the Richard M. Joel, the president of YU and Rabbis Michael Rosensweig and J.J. Schacter.

While one of the messages of the evening was the need for offering students a balance of opportunities including social justice outreach, as well as training in Torah along with the full range of university curriculum.

During his presentation Rabbi Rosensweig made the point that a Jewish sense of universalism must flow from Judaism's particularism. I find this point very interesting and very important. Clearly, Judaism is known for it particularism in the sense that there is a perception that it has a dominant focus on the family of Jews and not the larger family of the world. And while Christianity may claim to have offered a remedy for that particularism, I think that the more interesting type of Jewish "particularism" is the type of amazing attention to real world details that is at the heart of the Talmud. For instance in Berachos 4b we find:

This is what David said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, am I not devout? For all the other kings of the East and the West sit among their company in their glory, but as for me, my hands are soiled with blood, embryos, and afterbirths which I examine, in order to permit a woman to her husband.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, described this passage in Halakhic Man as an example of how the halakhic man gets "his hands soiled by the gritty realia of practical Halakhah."

Another example of this specificity comes from in today's Daf Yomi, Nazir 49B, which describes the amount of a corpse (bones, blood, gel, dust, etc.) needed to make a nazir tameh (ritually impure).

From these "gritty" particulars, the Talmud and its interpreters are able to build an ideal vision of reality, what one might call a universal vision. Again from Halakhic Man:

Halakhah has a fixed a priori relationship to the whole of reality in all of its fine and detailed particulars. Halakhic man orients himself to the entire cosmos and tries to understand it by utilizing an ideal world which he bears in his halakhic consciousness. p23

What I find fascinating is that another direction my attention has taken me recently is to a somewhat similar particularist vision of reality that is described by The Rule of Benedict (RB), St. Benedict's monastic rule that he wrote around 600 CE (the same time that the editing of the Talmud was completed).

Here is the reading for May 6:

Hence the Lord says in the Gospel,
"Whoever listens to these words of Mine and acts upon them,
I will liken to a wise person
who built a house on rock.
The floods came,
the winds blew and beat against that house,
and it did not fall,
because it had been founded on rock" (Matt. 7:24-25).

Having given us these assurances,
the Lord is waiting every day
for us to respond by our deeds to His holy admonitions.
And the days of this life are lengthened
and a truce granted us for this very reason,
that we may amend our evil ways.
As the Apostle says,
"Do you not know that God's patience is inviting you to repent" (Rom. 2:4)?
For the merciful Lord tells us,
"I desire not the death of the sinner,
but that the sinner should be converted and live" (Ezech. 33:11).

Words like "rock" and "deeds" and the entire RB is filled with real world, nitty gritty details about life within a community of monks written 1400 years ago. Yet, it contains an enormous array of details and insights from which one can learn much for living in the everyday world of the 21st century.

And on the other hand, philosophical or theological positions that do not rely on the particular, but are built on abstractions or generalizations often evaporate when challenged or lose their strength over time or simply merge into one, weak message that no longer has the power to move, motivate or inspire.

Somehow, these two visions, the Talmud and the Rule of Benedict, for me contain a way to focus on the particular, but dwell within the eternal and point to the universal.

The gift(s) of the Talmud

Not being able to sleep last night, I thought much about my interests and direction. Recently, I have been reading much from the Benedictine tradition, in particular commentaries on the Rule of Benedict -- a still vibrant document from around 600 CEcontaining rules about living in a monastery and elsewhere. It is a beautiful work that holds many messages for today.

I have also been exploring the poetry of Kenneth Koch, who I mentioned earlier -- his optimistic, creative and playful texts are also quite inspiring and freeing.

But in thinking about this blog and a viewpoint that that I can provide that perhaps others cannot, I returned to the Talmud as a source of meaning and understanding for me to continue to explore. While the Rule of Benedict has been and is being interpreted by a wide range of folks within and outside the monastery, even inside and outside Christianity, and the poetry of Kenneth Koch certainly can inspire, it is meant to be enjoyed and not analysed, the Talmud seems to thrive on analysis, to grow and grow and become richer from every question asked of it, every angle explored.

Therefore, since I do believe I provide a rather unusual perspective on this ancient and current text, I decided that I needed to renew my reading of, listening to and writing about this text that is certainly a gift from Hashem given us through Chazal and all following commentators. But it itself offers us the gift of providing infinite meaning to each action of our lives that often times can seem to lack much significance, much importance.

The Talmud breathes life into each moment by giving us the task of study and learning "day and night" and by focusing on every aspect of our lives it challenges us to see the importance, the beauty, the depth in each of those moments as well.

More on saying "Yes" to life, even an "unexciting" one

In the last entry I wrote about how rabbis Singer and Rosensweig and their intense love of the Talmud, Hashem and the Halakhah represent for me individuals and a tradition that profoundly says "Yes" to all that life brings.

This fundamental position is the one that inspires me the most and one that I look for in any tradition or practice that I explore.

Just recently I discovered a new poet, Kenneth Koch. He was a friend and colleague of John Ashbery and part of the so-called New York School of Poetry of which he once said “Maybe you can almost characterize the poetry of the New York School as having as one of its main subjects the fullness and richness of life and the richness of possibility and excitement and happiness.”

To this line I want to say, "Amen."

Yes life is so full and so rich, even if is An Unexciting Life, as the title of one of my favorite books describes it. The book is on Benedictine spirituality and its Introduction begins:

Some years ago I read a quotation from a letter of Gustave Flaubert, creator of Madame Bovary, which could easily serve as a summary of one aspect of the spirituality that stems from the Rule of St. Benedict. As I remember it, the text ran: "Be regular and ordinary in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may violent and original in your work." What he seems to be be saying is that the price paid for the release of the inner spark of creativity is low impact living: the renunciation of superficial excitement, passive entertainment and mindless celebrity. In other words, exterior dullness is a condition of inner excitement. To describe this happy state I coined the phrase "creative monotony."

For us who live in a sensate society dominated by an appetite for excitement, no matter how vacuous its source, the preferential option for a quiet life may seem a little peculiar. No doubt in the midst of the helter skelter of a busy life, the idea of an oasis of silence has a certain appeal, but relatively few of us seriously consider building into our lives the values by which Benedict lived.

This reluctance derives, in part, from a misunderstanding of the nature of the unexciting life. The serenity envisaged by the Benedictine motto pax (peace) is not the deathly stillness of a stagnant swamp where nothing ever happens, nor is it the lassitude resulting from the abandonment of all ideals and the dodging of every challenge. The outward call, the nurtures inward growth is the fruit of a well disciplined life pursued through many years, and of battle-scarred victory in many struggles."

While everything I know and read about and listen to in regard to a Yeshiva is that they are not places of quiet or serenity, but they are places that offer something very different from the "sensate society dominated by an appetite for excitement, no matter how vacuous its source."

In future posts I will explore what Michael Casey says in An Unexciting Life, as well as other views that say a powerful Yes!