This is the
first time in over a month I have written something essentially unrelated to
the hurricanes! May there be more such
occasions soon.
Have you ever met someone who was
completely consistent? Someone who lived
their lives with no obvious logical lapses, or ways in which their arguments or
beliefs did not always add up? On
occasion, I believe I have met such individuals. A few of them. And, as I recall, they tended to be
extremists, of one form or another.
It’s not that
I don’t think we should try. Rank
hypocrisy is… not rare, but still distasteful. It’s a good thing to think
through what we believe, and to test it to see how it holds up – against
reality, and against everything else we say we stand for.
So it bothers
me to realize… that there are three things I believe which don’t quite hold
up. There is, within my positions, a
contradiction. And yet, somehow, I
believe these things anyway.
What are my
inconsistent positions? (At least, the
ones I am aware of and live with.) One
relates to spirituality. The other to
community. And the third, somewhat
connected to the second, to identity.
The first is about God and Judaism, universalism and particularism. The second is about ways in which Jews are
connected to one another. And the third
is about, well, Jews for Jesus.
1.
If God is
one and everything is connected why do we promote being different?
The most important foundation of my own
spirituality, and my understanding of divinity, comes from the Sh’ma. It is the basic statement of the oneness of
God, and with it the unity of the universe.
Now, to my
regret, as I have come to understand as an adult, this is probably not what the Sh’ma meant
originally. Despite what we all learned
in Sunday school, in contrast to the solemn proclamation of some kid in
Cleveland that he will now recite the “washword of our face” (because, after
all, what is a watchword, and what kid can say the word “faith”?), many
Biblical scholars challenge the idea that these words were first meant as any
kind of pure declaration of monotheism.
In contrast, they say, the Sh’ma
did not actually deny the existence of other gods. This was not a theological statement about
ontological reality. Instead, it was a
way of connecting to a community, or reading oneself in. These words were… a loyalty oath. And they were not about monotheism, but some form of henotheism, or monolatry, both of
which meaning that while there may be many gods… we ourselves have only one!
Not: “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal our God – the Eternal is One,”
but: “Listen, you Israelite! YHVH is our
god… and only YHVH.”
But, okay, fine, so the central
understanding of Jewish origins I had as a child was wrong. I can live with that. It remains the case that these words came to be understood as a proclamation
of the unity of God, and it is in this way, and their connection with particle
physics, that they speak to me.
So, what is the Nobel Prize in
Physics, waiting to happen? What is the
formula which, once worked out, will guarantee the one who solves it a place in
the pantheon alongside of Einstein? It
is the Grand Unified Field Theory, the idea that all the basic forces of the
universe can be described... by a single set of mathematical equations! Even if… even if the math only applies… for
the first billionth of a second of the life of the universe. And even if it will take twelve spatial
dimensions for the equations to work!
(As I understand it, that is what cosmological string theory is all
about.)
But think about it. If this is true, even for a limited time, and
in a way beyond what we can ordinarily imagine… then what we are saying is
that, with the mystics, everything really is
connected. That all we see as
separate is really only a superficial difference, that every “thing” around us
is merely energy congealed in a transient, temporary form, but basically all
beating to the cosmic pulse of the universe, all part of a divine symphony
which we can but faintly hear. That
which seems to be separate and distinct… is merely a matter of faulty or
limited perception. Anything” is really
“every” thing, And borders and
boundaries and distinctions and definitions are malleable, permeable,
deceptively described, and temporary at best.
I believe that about life, the
universe, and the way the world works.
My basic understanding of berakhot, of blessings, relates to the idea
that a berakha is a way of opening our eyes, to help us see the divine, the
sacred, the underlying awesome connectedness of all, in moments which seem to
be mundane and discreet and distinct.
So, fine.
But then: how come so much of
Jewish life is about… making distinctions?
And separation? And being
apart? This is kosher, and this is
treif. This is Shabbat, and this is the
rest of the week. This is holy, and this
is not. This is the land of Israel, and
this is outside. This is a Jew, and this
is not.
In a universe of connection, why
the boundaries? If reality is universal,
why celebrate particularism?
And if you say that separation is
just an aspect of a broken world, an unredeemed sphere of existence, a phase
before we step back into some cosmic Kabbalistic Unity of All… really, still,
why would the distinctions matter? Is
all of our effort to maintain our identity, promote our community, is all of it
just a holding pattern, some kind of exercise in differentiation while we wait
for the real time of ultimate togetherness to come along? Why be Jewish, why be anything individual, if
all definitions will ultimately fail and all differences fall in the end?
A “universal” faith (the word
“catholic” actually means universal) in fact anticipates this oneness, but in a
hegemonistic fashion. The world will be
one…when everyone becomes just like us.
But Judaism truly does not envision this kind of sameness, this urge to
merge. Maybe it is just hard to picture,
but I don’t think many Jews actually anticipate or even desire the whole world
becoming Jewish. We are fine, even in
traditional settings, with the notion that there are different paths to
God. So I circle back to my own dilemma. If God is one and everything is ultimately
connected, why be different?
I can fumble a response,
approximate an answer. But this remains
one of the central spiritual questions of my life. What’s your answer here?
And that… is the first of my three
things I believe, which have a contradiction within them.
