Hukat (Hasidism)

The Social Ethics of Mysticism

The opening section of our portion is most often invoked to teach the transcendent nature of the Torah and mitzvot: hukkim, pure expressions of the Divine will, unfathomable to the human mind. Here, R. Nahum of Chernobol draws some interesting social implications from a mystical perception of Torah. From Meor Einayim, Hukat, s.v. zot ha-torah:

“This is the teaching: When a man dies in a tent…” [Num 19:14]. And our Rabbis said: “the Torah is only sustained by those who kill themselves over it” [Berakhot 63b].

The introductory verse and Rabbinic dictum, as far as I can tell, is brought to provide a connection between personhood and the Torah as such.

For it is known that there are sixty myriad letters in the Torah, and corresponding to them are sixty myriad soul roots; for even though there are in Israel so-and-so many souls, in all events the sixty myriad roots are the essence, and the rest come from division of the sparks. And each person in Israel has a letter in the Torah, and the Torah and the Holy One blessed be He are one [Zohar Hadash III:403a]. And this is the Divine portion that is within each man, and it is literally that selfsame letter from which stems the source of his soul. And the letter brings down upon the person an abundance and holy vitality.

And one must know that the letter resides within a person’s mouth, and each letter is composed of the entire Torah. Hence the entire Torah is within a person’s mouth. For is not a Sefer Torah that is missing a single letter unfit, and is not considered a Torah for this reason: that each letter is considered a Torah, for all of them to combine together.

As we noted in our discussion for Shavuot, the correspondence between the Torah and the human body and/or the totality of souls of Israel is a common one in Kabbalah and Hasidism. This, coupled with the correspondence between God and Torah, implies that each soul/letter represents the portion of the Divine found within man. Moreover, since the whole is made up the sum of all its parts, each individual part is indispensable for the unity and integrity of the whole, as illustrated by the law that a Torah scroll missing one letter is pasul (unfit); thus, each part contains within itself, in a sort of microcosm, the essence of the whole. (In the same way as, to use an example from modern genetics, each cell of the human body has the DNA of the entirety; e.g., a bit of my toenail also has the genetic material that gives me brown eyes).

And all of ones service of God consists of this: that a person must draw close to his root, that is, to the Torah, which is an entire level composed of 613 mitzvot. And a person is also composed of 248 limbs and 365 sinews, as is known. And in the same way that, if one letter of the Sefer Torah is incomplete [it is unfit], similarly our Rabbis said that “whoever loses a single soul from Israel is as if he lost an entire world” [Sanhedrin 37a]. And to the contrary: “Whoever sustains [one soul]….. is as if he sustained the entire world.” And understand this.

Therefore before every prayer we say, “Behold, I accept upon myself the positive commandment of ‘You shall love your fellowman as yourself’” [this recitation is a widespread Kabbalistic and Hasidic custom]. For all is total unity, in the same way as the Torah is called Torah when all of its letters are combined together. Thus, even if he sees in his neighbor some bad thing, he should hate the evil that is within him, but he should love the holy part very much, as he does his own soul. For the Baal Shem Tov, may his soul rest in the heights, said that the perfect Tzaddik, in whom there is no evil, does not see the evil in any other person. But one who sees evil in his fellow, the matter is like one who looks in a mirror: if his face is dirty, he sees the like in the mirror, but if his face is clean, he does not see any fault in the mirror. As he is, so does he see.

And this is, “You shall love your fellowman as yourself” [Lev 19:18]. “As yourself”: meaning, that if a man knows of some evil within himself, he does not hate himself for that reason, but he hates the evil within himself; so too regarding his neighbor, for in truth all is one. For does not his fellowman also have a portion of God above, just like him, and does not he also have a letter in the Torah?…

In brief, unitive consciousness leads to love of the other. The “negation of the self” taught in Hasidism is not only a kind of mystical self-abnegation attainable in practice by a few adepts, but has implications for ordinary social interaction: a negation of the ego, a letting go of personal ambition and wishes and wants and “looking out for number one” as the central maxim in life, even a certain blurring of the boundaries between self and others. There are many Hasidic stories illustrating the idea that one should feel the pain of one’s fellow as his own, and of holy men who did so in fact.

Martin Buber in his day wrote at length about the social ethics of Hasidism, even describing the movement as “Kabbalah made Ethos.” He saw the social structure of the community of Hasidim, centered around the Rebbe, as central: the sense created thereby of mutual bonding, of mutual responsibility and caring and giving; the life of the collective expressed and renewed by the regular gatherings for prayer and at the tish, to hear the Tzaddik “saying Torah.” (Interestingly, the term “kibbutz,” used in Israel for the collective farms that played an instrumental role in building the state and which for many decade symbolized the Israeli ethos, is taken from the lexicon of Bratslav Hasidism.)

All this is in sharp contrast to the view, widely-held in the contemporary world, of life as competition, as a struggle for survival. Our society is largely based on individualism, on perception of the other as rival. Individual qualities such as wealth, beauty, glamour, are extolled by the media. It is assumed as almost axiomatic that everyone wants to be rich; that wealth, and the consumption of products that money can buy, is the ultimate source of happiness. It would seem that the competitiveness of Western society has worsened in the past twenty or thirty years, in almost every arena of life; in retrospect, the communal moment in the hippie counter-culture of the ‘60s seems to have been no more than a colorful, rather eccentric flash-in-the-pan.

On a more subtle, refined level, these attitudes are reflected in other aspects of our culture. The attitude to death: i.e., the unwillingness to accept our own mortality, which was somehow more natural in traditional societies and religions, is a byproduct of the present Western emphasis on individualism. It is also reflected in the at times excessive value placed upon creativity, upon the uniqueness of each person above all else (positive values in themselves!), produced by a certain type of middle-class child raising, particularly prevalent among Jews, which may end in people incapable of real sharing or relationships with others.

Where is Judaism located in relation to these cultural modes? There are two schools of thought. Some claim that Judaism is most similar in its ground values to Protestantism. There are those who find a common ground in Biblical religion, drawing a connection among monotheistic faith, the celebration of reason and ethics, and scientific progress (thus a recent book by John Hully, entitled Comets, Jews & Christians; Scientists & Bible-Believers). Interestingly, too, we find two classical works of modern sociology connecting the rise of the capitalist ethic with either Protestantism or Judaism, respectively: to wit, Werner Sombart’s The Jews and Modern Capitalism, and Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In a similar vein, Prof. Ruth Wisse, in a recent interview in Ha-Aretz, denigrated Levinas’ stress upon the concept of the Other as a key to Talmudic ethics, because in her view Judaism teaches “competitiveness.” That a generally thoughtful and intelligent woman could write such arrant nonsense boggles the imagination.

Alternatively, there are those who compare Judaism to the mysticisms of the Far East, with their teaching of a consciousness that transcends the individual. Certainly, there is much in Hasidism that seems far closer to the latter. Although I cannot discuss this point in depth at this point, it certainly seems a fruitful avenue of thought to be pursued, as a useful corrective to the pan-Western, “Protestant” line of thought mentioned earlier. Even Rabbinic Judaism was, in Max Kadushin’s memorable phrase, “a normalized mysticism”—meaning, that a person works and lives in the world, but a part of him sees the most significant part of his/her life in the transcendent dimension. (Ultimately, of course, Judaism is unique unto itself, and not to be viewed as essentially a “cousin” or “sister” to any other faith or system.)

I believe that the severe problems confronting the contemporary family are based upon the same excessive individualism, which make it impossible for more and more people to open their selves to even one other person in love and intimacy. A friend of mine told a revealing story of a confirmed bachelor who declared that his unwillingness to marry was because, “that would mean I would have to support a total stranger for the rest of my life.” Everywhere one hears of men afraid of commitment, or holding to unrealistic images of perfection in what they seek in a partner. The ethos of sexual permissiveness in general society allows them to find succor of sorts in non-binding relationships or one-night stands. Pressures upon women, both economic and cultural, to invest much of their energies in demanding careers, diminish their own availability for relationships and later for devotion to family. Interestingly, whereas for some the model of marriage and sexual love is of “the two of us against the cruel world,” in the above teaching of R. Nahum, the family would be paradigmatic of a larger, more all-encompassing love: the individual opening himself up, albeit in less intense and intimate ways, to all members of his community, and even of Klal Yisrael.

I would place much of the blame for this on the concept of Homo Economicus: on the view that economic interests are central for all social and cultural interactions. The nineteenth century fathers of modern socialism taught that the contradictions of advanced capitalist society would ultimately lead to its breakdown. What we are seeing today is how the contradictions of our society are reaching down to the most intimate unit of society and of civilization—the family. What is called for is a renewal of fellow feeling, of the sense of mutual responsibility and the creation of community, and not the pursuit of individual fulfillment and genius. How that is to be done in the face of enormous obstacles and overwhelming cultural, political, economic and even technological factors is, of course, a very difficult question; but all that we hold precious depends upon the answer.

On a local level, the fact that the level of social inequality in Israel has grown by leaps and bounds over the past quarter century, transforming it from one of the most egalitarian societies in world to one of the least so, is a cause for grave concern. I believe that the country is far less Jewish as a result, no matter how many yeshivah bakhurim there may be, or how many government officials pepper their conversation with “be-Ezrat ha-Shem.”

The halakhic concept of tzedakah is profoundly different from “charity,” even if it is often translated as such (a sin of which I have myself been guilty at times, simply for convenience and brevity). Charity implies a certain idea of “noblesse oblige,” of pity and compassion for those less fortunate than the giver, tinged with a certain subtle feeling of superiority. “These poor people are not like me and mine, who know how to get on in life.”

Tzedakah, by contrast, is “righteousness”—from the same root as tzedek, “justice”—that is, one is giving others that which is rightfully theirs. A human being, just by virtue of being a human being, is entitled to basic minimum life needs: food, shelter, clothing, etc. By giving tzedakah, one is setting right a certain imbalance in the world. See on this especially Parashat Behar, with the institution of the jubilee year where, periodically, the accumulated process of social injustice is set right, and each person returns to that which is rightfully his. Thus see Lev 25:13: “each person returns to his inheritance”; that is, to that which is rightfully his.

Three Meditations on Pesukei de-Zimra

I would like to present some further thoughts about Pesukei de-Zimra, the “verses of Song” that serve as a kind of introduction and spiritual/emotional preparation for the central part of Shaharit (Morning Prayers) on both weekdays and Shabbat. I first discussed this in a long essay in honor of my father’s Yahrzeit in HY II: Ki Tetsei. Recently, in HY IV: Pekudei, I reconsidered some of the issues involved. This week’s parsha, with the Song of the Well and other fragments of ancient song, seems a suitable time to present a few miscellaneous thoughts about certain specific parts of this section of the liturgy. At the risk of sounding excessively “New Age,” I would like to share some meditations or thoughts I have found it helpful to keep in mind for various sections of Pesukei de-Zimra.

1) Pesukei de-Zimra opens with the blessing Barukh She-amar. This blessing is sui generis in Jewish liturgy in that, before the standard opening formula of Barukh atah Adonai, it contains a series of a dozen or so short phrases beginning with the word Barukh: “Blessed be…” These enumerate ion the things for which we praise God. The opening phrase, “Blessed be He who spoke, and the world was,” seems a key to all religious feeling, and for that matter all philosophy. God spoke—and the world was. Why is there Being at all? The very fact that anything IS, is in itself a source of inconceivable wonder. Why should there be a world at all? Why is there not simply eternal nothingness, darkness, an absence of all chemical, biological, or physical activity?

Physicist Gerald Schroeder, in his book The Science of God, notes that the very fact that there are atoms at all, that during the “Big Bang” (assuming there is any reason why such an event ought to have happened at all), positive and negative charges did not totally neutralize one another; that during the first millionth-of-a-second, at super-white heat, fusion took place creating the carbon atoms that would later be necessary as building blocks of all organic life—all this is a great wonder.

2) The liturgy requires us to recite Ashrei (Psalm 145) three times daily. The tendency to recite this psalm on automatic pilot, rushing through its words, is very common, nay, all but ubiquitous in most synagogues I know. And yet, our Sages stress its great importance, saying that whoever says it three times daily performs a meritorious act, and is assured a share in the World to Come.

I have found it useful to sit down for Ashrei and to pause briefly, perhaps taking a breath, between each individual verse. Ashrei was placed before Minhah as a kind of meditation; as a fulfillment, however small, of the idea of a moment of “sitting” or just “staying” in silence prescribed by Hazal before prayer. The awareness of the words, through simply slowing down, may have a profound affect upon one’s davening as a whole.

3) The final section of Pesukei de-Zimra is interesting. First, at the end of the core of this section, i.e., the six final psalms of the Psalter (145-150), each of which begin and end with Halleluyah, one repeats the final verse: “Let all that has breath praise the Lord; Halleluyah!” One can imagine here the entire cosmos praising God: a kind of Nishmat or Perek Shirah writ small (the latter is an ancient work recording the songs recited by each creature in praise of God). This is followed by a conflation of the concluding verses of each of the first four “books” of Psalms (i.e., Pss 41, 72, 89, and 106; the division of the psalms into five books, like those of the Torah, is very ancient). This is in turn followed by a verse from 1 Chronicles 29:11, seen by Kabbalah as the source for the seven lowest sefirot, the “tools” used by God for channeling His infinite abundance within a finite universe (“Lekha Hashem ha-gedulah….”; “To You, O God, pertain greatness, and might,” etc.).

This is in turn followed by an interesting verse from Nehemiah 9:6, too often overlooked: “You alone, O Lord, are God: you made the heavens and the heavens above the heavens and all their hosts; the earth and all that is upon it; the sea and all that lives therein…” We have here a picture of the three divisions of the universe: the earth’s surface, and that which is above and below: the worlds of mammals, birds, and fish; those realms depicted in the first to third, and fourth to sixth, days of creation. But then, “and You provide life to them all.”

If the mystery of Being implied in Barukh She-amar is a quasi-philosophical issue, too abstract to feel in a concrete way, that of Life, pulsing at very instant within ourselves and within all that surrounds us—people, animals, trees, bushes, insects—is a profoundly existential one. God is the force giving life to all. This verse easily elicits thoughts of the Divine life pulsing within us in every heartbeat, in every breath we take. Without His vivifying touch, there would be naught but death and desolation and eternal stillness and silence.