Elements of the new can often be found in the old. The “old” I refer to here is the oldest monotheistic religion, Judaism. Humanism, the ethical philosophy that affirms the dignity and worth of all people, can finds its roots in what the Rabbis state in Pirkei Avot “All humans are dear, because they are created in the image of God.” The modern day attempt to take military weapons and technologies and transform them into peaceful civilian applications, can also find its roots in the words of the prophets, that a day will come in which “the swords will become ploughshares.” I would like to demonstrate that traces of Existentialism can be found in thinkers that are grounded in the Torah world and the Yeshiva, specifically thinkers affected by the Mussar Movement.
In the third century Palestinian work known as the Mishna,- the oldest authoritative collection of Jewish Oral law- we find the following statement in the first chapter of tractate Avot: “Rabban Gamliel says: Provide yourself with a teacher and free yourself of doubt.” This fundamental statement developed into the foundation for the Jew living by the rabbinic system. In Rabbinic literature, disagreements about practical elements of Jewish life are fairly common. When the Jew decides to follow the teachings of the Rabbis he is faced with a dilemma: Which Rabbi or school do I follow? Rabban Gamliel resolves this issue by recommending that one should follow the guidance of a master, and thereby remove doubts from one’s mind. By focusing on one master, or Rebbi, and not taking notice of the rest, the practicing Rabbinic Jew can be confident that he is fulfilling his spiritual obligation.
However, established systems can create several problems for a genuine religious experience. When religion is limited to words to be uttered and acts to be performed, the mind, at times, may become disengaged, and all dogmatic activities become soulless. The Talmud itself warns the Jew not to allow his Judaism to become routine. Rabbi Yonah ben Abraham Gerondi (d. 1263) a Catalian rabbi and moralist, in his ethical work The Gates of Repentance, writes, “People who are lacking in fear of God and perform mitzvoth by rote, will not be able to withstand challenge from the evil inclination.” [1] Nachmanides, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, the great Spanish luminary of the thirteenth century, warned that a person can obey all the laws and still be a scoundrel (Naval b’rishut ha-Torah).[2]
Throughout the long history of Rabbis and their teachings, several works can be identified as existential ethics, which address the need to make Jewish law part of a person’s true self. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's (1707-1746) classic work Mesilat Yesharim is undoubtedly a paradigm of such work. However, the first individual to formalize a system and a school of such ethics is Rabbi Israel Wolf Lipkin of Salant.
The Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation of the Nineteenth Century presented the Rabbinic world with new realities and questions that they had to confront. Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the late 18th century that supported adopting enlightenment values to facilitate the integration of Jews into European society. One of the main focuses of the group was to change the traditional educational curriculum and increase the learning of secular studies.
As long as the Jews lived in the ghetto, the rabbi- and thus traditional Judaism- was the only model for the Jewish community. The rabbinate was the premier profession for Jewish boys, and the study of the Mishnah, Talmud and the codes were the means of obtaining that desirable position. With doors opening for the Jew, and Haskalah and their followers promoting change, assimilation was the greatest challenge for the Rabbinate of the nineteenth century.
Rabbi Israel Wolf Lipkin, seeing the transformation that was occurring throughout the Jewish community, sensed an urgent need for Judaism to return to its roots if it wanted to survive. For Lipkin, as long as Jewish practices remained external social functions, which lacked a connection to the practitioner’s true self, Judaism would not survive. For Lipkin, the only answer to the problem was Mussar.
Although Lipkin left very little in writing, a picture of the movement can be developed by reading discourses from his disciples and followers. Rabbi Dov Katz, a graduate of the renowned Mussar Yeshiva in
For Lipkin, the well respected practice of Talmud study is not the purpose of the Jewish way of life; rather it is only a means to ethical behavior that includes character improvement. He would preach that it is easier to study the complete Talmud than to change one human trait. He would complain about the fact that people rushing to do a good deed, if they are mindless, can in fact destroy the world on the way. Lipkin’s core message was that to be a committed Jew, you must be attuned to your true self and being. Only by identifying that truth can you transform your existence. Without that recognition, your external activities are not fulfilling the objectives of a religious life.
In Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor, Ivan describes to his brother Alyosha an imaginary event, or poem, regarding a visit by Christ that occurred in
The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that due to his rejections of the temptations of the Devil he has secured free will for people and consequently imposed a great burden on humanity. He continues by telling Christ that there are three powers needed for happiness of the impotent masses: miracle, mystery and authority. When the Church provided men with the above three, it corrected the work of Christ and brought happiness to man, because men were again led like sheep, and the terrible gift of freedom was lifted from their hearts.
Dostoevsky is telling us, through the voice of Ivan, that miracle, mystery and authority are concepts that stifle free will, and consequently, the person’s true self. For a person like Lipkin, for whom the true self and being is the true performer in a religious life, these three must be eliminated. I would like to demonstrate Lipkin’s, and the Mussar Movement’s, rejection of miracle, mystery and authority.
At the same time that the rabbinate was trying to deal with the Enlightenment, it was still in the midst of defending itself from an earlier attack from the Hasidic movement. Hasidic or Hasidism refers to the great religious and social movement which began in the middle of the 18th century in
The movement, which spread rapidly in the last quarter of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, engulfed most of the centers of Jewish population in parts of
Lipkin, being trained and educated in the traditional Yeshiva, viewed himself as part of the Yeshiva world. However, sensing the pivotal role of the Yeshiva to protect and transmit the true message of rabbinic Judaism, he addressed several points in his lectures that he believed must become the focus of the Yeshiva philosophy.
One of the core beliefs in the Hasidic philosophy was the significant role of the Rebbe or tzaddik and his ability to perform miracles. Stories and legends of the Baal Shem Tov are a considerable part of the Hasidic way of life. Although Judaism has always valued and believed in miracles and wonders that occurred during Biblical times, the Yeshiva world was quite scornful of the Hasidic legends. For many within the Yeshiva, such stories reflected the naiveté and lack of intellect among the Hasidim. For Lipkin however, focusing on miracles was harmful to the welfare of the Jewish soul, for it signified losing sight of the true objective of Judaism. Lipkin’s outlook was able to be sensed from the fact that he rejected even the one “Lithuanian miracle”.
The Priestly Blessing, known in Hebrew as the Birkat Kohanim, is a Jewish prayer recited by the Kohanim - descendents of the biblical figure Aaron - during certain Jewish services. According to Talmudic law, the blessing should be said daily in the morning service of Shachrit. Due to uncertain reasons, as Jews moved into European countries during the Medieval Period, the practice was suspended from the daily prayers and was only recited during the seasonal holidays. For rabbinic authorities throughout the ages, it was a mystery as to why the practice was abandoned, but out of respect to tradition, no one advocated a change to the custom. The Gra of Vilna was one of the first to promote change, and actually attempted to reintroduce the Birkat Kohanim to the daily prayers in the synagogue in Vilna.[4] Although he did not succeed, his disciple Rabbi Chaim Volozhin attempted to do the same several years later. Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (1817-1893), the Rosh Yeshiva (Dean) of the Volozhin yeshiva during the second half of the Nineteenth Century, recorded the sequence of events that occurred in Volozhin, stating: “R’ Chaim decided that on the morrow he would order Birkat Kohanim; that night half the city and the synagogue burned down. They saw and understood that there is some secret and mysteries of the descent of felicity which alights via the Priestly Blessing, that we lack the ability to understand”. Clearly, we have a unique “Lithuanian miracle”, where the Divine intervened for the sake of a custom.
Lipkin had a different take on the event. In Rabbi Nathan Kamenetsky’s book, The Making of a Gadol,[5] he expresses the opinion of Lipkin that “he (Lipkin) would rebuild the Shul and again instituted the Birkat Kohanim despite the fire.” He continues by saying that Lipkin viewed the event not as a supernatural intervention, but rather as an act of arson. In the words of the author: “Do you suppose that a fire came down from Heaven to set the Shul aflame? It did not. An old Jew who objected to changing a custom which had prevailed for as long as he remembered decided to take matters into his own hands and set the blaze!”[6] Mussar’s rejecting miracles is consistent with its emphasis on self-understanding and self-improvement. Basing observance on supernatural events was an unacceptable approach for Lipkin and his way of thinking.
One of the major elements in Hasidic thought and practices is the significant role of Kabbalah and the Zohar. Kabbalah is the mystical aspect of Judaism. It refers to a set of esoteric teachings, which are meant to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional rabbinic literature, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances. The Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Torah, written in medieval Aramaic, is widely considered the most important work of Kabbalah. The Zohar contains mystical discussions of the nature of God, the origin and structure of the universe, the nature of souls, sin and redemption, good and evil, and related topics. Followers of the Hasidic movement often recited passages from the Zohar and would meditate on sayings from the Zohar during the performance of Mitzvot.
The core idea of Kabalistic thought relates to the inability of man to comprehend the mysteries of the mitzvoth. He must therefore focus on the Kabbalah (literally what has been received) to achieve purpose in mitzvah observance. By meditating on secret messages and philosophical knowledge of the godhead, the Kabbalist fixes flaws of the spiritual realm and, in his mind, fulfills the true purpose of the mitzvah. John Hochman, in his article entitled Miracle, Mystery and Authority: The Triangle of Cult Indoctrination writes that “People who harbor secrets can find this exciting or gratifying, particularly if done for a ‘higher purpose.’ Cults are riddled with secrets.”[7] For Lipkin, attention to the theosophical speculation on esoteric matters seemed entirely irrelevant. Immanuel Etkes, in his book on Lipkin, writes that “[Lipkin] distanced himself from [Kabbalah’s] influence, so that it no longer played a role in his religious outlook.” He continues by quoting a response by Lipkin as to why he ignored Kabbalah, stating, “What practical difference does it make in which heaven the Holy-one-Blessed-He sits?”[8] Another statement by Lipkin that clearly indicates what he viewed as essential in Judaism was: “The Maharal of
Often, to understand a new movement’s true goals, one turns to literature from the traditional school that fought against the innovation of the Mussar Movement. Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (1903-1993) an American rabbi, Talmudist and modern Jewish philosopher, in his essay Halakhic Man, recounts how men like his grandfather Reb Chaim Brisker (1853-1918) reacted when an attempt was made to propagate the Mussar Movement in their community. Soloveitchik relates that “the halakhic men of Brisk and Volozhin sensed that this whole mood posed a profound contradiction to the Halakhah and would undermine its very foundations. Halakhic man fears nothing. For he swims in the sea of the Talmud that life-giving sea to all the living. If a person has sinned, then the Halakhah of repentance will come to his aid. One must not waste time on spiritual self-appraisal, on probing introspections, and on the picking away at the ‘sense’ of sin.”[11] He continues by describing the philosophy and behavior of the Mussar Yeshiva by stating “It was the practice in Kovno and Slobodka to spend the twilight hour when Sabbath was drawing to a close in an atmosphere suffused with sadness and grief, an atmosphere in which man loses his spiritual shield, his sense of power, confidence, and strength and becomes utterly sensitive and responsive, and there to engage in a monologue about death, the nihility of this world, its emptiness and ugliness. Adherents of the Mussar Movement recognized that, beyond the four cubits of Halakhah there are other realms needed to heal people from sin. They believed that reflection on death and human finitude has a purging influence. They insisted that the Jew cannot build a total religious personality by confining himself entirely within a world of legal texts.”[12] For the Jews of the traditional school, uncertainty and existential thoughts were counter to their view of Halachic Judaism. For them, Talmud and the Codes were to offer confidence and the only focus was to remain on understanding the halachah and not on understanding one’s self.
Similarly Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, (1878-1953), popularly known by the name of his magnum opus Chazon Ish, a Belarusian born Orthodox rabbi who became leader of Haredi Judaism in Israel, in his work Emunah Ubitachon, is critical of the Mussar Movement’s focus on soul searching and self understanding, stating that the text should be the only guiding light to determine right from wrong.
The Mussar Movement, on the other hand, believed that relying on the “Authority” i.e. the Talmud and the Codes is not enough to be considered as living a true religious life. What is required is mindfulness of one’s true self and being. Although such awareness would lead to anxiety, as Soloveitchik described occurring in Kovno and Slobodka, angst is an integral part of the Mussar system of self improvement. Thus, it is evident that the Mussar Movement disengaged itself from the idea of “authority”.
Many other similarities can be seen between the great existential philosophers and the Mussar thinkers. Søren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher, wrote about the importance of living and being conscious of life. Kierkegaard was addressing religion and philosophy and the idea that people were not being mindful of what they were doing. He wanted to sting people into awareness. He believed that the religious person can follow the law established by others without ever really thinking or making the law part of his true self. Likewise, Lipkin would be critical of people as living with themselves for seventy years and not really knowing themselves.[13] Many of his sermons were meant to “sting people into awareness.”[14]
One of the twentieth century great Mussar personalities was Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892-1953), the "spiritual counselor" of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in
Similarly, Martin Heidegger addresses a person’s being as Dasein. Naturally, Dasein has angst about death. Yet daily activities distract Dasein from death. Dasein gets involved in the pursuit of worldly pleasures which leads it into tranquillization. However, this inauthentic existence of “busyness” eventually alienates Dasein. The inauthentic everydayness of Dasein is referred to by the masses as “getting ahead”. However, in Heidegger’s analysis, it is in reality a plunge for Dasein.
We find in the Book of Psalms 73:27 the following verse: “Those who are distant are lost.” Dessler explains that this distance refers to when a person is not mindful of his experiences.[16] For Dessler the human must end self alienation and must ask, like Heidegger: “What is the meaning of my being?”
For Dessler, choice defines the human. He writes that “every decision made by man has an effect. The choice has consequences not just for the decision maker himself but rather on his surroundings and also on the world. The choice-maker is responsible for his influence and must be aware of it.”[17] Dessler’s thought is quite comparable to that of Jean-Paul Sartre, who stated that the human being ought to be aware of what he is and take full responsibility for his existence. Sartre also added that by choosing, humans choose for all mankind as well as for themselves.
The great French philosopher and leading Christian existentialist Gabriel Marcel noted that “A man cannot be free or remain free, except in the degree to which he remains linked with that which transcends him.” This view of freedom has been expressed by the rabbis in the sixth chapter of the Mishnah tractate Avot. “A person is not free unless he is involved in the study of Torah.” The rabbis, in a similar way of thought to that of Marcel, address the fact that the human being, although he might deem his actions as by-products of freedom, makes choices which may result in an enslavement to some kind of physical urge or desire. To address freedom, the human must first identify his true self, and only from that point of reference might he identify true freedom. Marcel expanded his view of freedom to national freedom as well by stating that, “If the freedom of a people or a country be defined as absolute independence, is it not obvious that in a world like ours freedom cannot exist because of pressure, or, less politely, by blackmail, at all levels of international intercourse?” This same view was stated by one of the great Mussar disciples of the twentieth century, Rabbi Yechezkel Sarna (1890 - 1969). Rabbi Sarna was instrumental in building the first Mussar yeshiva in
Albert Camus, in the Myth of Sisyphus, describes Sisyphus as condemned by God to roll a rock to the top of a mountain and then the stone would roll back. Sisyphus is able to find meaning in this. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.” Similarly, Etkes, in his work on Lipkin, addresses the focus of the Mussar Movement. Traditionally, the antidote for a man’s struggle with his evil inclination would be to turn toward God and pray for “Siata Deshmaia” (assistance from heaven) to succeed in his “milchemet hayetzer” (the battle against the evil inclination). Lipkin, on the other hand, stated and emphasized the importance of the battle itself and preached that one should view the battle as the goal.[18]
A story is told that one time Rabbi Lipkin was laying ill in bed and another rabbi came to visit him. The visiting rabbi told Lipkin that he was thankful to Lipkin for being an accessory for the performance of the Mitzvah of Bikur Cholim (visiting the ill). Rabbi Lipkin responded “I am not your Lulav”[19] What Lipkin was trying to convey to the guest was, that you do not treat another human as an object. Although Judaism teaches that individuals have responsibilities towards others, they must not be viewed as objects, but rather as people. The Mussar School teaches that although a blessing must be said when performing a mitzvah, when the mitzvah is between humans (Bein Adam Lechavero) blessings are not recited, since God must be set aside, with the focus remaining only on the human need and not on objectifying another.[20]
Martin Buber, in his best known book I and Thou, discusses the unfortunate reality that people relate to others as objects. Buber’s major theme is that human existence may be defined by the way in which we engage in dialogue with each other, with the world, and with God. Only by relating to the Thou of others can the person become connected to the ultimate Thou, God, according to Buber. Here we find yet another similarity between the Existentialist and the
The Mussar Movement teaches that in Judaism, the main focus is not on external details but rather on what man makes of himself. During the twentieth century, as the teachings of the
In William Barrett’s book, Irrational Man, he writes that although Heidegger was a brilliant thinker, towering above men like Jaspers and Buber, he was not great enough to be a man. In Barrett’s words, “He has led us back, as has no other thinker, to see what is involved in light and vision, but we need to go one step farther and see that all light requires fire.” For Barrett, the fire must come from a new Kierkegaard “to pump back living blood into the ontological skeleton of the Heideggerian Dasein.”[22] The Torah Jew on the other hand, can turn to the fire of his tradition, which can illuminate and, at the same time, warm his soul. The Torah, or Mussar, Existentialist can relate to the Dasein of Heidegger and yet avoid the forlornness of Sartre, loneliness of Holderlin and the madness of Nietzsche, by waking up every morning and saying “I gratefully thank you, O living and eternal King”.
References
Book
Dessler, E.E., Michtav Me-Eliyahu
Etkes, I. The Mussar Movement: Seeking the Torah of Truth.
Girondi, Y. Sha'arei Teshuvah The Gates of Repentance
Kamenetsky, N. The Making of a Gadol
Karelitz, A. Y., Emunah Ubitachon
Katz, D. Tenuat HaMusar
Luzzato, M. C., Mesilat Yesharim
Soloveitchik,J.D., Halakhic Man. JPS,
Journal article
Hochman, J. Miracle, Mystery and Authority: The Triangle of Cult Indoctrination
Psychiatric Annals/April 1990
[1] Chapter 3 section 169
[2] Commentary on the Torah Vayikra 19:2
[3] Joseph Fox Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk: A biographical study of the chasidic master (New York: Maznaim,1988)
[4] Aruch Hashulchan 128
[5] PP Publishers,
[6] The Making of a Gadol p.654
[7] Psychiatric Annals/April 1990
[8] Rabbi
[9] Rabbi
[10] An animated being, created entirely from inanimate matter. There is a legend that Maharal created one.
[11] Halachic Man p.72
[12] Ibid 74
[13] Tenuat Hamusar p.270
[14] Pulmus HaMussar p. 20
[15] Book two p. 13
[16] Michta Me’elitahu p. 61 Hebrew addition
[17] Michta Me’elitahu p. 115 Hebrew addition
[18] Etkes P. 322 (Hebrew Addition)
[19] Frond of the date palm tree; It is one of the Four Species used in the daily prayer services during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
[20] Story and Message heard in Yeshiva lecture Telshe Yeshiva Chicago 1990
[21] Good or decent person
[22] P. 237
