Today I told a teacher of mine not to make blanket statements about Judaism, only to realize that in my blog, I constantly make blanket statements about Judaism. So, to be clear: When I say, "Judaism....", what I mean is, "My personal opinion, based on sources I've seen/research I've done, is that Judaism....", realizing someone equally or more knowledgeable could provide you with a diametrically opposed view of Judaism, also backed up by research and sources - as they say, there are 70 faces to the Torah. But I did want to apologize for the generalizations.
Having said that, I am about to engage in a generalization: To me, part of Judaism's beauty is that it uses the power of habit: Praying 3 times a day, saying blessings on various things throughout the day, having to base decisions about what one wears or eats around religion - all these cause Judaism to be seamlessly integrated into one's routine, encompassing a constant awareness of God's presence.
Science is just now beginning to understand the power of habit, which happens to be the title of a new book by Charles Duhigg. Essentially, we shape and are shaped by our habits - but we also have the ability to change those habits, although it does take a lot of work. Habit formation involves the strengthening of certain neural pathways, which means, when we get into the habit of praying, we are literally making prayer part of our body, for we are changing the chemical pathways inside our minds.
Perhaps the rabbis understood this when they said that one should act upon the mitzvot even if they do not feel them (shelo lishmah), understanding that soon such mitzvot would become habit. Since studies show we tend to adjust our perceptions of the world and our actions in order to better our self-image, it is only natural that once I do a, I will come up for a reason why a is a worthy action - so from the shelo lishmah habit, I create the lishmah reason for that habit.
I do not mean this to be cynical; halachik Judaism's grasp of human nature is so magnificent, it may even be taken as evidence for the argument that there is some Divine spark that ignited it all. I wish to give here two examples: 1. Blessings. Having to say blessings before and after eating, after going to the bathroom, when I hear thunder/see lightning, and in a myriad of other daily occurrences, means that taking a moment to acknowledge God's presence in my life (and to be grateful for that presence) is not something I need to think about or schedule in - it's part of my daily routine, almost as natural as eating or drinking coffee. This makes having those moments of acknowledgement easier. 2. Prayer: Having scheduled prayer three times a day is extremely powerful. If you pray everyday, and all of a sudden you miss a day, you really feel its absence, like an avid news junkie who doesn't have time to read the paper one morning. Prayer encompasses thanking God and generally giving gratitude - and taking time to feel gratitude is considered psychologically healthy by the psychological establishment. It also encompasses asking for personal requests - which can be a great time to clarify for oneself what one really wants, or just even to express anxiety about a minor anticipated event of the day. Again, a psychologically practice. Then, there is also the custom to pray for others (the rabbis say that's the best way to get one's own prayers answered). Many prayers are communal - we ask for God to heal "us", the collective we, as in, all who are sick. We pray for the good of the world and the Jewish people - the Amidah includes requests for peace, for "us and all the people of Israel", and also asks for God to redeem the Jewish people. Recent studies show that taking some time to hope for the well-being of others increases one's own psychological well-being. This means that daily prayer is the institutionalization of habit that encompasses three practices that lead to emotional well-being.
Of course, I do not think that one's halachik obligation rests upon the observable benefits of observace: If God is beyond human comprehension (which I believe - if He created us, She must be greater than us), then it is logical that His ways (i.e. halacha) would be as well. I believe in what Yeshayahu Leibowitz says: Halacha is about doing God's will, independent of observable benefits. However, I do also believe that because God loves humanity, He designed the system in such a way that as it works as intended, it does benefit humanity - often, though not always, in ways we can see. However, God, in Her desire to empower humans and give us freedom of choice, gave power to the rabbis to run halach, and rabbis are human and thus flawed, which is why halacha does not always work as intended. Luckily, like any legal process, halacha has built-in mechanisms for correcting its own flaws, but recently, for political reasons, rabbis have been afraid to use those mechanisms.
Still, even if I believe the system as it currently operates is flawed, I do have faith in the system to redeem itself. This is similar to how one may disagree with a Supreme Court decision, but accept it anyway, because one recognizes the Constitutional system that gives the Supreme Court to make decisions that are binding upon you even if you think they completely mis-interpreted the Constitution, and that, because the Constitution has self-correct mechanisms built in, you just have to wait for a new court for the law to change. Thus, accepting the system in its totality means accepting what you view to be the flawed interpretation of that system, for the moment.
As to why I believe in the system, it is very simple: I believe in a God who gave the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai, along with a component of Oral Law, that eventually morphed into the Talmud. As for how Biblical and Talmudic criticism factor into that statement, that is really too big for me to attack in one blog post. Suffice it to say, I do not simply reject secular, academic study of Judaism or its conclusions.
As my opinions on Leibowitz haven't changed, I guess I might as well jump back into the fray :)
ReplyDeleteFirst of all: "If God is beyond human comprehension (which I believe - if He created us, She must be greater than us), then it is logical that His ways (i.e. halacha) would be as well." I very strongly disagree. One approach: If God is truly God and has no need for anything from us (unless we want to suggest that God actually *needs* something from us??), then the only relevance of the halakhic system meant to be performed by humans must be *for* humans in their own human context.
Another approach: If halakha were truly independent of anything humanly meaningful, we would expect to find scores of "chukim" - literally inexplicable laws - when in fact we find almost none, and even the ones we think we know are chukim seem to have strong hints of true human significance that has simply been lost in two thousand years of changing context. We'd expect a lot more arbitrariness if the true point were blind obedience.
Third: I have no idea how empowering rabbis to choose the direction of a halakha which is only incidentally relevant to humans is even possible. God could want something arbitrary! Who knows if the rabbis are "right" or not?
On the flip side, if this view of halakha is correct, the entire Talmud doesn't make sense in its constant consideration of the relevance of every single law to humans and in the way that it decides to do things based on human concerns.
Next, if the law is truly fundamentally unconcerned with human reality but simply about blind obedience, we should not be concerned that the halakha doesn't change with the times or even get "applied" to new contexts - because what is there to apply? How do you apply meaningless mechanical actions to contexts? Who cares about injustices in halakha - why could this be problematic? Halakha is just about obeying God!
And finally, if the argument that you sort of brought up is that well, *fundamentally* it's about just obeying God, but God *decided* to make it a system that is fundamentally about and relevant to human needs and concerns and wants it to be applied in that way, then there's no nafka mina whatsoever between that philosophy and the philosophy that halakha is *meant* to be about human concerns. (Leibowitz in fact frequently espouses an approach to halakha that is fundamentally at odds with his argument that it's all meant to be obedience for the sake of obedience, and sources for that are available upon request.)
(The only think I can figure he argues is that halakha is *fundamentally* deeply meaningful and relevant to human existence and intended to be a benefit and just way of living, but you're *not supposed to think about any of that* when you're doing it. But then that means don't think about justice, don't think about kindness, don't think about any of that junk - if you have any positive associations with halakhic observance that might make you a better person and you dare to *think* about those, you're not just failing philosophically, you're engaging in avodah zarah.)
As you probably remember, I'm not much of a fan of Leibowitz's philosophy :)
Oh yeah - as to the nature of halakhic decision as a system where even if you think the court is wrong, the decision stands inherently because it was made by the court (a view kind of embodied in the "Lo bashamayim hi" story) - for a counterpoint, see the entire Masekhet Horayot, which is about what you're supposed to do if the court makes a mistaken ruling - whether you should follow it if you know they're wrong, for instance. There's no sense that the fact that they made a ruling makes it definitionally the right ruling. That's an interesting juxtaposition to think about, in my opinion.
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