On dishes and their breakage – On broken dishes

About tools and their breakage

(Following Rabbi Shagar's book, 'Broken Vessels')

A. Overview

Rabbi Shagar, Rosh Yeshiva 'Sheach Yitzhak', is one of the original and impressive thinkers of religious Zionism. In his philosophical and educational way, he combines Hasidism with modern research. At this time, his book 'Broken Vessels - Torah and Zionism in a Postmodern Environment' was published, edited by Odia Tzurieli, by the Yeshiva.

The book is divided into three parts: The first part deals with the relationship between contemporary Judaism and postmodernism. In this part, Rabbi Shagar connects postmodern dilemmas regarding concepts of truth with the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. He, like Wittgenstein (the earlier one), advises us to remain silent in the face of the paradoxes that surround us.

In this section, language is presented as a 'language game', and 'New Age' as the cultural negation of postmodernism. Rabbi Shagar criticizes Yeshiva scholarship for its perception that detachment from ordinary ways of thinking is the path to holiness. A discussion of choice, liberty, and freedom, and the relationship between all of these and concepts of holiness, concludes this section.

The second part deals with postmodern phenomena within the Zionist-religious world, and also discusses the difficulty of dealing with values (positive, but contrary to Halacha: saving the life of a Gentile while desecrating the Sabbath) that prevail in the world outside of us.

Such phenomena also appear in yeshivas. The new spirituality and Hasidism, the dissatisfaction with classical yeshiva (Briskian) scholarship, and more. Rabbi Shagar sees all of this as a blessed influence of the postmodern era.

The third part presents sermons for the holidays of our generation (Remembrance Days, Independence Day, and Jerusalem Day). These deal with the essence of memory, nostalgia, the meaning (or lack of meaning) of the Holocaust, and the relationship to the Land of Israel and Jerusalem.

The book contains several insightful diagnoses of our situation. It deals with current events with great courage, and also deals with external sources. However, the main point of its interest is found in the first part, which is very problematic, and due to the brevity of the material, I will focus on it.

B. Hasidism, Research, and Postmodernism

The starting point for the discussion is the seemingly paradoxical connection between Hasidism and 'Jewish studies' in the teachings of Rabbi Shagar (like Rabbi Steinsaltz and others). This is seemingly a frontal contradiction. Hasidism appeals to warm and subjective emotion, and research to cold and objective rationality. How can these two go together?

To understand this, let's look at the concept of 'primitive.' This concept has two meanings: 1. Deep, drawn from the depths of our being. 2. Ancient, belonging to ancient history – primitive.

Hasidism addresses the depths of the soul. It is primordialism in the first sense. In contrast, Yeshiva scholarship attempts to reach intellectual, 'objective' definitions as much as possible, and to detach itself from experience and the subjective.

'Jewish studies' have also carved a kind of fundamentalism on their banner. Research attempts to understand the sources against the backdrop of the reality that prevailed at the time of their creation. Here too, the yeshivah approach stands in the way. This is controlled by research on anachronism, that is, ignoring the differences between our time and the time when the sources were created. The goal of research is to discover the past, while the goal of yeshivah study is to understand the meanings for the present and the future. Yeshivas are modernist in essence, while research is kamai in the second sense.[1]

The common denominator between Hasidism and research is a kamai approach.[2] Although there is revolution in both of these movements, the essence of the revolution is a renaissance, that is, a revival of the past (a restoration of the old). Rabbi Shagar refers in several places to a return to the original religious experience (see, for example, pp. 42-44). As mentioned, opposite these two, at the modernist pole, stands Yeshiva scholarship.

This is where the third component comes into play, which the current book adds to the mix: postmodernism. Subjectivity and religious experience were greatly vilified in the modernist era, which was focused on the future. At that time, people believed in objective truths, in the progress of the world, in liberation from dogmatic and irrational beliefs, etc. As is well known, both of these are vilified to this day in yeshivahs. The postmodern revolt against objectivist concepts, in learning and in general, provides a rehabilitation for primitiveness in both its meanings. Rabbi Shagar writes (pp. 8-27):

It seems that it is convenient for a believing Jew to live in a pluralistic world. He can easily join the 'dance of differences' without feeling himself exceptional in a world of exceptional people. In such a context, keeping the commandments becomes a sign of uniqueness, a medium for strangeness, which is the realization of 'You have chosen us,' but as mentioned, he will not be ashamed to declare this in a world where 'anything goes.'

This is the essence of the need to add a postmodern element to the puzzle.[3] In contrast to the modernist-Yeshiva elitism, a 'Chassidic' approach is presented, according to which the shepherd's prayer is as good as that of the greatest of the generation. It is convenient for the fundamentalist-primitives to live in such a world, since they are just another strange breed like the others.

This is why postmodernism is not just the subject of the book's discussion. The book itself is postmodern. Its distinct postmodern characteristic is the view of constraints as justification. In the absence of truth criteria, we choose values and truths according to their utility (this is pragmatism. See the sixth chapter of the books 'Two Carts and a Balloon' on this). For example, problems in yeshivahs and education constitute sufficient justification for adopting a fundamentally different conception. The same is true of the world around us. A perception of truth, or concepts of 'homeland', that interfere with the possibility of making peace with our neighbors, must be given up (pp. 16-17). Since we operate in a postmodern world, we must keep up to date (p. 17). A quote from Adi Ophir, Danny Rabinowitz, or any other of the idols of the new postmodernism is enough to justify an argument. No fundamental justification can be found in the book. As mentioned, postmodernism itself is only true because it is needed.

The book opens with a discussion of Danny Rabinowitz's articles (the first in Haaretz, followed by a confused apology in Theory and Critique, the bastion of Israeli postmodernism), regarding the cultural arrogance that forces Druze not to kill for family honor. Instead of presenting a real critique of Rabinowitz's absurd (logically and morally) arguments, the book adopts them verbatim.

There seems to be a simple modernist dilemma here. On the one hand, we must prevent murder. On the other hand, there is a moral (not logical) flaw in imposing our values on those who do not believe in them. However, the solution to the problem, phrased in this way, is simple: with all due respect to tolerance, murder must be prevented.

Rabbi Shagar, following Rabinowitz, chooses to present this dilemma in a postmodern formulation: On the one hand, our values (subjective and arbitrary) dictate that we must prevent murder. On the other hand, who said that the truth is with us (maybe the Druze are right)? The second root of the dilemma is logical (not moral, as in the modernist formulation). Such a formulation, of course, poses a dead-end dilemma, reminiscent of the dilemmas of high school youth.

Later, Rabbi Shagar chooses the first aspect of the dilemma, preventing murder, but he states that there is no justification for this. In the wording he chose, there cannot be one. Then he offers, following Rabbi Nachman, a magic solution: to remain silent (the same applies to saving the life of a Gentile on Shabbat at the beginning of Chapter 3 of the Book of Proverbs). Anyone who does not understand how this helps should remain silent.

Zeev Bechler, in the last part of his book 'Three Copernican Revolutions', insists that such an approach, despite its moral motivations, leads directly to brutality and arbitrariness. Why didn't we choose the second branch of the dilemma, to allow honor killings? Someone else would choose to murder us all, because in his (arbitrary) opinion we have no right to exist. If asked, he too could suggest that we remain silent. Nietzsche, the forerunner of the postmodern, instinctive and forceful nihilism, serves as one of the masters of Nazism. There, the turning to the aesthetic at the expense of the ethical ripened.

The first part of the book is a collection of trite postmodern clichés: There is no truth except what we establish. Language has no meaning but is a Wittgensteinian 'language game' (and the content of the book itself?!) and so on.[4] There is no doubt that this approach 'opens up some exciting options in the work of God', as he puts it. Although it is not entirely clear which 'God'.

The book reveals a postmodern approach of 'soft religion' (p. 16), according to which all options have the right to be called 'worship of God' (we should note that the scholarly 'narrative' also receives postmodern approval from Rabbi Shagar! See p. 44). Rabbi Shagar speaks of his position as enabling peace with Muslims (p. 21). He also mentions the eternity of secularism. Therefore, we should not wait for the Messiah on his white donkey. The postmodern Messiah has already arrived, on a transparent donkey, to regulate religious-secular and gentile-Jewish relations, on an equal basis.

A Messiah who has already come reminds me of Christianity. So does the notion that basic religiosity is an experience (p. 22), and so does the existentialist identification of faith with absurdity (see the entry 'Kierkegaard').[5]

Postmodernism rehabilitates primitiveness, but only apparently. It is based on a nihilism that holds that everything is worthless, and not that everything is valuable. The book points out a difference in this regard between its approach and nihilistic postmodernism. He explains (p. 21) that religious postmodernism will adopt metaphors of 'discovering' truth, and not just 'creating' truth. However, it appears from the course of events that this is also only part of a politically correct 'language game' (similar to Rorty, p. 16), and not an expression of a real change in content. This is a postmodern use of language as an attempt to create an experience, and not as an expression of content. If there were a real change here, that is, a renunciation of skepticism, it would not be postmodernism. Incidentally, solving problems by twisting the wording is also a postmodern approach.

Sometimes it seems as if Rav Shagar (later in the same section) simply suggests returning to the Maharal and Rabbi Tzadok (see 'Elo Valo', to Avi Sagi, p. 128), regarding the multiplicity of shades in the divine truth, but there is nothing new in this, and it is certainly not a postmodern invention.[6] Precisely because of this, the book gives the impression of adopting the postmodern thesis itself, regarding the contradictions involved in the Aqaba.

As an 'old-fashioned' modernist-Yeshiva, I am not willing to accept vague and contradictory statements. Not necessarily because they are heretical, but mainly because they claim nothing. Most postmodern writings contain no cognitive content whatsoever, beyond conceptual and formulational obscurity that implies the banal. Like them, this book does not offer systematic analysis, conceptualization, and definition.

Is belief in G-d also a truth that I create, a 'language game'? Is disbelief in G-d just another link in the 'dance of differences'? Rabbi Kook writes (see p. 63): "There is apostasy that is like confession, and a confession that is like apostasy..." It is difficult to decide which of the two phenomena the book presents us with.

The way to deal with difficulties is to solve them. If there is an alienation between our thinking and the scholarly thinking, we must develop tools to understand it and deepen it, and not give it up. We must raise ourselves to the Torah, and not lower it to us. We are supposed to build an additional level in the Torah, not a replacement level. This leads us to a general comment concerning the concept of 'coping.'

C. What is 'coping': Postmodernism and other ideas

The editor's introduction states that the book fills a void left by Rabbi Kook's teachings regarding the treatment of postmodern phenomena. In the yeshiva world, this issue is called: 'The Generation to Our Generation.' In 'The Generation', Rabbi Kook developed a treatment of the national phenomenon, which was essentially a dogmatic, collectivist, and particularistic phenomenon. However, now we need (?!…) to apply his teachings to an environment that is exactly the opposite: skeptical, individualistic, and universalistic.

However, beyond the question of what one is dealing with, it should be noted that the concept of 'coping' itself is undergoing a metamorphosis. In the past, it was accepted that 'coping' with something external meant a confrontation whose main goal was to overcome the enemy. Rabbi Kook taught that there is a 'coping' that is the refining of the new idea, and the adoption of its positive core. Rabbi Shagar, in his book, goes one step further: he embraces postmodernism in its kinship and kinship, even without initial refining.

Let's examine ourselves. When we hear about a book that 'deals with postmodernity,' what do we understand by this? 'To deal' is interpreted by many only in this, third, meaning. It should be noted that the Haredi idea, the one that sees every new phenomenon as an evil that must be fought against, is also worthy of our distilling and learning something from it. Not every phenomenon or idea must be 'dealt with' in the new meaning of the concept. We must once again deal with the concept of 'dealing' itself.

If there is room for debate with regard to research and Hasidism, the two sects closest to Judaism, then precisely with regard to postmodernism the error is doubly serious. From the partial phenomena that accompany postmodernism, one can certainly learn. However, all of this is merely peeling away parts that are not part of its essence. Refined postmodernism itself is a pure negation of idealism as such, and as such we must "deal" with it only in the classical sense. This is our Amalek (in doubtful gematria) Exodus.[7] The last clarification we have left before redemption.[8]

In conclusion, the last part of the book is interesting and raises some relevant observations. However, many of the points in the first part of the book have already been thoroughly trodden down, at least outside the Beit Midrash, and also within it. The main innovation of this part is in giving rabbinical legitimacy to the common arguments of rebellious youth. In this, Rabbi Shagar's confrontation is indeed courageous. It does not surrender to positions that are common within the rabbinical world, and it deals with painful points. On the inside, he 'confronts' in the classical sense of the term. However, I would expect from someone of his level similar courage in his attitude towards positions on the outside, with which he 'confronts' only in the postmodern sense of the term.

[1] See my article on this in 'Akademut' 9.

[2] There is another common denominator: the research leads to a subjective perception of the Torah and Halacha. In the research picture, Halacha is a subjective pattern of the landscape of its homeland. An example of the impact of this relativity is presented in my response in 'Academoot' 14.

[3] In my aforementioned article in 'Akademut' 9, I showed that Yeshivah teaching is distinctly modernist.

[4] Another example of the book's postmodernism is found in the discussion of scholarship and science, which are presented as ideas aimed at powerful and self-interested conspiracy. See, for example, p. 38.

[5] It should be noted that Kierkegaard should have been exposed to the same criticism as Yeshiva scholarship: both approaches perceive faith as alienation from ordinary human thinking. Rabbi Shagar, for some reason, adopts Kierkegaard's extreme alienation (the paradox), while at the same time criticizing the moderate alienation in Yeshiva scholarship. I find it puzzling.

[6] Perhaps beyond the novelty of extending the application of the rule 'These and these are the words of the living God' to the witnesses of Ophir and his ilk.

[7] The positive aspects of constructive doubt are well known, and so are the

[8] In the terminology of the Sages, we are now in the exile of Edom (=Esau=Amalek), and Echm.