On Briskerism and Experience (Column 142)
With God’s help
After the discussion of existentialism (column 140), I thought I would move on to discuss a religious aspect connected to it. In the past I was asked the following question on the site:
In conversations with the Rabbi’s students, I often ask whether there is an existential/experiential dimension in the Rabbi’s thought.
I would appreciate a response: can one say that the Rabbi has no existential doctrine, only a desire for consistency and precision in arguments about faith? Or: is the Rabbi an incurable Chazon-Ishnik and Brisker…
In my response to this (see below), I addressed the Litvak’s or Brisker’s existential experience, and argued that, contrary to the prevalent view, there very much is such a thing. Naturally, I was immediately asked afterward about existentialism, since the questions are related to one another, and that was the subject of the previous column. Now this is an opportunity to continue and clarify more broadly the serious question about the Litvak’s religious experience.[1]
Introduction: What is an experience?
When I look at some picture, I can describe what I see: such-and-such a figure, in certain colors, in such-and-such surroundings. Alongside that, there is within my consciousness a visual representation of that picture. And alongside both of these there is the experience itself, the feelings that this picture arouses in me. So too when we speak about the color red, we do so in terms of objective properties. First, one can see that the color red is what many appearances we have encountered have in common (a red shirt, a red table, the sun at sunset, etc.). Beyond that, there are physical properties of the color red, such as wavelength, refraction and interference phenomena, field intensity, and so on. All of these belong to the understanding and description of the phenomenon (that is, of the color red). Alongside all this there is the sensation (I see the color red in my consciousness).[2] Unlike the insights and descriptions of the previous kinds, this cannot be formulated and described in words. Words can describe implications and properties, but the color red itself appears in our consciousness, and as such it is inaccessible to others.[3] The color red can also arouse some emotion in me (ranging from aesthetic pleasure, artistic awe, fear, admiration, reservation, and the like). These too may be treated as experiences. The same is true of concepts, such as a democratic state, religious faith, or an open society. Concepts too can be considered on these three planes, and so can events, phenomena, or processes.
The term experience represents something subjective, in contrast to the objective descriptions of the phenomenon (the first plane of reference above). But in light of what we have seen, it can be interpreted in at least two different senses (the two additional planes): 1. Some emotion toward a situation, principle, or concept. 2. The insight as such—that is, the insight that inwardly accompanies my analytical understanding.
The stirring that awakens in a person during prayer is a kind of emotional experience of the first type. So too is the excitement when someone hears the national anthem or sees the flag being raised (believe it or not, there are people to whom this happens even nowadays. Embarrassing). At the same time, one can relate to the meaning of the anthem or the prayer on the two other planes: their apprehension in my consciousness (in Kantian terminology: their phenomenon, as opposed to the concept in itself, the noumenon) and their objective description.
A note on poetry and prose
A text that is prose conveys to me a description of situations, principles, or concepts, and thereby creates in me insights of this kind. The objective description conveyed to me creates in me insights that arise from the literal meaning of the words and sentences of the text. In the columns on poetry I raised the possibility that poetry tries to awaken in us both kinds of experience: both inward insights and emotions in relation to those insights and contents, and it does so not by way of descriptions. We saw there that the words of a poem do not carry meaning in a literal way (that is, the meaning of the poem is not the literal meaning of its words). Poetry tries to awaken experience in us, and not necessarily understanding in any objective sense. Here I might add that it awakens experience in us in one of the two senses we saw: emotion, or direct insights regarding the ideas or concepts. In poetry, the words serve to create experiences of both kinds, but not by way of verbal description as is customary in prose. In prose, the text conveys objective information to us and experience arises from that. It is an indirect product that awakens in us. In poetry there is an attempt to do this directly (to awaken the experience directly, not through conveying objective meaning).
Existentialism as poetry
In the comments after the previous column, the question arose whether existentialist philosophy cannot be understood as a kind of poetry. I argued that it is not philosophy because it does not convey any objective meanings to us. In philosophy, one conveys to us a prosaic meaning, and it is conveyed by means of arguments that rest on assumptions or empirical claims. Existentialism tries to awaken in us directly the personal insights, the experience, by means of a text. In that sense, existentialism is poetry (or literature, which, as we saw there, is not prose in this sense either).
I wrote there that this may perhaps be true of part of this literature (as of many poetic texts), but it still does not change the conclusion. This is not philosophy. First, because most existentialist literature does not really awaken philosophical insights, but at most psychological ones. My impression is that most of it belongs to the arousal of experiences of the first kind, purely emotional ones. And second, even with regard to works or parts of texts that do awaken experiences of the second kind, such a composition still does not merit the name philosophy, because it is not a discussion but a direct arousal of impressions. I wrote there over and over again that this can also happen by looking at a telephone pole or a passing cat. If we want to include this under the heading of philosophy, we will have to include almost everything. There is nothing that does not arouse in us various insights and feelings in this sense.
Existentialism and experience in the religious context
We have seen that existentialism arouses experiences and does not convey contents in any objective sense. When people speak about religious experience, or about an existential dimension in religious life, they usually mean experience of the first kind, religious emotion (the religiose feeling). Therefore my concern here focuses on experience in that sense.
It is commonly thought that a central part of the religious world and of religious life is religious emotion. This is what is called religious experience or the existential dimension of religiosity. Elsewhere I noted that in Christianity people are accustomed to identifying religiosity with emotion and with the religiose experience of standing and living before God,[4] and therefore existentialism is identified there with religiosity, and vice versa. People think that religiosity, by definition, is something existential. But as I argued there, this is a Christian conception of religion and religiosity. Jewish religiosity is not necessarily like that.[5] At least in the Jewish context, religion is law, as in the verses from Esther, “and the law was promulgated in Shushan the capital” (the law was promulgated in Shushan the capital), “and they do not observe the king’s laws” (they do not observe the king’s laws), and many others.
Faith too is perceived by many as a kind of emotion, or an immediate encounter with God. But in my view, faith is the result of logical consideration, a factual claim that is a kind of philosophical conclusion about the world.
Between temperament and worldview
Many times in the past, when I expressed my position that emotions have no value whatsoever, some protested against this cold (and “condescending”) statement. It seems to me that the question presented at the beginning of my remarks above also proceeds from those same starting points (that is at least what it smells like).
Let me preface here another distinction regarding experiences of the first type, that is, emotions. There are people whose nature is colder—that is, whose emotional dimension is less dominant and less active. Their emotional glands are aroused only rarely and with lesser intensity. This is a character trait, and of course each person has his own character and tendencies. There is no point in judging such a character, just as there is no point in judging character at all. Judgment is relevant to what I choose, not to what I am by nature. Judgment concerns what I do with my character, not the character itself. From here it follows that the term Litvak, in its common meaning (a cold, mechanical radish; an intellectual-analytic Jew devoid of feeling), which for many serves as a pejorative or a criticism, is in my eyes neutral and perhaps even a badge of honor.
I say neutral, and not simply a badge of honor, because as I have argued several times in the past, emotions have no principled importance (see on this columns 22 and 86), both in the religious context and in the human and philosophical context generally. This does not mean that one should ignore emotions, since they are part of our personality. My claim is that emotions are input that should be taken into account when making decisions. But there is no reason to cultivate our emotional dimension and see in it importance for its own sake. Sometimes emotion can help us realize our values (because what we emotionally identify with is easier for us to devote ourselves to), but here too it is at most a means and not a value in itself. In column 22 I presented the view that even the commandments that ostensibly address emotion do not really see it as a goal and a value. Sometimes they are not really directed at emotion, and even if they are, that is only a way of achieving a practical or intellectual goal. Emotion as such is neither a goal nor a value. It is simply a datum that exists within us, part of our being human.
Thus, being intellectual or emotional is not only a character trait but also an ideology or philosophy. The Litvak in this sense is not necessarily a person who is cold by nature. The ideological Litvak is a person who attributes no importance to emotion and does not see it as a goal or value, in the religious sphere as in general.
The question of emotion among Litvaks can refer to two planes: 1. The factual-psychological plane—does the typical Litvak have emotions? 2. The ideological-philosophical plane—does the Litvak see value in emotions? The second question is important to discuss, since it is important to understand that the answer is no. The first question, by contrast, has merely academic-scientific value. It really does not matter whether they have emotion or not, because emotion is devoid of importance in every essential sense. It is merely interesting as part of our knowledge of the world, for as I said, emotion is part of our human existence, and it is interesting to know whether Briskers too are human beings or not.
From here you will understand that the main part of the post was devoted to clarifying precisely this point (to explain why it is not important). Still, one cannot let the matter pass without saying something, and so from here on this is my contribution to the human sciences. I would like to peek a little into the hidden recesses of the Litvak’s frozen soul (a person needs a bit of reflection, no?) in order to see whether he has an existential religious experience.
Personal note
By the way, it occurred to me just now that perhaps this very discussion is existentialist, since I am answering this question by looking into my soul (and assuming that the same is true in the souls of those similar to me). And indeed, as stated, this really is a question in psychology and not in philosophy, which means that it truly has no principled importance.
After all these preliminaries, in answer to the many who ask I will say that personally I am actually not a cold person. Unfortunately emotions do awaken in me from time to time, and sometimes this happens in very embarrassing circumstances (such as state ceremonies). To my credit it should be said that I try to overcome it, and I even despise myself for it and mock it. In my view, beyond the degraded herd instinct contained in this sentimentalism, such emotions belong to our animal side, like the body, the food we consume, and the waste we excrete (forgive the comparison). In my eyes, the pure Litvak, who is not stirred by any of this at all, is an ideal figure, for all these unnecessary disturbances do not trouble him. Although, of course, the fact that we are human beings endowed with emotions and must take them into account, regrettable though it may be, is a fact. As such it is neutral, and there is no point in judging it. It is simply there, and one must learn to live with it.
I remember that when I read the book The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion, which deals with a man (Don Tillman) who apparently has Asperger’s syndrome, the thought occurred to me that in fact this “sick” man is the truly healthy one. Someone with Asperger’s in fact conducts himself in an entirely logical and rational way and is not really aware of, and therefore also does not take into account, human sensitivities and emotions. Thus, for example, Tillman searches for a partner according to a list of traits he wrote for himself, and the existentialist and experiential encounter with her is not supposed to play a part in his decision about the relationship (although surprises await him—and us). It is no accident that Simsion does not write anywhere in the book that Tillman indeed has Asperger’s. In an interview with him, he explained that in fact all of us have this to varying degrees. Everyone knows hi-tech people (or Litvaks) who are not especially sensitive to their friends and to various human sensitivities. Today we would say that they are “on the spectrum,” and it is hard to draw a line between who is ill and who is not. Indeed it is hard to draw a line, but my claim here concerns both sides of the line: which side represents illness and which represents mental health. It seems to me that the Asperger side is the healthy side. It is logical and devoid of emotion and emotionalism. It does what is true because it is true, in Maimonides’ phrase at the beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance. An ordinary, “healthy” person is actually ill. All kinds of nuisances interfere with his ability to function logically. He is moved by emotions and not only by rational considerations. Well, one really should try to overcome this, and if one does not manage to suppress the Hasidish syndrome (HS), one should go for therapy or counseling with a consultant for matters of Litvakness.[6]
That is with regard to the pure/ideal Litvaks, of whom it has been said: “Pure Litvaks do not complain about sentimentalism; they add intellect and reason…” (ibid.). The question with which I am dealing here is whether real Litvaks are indeed such types or not, and in what sense. One may ask whether the ideal Litvak is a figment of the imagination, or whether he does in fact exist—that is, whether the real Litvak resembles him (whether he really is a person devoid of emotions). But here I am trying to discuss something slightly different. It seems to me that even the Litvak has some experiential dimension, and here I want to try to characterize it (from here on this is a text suspect of existentialism, and connoisseurs will pardon me).
My answer: On a Brisker’s experiences
The question of the existential and experiential dimension presented at the beginning of my remarks here tacitly assumed that Briskers and Litvaks have no experiences (they are of the Asperger type). To this I added and wrote further on there, in my holy words:
There is a common mistake among people, as though there were no existential experience in Brisk. Hence they are also puzzled by Rabbi Soloveitchik, who expresses powerful experiences while also being a Brisker.
But that is not so, for two reasons: first, Brisk too has experiences, but they do not determine what one does or thinks. That is determined by the mind and not by the heart. Second, Briskerism itself, and dry Lithuanian rationality, is a very powerful experience. Something akin to the aesthetic religiose experiences that Einstein describes before nature and its laws. Compare Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s descriptions in Halakhic Man, where he stands before a spring or a sunset and sees before him the laws of the tevul yom (one who has immersed that day but awaits sunset). And again, some err and think that there is no experience here, but that is not so. The experience is bound up with the intellectual ideas. And one still needs to investigate whether this is experience in the same sense as the emotional kind, or whether it is something a bit different (and also in a different part of the soul. That is, does his experiential-emotional part experience the understanding and attainment of the intellect, or is the experience here itself an intellectual effect?).
I will only note that, in my humble opinion, in the Chazon Ish this appears differently than in Brisk, in several respects. Just for example: the Chazon Ish experiences the angel Sekhliel (intuition, synthetic intellect), whereas in Brisk they experience recursive understanding (the logical-legal-analytic structure). And again, one must ask whether this is the same experiential center that is awakened from two different directions/sources, or whether these are two kinds of experiences. And it seems to me that this depends on the earlier inquiry (for if there they are two different kinds, the same applies here as well, and vice versa), but this is not the place.
As for what you asked about me, it seems to me that in my humble self there exists mainly the latter experience, and a bit of the former. And in the latter experience I have had the privilege of tasting both the Chazon Ish and Brisk together. I would add that the Chazon Ish is the more mature form, whereas in Brisk this appears in a more childish and naive form. That is how these things appeared in me as well (and this is my own existentialism, as I hinted in “Two Wagons” for those in the know).
Study this very, very carefully, for there are very deep things here from the furnace of soul and cognition, and the heart does not reveal them to the mouth.
I will try to spell this out a bit more, with the help of what I wrote above. My claim is that the Brisker represented in Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s well-known description in his book Halakhic Man (see on this also column 31) definitely does experience experiences that have an emotional dimension (and not merely understanding in its inner sense—the seeing of the color red). But in his case this emotional experience grows out of an encounter with intellectual analysis, that is, from understanding the legal principles of Jewish law. If in the case of the Hasid the excitement is from the very encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He, through prayer or through the study of a Torah text, then in his case the excitement is the result of understanding. After the understanding is formed, it creates intense emotions in him. This is similar to a scientist like Einstein, who reports a religiose feeling when he stands before nature. Except that unlike the ordinary poet, who is moved by nature and by a beautiful sight or landscape, Einstein is moved before the laws of nature; that is, the understanding of nature and its laws is what arouses in him the awe and excitement. So too Halakhic Man, the Litvak, is moved as he stands before the spring, but not by the sight itself, but rather by the laws that accompany it (the laws of the tevul yom and sunset purification, and of one bound by a vow who immerses in spring water in summer and winter). I can only refer the reader to the article that, through no fault of its own, happened to become column 141, Cupid and Other Animals, which speaks of the experiences that Halakhic Man undergoes under the wedding canopy. While everyone present is borne aloft on peaks of emotion and sees rosy-winged angels fluttering above the canopy, the Litvak sees legal categories there. Do not err: this too penetrates to his emotional glands. He too is excited, but not by the canopy; by the laws that govern it and are realized in it and through it.
Thus, experience in its emotional sense is the third layer among those described above (what accompanies the seeing of the color red and the understanding of it and of its properties). The difference between ordinary mortals and the Litvak is the relation between them, that is, the source of the experience. In ordinary mortals, the experience is created by the encounter with the thing itself; that is, the second layer above—the seeing of the color red—is what arouses the experience and the emotions. The third layer is created from the second. By contrast, in the Brisker the existential experience is created from understanding the thing (or from the encounter with the understanding), that is, the third layer is created from the first. This is the first difference. In the first case it is created from consciousness, and in the Brisker from thought. Unlike the ordinary mortal, the Brisker’s experience-and-emotion gland is connected to the intellect and not to the senses.
In my response cited above I noted that, to the best of my impression, there is also a difference between them in the nature of the experience itself. What we have seen up to now is only a difference with regard to what arouses the experience and the emotions—its source: thought (in the Brisker) or consciousness (in the Hasid and the existentialist). But to my mind there is also a difference in the nature of the emotions that are themselves aroused. The excitement that comes from seeing laws and understanding them—and the relevant reality, whether Torah reality or physical reality—is not like the excitement that comes from seeing reality itself. The second kind of excitement is emotional, and therefore sharply distinct from the seeing itself. It takes place in the heart, not in the head or in consciousness. By contrast, the first kind of excitement is less emotional. Its source is in the intellect, but it too takes place very close to it. There is something more restrained in it, something closer to the understanding itself. It is hard to distinguish sharply between the understanding and the excitement that comes from it, and therefore it appears as something with an intellectual dimension and not only an emotional one. That is one of the reasons why people get the impression that the Litvak and the Brisker have no experiences, because ostensibly with them everything is intellect and not emotion. I would note that this is also true of the scientist. In the excitement aroused by laws there is a dimension that also expresses some understanding of them. Perhaps this is what the author of Aglei Tal means in his introduction when he speaks about the importance of joy and pleasure for understanding (see on this again in column 22).
We have tied together here many threads that were opened in previous posts: on emotion and intellect, prose and poetry, Hasidism and study, science, facts and emotions, faith and rationality, different kinds of meaning, and more. Well, you should have expected that I would not answer a personal question with a laconic confession and leave it at that. It had to come with a bit of philosophizing. But admit that the pinch of existentialism here surprised you.
I can only wish the readers, with immense Lithuanian excitement: a happy and pure holiday—that is, one devoid of emotion (Platonic joy)—to you all.
[1] In the discussion below, Brisker and Litvak are synonymous. There are subtle differences in meaning (the former is only one of the types of the latter), but I will not go into them here.
[2] For this distinction, see the Wikipedia entry “Mary’s Room”.
[3] Therefore it is not clear whether they see what I see. This is what is sometimes called “the philosophers’ chestnut” (see on this here). Even if we assume that these insights are identical for all of us, there is no way to check this, and at least in that sense this is a subjective plane (or an inter-subjective one).
[4] And likewise with morality.
[5] I argued there that this is what led Kant to claim that Judaism is a socio-political code rather than a religion. I further noted that his Jewish students and associates were mistaken when they corrected him. He understood Judaism better than they did, but erred in defining the concept of religion (or at least assumed its Christian meaning).
[6] These remarks are made ironically, but seriously. Obviously one must take people’s feelings into account (including our own), for that is what we are. One cannot, and should not, ignore reality. But it is proper to see this as a kind of defect and an unavoidable necessity, and not turn it into an ideology and a goal in life.
Discussion
It seems to me that at least part of the devotion to Torah does not stem only from intellectual consideration, but also from feelings of fear of Heaven and love of Torah, which in turn are nourished by Torah study.
These feelings are concealed, as is the way of modest people who do not want to make a big deal out of their feelings or thrust them violently before other people’s eyes, and hence the dry image of such people. But the assumption that there are no feelings here seems to me unfounded.
And by the way, if I may ask: what legal/institutional realities does the rabbi see in state ceremonies that arouse such emotion in him?
By the way, it is interesting to see the generation gap between the rabbi and me (I attribute the rabbi’s emotionalism to his belonging to the second generation of the founders of the state). I am not at all moved by those state ceremonies. If anything, I feel
nausea at the level of falsehood, fakery, and kitsch in them. And I am not at all a leftist. I have great appreciation for the achievements of the State of Israel
in its seventy years. But there is a difference between the level of the collective and the level of the private individuals (like that rebbe who loves the Jewish people in general but has a problem with the individuals). I can imagine I am not the only one of my generation who feels this way. There is a sense that something in the state here is more than the sum of its parts, because given the level of corruption found in the individuals, if the collective were merely the sum of its parts then the state would have collapsed.
Apparently people here are doing something good. And it rises above the sum total of the evil. At least for now. And I say this from mere observation without any sentiment at all.
Just a note:
The term ‘Asperger’s’ does not exist in the DSM-5, which is the current edition.
It is simply considered ‘high-functioning autistic.’ That is, at one end of the spectrum.
So maybe you meant that your feelings are disgust and revulsion?
Something here just doesn’t add up for me
Regarding being moved by state symbols (and symbols in general): what is so embarrassing about someone who contributed to the building of the state, and at its peak moments (say, Independence Day ceremonies where they raise the flag and sing the anthem) being moved by the tremendous achievement that he, together with the other citizens, has attained? Even if the citizen did not contribute directly to the building of the state, but rather his “extended family” (= his people) did, he still feels proud of the state and its achievements because “flesh of his flesh” built this state, and so he has a sense of belonging in it. That seems to me natural and appropriate. Even if I were to establish a business company with several partners, and the company reached achievements, and we celebrated its achievements in some ceremony, that would stir emotion in me.
With God’s help, eve of the assembly, “Day of Gathering,” 5778
The emotional world of the Brisker is governed by two laws: by the fire of awe and the waters of kindness—burning fear of Heaven and fear of sin, alongside intense love of God and of people. The same R. Chaim who approaches every halakhah with dread of judgment, full of fine distinctions and concerns to satisfy all opinions—that is the one who approaches people with a heart full of love and compassion.
The yeshiva student who embraces his friends with such love that the Netziv rebukes him, “Is R. Chaim hanging around his neck, or should he be learning Torah?”, when he becomes the community rabbi, turns kindness and concern for the weak and needy into the core of his role. In Brisk, every young woman who got into trouble with a childbirth out of wedlock knew that she could leave the baby at the rabbi’s doorstep, and he would already arrange a foster family to raise it.
The rabbi who zealously fought every movement, even a religious one, that introduced “modern innovations,” is the one who halted the Kol Nidrei prayer in the city’s synagogue until the money needed to save a “Bundist” facing a death sentence was collected. And when they remarked to him that the young man was a heretic who scorned the holy things of Israel, he replied: I do not know what he is. I know that his mother’s heart is broken with fear.
The rabbi who was stringent with himself in the most meticulous details, and even in his illness in his final year fasted on Tisha B’Av until midnight, is the one who instructed the public that a sick person may eat on Yom Kippur without “measured quantities,” for measured quantities were stated only regarding a woman in childbirth; and he explained that one must be stringent in matters of possible danger to life even against the majority of halakhic decisors.
The Brisker insistence on the rule of the intellect and on careful halakhic clarification at every step of life did not come to dull the emotions, but to find a way that would bring order and balance between the surging love and awe, and to give each its proper domain.
With blessings for a fruitful assembly, S.Z. Levinger
It is recommended to read the chapter on R. Chaim of Brisk in R. Yaakov Mark’s book, In the Company of the Great Ones of the Generation. The author was active in religious Jewry in Lithuania and Latvia and in the Hovevei Zion movement, and his stories about the great figures of his generation stem from prolonged personal acquaintance.
The legal/institutional realities I see in the state:
– “You shall surely place a king over yourself, that his fear be upon you” — fear of the kind the Gazans experienced this week, including Hamas, when the IDF picked them off one by one as they approached the fence, thus making clear that harming the State of Israel means death.
– “And let not his heart be lifted above his brethren” — when I see how the State of Israel functions as a free republic with human rights, internal criticism, orderly transfers of power, and the rule of law, I know that in practice the legal reality of “let not his heart be lifted above his brethren” applies here. And I am not entering here into the halakhic mechanics but into plain common sense. A state that, out of humility, is willing to move its day of celebration because of Shabbat, that suffers insults and humiliations in silence (even though by the law of Heaven they would deserve punishment), and that applies one law to all—this is a humble state whose heart is not exalted over the public.
One could expand further, but it seems these legal realities are enough, even without referring to the familiar ones such as dina de-malkhuta dina, acceptance of the currency, and so on and so forth.
I hope the rabbi will not mock these things and will address them seriously.
No legal realities whatsoever. That is why I wrote that this is an embarrassing weakness.
But that is not excitement from the ceremony, but from the contents you mentioned.
Y.D. wrote:
The legal/institutional realities I see in the state:
– “You shall surely place a king over yourself, that his fear be upon you” — fear of the kind the Gazans experienced this week, including Hamas, when the IDF picked them off one by one as they approached the fence, thus making clear that harming the State of Israel means death.
– “And let not his heart be lifted above his brethren” — when I see how the State of Israel functions as a free republic with human rights, internal criticism, orderly transfers of power, and the rule of law, I know that in practice the legal reality of “let not his heart be lifted above his brethren” applies here. And I am not entering here into the halakhic mechanics but into plain common sense. A state that, out of humility, is willing to move its day of celebration because of Shabbat, that suffers insults and humiliations in silence (even though by the law of Heaven they would deserve punishment), and that applies one law to all—this is a humble state whose heart is not exalted over the public.
One could expand further, but it seems these legal realities are enough, even without referring to the familiar ones such as dina de-malkhuta dina, acceptance of the currency, and so on and so forth.
I hope the rabbi will not mock these things and will address them seriously.
My response:
I greatly appreciate all these phenomena (which of course have nothing whatsoever to do with any legal reality), but I do not see why any ceremony should arouse feelings in me regarding these things. Emotion is something beyond appreciation, and that is what I was talking about.
Hello Rabbi.
First of all, thank you for every text or lecture that comes from your hand—I become much wiser from them and enjoy them greatly.
As for the article: the rabbi addresses the evaluative significance of emotion; in this I tend toward his view that it has no significance in itself. What I would like to ask is how the rabbi relates to it as a tool to work with, or how to relate to it in a case where it leads to good things. Let me preface that I am aware of the rabbi’s opinion that a person who acts out of emotion, even toward something good, is not to be valued for it, and I agree with that too. I will perhaps try to challenge this simple conclusion a bit…
For the sake of the question, I will depict two types of people. One is a Litvak who all his life fights his emotions and is careful to fulfill the commandments in a cold, rational manner. Even the commandment “and you shall rejoice on your festival” he fulfills with a furrowed brow, while carefully observing all the minute details, particulars, and halakhic stringencies that arise from it, and he heroically fights the feelings of enthusiasm he experiences so that, God forbid, a situation should not arise in which emotion or some pleasure pushed him to perform the commandment or caused him to lose a bit of the halakhic intention involved in it. And so he continues until age 100, splitting hairs and waging all-out war with himself.
In contrast, another Jew (I don’t know what name to give him; “Hasid” also doesn’t quite fit…) who indeed fights every negative emotion no less than the Litvak does, but on the other hand, every time he fulfills some commandment or does something good, he tries with all his might to stir himself emotionally, to get excited, and to intensify the excitement over the commandment he is doing. And he not only dances with excessive force and vigor on Simchat Torah, but even prays the Amidah on an ordinary weekday with stormy and exaggerated clapping, carefully preserving jumps and swaying in all directions. And thus our acquaintance continues until age 70, until little by little he discovers precisely a kind of natural inclination from within himself to do the commandments, and he hardly needs to work on himself anymore in order to do good—it is simply natural for him…
My question is: who is the more complete person—the one who in the end changed his nature and became by nature a person drawn to perform the commandments, or the person who always continues to labor over each and every commandment but in essence remains the same person?
(I know that the picture I drew is completely imaginary in every respect, but my question is more on the level of value judgment: who is the more “complete person” in your opinion…?)
I would be very happy for a response, and thank you very much.
And of course, sorry for the length and excessive emotionalism…
It seems from your words that you have never read the beginning of the Chazon Ish’s Faith and Trust. And how do you understand commandments such as “And you shall love the Lord your God”?
And in short:
Man must be a “separate intellect” like the angels of God, “silent in awe” as they listen to the word of God, yet be full of overflowing emotion, like David who “danced with all his might before the Lord” when he brought up the Ark of God, on the way to Zion, “I would pass along with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a festive multitude” (Psalms 42:5).
Man’s being possessed of refined intellect and at the same time passionate feeling is what enables him to be like Abraham, infecting his household and all mankind with his enthusiasm, and drawing them near with his love to “the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice”—justice, which depends on precise clarification of the law, upon which one can develop the quality of piety of going “beyond the letter of the law.”
With blessings for a peaceful Sabbath and a happy festival, S.Z. Levinger
When one activates emotion as an instrument, that is not emotional action. The one who made the decision is the intellect. In my view, both of them are good and beloved.
The rabbi’s sharing of his embarrassments is beginning to become embarrassing, especially when it is not clear what the rabbi is trying to teach us (it is beginning to feel like Pharaoh’s dream).
Rabbi Michi answered:
“But that is not excitement from the ceremony, but from the contents you mentioned.” In my view, not only does that not answer the question, it makes it sharper. If it is not embarrassing to be moved by the contents, then what is embarrassing about the trigger (the ceremony) that arouses them?
And as the Hasidim say: “The mind rules over the heart.” The decision of when and how to let emotion become inflamed is an intellectual decision!
With blessings for receiving the Torah with joy, S.Z. Levinger
However, it seems to me that activating emotion is not an “instrument.” Emotion is life itself, and the intellect is the supervising critic who makes sure that life flows in the right direction!
I answered completely. But I have exhausted the discussion of my embarrassments. It is embarrassing.
I assume that a person does only what he wants.
And in principle he can always want to act even against the command of his intellect, or against what is decided in his mind as truth and absolute good.
And whenever he follows the command of his intellect, it is because at that moment he wants to do what is right according to the command of his intellect.
From here I ask: is will an emotion or intellect?
I think it is very hard to track what exactly that elusive factor is—the uninfluenced choosing power that there is in every person—and certainly it is hard simply to decide that it is part of the intellect. In fact, my intuition is that the intellect only indicates what is good and what is not good, and in the end the person chooses to do what he wants… and again, I do not know what will is…
(By the way, in your column on going secular, you touched on this point. You wrote that one can spend an hour proving to a boy from our generation that he is completely obligated to Torah and commandments, and still it will not change anything in his path in life. The reason, in my opinion, is simply that he does not want to… it is much easier to want all the “good” that the outside world markets.
The command of the intellect can scream until tomorrow what the right thing to do is; in the end, a person chooses to do only what he wants.)
There are many hidden assumptions in what you say here that I do not agree with.
1. The assumption that a person always does what he wants is incorrect. It is discussed extensively in the literature dealing with weakness of will.
2. Will is not an emotion by my definition. What does one have to do with the other? Is memory an emotion?
3. There is no choosing power in a person, neither elusive nor non-elusive. The person himself chooses, period.
4. What he wants is not dictated, but is his own decision. Therefore the question of what is right does not compete with what he wants. The will is a weighing of what is fitting and right in my view together with impulses and interests.
Hello Rabbi.
Thank you for the reasoned response.
I stated openly that I was making assumptions, and I wrote that at the beginning of my remarks as well…
1. In my view, weakness of will is a situation in which a person understands intellectually that it is fitting to do a certain act, but his will is to do what is unfitting—and that will is realized in full! The sense of missed opportunity stems from the fact that he did not want (more strongly) to do what is good according to the command of his intellect and chose to want the bad.
2. After some time I see that this point is less important to the discussion. But in my opinion it is easier to see memory as part of intelligence, and harder to see a person with strong willpower as a more intelligent person.
3. Of course. I meant power in the sense of capacity, as I would write the power of sight or the power of hearing, while the person himself is the one who hears, sees, etc.
4. What he truly wants is not dictated. He can want what he wants. In my opinion, a person who wants something does not need to decide to want; wanting and deciding are one and the same.
The question of what is right competes with the will in every case of weakness of will, as above in note 1.
In my opinion, the will is a weighing of what the person wants—the will to do what is fitting, the will to do what the impulses say, etc. etc.—with the strongest will surviving…
I do not understand what the discussion is about. What you say here seems to me tautological, and it is not clear to me what you want to claim and what the dispute is about.
You define the intellect as determining what is fitting and what is not. Agreed.
You define will as the final decision that takes into account the totality of considerations: the fitting, the impulse, and so on. I am willing to accept that as a definition.
So therefore what?
When the rabbi says that a person decides, or weighs the data, or any sentence of that kind, I understand from your words that your intention is that there is some kind of logical framework that leads to the person’s final choice.
In my opinion, weighing those same data (the fitting, impulse, etc. etc.) can lead to two different wills; there is no weighing that dictates a specific decision.
If I try to define the difference more sharply: in your opinion the intellect is sovereign; a person who understands intellectually that he must take a certain step is what he will do.
In my opinion, the will is sovereign, and therefore even if from an intellectual standpoint, in the weighing of all the data, a clear conclusion emerges, the person is still free to do what he wants. Moreover, even if in the weighing of the wills themselves it turns out that one will overcomes all the others, even then the person is still free to want what he wants.
There is no weighing that determines the result unambiguously. (It can influence, but it does not determine…)
The practical difference I currently find between the sides is whether one needs to invest in emotions or only in intellect. In my opinion, it follows that a person who wants to want a certain thing must not only understand intellectually that it is the right thing, but also try to influence himself to want the thing by other means, not only through the intellect. (Of course, I do not know for certain how one influences the will; I am only saying that there is reason to try to find out how…)
In short: according to the rabbi, as I understand it, the intellect is the decision-maker of the person. In my opinion, the intellect is only one of the engines in human decision-making, while there is no understood mechanism that makes the final decision.
(For example, I can understand the benefit of saying a prayer regularly, because it can influence my desires. In the rabbi’s world it is harder to understand such things. In my opinion, if in an empirical test we found that whoever shouts “The Lord is God” and claps five times every day thereby increases his religious commitment, then that would be our religious duty.)
Regarding the matter of will,
impulses and interests are not given over to choice.
Is judgment or the perception of what is fitting and right given over to choice?
(I think there is no possibility of choosing how to think or perceive reality; thought imposes itself on a person.)
Is choice found only where there is a conflict between impulse or interest and the perception of the right thing?
Is will what a person decides to do?
What is the meaning of the term weakness of will? Will is will; it does not come against anything. It comes after all the conflicts and struggles.
Maybe the intention is weakness of the perception or understanding of the fitting against the impulse?
Then it would be more correct to call it “weakness of intellect”
Hello Yaakov M.
I am not sure whether you meant to direct the questions to me, but I will answer you with my opinion on them.
It is true that thought, impulses, and the weighing of interests are imposed on a person, but the capacity for choice is still the capacity to decide which of them I want. In my opinion, even if the weighing of the data shows that it is preferable for me to do x rather than y, I am still free to do what I want.
Of course, choice applies only among some kind of alternatives. If there is no difference between x and y, there is no meaning to my choice; I can just draw lots and that’s it.
In my opinion, if a person did an act (assuming he was free…), then clearly that is what he wanted to do. Therefore, in my opinion, there is no difference between the concept of deciding and the concept of wanting. Both define the final act before the act itself.
Weakness of will, in the accepted definition (to the best of my knowledge…), is a situation in which a person wanted to do an act, but because his will was not strong enough, he did not manage to realize his will and failed. That is, his will was not realized… He acted (one could define it as allowing his urges to lead him, or choosing not to choose [?]) contrary to his will…
For example, a person who understands that it is advisable to stop smoking and wants to stop, but nevertheless continues smoking and feels failure…
In my opinion, even in a state of weakness of will, I assume the person wanted to do the final act—to smoke—and therefore he did it. I assume there is no will here that did not come to realization; on the contrary, even though he understood that it was not advisable to smoke from the standpoint of intellectual calculation, he was still free to do what he wanted, and that is indeed what he did. I explain the feeling of failure by saying that he wanted what is contrary to intellect, and therefore he feels uncomfortable that he wanted and acted against what makes sense intellectually.
In my opinion it is not correct to call this weakness of intellect, because I hold that the intellect is not what makes decisions. I hold that even if a person understands that he “must” and that it is fitting that he do x, he is still free to want and do y…
It is a shame that the give-and-take here was not done in one continuous thread.
I repeat that these are merely definitions, and I do not see what the discussion is about. From my perspective, a person is driven by urges and impulses and by the fitting and the unfitting, and he weighs all these, and that is the decision. Which of these is called will is merely a question of definition. Obviously, if he works on his character traits and the impulses change (in intensity and direction), that can affect his decision. Who said otherwise?
From my perspective, the matter is essential. I will try my luck one last time for fear of being tiresome.
Is there such a thing as a rational decision? In my opinion, no! (There are decisions that accord with the rational, but decision-making itself is always free of any rationality and therefore is not rational; it is not the result of any weighing whatsoever, but the result of free choice in an essential sense.)
I think that from here the way is open to finding many additional practical differences that in my opinion are essential and not merely definitional. That is my opinion. I am preparing myself to be surprised and discover that even the practical difference I have now brought is, in the rabbi’s opinion, definitional.
On the contrary, the opposite is more plausible. The Written Torah is intellect, and it was given to Moses our teacher, who was wholly intellectual, and it was written in the language of poetry. The Oral Torah is heart, and it is given to Torah scholars who have a listening heart, and it is said in the language of prose. But what happened? Aristotelian philosophy confused people’s minds, so that what is heartfelt (philosophy) is mistakenly considered intellectual, and what is intellectual (aggadah) is mistakenly considered heartfelt. In any case, in the later generations poetry is not poetry, and prose is not prose, philosophy is not philosophy, literature is not literature, and truth is lacking.
Indeed, my heartfelt side has become hopelessly confused. What you call heart I would probably call intuition, and as for the Written Torah—leave that out of it altogether.
This is again a question of definition. In your opinion, is there no room for criticism of my decision or someone else’s? Does a person never say to himself, “I acted wrongly,” “I did not withstand the urges of the evil inclination” (“We desire to do Your will, but the leaven in the dough holds us back”)? In my view such statements do exist, and their meaning is that I did something I did not truly want. If I understood your claim, you deny this, and in your view what I do is always what I wanted. If this is not simply a different definition of will, then you must answer my questions above (criticism of decisions). If in your opinion the criticism is always because the will has changed and not because in real time I acted not according to my will, then the person is basically always compelled. There are no transgressions in the world.
In the accepted definition, a rational decision is a decision that realizes your own values. If you act in a way that does not realize them optimally, you acted irrationally. For this purpose, values include all your desires (ideals + interests). Weakness of will is an action in which you yourself think that you acted wrongly according to your own view—that is, you yielded to an impulse that steered you to a path you did not want.
Note that the fact that I have impulses does not mean they are included in my will. From my perspective, impulses are not me. Only my will to respond to them (the desire to enjoy, not the urge to enjoy) is factored into the will that leads to action.
“I acted wrongly” is a statement I accept. “I did not withstand the urges of the evil inclination” is a statement I do not accept. A person is always active, and therefore criticism applies to him as to why he wanted and acted against what is moral and fitting in his eyes. He could have wanted and acted the opposite way.
I see not only the impulse as external to the person, but also the understanding of what is fitting and moral and suited to his interests as external to him. And the person himself is his desires: the desire to do what is fitting, or against it the desire to do what is pleasant and convenient, etc. etc.
One can explain why it is moral to do a certain act, but one can never explain why to want to do a certain act. And in that place the person is free—to want what he wants. And he is called upon to want what is right and fitting. I do not understand why the rabbi understood that according to my position he is compelled.
When I write “rational decision,” I mean a decision based on the path of logic. Since I hold that every decision requires me to want to make it, and since there is no reason in the world that can obligate me to want one thing more than another (for example, if someone says that it is preferable for me to do a certain act because it is more fitting, he is relying on my wanting more to do what is more fitting. If I do not want more to do what is more fitting, then the fact that it is more fitting obligates me in nothing… the obligation exists only according to morality, which is external to me. I myself am always free), it follows that decision-making is not by way of logic but by a twisted and unknown route. Logic can obligate what is a moral or fitting act, but it cannot obligate me to want to do what is fitting.
I feel that I am repeating myself a bit. From the rabbi’s perspective there is no essential difference between us; I feel there is a large essential difference. I admit that it is a bit hard for me to define the difference sharply and that I am going around in circles. I will try to think about it more—perhaps in the end I too will understand that there is no essential difference between us.
“I did not withstand the urges of the evil inclination” means that I chose not to choose, and the impulse then carried me along (I did not have the strength to realize what I wanted). That is the only way to understand a mechanism of weakness of will.
That means I am certainly responsible for what I did, since I chose not to choose, but on the other hand what I did is not what I chose, but what the impulse pushed me toward.
Therefore there is no contradiction between the two claims.
But truly I have somewhat lost the thread of the discussion here. I do not really understand what the dispute is, if there even is one.
I am attaching a maqama written by Yoram Taharlev z”l (who passed away a few days ago). It can be read as a ballad to the Lithuanian Asperger’s type (see also column 218):
A maqama written by Yoram Taharlev, which he did not live to read at his last event:
־———-
Today, in our crazy country, which every year replaces one elite with another elite,
just try explaining to the average citizen what Lithuanian Jewry means.
That fine Jewry, which truly was the elite of the elite,
the authority of authority,
the Jewry that ignited and thrilled,
which could not be bought by anything material—
not by a villa and not by a suite,
not by Lolita and not by Aphrodite,
but by one small word: “and you shall meditate”!
Excellent Jewry, such as you have not seen from then until now,
the Jewry of intellect, Lithuanian Jewry.
And if you try to explain this to Israelis, woe unto you,
for as the Lithuanians used to say:
“Alle Yevonim di zelbe ponim” — all Greeks have the same face.
Today the insolent Israeli will say to you:
All Poles have the same mug!
And if you try to explain to him how Lithuanians differ from Poles,
Galicians from Romanians,
Hungarians from Germans,
he will look at you, my son,
as if you had fallen out of a Goldfaden opera into the Mediterranean Song Festival.
For what does the Israeli know about his roots?
If, for example, you ask someone on the street what he knows about the Gra,
he will say it is a street in the old central bus station,
a street of nut shops, cassettes, cold drinks,
and a few massage parlors for foreign workers.
And if you seriously intend to explain to him who the Gra is,
it would be better for you, for the sake of domestic peace, if you would kindly
not use the elitist expression “the Gaon of Vilna.”
For a genius in Israel today, one may say with confidence,
is either a genius at soccer, or a financial genius, or Yehoram Gaon.
Therefore, when we come this evening to praise and extol our roots,
we must know in advance that we are speaking only to ourselves!
We, the descendants of the Lithuanians, must reveal the secret to our children and grandchildren:
who their forefathers and our forefathers were,
not in order to cultivate in them the sin of pride,
but precisely “see under: love,”
so that they will not feel guilty for being so restrained, measured,
and sometimes cold,
while their friends, the masses of Israel, rejoice and exult
and dance and sing
and party and gamble.
So that our children will understand that this restraint
is not connected to their personal character; it is a genetic-anthropological matter.
They belong to a race of realistic and logical people,
people who are all potential thinkers,
the top tenth of intelligence.
Let us put the cards on the table:
The people of Israel, always and forever, divide into two, and it is almost scientific:
into the heirs of the Hasidic head and the heirs of the Lithuanian head.
While the heirs of the Hasidim—and they were always the overwhelming majority—
dance and exult as if life were a celebration,
the descendants of the Lithuanians steer their way from worry to worry.
When the heirs of the Hasidim say “eat and drink,”
for the Messiah is just about to arrive,
the Lithuanians shut themselves away in inner rooms
and examine themselves according to Duties of the Heart and Path of the Upright.
But our descendants must also know this:
that even if they inherited the hard and tormented Lithuanian character,
they must not forget that it established for us the Mussar movement,
it established the Tarbut schools and theaters and youth movements,
and created a diligent and active people, who study not for honor and not for a title.
It is the race that created vast and great Torah literature and secular literature,
the race that invented the brilliant and marvelous Jewish humor,
and of course established the magnificent chain of yeshivot—its glory has not departed—
yeshivot in which today in Israel even the kollel men of Shas study—
those are the Lithuanians,
smart, learned people, whom, for example, you will not succeed in persuading
that what will save you in life is a blessing from some righteous man on some amulet;
a race of serious people, who do not cling to Kabbalah, messianism, and mysticism,
but rather examine the plain meaning, the logic, and even the statistics.
That is us, descendants of Lithuanian Jewry.
You will not bring us to pour water on the hands of some elderly kabbalist, may he live long,
not to be the Messiah’s donkey and not Balaam’s she-ass,
not to go with closed eyes after exalted people.
We do not rely on miracles, not on the lottery, not on the horoscope.
We are the salt that the people of Israel lack today—
a healthy head — a gezunten kop.
Let me sharpen the rabbi’s point (and also criticize him a bit along the way): usually there is a problem with language here. There is confusion between the two words experience and emotion. We won’t get into semantics, but it seems that experience is simply another word for what is called awareness, as in the experience of the color red. The word experience comes from the word life. What a person lives through—that is, knows—he experiences. Emotion is another word for what is called emotion in the sense of “and its waters surged and became turbulent” — of the sea. In emotion, waves pass through a person just as the waves of the sea surge. It doesn’t matter whether we are speaking of fear or anger or euphoria or pleasure. He is shaken.
The rabbi speaks about religious experience, and usually in the Christian context these are emotions. But in truth, whenever a person experiences something greater than himself for the first time (something he is not used to), and yes, together with this there is also the experience of God (and here is my criticism of the rabbi)—where what is involved is a kind of seeing and awareness of Him (which is what happens in the Holy Spirit and prophecy, but also on levels below those), there also comes an emotion of wonder. (Which a person also experiences—knows.)
Wonder itself testifies to weakness, but on the other hand it does indeed indicate that a person has encountered and seen something greater than himself (or something new to him). The problem with the religious experience people talk about in yeshivas is that this is an effect no different from drugs, and they on their part do not bring a person to any kind of progress but act on him like a medicine.
In general, the problem with emotions is that a person is acted upon and passive, blown like a leaf in the wind. Therefore it is not relevant to act according to emotion. There is no action there at all. In the language of the Rishonim, emotion is called “being affected,” and as I said, it points to awareness and an initial experience of something. The moment a person treads over that same something repeatedly, the emotion naturally passes.