Elul, Lesson 1

Table of Contents

• Introductions and the didactic stance
• Jewish philosophy, Jewish thought, and the distinction from Jewish law
• “Hints of Elul” in Khalfi and the meaning of “the land of my forefathers”
• Rabbi Yisrael Salanter: the dread of Elul, the psychological reversal, and its causes
• Nostalgia, childhood experience, and the continuity of longing across generations
• Rationalization, “concretization,” and a renewed reading of demons, processes, and memory
• What do you do when there is no “Elul”: restoring the dread or finding another path to repentance

Summary

General Overview

The speaker postpones the introduction until after the holidays and argues that introductions belong to experts, not beginners, because first you have to get into the subject itself, and only afterward receive a framework. He returns to his claim from last year that there is no such thing as “Jewish philosophy” in the sense of a truth that is specifically for Jews; rather, an idea is either correct or incorrect for any human being. Even so, he is willing to accept the category of “Jewish thought” as a field that deals with Jewish concepts such as redemption, providence, and the service of God. Beginning from the start of the month of Elul, he reads Khalfi’s poem and Letter 14 of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter in order to describe a longing for the “hints of Elul” and for the dread that is supposed to accompany the arrival of Elul but has “almost gone out.” He raises a fundamental question: is it right to try to recreate the old experience of awe, or should we recognize the changes of the times and look for a different path to repentance, one that does not rely on emotional fear?

Introductions and the Didactic Stance

The speaker says that his tendency to begin with introductions leads to a situation where they do not even finish the introduction, so he is postponing the introduction until after the holidays. He states that an introduction is something for experts, not for beginners, and that someone who starts with an introduction is proceeding incorrectly from a didactic standpoint. He argues that one first needs to be “inside the subject,” and only then receive an introduction, and he even suggests that the introduction may turn into “an introduction to introductions.”

Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Thought, and the Distinction from Jewish Law

The speaker argues that there is no real category of “Jewish philosophy,” because a philosophical truth is true for Jews and non-Jews alike, and if it is false, it is false for everyone—just as there is no such thing as “Jewish physics.” He defines “Jewish thought” as dealing with concepts that belong inherently to the Jewish tradition, such as redemption, providence, the service of God, and the meaning of the commandments. He acknowledges that even here truth is universal, but he is willing to accept the category because these are topics that are not part of the concerns of non-Jews and are not found in their books. He gives an example from the dispute over whether the descendants of Noah are warned against worship through association, and argues that on the factual plane religious identity has no significance, because either there is association or there is not. On the normative-halakhic plane, however, one can distinguish between something being forbidden to a Jew and not forbidden to a non-Jew. He explains that Jewish law sets norms and addresses Jews through command, whereas descriptive statements about the existence of binding Jewish law are universal, and he emphasizes that Jewish thought deals with the conceptual plane, where the question is “true or not true,” not practical consequences.

“Hints of Elul” in Khalfi and the Meaning of “The Land of My Forefathers”

The speaker opens the discussion of Elul through the poem, “A Jewish autumn in the land of my forefathers sends me hints of Elul,” and notes that “the land of my forefathers” in Khalfi carries a possible double meaning—Poland or Israel—similar to the question about Leah Goldberg’s “the land of my love.” He connects the “hints of Elul” to the atmosphere that is supposed to awaken at the beginning of Elul, and stresses that these are second-order hints: hints of Elul that point toward the High Holy Days. He interprets the poem as longing for a state that is not present, and notes the lines about “the tiny birds” and “the sadness of Yom Kippur,” the cry that “they will sound the shofars to open the gates of heaven,” and the “Jewish faces from the Diaspora” with “supplications and pleas and many sparks in the depths of their eyes,” as a picture of Elul that belongs more to “there” than to “here.”

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter: the Dread of Elul, the Psychological Reversal, and Its Causes

The speaker reads the opening of Letter 14 of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter: “Formerly, as I knew, every person was seized with dread at the call of holy Elul,” and describes his words as a lament that the dread is no longer felt “the way it once was.” He presents Rabbi Yisrael’s claim that at first glance it should have been specifically those who distanced themselves all year from the service of God who would fear the terror of judgment more. But in practice, “the opposite is what happened,” and the positive awakening appears doubly among those who have advanced in holiness. He brings the two reasons Rabbi Yisrael lists: the material cause, namely habit, which rules over a person; and the spiritual cause, namely the “spirit of impurity” and the dullness that confuses the mind, based on “a person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of folly has entered him.” He goes on to quote Rabbi Yisrael’s words about social imitation—“man essentially is only like a monkey, doing what others do”—and the dependence on the “great God-fearing figures,” whose anxiety was visible on their faces and left an impression on the hearts of “those who followed them,” until the statement that “the dread of Elul has almost gone out, Heaven forbid,” and that today there is room “to fear and tremble” “many, many times more” than in the past.

Nostalgia, Childhood Experience, and the Continuity of Longing Across Generations

The speaker compares Khalfi and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and argues that what they share is a longing for a lost experience of Elul. In that context, he raises the possibility that the “mythological” Elul takes shape in childhood, within school cycles and cultural routine. He describes the split people feel between an ordinary routine of work and the serious yeshiva discourse about the Day of Judgment, and argues that the very sense of lack already creates “hints of Elul” as longing for what ought to have been. He points to a pattern in which each generation longs for the previous one: Rabbi Yisrael longs for “earlier times,” the people of Kelm long for Rabbi Yisrael, and Rabbi Dessler in his eulogy for Kelm describes an Elul filled with awe, so that the longing becomes an ongoing chain. He leaves open the question whether there is a real historical decline, or whether what is happening is the construction of an idealized past in order to express a struggle in the present.

Rationalization, “Concretization,” and a Renewed Reading of Demons, Processes, and Memory

The speaker asks whether the “material cause” and the “spiritual cause” in Rabbi Yisrael are really two different causes, or perhaps a “concretization” of the same thing in two languages. He develops a distinction between psychological description and ontological translation into “entities.” He gives examples of demons as explanations for fear or crowding, of the demon “Shaya” as parallel to the process of houses falling apart, and of the force of gravity as a theoretical entity posited behind the description of a phenomenon. He also brings “you shall blot out the memory of Amalek” to show how “memory” can be understood as an objective remnant, not only as a state of consciousness. He connects this to understanding the “hints of Elul” as a question of whether there is “something in the time itself” that people once perceived and to which people today have become blind, or whether this is a psychological-cultural demand that does not depend on an external spiritual reality.

What Do You Do When There Is No “Elul”: Restoring the Dread or Finding Another Path to Repentance

The speaker raises a practical question after the diagnosis: should one try to artificially restore the dread, or should one come to terms with “a different state of being” and act differently instead of indulging in non-constructive nostalgia? He cites the Rema on intention in the first blessing as a model for recognizing a reality in which “even if you go back, you still won’t have intention,” and suggests that this may reflect not only weakness but a difference stemming from a more stable modern world, with a greater sense of control and lower mortality. He proposes that the innocent fear of earlier generations may have rested on concrete, literal conceptions of judgment and heaven, whereas the modern person interprets some of these descriptions as metaphors for inner processes and prefers a rational moral accounting. He describes a model in which the High Holy Days are simply “days in the year for taking stock,” even without a “hysterical inspection,” and gives as an example a secular friend who fasts on Yom Kippur in order to examine himself regarding the past year and the coming one—while emphasizing that the question is not whether repentance is obligatory, but how to reach it. He presents opposition from listeners who stress the need for emotional awe and tradition, and responds that tradition itself is dynamic, and that even Rabbi Yisrael Salanter worked within a tradition that developed—to the point that one could say “Rabbi Yisrael was a revolutionary.” He gathers this into the idea of continuity through change, similar to the Hasidic saying about an Admor who continues his father precisely by “changing what my father did.”

Are there more pages? Hello everyone. Just to put things in context and so on: my tendency with introductions is always that I start with an introduction, and in the end we don’t even finish the introduction. So, like last time—I think I did that then too—I’m going to postpone the introduction until after the holidays. First we’ll wrestle with the actual material a bit, and afterward introductions. It may even turn into an introduction to introductions. Introductions are for experts, not beginners, as is known—or not known, but it should be known. I think an introduction is only for experts, not for beginners. Starting with an introduction is, in my opinion, not right pedagogically, for many reasons. First you have to be inside the subject, and only then get an introduction.

Okay, really just two sentences to enter the topic. At the beginning of last year I spoke a bit about categories of Jewish philosophy, Jewish thought, general philosophy, the relation between them, and I tried to define what philosophy is. And I argued that there is no such creature as Jewish philosophy. There is correct philosophy and incorrect philosophy. Meaning: if it’s correct, then it’s correct for both Jews and non-Jews, and if it’s incorrect, same thing. It doesn’t matter from whose belly this philosophy came—whether from the belly of a Jew or the belly of a non-Jew—why is that relevant? It’s like Jewish physics, right? Or statements of that sort. So it seems to me that this category called Jewish philosophy, as such, doesn’t exist.

By contrast, what perhaps can be defined as a distinct category is what’s called Jewish thought. Jewish thought is precisely the sort of thing I always kept my distance from and didn’t deal with over the years—and by now those years are quite a lot of years. I’ve had a certain aversion to this subject for various reasons, but this year I somehow decided nevertheless to try engaging with it. And to examine it—to come as open as possible and try to see.

I’ll just tell you briefly what lies in the background here. First, as for the definition: Jewish thought—as distinct from what I called Jewish philosophy—is engagement with concepts or ideas that by their very nature belong to the Jewish tradition: redemption, providence, serving God, the meaning of commandments, and so on. A whole collection of many topics. Even here, on the principled level, I could say that if there will be redemption, then every non-Jew too ought to understand that there will be redemption, and if he doesn’t understand then he’s mistaken. So what difference does it make? In that sense too, strictly speaking, this shouldn’t really be called Jewish thought or Jewish thinking. It’s thought that is either true or not. If it’s true, then it’s true; if not, not. But still, dealing with these concepts is indeed something that characterizes a Jewish, Torah-centered world, unlike philosophical concepts, which really deal with universal domains and therefore should also be examined with universal tools.

For example: there’s a dispute among later authorities (Acharonim)—actually I think maybe already among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), I don’t remember anymore—whether the Noahides are prohibited from believing in association. Meaning, whether a Noahide, a non-Jew, is forbidden to believe in association of the Holy One, blessed be He, with another deity. Now, that dispute always seemed strange to me. What do you mean? If there are two such beings, then there are two such beings for both Jews and non-Jews—that’s the fact. And if there aren’t two such beings, then what does it mean “forbidden” or “not forbidden”? So can the non-Jew think there is association? Either there is association or there isn’t. That’s a question whose answer is yes or no. What difference does it make whether you’re a Jew or a non-Jew?

Now, true, on the halakhic level, “forbidden” is halakhic language. On the halakhic level you can say that a non-Jew who believes in association is not committing an offense in some sense, whereas a Jew who believes in association is committing an offense. But you can’t say that for the non-Jew it’s true and for the Jew it’s not true. That’s nonsense. Either association exists or it doesn’t. In that sense there’s no room here for Jewish philosophy. Or for Jewish thought, or anything of that sort. There is thought, perhaps also philosophy, that comes from Jewish sources—but it doesn’t make claims that are supposed to be true only for Jews. If it’s true, then it’s true for anyone.

In that sense Jewish thought is also like that. Meaning, if the Holy One, blessed be He, exercises providence in a certain way—reward and punishment, or whatever, all sorts of ideas traditionally considered Jewish thought—if it’s true, it’s true, and if it isn’t true, it isn’t. What difference does it make in which book it’s written or which person said it? It really makes no difference. Maybe reward and punishment apply to Jews but not to non-Jews? What? I don’t understand. Maybe reward and punishment… I don’t care. Then that too is true both for Jews and for non-Jews. The fact that there is reward and punishment for Jews is true both for Jews and for non-Jews; and the fact that there isn’t reward and punishment for non-Jews is also true both for Jews and for non-Jews. Right? If these are factual statements, then what difference does it make whether we’re Jews or non-Jews?

Now, maybe these statements obligate the Jew in one way and not the non-Jew? Fine—but then we’re already back to the issue of prohibition regarding association. Meaning, if there are practical implications, then yes—but then we’ve already slid somewhat in the halakhic direction. When I talk about Jewish thought, I am specifically dealing with things that are not connected to Jewish law, commandments, and the practical plane. On the level of ideas, it’s either true or not true. So even this category, Jewish thought, one could philosophically insist and say it also doesn’t exist. There is thought from books that are brown with gold lettering on them, okay, true—or thought common in books of that type—but it isn’t judged in those terms. It is judged in terms of true or false.

Unlike Jewish law, for example, because Jewish law does not determine facts; it determines norms. Norms—fine—so Jews say these are the right norms, and they also say these norms obligate only Jews and not non-Jews. No problem. There it’s clear there is Jewish law. And by the same token you could say that with regard to the non-Jew too it is in principle true that this law obligates the Jew. Sure. But I’m not discussing the factual statement “there is a law that obligates the Jew”; I’m discussing the law itself. That’s what we talked about last year.

What is the difference between that and saying there is Jewish providence if we claim there is a different providence for Jews, say? No—that’s a very big difference. Because when I state the obligation-claim—“There is Jewish law that says one must keep the Sabbath”—that’s a universal statement, certainly true even from the non-Jew’s perspective. But if I’m speaking in the language of command—“Keep the Sabbath”—what is incumbent on you to do, that’s a statement addressed to Jews, not to non-Jews. Jewish law can be discussed descriptively, as the anthropologist would look at it: you observe what there is in Jewish law, a set of factual statements, obligation-statements. But when I study Jewish law, I don’t study it that way; I study it as a man of Jewish law.

Jewish thought, as you said, is true or false—but it’s still Jewish thought. Okay, why isn’t it Jewish thought if it’s not true? No, no—I said that on the philosophical level I could say about Jewish thought the same thing I said about Jewish philosophy. Either it’s true, and then it’s also true for non-Jews, or it’s not true, and then it isn’t true for anyone. So what’s the problem? But it’s Jewish thought. Fine—but I accept the category. I’m still willing to accept this category as a distinct one, because it deals with concepts that non-Jews simply won’t deal with. They don’t interest the non-Jew; they’re not in his field of concern. I’m not going to look for this in non-Jewish books. So I’m willing to accept it as a distinct category, even though philosophically you’re completely right—it’s the same thing.

No, but I’m not speaking about the non-Jew at all. I’m speaking only about the Jew. Okay. Even if it isn’t true, it’s Jewish thought. Why do you say it isn’t Jewish thought? Is the definition of Jewish thought simply “thought that came out of a Jew’s belly”? Out of a Jew’s head—and that developed over the generations among the Jewish people, exactly. A lot of thoughts developed there. The theory of relativity also developed over generations among the Jewish people. But the theory of relativity too developed over generations among the Jewish people, because it’s either true or not true. Communism too, to a large extent. Trotskyism, Marxism—Stalin maybe not, and Lenin. But fine, my criterion isn’t biological. The fact that the mother of whoever conceived those ideas was Jewish does not make them Jewish ideas. I’m talking about “Jewish” in the sense of content, not in the sense of origin.

Right—but that’s what I’m saying. Fine, but that’s what you’re saying. But whether it’s true or false isn’t relevant—that’s my only claim. What do you mean it isn’t relevant? I don’t understand. Jewish thought, like philosophy—there’s no such thing; it’s either true or false. So you can’t say that about Jewish thought either. But I’m saying no—you can’t say that about Jewish thought, because whether it’s true or false isn’t relevant. It’s Jewish thought. The first part I understood; the second part—what does it mean, “not relevant”? If it’s false, then it’s false—what? So what does that mean? Is there some value in dealing with it? Is there some… We don’t know whether it’s… maybe okay… maybe… I don’t know… yes, yes. Fine.

So let’s move on. I see that all knitted kippot are Amalek—that’s Jewish thought. Yes, that’s Jewish thought. Anyway, a man with a beard and a kippah… let’s move on, let’s move on. So in that sense, I really can’t avoid defining the subject. So that’s the definition of the subject, okay? After that you can argue how distinct it is, etc. But really—even if there is no association, there is no association. Okay? But say someone believes that “Let us make man” implies association. Meaning: we’re warned against this because it’s true. The warnings could be: we are warned not to believe in something untrue, while the non-Jew is not warned. So I said: once you move to norm, warning, obligation, whatever—then certainly there are norms addressed to Jews and not to non-Jews. But Jewish thought doesn’t deal with warnings; it deals with thought, not with Jewish law. That’s why I’m saying: when I deal with the conceptual level, not its normative implications, then the question I raised before is relevant.

You can say: fine, but an error in such a matter obligates the Jew and doesn’t obligate… fine. So I already said before that I agree. Okay, though once again—what does “an error in Jewish thought” mean? That too is a question we may discuss sometime.

Anyway, naturally—yes, it’s the beginning of Elul—so I thought to deal a bit with this matter of Elul. And in my head over the last two or three days this song of Ḥalfi has been playing. I don’t know, it got into my head from somewhere—I don’t remember from where. I saw it in some email, actually, some line that mentioned it, I think, or something—I don’t know, it got in. And suddenly I thought: yes, hints of Elul. So the song brought to mind for me that line of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter which opens Letter 14, which appears in the left column—but let’s start with the song.

Yes: “A Jewish autumn in the land of my fathers sends me hints of Elul.” First of all, “the land of my fathers” is a very interesting double meaning. Ḥalfi writes this, right? Ḥalfi—Yoni Rechter and Arik איינשטיין, the “Your Forehead Is Adorned” team, right? But in any case, Ḥalfi writes “the land of my fathers”—what does he mean? Interesting question. He was born in Łódź, and he lived in the land—well, in Łódź—and he immigrated to Israel. I think he also moved somewhere else afterward, and then came up here. So what exactly is “the land of my fathers”? If anyone knows a bit—do you know Leah Goldberg’s songs “Land of My Love”? “My homeland, a land of poor beauty.” Which land is she singing about? Lithuania! Lithuania! Lithuania! Right. So here too, “the land of my fathers”—I don’t know whether he means Poland or Israel, and maybe he intentionally left it ambiguous. I’m not sure.

But it sends him—yes, this Jewish autumn sends him hints of Elul. What? Maybe, I don’t know. Could be. Don’t know. Elul in this country isn’t all that autumnal. His fathers were in Poland. It could be that the three Patriarchs—or his fathers in some more distant sense—were here in the Land. So I don’t know what “the land of my fathers” means here.

At any rate, Elul somehow connects to a kind of different atmosphere. When Elul begins, one is supposed at least—maybe some people really do feel this—a certain different atmosphere, hints of the High Holy Days. Yes, basically. Now, he’s talking about second-order hints: hints of Elul, not that within Elul there are hints of the High Holy Days. And again, I think there is something here of longing for a state in which he no longer is. And in that sense, I think this is… I don’t know, for me it’s very familiar, and I assume for many others too.

Because if we move for a moment to the left column, then let’s read the line… what? “Hints of Elul” means hints belonging to Elul, not hints toward Elul. We’ll see in a moment. If we move to the left column, to the famous letter of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter—the first sentence at least is famous—of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the “pelutzes,” right, in yeshiva slang. So he says this:

“Formerly, when I knew, every person was seized with trembling at anyone calling out the holy Elul. That dread bore fruit, bringing him closer to His blessed service, each person according to his level.”

Later we’ll see this even more strongly, but it’s obvious he’s speaking about former days. Meaning, he is lamenting a situation in which he is living, where that trembling no longer exists. That same atmosphere we were supposed to feel at the beginning of Elul, that soon the High Holy Days are coming—but also Elul itself. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter laments the fact that somehow this is no longer felt the way it once was in former times. A kind of romantic idea that once everyone really felt it. I don’t know how historically accurate that is, but we’re used to waxing nostalgic, so why not?

So he is yearning for, or longing for, something he doesn’t have. And in that sense I think this is really parallel to Ḥalfi’s longing for something he once knew—for those hints of Elul that somehow he no longer has. And that’s why I say: I don’t know, maybe the fact of being here in the land of his fathers awakens in him a longing for the land of his fathers there—where there was in fact a stronger feeling of Elul, stronger hints of Elul. Whether these are hints of Elul or hints about Elul.

In any case, I don’t know, the association is very strong. And if I move to us—then with us too, I think, or at least with me, each person can decide for himself—very often there is a certain doubleness. We’re always used to speaking about this: Elul arrives, the Day of Judgment, speaking very seriously, especially when one is in yeshivot and so on. But how much do we really feel that in daily life, at every moment? It seems to me—not much. Fine, each person according to what he is, but it seems to me generally: not much.

And here indeed, for someone in whom this is awakened—someone who reads that line of Rabbi Yisrael, which is always quoted when Elul comes in—at least hints of Elul awaken in him, even if not the real Elul feeling. There awakens in him a longing for the feeling of Elul that he ought to have had, or perhaps once had, or perhaps never had—I don’t know.

What perhaps Ḥalfi and Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and we all share is that basically we are longing for a childhood experience. After all, the mythological Elul takes shape for us roughly during our school years. We were subject to the school calendar, which said that “between the terms” was vacation, and then in Elul a new year begins, and as children we experience this very strongly. The children of today too, and children three hundred years ago too. Yes, but when Elul falls in September—when Elul falls in August, it’s less strong. Yes, but that doesn’t matter; the experience is cultural-spiritual for one who enters the system.

Yes, but I think again—we who get up every day and go to work, for us it clashes with an ongoing routine. Yes, but I think it’s longing for childhood; it’s longing for something you perhaps encountered in childhood but are longing for—not for childhood itself, but for that. You’re basically… I don’t know, you… After all, when do we think Rabbi Yisrael Salanter wrote this? The end of the nineteenth century? Right. So he’s longing for something from the beginning of the nineteenth century? What happened in Europe in sixty years? Come on. That’s exactly my point. This historical description is just an expression. He longs for something he doesn’t have now and wishes he had now.

Did he wish he had it now, or did he experience it in childhood? No, I’m saying he may be creating a somewhat over-romanticized, over-nostalgic picture which I don’t know if it really existed before—maybe yes, maybe no, I don’t know—but all in all it’s just a mode of expression. He wants it to be now. He doesn’t mean he wants to go back in time; that’s not the point.

Fine, I also long for the Elul of my high school. No, not for the high school Elul—you want… He’s describing here a state in which he wants there to be Elul now, not to return to high school. He’s saying: why don’t I have Elul now? No, but biographically, it seems to me Ḥalfi may have left religion, and he remembers his childhood as a religious child. Yes, clearly. Clearly. But I’m speaking—not about Ḥalfi, he isn’t the subject here. I’m saying that this longing he describes, when I read it, and when I think many others can read it—especially when I compare it to what Rabbi Yisrael Salanter writes—it really is a kind of longing that everyone has. Because somehow we live with the feeling that, what do you mean, Elul has come in—surely we’re supposed to feel it somehow, no? We should begin to work, begin to feel a bit of the dread of judgment, whatever that means—which really isn’t present in us.

I don’t know—just the fact that you have the feeling that this isn’t right is already good. Okay, already good. It’s still something, so that’s a comfort. When you say “Elul” and I’m like… Yes, that’s a comfort, I agree, but still—there is something to be comforted about. This longing for hints of Elul—there really is here this description of “the land of my fathers” and of what once was, exactly like with Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. It’s not talking about what was then; it’s something you want to be now. Meaning, you think it ought to be now, but it doesn’t appear. It’s a kind of doubleness. A kind of “we’ve lost innocence”—I don’t know what to call it. Something that was supposed to appear. We believe that soon there is the Day of Judgment and so on, so why is none of this felt by me at all?

The Sephardi who feels the Seliḥot? The Seliḥot? Maybe. Do you think that from… yes, maybe, perhaps some kind of rise in level on Saturday night when one starts saying Seliḥot. Even then it seems to me that, let’s say, “trembling,” I don’t know if many people have that, right? Even during Seliḥot, let alone the day after.

So he says: “Little birds are already going a bit mad inside me, whistling the sadness of Yom Kippur.” These are no longer hints of Elul but hints of Elul about Yom Kippur. “Then they will sound the shofars to open the gates of heaven”—to compose this is really interesting; it’s a song that doesn’t even look like a song. “And Jewish faces from the Diaspora in grayish radiance will hover before the throne of the Master of the universe.” It seems to me those “Jewish faces from the Diaspora”—that’s there. There was Elul there, not here. There was Elul there, and here I long for what once was. Meaning, I want to have it, but it isn’t here, right?

“And requests and supplications and many sparks in the depths of their eyes”—whose eyes? The eyes of those Jewish faces in the Diaspora. And what about me? I can only long for them. So he turns the hints of Elul into persons. Now it’s already faces—Jewish faces in the Diaspora. But he longs for hints of Elul, not for the faces. But he no longer has the feeling of Elul; he has the feeling that he would like to have the feeling of Elul. That too is something. Even that, I’m not sure everyone has.

What Zionism wanted not to exist—he starts longing for. Yes, right. I think that’s part of the reaction to the issue. So it seems to me this is a good point with which to open the month of Elul. What is the meaning of this Elul-ism? Should one really long for it? What are we longing for? Is it important? What do we do if we don’t have it? Fine—we don’t have it. What do we do? Try to artificially reconstruct it? Or perhaps we need to come to terms with the state and deal with it differently? There’s a lot of room to discuss this.

This nostalgia, in a certain sense, is—I think at least—a bit unconstructive. Because fine, I can bask in this nostalgia; will it come back if I bask in it? I doubt it. In previous years it didn’t come back for me. So will it return? It won’t. So is it worth basking in it? Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no. But maybe not. Maybe we need to get used to a different state of being, the one we’re in, and maybe we need to work differently—not try to reconstruct some romantic past that may even be somewhat imaginary.

It’s very funny: here is Rabbi Yisrael Salanter the great, longing for the generations before him. He says that in him and his generation this is no longer there. Now after him there was the legendary study hall of Kelm, right? And of course they longed for Rabbi Yisrael Salanter—for his fire, his moral teaching, his service of God. Right? Then after that you have Rabbi Dessler’s famous writings, the great eulogy he wrote for Kelm, for that study hall that was destroyed—the house in Kelm that was destroyed. And among other things he describes there too the feeling of Elul and how everything was Elul. You understand? Everyone sees the previous generation as some perfect thing that was lost and is no more. It’s a model that includes everyone. Everyone longs for their childhood experiences, and they can’t connect to that same innocence, that same intensity, when they’re fifty, sixty, seventy.

Fine, that was in childhood, but I don’t think it’s longing for childhood. In childhood, maybe they can’t make the distinction; because you experienced it subjectively, you long for what once was, and you don’t identify it with the innocence of childhood. But it’s not that you want to return to childhood—not only that. I don’t… I want to have Elul. It is right that I should have Elul. This isn’t mere nostalgia. It’s not only some poet who wrote this—it’s not a poet, it’s Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. He thought about your idea, and it’s much broader than that. He lacks this true Elul. It’s not that he is expressing nostalgic feelings about other states or… it is expressed that way, but clearly he lacks something now. It’s not like “I miss a nice place I once was,” but rather: I want to be in a state I ought to be in now, and I’m not in it. I’m lamenting this destruction—something has been destroyed here, something that does not return to us, that we can’t recover. And each generation laments this over against the previous one. That’s very interesting.

Now, it may be—I really don’t know; this is an open question to me—it may be that there really is some sort of ongoing decline. Or perhaps we create for ourselves some idealized situation in order, I don’t know, to illustrate—to personify, with an aleph—these feelings, to have something to long for; but in fact there may not really have been a decline. We repeatedly feel that we’re struggling against something unattainable, so we project it onto some perfect past. In some sense that’s convenient; I don’t know.

Yes. Ḥalfi is in a different place. Ḥalfi is in a place of longing, like Bialik for the study hall. He’s no longer there, that’s no longer… yes. Okay, that was already noted earlier. I said: I’m using Ḥalfi only as a… yes, I don’t want to say that’s it—I wouldn’t want to hang things on Ḥalfi, because I’d say we’re in a different place. Yes, certainly. I’m not using Ḥalfi as an authority. His psychology doesn’t interest me all that much. For me this poem evokes what Rabbi Yisrael Salanter is writing here, and it seems to me I can find that among many of us too. The question is: what do we do with such a thing?

No, because you said it won’t come, and I think it does come. It comes? What, you’re optimistic? I… Then yes, it’s worth thinking about. Okay, good. Really, I can’t say anything truly universal here. Each person should examine himself. But the question really is: what do we do with this matter? A somewhat unusual discussion, I know. I said this year would be a bit different—things I don’t usually do.

So let’s continue reading a bit of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. He says, “The first intuitive thought is that for the person who all year has distanced himself from His blessed service, fear and worry should clothe him all the more from dread of judgment, for only Torah and good deeds are a shield against calamity, heaven forbid.”

So as a first intuition, if we were discussing this theoretically, then if a person is farther from the service of God—at a lower level in his service of God—then he should certainly be gripped by more fear and awe when Elul begins. Right? He is more worried, more in dread of judgment; he’s going to take a harder hit, to put it in somewhat cruder language. “For only Torah and good deeds are a shield against calamity, heaven forbid.” Since only Torah and good deeds protect us from calamity, and he doesn’t have much of a shield, then he should be more afraid. That’s the first intuition, of course, if we think about it in the abstract.

When we actually look… fear of Heaven? What do you mean, a first intuition of fear of Heaven? If someone doesn’t have fear of Heaven, then this isn’t an intuition… Okay, the question is: what is the reality? Meaning, should someone in a worse state fear more or fear less? He should fear more—but in reality he fears less. Right, and that’s what he says here: “Yet the opposite is seen. Change for the better appears doubly in the person who all year held to the holy path according to his level, more than in the person who all year walked in darkness without radiance according to his level.” Grayish radiance. “Darkness without radiance.” I’ll leave that to Yossi—Yossi will find all the allusions, whether Elul is here.

In any case, this first intuition doesn’t really materialize. What happens is that the person farther from the service of God actually feels it less, paradoxically or absurdly, and that’s not how it was supposed to be. So why? He says this: “The causes for this reversal are various.” The Hebrew here is a bit… “The causes for this reversal are various.” There are physical and spiritual causes. That is, two kinds of causes.

“The axis of the physical cause”—or physical causes, I’m not sure—“is habit, which rules over all, for good and for bad and the like.” Meaning, he says the reason the person farther from the service of God is actually less afraid—whereas he should have been… each person gets used to the state he’s in. And the spiritual cause? “The spiritual cause is simple: through sin a person draws upon himself a spirit of impurity that clouds his spirit and confuses his mind, as the Sages said: a person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of folly has entered him—that is, contrary to the ways of reason.”

So there is indeed a simple cause, psychological if you like—that’s what he calls the physical cause—habit. We get used to things. As we said in the previous piece, there the one who distances himself from His service fears less. On the contrary: the more righteous fear more. What should have been is that the more distant should fear more—but that doesn’t happen. In practice, the righteous fear more. And this tension, that’s what he’s trying to explain.

So he says this tension, this seeming contradiction, has two causes or two kinds of causes: physical and spiritual. The physical causes are based on habit. A person is used over the course of life to not being exactly immersed in the service of God, and so now too he doesn’t awaken to the matter; he’s already accustomed to a different kind of life, less spiritual and so on. And the spiritual cause is that a person who commits sins draws upon himself some sort of spirit of impurity. The Sages say sin “stops up” a person—about forbidden foods, and sins in general; there are various midrashim. Sin somehow dulls or clogs the heart. “Stops up” doesn’t mean he becomes stupid, but rather blocked. And blocked means he loses sensitivity, feeling, what he ought to feel. Sins somehow stop up the heart, and so he doesn’t really manage to sense the hints of Elul.

The expression is said only about forbidden foods. No—there are midrashim that sin stops one up too. “And you shall be defiled by them” is indeed a midrash about forbidden foods. In any case, these two causes explain why the person more immersed, let’s say farther from the service of God, is actually less afraid. And what about the opposite side? He doesn’t explain the opposite side, neither on the physical plane nor on the spiritual plane. In a sort of opposite-of-opposite way.

What? If a person is engaged in the service of God and is at a higher level, then he is more used to dealing with spirituality, so naturally he also feels more the meaning of the days of judgment, of Elul, and so on. That’s the physical aspect, habit. And the spiritual aspect? He doesn’t have the stopped-up heart. And “not having a stopped-up heart” simply means he basically feels what one is supposed to feel. So there’s a kind of asymmetry here. I saw someone who made a little pilpul on this asymmetry in this passage from Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. But there really is an asymmetry here. The truth is, one is supposed to feel. That’s the truth. Now, someone who is distant doesn’t feel because of habit or because his heart is dulled by transgressions and so on. Someone who isn’t distant feels. There there is no problem, because that is indeed what should be. So it isn’t a fully symmetrical situation. This is the normal state: everyone should feel. On the contrary, the more distant person for some reason doesn’t feel because of various problems. You don’t need an explanation for the opposite side.

The true righteous person should feel according to his level. There’s no absolutely righteous person; there is no such thing. An absolutely righteous person shouldn’t need to feel anything—but there is no such person. Maybe once, among those who had trembling, there were also completely righteous people—those didn’t feel, only those near them did. And then the author of the Tanya says there is only the intermediate person. Those earlier “intermediate” people before him didn’t feel anything at all. Exactly.

Maimonides once writes—about idolatry, as you know—that he read books of the Sabians. All kinds of idolatrous customs; he had books he called “the books of the Sabians,” some ancient peoples who practiced idolatry, and he had those books and learned from them how it worked exactly. Some scholars claim this never existed—that there was no such people and Maimonides had no such books. I don’t know whether that’s true or not; I have no idea. Because he writes: listen, I had books, I read them. But again, it’s some kind of ancient reality you create and onto which you project what you really want to say about the present.

Fine. So if there’s no fear on the days of judgment, then how does he know he’s righteous? What? He can fear that maybe he isn’t as righteous as he thinks. Then he’s neurotic, he’s not righteous. Someone righteous is righteous—what’s the problem? Why should he fear? Only, perhaps, he isn’t completely righteous. Fine. Jacob our father didn’t think he wasn’t… No one is completely righteous, so he fears what he lacks. The gap, yes, the gap.

It says that Rabbi Eliezer says on the day of his death—I think it’s described in the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin—that he says, “I learned much from my teachers, and I diminished from them no more than a dog lapping from the sea.” Rabbi Eliezer said, I don’t know, three hundred laws about cucumber sorcery, I think—three hundred… He was “a plastered cistern that loses not a drop”; he never said anything he hadn’t heard from his teacher; he was a Torah encyclopedia. Yet he said, “I learned much from my teachers, and I diminished from them no more than a dog lapping from the sea.” Fine.

So Rashi asks there: what does “I diminished from them no more than a dog lapping from the sea” mean? If you learn something from them, do you diminish from them? What is that? If you learned from them, then they no longer have it? So Rashi says the point is that when you teach, it’s not that you lose something… “I learned much from my teachers…” No—he means to say that they knew—his teachers. Again, a kind of nostalgia for his teachers. You see, I’m a great scholar, I know everything; my teachers were a thousand times greater. Everything I learned from them wasn’t even a drop of what they knew. That’s the simple meaning of the Talmud there. Fine. So once again it’s that same outlook, everything is relative, and you establish it through comparison to previous generations.

So Jacob our father too—he may have been tremendously righteous, but he had a little “dog lapping from the sea,” that deficiency relative to absolute perfection, and he was very troubled by that little thing.

But experience proves that it’s somewhat naïve to look at this as if it were something real, because the psychological character of people—I mean, you just see this nostalgia. Even Russians in Israel today long for Mother Russia of communism—a real, genuine nostalgia. Everyone longs for the previous generation. It may be that this trembling never existed at all.

But again, that’s true of Ḥalfi. With Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, I don’t think it’s true, because he is trying to say something about the present, not telling nostalgic stories. No, but you can see it in the historical process. You say he longs for trembling; in Kelm they longed for the trembling of Kovno; in Slabodka they longed for the trembling of Kelm. Yes—they’re all talking about the present. They all lack something. The question whether it really existed once or not—I said, I don’t know. But clearly he’s trying to say something about the present. Yes—they long not merely for childhood; they want Elul. Yes, exactly.

For example, I don’t long for the Elul of my childhood. There was no Elul in my childhood. Then start writing a different poem. Yes. That’s why I say here it’s very specific.

But why doesn’t he say the simple thing—that a person who is closer to the Holy One, blessed be He, who believes in Him more, is the one who serves Him more, studies more, fulfills more commandments, and therefore naturally is the one who worries more when Elul arrives? It seems to me that is what he says. It seems to me that is what he says.

Maybe one more sentence. These two things too—the physical and the spiritual—are an interesting question: are they really just one translation of the other? Are these really two explanations? Just an interesting question; maybe we’ll come back to it. Are these two different explanations, or is it the same thing? What the Sages called the dulling brought upon us by sin—isn’t that simply an illustration, an illustration in the sense of making concrete, of habit? Or the opposite—habit is the concrete expression. What? Habit is the concrete side. No—habit is a psychological phenomenon. Now, for example, we walk at night and we’re afraid. Some say: because there are demons. Now what are these demons? They’re just a way of putting something there that one is afraid of—otherwise why be afraid? Why should I care that there’s no light? If there’s no light, should I be afraid? So you take the psychological phenomenon and translate it into ontological terms, into terms of some being. You make it into a rationalization—well, “rational” is perhaps too mild a word for saying demons are a rational translation—but the idea is to make it into a rationalization of the fear, exactly. To translate…

There is, by the way, a very strong tendency in the old world—and today the opposite. Much of what we treat as abstract, psychological things, people once treated as entities. The Talmud, for example, in the sugya of “this one benefits and the other does not lose,” says there is a demon that crumbles houses, named Shaya. And if we live in a house, then the demon is not there; demons don’t hang around where people do. It’s known: demons and people don’t circulate together. So if a person lives in a house, he saves the owner from the crumbling of the house, because he drives out Shaya. Shaya—spelled with an aleph—goes outside and doesn’t crumble the house. Now this demon, as far as I understand, is the second law of thermodynamics. Fine—the law that says things deteriorate over time. Okay? We can see that.

Or it’s the spackle you have in the closet and the deterioration. What? The little repairs you do with the spackle. That’s the opposite of the demon, yes, the anti-demon. But the scientific description treats these things as processes, not entities. In older thinking, behind every process stands some being. Otherwise why does it happen? Now, that’s not true only of ancient thought—even for us. When we look at the law of gravitation, we say that every two masses attract one another, right? That’s a description. But I can then ask myself: wait, what actually creates that attraction? “Attraction” is a description of a process, of a phenomenon. Is there some being behind it?

Now it is commonly accepted that there is no action at a distance. Meaning, the object there with mass cannot simply pull the object here. Something must stand between them and generate the attraction; therefore people posit a force—the force of gravity. No one ever saw it. Fine. And gravitons, which people search for—no one has found them to this day. So they say it’s too weak and can’t be caught by measuring instruments. But why do we think there is a gravitational force? Who said there is one at all? There isn’t. There are simply two masses attracting each other. We assume the phenomenon has some cause; otherwise why does it happen? The description isn’t enough, because I need some explanation that produces the phenomenon. So the explanation is gravity: there is a force, and it generates the attraction we experience. So the phenomenon is what we see, but behind it stands some kind of entity that produces it—like demons behind fear, like the demon behind the crumbling of houses, and so on.

You can show this in other cases too. About memory, I think we once spoke about this. It says, “Erase the remembrance of Amalek.” What does “erase the remembrance of Amalek” mean? We have to remember Amalek—it’s a commandment—and there is also the prohibition, “Do not forget.” Maybe “remembrance” means any remnant of Amalek. Exactly. “Remembrance” means a remnant, right. Now we’re used to understanding “erase the remembrance of Amalek” as “don’t remember,” but “remembrance” in that sense is an object. It’s a kind of being. A piece—every piece of Amalek must be erased. When we remember someone, in this ontological mode of thought—ontology, the doctrine of being—in this reified mode of thought, something of the thing or person we remember is present in us. It’s a kind of entity. Again, not literally part of his body, of course—but something of him is in us.

By contrast, in psychological terms I can see this as a psychological occurrence. Something happens in my nervous system—and we talked about this last year—and it produces some phenomenon we call memory, wholly within the psychological sphere. There need not be some thing, some particular kind of entity, that generates it. These translations, these transitions, these concretizations—not “illustration” in the pedagogic sense, but making something concrete—these concretizations are a philosophical process. Right? Maybe that’s what appears here too. The physical cause and the spiritual cause—who says one is not a concretization of the other? I say: our habit, fine, that’s a psychological phenomenon—we get used to what we usually do. But what causes that? Does it just happen by itself? So the Sages tell us: there is “stoppage,” stoppage of the heart in the context of transgressions. Never mind. Habits in other directions—then there are, I don’t know, corresponding demons responsible for these psychological phenomena. But I don’t know whether I should relate to these two causes as two different causes or as two sides of the same process, with one being the concretization of the other.

According to Rabbi Yisrael Salanter it seems fairly clear to me—not only from here—that he treats them as two things that also produce different results. Yes, clearly, I agree. And there are different ways to deal with them. I agree. I’m only saying there is room to discuss it; I’m not sure that really is so. At least in modern thought we usually don’t talk about demons. We say demons are just a way of describing, in some manner, a psychological process of fear. Right? Or other such processes.

“A thousand shall fall at your side”—the Talmud says: where does this crowdedness come from, this sense of pressure, on the public study days? “Yoma de-kalla,” intensive public study days, and then there’s terrible crowding, so they say it’s because of the demons. “A thousand shall fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand.” Around every person there is, “like a furrow around a tree,” full of water—around every person there is a sort of ring full of demons, and it’s terribly crowded because there are masses of demons between us and the…

Now everyone has that psychological feeling of crowding, right? When things are tight there’s a sense of pressure. It’s unpleasant. Even if no one touches me, it’s unpleasant to be in a crowded state. So the concretization process there says: yes, of course, there are masses of demons in these spaces. What? Psychological freedom, personal space. Yes, exactly. So psychological language still speaks in language that once was used literally. Today they’re already metaphors. Like saying “with God’s help.” For many people today that’s already metaphor. You understand? So psychological language uses those same terms, but today they are metaphors; they’re no longer… yes.

Regarding what you’re saying about demons—why shouldn’t a person, the more he believes, be embarrassed? What? That he fears the dread of judgment. So what does it mean to fear the dread of judgment? That I’ll receive punishment or reward for what I did. Meaning that everything you did was for reward and punishment? You didn’t do it because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded… Maybe yes. But in practice, if you… I’m saying the opposite: a person should, apparently, if you’re righteous and a great believer, arrive there and wait to receive—or not receive—what is due to you, because that’s how you believe the Holy One, blessed be He, acts. Doesn’t this fear indicate lack of trust?

You don’t necessarily need to translate “the dread of judgment” into punishment. You translated it as punishment, which already assumes the point at issue. “The dread of judgment”? Someone could come and say: I fear the dread of judgment because my woeful spiritual condition will become clear to me. It depends who he is, do you understand? It could be that the dread of judgment comes from the fact that we are not masters of our fate; the sense of certainty we have that we determine our future through our efforts and endeavors—in the dread of judgment all that collapses, and really everything is decided from above. I don’t think he’s talking about that. There may be people who have such fear, but he certainly isn’t talking about it; he’s talking about fear of Heaven, about fear of what is going to happen to us, what is going to be revealed to us—or in judgment.

Those are already two formulations. These two aspects, by the way—if I return for a moment to hints of Elul—there too, when Elul comes in, there is supposed to be some feeling according to these descriptions, some feeling in the air. Meaning, one who doesn’t feel it is a kind of blind person. That, at least, is how all these sorts of references portray it. It’s a kind of blindness. We are essentially autistic in a certain sense. There is a particular kind of sensation to which we have been dulled, blocked, and we don’t really feel it. Now what does that mean? Is there really something there? Or is it just… our feeling? Our feeling that ought to be there. Intellectually we should understand: if judgment is coming, then something ought to awaken in us. But in those places, in those descriptions, the feeling is that there is something in time itself that is really there. We simply… perceive it? Perceive it. Yes, exactly. There is really something there that ought to awaken this, and we are blind to it. It’s not just that we have a psychological problem; we have a cognitive problem. Yes—we don’t manage to perceive something that really is there somewhere.

So that same doubleness accompanies this matter from many angles.

“And one who has engaged somewhat in moral study has seen tangibly that the spiritual cause stands before him as an adversary, dulling his heart against the ways of reason, according to the excess of his faith, as above. And certainly the ways of the world and its reversals also rule in this matter.” I think “its reversals” means its upheavals. “And therefore now, apart from the physical cause, there is conformity—that a person’s essence is only like a monkey, imitating the deeds of others in clothing and the like.”

Meaning: anyone who has engaged somewhat in moral study sees tangibly this dulling—which, once again, joins the two planes he earlier separated. There is the physical plane, which everyone sees—everyone sees there is habit. And there is the spiritual plane, which somehow isn’t concrete for us. But we know—we have it from the Sages—that there is stoppage of the heart because one sins. “And you shall be defiled by them”—maybe even an exposition on a verse. Fine? Now suddenly he says: someone who studies moral teaching sees this dulling. That means the dulling, which is the spiritual plane, is suddenly perceived in a completely concrete way, just like the physical plane, if one studies moral teaching. Meaning: moral teaching is a kind of eye through which one can see spiritual things. Okay?

Moral teaching is supposed, in a certain sense, to create a connection between the two planes he had previously separated. Between both of them—that’s the first part of the paragraph. Then he says: certainly, besides the dulling, the world also influences us, because there is a desire to imitate, to resemble—yes, imitation. Just as with clothes we like to imitate everyone, so too with actions. Which of course once didn’t exist, and people were wonderfully independent and autonomous and didn’t want to imitate anyone. Again, I’m saying this somewhat sarcastically, but that shouldn’t distract us from the real point here. What difference does it make what was in the past? There really is here a call not to be an imitator, whether or not people once succeeded in that better than we do. That’s another, less important question.

“Now that the great God-fearing ones have been gathered in and are gone, those whose dread of judgment was visible on their faces and made an impression on the hearts of those who followed them—if there is no root, from where will leaves come?” That sentence is a bit similar to what Arik wanted to say earlier: that there too there was some sort of imitation, but imitation for the good. Though here I don’t think he means imitation but influence. If the great righteous people, on whose faces one could once see the dread of judgment, the trembling he spoke about earlier—if they no longer exist today, then clearly in the more distant circles, the more external circles, “if there is no root, from where will leaves come?”

“Indeed, the spiritual cause is the principal cause, as can be seen from the fact that the dread of Elul has almost been extinguished, heaven forbid.” So he says the spiritual cause is more central. Here of course you can see it’s not merely one translation of the other. The spiritual cause is the more principal one. What’s his proof? That the dread of Elul has almost been extinguished. That is, the fact that the dread of Elul has been extinguished indicates the spiritual cause. But maybe it’s because of the physical cause? Why is that evidence that the spiritual cause is the main one? Apparently because the dread of Elul is itself a result of the spiritual cause. The habit or physical influences he mentioned earlier are why we perhaps don’t manage to awaken this or awaken in light of it. But the very dread of Elul is something that—as I said before—those hints of Elul are a reality. It’s a kind of reality that we have simply somehow lost. And therefore, like the dulling of the heart, the spiritual cause here refers to spiritual realities. That is what has somehow been lost for us; it has almost gone out among us. That is the spiritual cause. Besides that, there are of course also the physical causes, habit and so on.

“Indeed, if for a moment we strip off from ourselves the garments of defilement and put on splendid garments, we shall plainly see that each one, according to his level, ought now to fear and tremble doubly, doubly again, far more than those before us.” This is what he said before: it is obvious that today, anyone who looks even a little will understand, at least intellectually—even if he doesn’t feel it—that certainly today we ought to fear a thousand times more, because our condition today is much worse.

Okay, so what should be done? That’s the next stage. “And in general”—he’s apparently looking for the general principle, not the details. Because he says the details are many, each person according to his state and character. “But in general it is known…” and then he seeks the general answer of what to do here. But first, this is the stage where—up to here was the diagnosis. From here onward comes the question what to do.

What? The fear does strengthen what she said earlier—that he isn’t speaking here about a person judging his spiritual state, but yes, about reward and punishment. Because fear is a state… There is awe of exaltedness and there is fear of punishment. In awe there are those two levels. Yes, but a person doesn’t fear his spiritual state… Why not? Certainly. He fears standing before the Holy One, blessed be He, with his woeful spiritual condition—not his spiritual condition in itself. How will he lift his face to the Holy One, blessed be He? That’s the sense of… It’s like awe of exaltedness and fear of punishment. And that’s shame, not fear. Fine, that’s the point. I’m terribly afraid of how ashamed I’m going to be there. When I’m there, I’ll be ashamed. Before I get there, I’m afraid of the shame that’s waiting for me. Fear of shame. Yes—that’s Elul versus the High Holy Days. On the High Holy Days I’ll be there; that will be the shame. Elul is the fear. Fear of where I am heading.

Now the question is what to do after the diagnosis. And this is a very interesting point, which I already remarked on before, and we need to think about it on the broadest level: in what direction should we look for the solution? He is soon going to propose some solution that assumes that that earlier condition was indeed ideal and that we need, as much as possible, to reconstruct it. But I want to raise a question for discussion: is that really correct? Is that the right way to look for the solution? Or should we perhaps come to a conclusion—which can also split into a few shades—that our situation today is different? There is no point in doing that.

Rabbi Dessler, one of the students of his students, writes—also about Elul—that there is what he calls “educated fear.” We were educated to fear. We know that one is supposed to fear, so it’s a kind of half-play. Not really play in a cheap sense, but we know we’re supposed to fear; it can’t be that I won’t fear, so I fear. But it’s not really real. I’m not really afraid. So in a certain sense we have lost it. Even someone who does have a bit of it—it’s something educated, cultivated.

Now the question is whether I should try to seek ways to reconstruct it—or perhaps not. Maybe I need to come to terms with the fact that I am in a different state—“come to terms,” and soon we’ll see in two senses—and maybe today there is another way to serve God. Is there another way to enter Elul? Who said… So time changed, basically? What? Did time change in the last 120 or 200 years? No—I’m saying maybe the condition… I don’t know what it was then. I know what… I don’t know. But I know that today it isn’t there. And the question is what to do with that. Keep banging our heads against the rock? Keep, like all generations, longing for what was—or maybe wasn’t, I don’t know—in the past, but not attain it, as one never attains it? Or perhaps we should say: friends, let’s face reality. We are in a different state. Maybe we shouldn’t try to reconstruct the past for two reasons: either because it is impossible and we need to accept our weakness, or perhaps it isn’t weakness at all—it is simply difference.

Why do you say that’s so obvious now? I know people who do have it. Fine—maybe there are such individuals. I’m not… every generalization sins against the truth. But I’m saying that generally this is certainly so, right? There are such individuals and other individuals. There is certainly something essential that changed over the last two hundred years, and that’s the decrease, the decline, in mortality rates. Clearly. A person living two hundred years ago had real fear, real uncertainty. There were wars that killed billions, diseases, no hospitals that could treat everything. Everywhere you turned, you saw people on the edge of starvation. True, correct. Today there is a kind of stability that enables us to reach… There is a feeling of control over our destiny, as you mentioned earlier. Right. There are many reasons. But beyond the reasons, first of all the question is whether we shouldn’t recognize the fact that this is so.

Now if this is so, and it isn’t worse because it is just different—that’s one possibility. Or no, maybe it is worse, but that’s the situation. Meaning: what can you do? Like the Rema writes about intention in the first blessing of the Amidah. You’re supposed to repeat it if you didn’t have intention. The Rema says today we do not repeat. Why not? Because if you repeat, you still won’t have intention. What can you do? You can work on yourself a hundred thousand times—the situation is different. I’m sure the Rema saw it as a worse state; there the two options aren’t equivalent. Fine. But still—that is the situation. So what is the point of constantly basking in the past and reconstructing it by one means or another when it doesn’t work? Again, those for whom it does work—that’s another discussion. But where it doesn’t work, what do we do there?

Very often, even if we are idealizing the past, it’s not clear that the path we should now seek is how to restore the crown to its former glory. Either because it wasn’t really better but only different—maybe not even worse, I don’t know, perhaps just different. But how can we know? In every body, past or present, isn’t there some obligation for a Jew—or for any person—to repent? Yes, that’s the subject. Certainly there is, absolutely. And then to build… But the trembling and all the surrounding atmosphere, the past—that’s marginal, that’s poetry, not important. No, no—not poetry. You said Rabbi Yisrael Salanter is not a poet. Right, it’s not poetry. He saw it as our duty in our world that we have trembling in Elul. Right. That yes. That, not to give up. But I… let me perhaps present the alternative in a sharper way, and then we can think about it.

It may be that the people of the past—I somewhat don’t want to sound overly judgmental—had a somewhat childish perception. Really. They saw this judgment as it’s described to children: with two scales, and if it tips this way then they’ll clobber you and you’ll suffer all year and all kinds of things like that. Now it could be that today we are in a different state, and perhaps in this respect we are even better.

Wait, wait, one second. Let me describe the alternative, and then I’m not imposing anything—I’m offering possibilities, each person should choose for himself what he believes. We today are in a different state. We understand that some things may be metaphors. Some things may describe mental processes. All this Day of Judgment and so on—what, really, in heaven are there prosecutor and defender, and the Holy One, blessed be He, in the middle, and they judge and bring our deeds and weigh them and then sentence us the next day? Since after all the Sages also instituted a second day of Rosh Hashanah—so are we judged twice? After we already stop saying “May you be inscribed and sealed” from the morning of the first day, suddenly they sit again? All these devices—don’t they sound a bit like metaphors rather than factual descriptions?

No, I’m not belittling anything. I’m saying: doesn’t this sound like metaphor, not factual description? And if it is metaphor, then I’m saying: perhaps open before a person who thinks in a more modern way today—for better or for worse, no matter—is another option: a more rational and less emotional one, that says: friends, certain days of the year were designated for us to do soul-searching. That’s true. We are supposed to do soul-searching. Not in the sense of fear and trembling that are meant to concretize it—as one would describe to kindergarten children. Again, without making comparisons, but to kindergarten children certainly one describes it that way, right? If you tell children, “Today you need to do self-accounting,” that doesn’t work. You have to make it concrete, tell them what will come of it, and so on.

Now, in the cultures of previous generations they very much used those things, and we know there was a tendency to interpret things literally. Maimonides already fought that tendency quite a bit, arguing that many things should not be interpreted as factual description in the literal sense. Now how far to take that—that’s a good question; I’m not going to exhaust it now. I’m only raising a possibility. It could be that the fact we lost this feeling is part of that very process, and not for nothing did I mention philosophical concretization. Because today, I don’t know—I don’t feel demons escorting me at night, and I think there’s no such thing; there is only the second law of thermodynamics, fine? And now the question is what I do with that. Because when there are demons, that’s frightening. But now I can overcome it—I’ll be less afraid at night. I don’t believe there are demons there, so I can convince myself. The fear exists; we’re human beings, psychology. But I can work on it better because I know there are no demons there. It’s nonsense. I’ll turn on a flashlight, there will be light—what is there to fear? Right?

So it may be that this fear, or this absence of fear, is a result of that. It is the result of the fact that—as Carl Sagan wrote—this is no longer a demon-haunted world. We are no longer haunted by demons. We no longer have that kind of fear. That doesn’t mean we are less obligated to repent. It only means perhaps that this is not the way we need to work. And for us at least, without judging, this is not some idealized state we lost. We don’t need to live in nostalgia like this, weeping over some Elul that was lost to us. They were lost to us because we grew up, matured—perhaps. I’m offering this as a suggestion.

What is he saying, that a person should work without awe? Without awe in the emotional sense, yes. Awe exists in cognition. So that’s what you’re saying—that I need some sort of awe before myself, something like that? Not before myself—before the Holy One, blessed be He. Soul-searching about my spiritual state. But not awe in a childish, emotional sense. Why can’t there be emotional awe? I didn’t say there can’t be. I said there isn’t. Because this year was decreed upon you? No. I’m saying again: assuming it isn’t there, what do I do now? Without getting into the question—is the assumption that there is no fear of Heaven? I don’t know. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter agrees there isn’t, Rabbi Dessler agrees there isn’t, and I too, small as I am in the hem of their garment, think there isn’t. Now maybe there are people who say there is, so no problem—they’re not in the dilemma. He says here: “The dread of Elul has almost been extinguished, heaven forbid”—Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. The very one everyone longs for because of his Elul awe. Kelm longed for him, Rabbi Dessler longed for Kelm, and we for Rabbi Dessler.

Okay, okay. Rationalism conquered it. So what does it mean not to be a rationalist? I’m asking what you’re proposing. What are you proposing—that we go back to being shepherds and stop driving cars? New Age. The solution is New Age. Wait, wait, wait, let’s try to do this one by one. I’ve already stirred enough things up here. Yes, Judith.

Either there’s that simple fear people once had, thinking there were demons. Or there’s rational awe—an awe in spirit, in intellect, but not in emotion. And I’m saying there may be something that also isn’t childish and still has to do with emotion. Fine, very good. I didn’t say there couldn’t be. The only question is: if I don’t have it, what do I do? Then it needs to be awakened. Right. One possibility is what Rabbi Yisrael Salanter proposes: to work on it until you have it. And you’re saying perhaps that’s enough, that just the…? No. I said I have two possibilities. Again, Judith, you’re just stating one of the options I proposed. One option I proposed is to say that indeed the state in which I don’t have this feeling is a less good state. But even then I say: fine, even if it’s less good, if in my assessment it is no longer in my hands—am I now obliged to go backward, or maybe not?

The second possibility I raised is: maybe it’s not less good either. Fine. It may be that you disagree with that—no problem. I’m not going to decide it right now. I’m just trying to create a dissonance. Basically it might even be better—so why seek it? Right. So I’m saying that’s one option. You don’t agree with it, fine. I’m not saying… I’m recommending. Ah, fine. Your recommendation has been heard.

What I’m trying to do here is simply raise these possibilities. Again, I’m not trying to persuade; I’m just trying to present an alternative. There are many times—and this is already part of… I once thought, this year I thought—we once talked about this—I wanted to do some reading-comprehension exercises, critical reading, because I think there are very interesting things one can do there. But the feeling was that it would be too far from Torah. So this year I’ll try to do a little bit of that through the texts we read.

And here, in this matter, I’m trying to raise a possibility that Rabbi Yisrael Salanter doesn’t address at all. For him it’s self-evident: we declined, so let’s see how to restore it. I’m saying, wait—who says the right path is to restore? Who says this is decline at all? Many times, you know, after Rabin’s assassination they said, “You see where religious faith leads? Rabin’s murder—you see where religious faith leads?” And the question was always: wait, so what do you want—that I should give up religious faith because maybe I’ll murder someone because of it? What’s the alternative? I have religious faith, so what should I do now? Fine, there’s a danger—so we need to see how to deal with it.

But can’t there be a slippery slope here? In what? In the sense that you also choose not to… I’ll feel lack of identification with some commandment, and then I’ll say this commandment isn’t… When talking about commandments, that’s Jewish law. And in Jewish law this is a different issue. But Jewish law keeps developing. Fine, then one needs interpretation. Of course interpretation is done. No, but they’ll keep going and doing… Certainly—they already have. They go and they went. Right. What about the slippery slope? The slippery slope—we are already on it.

And it seems to me it’s much broader. For example, there’s Elul, which is forty days. Then there’s the counting of the Omer, where people are careful to grow a beard, and there’s simply a dissonance. It doesn’t fit. I think most of the public does not feel that they’re correcting baseless hatred in Israel. Maybe a few rabbis. The public, the householders, certainly have no… So we went through forty-plus days, plus the Three Weeks, plus—it doesn’t leave us much. Meaning, most of the year we’re busy with irrelevant things, and that’s what… looking for an experience that isn’t there.

No, but the Three Weeks and the counting of the Omer both have a halakhic aspect, at least on the level of custom, but by now it’s really become Jewish law. And there the question is somewhat different: the tension between the law and the ideas the law is meant to express. To what extent can I focus on the formal halakhic layer and leave aside what really needs fixing there? Because I don’t think—at least I’m not currently suggesting—abolishing the formal halakhic layer and focusing only on the conceptual layer. I agree one needs to deal with the conceptual layer too. Here we are dealing entirely with the conceptual layer. The trembling of Elul isn’t a halakhic question. And I’m asking now: what should be done?

But you stop in the middle of the road, because if we accept, if we go with the rational path and retreat from the interpretation of prosecutor and defender, you have to continue and say where you’re leading. So I am saying. Why? Because I’m still missing the meaning of the rational path of repentance or… So I’m saying. Immediately to God—where does it lead, and what are you afraid of? So I’m saying: look, the concept of repentance is completely sensible, rational, requires no… Repentance without judgment? Or with another kind of judgment? What do you mean “with judgment”? Not judgment in the sense that we stand there for an exam—an exam of where we are, who we are, what we did in the past year, what is going to come of it. Gehinnom and paradise—maybe, I don’t know what will come of it. Maybe one can include that too. It’s not important to me right now. But first of all we are required to repair our deeds. That’s not something I need to touch. That is a perfectly reasonable interpretation that can remain entirely with us.

The only question is whether I need to reach that feeling and that obligation through the emotional fear described here. If you correct your ways, that is basically detached from appointed times. But here you are in the context of a festival; you must… No—the Torah tells me: you have two appointed times, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, designated for this matter. And maybe there too the Holy One, blessed be He, judges us and checks what we did and didn’t do as part of that same matter. But it’s clear this is a time designated for correction, and we need to correct. I’m not arguing with that at all. The only question is how to arrive at the correction. Can’t I? The question is whether the correction isn’t connected to the fact that the Holy One, blessed be He, checks us at that time. What? That we need to correct—isn’t that connected to the Holy One, blessed be He? Why not? Of course it is connected. Why not? He gives you the feeling that one must correct, so maybe that’s true and you did something wrong. That’s Jewish law, that’s Jewish law. Certainly. I’m not talking about unnecessary hysteria.

What? But just suppose that only rationally one can reach service with one’s whole being? Again, you’re assuming the conclusion. Again, you’re assuming the conclusion. What is “service with one’s whole being”? What is “service with one’s whole being”? I feel—a drop of emotion. Obviously, without emotion you can’t reach emotional service. But the question is whether I want to get there. But when you work only with rationalism, then you really can’t reach emotion. You can’t reach emotion, clearly. But who said you need to? You do need to. Fine—that’s another question: who said you need to? Right. I remain on the rational level. I know this is the right thing to do and this is the wrong thing to do. I know there are places where I failed and I need to fix them because I’m not okay.

You don’t reach the heart and have nothing to long for, and you remain… Fine, so I won’t long—but maybe I’ll actually repair more? Because basking in that longing often becomes a substitute for repair, since in fact we don’t repair; we don’t arrive at that longing. So instead of basking in something we will not attain, maybe there is another option? To sit down and say: friends, we live in another world; we need to get used to the facts. And whether that is good or not good can be argued, but that isn’t the point right now. We are in another world—at least some of us. There are people who are not, but we are in this world. Must I now look for ways to go backward, to return to living in a tent?

But on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—what is the essence of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? That there are days of judgment? What are days of judgment? Days of judgment: the Holy One, blessed be He, checks whether I’m okay or not. He checks you and doesn’t decree? Or doesn’t decree for the coming year, decide? Maybe He decrees and maybe not; I don’t know, I have no idea. But I need to check myself. Maimonides says repentance.

I have a friend, not religious at all, very not religious. He once told me he used to fast regularly every Yom Kippur, until a certain point when he broke. He fasted every Yom Kippur—why? Just to check himself: what he did in the past year and what he is going to do in the next one. It’s an opportunity to enter a mode of self-examination—but not hysterical self-examination.

But we don’t accept that form of your secular friend. What do you mean? Why not? What we examine is not entirely self-examination; it is connected… No—what we examine is different, obviously. But from what we arrive at that examination, and how we arrive at it, can be very similar. That’s what I’m saying. Why must this emotional service be such a basic assumption for us? It seems self-evident to us; the whole question is only how to get there. Maybe not.

Because? Okay. Because it’s tradition. Because it’s tradition. Okay—tradition is something dynamic. It’s tradition and what the Sages saw before their eyes, and “the gates of prayer are locked”… What the Sages saw before their eyes and what Rabbi Yisrael Salanter saw before his eyes—the difference, in my opinion, is no smaller than the difference between what I am proposing and what Rabbi Yisrael Salanter is proposing. No, that’s not true—don’t be naïve. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter does not represent the Sages. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter represents the tradition as it reached him and as he understood it—which of course begins with the Sages and continues onward. And now we are after him; we too have continued onward.

But no—how can you say that part of all the service of the days of judgment is a very emotional component? I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m trying to propose another option. The Sages are supposed to be your model, the one you aim toward. So I’m trying to propose another option. But Rabbi Yisrael was a revolutionary; it wasn’t like this beforehand in the Jewish people. Even better. What you’re proposing is the same thing: saying, come… what will the revolution be? You know, Rabbi Noaḥ of Lechovitch—there was Rabbi Noaḥ and Rabbi Mordechai of Lechovitch. I don’t remember who was the father and who was the son. But the father, the rebbe, died, and his son took over the rebbe’s seat and changed certain things from what his father had done. The Hasidim asked him: what do you mean? Aren’t you continuing your father’s path? He said: certainly I am continuing. Just as my father changed from his father’s path, I too continue in his path by changing what my father did. That long article of yours about conservatism, yes.