Question

Hello,
In your book Two Wagons and a Hot-Air Balloon, you drew a splendid and convincing distinction between the analytic and the synthetic, where the former has a wagon full of positive values and recognizes one truth, whereas the latter has a wagon empty of real values that stand on their own and obligate everyone, and its values are only negative ones, with liberalism and “live and let live” standing at the center (roughly speaking).
 
I tried to extend this distinction into the religious community as well. To this day it has really bothered me that narrow-minded people, zealots for a particular outlook, force their worldview on the entire public. That is indeed infuriating, and we have to admit that a lot of that anger is influenced by the general liberal spirit, but not only by that. In light of what you wrote, I thought that perhaps those who impose their spirit on the public really do believe in their values more than I do in mine, and if they truly think those are the highest values, then they ought to draw the whole public toward those values. By contrast, I, who live my own life without driving anyone else crazy, am either indifferent to other people’s fate, or I simply do not believe enough in my own path.
 
Even so, it seems to me that there is a difference between religious-secular and religious X versus religious Y. This may sound a bit mystical, but it is obvious to me that God is too great for there to be only one narrow way to serve Him, and all the differences between the communities are not accidental. If we take, for example, Hasidim and Mitnagdim, or Religious Zionists and Haredim, it is clear to me that each one ultimately reaches the destination—cleaving to God—even if by a different path. I am prepared to accept that “God needs” even marginal groups with a position that seems very strange to us, so long as they do not contradict the principles of tradition and Jewish law. As far as I am concerned, God also wants those who place emphasis on prayer for many hours, and those who are immersed all day in analytical Torah study in complete seclusion, and those who work for settling the Land of Israel, those who make joy into a central principle, those who make redemption into a central principle, and those who make a major principle out of constantly speaking words of thanks to God. And likewise in the content of study: those who study the Babylonian Talmud analytically, those who focused on the Jerusalem Talmud, and those who focused on Maimonides, and so on.
I think Judaism is so vast, and there is personal space within it for each individual, so that in the end a complete picture is received in Heaven as a pleasing fragrance. Perhaps it is somewhat like a marital relationship, where the man and woman each contribute from their own place, and in the end arrive at the perfect destination.
I do not have clear sources for this. But I am synthesizing a few sources that deal with related matters, such as the Ari’s words about the twelve gates of the prayer rites of the twelve tribes, or Rabbi Wasserman’s words that the Jewish people are divided into different corps and each contributes its own part, or even the Maharal’s words that in the time of exile there is no wholeness and therefore there is “duality” and the kingdom is divided, like different limbs of one body. But this is not the place to elaborate further.
 
In any case, bottom line: within religion, when we are not talking about a frontal clash with the principles of Jewish law or faith—and even if it seems that way, every community knows very well how to deal with its own clashes with Jewish law; you need love of the other in order to accept its “answers”—tolerance toward the other does not stem from an analytic approach, but from an understanding that religion itself supports a plurality of truths. A person has to recognize his own truth, but at the same time contain complexities at the level of a nation.
Maybe you will scoff at this as Hasidic talk, but it seems to me that these ideas are more than well founded. Besides, this is not about nullifying all values, since the overwhelming majority of values are shared by everyone, and over those everyone is ready to fight; this is only about less fundamental shades and nuances.
 
Do you identify with what I am saying, or in your opinion should we go out and champion a worldview… (if, of course, we are certain that our path is the right one)?