Friends – "O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of the cities fill'd with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amidst these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here - that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."
-- Walt Whitman
Each week, when I sit down to write these introductions for you, my friends, I'm inevitably faced with the same dilemma that has faced every junior Torah scholar from the very genesis of Jewish scholarship itself until now (and Lord, please let me merit to nibble at even the most negligible crumbs dropped from their plates!). What is this dilemma, you ask? I want to impart a new thought, share a unique perspective on the Torah that may never have been conceived or envisioned before; I want to express something that illuminates and critically reflects on the everyday conventions of thought and perspective to which we may, fortunately or not, habituate ourselves-to; but, simultaneously, any creative endeavor that I attempt must also be inexascerably bound to the principle of the utter immutability of God's Torah, according to which I may not revise, distort or uproot a single letter or nuance not only from the Five Books of Moses or the Talmud, but even from the canonized interpretations offered by the beloved Sages of Israel and their disciples, without express permission from THEM (a dilemma compounded by the fact that the overwhelming majority of them have been resting safely under the earth for millenia now, may their holy merit protect us… )
So, my friends, am I truly free to contribute my very own verse to the "powerful play" alluded-to by Robin Williams' quotation of Whitman in the film Dead Poets Society (which, for the purposes of my metaphor, I appropriate to mean the Torah, the most "Powerful Play" of all), or need I first master and memorize all of the classic, Sagacial forms of exegesis in their minute, discriminating details before even attempting to offer my own perspective, if indeed any new perspective can truly and legitimately be expressed?
An interesting departure point, this film Dead Poets Society. For those readers who can sufficiently recall its mythology, please forgive the following summary: An English professor at a rich New England boarding school challenges his spoiled, dogmatized and cynical students to search beyond the standardized frameworks of textbook learning and rote memorization offered by their institution (one of whose textbooks actually distills the essence of the emotional effectiveness of poetry into geometric blips on a flowchart!), inculcating them instead with a more primal, embodied sense of the soul-stirring passions of humanity as expressed through the poetry of the classical Masters (Whitman, Tennyson, etc.) These students, attempting to rediscover the true, unadulterated essence of self-expressive passion as gleaned from the Masters, inherit the tradition from their teacher of surreptitiously congregating in a cave outside the school grounds, taking turns reading ecstatically and contemplatively from the Classics, and occasionally bringing their own offerings for group consideration.
What better way to connect to tradition than through viewing it as a concentrated, collective effort throughout the generations to contemplate, channel and express the passions and subtle countenances of the human soul? My friends, I visualize our own tradition not only as the vital self-expressive apparatus of the Highest of High Himself, but also as the corresponding self-expression of His uniquely passionate lovers and servants, our foremothers, forefathers and the classical Masters of His holy love poetry, through which my own subjective, existential circumstance becomes ratified and legitimated, but also through which my own personal struggle becomes part of a larger continuum, of an ongoing, all-encompassing, ecstatic love/fear relationship between people and their Creator. With this perspective, incidentally, I simultaneously gain the ability to express myself and lose the need.
The Talmud tells us that "The tachlis (purpose/goal) of God's will in giving commanments is the Jew's enthusiasm-of-heart which he embeds into his performance the commandment (Sanhedrin 106B)." In other words, according to the Netivot Shalom, the depth of God's essential "pleasure" does not depend on the standard execution of His commandments in the physical world; rather His "pleasure" hangs on the level of devotion, love and wholeheartedness with which we attempt to uphold the commandments. Was Abraham successful in slaughtering his son? Was the binding of Isaac meant to succeed, or was it meant simply to demand Abraham's wholehearted intentionality? Was it not in Abraham's deepest and most personal moment of self-nullification that he became the most perfect vessel for self-expression?
In order to truly give outward expression to our own deepest inner stirrings, we must abandon ourselves to the near-oblivion of selflessness; we must submit ourselves to our own true contexts, as small, contemporaneous flickerings of a flame that has eternally burned and that we cannot ourselves extinguish. Perhaps, as the Netivot Shalom argues, our life's question is not whether or not we should glow, but how we should glow. We should be blessed, this and every Shabbat, to gaze into the upwardly-striving, self-nullifying glow of our candles with the devotion of a society enthralled by the passion and mastery of its dead prophets, patiently yearning to add its own verse… with love
Jerry Silverman
|
Jerry Silverman is a former student of Yeshivat Bat Ayin. He is working in new media, designing and managing media projects. He lives in Riverdale, NY with his wife Sarah and their two children. |