Culture as the Subconscious of Society

"A complex is an agglomeration of associations...

"Ladies and Gentleman, that leads me to something very important - the fact that a complex with its given tension or energy has the tendency to form a little personality of itself. It has a sort of body, a certain amount of its own physiology. It can upset the stomach. It upsets the breathing, it distrurbs the heart - in short, it behaves like a partial personality. For instance, when you want to say or do something and unfortunately a complex interferes with this intention, then you say or do something different from what you intended. You are simply interrupted, and your best intention gets upset by the complex, exactly as if you had been interfered with by a human being or by circumstances from outside. Under those conditions we really are forced to speak of the tendencies of complexes to act as if they were characterized by a certain amount of will-power." 

C.G. Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice, pp. 79-80

"Every thought and act owes its complexion to the acts of your dead and living brothers."

William James, The Letters of William James, p. 131

"Linking is particularly important in cultural history, because culture is a web of many strands; none is spun by itself, nor is any cut off like wars and regimes. Events that are commonly said to mark novelty in thought or change of direction in culture are but empathic signposts, not boundary walls."

Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, ix

"As a torrent river surges forth, sweeping with it all that lies in its path, penetrating into deep recesses and washing away all buried things, so does the torrent of public opinion sweep along the individual mind. You may not know it, you may even deny it, but you have been brainwashed by common belief. Carried along, perhaps more, perhaps less, you now think along these twisted paths.

"So stay away from the middle of the river, don't be concerned with what people say. But this alone will not protect you, because you cannot completely seclude yourself. Who can vouch that your wife or children will not be swept along with the flow? They will then be the open floodgates to bring floodwaters inside your doors. And who can abstain from breathing the air that carries the germ of public opinion? Thoughts and opinions are beyond time and space and flow from mind to mind in quantum leaps.

"Nor can you remain static in this torrent river just by standing in your place - you must actively swim against the flow. You may not be successful in swimming upstream, but at least you will not be swept down by the flow. So it is with the spiritual life and the purity of spirit that you have attained. You cannot retain them against the flow unless you continue to struggle for spiritual growth. You must swim upstream without respite - upward, onward against the flow. There may be a limit to how far you can go, but at least you will not be drawn down with the flow."

Piaseztna Rebbe, To Heal The Soul: The Spiritual Diary of a Chasidic Rebbe (Tzav v'Ziruz; trans. Yehoshua Starrett), pp. 19-20.

Question: In which ways has the Orthodox community, in all its forms, been influenced by Western culture - philosophically, psychologically, and practically?

"Its a Bittersweet Symphony...No Change, I Can't Change"

"For R. Huna said: Once a man does wrong and repeats it, it is permitted to him. ‘It is permitted to him’! Can you really think so? — Rather it becomes to him as something permitted."

Talmud Bavli, Kiddushin 40a

"To those who are physically sick, the bitter tastes sweet and the sweet bitter. Some of the sick even desire and crave that which is not fit to eat, such as earth and charcoal, and hate healthful foods, such as bread and meat - all depending on how serious the sickness is.

Similarly, those who are morally ill desire and love bad traits, hate the good path, and are lazy to follow it. Depending on how sick they are, they find it exceedingly burdensome.

Isaiah 5:20 speaks of such people in a like manner: "Woe to those who call the bad good, and the good bad, who take darkness to be light and light to be darkness, who take bitter to be sweet and sweet to be bitter." Concerning them, Proverbs 2:13 states: "Those who leave the upright paths to walk in the ways of darkness."

Rambam, Mishnah Torah, Hilkhot De'ot 2:1

"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent."

Jacques Barzun, From Dawn To Decadence

Iyov and the Goodness of Life and Existence

1. It is contradictory to maintain that one's life and existence as a whole is bad and still seek to support life and existence or mourn its demise. Therefore,

2. If one does support life and existence they implicitly believe that life and existence is overall good. Therefore,

3. If one believes that life and existence as a whole is good then the question of theodicy is greatly weakened. Since the overall expression of God's creation is good, the existence of evil elements is not as troublesome. Therefore,

4. Iyov (Job) is the primal book of theodicy since after his suffering Iyov wishes he would have never lived, i.e. that life/existence is bad. 

מַדּוּעַ, קִדְּמוּנִי בִרְכָּיִם;    וּמַה-שָּׁדַיִם, כִּי אִינָק
  לָמָּה לֹּא מֵרֶחֶם אָמוּת;    מִבֶּטֶן יָצָאתִי וְאֶגְוָע

כִּי-עַתָּה, שָׁכַבְתִּי וְאֶשְׁקוֹט;    יָשַׁנְתִּי, אָז יָנוּחַ לִי

On the Etymology of חרות

The appearance of the root /חור/ with the meaning of nobleman, aristocrat, or elder appears mostly in the later books of Tanakh. Melachim I 21:8, 11 and Kohelet 10:17 juxtapose חורים with elders or contrast them with youth. Nechemiah (2:16; 4:8, 13; 5:7; 7:5; 13:17) consistently juxtaposes חורים with nobleman or priests (see also 6:17). Yeshayahu 34:12 and Yirmiyahu 27:20, 39:6 similarly place חורים in the context of royalty and is commonly translated as “nobleman.” In Rabbinic literature חור came to mean freedom (e.g. Gitten 4:4;Targum on Shemot 21:2; Bereishit Rabbah 92). Daat Mikra, however, understands חורים as aristocrats who were free from paying taxes throughout Tanakh (e.g. Melachim I 21:8; Nechemiah 2:16).

However, the original meaning of the root /חור/ appears too have been “white.”[1] In Bereishit 40:16, R. Saadia Gaon interprets חרי  as “white bread,” a symbol of royalty (see Ramban).

Yeshayahu 29:22 uses יחורו as pale, and is understood by multiple commentators as being the Aramaic equivalent of “white” (Radak, Metzudot Tzion and Ramban on Bereishit 40:16; see Daniel 7:9). Being pale-faced may be symbol of royalty since it implies that one is at leisure to stay in-doors protected from the sun.

Esther 1:7, 8:15, and Yeshayahu 19:9 (according to Ibn Ezra and Radal; see especially R”I Karo) use חור as “white linen,” especially in the context of royalty (Esther Rabbah on 1:6; see Jastrow on חור). It is possible that חור/white linen is related to, and possible derived from, חור/hole (Rashi on Bereishit 40:16 and Yeshayahu 19:9 relates חור to wicker and nets).

Thus, three etymologies may be suggested: 1) the white bread-royalty connection; 2) the pale-royalty connection; and, 3) the white linen-royalty connection. Either way, it is not surprising that חור is a common name among the royalty (e.g. Shemot 31:2; Divrei ha’Yamim I 4:1; Yehoshua 13:21)

R. Hirsch (Shemot 32:16) threads the disparate meanings of /חור/ into one conceptual whole, and relates it to the well-known rabbinic dictum (Avot 6:2):  “Do not read engraved [חרות] but free [חרות], for there is no person who exemplifies freedom as one who engages in Torah study.”

“Now חור means white, free and open, from which we get the meaning of opening and hole. The basic meaning seems to be “unhindered.” Hence: free, open, and the unhindered i.e. unbroken, rays of light: white. So that חרות   could also mean “opening” in the sense of the stone being bored clean through, or actually “freedom,” and in this sense חרות על הלחות would mean “in free mastery over the Tablets” and thereby express that ם" וס" שבלוחות בנס היו עומדים. The Tablets did not bear the writing but the writing bore and held the Tablets. Then the sentence in Avot 6:2 אין לך בן חורין אלא מי שעוסק בתורה , that the Torah makes “free,” would be a literal fact, brought home to one’s mind by a glance at the writing of the Tablets. Just as the writing of the Divine Evidence was not only independent of the material but raises the material serving it to its own level of freedom above the ordinary laws of Nature which govern matter, in the same way human beings, who take upon themselves the spirit of this writing and make themselves the representatives of this spirit, are raised, borne and held by the very spirit itself, above the blind force of ‘you must,’ the lack of free will which clings to all matter, i.e. they become “free.” (See Maharal, Derech Chaim, for a similar interpretation).

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[1] As is common in all languages, the concrete becomes a metaphor for more abstract concepts. Thus, “white” becomes “clear” and “logical” as in מחוור

Artist: Elena Flevora

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[1] As is common in all languages, the concrete becomes a metaphor for more abstract concepts. Thus, “white” becomes “clear” and “logical” as in מחוור

"I think I'm dumb, or maybe I'm just happy"

"As for Shabbetai Zevi being manic-depressive (this diagnosis is the glue that holds together Scholem's thousand-page monograph), consider this: The whole cosmos is bipolar, ying-yang, masculine-feminine, positive-negative, anabolic-catabolic. Is the manic-depressive individual, the lunatic (from the waxing and waning of the "luna"), perhaps just more sensitive, more keyed to the rhythm of the cosmos? To listen to Scholem, Nathan of Gaza projected Shabbetai Zevi's silhouette on the cosmos, grafted Shabbetai Zevi's manic-depressive personality to cosmosgony. Maybe Nathan was saying the Messiah, the most sensitive being of all, 'the breath of our nostrils,' most reflects the natural order of things. What Scholem calls manic-depressive, is actually hypersensitivity. The he'arah (illumination) and hester panim (hiding of the face) of Shabbetai Zevi are the reflection of a chiaroscuro reality.

"Nathan posited that it is the interplay of the 'or sheyesh bo mahshavah (light with thought) and the 'or she-ein bo mahshava (light without thought), which is to say the interplay of constructive and destructive forces, that makes up the cosmic drama. Was Freud saying anything different when he spoke of the psyche - the individual and collective - being driven by two opposite forces of Eros and Thanatos, twin instincts of self-preservation and self-destruction?

"The late Rabbi Isaac Hutner...was apprised of the condition of a former student, a brilliant mathematician given to burning his mathematical papers. The young man was diagnosed as manic-depressive; the doctors were confident he could be cured with chemical lithium

"Rabbi Hutner shook his head sadly, 'The problem is not chemical; it is cosmic.' He went on to explain that according to the Midrash, at the time of the creation of man there were two groups of angels. One group said man should be created; the other group said man should not be created. Summed up the sage: 'A human being has within those two groups of angels. One says, 'He should create!' The other says, "He should not create!'

“Unfortunately, the wise man's prognosis came true. Lithium bicarbonate proved powerless against the voices of the naysaying angels."

-Reuven Alpert, Caught in the Crack: Encounters with the Jewish Muslims of Turkey; A Spiritual Travelog. Pp. 291-292

“A tradition associating genius with ‘madness’ had of course existed since classical or even pre-classical times...The degeneracy theorists, however, took this much further…which in effect identified genius with ‘madness,’ ‘insanity,” or ‘degeneracy.” [F.W.H.] Myers was on of the few who disputed this facile reductionism…What Myers denies in the existence of a relationship between genius and madness, but its interpretation by the degeneracy theorists…For him that correlation reflects the fact that genius and madness share, as an essential common feature, an unusual openness to the subliminal. The degeneracy theorists, however, had missed a crucial difference – namely, that genius masters its subliminal uprushes, whereas the insane are overwhelmed by theirs.”

Edward F. Kelly & Michael Grosso, in Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21^st Century, pp. 470-471

Life of Ascension

The Life of ascension
Is to run a walk of life
At an unsustainable pace
In an undefined space
A trek of blistering cold
A sprint of fiery rage
A slog through dark turmoil
A brawl with the physical
A war at all fronts
Verging collapse
Every second a choice
Every second alive
And yet when our legs are molten
And hearts filled with dread
We continue
Not for we are brave or strong
Simply because we must
Because we believe
Because we still breathe

-Mark Miwerds

Deeper is Higher according to Rav Hirsch

וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם מְאֹד, לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם: כִּי לֹא רְאִיתֶם, כָּל-תְּמוּנָה, בְּיוֹם דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֲלֵיכֶם בְּחֹרֵב, מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ

"[H]ere it is a matter of not allowing ourselves to be robbed of the clarity of our conception and the certainty of our conviction of the supernatural, invisible yet absolutely real and personal existence of God, by any intrusion of any idea of substantiality...

"Besides God, there is only one other being of whose individual reality and personal existence, although invisible and unable to be realised by any of our physical senses, each one of us bears within himself the direct certainty of conviction, and that is our soul, our Nefesh. It is that, therefore, which reflecting back on oneself makes one comprehend the real existence of something which is invisible and intangible, and by the certainty of the conviction of ones's own self comprehend the conviction of the existence of God. Therefore, "it is our soul that we lift up to God, therefore does our soul long for, thirsteth, languisheth for God...Therefore, "doth our soul seek God in the night...therefore "doth our soul cling to folliwng God...[and] therefore do our souls bless God.

"וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם מְאֹד, לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם accordingly in this connection means: Guard yourselves, keep, above all, the influence the knowledge of your soul exercises, for it comprehends that what cannot be grasped by your senses has a more real existence than what can be grasped by your senses so that God may remain for your, just in His insubstantiality the most real actual existing Being."

- Rav Hirsch on Devarim  4:15