The Peculiar Uniqueness of Jewish Continuity
30 Sh’vat 5785 Rosh Chodesh Adar / רֹאשׁ חוֹדֶשׁ אַדָ
Who is a Jew? / Who’s Jewish? | What’s Jewish? \ What makes for Jewishness?
“Who’s asking?”
If you just smiled, you might be conversant in Jewishness.
I’m reminded of the definition of “the perfect Jewish joke:” a gentile won’t understand it and a Jew can tell it better than that.
What makes for Jewishness?
Jewishness is a casual conversation between living Jews. It’s a bespoken language that resonates in the midst of every new Jewish generation—in the souls of Jewish children—as their parents teach them how to speak.
You can preserve a Jewish conversation by writing it down, just like you can write down a Jewish joke. But something’s lost in transcription. The written language of Jewishness only comes alive when it’s vocalized conversantly between those that speak it as their mother tongue. If Jews find themselves frustrated and tongue-tied as they chew on Jewish continuity, this is a definitive distinction to grasp.
The essential Jewishness of a Jewish joke only comes alive when it’s retold performatively—by a Jew to a Jew. Many Jewish jokes are funny beyond their Jewishness, because they joke about humanity and the human condition writ large. Yet the mystery of Jewishness has little to do with human universality —but rather—with the peculiar uniqueness of Jewishness. If you could hypothetically strip away all of the in-common non-Jewish humanity of a Jewish joke—right down to its un-common “non-Gentile” Jewishness—then you would be left with something that’s only funny in the kishkes of living Jews.
“Kishkes?” you might ask? You heard it right. Look it up.
OK, they’re not exactly a pretty sight. Except maybe in the eye of the beholder. A Jewish mother for instance. So ask a Yiddishe momme about kishkes if you want. It couldn’t hurt.
But there are no living “kishkes” in a written Jewish joke—even if the entire joke is written in Yiddish, or modern Hebrew, or the written words of any other unspoken human language that Jews might speak—Jewishly. And there are Jews around the world who have never heard talk of kishkes, per se, but they have their own Jewish way of words with it. And they voice the meaning audibly. So much so, that one could almost say that kishkes are the larynx of the Yiddishe Neshama—the Jewish Soul. And the Voice
is the spirit of Jewishness.
The spirit of Jewishness is the Jewish life that is in the breath. It’s the shared life of Jews breathing the same air. Whenever and wherever two or three Jews get together (for coffee, for instance) they breathe together by default. They breathe-in the same air. They breathe-out the same air. In time and place. And at some point the air that goes-in to their shared Jewishness comes back out of their Jewishness—through their kishkes—in a voice that forms words. And (this might sound a little funny to a Jewish ear that knows a little Yiddish) the schlemiel raises his coffee cup and says, “L’chayim!” And the
schlimazel reaches for his napkin and says, “Tzu gezunt.” And then they smile.
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So here’s the thing: Even when a non-Jew knows enough to smile at a joke like this, if he tries to tell it, it sounds (to the ear of a Jewish neshama) like a voice that tries to speak while breathing-in. Go ahead. Try to say, “L’Chayim” while breathing-in. If you practice hard enough you might get somewhat close
to almost sounding like you maybe do when you speak it while exhaling—but you really won’t be
fooling anyone. At least not anyone who’s thoroughly Jewish.
Anyone can make reference to Jewishness—just like anyone can refer to a classic Jewish joke—but
only the Jewish soul can transmit existential Jewishness from generation to generation. The discrete identity of the Yiddishe Neshama (the unique aliveness of being Jewish) speaks into the relational life of Yiddishkeit (the communal aliveness of doing Jewish) expressing and articulating the mystery of
Klal Yisrael (the mystical whole of living Israel). With each new generation, there’s a sense in which Jewish-being is birthed anew into the mystery of Klal Yisrael, and begins to breathe and to voice the life-cycle of Jewish-doing.
In terms of first principles, there are two kinds of life: the life that is in the breath; and the life that is in the blood. The life that is in the breath is the shared life that is found in relationship. The life that is in the blood is the unique life that is found in identity. You are a living, breathing soul. You are uniquely and discretely alive. And you have a life-time that you are given to live. The ways that you live your
life will be affected by who it is that you are; and who you are will be affected by the lives you live.
One might say that the heart of Jewishness is a place of relationship between the who (of Jewish-being) and the what (of Jewish-doing). How often has a Jew wrestled in his heart with the question of what (exactly) Jewishness is, and ended-up saying to himself, “I may not know—definitively—what Jewishness is—but whatever it is—that’s who I am. I’m the ‘Who’ of the ‘What is a Jew?’” In Jewish parlance, “I was born a Jew, and I’ll die a Jew.” The Who is a matter of identity; the What of the Who
is a matter of the soul. Which begs the question, “So then, what exactly is a soul?”
Ah, the soul! And the Jewish one at that. How might one go about defining the Jewish soul? Should we define it descriptively (meaning: “To define it in such a way that we’ll be able to know it when we see it.”)? Or should we try to define it prescriptively (meaning: “To define it in such a way that we’ll be
able to see it once we know it.”)? The singular word—soul—might best lend itself to a descriptive definition. One might say that the soul of something—is everything about it—that combines with everything else about it—to make it uniquely what it is. The soul of something is the essential totality
of its combined discrete uniqueness. In this sense of the word, even inanimate objects can have “soul.” Or any given particular animal can be a discrete “living soul.” And every living person has a soul (a uniqueness) and every living person is a soul (a discreteness) that can be prescriptively defined—to whatever degree of complexity is appropriate to the application of that prescription. But why should God apply a prescriptive definition to a Jewish soul? To enable Jews to see it more clearly—hopefully—as it is. Not how a Jew should wish to see it, but how it is—in spirit and in truth. Apart from lies.
The life that is in our breath is ours in the instant we are first able to take it: this is a man's right by virtue of his birth. But the essence of a man's life is more than the living of it. The life that is his
essence is in his blood. This is the life that all flesh inherits from conception. It has the ability to exist
by virtue of its conception; but it doesn't originate itself in the way that it originates its own lifetime (by taking its first breath). Birth grants a child the authority to breathe (provided he exercises his birthright to take a breath); conception grants a child the authority to exist (provided the womb of the child’s mother receives the conception). But we go, nonetheless, the way of all flesh. We have no authority to keep what we have been granted: because of sin. What is the birthright of a man according to Torah? Personal sovereignty: the ability to breathe and to sense; to digest and to reason; to grow and to build;
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to develop and to create; to procreate and to propagate; to populate and to dominate. But what is the inheritance of a son of man according to Torah? / Death. / Separation from the land of the living.
The written Torah provides the comprehensive prescriptive definition of the Jewish Soul. For better or worse, the application of Torah is the overarching determinative of Jewish continuity. The application of Torah is the doing of it. Torah is what Jews do. Doing Torah emphasizes the actual over the ideal—and the particular over the universal. Reality in Torah begins with action in the now and here of one’s immediate surroundings.
The wisdom of the Torah way of living confers blessing and success—whether practiced through religious observance—or exercised through a cultural sensibility. Even in America this wisdom of Judaism is still at work. Orthodox Jews do Torah just like the Jews that came before them. And Conservative Jews do business—just like the Orthodox Jew that came before them. And Reform Jews do lunch just like the Conservative Jew that eats with both. A Torah observant Jew knows how to properly execute a commandment—and a secular Jew really knows how to get things done. And the rest of the world likes to sleep. Torah is a lamp—of Jewish actualism and particularism—shining as a light (of G-d’s ways) to the world.
But, as has been noted already, the act of writing something down can be problematic; things can be lost in transcription; the voice whispering from between the lines can be ignored by a reader, as his eyes imagine things between the lines that really don’t exist. Of course, good writers are much more than transcriptionists, and they are well aware of the pits and snares of the written word—but the best of them relish the challenge of capturing the poetry of life, with prose, in spite of itself. Moses was both a scribe and a writer, par excellence—but he was no mere transcriptionist, or collator of documentative fragments of memories and stories, or editor and redactor of universal myths—no—he was more than none of these things. And the Torah which he is said to have written is a living masterwork of truth and life that continues to outlast all of the counterfactual imaginations of men and angels. So get over it.
The written Torah of Moses resonates with the voice of Torah Sheb'al Peh (the Oral Torah). Even with respect to Torah as Law, how often does HaShem of Torah command His people to obey His Commandments? Seldom. He commands them, over and over, to obey His Voice. Look into the Torah and see if this is not true.
But if the Jewish Soul of Torah is extinguished, the Jewish Voice of Torah will cease, and the Spoken Torah will be lost to history, and not long after—the Scribal Torah as well. Only Jews can speak with the Jewish voice of Torah, and teach their children how to speak the things of the spoken Torah. Only Jewish hands will grasp the spindles of the Torah scroll and raise the Sefer Torah overhead, dor l’dor v’dor (from generation to generation and generation).
It’s hard to fault Judah ha-Nasi for compiling the Mishnah as he did—I mean—things were looking existentially catastrophic for the Yiddishe Neshama of Klal Yisrael. I’m sure the irony of calling it the Shebaal Peh was not lost on him, but who’s to say that he was not raised-up for such a time as that. Yet the Talmud has its difficulties—and the gentiles will misunderstand it—and a Judah ha Nasi can tell it better than that.
For that matter, it’s hard to fault Yehudah ben Yaakov himself for building a fence around the yiddishe neshama of his last living son, Shelah—to protect him from the vicissitudes of Judah’s self-imposed exile from life among his brothers—to buy some time. Shelah had been born into his father’s house, to a woman who had been taken-in to his father’s house. Judah didn’t marry-in to the goyishe people that
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lived around his house. His eyes beheld one particular daughter, of a certain man of the Canaanites,
who had a certain name—and he took her as his wife. She married into the house of Israel, even though her husband lived in exile from his father Israel’s house. He was almost without fault in almost all his ways. Who could imagine that his own Yiddishe neshama would be torn apart—entirely bare-handed—by someone stronger than a lion, while on his way—up to Timnah—(or so he thought)—to “reap the harvest,” so to speak, of his fully fleeced flock.
Thankfully for Zion’s sake, the Timnah of Judah’s day was not the Timnah of Samson’s Dan; just like
the Sodom of his distant past was not the future Gibeah of his recent Benjamin. Just like the Prophets are not a deuteronomy of the Judges, nor Judges a repetition of Joshua, nor the Devarim of Torah...well, maybe you get the point.
Samson had the benefit of hindsight (and the Spirit of ADONAI) as he puzzled over the riddle of both, the strength, and the sweetness, borne of his own hands. If only he had found a better way to explain it all to his bride-to-be. But it was not meant to be.
Out of the Talmud comes something to eat. But sweet as it is—it comes at a price—at the cost of a
riddle within a riddle: What is stronger than the lion of the Torah Sheb'al Peh of Judah? And what is sweeter than the honey of the Eretz Torah of Israel?
Is the business of bees beeswax? Or is honey a by-product of pollination? Or what does the Lion of Judah have in common with the Daughter of Zion? Or when is a young, pregnant, first-time Jewish mother, not expectant? When she is with fetal tissue? And why is a Jewish boy not circumcised at birth, when he is born—born a what—an uncircumcised Jew? And for that matter, who is this writer—to
speak so presumptuously in the face of such Samsonian riddles? (Full-frontal disclosure: I’m not even Jewish. But I was circumcised at birth. So there’s that.) I may split the hoof, but alas it would appear that I may not chew the cud. Hopefully, when it’s all said and done, I will prove to be a truer friend to Israel than Samson’s best-man was to him. But much remains to be seen. By all of us. And even more
to be perceived. And even more to be realized. In the meantime, we keep on looking, but we can’t see.
But speaking of Isaiah, he writes of a day when there will be a certain kind of road in the midst of the land—from Egypt to Assyria—mapping Jewish continuity; and in those days, Israel will be a blessing
in the midst of all the earth.
Here’s the key to the map, to know how to read it:
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The Jews of Jacob—from the soil of Egypt—are twice blessed by G-d and called by Him, :My people:.
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And the Jews of Abraham, from the soil of Assyria, are of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of Israel, and are called by Him, :The work of My hands:.
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And the Jews of Isaac, from the soil of Israel are, at last, called by Him, :My inheritance:.
The G-d of Abraham, in Assyria—and the G-d of Isaac, in Canaan—and the G-d of Jacob, in Egypt—
is, and was, and will be: YHVH of the Jews, in Israel.
There are many Jews, living all over the world, who will never travel back and forth on this roadway of Isaiah’s. They’ll live out their lives in their Haran’s or their Zoan’s, going out and coming in; and going
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the way of all flesh. But if they were born a Jew—they were born to journey this road to Mount Zion. And many of them know it in their kishkes (even if they don’t quite know it yet); and they’ll change their minds about the places where they live their lives; and they’ll have a change of heart about the ways that they live their lives—when at last they remember Jerusalem.
This is the story of Isaiah’s road map:
The blood of Abram and the flesh of Sarai were knit by the hand of God into a son who
God called, "Isaac", in accordance to his promise. Isaac was the child of two new names—
God created Isaac from the seed of Abraham and the womb of Sarah. Isaac was the only
son Abraham would have with Sarah. Isaac was the only name he was ever given; God
would never call him by any other name.
According to the laws of the flesh, Isaac shouldn't have been born; but he was born to Sarah
through God's word to Abraham. Yet, according to the laws of heaven, what is born of
God's kingdom belongs to God, so Isaac was the heir of God's promise to Abraham but he
wasn't Abraham's legal heir. How could Isaac be both the son of Abraham and the son of
God's promise? God promised Abram the impossible according to the flesh. So whose son
was Isaac, God's or Abraham's? Abraham offered up the son of his flesh to God and in
return God gave the son of His promise to Abraham. God had every right to give whatever
was His concerning Isaac to Abraham; and Abraham had the legal right to give to God
whatever of Isaac was his. The legal entanglements that had bound Isaac were undone by
God's sovereign exchange of Isaac. It had never entered God's mind to require the life of
Isaac, or even to take him from his mother's tent; but such was the requirement of the gods
of uncircumcision. God required only the blood of Isaac's circumcision on the eighth day;
and that day—at Mount Moriah—Abraham's heart was circumcised while his knife cut the
cords of death that had bound his son Isaac, as one destined for fire.
These are the ways of the kingdom of God—a wisdom not of this world or of this age, but
of an Eighth Day to come—a Day of all new names, when everything will be made new.
But the flesh and blood of this creation cannot reveal these things to men or angels apart
from the Spirit of God, Who chooses names, old and new, for both. Ishmael could have
been given a new name by God; but it was Sarai's voice, not God's, that Abram heeded
when he went into Sarai's tent and begat Ishmael there. God could have called Esau by a
new name; but He chose the younger son, the son of his mother's tent. And He said, "I will
once more take My promise to Abraham and the tent of Sarah, and bring forth a son of My
kingdom. And he shall be called, 'Israel'; and I will make four tents from one, and out of
four wombs will come twelve sons. And I will bless the tents of Jacob. They will be My
people, and I will be their God forever and ever."
The God of Torah didn’t emasculate Jacob—but He fashioned a separate kind of adam, to whom He gave the name of Israel—and the signification of the revealed truth concerning that otherwise natural son of humanity was the absence of a foreskin—not because he didn’t have one when he was born a
Jew—but because it was taken off by a Jew eight days after he was born in Torah. This national identity that God articulated is the coalescence of a physical and spiritual mystery—a unique union of natural and revealed truth in Creation. An eight-day-old child has no choice in the matter; but if he ever becomes a father—he does. The choseness of Israel is paradoxical. Which comes first, the chooser or the chosen? What makes for choseness? Is a chooser with nothing to choose a chooser? A chooser, if he is to be a chooser at all, by definition, must first have something to choose. Secondly, to be a chooser
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one must make a choice to choose, no? One who “chooses-not-to-choose” is the very antithesis of a chooser. So, in terms of first principles, before there is such a thing as a chooser, and before there is such a thing as a choice—there is first—that which is to be chosen (even before it is chosen). And most
of all, there is first and foremost—the one who is to be the chooser (even before he chooses).
“Chooser” and “Chosen” are new names. The Creator of the universe became known by the name of YHVH God of Yisrael when he chose Israel to be His special treasure—not because of who they were,
or who they had been, or even who they would become—but because of Who He was, and WHO HE
IS, and Who He will forever be.
And He favored them because He kept-faith with the choices that He had made concerning their
fathers, when He brought them into Assyria (and out of Assyria) and into Egypt (and out of Egypt).
And Israel would agree to all that He had spoken and they would choose to obey His voice (even
before they actually heard and saw whence came His voice). And He would say, :I have heard the voice of the words of this people:. Would that they had such a relationship with God (the Creator), their G-d (the Redeemer) always—that it would be continuously well with their souls and the souls of their sons.
This is the story of Abram:
By faith in the G-d no one could see, Abram heard His Voice. And By faith in the unseen G-d he
heard, Abram left the land of his father's gods. And by walking humbly with Him through the
hearing of his ears, rather than the seeing of his eyes, the only true and living Creator of the
Universe became his G-d, the G-d of Abraham. There was nothing in the way of visual,
explanatory proof of His reality—just a voice that only Abram had heard, and just words that
his family called, "Empty."
"His imagination has overtaken him," they said, "He says there's nothing he can visualize so he
can't cast an image? Then he says that he can't carve a representation because he claims our
minds can't understand Him like that? And he says He speaks quietly with words of peace so He
offers him no weapons? Now he goes wandering, to who knows where, without an explanation
to carry in his bag or a sheath to fix on his belt, and he says, 'He is a shield to me...'?!"
But Abraham's G-d made a covenant with him as proof that His Vo-ce and His W-rd were true
and certain; and the proof was the Land of His promise. If the Land of Israel does not belong to
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob—then his G-d is false.
The covenant was made by the wisdom of G-d, just as the proverb says, :By wisdom a house is built:; and it was established by His understanding. He cut covenant with Abram by His wisdom. But He ratified it not with Abram but with Abraham; and He established it not with wisdom but understanding. And He executed it not with the knowledge of the flesh but with the true knowledge of the Eighth Day circumcision of the heart.
God chose Abram and Abram chose God, and God gave him a new name. He only chose Abram; but through him and from him, God offers Himself to all of us. But not in our own names can we accept.
After God chose Abram did He then choose Sarai? Or did He choose Hagar? Or did He choose
Ishmael? He did not. Nonetheless, they acknowledged the covenant that G-d cut with Abraham.
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Where was He when all of those unfortunate choices were made?
He waited to say to Abram, “No longer shall your name be called, ‘Abram.’”
Why.
Why did He wait so long to say of Sarai, Abram's wife and sister, "Do not call her what she is; ‘Sarah’
is what she shall be called now."
?
There are so many things about the history of G-d's kingdom here on earth that have yet to be written. Things that have been, and things that are, and things that will be. From Dor l’dor v’dor. Forevermore.
What constitutes a Jewish Generation? Are Jewish parents one generation, and their children a new generation? Are a set of Jewish parents a “dor” and their children a “l’dor?” No. They are only one generation. The parents generate children; and those children are the generation of their parents. This distinction makes all the difference in the world when it comes to Jewish continuity. The Jewish soul that identifies each generation as Jewish resides in the Jewish family—not in the discrete individuals of the family. The children will only become a new generation when they generate a new family of their own. Until then, they remain in their parents’ generation—and if they die without becoming a new generation, then their parents’ generation will end along with them.
Discrete Jewish generations overlap through the mystery of Jewish marriage—so the children of one generation might also become the parents of a new, overlapping generation. One Jewish marriage is overlapped with another Jewish marriage—through the mystery of the union of one discrete male and one discrete female—and if that :one flesh: of marriage produces a family (wherein the man and his wife become a father and mother, through either procreative or adoptive propagation) then those two overlapping marriages become overlapping generations. The line of David is replete with adoptions.
The continuity of Jewish identity is established in the choices that are made in the middle of two overlapping generations. The initial generation is a family of parents and children (the parents of which will become grandparents when the new generation is overlapped with it). The new generation is also a family of parents and children (the children of which will become grandchildren when it is overlapped with the initial generation).
When sons and daughters become parents, their parents miraculously become—grandparents—while their children also become—grandchildren. The grandchildren only become a third generation if, and when, they themselves generate children.
The decisions of Jewish sons and Jewish daughters whether to marry Jewishly—or not—and whether
to mother and father their children Jewishly—or not—will in large part determine the identity of their grandchildren.
Isaac was the place where Jewish identity was decided. He had a Yiddishe mama—and a Jewish son.
The bones of the soul-life of Jewish identity are patriarchal bones. And the flesh of the heart-life of Jewish relationship is matriarchal flesh. The mystery of Jewish continuity is a hybrid of patriarchal and matriarchal descent that occurs in the overlap of two Jewish generations.
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A Jewish mother’s son determines the Jewishness of the children of a Jewish marriage. Jewish identity is passed on through the son of a Jewish mother (not through a Jewish mother directly—but through her son.). This functions well as both a descriptive and a prescriptive definition of Jewish descent and continuity (without the de facto necessity for any de jure prescriptively supplemental halacha).
If a Jewish son has children with a non-Jewish woman their children will be born Jewish. If he cares about Jewish continuity, he will want to raise his children in Jewishness (which will include Torah circumcision for his sons). If the non-Jewish wife he marries was chosen carefully, she will have chosen on her part, to marry into his Yiddishkeit—and by extension—into the Jewishness of his “side of the family.” The only formal declaration she might choose to make—to her mother-in-law—as part
of her supplemental marriage vows—might be: :Your people shall be my people, and your God my God:. (Even a Jewish bride could rightly declare this as well—inasmuch as she takes her husband’s surname—in place of her own.)
Such a wife will be willing to raise their children Jewishly, as a Jewish family (even though she is not Jewish herself) in the Yiddishkeit of his community. The :one flesh: of his marriage and family will be fully Jewish. His children will be Jewish—but his Jewish sons will father non-Jewish children by birth (because their mother—his wife—is non-Jewish).
If his Jewish son cares about Jewish continuity he will likely marry within his Yiddishkeit, and want to raise his children in Jewishness (which will also include Torah circumcision for his sons). If his Jewish daughter cares about Jewish continuity she will likely marry into a Jewish family (through marriage to a Jewish husband).
Thus such a Jewish grandfather (who has married a certain non-Jewish woman) will end-up with a generation of Jewish grandchildren (even though the children of his sons will be born non-Jewish).
On the other hand, if a Jewish son doesn’t care about Jewish continuity, then he will marry whomever his heart desires (whether Jewish or non-Jewish) and he will have little or no interest in bringing up his children Jewishly—even though (because of his name) they are born Jewish. He may not even care whether his Jewish sons are circumcised in the way that he was circumcised. He may even say in his heart, “My father gave me no choice in my Jewishness. I want better for my sons. They can decide for themselves, when they come of age, whether they want to be circumcised.” מָה הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת לָכֶם
Or if a Jewish daughter doesn’t care about Jewish continuity, then her eye will be looking to leave her Jewishness, and sooner or later she (or her daughters) will marry outside of their Yiddishkeit. And she will become the grandmother of gentile grandchildren.
The choices that are made in the place where two Jewish generations overlap will determine the course of Jewish continuity. The mystery of Klal Yisrael is found in a place. It is a place of the :one flesh: of Jewish marriage—within the home of the Jewish family—within the community of the Jewish people—within the nation of Israel—within the land of the G-d of Abraham and Isaac and Israel. And from
that place—it shines as a light of G-d’s unique uniqueness—to all the nations of the earth. And as His people make their Hashiveinu from the places they have been scattered—that light will burn brightly.
Why is Jewish continuity a hybrid of maternal and paternal descent? And why is it based upon the son of a Jewish mother? Why not base it upon the daughter of a Jewish father, for instance? Look and see, whatever you can see. It has to do with certain fundamental mysteries concerning time and space, and men and women—and how Torah reckons these things.
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The Jewish calendar of time is based upon the phases of the moon—but it’s not a lunar calendar, per se. It’s a Luni-Solar hybrid. The light of the phases of the moon are phases of reflected solar light and they correspond to the phases of the soil of the earth as the soil receives the light of the sun and transitions through the seasons. Plant life—which is the life of the earth—is modulated by the waxing and waning of the annual seasonal phases of solar light. Animal life—which is the life discrete upon the earth—is modulated by the waxing and waning of the monthly phases of lunar light. A human generation is like a day insomuch as there is a man and a woman who generate a child and in doing so—there are parents and there are children: one generation. The children don’t become a new generation until they become parents.
The nightly phases of the reflected solar light of the moon are almost literally “marks upon a calendar” of the cyclical passage of time. If you want to make a calendar of the mystery of “the circle of life” and you don’t have time to acquire and possess the requisite writing materials and mathematical literacy of scholarly pursuits, you have one ready-made for you in the night sky. There is evening (and then there is the light of the moon) and there is morning—one circular day: under the sun. But there is more to life than the circular life of humanity under the sun. There is a light that is beyond the light of the sun—and even beyond the light of the stars. It is a light that is discrete from Creation. Solar light is almost a kind of reflected image of eternal light—in the similar way that lunar light is a reflected image of solar light.
Almost.
Among many other things, Torah is the Creator’s way to mark the mystery of a time that is more than circular—the time that has a beginning and an end. It is the time related to the Creator’s wisdom and understanding—which is beyond the Creation-wisdom and understanding of the life of humanity under the sun. It is the time related to His justice and righteousness—and to His judgment and mercy. And to His glory and honor. Heaven and Earth will pass away—but the Torah of His Creation is eternal—from glory to glory.
In the mystery of the many and the one, there is a way in which “the many” can be one—but there is no true way in which “the many” can be “the one.”
“Says who?” says the idolater.
“Says the Creator in His Torah,” reply the Jews.
If it is true that “wisdom is a woman” in this cosmos of ours, it is also true that a man of understanding is “the head” of such a woman. But the harlot’s daughter hates this fact. And her hate is misconstrued.
The human body has a heart inside of it. And it has a head on top of it. We can perceive the head with the unaided eye—but the heart is hidden inside the body. So also every individual has a place of interrelationships that is hidden inside of their person—and a prominent identity that is plainly visible as the dominant feature of their individuality—just as plain as their face—on their head—on their body.
Both a woman and a man each have a head and a heart. And they each have their own separate body.
Men have many things in common with a woman—and women have many things in common with a man. The individual and the communal. The many and the one. Even masculine contrast and feminine brightness.
But in this material spatial-temporal world there remains a sacred void of inviolable divergence—at the nexus of the epitome of men and epitome of women. Those who try to breach it do so at great physical
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and emotional peril. It’s no place for mortal minds. It is a lifeless void where madmen go to die a death without end. It is Folly. It is the desolate Sodom of self—and the bondage of the Egypt of alienation.
A man and a woman are distinctly different in the ways that they express themselves as individuals.
A woman expresses herself through her relationships. Her feminine identity is shaped and refined as she relates to the world through togetherness—in her interrelationships—with herself and others.
A man expresses himself through himself. His masculine identity is shaped and refined as he relates to the world through his autonomy—in his surroundings—with or without others.
A woman views the interrelationships of her world as reasons to cooperate. A man views the interrelationships of the world around him as grounds to compete.
A woman intuits the universal and the ideal in the relationships of her world—seeking to create something real and actual. A man engages the particular in the world around him and attempts to construct something great and enduring.
A woman and a man are also definitively different in the ways that they live as a body, with bodies.
A woman’s body is the place where she lives and interacts with the world around her. A man’s body is the means by which he lives and interacts with the world around him.
A man’s body is like a car to him. A woman’s body is like a house to her.
At their best, both of them are looking for a place to call, “home.”
But when their natural desires are expressed selfishly, their bodies are debased as a utilitarian means to self-gratification. A woman’s body becomes little more to a man than a place to garage his car. A man’s body becomes little more to a woman than a means by which to furnish her house.
It’s a sad thing to see a man trying to live his life out of his car—and a woman trying to live her life alone in her house.
Life under the sun was never meant to be this way. And life-times under the moon were never meant to be lived this way.
But the Creator—Who knows the end from the beginning—has given us His Torah of hope. The anticipation of a certainty. The certainty of the particularism of His Torah of geography—and the actualism of His Torah of history.
It is a paradox of the significance of uniqueness—that the infinite significance of universality is predicated on the spatial uniqueness of the particular. And the eternal significance of a timeless ideal, is predicated on the temporal uniqueness of a single action.
The Jewish uniqueness of the voice of Zion speaks to this, saying, “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world.”
And the singular uniqueness of the word that goes forth from Jerusalem, declaring, “And whoever
saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.”
Owen Oyler Friday, 28 February 2025
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