Embracing our Topsy-Turvy World: Lessons from Jewish Traditions
Rabbi Tom Samuels
From the Torah of Rabbis Kula, Feinstein, Held and Schulweiss, and Professors Donnie Hartman, Ethan Dor-Shav, Atar Hadari an Noam Zion
Introduction
Throughout the the Jewish scriptures, situation after situation unfold in which human beings are thrust into the goop of everyday life. The most unsettling and confusing emotions – envy, anger and fear – drive these stories forward. There’s story after story of wounded, unconscious people who nevertheless accomplish great things, at times precisely because of their mistakes and weaknesses. Our founding national tale, The Exodus, for example, is not only about freedom and liberation, but also about uncertainty, arbitrary evil and the unpredictable contingencies of human history. There can be no permanent security in history because the appearance of a new king “who did not know Joseph” is an ever-present possibility. Even the the very name of the holiday Purim (meaning lottery) suggests the absurdity and vulnerability of historical events when a turn of the wheel, a night’s insomnia, a moment of jealousy on the part of a drunken king spells the difference between degradation and exaltation, between genocide and survival. And then there is the book of Kollet, Ecclesiastics. That the key to embracing life’s transience, uncertainty, is not to build monuments or expand empires, but to find the truth and inner understanding that flows from the eye-opening insight into the fleeting nature of it all. Kohelet’s quest is triggered by the traumatic realization of human transience: that the greatest efforts of the wisest king cannot stop the flow of time, nor can they eliminate suffering and injustice from the world. Life is gone so very quickly, and likewise man’s worldly deeds. Thus, Kohelet’s opening proclamation that “all is hevel, transient.” A thread runs through these myths, our stories: an acceptance of, even an embrace at times of the vulnerability that all of life is, after all, deeply vulnerable: health, success, children can be snatched away overnight. To celebrated the narrow margin by which the Jewish tradition mines meaning from the jaws of tragedy and absurdity in history. That the sweetness of life, the magic of the everyday, should be savored today, for that is all one really has for sure. That every minute counts because it is going to end. That the fleeting joys of life are real, and at that very moment exists all of the meaning of the world. (Kula) This is really a charge to humanity to access our species’ unique ability of the to live and to cope, to navigate the ebbs and flows, and to even thrive in an imperfect, unpredictable and topsy-turvy world.
Passover
The original descent into Egypt was described in the Book of Genesis in terms of Jacob and his family’s flight from a famine that afflicted Canaan. Jacob’s son, Joseph, was a celebrated hero in Egyptian society after singlehandedly forewarning and organizing Egyptian society to withstand seven years of famine, while shrewdly consolidating the Pharaoh’s political and economic control of the land. Because Joseph was so widely revered in Egypt, Jacob was welcomed with great enthusiasm by the Egyptian ruler. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “As regards your father and your brothers who have come to you, the land of Egypt is open before you: settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land; let them stay in the region of Goshen…” (Gen 47:5-6) Thus Israel settled in the country of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they acquired holdings in it, and were fertile and increased greatly. (ibid. 47:27) In gratitude and appreciation for Joseph’s contribution to Egyptian society, the children of Israel became firmly ensconced in Egypt, where they prospered and flourished. But then, at the beginning of the Book of Exodus, the narrative abruptly states: A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people: “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.” (Exod. 1:7-8) A radical change of fortune befalls the children of Israel and 400 years of brutal slavery ensues. The Talmud in Pesachim (116a) says that when we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, we must start with the unpleasant and finish with the pleasant: You begin with (telling about) shame and conclude with praise and thanksgiving. The story of Passover begins by telling about our ancestors’ servitude and immersion in idolatry; only then do we proceed to tell about our liberation. This is a pedagogy for understanding how we are to relate to God, to life itself. That our founding national tale is not only about freedom and liberation, but also about uncertainty, arbitrary evil and the unpredictable contingencies of human history. That the appearance of a new king “who did not know Joseph” is an ever-present possibility.
Purim
In accordance with Jeremiah’s instructions to “build homes … plant gardens … take wives, beget sons and daughters … [to] multiply there.” (Jeremiah 29:5–6), the exiled Jews of the Babylonian conquest of Judea in 586 BCE sought the welfare of the city to which God had exiled them, and in its prosperity, they prospered. In the words of Salo W. Baron: Here they entered the active industrial and commercial life of the country …. They may have pioneered, therefore, in the development of a banking system based on loans granted on the security of real estate mortgages and pawns. … They were a significant factor in accelerating the “progress” of Babylonia’s and Persia’s semi-capitalist economies …. There hardly was any important vocation where Jews … were not represented …. [In Babylonia] Jews apparently belonged to the large middle class …. Within this class … Jews lived on the basis of perfect equality. Those who had amassed great wealth or who possessed some personal merit achieved prominence at the King’s court in Babylon, and to an even greater extent in Susa, the Persian capital …. Neither the Babylonian nor the Persian government seems to have hostilely interfered with the inner life of the Jewish community. (Salo W. Baron) This is the context of the Purim episode. The Book of Esther opens in Shushan, capital city of Persia, celebrating the peace and prosperity of King Ahashverosh’s rule. All the inhabitants of the capital were invited to the party. A Jewish community was concentrated in that city. Jews, then as now, were finding economic opportunity and social acceptance in the post-destruction period; they, too, were invited. Of course, there were old-fashioned, “fanatic” Jews who kept to themselves. (As Haman later said to the king: “There is a people scattered and separated among the nations whose religion is different”) [Esther 3:8].) But the Talmud portrays the Jews of Shushan eating, drinking, and carousing along with all the others. They were more Persian than Jewish, which is why they were so shocked when Haman turned his murderous fury not just against the “fanatic” Jews who wouldn’t bow down, but against all of them. When the resentment Haman generated focused not on the issues but on the Jews, the anti-Semitism-induced “shock of recognition” followed. It seems that the Jews—observant and nonobservant alike—were doing well and living it up in Persia. Then onto this complacent scene came a new prime minister called Haman. He was glorified by everyone except Mordecai the Jew, who refused to bow down to him. In a fit of fury (perhaps it was paranoia or megalomania), Haman determined to kill not only Mordecai but his entire people. He obtained the king’s authorization, cast lots to pick a day for the genocide, and set the wheels of destruction in motion. One can imagine the Jews’ confusion, their inability to understand and believe all this. “And the city of Shushan was bewildered,” says the Megillah. Jews have tended to believe in the goodness of human nature. Who would willfully decide to kill an entire people, an innocent people—men, women, and children? (Almost two millennia later, Alexander Donat explained in his chronicle of the Warsaw ghetto why the Jews did not resort to armed resistance initially: We could not now believe that the Third Reich was a government of gangsters embarked on a program of genocide ‘to solve the Jewish problem in Europe.’ We fell victim to our faith in mankind. Alexander Donat) The Jews of Persia thus experienced a capricious, almost incredible reversal. One minute they were highly integrated, loyal citizens of Persia, basking in their acceptance, invited and fully present at great civic moments of Persian life like the king’s feast. The very name of the holiday—Purim (meaning lottery)—suggests the absurdity and vulnerability of historical events when a turn of the wheel, a night’s insomnia, a moment of jealousy on the part of a drunken king spells the difference between degradation and exaltation, between genocide and survival. (It reminds one of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago: If Stalin had lived another few months, would not all the Jews of Russia have been killed and/or deported to Siberian concentration camps?)
The Two Creation Myths: Genesis and Job
The Biblical authors invite us to see both the order and chaos of the most amazing creative act of all: the story of the creation of the world. They gave us two stories of creation, two versions of how the world was born. The first version acknowledges the yearning for order, stability, and simplicity. Things seem to swim along marvelously, unfolding as God hopes and expects them to. “When God began to create heaven and earth – the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and wind from God sweeping over the water – God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light…And there was evening and there was morning; a first day.” Here God is filling the void in the most orderly of ways. There are six days that follow in the story, each day a new manifestation of life: from the earth and sea to the creation of humankind, “in the image of God…male and female God created them.” Just like that. And to top it all off, the first week ends with one day of rest, of peace and relaxation for the Creator. But there is another, very different creation story that is embedded in the Book of Job. This version reminds us in no uncertain terms of the intensity and chaos just under the surface. That life, in fact, is a dialectic between order and chaos, harmony and conflict. Job is perhaps the messiest biblical story of all: a seemingly perfect life, a man blessed in every way with good fortune who is utterly ruined, it seems, for no reason at all. He suffers poverty, illness, and the death of loved ones. It all seems senseless and totally unfair, and Job understandably cries out. There are more than 30 chapters of conversation between Job and his friends, who try to justify what has happened to Job. They even accuse him of having done something worthy of this punishment. They were desperate to find a reason, to make meaning out of something which just might be meaningless. Don’t we all do that? In our efforts to find “reason” for the unreasonable, to justify the unjustifiable, we blame or insinuate or deflect. And then there’s a voice from the whirlwind that reminds Job how God created all there is. Unlike Genesis, which is told by an omniscient narrator, Job’s story is told in the first person voice of the Creator, the voice of “I.” This is how God sees it; or really how we all, at times, experience life. The language here is a beautifully poetic as it is fierce: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?...Who closed the sea behind doors when it gushed forth out of the womb…when I made breakers…and set up it bar and doors?...Have you ever commanded the day to break, assigned dawn to its place so that it seizes the corners of the earth and shakes the wicked out of it? Have you seen the gates of the deep darkness?” Chaos is always threatening to break through: The doors are kept closed by force of will; all of Creation is incredibly, intricacly fragile, always in flux. Creation is the story of confinement and channeling of chaos rather than its elimination. And so, while the Genesis creation story represents our deepest hope, Job reflects our most honest experience of reality: That the infinite beauty of creation is inseparable from its destructiveness. The biblical authors don’t favor one version of creation over the other. They understand that creativity alternates between chaos and order. An ongoing process of ordering and chaos-ing. The sages invite us again and again into the soup of creativity. They remind us that even when things seem to be going swimmingly, there’s no way it’s going to last, not even for more than one chapter, not even for God. Right after the beautiful, simple act of creation in Genesis, for example, that blissful, productive first week where humankind is created in the image of God - “from the dust of the earth.” Things are already getting a little messy!
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes is one of the Five Scrolls that are read at different points along the Jewish yearly calendar: Song of Songs on Passover; Ruth on Shavuot; Lamentations on Tisha B’Av; Esther on Purim; and Ecclesiastes on Sukkoth. Ecclesiastes is a philosophical account of the attempt to find happiness by a man who has everything. Written in the name of “Kohelet son of David, King in Jerusalem,” דִּבְרֵי קֹהֶלֶת בֶּן-דָּוִד, מֶלֶךְ בִּירוּשָׁלִָם, the book has traditionally been attributed to Solomon, who reigned during the golden age of Israel’s united kingdom, circa 970 to 931 B.C.E. Kohellet takes as his starting point not revelation, a dialogue with God as in Job’s case, or blind acceptance as in the cases of Jesus and Mohammed, but man’s personal need for meaning. In other words, Ecclesiastes is not about what God wants of us, but about what we want for ourselves. The central message of Ecclesiastes may be encapsulated in a single word: Hevel, from his famous line: הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים אָמַר קֹהֶלֶת, הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים הַכֹּל הָבֶל. Usually translated as “vanity.” (From the Latin: Vanitas vanitatum omina vanitas, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, 405 a.d.), the word appears 38 times in the text, and it is clearly critical to understanding the book’s message. It is most commonly understood to mean futility or meaninglessness, or the idea that anything we do is in vain.
Yet Hevel is also the Hebrew name of Abel, Cain’s brother, the son of Adam and Eve: (Genesis 4:1-8) וְהָאָדָם, יָדַע אֶת-חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ; וַתַּהַר, וַתֵּלֶד אֶת-קַיִן, וַתֹּאמֶר, קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת-יְהוָה. וַתֹּסֶף לָלֶדֶת, אֶת-אָחִיו אֶת-הָבֶל; וַיְהִי-הֶבֶל, רֹעֵה צֹאן, וְקַיִן, הָיָה עֹבֵד אֲדָמָה.ג וַיְהִי, מִקֵּץ יָמִים; וַיָּבֵא קַיִן מִפְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה, מִנְחָה לַיהוָה הֶבֶל הֵבִיא גַם-הוּא מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ, וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן; וַיִּשַׁע יְהוָה, אֶל-הֶבֶל וְאֶל-מִנְחָתוֹ. וְאֶל-קַיִן וְאֶל-מִנְחָתוֹ, לֹא שָׁעָה; וַיִּחַר לְקַיִן מְאֹד, וַיִּפְּלוּ פָּנָיו. וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה, אֶל-קָיִן: לָמָּה חָרָה לָךְ, וְלָמָּה נָפְלוּ פָנֶיךָ. הֲלוֹא תֵּיטִיב, שְׂאֵת, וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב, לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ; וְאֵלֶיךָ, וּקָתוֹ,וְאַתָּה,מְשָׁל-בּוֹ. וַיֹּאמֶר קַיִן, אֶל-הֶבֶל אָחִיו; וַיְהִי בִּהְיוֹתָם בַּשָּׂדֶה, וַיָּקָם קַיִן אֶל-הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיַּהַרְגֵהוּ. "Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” Then she bore again, this time his brother Hevel. Now Hevel was a pastor of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Hevel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord heeded Hevel and his offering, but he did not heed Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you better, you will transcend. And if you do not better, sin lies at the door. And its desire is toward you, and you will be its master.” Now Cain said to Hevel--and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Hevel his brother and killed him."
Abel is the first human being to die. Just two verses after humankind was denied the Tree of Eternal Life, his story becomes the embodiment of human mortality. Our transient realities. He is also the paradigmatic shepherd. Like the Bible’s greatest heroes: Abraham, Isaac, Rachel, Jacob, Moses and David. Shepherds are ever mobile, and their presence in the Bible symbolizes the idea of life as a journey, and spirituality as an ongoing quest. Abel is the forerunner of this spiritual lineage, and his transient life the inspiration for all those on a quest for enlightenment. Perhaps a more theologically accurate reading of hevel, then, and one that provides us with an extremely important tool for understanding both Genesis and Ecclesiastes, takes us back to the root meaning of the word: Vapor or mist. Hevel is a part of family of words for “breath”: Nefesh, life, comes from the verb meaning “to breathe deeply”; Neshamah, soul, means “to inhale”; Ruach, spirit, is also the word for wind. Havel means, specifically, “a shallow breath.” That seeking refuge in wealth and possessions, or even in books and wisdom, is futile, since life is no more than a fleeting breath. What is important about the life of Abel is not its futility, but its transience. It was as fleeting as a puff of air, yet his life’s calling was nonetheless fulfilled. This, too, is the meaning of hevel in Ecclesiastes: Not the dismissive “vanity,” but the more objective “transience,” referring strictly to mortality and the fleeting nature of human life. Ecclesiastes is thus a sustained meditation on the sheer vulnerability of life. A process of discovery and self awareness of life’s transient nature.
CONCLUSIONS
Rather than teach absolute truths, Jewish teachings invite us to dance with dualities and contradictions: Life and Death; Hate and Love; Right and Wrong: Sorrow and Joy. There is no perfect balance nor final solutions; no end to the highs and lows, to the darkness and the light. There is so much richness, so much dimension, in those tensions and anxieties; so many opportunities to deepen our understanding. Building a life is an endless and glorious project. The Bible has at the outset the story of generations of a family in their pain and insanity. There is no Eureka moment where the grand order of the universe is finally revealed, where life becomes simple and neat. Quite the opposite. There’s no novel or soap opera that even comes close to matching the drama and dysfunction of these families: betrayal, favoritism, exile, and murder. For every moment of courage, for every time of great healing, there is a moment of weakness, of hurt or disappointment: The balance is always there. This is what makes the Bible, Jewish tradition and messaging, holy. It invites us to find ever-expanding meaning in both the messy and the neat; the triumphs and disappointments; the weaving and the unraveling. It’s up to us to see the holiness in all this drama; to bring it to life with our own reading and our own living. The Biblical authors did their best to wake us up. They understood that so much more can be learned from disarray, from upset, than from placidity and safety. It advocates for a celebration of the inevitable messiness of life, of living with grace within the very midst of uncertainty. It offers powerful ideas and tools for living with the anxieties of contemporary life: its ambiguities, its contradictions, its insecurities. It is the bitter discovery of mortality, of the inherent transience of all things life, that propels the Kohelets, the Siddharthas of every generation, to embark on a spiritual journey “to find the real meaning of life and death”. Franz Rosenzweig taught that only if life is limited does it have meaning, is the magic of the everyday, that every minute counts because it is going to end, that we have limited time here. That only death gives us meaning. That the fleeting joys of life are real, and at that very moment exits all of the meaning of the world. Like fleeting cherry blossoms, almost sacredly ephemeral, the transience of hevel inspires existential transformation. It encapsulates the beauty of sunsets, autumn leaves, or the Impressionist’s fascination with fleeting light. For it is precisely the transience of these things that moves us. By understanding the fleeting nature of life as a whole, we are no longer paralyzed by the burden of death. Life’s transience is dynamically transformed into a powerful motivational force: An urgency to live, to experience joy, to take action. And then we both end and begin our quest by affirming the absolute value of mortal existence. In this way he resolves the existential frustration that tormented him at the beginning of the book: While Jewish tradition undoubtedly accepts the idea of an afterlife, it is never to be allowed to take over our consciousness. To the end, life itself must remain the focus of man’s existence. That the key to embracing transience is not to build monuments or expand empires, but to find the truth and inner understanding that flows from the eye-opening insight into the fleeting nature of it all. To realize, to embrace, that the greatest efforts of the wisest king cannot stop the flow of time, nor can they eliminate suffering and injustice from the world. Life is gone so very quickly, and likewise man’s worldly deeds.
Thus, Kohelet’s opening proclamation that “all is hevel,” seeks to confront his listeners with man’s own mortality. It is in this context that we may reread the verses of Ecclesiastes: (12:5-8) גַּם מִגָּבֹהַּ יִרָאוּ, וְחַתְחַתִּים בַּדֶּרֶךְ, וְיָנֵאץ הַשָּׁקֵד וְיִסְתַּבֵּל הֶחָגָב, וְתָפֵר הָאֲבִיּוֹנָה: כִּי-הֹלֵךְ הָאָדָם אֶל-בֵּית עוֹלָמוֹ, וְסָבְבוּ בַשּׁוּק הַסּוֹפְדִים. עַד אֲשֶׁר לֹא-ירחק (יֵרָתֵק) חֶבֶל הַכֶּסֶף, וְתָרוּץ גֻּלַּת הַזָּהָב; וְתִשָּׁבֶר כַּד עַל-הַמַּבּוּעַ, וְנָרֹץ הַגַּלְגַּל אֶל-הַבּוֹר. וְיָשֹׁב הֶעָפָר עַל-הָאָרֶץ, כְּשֶׁהָיָה; וְהָרוּחַ תָּשׁוּב, אֶל-הָאֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר נְתָנָהּ. הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים אָמַר הַקּוֹהֶלֶת, הַכֹּל הָבֶל "Man sets out for his eternal abode, with mourners all around in the street.… And the dust returns to the ground as it was, and the lifebreath returns to God who bestowed it. Hevel havalim, fleeting transience, says Kohelet. All is hevel, fleeting."
Rabbi Tom Samuels
From the Torah of Rabbis Kula, Feinstein, Held and Schulweiss, and Professors Donnie Hartman, Ethan Dor-Shav, Atar Hadari an Noam Zion
Introduction
Throughout the the Jewish scriptures, situation after situation unfold in which human beings are thrust into the goop of everyday life. The most unsettling and confusing emotions – envy, anger and fear – drive these stories forward. There’s story after story of wounded, unconscious people who nevertheless accomplish great things, at times precisely because of their mistakes and weaknesses. Our founding national tale, The Exodus, for example, is not only about freedom and liberation, but also about uncertainty, arbitrary evil and the unpredictable contingencies of human history. There can be no permanent security in history because the appearance of a new king “who did not know Joseph” is an ever-present possibility. Even the the very name of the holiday Purim (meaning lottery) suggests the absurdity and vulnerability of historical events when a turn of the wheel, a night’s insomnia, a moment of jealousy on the part of a drunken king spells the difference between degradation and exaltation, between genocide and survival. And then there is the book of Kollet, Ecclesiastics. That the key to embracing life’s transience, uncertainty, is not to build monuments or expand empires, but to find the truth and inner understanding that flows from the eye-opening insight into the fleeting nature of it all. Kohelet’s quest is triggered by the traumatic realization of human transience: that the greatest efforts of the wisest king cannot stop the flow of time, nor can they eliminate suffering and injustice from the world. Life is gone so very quickly, and likewise man’s worldly deeds. Thus, Kohelet’s opening proclamation that “all is hevel, transient.” A thread runs through these myths, our stories: an acceptance of, even an embrace at times of the vulnerability that all of life is, after all, deeply vulnerable: health, success, children can be snatched away overnight. To celebrated the narrow margin by which the Jewish tradition mines meaning from the jaws of tragedy and absurdity in history. That the sweetness of life, the magic of the everyday, should be savored today, for that is all one really has for sure. That every minute counts because it is going to end. That the fleeting joys of life are real, and at that very moment exists all of the meaning of the world. (Kula) This is really a charge to humanity to access our species’ unique ability of the to live and to cope, to navigate the ebbs and flows, and to even thrive in an imperfect, unpredictable and topsy-turvy world.
Passover
The original descent into Egypt was described in the Book of Genesis in terms of Jacob and his family’s flight from a famine that afflicted Canaan. Jacob’s son, Joseph, was a celebrated hero in Egyptian society after singlehandedly forewarning and organizing Egyptian society to withstand seven years of famine, while shrewdly consolidating the Pharaoh’s political and economic control of the land. Because Joseph was so widely revered in Egypt, Jacob was welcomed with great enthusiasm by the Egyptian ruler. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “As regards your father and your brothers who have come to you, the land of Egypt is open before you: settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land; let them stay in the region of Goshen…” (Gen 47:5-6) Thus Israel settled in the country of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they acquired holdings in it, and were fertile and increased greatly. (ibid. 47:27) In gratitude and appreciation for Joseph’s contribution to Egyptian society, the children of Israel became firmly ensconced in Egypt, where they prospered and flourished. But then, at the beginning of the Book of Exodus, the narrative abruptly states: A new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people: “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.” (Exod. 1:7-8) A radical change of fortune befalls the children of Israel and 400 years of brutal slavery ensues. The Talmud in Pesachim (116a) says that when we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, we must start with the unpleasant and finish with the pleasant: You begin with (telling about) shame and conclude with praise and thanksgiving. The story of Passover begins by telling about our ancestors’ servitude and immersion in idolatry; only then do we proceed to tell about our liberation. This is a pedagogy for understanding how we are to relate to God, to life itself. That our founding national tale is not only about freedom and liberation, but also about uncertainty, arbitrary evil and the unpredictable contingencies of human history. That the appearance of a new king “who did not know Joseph” is an ever-present possibility.
Purim
In accordance with Jeremiah’s instructions to “build homes … plant gardens … take wives, beget sons and daughters … [to] multiply there.” (Jeremiah 29:5–6), the exiled Jews of the Babylonian conquest of Judea in 586 BCE sought the welfare of the city to which God had exiled them, and in its prosperity, they prospered. In the words of Salo W. Baron: Here they entered the active industrial and commercial life of the country …. They may have pioneered, therefore, in the development of a banking system based on loans granted on the security of real estate mortgages and pawns. … They were a significant factor in accelerating the “progress” of Babylonia’s and Persia’s semi-capitalist economies …. There hardly was any important vocation where Jews … were not represented …. [In Babylonia] Jews apparently belonged to the large middle class …. Within this class … Jews lived on the basis of perfect equality. Those who had amassed great wealth or who possessed some personal merit achieved prominence at the King’s court in Babylon, and to an even greater extent in Susa, the Persian capital …. Neither the Babylonian nor the Persian government seems to have hostilely interfered with the inner life of the Jewish community. (Salo W. Baron) This is the context of the Purim episode. The Book of Esther opens in Shushan, capital city of Persia, celebrating the peace and prosperity of King Ahashverosh’s rule. All the inhabitants of the capital were invited to the party. A Jewish community was concentrated in that city. Jews, then as now, were finding economic opportunity and social acceptance in the post-destruction period; they, too, were invited. Of course, there were old-fashioned, “fanatic” Jews who kept to themselves. (As Haman later said to the king: “There is a people scattered and separated among the nations whose religion is different”) [Esther 3:8].) But the Talmud portrays the Jews of Shushan eating, drinking, and carousing along with all the others. They were more Persian than Jewish, which is why they were so shocked when Haman turned his murderous fury not just against the “fanatic” Jews who wouldn’t bow down, but against all of them. When the resentment Haman generated focused not on the issues but on the Jews, the anti-Semitism-induced “shock of recognition” followed. It seems that the Jews—observant and nonobservant alike—were doing well and living it up in Persia. Then onto this complacent scene came a new prime minister called Haman. He was glorified by everyone except Mordecai the Jew, who refused to bow down to him. In a fit of fury (perhaps it was paranoia or megalomania), Haman determined to kill not only Mordecai but his entire people. He obtained the king’s authorization, cast lots to pick a day for the genocide, and set the wheels of destruction in motion. One can imagine the Jews’ confusion, their inability to understand and believe all this. “And the city of Shushan was bewildered,” says the Megillah. Jews have tended to believe in the goodness of human nature. Who would willfully decide to kill an entire people, an innocent people—men, women, and children? (Almost two millennia later, Alexander Donat explained in his chronicle of the Warsaw ghetto why the Jews did not resort to armed resistance initially: We could not now believe that the Third Reich was a government of gangsters embarked on a program of genocide ‘to solve the Jewish problem in Europe.’ We fell victim to our faith in mankind. Alexander Donat) The Jews of Persia thus experienced a capricious, almost incredible reversal. One minute they were highly integrated, loyal citizens of Persia, basking in their acceptance, invited and fully present at great civic moments of Persian life like the king’s feast. The very name of the holiday—Purim (meaning lottery)—suggests the absurdity and vulnerability of historical events when a turn of the wheel, a night’s insomnia, a moment of jealousy on the part of a drunken king spells the difference between degradation and exaltation, between genocide and survival. (It reminds one of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago: If Stalin had lived another few months, would not all the Jews of Russia have been killed and/or deported to Siberian concentration camps?)
The Two Creation Myths: Genesis and Job
The Biblical authors invite us to see both the order and chaos of the most amazing creative act of all: the story of the creation of the world. They gave us two stories of creation, two versions of how the world was born. The first version acknowledges the yearning for order, stability, and simplicity. Things seem to swim along marvelously, unfolding as God hopes and expects them to. “When God began to create heaven and earth – the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and wind from God sweeping over the water – God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light…And there was evening and there was morning; a first day.” Here God is filling the void in the most orderly of ways. There are six days that follow in the story, each day a new manifestation of life: from the earth and sea to the creation of humankind, “in the image of God…male and female God created them.” Just like that. And to top it all off, the first week ends with one day of rest, of peace and relaxation for the Creator. But there is another, very different creation story that is embedded in the Book of Job. This version reminds us in no uncertain terms of the intensity and chaos just under the surface. That life, in fact, is a dialectic between order and chaos, harmony and conflict. Job is perhaps the messiest biblical story of all: a seemingly perfect life, a man blessed in every way with good fortune who is utterly ruined, it seems, for no reason at all. He suffers poverty, illness, and the death of loved ones. It all seems senseless and totally unfair, and Job understandably cries out. There are more than 30 chapters of conversation between Job and his friends, who try to justify what has happened to Job. They even accuse him of having done something worthy of this punishment. They were desperate to find a reason, to make meaning out of something which just might be meaningless. Don’t we all do that? In our efforts to find “reason” for the unreasonable, to justify the unjustifiable, we blame or insinuate or deflect. And then there’s a voice from the whirlwind that reminds Job how God created all there is. Unlike Genesis, which is told by an omniscient narrator, Job’s story is told in the first person voice of the Creator, the voice of “I.” This is how God sees it; or really how we all, at times, experience life. The language here is a beautifully poetic as it is fierce: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?...Who closed the sea behind doors when it gushed forth out of the womb…when I made breakers…and set up it bar and doors?...Have you ever commanded the day to break, assigned dawn to its place so that it seizes the corners of the earth and shakes the wicked out of it? Have you seen the gates of the deep darkness?” Chaos is always threatening to break through: The doors are kept closed by force of will; all of Creation is incredibly, intricacly fragile, always in flux. Creation is the story of confinement and channeling of chaos rather than its elimination. And so, while the Genesis creation story represents our deepest hope, Job reflects our most honest experience of reality: That the infinite beauty of creation is inseparable from its destructiveness. The biblical authors don’t favor one version of creation over the other. They understand that creativity alternates between chaos and order. An ongoing process of ordering and chaos-ing. The sages invite us again and again into the soup of creativity. They remind us that even when things seem to be going swimmingly, there’s no way it’s going to last, not even for more than one chapter, not even for God. Right after the beautiful, simple act of creation in Genesis, for example, that blissful, productive first week where humankind is created in the image of God - “from the dust of the earth.” Things are already getting a little messy!
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes is one of the Five Scrolls that are read at different points along the Jewish yearly calendar: Song of Songs on Passover; Ruth on Shavuot; Lamentations on Tisha B’Av; Esther on Purim; and Ecclesiastes on Sukkoth. Ecclesiastes is a philosophical account of the attempt to find happiness by a man who has everything. Written in the name of “Kohelet son of David, King in Jerusalem,” דִּבְרֵי קֹהֶלֶת בֶּן-דָּוִד, מֶלֶךְ בִּירוּשָׁלִָם, the book has traditionally been attributed to Solomon, who reigned during the golden age of Israel’s united kingdom, circa 970 to 931 B.C.E. Kohellet takes as his starting point not revelation, a dialogue with God as in Job’s case, or blind acceptance as in the cases of Jesus and Mohammed, but man’s personal need for meaning. In other words, Ecclesiastes is not about what God wants of us, but about what we want for ourselves. The central message of Ecclesiastes may be encapsulated in a single word: Hevel, from his famous line: הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים אָמַר קֹהֶלֶת, הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים הַכֹּל הָבֶל. Usually translated as “vanity.” (From the Latin: Vanitas vanitatum omina vanitas, Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, 405 a.d.), the word appears 38 times in the text, and it is clearly critical to understanding the book’s message. It is most commonly understood to mean futility or meaninglessness, or the idea that anything we do is in vain.
Yet Hevel is also the Hebrew name of Abel, Cain’s brother, the son of Adam and Eve: (Genesis 4:1-8) וְהָאָדָם, יָדַע אֶת-חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ; וַתַּהַר, וַתֵּלֶד אֶת-קַיִן, וַתֹּאמֶר, קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת-יְהוָה. וַתֹּסֶף לָלֶדֶת, אֶת-אָחִיו אֶת-הָבֶל; וַיְהִי-הֶבֶל, רֹעֵה צֹאן, וְקַיִן, הָיָה עֹבֵד אֲדָמָה.ג וַיְהִי, מִקֵּץ יָמִים; וַיָּבֵא קַיִן מִפְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה, מִנְחָה לַיהוָה הֶבֶל הֵבִיא גַם-הוּא מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ, וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן; וַיִּשַׁע יְהוָה, אֶל-הֶבֶל וְאֶל-מִנְחָתוֹ. וְאֶל-קַיִן וְאֶל-מִנְחָתוֹ, לֹא שָׁעָה; וַיִּחַר לְקַיִן מְאֹד, וַיִּפְּלוּ פָּנָיו. וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה, אֶל-קָיִן: לָמָּה חָרָה לָךְ, וְלָמָּה נָפְלוּ פָנֶיךָ. הֲלוֹא תֵּיטִיב, שְׂאֵת, וְאִם לֹא תֵיטִיב, לַפֶּתַח חַטָּאת רֹבֵץ; וְאֵלֶיךָ, וּקָתוֹ,וְאַתָּה,מְשָׁל-בּוֹ. וַיֹּאמֶר קַיִן, אֶל-הֶבֶל אָחִיו; וַיְהִי בִּהְיוֹתָם בַּשָּׂדֶה, וַיָּקָם קַיִן אֶל-הֶבֶל אָחִיו וַיַּהַרְגֵהוּ. "Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” Then she bore again, this time his brother Hevel. Now Hevel was a pastor of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Hevel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord heeded Hevel and his offering, but he did not heed Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you better, you will transcend. And if you do not better, sin lies at the door. And its desire is toward you, and you will be its master.” Now Cain said to Hevel--and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Hevel his brother and killed him."
Abel is the first human being to die. Just two verses after humankind was denied the Tree of Eternal Life, his story becomes the embodiment of human mortality. Our transient realities. He is also the paradigmatic shepherd. Like the Bible’s greatest heroes: Abraham, Isaac, Rachel, Jacob, Moses and David. Shepherds are ever mobile, and their presence in the Bible symbolizes the idea of life as a journey, and spirituality as an ongoing quest. Abel is the forerunner of this spiritual lineage, and his transient life the inspiration for all those on a quest for enlightenment. Perhaps a more theologically accurate reading of hevel, then, and one that provides us with an extremely important tool for understanding both Genesis and Ecclesiastes, takes us back to the root meaning of the word: Vapor or mist. Hevel is a part of family of words for “breath”: Nefesh, life, comes from the verb meaning “to breathe deeply”; Neshamah, soul, means “to inhale”; Ruach, spirit, is also the word for wind. Havel means, specifically, “a shallow breath.” That seeking refuge in wealth and possessions, or even in books and wisdom, is futile, since life is no more than a fleeting breath. What is important about the life of Abel is not its futility, but its transience. It was as fleeting as a puff of air, yet his life’s calling was nonetheless fulfilled. This, too, is the meaning of hevel in Ecclesiastes: Not the dismissive “vanity,” but the more objective “transience,” referring strictly to mortality and the fleeting nature of human life. Ecclesiastes is thus a sustained meditation on the sheer vulnerability of life. A process of discovery and self awareness of life’s transient nature.
CONCLUSIONS
Rather than teach absolute truths, Jewish teachings invite us to dance with dualities and contradictions: Life and Death; Hate and Love; Right and Wrong: Sorrow and Joy. There is no perfect balance nor final solutions; no end to the highs and lows, to the darkness and the light. There is so much richness, so much dimension, in those tensions and anxieties; so many opportunities to deepen our understanding. Building a life is an endless and glorious project. The Bible has at the outset the story of generations of a family in their pain and insanity. There is no Eureka moment where the grand order of the universe is finally revealed, where life becomes simple and neat. Quite the opposite. There’s no novel or soap opera that even comes close to matching the drama and dysfunction of these families: betrayal, favoritism, exile, and murder. For every moment of courage, for every time of great healing, there is a moment of weakness, of hurt or disappointment: The balance is always there. This is what makes the Bible, Jewish tradition and messaging, holy. It invites us to find ever-expanding meaning in both the messy and the neat; the triumphs and disappointments; the weaving and the unraveling. It’s up to us to see the holiness in all this drama; to bring it to life with our own reading and our own living. The Biblical authors did their best to wake us up. They understood that so much more can be learned from disarray, from upset, than from placidity and safety. It advocates for a celebration of the inevitable messiness of life, of living with grace within the very midst of uncertainty. It offers powerful ideas and tools for living with the anxieties of contemporary life: its ambiguities, its contradictions, its insecurities. It is the bitter discovery of mortality, of the inherent transience of all things life, that propels the Kohelets, the Siddharthas of every generation, to embark on a spiritual journey “to find the real meaning of life and death”. Franz Rosenzweig taught that only if life is limited does it have meaning, is the magic of the everyday, that every minute counts because it is going to end, that we have limited time here. That only death gives us meaning. That the fleeting joys of life are real, and at that very moment exits all of the meaning of the world. Like fleeting cherry blossoms, almost sacredly ephemeral, the transience of hevel inspires existential transformation. It encapsulates the beauty of sunsets, autumn leaves, or the Impressionist’s fascination with fleeting light. For it is precisely the transience of these things that moves us. By understanding the fleeting nature of life as a whole, we are no longer paralyzed by the burden of death. Life’s transience is dynamically transformed into a powerful motivational force: An urgency to live, to experience joy, to take action. And then we both end and begin our quest by affirming the absolute value of mortal existence. In this way he resolves the existential frustration that tormented him at the beginning of the book: While Jewish tradition undoubtedly accepts the idea of an afterlife, it is never to be allowed to take over our consciousness. To the end, life itself must remain the focus of man’s existence. That the key to embracing transience is not to build monuments or expand empires, but to find the truth and inner understanding that flows from the eye-opening insight into the fleeting nature of it all. To realize, to embrace, that the greatest efforts of the wisest king cannot stop the flow of time, nor can they eliminate suffering and injustice from the world. Life is gone so very quickly, and likewise man’s worldly deeds.
Thus, Kohelet’s opening proclamation that “all is hevel,” seeks to confront his listeners with man’s own mortality. It is in this context that we may reread the verses of Ecclesiastes: (12:5-8) גַּם מִגָּבֹהַּ יִרָאוּ, וְחַתְחַתִּים בַּדֶּרֶךְ, וְיָנֵאץ הַשָּׁקֵד וְיִסְתַּבֵּל הֶחָגָב, וְתָפֵר הָאֲבִיּוֹנָה: כִּי-הֹלֵךְ הָאָדָם אֶל-בֵּית עוֹלָמוֹ, וְסָבְבוּ בַשּׁוּק הַסּוֹפְדִים. עַד אֲשֶׁר לֹא-ירחק (יֵרָתֵק) חֶבֶל הַכֶּסֶף, וְתָרוּץ גֻּלַּת הַזָּהָב; וְתִשָּׁבֶר כַּד עַל-הַמַּבּוּעַ, וְנָרֹץ הַגַּלְגַּל אֶל-הַבּוֹר. וְיָשֹׁב הֶעָפָר עַל-הָאָרֶץ, כְּשֶׁהָיָה; וְהָרוּחַ תָּשׁוּב, אֶל-הָאֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר נְתָנָהּ. הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים אָמַר הַקּוֹהֶלֶת, הַכֹּל הָבֶל "Man sets out for his eternal abode, with mourners all around in the street.… And the dust returns to the ground as it was, and the lifebreath returns to God who bestowed it. Hevel havalim, fleeting transience, says Kohelet. All is hevel, fleeting."