Mussar and "Normalcy" (3)

 

            In our previous discussion, we analyzed some of the "materialistic" values of modern society and discovered, perhaps to the surprise of our religious instincts, their great moral significance.  We gave these principles their due, with the help of Rabbi Roth, categorizing them as "contractual" values as opposed to the "covenantal" ones which typify religious life as such.  Yet all this does not make "normalcy" readily accessible to us.  Alienation is an ever-present problem for one who would live his life according to Torah ethics.  Our appreciation of the secular world enables us to play a role in it, productively and even enthusiastically; but the sense of being an outsider persists.  Why is this so?

 

            Primarily because, while we come to the modern world recognizing the validity of its value system, society does not mutually reciprocate.  It is not merely the fact that the covenantal aspect to humanness is denied in the modern world - though this would be bad enough.  The dismal truth is that the vacuum left by the absence of covenantal values is actually usurped by the secular society.  The goals of self-realization, personal achievement and creativity, along with their corollaries, become magnified out of all proportion.  The marketplace sees them as the be-all and end-all of humanity and demands that they be accorded absolute fealty.  The Mussar approach to life can never identify with this proposition.  Contractual ideals untempered and unfettered become grotesque caricatures of themselves.

 

            As an example, let us consider tzedek (justice).  This ideal has nothing to do with altruism, and is a contractual virtue.  The aim of justice is to guard the rights of the individual; its practical application is achieved in courts of law where rival parties defend their respective interests.  Needless to say, the Torah agrees that justice is of paramount importance, and is practiced by God Himself.  But even such a cardinal concept suffers from the excesses of the secular society.  A case in point is a theory which has been espoused by Israeli Chief Justice Aharon Barak, one of the world's foremost jurists.  In his view, no human activity can be legally neutral.  He writes:

 

All human behavior is subject to judicial regulation.  Even when a certain type of activity - such as friendly relations or subjective thoughts - is governed by the autonomy of the individual will, this autonomy exists because it is recognized by the law.  Without such recognition, anyone could have the right to invade this area (i.e. private autonomy).  (Iyunei Mishpat [Legal Studies] no. 17, [5752], p. 477)

 

            Prof. Barak, in the same article, coined his famous motto: "In my view, the whole earth is full of the law - melo kol ha-aretz mishpat." The presumptuousness of this approach is apparent when we note that the source of Barak's idiom (Yeshayahu 6) is a verse that refers to the Divine Glory.  The above philosophy is applied practically in the Israeli Supreme Court's "legal activism," whereby the judicial apparatus is used to decide issues which appear to have nothing to do with law.[1]  [1]

 

            The human mind, it appears, abhors an ideological vacuum.  When transcendence per se is denied, pervasive secularism intrudes into the empty space, and takes over.  The natural tendency is for people to become "true believers" in the area of their interest (professional or otherwise), thus granting profound existential significance to ideas such as law, democracy, and the free press, which to a religious mind signify no less - but no more - than "yishuvo shel olam," furthering civilization. 

 

            Thus it is that when a conscientious Jew joins society at large in its worthwhile pursuits, and affirms its moral commitment to the freedom of the individual and his right to a fulfilled existence, a part of him is brooding.  He feels the tug of his allegiance to a wholly different set of values which have nothing to do with the pursuit of happiness, an array of concepts which he cannot communicate to his fellows at the economic exchange.

 

            From this alienated vantage-point, the thoughtful religious person becomes sensitized to the various ways in which contractual man appropriates the halo of supposed transcendence.  Let us exploit our outsider status for a few critical glimpses.

 

            Dr. Daniel Shalit is a penetrating observer of modern dilemmas.  In a noteworthy insight, he finds these dilemmas mirrored in the artificial all-encompassing environments in which we spend so much of our time.  The following is from his essay, "Shopping-Mall Man" (in his book Sichot Pnim, Tvai Publishing, 5755, pp. 103-115):

 

The mall presents before our very eyes, essentially and tangibly, the entire culture of our times.  First of all, it is entirely detached from nature - separated from the ground by thousands of square meters of cement, basements, shelters and parking lots.  Secondly, it is detached from Heaven as well - covered by a gigantic plastic dome.  And between the cement and the plastic - a whole man-made world.  Everything - sidewalks, waterfalls and ponds, plants and trees, all that the senses absorb - colors, sounds, smells, humidity, temperature, and of course the walkways, the stairs, the angles - all planned, controlled and computerized to the last detail.  And all so beautiful, so efficient, so brilliant: the victory of Man...

 

One might think that Man would strive to get out, to connect up with what is beyond the mall - i.e. the transcendent.  But no: the direction is, for the time being, not to go out, but to bring INSIDE everything that is OUTSIDE.  Within this so-human creation, the mall, Man builds his own nature and his own super-nature, an Earth and a Heaven.  Would you like nature? Here you are - ponds, plants, bushes, animals.  You prefer something beyond nature? Put on the three-dimensional stereophonic video-mask, and you can fly in the expanses of space, travel back and forth in time, participate in space-battles and dragon wars.  But fantastic movies are only the tip of the iceberg.  The mall is a whole empire of fantasy.  What is sold are mainly "thrill-packages" and not physical objects.  For even physical objects - soap, trousers, and surely cars - are sold, as the ad men have discovered, not for their practical value, but for the dream, the experience that they give to the consumer. 

 

            In the perspective of what we discussed previously, the shopping mall is a concrete (double entendre intended) expression of the demand of the modern marketplace to be total, ultimate.  It asserts that it can satisfy Man's yearning for the truth which is beyond his senses, adapting itself on the one hand, and maneuvering the human mind on the other, to the point where every conceivable need is met within its confines.  The denizens of the mall are blissfully unaware of their pathetic situation.  But ought an outsider be jealous of such "normalcy?"

 

            Shalit finds that the trend is buttressed by the direction taken by modern science.

 

The same thing that manifests itself tangibly in the marketplace, happens more abstractly in science and technology.  Physics, that factual, unemotional and exact science, has long since turned into fantasy.  You can find among today's physical terms magic and strangeness, not to mention quarks and quasars, black holes and the secrets of cosmology.  Physics today is itself "science fiction" ...  Man set out to discover the laws of matter, and ended up discovering, against his will, a kind of spiritual world ...  Likewise in technology - Man set out to build cranes, gears and steam engines, and found himself in the world of programs, communications and information, a world which is essentially spiritual...  Even commerce is no longer barter of needed goods, not even trade in currency, but primarily transfers and directives, arrangements and agreements - all of them "intelligent," non-material activities.  Does anyone have "money?" Metal bars? Copper coins? We hardly have even paper money - we have credit cards, standing orders, understandings and banking arrangements. 

 

            These fascinating developments once again address, and tantalize, the human striving for the beyond.  And here again, it's all an illusion.  Dr. Shalit goes on to state what should be obvious.  True, the concepts of modern physics - energy, magnetic fields, forces, electromagnetic waves - are not as grossly physical as weight, size and distance.  But they are still physical, because they occur in space-time, and can be observed by all.  They are totally different from even the simplest spiritual experiences - pain, guilt, love - which are personal and subjective, and nevertheless real.  But modern man is blind to the distinction; therein lies the danger. 

 

As long as matter was "coarse," as long as the machines were metallic bodies and smokestacks polluted the heavens, it was obvious that man possesses an element which is beyond the mechanical, and that he is therefore compelled to strive for beyond.  But now, when the mechanics have become ethereal and subtle, the need is unclear.  It is not easy to explain to someone why the "memory" and the "thought process" of the computer are essentially different from human memory and thought, why the computer's speech and "intelligence" aren't even the faintest shadow of real speech and intelligence, why music and drawings created by the computer are dead, no matter how perfect.  And so grows a whole generation which doesn't know anything about real speech, real intelligence, inspired music, and all it has is repressed, ill-defined distress.

 

            The foregoing observations focus on recent realities.  In the early 1960's, Rav Soloveitchik noted another variation on our theme.  In "The Lonely Man of Faith," he distinguishes typologically between "Adam the first" and "Adam the second," an archetypical division which parallels Rabbi Roth's distinction between contractual man and covenantal man.  (Rabbi Roth's thinking is in fact heavily influenced by Rav Soloveitchik's writings.) He claims that Adam the first, the "majestic man" of accomplishment and creativity, has undergone a transformation in our time.

 

Majestic Adam has developed a demonic quality; laying claim to unlimited power - alas, to infinity itself ...  I am not referring here to man's daring experiments in space.  From a religious point of view ...  they are quite legitimate and in compliance with the divine testament given to Adam the first that he should rule nature.  When I say that modern man is projecting a demonic image, I am thinking of man's attempt to dominate himself, or to be more precise, of Adam the first's desire to identify himself with the total human personality, declaring his creative talents as ultimate, ignoring completely Adam the second and his preoccupation with the unique and strange transcendental experience... 

 

The desire for total domination colors Majestic Adam's attitude even when he practices religion.

 

He, of course, comes to a place of worship.  He attends lectures on religion and appreciates the ceremonial, yet he is searching not for faith ...  but for religious culture.  He seeks not the greatness found in sacrificial action but the convenience one discovers in a comfortable, serene state of mind.  He is desirous of an aesthetic experience rather than a covenantal one, of a social ethos rather than a divine imperative ...  he is not yet ready for a genuine faith experience which requires the giving of one's self unreservedly to God, who demands unconditional commitment, sacrificial action, and retreat.  Western man diabolically insists on being successful.  Alas, he wants to be successful even in his adventure with God.  If he gives of himself to God, he expects reciprocity.  He also reaches a covenant with God, but this covenant is a mercantile one.  In a primitive manner, he wants to trade "favors" and exchange goods.  The gesture of faith for him is a give-and-take affair... 

 

            This is another way of seeing the secular intrusion into the realm of the transcendent.  Dr. Shalit pointed out this tendency in relation to the modern creation of "alternative" bogus spirituality.  The Rav, on the other hand, documents the exploitation of existing modes of faith-expression as being subject to man's self-interest.  Contractual man comes, even to his encounter with the truly transcendent, equipped only with his bartering, tradesman's mind-set.

 

            This brings us to the close of our examination of whether maintaining twenty-first century "normalcy" is inimical to the serious practice of Mussar.  To speak in general terms, I think that the brunt of the material and observations we have seen appears to preclude a whole-hearted declaration of compatibility.  A more precise answer is something that each person must give himself.  But I will say a bit more about my own feelings on the matter.  It seems to me that while a certain degree of alienation is unavoidable, the unpleasantness is compounded if we feel our religious moorings threatened by the totality of the modern experience.  Without ignoring the dangers that Western society presents, we can view ourselves as a corrective to it, rather than as a species threatened by it.  The modern world started out with some good, beneficial, moral ideas and insights.  It went awry by taking things to unfortunate excess.  Perhaps by maintaining our ties to the society in which we live, our own personal improvement will be a step towards restoration of saner proportions in the world of values.

 

            Our discussions are about to change their focus.  Until now we have been discussing problems of ideology; now we must deal with psychology.  The prospect of motivated change and human growth, which our endeavor assumes possible, arouses serious questions.  Most obviously - how is such change accomplished? One intuitively feels that intellectual study alone is insufficient.  But beyond this, we must investigate how the modern environment influences the capacity to change.  As we will see, there are important factors which make change more difficult today than it was in the past.

 

            It would be fitting to introduce this topic with another quotation from the closing passage of "The Lonely Man of Faith."

 

Modern Adam the second ...  finds himself lonely, forsaken, misunderstood, at times even ridiculed by Adam the first, by himself.  When the hour of estrangement strikes, the ordeal of man of faith begins and he starts his withdrawal from society, from Adam the first - be he an outsider, be he himself.  He returns, like Moses of old, to his solitary hiding and to the abode of loneliness.

 

            The Rav says that Adam the second finds himself estranged to Adam the first, WHO MAY VERY WELL BE HIMSELF.  An individual Jew may find himself identifying with the transcendent goals of the man of faith, and at the next moment - having assimilated Adam the first's drive for dominion - ridicule and fail to understand those same goals.  Now the arena of the struggle, even its very definition, is changed.  It is no longer an ideological grappling with a callous rival, but a psychological wrestling with oneself.  We will try to take a closer look at the nature of this duel, its strategies and tactics.