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Kedusha and Existential Reality
Translated from Hebrew by S.
NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
The Aesthetic
Factor in Judaism
There is no doubt as to the emphasis on the aesthetic factor in the
Mishkan, the desert Tabernacle: The vessels of the Mishkan are made of
gold. In the breastplate, all manner of precious stones are inlaid. The
“cherubs” have faces like infant babes, despite the fact that this could
serve as a reminder of the prohibition against graven images. Tahash
skins: The tahash was an animal created solely for the purpose of
beautifying the Mishkan; its like existed nowhere else in nature.
Even avodat hakorbanot, the worship of the sacrificial offerings
has a whiff of aesthetic ritualism about it. From a broader and more
encompassing view, ritual does not appear to occupy an important place in
God’s service. Yet here the service of the Mishkan relates to the order of
the sacrificial offering, to the fire upon the altar, with utterly stern
gravity. One need only mention the death of Aharon’s sons for deviating
from the order of offering: “They had offered strange fire”.
If we would define aesthetics as the experience created by the encounter
between the object and the human subject, or to put it more precisely, the
impression that such an encounter creates in the human being, then we could
view the aesthetic factor as one of great significance – for stimulating and
activating one’s inner human qualities, one’s emotional/spiritual qualities
of intellect and feeling.
Thus we can say that aesthetics does not actually exist in the object,
but rather, for the most part, in the inner human awareness. Furthermore,
we might say that the higher the quality of this inner awareness, the more
fully it is capable of extracting the given conditions of the environment,
and of organizing them into a harmony that is compatible with the harmony
existing in the human being who is encountering them.
Here we see that one may not organize ethics, rational thought, and
aesthetics into separate spheres. Morality in itself is an important
component of the aesthetic, just as the external conditions of reality
participate in its expression. An artist who is deficient in moral feeling,
in his own perceptions and in his own personal behavior, is flawed also as
an artist and not only as a human being.
The fact that many artists have much that is lacking in their moral
behavior points to an excessive concentration on the aesthetic as
disconnected from life, as disconnected even from their own personalities.
The art of such as these is short of expression. Ultimately these artists
are abandoned for the empty vessels they are.
This detachment ultimately takes its revenge on them, endangering their
emotional and physical stability and shortening their lives.
Thus the Torah writes: “There is no tsur, no rock, like our God.”
Rashi: “There is no tsayar, no artist, like our God.” “This is my
God, and I will beautify Him.” “Beautify yourself before Him with mitsvot:
A beautiful etrog, etc.” And “whoever did not see the building that
Hordos built (for the Bet HaMikdash) never saw a beautiful building in his
life.” And “a talmid hacham found with a spot on his garment –
incurs the death penalty.” Aesthetic sensitivity is one of the prime
indicators of aristocracy of the spirit.
The Mishkan was an expression for the aesthetic essence in man. It was a
place where the individual could find expression for the qualitative truth
found in the dimension of height – that place where his own unique quality
could encounter the qualitative essence of the Godly dimension found in
creation.
In this Mishkan, place of aesthetic expression, through the act of
korbanot, (in which each person had his own particular korban)
private, individual, personal need found expression.
In the public ritual conducted for all the people – the seven days of
miluim – the essence of the quality of the people was revealed.
Giluy panim, the revealing of the Face, was exposed in its most perfect
incarnation, dynamically, through the dibur, the Word, coming forth
from between the two cruvim and the parochet.
This dynamic activity was undertaken by both partners in the covenant:
Human expression – aesthetic endeavor – encountered and activated and
exposed the Godly Presence – and “all the earth was filled with His glory.”
One aspect of the human activity wasLehem hapanim: “Face bread.”
“For it has a face.” The midrash emphasizes the perfect freshness of the
lehem hapanim that kept all the days of the week. It was so fresh as
to be no different than the set of new bread that came to replace it at the
end of the week.
Lehem hapanim was the anithesis of the mahn, that appeared
from a timeless source, and remained ever timeless. For the mahn was
not the handiwork of flesh and blood and not a product of human effort. It
would appear, and then disappear just as it had come, and it would be
absorbed effortlessly into the limbs: An utterly miraculous item in which
the division of labor between the two allies was not expressed at all. This
was a division that did not obey the principle of partnership. One side
created, and bestowed, while the other side took, and enjoyed.
With the lehem hapanim, in contrast, one side toiled, and braided,
and baked, while it was eaten by the other side, by the cohanim.
(See the mishna at the end of Suca, and the Rambam, Avoda, Ch.
4, ma’aseh hakorbanot, the order of the sacrifices, halacha 14.)
This is human aesthetic activity as obedience to the heavenly imperative,
as an expression, par excellence, of the sanctifying of physical matter: It
is in and through physical matter that man sanctifies the Creator, whereas
with the miracle of the mahn, the Creator sanctified man, and
expressed His love for man.
In parashat Truma, the Godly dimension appears for the first time,
dwelling within existential reality. “And they will make Me a sanctuary,
and I will dwell among them,” – “in their midst,” and thus aesthetic man
will learn to live with the dimension of height, with the Godly dimension
that has penetrated to the very midst of human existence. Heaven’s work
within the creature world. The components of physical matter have become a
reality of kedusha, and the reality of kedusha has become
tangible human reality.
Superficially, this would appear to be a blurring of the boundaries, and
yet it is accomplished by the strictest watch over the boundaries, over the
definitions that separate the sacred from the profane.
Can the boundaries be blurred when everything is clearly separated? The
answer is yes – within the innermost human space. Only in this abode of
quality do separations turn into distinctions – distinguishing between light
and darkness, between sacred and profance, between pure and impure.
Discerning the categories of quality is the beginning of creating a new
reality – that does not actually exist in the object, in physical matter,
but rather in the human being, in the creative, aesthetic world that lies
within the boundaries of the inner human space.
Thus we find a complete reversal of the order of things: The world,
though it was created before man, has become the raw physical material for
man’s esthetic expression in God’s service; it has become the tool with
which man performs an act of creation that bears the seal of both allies in
the covenant. Thus do heaven and earth meet, through both allies of the
covenant. Thus are the separate brought together in an encounter, and thus
are the contrasts blurred between heaven and earth.
From this point on, we must view the Mishkan’s aesthetic appearance, and
the offerings of the sacred service, the avodat hakorbanot, only in
this particular – and particularly exquisite – light. For there is no new
territory making its appearance here. Rather it is the same old world of
physical matter, subject to the same old processses of aging and
deterioration, except that a new, exquisite dimension is now being added to
it.
The parasha begins with the mitsva of the nedava, the generous
gift. This is not be chance: The nedava is not tsorech gavoha,
“needed on high” for after all, “all the earth is God’s, and all that fills
it.” Rather, it is to teach you that giving is needed by we ordinary
mortalstsorech hedyot; it is a need of man’s, and it is for man’s
sake. Thus the term, veyikhu li, “and let them take for Me”, rather
than ‘let them give to me’, to teach you that when a man knows truly how to
give, he gives only to himself. That is to say, the giver takes. The giver
receives, and increases, and in no way detracts from his own.
In this way, man creates a new domain for himself. This new domain
vastly widens and expands and opens up his private space, yet without this
breaking-out-into-the-open posing any threat to the uniquely original
character of the private space, whose role it is to guard and to protect his
uniqueness.
If one were to close up one’s private space, it would atrophy. The
private space requires renewal and development, in that it is a living,
organic, growing and self-renewing entity. Closedness causes it to shrink,
or to be eliminated altogether. Giving creates an openness not only toward
the outer realm, but mainly toward the higher. Lehem hapanim, “face
bread” – “for it has a face” – points upward, toward height, rather than
outward, toward the outside.
The question has been asked, why was this stage of the relationship, this
new status in the relationship between the allies, postponed until after
matan Torah.
Apparently the relationship had to pass through the sea upon dry land,
like the splitting of the Red Sea, a term Hazal use to express supernatural
difficulty: “Acquiring one’s mate is as difficult as the splitting of the
Red Sea.” “Acquiring one’s food is as difficult as the splitting of the Red
Sea.” The importance of the element of merging – in which the higher
domains merge and mingle with the lower domains – appears to be utterly
central, and to command the highest priority.
It seems that this merging could not have been actualized until after the
receiving of the Torah, specifically, in that this covenant was different
from the covenant the Holy One had sealed with our forefathers. In other
contexts, I have mentioned the difference between the connection that grew
out of the initiative of free choice, which was, at its basis, the
initiative of the forefathers, in contrast with the covenant of the Torah,
the initiative of which came from heaven, from the supreme hashgaha,
for the giving of the Torah was entirely indicated by Godly hesed,
as it says: “And God descended on Mount Sinai, etc.’
The factor that created equilibrium, and that enabled the covenant, was
the people’s response of na’aseh venishma: “We will do it, and we
will hear it.” Until such a dynamic had been created, neither the universe
nor man were prepared for the tangible actualization of kedusha.
For after all, the covenant is not sealed with private, individual
super-powered fulfillers of His Word, such as our sacred forefathers were.
Rather, it is given to be within the reach of each and every Jew.
Thus a new need is born: It becomes necessary for it to be possible to
sanctify physical matter, and to make the aesthetic – sacred. This means it
is necessary to be able to recognize the Hand of God in the world of
physical forms, whether this Hand is discerned under conditions of giluy,
revelation, or of hester – as a preparation for a deeper and more
hidden stage.
The vital importance of the Shechina’s Presence is expressed precisely
under conditions of hiddenness. The further away man moves from revealed
kedusha, the more man must bear responsibility for the Presence of
Godliness.
This responsibility is expressed by making aesthetic/human/spiritual
distinctions. The yoke of this responsibility increases, the further
distant each side grows from the other – and this distance only increases,
to the point that man has lost his connection to the world of objects.
As he moves further away from the world of objects, his spirit becomes
more and more the bearer of responsibility for this mision, of seeing to the
Godly Presence. All of this detachment from the object and emphasis on
inner subjective experience is the result of separating “doing” from
“being”: As human reality is increasingly overtaken by perceptions that are
mechanical – scientific/technological – so human quality increasingly
retreats from tangible reality, from the object.
In response to this retreat, the human spirit has grown more
independently powerful, of itself and for itself, in a process of purifying
and refining and purging the good from the evil, and sometimes even the good
by way of the evil. Thus, increasingly, a process of separation has
developed, between the good guys and the bad guts, between the human beings
who return to their human/Godly source, and those who are dragged down the
illusory current of technology.
The return to the sources has the effect of liberating man from an
enslavement to the technological system. It is therefore very neccessary,
for the enslavement to the technological system leaves man vulnerable to
invasion by savage tribes, whose only power lies in their raw tangibility.
Their rawness is devoid of meaningful content or values, and detached and
remote from their human origins.
As the technological system loses its meaningful content, empty
frameworks, and forms devoid of content are brought to the forefront of that
system. These then impose a stark “belonging” requirement upon the human
being, which is actually enslavement: Severed from all freedom, it is
severed from the capacity for choice, severed from the distinction between
good and evil, and severed from human responsibility for itself and for the
creation.
A society that has lost its values is the classic empty wagon, as
compared to the full wagon of a culture that has retained human values. Yet
when it has, in addition, become enslaved to the technological system, and
lost the human freedoms, then it loses not only the ability to compete with
full carts; it cannot even compete against the raw and primitive bearers of
tangible force.
When the human spirit is enslaved to technology, it finds that its
impressive technological achievements can be neutralized by raw tangible
force – and history is repeating itself. Once again the savage tribes, the
Huns and the Vandals by another name are prevailing against the Rome by
another name – the representative of technology, aesthetics, and
civilization in general.
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