Racism/Anti-Semitism

 Translated from Hebrew by Dr. Sara Nathan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ilui nishmat Meyer Hirsh ben Laibel

       THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMAN REALITY
        ARE THREE-DIMENSIONAL:
        THEY INCLUDE THE DIMENSION OF HEIGHT

      Anti-Semitism, racism and all the rest of the vicious, brutal phenomena that have accompanied the human race from the moment it appeared on the stage of existence, are tendencies that cause humans to plummet downward from their lofty position in the dimension of height, that lofty plane where values and ideals are found, as well as the ability to distinguish good from evil, sacred from profane, and pure from defiled.

      This dimension of height is what frees humans from dependency upon the laws of physical existence, which are the stimuli that activate the human from the outside. The laws of a value-driven existence, drawn from the dimension of height, are what bring forth and actualize the dormant quality concealed in the innermost spaces of the human personality. This quality does not belong to the laws of material existence in any way. It is wholly an expression of the qualitative, uniquely original values and capabilities that every human being – as an individual – possesses. Each individual's unique quality originates from the Godly dimension of spiritual height, whence it draws content.

      Within this qualitative reality, the human rules – controlling through choice and through creativity. It is in human hands to decide whether to ruin or to repair, whether to activate good forces or evil ones. To the extent that one takes the initiative by choosing to activate one's uniquely original quality, one activates the spiritual forces of the dimension of height, successfully bypassing the pitfalls of the material world thereby.

      Thus in Proverbs, Solomon, “the wisest of all humanity,” points to spiritual forces as controlling physical forces: “A man’s spirit will sustain his disease, and who can bear a crippled spirit?” (Proverbs 18:14)

      But should one hit the ground of material reality, one will immediately find oneself caught in the jaws of bi-dimensionality. Good and evil become relative, lacking roots or peaks, passing randomly through the current of time, never considering the human condition and never attempting to fit themselves to human needs. A sensation of detachment, of existential anxiety and suspicion, a lack of belonging to anything and yet an utter absence of personal freedom – these are the characteristics of an existential sense of bi-dimensionality.
      Phenomena such as cruelty, aggression and race hatred are stereotypical characteristics of this two-dimansional system of survival.
      The Jew personifies a three-dimensional spiritual existence that influences his very sense of existence, liberating him from enslavement to the systems of self-preservation. The grim essentials of existential life and death stimuli become rounded and softened, losing their fatalistic significance, absorbing instead a value-driven significance. Such significance bestows the value of eternal life upon death, the value of love and positive purpose upon life’s perils and upon the sufferings that are the hurtful byproduct of existence. “An ignorant man would not know it, and a fool would not comprehend such a thing.” The more coarse and insensitive a man is, the more he is sunk into an existence that lacks the dimension of height, the more difficult it is for him to comprehend, appreciate or accept an approach that is value-driven, that bestows value-driven significance upon the tangible world. Instead he will suspect his more spiritual colleague of deception and hypocrisy, and view him as his enemy, surely plotting some ominous conspiracy against him.
      This is the root of anti-Semitism. “Rabi Shimon bar Yochai said: ‘It is a well-known law that Esav feels hate toward Yaakov.’” Esav, who readily yielded up the birthright of the dimension of height, would hate the one who views it as the basis and the ultimate purpose of existence. With the loss of the dimension of height, Esav’s shallow perception of things caused him to lose sight of the relativity of events: He views reality as nothing more than a chain of opportunities to save his own existence.
      Such a view of things turns into a system of stereotypes that simply exist. They do not attach or relate to any need to consider the facts, nor to address the human side of any issue. Anti-Semitism for example is a stereotype that operates to dehumanize the Jew.
      The anti-Semite views the Jew as a vile element, an insect, devoid of sensitivity to pain, devoid of emotional needs – a bloodsucking parasite that draws its life force from the ruin of human beings. It is permissible and even virtuous to torture the Jew, and to kill him, both because he is harmful and because he has no feeling, being impervious the evils and sufferings of persecution.
      This explains the puzzling phenomenon of anti-Semitism as the lot and heritage of highly educated people, who supposedly cherish universal values, including artists, thinkers, writers and poets whose creative works reveal a deep human insight into anyone created in God’s image – unless he is a Jew.
      It seems to me that Shakespeare is articulating this puzzlement in his play about Shylock, the Merchant of Venice, a play that on the surface seethes with incomparably venomous anti-Semitism – of the type that characterizes all things ugly, using the most superficial stereotype that is devoid even of the barest, most elementary dimension of humanness. Yet lo and behold, Shakespeare manages by his ingenious analysis to rise above the narrow, ugly track of the anti-Semitic stereotype, even in this most problematic of plays. The purpose of this play is to force the anti-Semite to confront a human view of things, which will vie with the conspiracy to strip the Jew of his human/value-driven dimension, which characterizes him – in Shakespeare’s view of things – at least as much as it characterizes any other human creature.