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The Jewish Dor
HaPlaga – Generation of Babel – Becomes a People
Translated
from Hebrew by S. NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
Between the laws of creation formed by the
creator and the functioning systems formed by man, an epic confrontation
takes place. Yet truthfully, what harm is there in science’s splendid
achievements? What is ineffective about technology’s sophisticated
functional systems? For indeed they have proven effective in resolving
existential problems over a broad range of applications, such as medicine,
economics, politics, social organization, and security.
For some reason, there is a fly in this
ointment. The more effective medical science grows, the more the public
seeks relief through alternative medicine. This occurs, it is true, only
in cases of failure. Yet although failure occurs equally on both sides,
the alternative healer can become entangled in the law, whereas the doctor
entrenches himself behind the license bestowed on him by organized
society. His superiority lies in his wiser merging with society’s rules
of play.
This example serves to prove that more
than protecting the consumer, the legal system is designed to protect the
professional from charges that might be brought against him by the
consumer.
Such is the case with all man-made
systems. Their intention is to endow the powerful and organized with the
power to exploit the individual, who has not had the wisdom to join and
belong to the group of the powerful and organized, preferring to retain
his own personal freedom. Thus we find minority groups that are deprived
and exploited by a majority that forces upon them rules of play that it
itself prefers.
The truth of the matter is that man has
created these social laws and systems out of his desire to prove his
non-dependence upon his Creator, by his ability to operate systems that
are capable of offering satisfactory answers to the problems of his
existence – this despite a long and winding road paved with failures of
such magnitude as to cast heavy doubt on man’s good judgment.
Consolidating a Nation
The bloody failures that saturate human
history have occurred mainly in the public sphere. Yet on the surface of
things, why should a public sphere be necessary? Man has adequate social
interaction within the direct and natural frameworks of family and tribe.
These are frameworks that have developed organically, and that are derived
from man’s own natural and authentic needs.
Within this natural framework, an
individual finds fulfillment for his need to belong as well as for his
need for personal freedom, for each of these needs complements the other,
as container and contained complement one another. He develops a sense of
responsibility, being directly responsible for those dependent on him. He
learns to express personal connectedness, emotions of love, and of
authority, all of which find their ideal expression only within the bosom
of the natural family. Why then does man need to belong to a public
domain, if he is capable of finding his place in the private domain?
Historical experience is capable of
pointing to a deliberate distortion of the goals of social organization.
Intended in order to uphold the principle of equality before the law, to
protect the individual from society – in keeping with the sacrosanct value
of protection of the weak (the individual) against the strong (society) –
social government has been exposed as nakedly brutal.
Social government makes cynical use of the
human tendency to belong to a group, emptying it of its meaningful content
– the value of the freedom of the individual – who is the first one
betrayed, to be used as a cover for the aggressive individual, the quick
and clever one who knows how to exploit the rules of social play for his
own benefit.
The clever individual soon becomes the
all-powerful ruler, and his will becomes the law, binding upon all the
individuals who populate that society, in droves. Thus a tyrant thrives,
trampling the will of the individual with an arrogant foot, replacing it –
by force – with his own will.
“France is me,” declares De Gaulle in his
massive arrogance, never once doubting the purity of his own intentions.
In this way a nationalistic ideal turns the dedicated idealist into a
dangerous person who annexes the public welfare to himself. “I know what
is good for the Israelis better than they do,” Ben Gurion declares.
In contrast, Moshe Rabeinu – faithful
shepherd – views himself as no more than a servant. “How will I be able
to carry you by myself?” He is willing to remove himself from office
immediately upon request, and even prior to that – whenever he feels he is
not succeeding at bringing the nation toward their destiny.
Erev Rav – A Mixed Multitude:
A rabble of slaves of vague identity, an assortment of individuals
marching in a jumble under desert conditions. Having no real hold on any
substantial reality, they require an identity that will bond them, that
will lead them toward a goal that will rise – and raise them – high above
and beyond this existence that lacks any meaningful content or realness.
The wise men of sociology put their faith
in the organization of a bonding framework that is built of the sum total
of its members’ needs, and that consolidates them into an ethnic group.
They presume to attempt to characterize all behavioral phenomena according
to cultural grouping.
What is unifying about territory,
language, history, and the rest of communal living conditions is
understandable. What is less understandable is how a nation maintains its
bonds, its meaningful content, and its goals, when dispossessed of most of
the conditions that create an ethnic group, and this throughout millennia,
while “scattered and separated among the nations,” and mingled among
populations of radically different cultures, from the Far East to the Far
West.
Characteristic Feature Consolidating a Jewish Public: Obligation
Characteristic Feature Consolidating a Non-Jewish Public: Rights
“And you shall be for Me a kingdom of
priests and a sacred nation:” Sacredness as authority. Supreme authority
is the key word; this consolidates a nation.
Mishkan, Tabernacle; Bet
HaMikdash, Holy Temple; Erets HaKodesh, the Holy Land;
mitsvot hatluyot ba’arets, commandments conditional upon the Land;
Hovat Aliya LaRegel, Ascension [to the Temple] for the Festival;
hakravat korbanot, offering of sacrifice; hilchot tuma, laws of
impurity – prohibiting entry to one impure as a result of contact with the
deceased; the obligation to purify oneself; “and your camp shall be
sacred”; “and the unauthorized one who approaches shall be put to death”;
Kodesh Kodoshim, the Holy of Holies, which the High Priest entered
once a year to pray over a holy nation; korbanot tsibur, sacrifices
on the public behalf...
These supreme elements – that give shelter
as do the ananei hakavod, that sanctify everything that bows to
them – create an authority to which all are subject and to which all are
equally obligated. This authority obligates the individual, who becomes a
part of a public that has been consolidated by its obligation toward the
supreme authority, and by the obligation of each individual toward his
earthly fellow: “All of Israel are guarantors for one another.” “Love
your friend as yourself; I am God.” Shabat: “So that they can rest – your
ox and your friend and the stranger...”
The commandments “between man and his
fellow” create an obligatory relating between one individual and another.
An individual is not permitted to abstain from involvement with the
public. This obligation of individuals forms them into a consolidated
unit, in that this obligation penetrates into the private realm,
preventing self-centered isolation, yet not negating the private space,
and indeed encouraging creative personal expression.
Individual freedom is not threatened by
one’s obligation to belong to the public, in that this obligation is
absolutely coordinated with an individual’s right to freedom. This
obligation is measured solely by the individual’s ability, and does not
exist in a case of lack of ability to cultivate one’s own unique
contribution. The Jewish perception views belonging to the group as a
containing vessel that preserves freedom and does not exist at its
expense.
We can see then that supreme authority
completes the individual’s obligation, forming a perfect circle, as an
expression of individual freedom within the framework of belonging to a
public, while both are bonded into one entity. Thus individual rights
bloom in the garden of public obligation. Obligation comes forth to
express pleasure, and rights and duties join hands in perfect friendship.
There is no room for the hostile mechanisms of self-preservation in this
idyllic relationship where belonging acts as the preservative of personal
freedom.
The key word that characterizes western
society is ‘rights.’ The right of the individual to freedom, to equality
before the law, and all the other enticements: Anyone caught in their trap
finds himself entangled in the fine print of the law, which turns the
whole pot of rights on its head. He enters innocent, and leaves guilty,
as in Kafka’s work, The Trial; he is completely incapable of
comprehending why and wherefore, and how it came about.
How could it be otherwise, when the basis
of belonging to the group are the seductions that have come out of the
study halls of the survival instincts, and with egocentricism being the
cause and purpose of one’s existence.
A public that is consolidated by the
terror of existence – which terror never releases the individual from its
grip, and which incessantly gnaws at his confidence – is compared to a
jungle, in which “one man to another is a wolf,” and all that is left for
the law to do is to defend the individual from the terror of the wolves
that circle his private space.
Recognition of the freedom of the
individual is limited to accepting his right to express his tendencies, or
perversions, or any of survival instinct’s other seductions, as long as
these are not carried out at the expense of others.
Such a framework, built on the survival
instincts, takes no interest in educating for values. Ultimately, it
cultivates an increasingly rapacious survival instinct: The genie of moral
abandon escapes from the bottle, never to be forced back in.
The damage is irreversible. It creeps
first from the private realm, eventually to poison the public realm,
gradually assuming epidemic proportions. Reciprocally destructive
relationships form between the private space and the public space. The
free market becomes a cartel of monopolies, one greedier than the other.
Goodness is traded for a winner, and authority for power. Ratings, etc.
(all components of the public survival instinct) are substituted for the
values and goals that were a source of sustenance for the public: Family
lineage, respect for the wise, for the elder, for tradition, for all
factors denoting permanence such as homeland, such as supreme goals and
authority. All these are pushed aside for the fleeting, for the dynamic
flow of change that welcomes every passing wind.
Politics with its fluid and fickle
character as opposed to what is permanent. The popular lie as opposed to
truth as a value. Fickle public opinion as opposed to the bedrock
foundations of existence and a vision of destiny. Moods as opposed to
guiding principles that are anchored in the past and that lead toward
eternal destinations.
Modern politics is ruled by power groups
representing egocentric interests, who are far indeed from reflecting the
immunity and immutability of a people. Thus modern society loses its
family framework. Yet the institution of the family is the only framework
for cultivating fundamental values, for educating to responsibility for
others.
That the foundations of family are
deteriorating is cause for concern, in that it reflects a syndrome:
Rejection of permanent elements in favor of passing ones.
Our parasha raises the banner of
tribal and family relationships, as the tool for expressing the permanent
values that promise and preserve a continuity of values, and that include
in their embrace both the group and every single individual.
When the Bechorim, the first-born
are replaced by the Cohanim as God’s ministers, this has the effect
of purifying the chosen group of any trace of a power basis. It is
established instead upon a basis of values that is as pure as possible.
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