At night, anxieties suppressed or repressed come swimming to the surface: Am I safe? Am I loved? Am I needed? Is there meaning in the world, or ultimately is it all just a swirl of chaos?
For some of us much of the time, and for all of us some of the time, darkness suggests peril and instability, the sense that life is fleeting, tenuous, random and senseless. Physical darkness threatens, at least at moments, to conjure existential darkness: It is dark, and I am alone and afraid.
The Talmud reports that Adam and Eve were panic stricken when they first saw the sun go down, thinking that the setting of the sun was a consequence of their sin and this new, intense darkness would spell their death. They spent that entire first night weeping, until dawn broke and they realized, to their immense relief, that this was simply the way of the world -- day followed by night, and night followed by day.
We who come after the first couple are aware that night is not permanent, and that morning, too, inevitably will come. And our fears are usually less that night is the outgrowth of our failures and more of what it suggests, of the feelings and concerns that night has the power to elicit.
But if we think of night in metaphorical terms, who among us has never had a foreboding akin to Adam's: what if night never ends? What if meaningless and loneliness are simply all there is?
We also are aware of profound links between physical darkness and existential darkness -- as the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, moods often shift, worries often mount, and hope often wanes.
Judaism does not ask us to ignore this darkness and the sense of doom it might educe. On the contrary, it asks us to face them squarely and defy them. How?
In Genesis, God takes Abram outside and says, "Look toward heaven, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And God adds, "So shall your offspring be" (Gen. 15:5).
On the surface, the meaning of God's promise is clear: The children of Abram will be so numerous as to be beyond counting. But the great Chasidic master Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger (1847-1905), known as the Sefas Emes, offers a much different and deeply arresting interpretation of God's promise. God's promise, he says, is not quantitative but qualitative: To be a Jew is, like a star, to bring light to places of vast darkness. Thus, even and perhaps especially when Israel descends into the darkness of its Egypt, its mission is clear: to light up the darkness of the most depraved and immoral parts of the world (Shemot, 1878).
Let me add one note to the Sefas Emes' comments. In understanding our mission in the world, there is something crucial to keep in mind about the nature of stars: Stars do not eliminate the darkness but rather mitigate it. They do not turn the world into a palace full of light, but rather find ways to shed light in places that otherwise would be consumed by absolute darkness.
In a similar vein, we ought to be wary, to say the least, of the fantasy that human beings can somehow remove all darkness from human life. Such notions are chimerical at best and unimaginably dangerous at worst. But we can -- and to take the covenant between God and Israel seriously is to affirm that we must -- bring light into otherwise abandoned places, to bring flashes of meaning and companionship to places otherwise overrun by heartache and devastation.
What does all of this have to do with Hanukkah?
Think for a moment about the central ritual act that marks this holiday. It is winter now: The days are becoming shorter and shorter, and the nights are getting longer. Passover and Sukkot begin in the middle of the Jewish month, when the moon is full. But Hanukkah is different: It begins on the 25th of the month, when the moon has all but completely disappeared.
We are in one of the darkest periods of one of the darkest months of the year. All around us is darkness. And what do we do? We light a fire. Not a bonfire, but a small fire -- now one, now another, and so forth for eight nights. In other words, we do not pretend to be the sun but only stars. We do not bring an end to darkness but soften its effects.
"The soul of man is the lamp of God," the Book of Proverbs tells us (20:27). What this means is that ultimately, our task is not to light candles but to be candles. We have the potential to be the bits of light that help bring God back into a world gone dark.
As the Sefas Emes puts it in discussing Hanukkah, "A human being is created to light up this world" (Hanukkah, 1874).
Rabbi Shai Held is Co-Founder, Rosh Yeshiva, and Chair in Jewish Thought at Mechon Hadar. Before that, he served for six years as Scholar-in-Residence at Kehilat Hadar in New York City, and taught both theology and Halakha at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He also served as Director of Education at Harvard Hillel. A renowned lecturer and educator, Shai has taught for institutions such as Drisha, Me'ah, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and the Rabbinic Training Institute; he currently serves on the faculty of the Wexner Heritage program. Shai has also recently completed a doctorate in the department of religion at Harvard University; his main academic interests are in modern Jewish and Christian thought and in the history of Zionism.
12/20/11
Rabbi Shai Held Receives Covenant Award
Rabbi Shai Held received the Covenant Foundation's 2011 Covenant Award on Sunday, November 6 at the annual awards presentation and gala in Denver at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.
His speech accepting the award appears below:
Let me begin with a very brief but heartfelt word of thanks: to the staff and board of the Covenant Foundation, and especially to Harlene and Joni, and to the Crown family, for the really deep honor of having my work recognized and honored in this way. Thank you.
I’d like to share two thoughts this evening-- one about being an educator, and one about founding and building an educational institution.
The term tzimtzum, or contraction, is one of the most well-known words in the history of Jewish thought. But what is less well-known is that in Jewish theology tzimtzum had had two seemingly radically different meanings.
First, the lesser-known meaning found in Rabbinic sources. God tells Moshe to instruct the Israelites to build a sanctuary in which God can dwell (VeAsu Li Mikdash VeShakhanti BeTokham). According to the Midrash, Moshe begins to panic—how can we possibly build a finite space that will contain the infinite? Later, in the book of Kings, King Solomon will ask God the very same question regarding the Temple. God’s answer to Moshe is stunning; “Twenty boards in the north and twenty in the south and eight in the west will suffice. More than that, I will contract my divine presence (Atzamtzem Shekhinati) so that it may dwell in one square cubit.”
Now contrast this with the more famous notion of tzimtzum from Lurianic Kabbalah? How can the finite even exist if God is infinite? How can there be anything other than God? The Kabbalists answer: God contracts Godself (tzimtzum) and, as it were, gets out of the way so that the world, and people within it, can exist.
On the face of it, these two meanings of the word tzimtzum are antitheses of one another. For Hazal, tzimtzum means making yourself radically present; for the Kabbalah, it means making yourself absent so that others can exist and flourish.
I’d like to suggest that the work of an educator can best be understood by bringing these two images together: what it means to me to be a teacher (and a spouse, and a parent, and perhaps a human being in general) is to be present while making space, and to make space while being profoundly present. This is a really powerful form of imitatio dei, of “walking in God’s ways.” Just as God, often imagined as a teacher, makes space for us to grow in freedom and responsibility, so should we grant that space to our students. And just as God remains radically present even as God makes space, so should—so must—we. That is what it means to love someone while truly honoring their freedom and their dignity.
For me, a major part of being an educator has been about building a new and innovative educational institution, Mechon Hadar. Five and a half years ago, when we first opened our doors, I quoted the words of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook: HaHalomot HaGedolim Yesod HaOlam Heim—the great dreams are the foundation of the world. To take God’s covenant with Israel seriously is to recognize that the world as it is is not yet the world as it ought to be, as both God and we dream it could be, and to set to work on the slow and painstaking work of transformation. Elie Kaunfer, Ethan Tucker, and I had spent most of our lives searching the Jewish world for the institution we so badly wanted—a place that is at once deeply rooted in and committed to tradition, on the one hand, and unapologetically egalitarian, on the other; a place that is open to learning from secular philosophy and general culture and academic Jewish studies, and yet never forgets that it is, first and last, a mekom Torah, a place where Jews come to discover together what it is that God asks of us; and a place that understands and embodies the truth that God’s Torah is a Torah of hesed, and that the spiritual life culminates in compassionate concern for others—that’s why all of our students automatically become volunteers at a local senior citizens home where most of the patients suffer from varying degrees of dementia. We have begun to build that institution, and through it, we pray, that kind of Jewish world, and it means so much to us that so many Jews, young and old, seem to find that vision compelling and inspiring.
I hope that my students learn something from that dreaming: that when they find a glaring hole in the world, or when they see a profound injustice, or an unattended hurt, they refuse to accept that “that’s just the way the world works.” Let them learn to dream. Rav Yehudah Amital used to tell his students: “Be careful. Never let the day come when your child asks you, ‘Abba, did you once have dreams?’” We have a dream for the Jewish world, and we hope many of our students will come to share in that dream, and in the burden of making that dream a reality. But I also hope that no matter what, they always, always, always remember to dream.
11/7/11
How It Broke, How to Fix It: The Crisis of Israeli Democracy
"Until I read The Unmaking of Israel, I didn't think it could be possible to feel more despairing, and then more terribly hopeful, about Israel, a place that I began at last, under the spell of Gershom Gorenberg's lucid and dispassionate yet intensely personal writing, to understand."
--Michael Chabon, author of The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Israeli historian and journalist Gershom Gorenberg will discuss the policies that threaten Israel's democracy, the little known history behind them, and the new direction that Israel needs to take to remain a democratic and Jewish state. In conversation with Rabbi Shai Held, he will also talk about the role that American Jews can take in building a new Israel-Diaspora relation.
This three part series will explore central themes in Jewish theology and their relevance to our lives. Lecture topics include:
I. How (Not) To Talk About God April 28, 2010 In this first session, we'll begin by exploring the very different ways two seminal Jewish thinkers-- Maimonides and Abraham Joshua Heschel-- thought about God, and see what's at stake for us in their disagreement. We'll continue by discussing why the idea of God's transcendence is so important for Jewish theology-- why, in other words, everything is not God. Listen to Session 1 (April 28)
II. On Faith, Doubt, and the Possibility of Believing in Our Time May 5, 2010 In this session, we'll explore some of the ways Jewish thinkers have thought about faith and doubt, and about the relationship between them. How might we think about faith-- what does it mean? What does it look like in real life? What risks are entailed by a life of faith? We'll also ask how the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard can help us think about faith, passion, and uncertainty in our own lives.
III. On Walking in God's Ways and the Path of Lovingkindness (Hesed) May 12, 2010 In this final session, we'll explore what Judaism sees as the culmination of the good life: embodying the ideal of Hesed in the world. Using Maimonides as our springboard, we'll explore the relationship between a life of contemplation and a life of action.
The Heart of Judaism: Seven Jewish Ideas to Change Your Life
Rabbi Shai Held
In this series of classes, we will explore seven of the most fundamental Jewish ideas, ideas that have the potential to challenge, deepen, and enrich the ways we live our lives--both as individuals and as a community. Some of the ideas we will be considering include: 1) gratitude for the gift of life and creation as the foundation of the spiritual life; 2) the notion that every human beign is created in the image of God and is therefore infinitely valuable; 3) the mandate to "walk in God's ways" by caring for the vulnerable through acts of hesed (love and kindness); 4) the aspiration to turn our suffering into love by recalling that we were strangers in the Land of Egypt; and 5) the notion of tzimtzum (making space for others) as core to what it means to live in the image of God.
What happens when I pray-- to me? to God? What outcomes (if any) do I hope for? How does prayer relate to spiritual life more broadly, and how does my theology interact with my experience of prayer? In this series, we'll explore the ways in which four modern Jewish thinkers understand the meaning of prayer, and how their interpretation of prayer relates to their broader religious worldviews-- and to our own contemporary religious questions. Throughout, we'll move between understanding these thinkers on their own terms and asking whether and how their approaches to prayer and theology might challenge, inform, and enrich our own.
When: 3 Tuesday nights, November 30 - December 14 (come for any or all classes) Time: 7:30pm - 9:00pm Cost: $5 per class Where: Mechon Hadar, 190 Amsterdam Avenue (at 69th St.)
"Haham Adif mi-Navi" Rav Kook on the Meaning of Prophecy and Halakhah
Shiur Klali (Integrated Communal Learning)
Rabbi Shai Held Through a close reading of a beautiful essay by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, we'll discuss the relationship between broad vision (that is, Prophecy) on the one hand, and attention to detail (that is, Halakhah), on the other--in life in general, and in Jewish life in particular. Download Audio Recording1 hour, 51 minutes; 31.8 MB
Wonder, Prophecy, and Creativity: The Religious Worldviews of Rabbis Heschel and Soloveitchik
by Rabbi Shai Held
In this class, we will explore the theological worldviews of Rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel and Joseph Soloveitchik. We'll begin with Heschel, and discuss: a) the meaning of wonder and radical amazement, and their connection to a sense of commandedness; b) Heschel's belief in a personal God and his idea that God is "in search of man"; c) the meaning of prophecy, and how prophets can serve as role models for our own religious lives; d) the problem of evil and how it affected Heschel's relationship with God; and e) the life of prayer, and our attempt to overcome self-centeredness. Then we'll turn to Soloveitchik and focus especially on the idea of the human being as creator, and on how that plays out in a variety of Soloveitchik's writings. The class aims both to introduce Heschel and Soloveitchik on their own terms, and to provide students with a vocabulary for thinking about their own religious commitments and obligations.
Few texts in the history of Judaism have been as evocative, elusive, and controversial as Genesis 22, the story of the Akedah. Why does God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son, and why does Abraham agree? What are the consequences of this fateful event for Abraham, Isaac, and Sarah-- and for us as readers and students of this text? We'll begin with a close literary and theological exploration of the Biblical text itself, consider the interpretations of Hazal, and then create a multi-faceted conversation among an array of modern Jewish (and Christian) thinkers as they-- and we-- struggle to make sense of this text and its role in Jewish theology and spirituality. Our investigation will include such thinkers as Soren Kierkegaard, Abraham Isaac Kook, Joseph Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Buber, Phyllis Trible, Uriel Simon, Jon Levenson, and others.
1/28/10
Yeshivat Hadar - Opening Remarks 2009-10
Thank you to everyone who joined us on October 21 for Yeshivat Hadar's Full-Year Celebration. The energy in the room was palpable as more than 350 Jews came together to study the ways that Torah and life intersect and the lessons we learn about Torah through our daily interactions with the world.
View Rabbi Shai Held's keynote address here:
Click here to download an audio file of Rabbi Shai Held's address to the community.
Click here to read the text of Rabbi Shai Held's address.
Click here to read about our full-year program in the Jewish Week
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