Symbols and Realities (2)

Tzitzit: Symbolic Language

 

     The commandment to wear tzitzit [ritual fringes] constitutes a good example of symbolic language use in the commandments.  Our sources are full of stories of individuals who were miraculously saved from sexual temptation by their own tzitzit, which rose up and struck them at the moment of their imminent downfall.  It seems to me that these stories illustrate the relationship between tzitzit and the avoidance of sexual sin.  This relationship also helps clarify some of the details of the laws of tzitzit.  The tallit [prayer shawl] and tzitzit are symbols for our religious sexual restrictions, a symbol of male sexual purity.

 

     The fringes and knots of the tzitzit express this idea through symbols, which we do not consciously understand.  The concept is not spelled out in conceptual language.  Our Sages did not explain the symbolic meaning of tzitzit in a philosophical or psychological discourse; they demonstrated the action of tzitzit upon the deeper layers of the human soul through the stories and legends they told.

 

     Rihal interprets the meaning of the commandment of tzitzit in a similar fashion: "Thus he wears tzitzit so that his senses will not trouble him with the interests of the base world, as it is written, 'Do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes'" [3:11].

 

     The commandments are symbols, but they are symbols which have their own powers, symbols which act upon our subconscious, without touching our intellect and consciousness.  For this reason the commandments touch every area of life.  Every area of life has its own Jewish message, which is expressed through the accompanying commandment.  Thus, two important goals are achieved.  Holiness is added to every area of our life, and our inner self incorporates the holy values through dress, food, sex and all other areas of life.

 

     According to this theory of symbols, the commandments and their details do, in fact, alter reality; however, this reality exists first and foremost in man's inner world.  The outer world will change afterward.  This is the underlying concept of Rabbi Hirsch's symbolic interpretation of the commandments.  The Kabbala teaches that the commandments and the attention to detail, in the laws of Shabbat for example, cause cosmic change.  Rabbi Hirsch teaches us that the commandments affect our souls, our consciousness.  His successors demonstrated something of even greater significance: the commandments affect what is beneath our consciousness, the deeper levels of our personality which man cannot reach.  Logic speaks to the human mind, and indeed, rational claims can impress us very deeply, but as we learn from the proponents of Mussar as well as modern psychology, they do not touch the deepest layers of the personality.  The commandments are written in a different language, which penetrates deeply and alters the individual.  This power is generated both by the general concepts and the accompanying fine details of the commandments.

 

Rihal's Position

 

     This psychological approach to understanding the reasons for the commandments is of course a new, reworked version of the ideas presented by Rihal and the Kabbalists.  This new version is clearly different from Rihal's position.  According to the simple interpretation of Rihal's approach, different layers exist.  Scientific methods are appropriate for the natural side of man.  When we act on this level, the only legitimate tools are the tools of logic and normative scientific research.  However, Rihal claims that beyond normal causality, and beyond the normal rules that govern the natural world, there is another, more mysterious system of rules.  The commandments are the appropriate ways to function within the framework of this distinct system.  Thus, two parallel systems exist.

 

     However, Rihal's approach may be understood somewhat differently as well.  Let me give you a simple example.  When we implant clouds with silver iodide in order to make it rain, we function within the framework of science and technology.  However, this is not the whole picture.  Rain is not the only substance known to fall from the sky; so does fire.  When Elijah the prophet brought fire down from the heavens, it was a miracle.  Or, perhaps, one could say that a completely different set of rules was functioning at that point, a system from a different plane; this system is beyond rationality, or perhaps it has its own rationality.  Here too, as in other places, we must understand that Rihal is trying to build a model using what is familiar to us in order to explain something which is beyond our understanding and perception.  Perhaps it is possible to be "Rihalists" without conceding that two parallel systems exist.  This was the path taken by a number of Rihal's modern successors.  The most outstanding of these was Rabbi Kook.  His basic assumption in this issue is that the world changes as a result of changes in man.  Man serves as a bridge through which the commandments affect the world.

 

     If we return to the previous example, we see three personalities.  The person who implants clouds with silver iodide, the magician who dances his rain dance, and the man who prays for rain.  Prayer and commandments belong to a different category than both the natural category of artificial rain making, and the occult category of the magician.  The difference between prayer and the natural category is obvious.  Man, with his rational theories about the efficacy of means and causes, will not assume that mere speech could change the structure of the clouds and transform them into rain clouds.  The Torah emphasizes the shift into an area beyond the rational, to something in a different area, but it wants us to understand very clearly that there is a fundamental difference between the supplicator and the wizard.  The Torah is not magic.  Here we must repeat that faith and heresy spring from the same source.  Zealots of rational thought view whatever lies beyond it as one homogenous group.  We must understand that beyond the boundaries of logic the road forks.  One path leads to faith; the other, to heresy.

 

     What is the boundary between Torah and sorcery?  Rihal gives us a formal criterion.  It is impossible to distinguish between the groups through observing their actions.  Whoever looks from the outside at the three rain makers will be unable to distinguish between them with confidence.  This is similar to the weather forecast.  Sometimes the forecast is completely inaccurate.  Although we instinctively feel that we ought to differentiate between climatological forecasting and astrological forecasting, it is very difficult to formulate this difference in a satisfactory manner.  One possibility is to depend on science.  What the academic establishment decides upon, is scientific, although we are not informed why.  Rihal teaches us something similar.  When one follows the path of the Torah, by definition he is not involved in magic. 

 

     This formal criterion is true, yet it does not seem satisfactory.  We would like to define the difference between Torah and magic more precisely, for we know that sorcery is both a rebellion against logic and a form of religious heresy.  The difference between faith and magic or superstition is significant and its discovery is an important and weighty mission for religious philosophers in each generation.  This need has become  particularly evident in recent generations.  Rationalism has proved itself to be helpless regarding many essential problems, and this lack of success finds expression in the return of the masses in some form or another to magic, idolatry, devil worship, etc.  We believe that only faith can stem the tide of this renewed idolatry.  And we who are the allies of logic, perhaps its only allies, have the power to halt the surge of superstitious beliefs and anti-logical movements.

 

     If we put these ideas together with what we have already seen in our discussion of rationalism with regard to creation and nature, we will realize once again that Rihal sees the concept itself as questionable.  We question claims which do not fit in with our basic assumptions.  Yet, these basic assumptions, which seem to us to be axiomatic and have no need of proof are very often merely the result of a social and cultural framework or of a philosophical fashion, which like all other fashions, has changed in the past and will change in the future.  The conclusion which Rihal teaches us is that we must learn to recognize our reality.  We are expected to see reality as it is despite rationalist dogmatism, and to continue beyond it, just as sometimes a taxi or a bus can take us to a certain point, but beyond that point we must continue on foot.  Rationalism has certain travel lines.  There is taxi rationality, which is more flexible, and bus rationality, which is more rigid.  However, beyond both of these the individual must continue on foot.  Here lies the seed of religious existentialism.  Science cannot solve our personal problems, and man must move on.

 

     There is another response, that of blind faith which completely disregards the possibility of judging the facts and understanding reality.  However, Rihal does subscribe to that approach.  In order to explain this, I would like to refer to a book which we will return to again later: the book of Job.

 

     God tests Job.  Rational philosophy, represented by his three friends, cannot answer his questions logically.  The answer lies in faith, in the very encounter with God: in revelation.  In other words, in deviation beyond both scientific and everyday thought.  However, the book does not end with the description of this meta-logical encounter.  It adds a last chapter, which informs us that God restores Job's riches.  This chapter plants the seed of Rihal's philosophy, intimating that the true answer, the real test of truth, lies in history: history not only of the past, but also as a description of the future.  The real proof lies in redemption, in the alteration of the social and natural reality.  The real test of truth is an empirical one.

 

     According to Rihal, Judaism proves itself not only through its pure faith, but in the belief in God's kingship which will one day change the world.  Faith, despite the suffering and the doubts, was the great Jewish response to the Job-test which has been the challenge of our national history.  This was a faith beyond despair, a faith in which the Jewish people had to side against the friends of Job, in other words against the other religions, which tried to prove their legitimacy through the suffering of the Jews.  Their military success and their political and economical success seemed to them to be ample proof of the truth of their religion.  However, the Jewish faith refused to see religious proof in the power of the sword and temporary success.  It was sure that history would change, and that the resurgence of the Jews, the parallel to the resurgence of Job, heralds the redemption of the entire human race.  Thus, the promises of our prophets will be fulfilled.  Redemption is the real miracle which holds the key of truth.  It is the final outcome of the system of the commandments.

 

(This lecture was translated by Gila Weinberg.)