[Avodah] AishDas and Mussar

[dfinch847 at aol.com]

RYGB writes:

"I have an ongoing debate with one of my colleagues at MTA. Were he not 
Jewish, he would be Catholic, and he believes that a la Catholicism, 
mitzvos are meant to have a salvational effect on us.. . . On this 
basis, he justifies the teaching of Gemara b'Iyun to lower-track 
students - viz., it has a salvific effect even if they gain little 
enlightenment from it."

Jeez. RYGB's colleague loses me entirely. As I understand it, salvation 
under Catholicism comes, broadly speaking, from faith and acceptance 
(which includes the act of communion), baptism (which washes away sin), 
and confession and repentance (which cures post-baptismal sin). Ritual 
is organized by priests, not by laymen, for catechismal reasons that 
have little to do with salvation per se, although a Catholic cannot 
give confession or take communion from a priest who does not abide by 
the church's regimen.

In Judaism, on the other hand, there is no "salvation," i.e., a 
guaranteed ticket to heaven. We have no mechanism to wash away our 
sins, especially our original sin, which doesn't exist. Ours is a 
notion of atonement, which is highly conditional and rests largely on 
our future conduct. Atonement doesn't assure a place in the world to 
come, as judgment (essentially on "righteousness" vs. "wickedness," as 
HaShem might define those terms) remains a Divine prerogative, not the 
magical effect of a few drops of water or words uttered by a priest. As 
for ritual, I imagine that Rambam (among many others, including 
especially RYBS) would recoil at the notion that Jews observe mitzvot 
primarily (or robotically) for the sake of atonement or eternal reward.

This would be particularly true for the indiscriminate teaching of 
Gemara b'Iyun, especially if the teaching is done by RYGB, who (as I 
know from personal experience) expects a very high level of 
intellectual competence. Indeed, it would do more harm than good to 
force an unqualified bocher to attend such a class. The bocher would be 
left feeling lousy about himself, a wrong lesson taught for the wrong 
reasons. Perhaps RYGB might remember the words of Ian Anderson (of the 
rock group Jethro Tull) quoted to him in one of his classes eight years 
ago: "Your wise men don't know / How it feels / To be thick / As a 
brick."


David Finch
dfinch847 at aol.com









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