[Avodah] RYBS and synthesis

[Micha Berger]

On Areivim, I wrote that RYBS wasn't interested in synthesis. RHM
replied, and I found my comments to be general enough to appeal to
others of our chevrah who have interest in RYBS's machashavah. I am
therefore writing them here.

RYBS didn't address TuM much. Of his (so far) published work, two
speeches touch on the topic at all.

Back in http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol08/v08n049.shtml#08 I posted
an email from R Nechemia Klein, off one of YHE's email shiurim. Here
are the parts I feel define RYBS's version of TuM:
> Contrary to the prevalent opinion among many of the flag bearers of
> the concept "Torah UMaddah", the Rav's focus was to maximize the
> status of Torah through Maddah and not the other way around. He was
> opposed, as is evident through his writings, to the academization of
> Torah. He clearly held that Torah is the "Gvirah" (lady) and "Maddah"
> is the "shifcha" (maid). Torah and science are not equal and certainly
> one should not use Torah just as another feature of one's education,
> an ornament rather than a major feature.
...
> He never felt the need to be apologetic vis-a-vis secular wisdom.
> The Rav did hold that the words "Chillul Hashem" was the dearth of the
> Jewish sages and wise men who were revered even by discerning
> gentiles.
...
> The Rav ... used, in one of his drashot, the name "Ramatayim Tzofim"
> (See Shmuel I 1:1) symbolizing the dichotomy of Torah UMaddah. There
> are twin peaks -- one of Torah, the other of Maddah, which remain
> forever asunder. No synthesis exists. As a proud father, he described
> the schedule of his son Chaim.... One day Chaim deciphered a complex
> Talmudic passage -- on the other he reads Max Weber. Two peaks, two
> days. Rather than "Torah im Derech Eretz" of Rav Hirsch, towering
> Torah which is apart from towering Maddah. Only the separation and the
> intensive care of each achieves excellence in both.

(RNK contrasts this to RSRH's model, which was very Hegelian and very
much synthesis. See the above URL.)


The title Ramasayim Tzofim says it all -- two peaks, not one.

R' Aharon Rakefet puts it similarly, contrasting RSRH's synthesis with
RYBS's peaceful coexistence. The role of halakhah in all of this is to
give us the means to achieve that peace rather than to synthesize.

RYBS's Halachic Man is a synthesis, but not that of Torah uMadda. The
synthesis between homo religiosus and cognitive man is a religion
which invites man to be a creative partner with G-d. It finds itself
in Rav Chaim Brisker and the cognitive processes of lomdus and pesaq
halakhah. Cognition isn't limited to madda in a Litvisher world of an
intellectualized religiosity.

And yet, Halachic Man's synthesis isn't even a resolution of man's
creative cognition and man's emotion need to cleave to the A-lmighty.
Life doesn't begin and end with the creation of halakhah. RYBS still
feels the need to be a cognitive man in other realms, and for the
passionate tefillah he experienced among the chassidim of Chaslovitch.

RYBS was staunchly neo-Kantian. He saw Hegelian synthesis as too
facile to be a basis for meaningful existence. He saw the meaning of
life and the primary role of bechirah chafshis as being in living with
the conflicts of dialectic tension. RYBS therefore describes man and
the communities we enter/build as fraught with dialectics. (In fact,
the essay Community explores the very dialectic implied by my
"enter/build".)

Synthesis, at least in the sense of finding a whole which is fully
both of two conflicting poles and yet somehow something new and
greater than either, was not part of RYBS's agenda.

FWIW, in
http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/06/synthesis-and-dialectic.shtml I
write more on the subject of synthesis vs dialectic. Beqitzur, I
believe that the ideal of temimus and sheleimus, to truly be betzelem
E-lokim, one must partake of His Unity. And that is only acheivable
through synthesis. However, in the real world, "lo alekha hamlakhah
ligmor" -- we simply can never reach that plane. As such, I believe
the ideal man is in synthesis, but the rigors of life require dealing
with the not-yet-synthesized conflicts that force us to think,
prioritize, and use our bechirah.

This is also the thrust of a quote of R Gershon Rozenburg (Rav
"Shagar", RY of Siach Yitzchaq) in Haaretz 11 Jan 2005:
> Rabbi Kook presents the goal as being harmony among all the various
> values, whereas Rabbi Nachman viewed contradictions as a source of
> religious ecstasy. When you try to live simultaneously in all the
> worlds, there is a danger that you will end up living simplistically
> and superficially, or that you will try to force harmony. I identify
> with harmony as a goal, but in the real world, one must learn to live
> with contradictions.

However, I would state that last sentence more strongly. We are here
in the "real world" for the sake of living with those contradictions
and struggling to resolve them. Not just learning to live with
contradictions, but to realize that we live to reach a goal, not to
statically already be there. The diverse pieces left after sheviras
hakeilim must be healed. But to do so would be an undoing of ma'aseh
Bereishis.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter