[Avodah] Akrasia and Ritual

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

Akrasia is a classical Greek term for why we so often don't do what
we believe. In more mesoretic terms -- the problem of akrasia is the
question of "what is the yeitzer hara?"

In http://www.thebookoflife.org/akrasia-or-why-we-dont-do-what-we-believe
there is an interesting piece on how ritual helps solve akrasia. It might
help one's qabbalas ol mitzvos:

   ...
   There are two central solutions to akrasia, located in two unexpected
   quarters: in art and in ritual. The real purpose of art...

(Fans of RAYK or Dr Nathan Birnbaum might want to read the part I'm skipping
here.)

   Ritual is the second defence we have against akrasia. By ritual, one
   means the structured, often highly seductive or aesthetic, repetition
   of a thought or an action, with a view to making it at once convincing
   and habitual. Ritual rejects the notion that it can ever be sufficient
   to teach anything important once - an optimistic delusion which the
   modern education system has been fatefully marked by. Once might be
   enough to get us to admit an idea is right, but it won't be anything
   like enough to convince us it should be acted upon. Our brains are
   leaky, and under-pressure of any kind, they will readily revert to
   customary patterns of thought and feeling. Ritual trains our cognitive
   muscles, it makes a sequence of appointments in our diaries to refresh
   our acquaintance with our most important ideas.


   Our current culture tends to see ritual mainly as an antiquated
   infringement of individual freedom, a bossy command to turn our
   thoughts in particular directions at specific times. But the defenders
   of ritual would see it another way: we aren't being told to think of
   something we don't agree with, we are being returned with grace to what
   we always believed in at heart. We are being tugged by a collective
   force back to a more loyal and authentic version of ourselves.

   The greatest human institutions to have tried to address the problem of
   akrasia have been religions. Religions have wanted to do something much
   more serious than simply promote abstract ideas, they have wanted to
   get people to behave in line with those ideas, a very different thing.
   They didn't just want people to think kindness or forgiveness were nice
   (which generally we do already); they wanted us to be kind or forgiving
   most days of the year. That meant inventing a host of ingenious
   mechanisms for mobilising the will, which is why across much of the
   world, the finest art and buildings, the most seductive music, the most
   impressive and moving rituals have all been religious. Religion is a
   vast machine for addressing the problem of akrasia.

   This has presented a big conundrum for a more secular era. Bad
   secularisation has lumped religious superstition and religion's
   anti-akrasia strategies together. It has rejected both the supernatural
   ideas of the faiths and their wiser attitudes to the motivational roles
   of art and ritual.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 21st day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        3 weeks in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Malchus sheb'Tifferes: What is the unifying
Fax: (270) 514-1507                             factor in harmony?