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Note: This is a word-for-word transcript of an oral lecture and has not been edited to be read as a standalone text. Often the Rav’s tone, pauses, and vocal inflections impart meaning not discernable in the written version. The transcript is provided to accompany the audio lectures in order to help the listener catch every word.

Transcript: We discussed last time man, particularly the question of the individual versus the community, as it was formulated by classical philosophy. Basically, when classical philosophy spoke about the individual, it was not in relationship to the community, but to mankind. Classical philosophy didn’t know the concept of community. It was mankind, the universal man.

All these concepts of community and state were simply not known to classical philosophy as the concepts are known to us. Basically, in Greek – they didn’t even have the concept of state. It was more like the city government. And I tried to derive from the theory of the individual certain practical conclusions, and I tried to interpret the Greek philosophy of man in moral and also in social terms, as to social welfare and so forth. Of course, we have to take up the problem of the individual within Judaic thought; but before I – I’m going to take up this problem today – but before I do it, I would like again to see how this classical influence has asserted itself in modern philosophy with regard to the individual versus the community. When I say modern philosophy, I don’t mean modern philosophy in the sense of contemporary philosophy, but more modern philosophy since the Age of Enlightenment, or the Age of Freedom, since the French Revolution, or about that time, or perhaps tracing it back to the English positivists, like Hume, Locke, and so forth.

Two doctrines regarding the relationship between individual and community

In order to place the classical view of man in focus and to appreciate the enormous influence – and I’m doing it for the sake of contrasting the modern approach with that of the Jewish approach – because when we say individual, the very concept of individual is very vague, and we can interpret individual in two different ways – and to appreciate the enormous influence it exerted, I mean the classical view of man, upon the emergence of modern theory – and in order also to assess properly the significance of the revolutionary doctrine of man in Judaism – it would be advisable for us to investigate a controversy in modern philosophy relative [to] the problem of individual versus the community.

Basically, there are two doctrines as regards this relationship between individual and community – and in the course of this lecture I will show that Judaism disagrees, and I may add the adverb, violently, with both theories, but let us first see these two opposite viewpoints, and also realize that Judaism cannot accept either of them – basically there are two doctrines as regards the relationship between the individual and the community: the individualistic doctrine, and I would say the positivistic, or also the idealistic. The first theory, which has found its most succinct expression in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, says: the individual being is an independent entity, provided with natural prerogatives and innate rights. He enjoys full aboriginal freedom, and is endowed with creative attitudes for which he is not indebted to anyone, since he is the originator of everything. Of course, reading, for instance, the Declaration of Independence, you will find the echo of this individualistic theory – the Declaration of Independence. At the beginning, if I may use a biblical phrase for that, at the beginning there was the individual, not society. Later came the community, the collective, which is to be understood in terms of isolated individuals who joined up and formed a society. The latter consists of single selves who retain their autonomy even after they have left their solitary abode, and united within a community. The individual is capable of managing his affairs without appealing for aid to the collective. He is self-sufficient. The I does not need the thou or the He. Of course, the meeting of all three, that means of the I, the thou, and the He, and their coalescence into society, makes life simpler and more comfortable. Yet, an individual isolated existence is quite thinkable and also possible.

It is for a very good reason that the doctrine of individualism was called by theologians a Robinson Crusoe philosophy, and Dilthey, the famous German social philosopher, and Brunner, the Swiss theologian, have already pointed out that this theory granting primacy to the individual and isolating him from the social texture into which he was woven, coincides with the attempt of classical physics and chemistry to atomize matter and to interpret wholes, I mean, wholes or processes in nature, in terms of particles and isolated entities. It coincides with the conceiving of big events as resultants of infinitesimal sub-appearances. This is exactly what physics does. So, taking the community, atomize the community, and interpret community in terms of the individual. [It’s the] interpretation of the macrocosmos as the sum total of microprocesses.

Yes, and why do I quote this theory? It’s well known to you. I’m advancing nothing new. Because people – I read lately that people identified this theory with the Judaic viewpoint. This is exactly what [is] a big mistake. This is not the Judaic viewpoint. Whether the individual came first is a different problem, but the individual as self-sufficient, and, so to say, completely an isolated existence, and the community something which appeared later, either by the naive concept of contrat social [social contract], which is a very naive concept, or because of certain other forces which made individuals coalesce into a community – this is not the Jewish viewpoint. We’ll see later what the Jewish viewpoint is.

Of course, the opposite view of the individualistic theory is the theory of idealism, which is directly influenced by the classical theory of man, which places man within some ideal, supra-individual system. The individual is placed into a supra-individual system. The individual existence can only be understood, if looked upon as a manifestation of an all-embracing higher entity, be it the class, be it mankind, and be it also, as Hegel wants to say, the objective spirit. The individual, the single person, vanishes behind the universal, the whole, the general. Whatever the individual is, whatever he possesses, his abilities, aptitudes, creative talents, his experiences of a free existence, is rooted in the supra-individual unity or entity, which avails itself of the single person as an instrument of manifesting something higher and greater.

I don’t want to go into detail as to the different schools which deny the autonomy of the individual, and see him only as a medium through which something more worthy expresses itself. There are many schools. Important is only their general contention that the individual is only a part of the whole. Whether this view is formulated in universalistic Hegelian terms, or in the accents of the Romantic theory of organic growth, like Herder and so forth, or in the positivistic materialistic verbiage of Marxism and its class doctrine, is irrelevant. What is significant is the conclusion that the individual serves the collective, while the individualistic doctrine of man maintains that the reverse is true. I mean, it’s very usual to say here that the state serves the individual. Of course, it’s very simple to say within a totalitarian system that the reverse is true, that the individual serves the state.

Judaism could not identify itself with either of these doctrines. We will see later why this is so. So, when I said, when I developed last time the classical theory of man, man as only a representative of mankind, so, of course, you might have thought that the reverse would be, so to say, subscribed to by Judaism – to the individualistic theory. It’s exactly what I want to [bear] out, so to say, that Judaism does not subscribe to the individualistic theory, as it has been formulated by the philosophers of the age of reason, and so forth. Judaism has a very peculiar approach to that. I just introduced these two theories – there are many more between – but in order to show the contrast.

What I want to say now, to try to develop, is the Judaic interpretation of man – in particular, his relationship to the community. The question: is the individual autonomous? Is the community a supra-individualistic entity to which he must feel committed? Or, on the contrary, there is no commitment on the part of the individual to the community? In contradistinction to these two basic views, basic anthropological philosophical views, Judaism has introduced a new idea of man.

Let us move slowly. Answering the question which intrigued the finest minds, namely, what is man? Or, rather, as I said last time, what is the distinctive element in man? We will find that Judaism has two distinctive elements in man, perhaps three, but we will discuss now just one, the first one. This I believe is the most important. So we said, in Greek philosophy, the answer was the intellect. I showed you in Maimonides, in the Guide, in the first chapter, when he speaks about tzelem, Maimonides also adopts this viewpoint, that man is distinguished by his intellect, because – by his rational ability and capacity to understand himself, and to understand his environment, and finally to somehow subject the environment to his own, to his own, so to say, to his own plans or ideas. This is –

Reconstructing the Jewish view from the Halakha

Judaism – basic, genuine Judaism, unadulterated, I would say, by any philosophical jargon, or any extraneous influences, but pristine – and between you and me, basically pristine Judaism – where are the sources if you want to get to that? Alright, you would say medieval philosophy of religion; of course, medieval philosophy of religion, Jewish religion, was written by great scholars – Maimonides, Halevi, Sa’adyah, Bachya, Gersonides, and so forth – but unfortunately, they were children of their time, and their time was moving in the orbit of Greek philosophy – Greek, a bit colored by Neoplatonic mysticism. It’s a combination of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonic mysticism. Even Maimonides, the rationalist, is also a mystic, because this was, so to say, the climate at that time, the rationalistic on the one hand, and mystic on the other. And Maimonides – you never know where Maimonides is the Jewish scholar, or where he’s the Greek, the disciple of Aristotle and Plotinus. Sometimes he – sometimes you deal with Maimonides, the Jewish scholar, and in one, just in a second, he vanishes, and he’s replaced by an Aristotelian. It’s hard to know sometimes. That’s why they are not – the sources are not too reliable.

Basically there’s only one source which is very reliable, and this is the Halakha. The Halakha is an unadulterated source. It was very far removed from the outside world. Extraneous influences did not reach the Halakha as much as they reached the philosophical mind – the halakhic scholars. It was a group for itself – and in the Halakha, the basic Jewish viewpoint came to expression. The trouble is with the Halakha – I told you – the Halakha speaks in terms of laws, in terms of legal concepts, halakhic categories. When you have to find a philosophical background, you get involved into a job of reconstructing, out of objective data, the great religious experience. It’s very difficult, I told you – the passage from the objective data – laws, rules, technical rules of behavior – the passage from technical rules of behavior to a great religious experience, to the passionate religious personality, to the homo religiosus, is a very tortuous one. But we’ll try our best, to try to develop out of halakhic sources the theory of man, because after all, the Halakha deals with man, and if it formulated laws for man, and legislated norms for him, so it must have had a theory of man. Otherwise you cannot legislate for him. In order to legislate for somebody, you have to know this X. I mean, if it’s unknown, you can’t solve the equation. If there is no equation, or if there is an equation and the equation is insoluble, so you cannot say anything [about it].

Man as a lonely being

Now let me – I’m trying – first, I’m not quoting any laws. I have many laws to corroborate what I say, and many stories. I have nice stories, but it’s not a question of telling you stories. I have to bore you a while. I mean, I’m a bore, but I can’t help it. It should be placed in a philosophical perspective.

Judaism has introduced a new idea of man – and I’m convinced about it. I’m very – as far as claims which people make on behalf of Judaism, with regard to its participation in the emergence of culture, I’m very modest. You should not lay claims to things which we have not contributed anything. But, however, with regard to matters that we have actually proclaimed to the world, ideas which we have advised the world about their existence, so you should take pride in it, and this is one of the ideas that Judaism gave to the world.

Answering the question which intrigued the finest minds, namely, what is man? – the Bible said – and you’ll look at me in surprise if I’ll tell you – man is a lonely being. And in this feeling of loneliness, the distinctness of man manifests itself. The first distinctive element in [man], which sets man apart from nature or from creation in general, is his solitude – call it loneliness, call it aloofness – but his solitude, his separateness.

Why is he lonely? Because – that’s what Judaism will answer, and I’ll show you the law answers [this] – each man is not only a single individual – this is not well formulated – but also a singular being – not a single being, but a singular being. And right here is one of the reasons why Judaism could not accept the individualistic theory of man, although Judaism believes in the individual – because the individualistic theory of man did not speak of singular beings, but of single beings, like atoms within physical matter. So it means each being equals the other […], like two atoms. Each atom within a particular element – they equal each other. Like two electrons in a subatomic structure, or two neutrons, they equal each other. Alright, okay, in the emergence of society, they said the atom came first, concrete matter later. Concrete matter or society is a coalescence basically of atoms, of individual atoms, but the individual is only an atom. They are all identical – the same aptitudes, the same creative talents, the same experiences. It is the same existential experience; that’s important – the same ontic-awareness. It is just atoms, many. Of course they were very gracious to say that [the] individual is responsible for the society, not society for the individual, but the individual itself is just one of many, or one among many, and there are many like him. There’s almost an infinite number like him, like an infinite number of atoms. It’s just atomization of society. But atomization of society does not mean restoration of the dignity of the individual, because in order to be a dignified being, it’s not enough if I say I am responsible for society – but now we don’t care for you, because if you are not here, someone else will fill the void. Someone else will replace you, will supplant you, because [he has] the same abilities.

That’s exactly what the question is. Is he just a single individual? That’s what the individualistic theorists said. That’s what Rousseu and all of them said. He’s a single individual – and basically, when you read carefully the American Declaration of Independence, and Jefferson – there is no singularity of the individual. He speaks about the dignity of the individual created in the image of man. And of course, they ascribe the so-called, the legis natura, the lex natura, the natural rights which are inherent in the individual. Yes, but individual to them is replaceable. It’s dispensable. If not Mr. X, then Mr. Y, and if not Mr. Y, Mr. Z.

Judaism’s greatness in this regard was, it said the individual is not only a single being; it is a singular being. Let us continue. God created man – and I’ll show you how Judaism arrived at that. It was not just a caprice on the part of Judaism.

Man’s loneliness as a reflection of God’s loneliness

God created man in His image – b‘tzelem Elokim bara oto, and the divine aspect in man expresses itself not so much in his intellect – I mean the intellect of man – it’s a bit naïve – or in other spiritual and mental capabilities or attitudes which the human being possesses in contradistinction to the animal and the plant – but in his very existential experience of aloneness. It’s better to say – or later we’ll see what’s the difference between loneliness and aloneness. It’s better to say that the image of God expresses itself in the fact that man is lonely or solitary, in his aloneness and otherness, in his estrangement and separateness from creation in general and from the thou in particular.

Man is lonely with regard to two, I should say, two realms. He is lonely with regard to the forest. If I should find myself in the forest – if I should find myself in the forest, or somewhere in the woods, or in the fields, I am lonely among the trees. I’m lonely among the animals. I’m lonely in the jungle. Alright? This means a loneliness which is estrangement of man from creation in general.

There is also another concept of loneliness of man, an experience at the social level. Man is lonely not only with regard to the forest, the trees, the animals, to the ocean, to the heavens, he’s also lonely with regard to the thou. If I find myself at Times Square, and I am a stranger, I’ve also experienced loneliness. It’s not loneliness which makes me feel my estrangement from nature, but makes me conscious of my – so to say, of the gap or the gulf dividing me from the crowd.

Why is it so? So, let’s not forget that Judaism is a monotheistic religion. We all know it. Our basic article of faith found expression in the opening verse to Shema. Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. The word in Hebrew for one is echad […]. Basically, in Hebrew echad means not only one. Echad in Hebrew, if one has the feeling from the semantic aspect of echad – it’s a Hebrew word – [it] means not only one, but it means the only one – not only one, but the only one. So, basically, there would be two translations of Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad. We would translate it not “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one,” but I would say “the Lord is our God, the Lord is the only one.” And, of course, you can make a mathematical equation: only one equals the lonely one. So, actually, if you want to translate Shema Yisrael in English, and to translate it properly, it would be “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is lonely.” It’s strange, […] because echad means not only the Lord is the one, but He’s unique, He’s the only one, He’s singular; there’s no friend; there’s no associate.

Basically, Ibn Ezra, the medieval commentator of the Bible, says so. He says, the verse, he says, God being alone, not one, but alone. Even the German Jewish scholar, one of the founders of liberal Judaism, Zunz, Leopold Zunz, also translated this verse, not only as one, but also as unique, God is unique; [it] means Lord.

What does it mean, God is lonely? God is different from all other beings. He is wholly other than all creatures. His existence is singular and incommensurable with our existential experience. What this means – what does it mean, lonely, only one? His existence is different from ours. In the Maimonidean philosophy, the echad, as implying, if I may use a theological term introduced by Otto, the numen – numen means the unknowability, the strangeness, the otherness, something which is different, something which is incommensurable, incongruous, with whatever I know and I experience – the numen, the unique, incomprehensible, incommunicable, and inexpressible existence.

To Maimonides, this incommunicability of God’s existence to others – His uniqueness, His unknowability, His loneliness, His aloneness – sounds the keynote of all philosophical thinking in Judaism. All – according to Maimonides – all you may predicate of God according to Maimonides, is His incomparability with creation, and His unknowability. This is the only attribute that you can say. What you can say about God is, He’s not like us. You can’t say anything positive. You know the famous doctrine of Maimonides – many call it the doctra ignorantia, or negative theology – whether these terms are true is a different problem – but it means [all we] can know about God [is] that He’s different from us.

Now if you’ll just – is there the Guide here? Do you have the Guide? If you’ll just be so kind and open the Guide, first section, chapter 60, first section, Attributes of God, page 88. I don’t want you to believe me if Maimonides says so; I mean you’ll just check it. Page 88, fourth line, fourth line, page 88:

“For it has been shown that every perfection we could imagine, even if existing in God, in accordance with the opinion of those who assert the existence of attributes, would in reality not be of the same kind as that imagined by us, but would only be called by the same name according to our explanation. It would in fact amount to negation.”

When you say God exists, and you want to subsume existence under our category of existence, it’s a wrong statement. You can only say God exists not the way we exist. Nothing else. Or rather, if we should employ [the] Maimondiean phrase, He does not exist the way we exist. Negate. Yes.

Now:

“Suppose” – we can skip that – “You thus necessarily arrive at some negation without obtaining a true conception of an essential attribute; on the contrary, you are led to assume that there is a plurality in God, and to believe that He, though one essence, has several unknown attributes. For if you intend to affirm them, you cannot compare them with those attributes known by us, and they are consequently not of the same kind. You are, as it were, brought by the belief in the reality of attributes to say that God is one subject of which several things are predicated; though the subject is not like ordinary subjects, and the predicates are not like ordinary predicates.” – and so forth.

So Maimonides – the whole chapter 60, and 61, wants to show one thing. All you can say about God [is] that He is not like us. So what does it mean, in other words? If one is not like us, so what is it? In simple English – He’s alone, because if He’s like us, He’s not alone. If there’s commensurability, there is something– a common denominator – there is something universal in both of us – He’s not alone. There is nothing in common between God and creation.

Now, Judaism, as a matter of fact, also spoke of God as the lonely being abiding in seclusion, hidden in His infinite recesses, and a solitary being, and this is – when you want to say a solitary being, or the only one, you can say instead of echad, you say yachid. Yachid means already not one – although echad itself involves this only one – but yachid means the only one – and we have a passage in the Bible, in the Pentateuch – do you have the English translation? […] Yes. If this would be so kind, it is Deuteronomy 32, 12, comma 12. Adoshem badad yanchenu v’ein imo keil neichar. The translation is a very poor one. It says, “God” – “So the Lord alone did lead him, there was no strange god with Him.” But badad is more – badad is alone, not in the sense no one helped Him, but He is alone. It’s not in the sense no one helped Him. Because if we would – if we would express – whoever knows Hebrew – if we would express this, it would say Adoshem levado yanchenu, but here it is badad. God –the lonely God. It’s a better translation. God, the lonely God. Badad – badad is loneliness. Eicha yashva badad. God, the lonely God. “The lonely God [did] lead him, and there was no strange god with Him” – God, the Lord, the lonely Lord, the lonely one.

God is always enveloped in a cloud, cloud of darkness. Clouds and darkness are about Him. This identification, God with the cloud, is very familiar to everybody who knows the Bible. Vayered Adoshem ba’anan. God has descended, enveloped in a cloud. Let us take for instance the Psalms, 97, If I’m not mistaken. 97, the Psalms. “Clouds and darkness are round about Him.” I mean, there is, I believe, a passage like that, a verse like that, 97. We say it every Friday, anan va’arafel sevivav, in lechu neranana. Loneliness of God – 97, yes? Is that 97? – second verse: anan va’arafel sevivav. Clouds and darkness are around about Him. Correct? Yes. What does it mean? – loneliness. I think always [of] the cloud as a symbol of isolation, aloofness, solitude, seclusion, withdrawal.

Loneliness of God is perhaps the highest term of Judaic theological thinking. Why is it the highest term? – because it has a tremendous influence over our social philosophy. If God weren’t lonely, we wouldn’t have developed this beautiful social philosophy we did. Since man was created in the image of God, his specific endowment consists in his existential loneliness – and I’ll explain later what it means – which is an expression of his uniqueness and separateness from Being as a whole.

And modern psychology and psychiatry, many have erred in their interpretation of the feeling of loneliness. It’s a basic mistake. Of course, this mistake has penetrated lately into theological thinking and all pastoral psychologies – it means a rabbi who is not a psychologist, or a theologian who is not a psychologist, or the other way around – a psychologist who is neither a rabbi nor a theologian – this combination is a very funny one – when they speak about integrating man into society, coalescence – simply trying man to help him, [that] he should rid himself of this feeling of loneliness and solitude – I mean, he is making a basic mistake. Of course, loneliness is not always a disintegrative and devastating emotion. I say not always – sometimes, yes. Later we’ll come [to it], when loneliness becomes a disintegrative or a destructive emotion or a devastating emotion – not always is it a negative emotion indicating disturbance or frustrating experiences. Only at certain times loneliness is engendered by mental desolation and forlornness and is indicative of a sick soul, yes, at certain times. Yet, loneliness is not only to be found in the area of morbid self-introspection, of unfounded fears, inferiorities, self-loathing and debasings, or self-contempt, but also and perhaps mainly in a new dimension, in depth of human greatness and human dignity and glory. Man is great and glorious because he is lonely.

When the psalmist exclaims, “For Thou has made him” – 8, if you don’t mind, Psalm 8. Yes, you have it. “For Thou has made him a little lower than the angels,” Yes? Do you have it? “For Thou has made him a little lower than the angels,” Yes? It’s 8 – what verse is it? Huh? 6, Yes. “For Thou has made him a little lower than the angels” – again, angels is an incorrect translation. Vatechasreihu me’at mei’Elokim does not mean angels. Sometimes in the Bible Elokim is a substitute for angel, for malach, but basically, Elokim means the God. You just made him a bit lower than God, “and has crowned him with glory and honor.” Yes. So what does it mean, a bit lower than God? It’s not with regard to our capabilities. As far as our capabilities are concerned, we are not just a bit lower than God. We are very far removed from God. When he speaks about a bit lower than God, he refers to the existential experience of man, and he refers to the unique gift which was bestowed upon man, namely, his loneliness, his solitude. Of course the feeling of solitude is a painful one, no doubt about it. Through it, man comes – through loneliness perhaps – man comes close to the reality of suffering. There’s no doubt about it. I don’t say it’s a very comfortable feeling. It’s a painful feeling. However, this necessity of coming close to the reality of suffering is also an opportunity to share in the travail of an inspired existence, and who knows whether one can share in the great drama of existence without subjecting oneself to pain or to suffering.

Now, let us see. God is lonely; man is lonely. Conclusion – he is one – it is very simple – what is the conclusion? – that man draws toward God and God surges forward toward man. Two lonely beings who meet each other – basically, the meeting, the rendezvous between man and God, because both are lonely. And how beautiful, I mean – Plotinus already said it, not a Jewish philosopher – it’s beautiful – we find it in the Psalms – what is actually a religious experience if not the flight of the lonely to the Lonely One? There is only one difference. The first “l” in “lonely” is small and the “Lonely One” are capitalized. But this is true from a Judaic viewpoint. The first approach of man to God and God’s moving from his transcendence toward man manifests the paradoxical mutual fascination that the lonely finite being and the Lonely Infinite Being are subjected to. Man surges toward God because he is lonely, abandoned by creation, as such, forlorn in his seclusion and aloneness, and in order to allay his painful experience and to help or to heal his tormented mind and tortured heart and to restore them to the health of serenity and an existence in fellowship – and God Who is lonely – meet, because one experience combines them both. This is the strange existential experience of solitude which man is eager paradoxically to escape and in which we find the threads of an existence dedicated to some ultimate ends woven in the fabric of one’s personality. It’s both – he wants to escape it, and he is great because of this experience.

Loneliness as the heart of Jewish prayer

Now, particular attention should be devoted to the nature of prayer. What is prayer? If Judaism didn’t know the concept of loneliness, Judaism could not develop the idea of prayer. I want you to know – prayer, as such, is a Judaic concept. The Greeks didn’t understand prayer. For them prayer was more of a singing and aesthetic hymn. Of course, I mean, you see something nice, you write an ode. It was the ode, I mean, the ode in Horace – nothing but the ode – but an ode is not a prayer. Because – basically you know very well that the so-called hymn plays a minor role in Jewish prayers. The so-called extolling hymn or even the thanksgiving hymn plays a minor role.

What is the main, the very core of prayer? It is so-called intercessory prayer or the petition – but many called it, because of ignorance, the selfish prayer – I ask God to gratify my needs. But in Judaism, of course – because the intercessory prayer is indicative of man’s crisis, of man’s distress – the hymn is not indicative of distress, of crisis – because prayer in Judaism is combined, knitted very closely with tzara, tzara. Tzara means distress, when one finds himself in straits, in narrow straits. Yes, one said, when I come to Eretz Yisroel, I forget all my tzoros, but I find tzarot. But this is – what does tzara mean? Tzara means not calamity, I want you to understand. This is, again, a mistaken translation. It’s not calamity, it’s not catastrophe. Tzara is tzar; tzar means narrow –when one finds himself in narrow straits. Min hameitzar karati ka, from the narrow straits, out of the narrow – or depth of […], when I find myself somewhere in the depth, I [come to Him] – it means when man is in crisis – basically it’s crisis. It is distress, but not the surface distress. It is depth distress, distress in being in tzarot – and this exactly drives man to come to [God], drives him to pray.

That’s why the hymn – we have the hymn – we have the Psalms and many hymns – but basically 75% of all the psalms is “God answer; answer my petition; I am forlorn.” Tefila le’ani ki ya’atof [a prayer of the lowly man when he is faint] – as a matter of fact, in the recommended reading I wanted you to read these psalms in which the distress comes to expression. You’ll open the psalm, the book of Psalms, “Answer the distress! I am lonely; I am poor; I am forlorn; I’m on the brink of nihility; I’m at the brink of hell; I can’t find myself; help me find myself! I’m trying to escape my fate, my destiny.”

This is the motif. This is exactly loneliness. If not for loneliness – that’s why Judaism has emphasis, stress, underlying the intercessory prayer, or the so-called petition, or the selfish prayer, as it is called by some theologians. You take the Shemoneh Esrei, Shemoneh Esrei composed of not 18 [but] 19, so you have only six hymns. Actually, you have only a few, which deal with singing a hymn to God, but mostly, simply, I specify my needs, and at the end I say I cannot specify my needs; You know my need better than I do, so please answer.

Particular attention should be devoted to the nature of prayer, one of the most exalted religious experiences. Prayer, basically, is a dialogue between God and single man, an encounter between a lonely soul and its Lonely Creator. It’s only a dialogue between two people, a duologue. It’s not a symposium – so if the community comes to God, then it is a symposium – that’s more than a dialogue, I would say – and prayer is only a dialogue, a duologue, a du siach, only between two. Who is the two? On the one hand is the One, yes; on the other hand, who comes before God? – not the community. We have communal prayer too, but, basically, Jewish prayer [is] not the communal prayer, and is individual prayer, and this is one of the basic mistakes, which, for instance – not that I’m criticizing, but it’s a fact – that liberal Judaism [has] made by eliminating the individual prayer, the individual approach – just communal singing, communal participation, and no one is lonely. No one is lonely. I feel very comfortable. Particularly, [with] the type of temples that are building now, the million-dollar temples, I don’t believe the lonely soul can – he’s already comforted by the beautiful pictures. He’s proud.

Prayer comes to expression in the basic desire of man. Basically, prayer – I want to depart for a while from the concept of individual versus community, just in order to show that prayer is based on loneliness [of the] individual. Basically, prayer expresses a certain need in man. And if I should call – introduce – I would say employ a biblical metaphor, this need, I would say, expresses itself in what Isaiah said, ki li tichra kol berekh tishava kol lashon, Surely unto Me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear allegiance. We have it in our al ken nekaveh lekha prayer. Every knee should bow. Why should every knee bow? What does kneeling mean, basically? Kneeling is also one of the symbols in religious life, how one expresses his feelings, his emotions, at the religious level. What does it mean? It means the I who wants to surrender to the greater Thou, the lonely I who wants to surrender completely to the Lonely Thou – of course Lonely Thou is capital[ized] –  to submit himself to Someone, but the Someone is again capital[ized], to unburden himself of the heavy load that fate has – and fate doesn’t mean bad fate – not bad fate –fate means existence itself – has placed upon his frail shoulders. He is eager to share, many a time, responsibilities implied in his creative role assigned to him by God, and to turn himself over to someone in whom he has trust – and in whom can he have trust if not in a Lonely Being who understands him? If God were not lonely, we couldn’t come to Him; He couldn’t have any sympathy for us. This peculiar wish manifests a state of fatigue, but not physical fatigue, not even mental fatigue, [but] what we call ontic fatigue, fatigue of being, of metaphysical exhaustion – not psychological exhaustion – metaphysical exhaustion, of disgust with life and with everything it has to offer to man.

This is prayer. Prayer is self-abandoning and complete surrender, and in this very act of surrendering, tired man finds solace and quietude. And Freud, again, Freud erred here. It’s a basic error of Freud. He considers – when he speaks of the infantilism involved in the religious experience – on the one hand, he was right when he says that religion has the element of fatherhood, the child running to the father. He’s right. I wouldn’t say this is the entire religious experience; it’s one of the aspects of the religious experience. But there is one other basic aspect. We run to God as a little child who finds himself in distress or in trouble, and wants his father to help him. Yes, that’s correct. The child who is incapable of solving his own problems wants his father, we suppose, to accomplish what the youngster cannot do. Yes, he’s right in that; I wouldn’t argue with him. But he is wrong if he thinks that this is infantile, that – the need for casting off anguish and sorrow in the lap of God, the Father, is far from a neurotic attitude of infantilism on the part of frightened man. It is instead a very healthy response, sometimes, to crushing defeat and crisis. The feeling of insecurity ends many a time when security is found in the Lonely Thou.

It’s interesting, if you want to take a look, Psalms 55, chapter 55, verse 23. Hashlekh al Adoshem yehavkha vehu yechalkelekha, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.” Will you be so kind in reading the following verse? I don’t have it in my manuscript, the following verse. In English, what’s the following verse? Will you be so kind? 23 – “He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Yes. The lonely person comes before God, man in despair and fear, kneels before him and hides his head, bent under the heavy yoke of living, at his bosom. Man, whom everybody has forsaken and betrayed, finds shelter in God. Prayer means a feeling of being forsaken by everybody. No one understands me. Not because of the fault of [myself], and not because the other fellow is wrong – not of any culpability on the part of any fellow, no. I don’t blame anybody. I don’t indict anybody –because he can’t understand me. Why? – because he’s lonely and I’m lonely. How can two lonely beings understand each other? I’ll come later to this explanation. That’s why the individual is forsaken. It’s not an indictment. Man, whom everybody has forsaken and betrayed, finds shelter in God. Man who forfeited everything, friendship, sympathy, and understanding on the part of others – in a word, lonely man – clings to Him. And this means, ki lekha tikhra kol berekh, every knee bows before Thee, because every knee must lose its arrogance and security at one time or another.

Now, if you’ll be so kind, you open the Psalms again. Psalm 27, verses 9 and 10 When you’ll read it, you’ll see what prayer means. 27, L’David ori 1. As a matter of fact, it’s recited the whole month of Elul, until after Shemini Atzeret. Verse 9 and 10. “Hide not thy face from me; put not thy servant away in anger; Thou hast been my help; cast me not off, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, the Lord will take me up.” Father and mother have forsaken me – and we’ll see later, it is true. It’s not just a phrase. It is true. I mean, it appears strange, how father and mother can forsake a child. We’ll see about that. This exactly…

And that is why, and please, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to preach any orthodoxy, but now it’s by a sheer force of associative thinking, I have to mention it. That’s why we Orthodox Jews are opposed to mixed – to the family pew in the synagogue. The family pew! You know why the family pew is wrong? If I ask you why the family pew is wrong, according to our thinking – why do people want to have a family pew? Why does an American Jew want to pray together with his wife and children? He wants to feel comfortable. Comfortable. So, he takes a look at his wife; she is beacon of light to him, a fortress of strength; the children, they wouldn’t desert him, they wouldn’t forsake him; whenever he needs, whenever he’ll be in need, he can come to his wife. That’s exactly what David, the Psalmist, wants us not to believe. That’s why we fight against the family pew, because we want to isolate the individual from the family, at least for an hour, to come to God, or before God, as a lonely individual, [who] has no family – no wife, no children, no parents.

You know that basically we never allowed child and father to sit next to each other. Because the child takes a look at his father, when he has trouble, he comes to his finite father. So there is no… And the basic element of prayer, the conditio sine qua non, is this sentence, this verse in the psalm, ki avi ve’imi azavuni, the father and mother, the best friend, the staunchest friend of a man, have forsaken me. And we should be not only – because it’s mental experience, but as a mental experience, we have to create an environment for it, a climate for it. It’s a very soft seat, and I have my wife and children around me, and if I say it, I seem to say a lie. This is exactly the basic philosophy of why we oppose it. I mean, a lot of nonsense has been said about us, that we are opposed to the, so to say, to the fair sex; it’s ridiculous. If one knows what the status of a woman is in the Halakhah, he cannot say it. Such statements come from people either who are ignorant, simply they don’t know what the station of the woman was in the Halakhah, or – they are not ignorant – or they simply distort facts. Of course, it’s a very daring indictment, but I have to say. It has nothing to do with the question of sex. It has to do with the problem of family – no family in the synagogue. In the synagogue, not the family comes, not the community comes; there is no community in the synagogue – it’s nothing – there are isolated individuals; but still, you need a place to worship, so there is physical contiguity, so to say, in space, but mentally, each one is a world to himself, and he looks upon the other one as a stranger – not as my neighbor, as my friend – as a stranger, as one who is completely indifferent to my suffering, to my problems, to the doubts which are still in my mind, who is completely – absolutely has no concern for me, and there is only one friend I come to. This is God – “The Lord will take me up.”

The surface crisis and the depth crisis

Now, let’s continue. The humanitas of man culminates in his loneliness. The latter is not, as a rule, a devastating, but an ennobling experience, the absence of which shuts out the vision of God from one’s life. And that’s exactly what is wrong with the basic philosophy of peace of mind as an aim of religion – at least Judaism – I have no right to speak about religion in general – in Judaism. Of course, I see now sociologists begin to attack this problem, philosophers, but basically it is wrong – that peace of mind means complete forgetting about one’s depth crisis. It means a belief that I am fully successful, successful at the highest level – and I saw many fools who think they are successful at life, that man cannot be defeated, that he didn’t suffer any defeat. And, of course, they measure success and defeat in terms, in very shallow terms, in making money […], or social station, or social prominence, and so forth, and so on. This cannot be; then there’s no need for God; at least the need is a secondary one.

The flight, as Plotinus said, of the lonely to the Lonely One, can come out of distress. And we Jews believe that there are two kinds of distress, two kinds of crisis. One crisis we call the surface crisis – for instance, disease, famine, war, poverty – it’s a surface crisis, because it does not touch the very existence of man, I mean his experience as an existent, as a person. It’s because – it’s due to certain environmental conditions, and these conditions can be alleviated and changed. Today I’m hungry and tomorrow I can have money and buy bread. Today I’m sick, tomorrow I’ll recover. And so forth on. This is surface crisis. Surface crisis, of course, also – a man who finds himself in this typical crisis runs to God.

But Judaism said there is permanent sorrow. There is a permanent sorrow. There is a permanent – man finds himself in permanent distress, and this is not just due to his environment, due to certain conditions; it is because his very being is in distress, and no one can help it. While, for instance, surface crisis can be understood by others – if I am sick, people express sympathy; when someone is hungry, people will extend help to him – but there’s a certain crisis where there is distress within man, not on the outside, to which man is, so to say, subjected, but within man, which no one understands. It is the impossibility of attaining complete success. It is the necessity for defeat, from time to time. It is the necessity to share the reality of pain. I don’t mean physical pain. It is – and this distress, this permanent distress, state of distress, prevails as long as man is man, because man’s humanitas, man’s, so to say, singularity, expresses itself, and one of the basic aspects of this permanent distress is the aloneness of man.

And here comes prayer. If you want to alleviate [it], come to God. Of course, it can never be alleviated completely. I’ll show you how it expresses itself in the Halakhah. And that’s it – whoever does not feel himself, feel that he is in distress, in this permanent distress, experiencing distress, experiencing incompleteness, experiencing, so to say, a crisis – he can never meet God – the vision of God is shut out of his world – only the lonely person, always in distress. Take, for instance – Judaism has formulated aspects of this inner distress and permanent distress, what they are. But it’s not the time.

I just want to – in Psalms, yes? I have to check. Excuse me for a moment. Yes. Will you be so kind and look up Psalm – just a minute – Psalm 130. The famous Psalm, De Profundis. Just the first verse. Could you give me, someone give me, I mean, the English text? Yes, will you be so kind? 130, yes. “Out of the depths have I called Thee, O Lord.” De Profundis. What does it mean, out of the depths? What kind of depth does it speak? What kind of depth? How do we find ourselves in depth?

[Here the Rav changes to Psalm 120 – ed.] “In my distress I called unto the Lord, and he answered me. O Lord, deliver my soul from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given unto thee, and what shall be done more unto thee, thou deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of broom.”

What does it mean, out of my distress? What is [the] distress? It doesn’t specify anything here. Sickness, hunger, war? I mean, what is [the] distress? – the lying tongue, the lying lips, and the deceitful tongue. Who is lying? Where did he see liars around himself, David? Are there so many liars in the world? Everybody is a liar. kol ha’adam kozev [“all men are deceitful”]. Why is he a liar? Because when he displays sympathy for the thou, he basically does not feel the thou. The thou is not real to him. Is the thou real to him? When we come to express our condolences, in case of death, when I come to visit the sick, is the thou real to me? As a rabbi, I do many –I visit the sick, of course. I pay many visits of condolence. So, is the distress of the other fellow real to me? It’s not real. When I say I’m sorry, and I have sympathy, it’s lying lips, it’s a deceitful tongue, because deceit is a part of man, because he’s lonely. There’s no understanding of the other, on the part of the other one, and this is the permanent distress in which man finds himself.

And, of course, the more modern man becomes, the smoother he talks, and the richer his vocabulary is, and the easier he can roll off sentences, the bigger a liar he is, of course. “O Lord deliver me, my soul” – and there is no indictment upon us, because I am the same liar as he is, because I am lonely, he is lonely, and there is no […]. [Psalms] 120, 130.

Now, it’s the basic element which is overlooked in modern prayer. Yes, sir?

Audience questions and responses

[audience member:] Why is a minyan required if prayer is a question of the individual being alone?

[the Rav:] Do you know for what the minyan is required, I mean, halakhically? – for the saying of the Kaddish, and for the recital of Kedusha. This means for the hymn, but not for the intercessory prayer. The singing of – what is Kaddish? Kaddish means the singing of the hymn. The hymn: “Glorified and exalted be his name;” or, kadosh kadosh kadosh, sanctum, sanctum, sanctum. It’s the hymn, for the hymn, but not for the intercessory prayer. The hymn, of course – thanksgiving – these glorious tones of hymnal music – is much nicer when there is community; but when man comes to surrender to God, to hide his head in the lap of God, and say, everybody betrayed me; even father and mother have forsaken me; You are my only friend I have, because You are Lonely and I am lonely; we understand each other –there is no minyan required.

[audience member:] In the tradition of the son not following the father at an aliyah, does that follow what you said before about a father?

[the Rav:] No, no, it’s a different reason. The reason is because whoever is called up for the aliyah, testifies that the Torah is good, and the law is that two relatives are disqualified from testifying. So if you call up the father and the son, so they cannot testify, because according to the Jewish law, two witnesses must testify in order to confirm something. The testimony of one witness is not enough. So when you call up the first one and the second one, so both testify, Torat emet – it’s a true Torah, but father and son can never testify together. This is it – because keriyas haTorah is not prayer, I want you to understand. It’s a part – it’s not prayer – it’s a bit at a different level. Keriyas haTorah is basic study. I mean, there is a combination of prayer and study. It’s a different problem.

[audience member:] Where is there evidence about a father and son not praying together?

[the Rav:] In Ramah, in Isserles, in the Shulchan Aruch in the Code, he says that one should not embrace the child, or even pet his child, or even look at his child, or even caress his child with a glance during prayer, because, it should be – because ki avi ve’imi ya’azvuni vadoshem ya’asfeni, because everybody has forsaken me except God. It’s a simple, clear-cut law in the Code, in Orach Chaim. I don’t remember now the paragraph, but next time I’ll give you – or I’ll write you a letter.

[audience member:] I was just wondering, in terms of prayer; prayer is – the prayer book can be very stock to everyone, I mean everyone can say the words…

[the Rav:] Correct. The question of standardized prayer.

[audience member:] I was just wondering […] where there’s a silence of prayer.

[the Rav:] I know, I know, the silent prayer […] Basically, I want you to understand. I mean, we are getting away from our topic. Basically, prayer is what we call in the halakhic terminology the avodah shebalev, the service by the heart. This, so to say, this physical act of pronouncing words is more a medium, a techné, than the very act of prayer. Why standardized prayer was introduced, as Maimonides explains, [is] because simply people don’t know how to express themselves, and in order to make prayer democratic – there was an element of democracy, as Maimonides explains. For the man – the literate person could have said beautiful prayers. This was before Ezra, before the Great Assembly. The person who is a stutterer – I don’t mean a stutterer, but a man with no language, the primitive person – couldn’t pray. So in order to demo – it’s an act of democratization of prayer, basically, because, again, as I tell you, Judaism is also an institutionalized religion. An institutionalized religion has to reckon with the needs of the masses. You cannot keep something at a lofty level and simply bar the masses from participating. That’s why prayer has been standardized – but the experience of prayer has never been standardized. It shouldn’t be standardized.

[audience member:] But if that is so, certainly the prayers that are recited and are foreign in terms of our tongue today…

[the Rav:] You mean in terms of language? You mean language, simply because it’s Hebrew and [not] English?

[audience member:] That’s right, a kind of translation…

[the Rav:] Yeah, I’ll tell you – basically, prayer can be recited in every language, if the text is observed. This is the law. Prayer can be – the basic law is that prayer can be recited in every language in which a person speaks. However, I would recommend that people should study prayers in Hebrew because it’s very hard to translate something well. I showed you echad – Echad is not being translated well – or badad. It’s lonely. It’s hard to translate. There is no genuine translation for anything.

[audience member:] Regarding translation, why shouldn’t we accept the translation “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” – instead of saying, “The Lord is our God; the Lord is one.” Which would […] more likely the apt translation?

[the Rav:] I would agree – I never thought about it – but I would agree more that the Elokeinu is a qualifying, is a clause. It means the Lord our God, as a qualifying, as a clause in commas. I would put it in commas. As a clause. I would put it as a […]. Yes, sir?

[audience member:] The concept that you give of the tzara, which is, for a moment, it sounds, at first blush, anti-psychological, in the sense that it is an unchanging, immutable tzara that responds not to changes of social conditions.

[the Rav:] No, I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that it’s immutable or unchangeable or unalterable. Of course – for instance, the way I experience it is dependent upon my, upon the general cultural constellation and my position within society – of course. But all we are saying [is] that everybody, everybody must experience incompleteness in himself – incompleteness, and also, failure in himself, defeat, at a certain level, but the levels change, and the terms, the experiential terms in which I may interpret this certainly are subject to cultural changes. But I say you can never, so to say, redeem yourself from this. It is permanent; you cannot redeem yourself. But let me speak about loneliness. If I may just…

Defining loneliness as having a depth existence

Now, let us see what is loneliness, basically? What is loneliness? We spoke and spoke and spoke about it, but still we didn’t define it. Of course, you know very well that only man is lonely. The lion, the horse or the cat is not lonely. You know this well. It’s hard to say, but let’s assume so. Let’s assume so, as much as the humane societies try to tell us what is humane, and what is inhumane. I’ve asked one of the leaders, did he interview an animal? How does he know? Anyway.

It is, of course, it is an inseparable part, as I said, of our existential awareness, no doubt about it. Let us see. And please, I would ask you to pay attention. I begin to bore now, I’m becoming a bore, but for a while, just for a short while.

While the whole universe shares only surface existence with man, only surface existence, the human being lays claim to a depth existence as well, and I’ll explain this. If we attribute, for instance, reality to a certain object, to a particular object, such as a stone in the inanimate world, or the animal in the organic, the biological kingdom, or to this mic, or to this glass, or to this book, we say the stone exists. What do we understand by saying the stone exists, or this glass full of water is real, or this book is real? So all we say [is] it exists at a behavioral level, only, or insofar as this object is affected by and affecting change in others. It means this object can be affected by some action, or can also affect action in others. It means in terms of causality. The stone exists, and its reality is equal – if you’ll ask me, what does the reality of the stone equal, in a mathematical equation, what would you say? – the sum total of mass and energy, that’s all. You’ll open up a book of physics, and it will say, the sum total of mass and energy, of course – is equal – the behavioral sum total of its position within the causal nexus. It exists as much as much action we can ascribe to it. Whatever the stone is, is betrayed and expressed by its activity. It exists outside on the surface, because it may affect changes in other objects. It may also be affected by the impact of other objects, and of course, the fact that it is affected, this book, this object is affected, it affects changes in other objects, because, you see – because the causal nexus is a continuous one, any change here, involves a change there. It exists outside on the surface, expressed in mathematical equations of mass and energy. There is no existence to be attributed to the stone other than one manifested in its causal relational behavior, in its activity – of course, I cannot say activity of a stone, but in its effectiveness. Whatever the stone is, its whole existence is exhausted by its relatedness to others. The stone alone doesn’t exist, you understand. It exists as a cause and an effect within the whole of the cosmic drama. This is true not only of the stone and the book; this is true of the stars and […] of animate and inanimate nature.

Therefore, to make scientific observations of things, of dead things, or even of animals, but particularly of dead things, is epistemologically a simple task. Of course, it might be associated with technical difficulties, particularly at the microcosmic level, but there is one thing which is true. The stone doesn’t lie; does it? – or the animal doesn’t lie – if the stone is interviewed – I mean interviewed not in the sense of a dialogue, but I mean interviewed in a laboratory under the microscope or wherever it is – it doesn’t lie; whatever the scientist observes is true, and this is why the natural scientists are so fortunate that they can predict with exactness the behavior of the stars and the moon and of the stone and of the drop of water – for a simple reason, because those objects don’t lie. Why don’t they lie? What does lying mean – lying means my behavior is something else, and my within-existence is not commensurate with my [without]-existence. There is no within-existence in the stone. Whatever it is, it is expressed to others, you see. Nothing is hidden in the thing itself beyond its behavioral surface. There are no indentations in the stone, indentations or abstruse corners, no secrets, nothing. There is sometimes secrets in matter, but finally we get [it] out of it. And how do we get [it] out? We observe the behavior of matter. How do we get out – do we get out the secret of the subatomic structure? – by a beam of light – because, when an atom gets off the orbit, there is an optical effect, and this is true, because the atom would not lie to us.

However, man is different. He certainly exists like other things, of course, and we can understand man by his behavior – certainly, certainly – within which he finds himself on par with other things, or with the concrete order within which he finds himself placed, namely, on the outside. He also lives on the outside. We live through our talking – how do people know about us? – because of our speech, of our actions, of our reactions, responses, of our endeavors, and so forth and so on, yes, of course. One may also equate human existence with his deportment – correct? – and dismiss the other existential aspects completely. As a matter of fact – I am not speaking, so to say, through my hat – as a matter of fact, many psychologies have done so, and have eo ipso – and they have equated man with his behavior – the whole psychology of behaviorism [has done so] – or the psychology of – how do you call it? – of association – Spencer, Stuart Mill, all of them, in particular in American behaviorism. Of course. So what does the psychology of behaviorism say? What is man? – the sum total of his activities. So it means man is an outside-existence. He has no within- existence – or perhaps he has, but we are not interested in it – I mean, say it the way [you want], but that’s all.

But of course, by this statement, they destroy the very concept of the human personality in its unique station within the realm of things. We, the advocates of religious anthropology, in particular of Judaism – [its’] important there, where Judaism was great, revolutionary – know that there is more to man than his instinctive behavior betrays. There is more to man than his actions tell us. There is nothing more to the stone than his behavior; there is more to man than his behavior. There is more to man than his works. Man is greater than his works, while the stone is not greater than its activity.

This strange being possesses not only surface- but also depth-existence – inwardness, or, I would say, within-centeredness, or self-containment, self-concentration, which does never express itself through automatic compulsive activity that is limited to the outside. There is always more to personality than its active participation in the order of things, or its active contribution to society; there is more to personality. The causal relational order encompasses man, yes, as well as other existents, as animal, plant, and mineral. Yet, while the latter, the animal, plant, and mineral, are confined – the latter is confined to this series, and everything in them is poured into their functioning, man transcends this realm of mechanical existence, the realm of functionality. He is not only a member of a comprehensive dynamic system, like the animal, but he also finds his reality in immanence, in selfhood, in being rooted within, in personal clefts and recesses, in an existence which cannot be exhausted in action, nor in behavior, nor in surface manifestations. There is always – you cannot say, man equals his activity, man equals his behavior. It’s a false equation. Never mind about any metaphysics; it’s a false equation. Man is always greater than his works – he, of course – if he is really a creative being.

It’s interesting the saying, the Midrashic saying, when Moshe wrote the Torah, so some ink remained in the pen, so he wiped the pen on his forehead, and that’s why his face began to beam – because Moshe’s face beamed. What does it mean? Moshe could not express himself, everything. There is more to Moses than his work.

And, for instance, you know the famous Scandinavian playwright, Danish playwright, Ibsen, and there is a famous drama, “Architect Solness,” if, I believe – if I am quoting it correctly – “Architect Solness” [The original Norwegian is “Bygmester Solness” – Solness is the name of the main character; in English: “The Master Builder” – ed.]. In America, Ibsen was never, apparently, in the vogue, but in Europe, I mean, in Western Europe, there were times that were simply, completely dominated by Ibsen, and now, with the rising tide of existentialism in America, Ibsen should come back, he should be […] into life, and probably it will. So there is the architect Solness. Ibsen describes an architect – Ibsen’s people, in general, are very weak, weak people – weak, not great characters, particularly the men. The women are much stronger, more possessive, and domineering. I don’t know, it’s probably due to his childhood experiences [with his] mother or father; I don’t know exactly.

So in “Architects Solness,” Ibsen describes a great architect, a genius, who used to build all the churches, particularly the Gothic architecture. The architecture of Gothic architecture expresses man’s desire for infinity, man’s surging upward, upward, upward, man’s – his demonic gesture to encompass the universe […], to get into heaven. This is basically the Gothic architecture. So what I mean, actually – Spengler wrote, I mean, talked about it this way – so he was a genius in designing such churches with this spiral, spirals and towers and so forth, but he never dared to climb the tower he built. And he used to climb – when he began to climb the tower he built, any tower he built, the beautiful tower, he used to get dizzy. So finally some woman persuades him – it was filmed? How could […]? There is no […] to it. I cannot understand how Ibsen can lend itself to Hollywood. I don’t know. Anyway, perhaps – so finally, one woman, this strong woman, convinces him to climb the church he built, and he climbs up to the bell tower and gets dizzy, falls down, and dies. What did Ibsen want to express? – that the works of man are greater than him, because he could design beautiful towers, [but] he could never scale the heights – his words, actually.

And this is what Judaism says is false. If one is an architect, so he’s greater than his designs. This is exactly [about] what Judaism would violently disagree. The creator is always greater than his creation, and, again, because man was created in the image of God – and what is greater, God than his creation, than the universe – of course, God is greater; and man is created in the image of God. So man is greater than his – if this architect, particular architect, can build such towers and shoot them forth into [the] heavens, he can scale them. Otherwise he would [never be able to do it]. There’s more to it. It’s exactly what the Midrash said about Moses. He was greater than his pen. His pen is the outside existence.

Of course, this unique existence cannot be just observed. This unique existence – the within- existence, not the surface-existence, but the depth-existence – cannot be just observed in the manner reminiscent of Galileo’s watching an object fall from the tower in Pisa, because, for a simple reason, because there is something which is not subject to observation. Of course, we may, through such observation, attain important data concerning the outside existence of man, but no glimpse into the depth of the personality will be afforded. The latter cannot be exposed – cannot be exposed; it cannot be actually expressed.

Only, how can I actually – if I want to know you […], I can first observe you, and then I can make my deduction from observation. I can observe your movement, your speech, the handwriting, and so forth and on. I can make certain deductions. The deductions will be just through the surface existence. Then I equate your existence with your activity, like the stone. But I want to get a little bit deeper into you. So how, what can we do? You know that – [as] social workers, you certainly – it’s an interview business. What does an interview mean? I don’t observe; I may observe you in the interview, but this is not the main purpose in the interview. Interview means revelation. I have to ask the person to reveal himself to me. Otherwise – what is analysis? Revelation. There is something in you which I cannot observe, but he has to reveal. It’s an act already of communication, willing, free communication, and I am always at liberty either to withhold communication or to pass on information; and here is where a man is a liar. It’s hard to trust him. The stone doesn’t have to communicate. I wrest the information from the stone, because the activity is subject to observation. I cannot drag it from a person because a person has, within-centeredness. The within-centeredness cannot be just, I cannot observe; he has to communicate. It’s an act. Only through active communication, through a willful bursting forth of the inmost, hidden world of a person, it is possible to gain insight into a unique, one-timely, selfhood existence which is focused not on the outside, but in itself.

In short, the depth-existence cannot be captured by an observer; an act of confession is necessary. Basically, this is confession. Any interview is a confession. When this mysterious personality steps freely closer to the surface and tries to reveal itself to the thou, when the I turns from inner repose, toward the outside, then something intimate breaks through the crust of the surface and makes itself known to the other person.

The parallelism is between divine revelation and human revelation. How do people – how does Judaism say? – how do we know God? God revealed himself. If God hadn’t revealed himself, we wouldn’t have known. A person cannot know a person unless he reveals himself. The stone doesn’t have to reveal itself.

And of course, however, this process of communication is never an adequate one, gentlemen. The personal existence is unique, intimate, and strange, and it’s very peculiarly felt and experienced by the I. The thou can never share the intimate experience of the I. It is insolubly bound up with the self. Only the I knows himself as a self, and the knowledge, basically, is incommunicable to others. This is basically what Judaism stressed. Even when the I is, so to say, frank and truthful, and he wants to confess to you, and he wants to confide in you, to confide in others, and tries to reveal to the thou the inward existence, his self, even when he makes an honest effort to bare his soul, he can never transcend the threshold of loneliness, of aloneness, to transfer experiences to and interweave them into the existential texture of others. All he does, even in the moment of frank confession and confidential communication, is, he employs – how does a person confess? If I could tear my heart, as we say in the vernacular, and let other people take a look at my heart, perhaps they could find me. But how do I confess? How do I pour my heart? Through what? Through what medium? – language.

What is language? Language is not an individual medium. Language is a universal symbol. Language – there’s nothing unique about language, you see. After all, I employ the behavioral language of the surface, the signs and metaphors in which an outside existence expresses itself, in activities, in manifestations, in words. And it’s impossible for words to express whatever is within me, because a word is a standardized medium already. It’s not a unique medium.

The latter, the I, is mute, and remains a perennial mystery to the outside world. Communication and self-revelation is to be considered as a noble attempt at self-transcendence. The man wants to transcend himself and reveals himself to others. However, the fullness – however, a full communication is unattainable. The fullness of one’s being, of one’s personality, of his existential experience, will never be perceived by others. All a person can communicate to them are symbols and signs which do not reflect this loneliness of man, which means, his uniqueness [as] man, and, actually, the man remains in seclusion as an individual, singular being.

Only those – you see, take, for instance, psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis also spoke about the subconscious and the unconscious, but, basically, in psychoanalysis, everything is expressible; alright, man represses certain experiences, but he can bring them to the surface by a certain technique, by a certain method. We say there is something in man which is inexpressible, not subconscious. The man is conscious of it – that’s what we say – the man is conscious of it, not subconscious – perhaps it’s subconscious too, but we don’t care about that – Judaism did not deal with this problem. He’s conscious of it, but it’s his exclusive possession. He cannot make this treasure available to others. It cannot express itself. Let’s not fool ourselves. I mean, in our daily intercourse with people we find it. It’s a solitude. There are aspects of the personality which cannot be translated in[to] universal experiences, standardized feelings, an awareness they have [that] cannot be passed on by the individual to his fellow man, and these are confined to the depth of personality. This is exactly what’s involved.

So actually, now, let us see. This is loneliness. Loneliness means within-existence. If a person would have only a surface-existence, he would never be lonely, because he could communicate this to others. He would have no need for communication. It would have been observed and captured by others by just looking at him, but since he has to communicate his inner experiences, [and] he cannot communicate, so he’s lonely. There is a within-existence which does not fit in into community, because a community can only consist of people who have something in common, which [they] can communicate to each other, with a thou, but if each one of us has something which he cannot communicate, which cannot be perceived by others – it is an individual heart, of course – sounds, strangely and uncommonly…of course, an electrocardiogram will show you this sound in the heart. Yes, of course, it’s a metaphor, but this is already an objectified datum – but how the heart, my rhythm of the heart, which only I feel, no one else – this I can’t communicate. No electrocardiogram can picture it.

It is a communicating gesture of man who wants to join the other self. He wants to form friendship with him. He wants to be – to merge with him – because he remains in solitude. Hence the personality as such, the self, remains in solitude and loneliness.

And of course, gentlemen, I don’t have to tell you. You know when people become aware of that, of this? – in times of crisis. We know as rabbis, for instance, and you probably know that too – if a man should be afflicted, be by a fatal disease, then more or less he is, so to say, he is conscious of the fact that his days on earth are numbered; then you’ll notice little by little an act of disengagement on his part, from all his concerns, from all his interests, even with regard to the next of kin, with regard to his children, in whom simply before when he was healthy, he simply gloried and rejoiced in whom he saw himself reflected – a simple, a gradual extinction of interest in others, and this does not come with the gradual, so to say, disintegration of his mental capabilities. No. I saw people, for instance, suffering from cancer, who still were mentally very alert, intellectually brilliant – brilliant, intellectually – and still – and I know an aunt of mine who was brilliant, and she had her only daughter, and actually she sacrificed her life for her daughter, but when she began to feel that she’s doomed, so she lost interest in her daughter. And I saw it, I saw it, as a rabbi I see it quite often. Somehow – it’s for a simple reason, when man is taken out of this environment completely, he retreats into himself, and then, when he retreats into himself, so he becomes a solitary individual – there’s no communication.

And possibly, for instance, we cannot pass on our feelings – as a matter of fact, can we pass on our feelings to our children of how much we love them? Does a child know how much his father and mother love him? He certainly doesn’t know. He certainly doesn’t know, because it’s incommunicable. Of course, he can judge our love for him by our actions, that we suffer on account of him, we try to give him education, we do everything we can to promote his career, to build his future. Yes, but there is no experiencing, he cannot experience our love for him. This is the inner secret of the person.

[Do] husband and wife get together so closely? Yes, even the most ideal marriage – but the husband is a solitary figure and wife is a solitary figure. Let – there is not complete coalescence. It’s ridiculous to speak of complete coalescence – let, for instance, the husband take sick or the wife take sick – It doesn’t matter – And let the husband and the other mate find out that this sickness is fatal. Of course, the first reaction will be that of hysteria – of course, hysteria – hysteria, despair, despair, crying, and losing interest in the whole world, as if she or he cannot exist without her or his partner. Yes, yes – but this is just an illusion. It’s just a surface experience. Little by little, the individual begins to get used to the idea that he’ll have to reorganize his life, to re-orientate himself, and it’s like – and he begins to think – although stealthily – he doesn’t want to admit it to himself – stealthily, he begins to think in terms of rearrangement – how, when, the wife or the husband will die – I wouldn’t say he or she thinks of marriage. I wouldn’t say that. I mean, although, I’m not so sure about it; I’m not even sure about that. I’m not indicting anybody. I’m not indicting anybody. I’m not sure about anything – but rearranging.

And I’ll tell you, I don’t like to speak about experiences of others. I’ll tell you about my own experience. I told you I had a father to whom I was very devoted. I still, I mean – he’s to me something which is more than an ordinary father – anyway, this is a different problem – but my father took sick. He took sick and he died very quickly. He was sick for a couple of weeks. And he died from certain problems, some malignant disease – exactly, I don’t know what it was. So when the doctor told me, when the doctor told me, so, of course, my first reaction was the usual reaction – complete – of numbness, mental numbness, complete mental paralysis, spiritual paralysis, hysteria. I don’t cry but it was hysteria – but little by little, gradually, gradually, and not knowing of it, unconsciously, I was – unknowingly, I began to see me already without my father, and see my house as if one piece of furniture, a beautiful piece of furniture, a centerpiece, of course –  taken out – and like a woman, a hostess who is very capable, when she wants to send out a certain centerpiece, will begin to think beforehand how to rearrange the room. I began to rearrange my life without my father, while my father was alive. Let’s not fool ourselves.

What does it show? What does it show? What does it show? It shows only [that] there is no complete coalescence of two individuals. There is no complete merger. There is no complete communication. Even at the highest level of love and love and friendship and sympathy and understanding. Why is it? Because as I said, outside-existences merge; within- existences cannot merge. Man – father is lonely, man is lonely. And the moment – as long as life flows in its normal channels, so I don’t think about my within-existence, so I concentrate on the outside. On the outside I feel that I am one with my father, but the moment, life has played this trick, I mean, there was a twist in my life, so I began to retreat from my outside existence, and of course from my communication, from my bonds with the thou. Then I began to think, am I actually bound up with my father? Is the bond insoluble? And in a mute way I answered the problem, the question, in the negative, no, it isn’t insoluble. You are you, thou art thou, the father is he. And between he and thou, there is a gulf unbridgeable, and the gulf is that of loneliness, of uniqueness. It means, this coalescence can be terminated, your outside existence will be hurt – yes, your outside existence, your surface existence will be hurt; your inner existence will not be affected, and if there is a within-existence – you know, the very core – then the outside existence will re-adapt itself to the within-centeredness. And it’s exactly what happened. I carry on and on without my father, and I saw husbands and wives who thought they wouldn’t be able to exist in a single day, and they carry on.

Two stories of the creation of man reflecting two aspects of man

And let us now, gentlemen, if you’ll just give me a few more minutes, if you want – you see, in the Bible, in the Bible, if you look in the Bible, the English Bible – how was man created? How was man created – alone or in company? Open chapter 1, verse 26, 27 – Genesis 27. Will you be so kind and give me this, this… 27, chapter 1, 27 – is it 27? No, no. And God created man – it is verse 27, yeah – “And God created man in his own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female, created He them.” Please, listen carefully. He created man, and man was created as a female and a male. This is chapter 1.

Now, take chapter 2. Chapter 2, and verse 18. “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmeet for him.” Yes? “And out of the ground” – finally,

“and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, and he slept, and He took one of his ribs and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made a woman, and brought her unto the man; and the man said, This is now my bone, bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and shall be one flesh.”

Of course, Bible critics already ask the question; there is a contradiction between these two chapters. In the first chapter, there is a story that God created man alone, but male and female, correct? Male and female. In the second chapter, God said that it is no good for man to be alone; He created Eve out of the ribs of Adam. And you know what the Bible critics say; there are two accounts – but usually Bible critics make one mistake. Many a time, when they have problems, they don’t try to solve the problems at the philosophical level. They already have a ready-made answer, a stereotype answer – two accounts, two sources – and it’s very easy to say.

But basically, what the Bible describes here – two definitions of man – man alone and man in company. Adam was created twice – Adam alone, and Adam in the company of Eve. You see, in the morning on that Friday, on that mysterious Friday, God created Adam, male and female, but there was no communication between male and female. Male was alone; female was alone – no communication. It’s lonely man, because he was created in the image of God. In the second account, there is no mention of the image of God. Man was created in the image of God; man was alone. lo tov heyot ha’adam levado; it’s no good for man to be alone, [doesn’t] mean only for Adam alone; it’s no good for Eve to be alone either. There was no communication.

In the second chapter is the story [of] how man steps out, tries to step out of his loneliness, of his solitude, of his seclusion, and join the woman – the woman is the first gesture of communication – and join Eve.

It’s two stories of man. Both stories are correct. They are not mutually exclusive. Just a moment. They are not mutually exclusive. Basically, there are two types of man in Judaism. If I may use one expression, there is one man which I would call by the Greek name, kerygmatic – kerygma means a message – a man who passes on messages to others –kerygmatic man. This is man who can communicate himself. And there is another man, who is called – I would say also, to take a theological expression of it – numinous man, mysterious man – man who cannot communicate with others, man who remains alone, for himself, in himself, self-contained; he’s always in repose; he cannot surge forward; he’s always engaged in a movement of recoil; always for himself; he cannot express.

And these two men are in every one of us. In every one of us, there is kerygmatic man, a man who shares his experiences, a man who wants to tell, and to relate, and to pass on messages, and to rejoice with others, and to have others share his sorrows, and his joys, and his glories, and his defeats. As Maimonides says, following Aristotle, man is a social being; but by saying a man is a social being, it’s not saying everything about man. Man is also a lonely being; a man who doesn’t want to share anything – not that he doesn’t want – he can’t. I cannot share.

Can I share with you my understanding of Judaism? I can tell you. Yes, I tell you – but it’s not a question of knowledge; it’s the appreciation, and feeling, and experience. I experience more than I can simply express in words. Basically, I’m not so – my facility for words is very limited in general. I mean, I have trouble in writing out a sentence and expressing myself. I always have, I mean, this, this, what do you call it in Hebrew? – chevlei yetzirah, this suffering of creation – particularly in formulating thoughts, and I’m never sure that I formulate it well, so I try to repeat, and the more I repeat, the less understandable I am.

Of course this goes – but this is – this is kerygmatic Adam, who was created the same Friday in the afternoon. lo tov heyot ha’adam levado. From a practical standpoint man should look for [association], for a social life, for communication, for sharing, for togetherness. Yes, “And God created woman out of his ribs” – but not out of his heart. If the woman had been created out of his heart there would be perfect marital union, but this can’t be, [because] the heart is individual. It’s the outside existence […] – nothing else. Siamese twins can have two beating hearts, two personalities, but there is a bond, a physical bond – I would say it’s more than a physical – it’s a mental bond, but it is – what I say – a kerygmatic bond, a bond by passing on messages, by the dialogue. Eve and Adam carry out a dialogue; they are both kerygmatic beings. And of course, I understand that Adam courted Eve, otherwise she wouldn’t have married him, so probably he told her that he loves her. He tried to communicate his love to Eve, yes, but did he? – no! – he didn’t succeed, like any boy cannot, if he’s sincere in his love, cannot communicate exactly what he feels to the girl. It is just a dialogue existence, a kerygmatic existence. The outside surfaces, the surface existences merged. The inner existence, but – numinous man, who God created, man and female – Eve was also created at that time, symbolically – but man remained simply alone. Alone. And [in] a moment of crisis, this bond, which was created between Adam and Eve, the kergmatic bond, […] via the dialogue, via the communication, via the revelation, […] somehow – is eliminated, and man remains alone as he was on Friday morning – numinous man, man for himself.

And I remember, it was a few years ago, my daughter gave birth to a child, her first child. And usually a woman is very proud of her first child, because it’s the real possession she possesses. This possessive instinct of a woman expresses itself in her relationship to the first child. So I walked in after the bris, the circumcision, into her room, to congratulate her; so, she was holding the baby, Moshe, pressing him against her bosom, saying, “You are all – you are my own.” And I told her, it’s a mistake. He’s not your own. Of course, you’ll realize it 15, 16, 20 years from now – because man cannot be – cannot join the thou completely, because Adam was created twice, at two levels: at the numinous level of loneliness, and the kerygmatic level of togetherness. If one is foolhardy, and he’s naive enough to think that everything is his – the friends are his, parents are his, children are his, everything is his – of course he lives a life of the kerygmatic Adam, Friday afternoon, when he met Eve, and he thought that they established a marital union, an inseparable union – but he forgot about the permanent crisis, about the permanent distress. He will wake up; he will find himself – that he’s not only kerygmatic Adam, with the company of Eve, but Eve is gone and he’s alone. And this should be always remembered.

Alright, up to here; we’ll develop [it] later.

End of lecture 4