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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: Let’s start. Of course, it’s a continuation of the lecture we delivered three weeks ago, I believe, yes? You’ll excuse me that I couldn’t be here last Thursday; I had to be in Washington. This is a continuation of the lecture. If you will – I’ll just try to pick up the thread, and, that we discussed the problem of the, what we called numinous man, man for himself, man without accomplishments for society, man who hasn’t contributed anything to the further advancement of mankind; but the worth of man is in himself. That’s what we discussed, and how Judaism in many forms, on the halachic level, has emphasized time and again the worth of the person without accomplishment. And I said that Judaism reached paradoxically, and, we would say, has formulated a paradoxical ideal; it means the apotheosis of anonymity, the anonymous person; and if one is anonymous, apparently he didn’t distinguish himself; but because he’s anonymous, there is inner worth to him. This is a Judaic approach, perhaps an impractical approach. At that time, I gave you the example how the community must not sacrifice [an] individual, even if the individual is ethically, morally, actually a corrupt personality; and also about the case, the queer case of the High Priest finding an abandoned corpse on the day preceding Yom Kippur, how he must defile himself and bury the corpse, although by so doing he’ll disqualify himself from officiating at the service. It means the most solemn service of the year is being overridden by the need on the part of the Kohen Gadol to understand the tragedy and also the worth of the abandoned, lonely person.

Now I’ll continue with a few more examples, because [it’s] very typical – it’s very tender actually, but it’s very typical of Judaism.

Reward according to effort, not accomplishment

Interesting also is the maxim in the Talmud, agra dekala duchka. Kala used to be the famous assemblies in Talmudic times, in which scholars from all parts of Babylonia and Palestine used to get together, assemble, and it was academic, actually, academic conferences, and all kinds of topics were discussed and analyzed, and people delivered lectures and so forth. Basically Talmud, Talmudic literature, is a result of such assemblies, of those assemblies. So the Talmud says that the participants in the kala assembly – they called [it] kala – the participants in the kala assemblies –  probably it is due to the fact that there were universal assemblies, like [what] the Catholics called ecumenical, universal assemblies – they discussed a variety of subjects in those assemblies, and, actually, those assemblies were the – you may say they were legislative in character; I mean, they used to lay down the law, formulate, interpret the law, and actually, Judaism, halakhic Judaism, is a result of those assemblies.

So, the participants in the kala assemblies will be rewarded in accordance – rewarded by God – and let’s not forget that talmud Torah, I mean, the study of the law, study of the Torah, is considered by Judaism one of the most significant deeds on the part of man – so, it will be rewarded not in accordance with their intellectual achievements, but with the amount of discomfort they underwent during the sessions. So, for instance, two people, for instance – it’s very strange – two people participated in a Torah symposium. One was bright and scholastically well-trained, and hence enjoyed the discussion, brilliance of the debaters, and the ingenuity of the intellectual combat at the symposium. The other one, with a very limited capacity, bordering almost on the dull, did not grasp the fine points of discussion; he could not follow the reasoning of the opponents; he was bored and lonely; he felt that he did not belong to that circle of great intellect – I mean, if I should come into a society of theoretical physicists, then I would feel like that – that he was an outsider who could never be integrated into the world of thought. And yet, he diligently attended all sessions, listened carefully to each word out of them. He could not tear himself away from the academy. Why? I mean, men act sometimes irrationally; if he didn’t understand, so why didn’t he leave?

So I ask also, why do you sit here and listen to me? – because I don’t say anything new; basically what I say is commonplace in Judaism, it’s a truism, and I believe you know as much as I know about it; perhaps I formulate it a little different; but people are irrational. Many times I attend – many times I can’t understand why people come to listen to my speeches and lectures; there is nothing new in me. I mean, it’s not a sense of false modesty. I mean, what I say is something which everybody feels. I try to spell it out. But somehow, people act in [an] irrational manner sometimes.

He could not tear himself away from the academy. He was very uncomfortable, depressed and angered by the fact – of course in that case – that he somehow was outside of the debate, outside of that circle, and he wasted his time. The psychological reason why he did it is irrelevant and simply immaterial. The fact that he felt uncomfortable because of certain, either drawbacks, or because the people bored him; he knew more than they – God will measure the reward not by the standards of accomplishment, but by those of pain and suffering – the individual experiences. Agra dekala duchka means, reward for a scholastic session depends on how hard the bench was, the bench on which the person was sitting. Duchka means pressure.

Axiological democracy

Yahadus insisted upon full axiological democracy. You see, this is a kind of democracy which modern man doesn’t understand. Modern man understands political democracy, racial reforms, understands also perhaps economic democracy, as the so to say socialist countries claim to understand; it isn’t true perhaps; but he doesn’t understand democracy – axiological, as to the worth of the person. The great scholar, scientist, and the little person have the same worth – that, modern man didn’t understand, and I don’t believe I understand, and perhaps no one understands; but Judaism insisted upon it. Judaism was both realistic at times, and at times it was daydreaming, simply, completely caught in the web of fantasy and imagination, but it was a beautiful fantasy at least.

I mean, fortunately –I’ll tell you frankly – now with the emergence of the state of Israel, I utter one prayer, and, simply, my mind many times is disturbed. We have a beautiful ethic, and, to say that we were angels is hard to say, but, more or less, the pages of our history are not stained with blood and tears and injustice and brutality, as the pages of history of European society – let us take the feudal times, or the medieval times. [The] simple reason [is] not because perhaps we are superior to them; we simply did not encounter the challenge. We never had a state, we never had political problems. Each one lived for himself. A private person cannot commit – a private person, a weak person, a persecuted person, a person who did not have anything to say, could not commit the injustices which, for instance, France or Germany or feudal England committed in the Middle Ages, of course.

But what, many times I ask, what if our history had been different, had taken a different course? What if we had been a state in the Middle Ages? How would we have acted? – just like the feudal lords, or we would have acted differently because of Judaic ethics? I have no answer to that; who knows? To say hypothetically how we would have acted is ridiculous.

Now with the state of Israel, the test is come; we are facing the test. Will we behave like another state ethically? And basically, any state is not ethical;  I don’t believe that a state in itself implies an intrinsic contradiction to ethics – the best one. Will we act differently? Will we, I mean, refrain or restrain ourselves from engaging in certain injust…in certain, so to say, practices which are in conflict with the basic Judaic ethics? Or will we yield [to] temptation? Of course, a few experiences are not very assuring, I must tell you. Others somehow hold out, I mean, so to say, a hope. I don’t know.

What is it to me? This is the basic problem with which we diaspora Jews are faced with regard to the state of Israel. Never mind helping. Help is a different story. I’ll come to the problem yet. But the problem is, here we have an opportunity. The Jews are the rulers. They legislate the laws. They are, so to say, the masters. We have never been masters in our history. We’ve always been the subordinates, always – since the destruction of the Second Temple; it’s 1900 years ago; I mean, it’s quite a time. It’s a long time. Now we are the masters; of course, in a small land, in a narrow strip along the eastern Mediterranean, will we act like masters? Or will we understand it, that Judaism does not know the concept of master and slave, victor and vanquished, powerful and weak? I mean, this is my problem with regard to the state of Israel. I mean, the whole Jewish history will be interpreted in terms of what the state of Israel will do in the next 50 years. If the state of Israel will not live up to the great hopes and challenges, I mean, of Judaic ethics – I’m not talking about economics and science; I mean, this is not – this is a secondary problem to me – then the whole Jewish history will appear in a different light. People will reinterpret Jewish history; so the Jews were nice, decent, because they didn’t have the opportunity to be wicked; but as soon as they got the opportunity, they proved to the world they were not better than anybody else.

[audience member:] Are you talking about being wicked as a state, as a government, or as individuals?

[the Rav:] It’s both. It’s reflect…

[audience member:] Well, why didn’t Jews have an opportunity to be wicked in the past?

[the Rav:] Wickedness always is an expression, is interdependent with, simply, with power. If a man has no power, he cannot be wicked.

[audience member:] He didn’t have power as a state, but in his individual life, and in his group, he had that power.

[the Rav:] Yes, but don’t forget that the Jews even as a group had power, but the group itself was persecuted. Do you understand? The powerful group within the Jewish community was persecuted by the outside community. So the person who was about to persecute the weaker one, he himself knew what persecution meant. There wasn’t a single Jew, the most powerful Jew, who did not face and experience persecution, and the experience of persecution itself is already a mitigating circumstance, and if I experience something unpleasant on the part of someone who is more powerful than I, I cannot simply pass on this experience to the person who is subordinated to me. Sometimes psychologically you say the one who is weaker out in his office becomes a tyrant at home, but this is basically an exception. That’s why the Jews, as a persecuted race, simply felt, had compassion for the weak; but if the Jews should become not a persecuted race, but an equal to others, how will they act? I don’t know. I hope they’ll act differently. I hope that such laws, such commitments as the Committee on un-American Activities, and such a distorted loyalty law as the one pertaining to immigration, cannot be passed by the Knesset in Eretz Yisroel, but to tell you I’m going to take an oath now for that, I would be a bit over-optimistic. Some voices I hear sometimes, in the debates in the Knesset, which I dislike…it’s just – I’m thinking out loud; it’s not a part of my lecture.

And to me this is the most important problem. The Jew of the diaspora should be proud of Israel, regardless of if one is a Zionist or he does not affiliate himself with the political movement; but still, Israel is Jewish; I mean, if we don’t consider Israel Jewish, at least the outside community considers Israel Jewish. It’s certainly a Jewish institution; never mind what our feelings about Israel are; and the question is not whether Israel will defeat the Arabs on the field of battle; I’m very proud of that, but this is not – after all, victorious armies is not exclusively a Jewish, so to say, institution. Whether we will defeat our evil within our own community, we will be victorious in this field, to me this is the most important problem with regard to Israel. To say what will happen, one has got to be a prophet; I don’t know. Okay. Of course…

[audience member:] Rav Soloveitchik, do you think that it’s possible in a state which may turn socialistic, secularistic, to be still socialistic, secularistic, and live up to the Judaic principle?

[the Rav:] I’ll tell you. I believe that – one of the topics – whether I reach this topic today or not – is the problem of the non-religious Jew. When I’ll come to this topic, I’ll discuss this problem; it’s a very important problem. Did you mention it?

[organizer:] Yes.

[the Rav:] But I don’t know whether I’ll get to it.

[audience member:] You said something else before that I’m concerned about. You said something about – modern man cannot – is not interested in the individual, and that the small individual doesn’t count as much as the large individual. That’s not a concept of modern man today, that we don’t have this sort of thing. That’s only an old Judaic concept.

[the Rav:] I said it, you mean?

[audience member:] I thought you said it. Did you say…

[the Rav:] Yes, I say modern man’s quest for democracy has not simply introduced equality as to the worth of individuals.

[audience member:] Except for this, that we as social workers like to talk of ourselves as being interested in the dignity of every individual and every human being.

[the Rav:] Yes, correct, but I’ll tell you, as social workers, you deal with small people, basically, because big people don’t need help.

[audience member:] But they give us the money to give help.

[the Rav:] Oh, yeah. I would like to ask you, and please excuse my arrogance – perhaps I’ve become, apparently, a bit impudent – about your inner feelings. When someone comes to you and you are a consultant, one who needs help, a poor man – so [do] you have the same approach to him as you have when you talk, for instance, to the governor of the state, to Nelson Rockefeller? I would ask you to do a bit of soul searching – I mean, the same approach? Do you feel emotionally, I mean, that you treat this one just like you would…

[audience member:] If it should be a very poor professor who was teaching me something, I’d have the same reaction.

[the Rav:] A poor professor whom you consider a scholar, yeah, because then he’s a big person in your eyes – because he had contributed to society.

[audience member:] And the poor little melamed who comes in, who, he’s no great man of the community; he’s just an ordinary little man. But he has something, that’s all, because we see in every individual something.

[the Rav:] You should see it. You should see at least. I mean, it’s more a norm than a fact, I would say. It’s an ideal. I mean, I’m speaking as a rabbi. I certainly am supposed to see in everybody the reflection of our father Abraham. Of course, yes, I should – but I don’t. In regard to me, there is quite a gap, a gulf between practice and ideal, and I believe the same gulf could be found in the field of social work; isn’t that possible? I know that when I speak –for instance, when I speak to a person who is powerful – not that I’m afraid of him; I’m not afraid of him, and I don’t need his favor – but when I speak to a person who is prominent, is a scientist, is a political figure, or even a man who is prominent in the field of economic accomplishment, is rich – not that I need anything – I always discover in myself to my own surprise a sense of reverence. When I take a taxi and I give a tip to the cabman, there is no reverent attitude on my part. That is what I discover about myself; I believe that this experience can be universalized and generalized […] to everybody, because I’m not worse than everybody, nor am I better.

And Judaism was pressing this point vigorously, passionately. Now, of course – and this again, as I said last time – because man, as I said – there are two personalities: there is the kerygmatic personality, as I say, kerygmatic Adam, who works for society, contributes to society, communicates his ideas; and there is numinous Adam, Adam alone. Of course, the content of the intimate, unique, personal, existential experience cannot be communicated to others. The individual, despite his most sincere efforts to reveal himself, remains hidden within himself, as regards the cardinal aspects of his personality. However, we all know that other fellows possess something worthwhile that we miss, and that we owe the other fellow, however small it is, respect and consideration, because there is something in the smallest of fellows which we don’t possess. What it is? Hard to say. This is the uniqueness, his personality, the tzelem Elokim; basically, because no one is dispensable, replaceable. Any individual is indispensable according to Judaism. You cannot replace an individual. I can replace this mic; I can replace a horse, because there is already the class concept. An individual does not need, does not require a class in order to attain legitimate existence. No class or no society has to confer, so to say, bestow upon him its grace and benevolence and declare him an equal. He is equal because he possesses something unique. That’s why the contribution is not the determining factor. The determining factor is the existential experience.

And who knows who has a deeper existential experience, and who has a warmer heart, and who has a more tender soul? – the great philosopher Kant, or a pauper or a beggar? It’s very hard to say. The famous statement in Talmud – mai chazi dedamakh sumak tefei; dilma dama dechavrach sumak tefei; how do you know that your blood is red; perhaps the blood of your fellow man, your neighbor, is redder, is more red? –  it’s not a question of redness of the blood. Who knows who is greater, you or I? Measured by contributions, there are objective criteria on which we can judge the greatness of a person. Measured by the inner experience, there are no criteria. Only God can measure. That’s exactly what it is.

[audience member:] Rabbi you used the word a great deal existentialist experience…

[the Rav:] I didn’t say existentialist experience. Existentialist experience means the experience of the existentialist. I’m not an existentialist, so I cannot know. I said existential experience.

[audience member:] Alright, can you please help me with…

[the Rav:] It’s the experience that you call the ego consciousness, the ego awareness. That I am; the experience of the I – of the I. But when we say existentialist experience, it means the experience of the existentialist philosopher. It’s already a doctrine. I say existential experience, the experience of my own existence, you understand. That I am; who am I; as I said last lecture – because no one can answer the question, Who I am? I can answer the question, Who I am, in terms of contributions, if it’s a question of mass and energy equation. I cannot answer the question, Who I am, in terms of intrinsic worth. I always can answer, who I am, with regard to others. I cannot answer, who I am, with regard to myself.

There is again – I must refer to Peretz – I think a lot of him, although he was, ideologically, he was a secular Jew, and I’m a religious Jew – there is a novel, excuse me, a short story, by him, it’s called “The Meshugene Batlan,” The Crazy, The Crazy – I don’t know how to translate “batlan.”

[audience member:] Ne’er-do-well. Never do well.

[the Rav:] Never do well. Nah. Excuse me. This is the technical – it is a bit clumsy, I would say. A batlan means a man – batel means to idle, not to contribute – the man who didn’t contribute anything. Yoshev batel menas a man who didn’t do anything. It’s playboys, but not in the sense of playboys, I mean…

[audience member:] A loafer?

[the Rav:] A loafer; not a loafer; I mean, loafer has a certain derogatory, so to say, meaning. But it’s not derogatory – a man who is not fitted into the world, to serve society – a misfit.

[audience member:] The German word Taugenichts.

[the Rav:] Yes, Taugenichts is – it’s not batlan; it’s a bit – resembles, there’s a little resemblance.

[audience member:] Rabbi, that’s an example of our inability to communicate clearly.

[the Rav:] Yes, […] So, and the whole question is – the meshugene batlan, Peretz says – who am I? Who am I? It means – and it begins, of course, in his primitive manner; here, in this little town, this little village, people know me. Why do they know me? They know my address, they know my name, they know my jacket, they know my suit, they know my hat, so they recognize me. But who am I? Am I the suit I’m wearing? Am I the house I’m residing in? It means, am I the – can I be expressed, explained to others in terms of the externals, of contributions? Or, my existence expresses itself in more intrinsic terms, in inwardness, so what does my inwardness stand for? And this is a question which is many times disturbing me as well. I don’t consider myself a batlan, but it’s a question – am I only that, what I appear to others to be? Or am I more than that?

The human right to dignity

Now, Judaism, in formulating its social ethic – and I tell you again, gentlemen – I have to beg your pardon – whatever I say is, to me, [a] truism. It simply is commonplace. But somehow, and I don’t believe that there is anything new, but I have to speak about it, because something most elementary and most axiomatic things are many times unknown, or, not so much unknown; they haven’t been spelled out. That’s all. But they are axiomatic in Judaism – Judaism, in formulating its social ethic, was particularly concerned with human dignity and the awareness of self-worthiness – self-worthiness.

One of the most basic rights of the individual – we have many rights, basic rights, all of us – the American Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, is based on natural rights, so-called lex naturae, about [which] the 17th century spoke so much, I mean, the Stoa, the Roman Stoics. But there is a certain right which, I don’t know, Judaism has formulated, and I haven’t found such a formula in any other system of ethics. One of the most basic rights of the individual is the right to know and to experience personal dignity and worth in living – the right to dignity. We have the right to work – not in the sense of legislation – I mean, bills are being introduced in the various legislatures, but – I mean the right to work, the right to defense, to self-defense, the right to live – but the right to dignity. What does it mean? Anyone who interferes with the intrinsic prerogative of man and injures one’s self-respect – they inflict injury not on the body; bodily injury, everybody understands I must not; but I inflict injury upon the self-respect of a person – will be severely punished by God.

To insult one’s neighbor, or to hurt his pride – and don’t please interpret it in terms of libel and slander; [it’s] not slander, not libel; slander and libel is something else; slander and libel means, if I indict him of something, accuse him of something he didn’t do; all right, it’s not spreading malicious rumors, just an unintentional injury inflicted upon his pride, an insult – to hurt his pride or embarrass him, even causing embarrassment, particularly if this embarrassment is caused to him in public, in the presence of others, is equated by our moral code as murder. You understand what I mean? I’m not exaggerating. Correct, yes. And let us not forget – and I’ll tell you why it was classified as murder. Let us not forget that the Hebrew term for murder is shfichut damim, bloodshed. Bloodshed. And under this heading, semantically, when you say bloodshedding or bloodshed, any painful experience, [as] the Halakha understood it, any painful experience which causes a flash of angered shame, or sudden paling of a frightened face, is an act of bloodshed, because, what does it mean, malbin? Malbin in Hebrew means one pales. Why pale? I felt embarrassed. I felt frightened. I felt injured. I felt hurt. There’s a change in the blood circulation – […] blood circulation, you see paling – is a flash of anger, of angered shame, or sudden paling of a frightened face is an act of murder; and the famous expression, kol hamalbin penei chaveiro berabim, whoever shames his – not only shame; hurts the pride of – his friend, of his neighbor, in public, is treated or penalized as if he had committed murder and had killed him. And the Talmud continues and says, noach lo le’adam sheyapil atzmo lekivshan ha’esh, veal yalbin penei chaveiro berabim, one should incur rather martyrdom than embarrass his comrade in public. Hamalbin penei chaveiro berabim, ein lo chelek le’olam haba, whoever shames his neighbor in the presence of others, will not share in the world to come. Bliss, the world to come, beatitude in the future world, are denied to one who shamed his friend. It’s interesting. It was not denied to the murderer, but it was denied to the one who shamed his friend, because shaming a friend in public is many times more subtle and more cruel than to kill a person. This was the opinion of Chazal.

So the right to dignity is many times placed above the right to live. Although, gentlemen, the right to self-respect was bestowed by the Creator upon everyone, no doubt, upon the king and upon the pauper, special emphasis was placed upon the dignity of the humble. Of course, the king is also – I mean, to shame the president of the United States is not a very ethical deed, and believe me, many times when I read the press, the pre-election press, pre-election […], I listen to pre-election campaign speeches, of course, they speak about the most powerful person in the United States, but many times, I think, I try to take, for instance, a speech, a text of speech – the Times always accommodates me – and just red-pencil certain lines, and try to classify them under Jewish ethical categories, what our Talmudic scholars would have thought if they had read a speech delivered about anybody shaming, insulting, hurting, accusing – for a good purpose, perhaps, but many times I think how within the framework of Jewish ethics a political campaign is a complete impossibility; impossibility, because when even our people in Israel, when they get engaged, they become engaged in a political campaign, and they are not short there either of invectives and compliments about opponents, so they are not Jews anymore; they are not Jews; it’s not Jewish. I’m sorry, but [a] political campaign is not a Jewish institution; it’s not always not a Jewish institution; it’s completely abhorrent to the religious conscience. Unless you – it’s not only, you must not say falsehoods; you must not hurt anybody if you say, if you tell the truth. This business of exposing a person – it’s a good piece of journalism, of course. People get a Pulitzer prize for that; but from a Judaic viewpoint it is something which is obnoxious, repulsive; it’s a crime. This is the real hamalbin penei chaveiro berabim, shaming one in the public, either a larger public than the one which reads the press, and even with regard to truthfulness.

[audience member:] Well, suppose someone has done something that’s genuinely wrong?

[the Rav:] It’s only – it’s a good question. Of course, such type of idealism may many times be exploited in order to tolerate evil. Correct, you are right. But there are limits. For instance, if the person, what we call, becomes a rodef –if it means he’s a menace to public safety – then you expose him; but also when you expose the wicked, there are many ways of exposing. You don’t dramatize it. You don’t play it up. I mean, you know, you don’t try to appeal to the lower instincts of the crowd. I mean, you know how journalism, particularly the yellow type does such things; but there’s got to be a menace to public safety, what is called rodef; in Hebrew it means a menace – without being […] to public safety? I’ll give you an example. For instance, you know what it means in Jewish life – a moser. You know what a moser is – one who squeals, [a] squealer, squeals, informer. Of course, in the Middle Ages, the informer was the most despicable individual; he was a public menace, no doubt about it. Yes. It’s interesting. So, moser always – the Jews interpreted moser in terms of passing on information to the enemy. It’s correct. Basically, it’s espionage – the enemy, and since the Jews in the Middle Ages were surrounded by enemies, so any information passed on to the authorities was classified as, so to say, as betrayal, as espionage, and mesira […]; but basically, Jewish ethicists say that even if there is a Jewish state, if there were a Jewish state, and one knows of something, of a crime, which his neighbor permitted, a crime in which public safety is not involved, I want you to know, but it’s a crime – he has no right to inform the Jewish authorities either. You are not a judge.

[audience member:] In other words, how about a witness in a trial?

[the Rav:] You are right.

[audience member:] In a civil matter.

[the Rav:] Unless he’s summoned.

[audience member:] Unless he’s summoned. He has no right to offer to appeal.

[the Rav:] In civil matters only. In money matters, yes. In money matters, in money matters, first of all, he has nothing – I wouldn’t say he has no right – he is not obligated, unless he’s summoned by the party, which is interested; but money matters, many a time, simply he’s not informing; it’s a question only pertaining to a deal where simply the person himself is not involved in that. The question [is] in criminal matters – in criminal matters, basically, most scholars say, unless the beis din, the court, forces him to testify, he must not volunteer information, unless this type of crime is endangering the lives of other individuals. Then, then it’s a different matter.

In general, Judaism has grappled with the problem of judging people. Even the problem of the court was a mystery to Jews. How can a Jew judge his fellow man? Is he perfect that he can pass some judgment upon others? This was a – and that’s why the position of the dayan, of the so-called justice, or judge, is a very precarious one in Jewish ethics. The Talmud says a judge should see himself as if hell, the purgatory, is underneath, and divine wrath up from above. It’s a very unpleasant position, you see, to be between the devil and the [deep] blue sea, you see. And many times when I – I’ve never been in court, but when I read about the, so to say, the reasoning which accompanies any sentence, and I feel that the judge considers himself, I mean, he’s so complacent about himself, and considers himself perfect, and entitled to pass on judgment on others, I always think about the Jewish approach to the judge. And that’s why the Talmudic scholars recommended that no one should accept the judgeship, an appointment as a judge, because there’s something inhuman in that. Only One has a right to judge people, and this is God, no one else. And basically, judging people is an evil with which the Halakha, which was realistic, had to come to terms. You see, many things in Judaism is not, were not liked, and Judaism accepted them reluctantly. But what could you do? I mean, after all, we need a society; we need some semblance of order; we need a state; otherwise it will be war of all against all, in the expression of Hobbes, you see.

[audience member:] I understand it’s quite a struggle within Jewish circles around the Rosenberg trial, and Judge Kaufman and his…and I understand that a few of the rabbis tried to get to him to discuss with him the Jewish ethics…

[the Rav:] …which was very wrong on his part, extremely wrong. Basically, I believe that in the case of the Rosenberg trial, I don’t believe that a man was so stupid as to give a death sentence for espionage in peacetime […], because they simply were small people; it was – the amount of damage they did to the safety of the United States could not be determined; and when this famous atomic scientist in England, Fox – Fuchs – betrayed so certainly – I mean, if Russia had taken advantage of our research – I mean, information came to them from Fuchs, but not through small, ignorant people; I mean, this was terrible, because in my opinion it was murder; in my opinion it was murder; bloodshed and murder.

[audience member:] Aren’t you, in a sense, judging yourself now?

[the Rav:] Yes, you’re right. You’re right. I shouldn’t say that. You’re right. You’re right. Mea maxima culpa, my sin is…of course, you’re right. You’re right. You’re certainly right. You’re right. I’m not denying that. You’re right. But sometimes you can’t suppress – what can you do? I mean, he did not do a service to the United States, certainly not. He did not enhance the prestige of the United States, nor did he enhance, so to say, the security of the United States. The United States is secure enough; there was no need for it. Of course, it was the McCarthy atmosphere, and this hysterical climate, and fear. Simply, he was afraid. What bothers my mind is that – what we say, when I can’t fall asleep at night, I think – what if this judge were not a Jew but a Christian, would he have rendered a death sentence? And I’m inclined to say no.

[audience member:] Suppose his wife’s name wasn’t Rosenberg.

[the Rav:] Huh? Beg your pardon? Yes, I suppose, from the other end. And suppose the two little people were not Jews. It was an unfortunate coincidence of a Jew versus a Jew, and that’s what disturbs me more than anything else.

[audience member:] Is that from a Jewish point of view that you’re objecting to this thing, or from some other point of view? Is it part of Halakha, for instance, that no man should have judged at all, or that this was the wrong judgment?

[the Rav:] The severity of the sentence. I’m not criticizing the sentence itself. And this is a Jewish viewpoint. I don’t say you should take a spy and just compliment or give them a reward; they should be locked up for a while, no doubt about that; but, I mean, in general, the death penalty, according to the halakhic concept, is an impossibility almost.

[audience member:] The question I brought in is the fact that he indicated, Judge Kaufman indicated, that he looked at his God trying to make a judgment…

[the Rav:] This is exactly what I don’t like.

[audience member:] …about this case, and that’s why I believe Rabbi Rackman and perhaps others went to see him in terms of trying to interpret his God, if you will, to him…

[the Rav:] Yes, you are right.

[audience member:] …because he was appealing to a greater…

[the Rav:] This is exactly what I disliked about it. The story that he walked into the temple and consulted his God; but it’s a funny God he consulted; it’s a McCarthy god, not a Jewish God. I don’t know whether the man was sincere or not. I think – I don’t know him; I have no right to judge, as you said, [but] since you pressed me for an answer. Yes?

[audience member:] We do have a right to question whether, in terms of the statement that we’re floating around the table that the judge has made, whether this was and is in line with…

[the Rav:] Yes, sure, sure, sure.

[audience member:] …and in what way can you rationalize, if you will, that this is possible?

[the Rav:] What’s possible? Rationalize what?

[audience member:] The position that he took.

[the Rav:] No, to me it’s not rational.

[audience member:] Obviously many of us around the table say that it is not possible.

[the Rav:] To introduce Judaism, the God of Israel, into this…

[audience member:] That’s the point.

[the Rav:] …into this, so to say, institution of the death penalty, I mean, for small people who apparently did not do much damage to the safety of the United States. This is – it was, or course – it was not [warranted] – [it was] unwarranted.

Judaism’s special concern with the socially anonymous person

The less relevant […] one’s kerygma is – it means his message to society, his contribution – the more concerned society must be with his inner pride and dignity. This is a Judaic concept.

Do you have here a Bible, I mean, in English? Yes? If you’ll take Leviticus 19.14, gentlemen. Do you have it? Excuse me, gentlemen. Yes.

“Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shalt fear thy God; I am the Lord.”

You shalt not curse the deaf, and you should not put a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear thy God. I am the Lord. It means, I don’t tolerate it. The deaf and blind – why only the deaf? Am I allowed, permitted to curse anybody who still can hear the curse uttered? – certainly not. But with the deaf one, against whom nature has discriminated, the cripple – Judaism has a unique approach with regard to the deaf one. The deaf and the blind are representative of a class of people handicapped physically and socially anonymous – the deaf person can’t accomplish much unless he’s an Edison or a Beethoven – and lonely; the Torah singles them out; be careful not to vex or cause any harm to them.

Then, for instance, if we’ll take another sentence; I’ll tell you just where it is. Just a minute. Yes, it is Exodus 23, 20. Chapter 23, verse 20.

“Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him. For ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in anywise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.”

Very severe words.

[audience member:] Rav Soloveitchik –

[the Rav:] Yes, sir?

[audience member:] The anti-Maimonidean conflict, controversy; the Karaite-Rabbinite controversy; the Hassidic Elijah Gaon [sic] versus misnagdim – would that be included within the malbin penei chaveiro or not?

[the Rav:] You mean certain acts on the part of the Rabbinate against dissidents? Against dissidents, yes. Against dissidents. Perhaps, yes. I’ll be very frank with you. Perhaps, yes. Perhaps it was wrong. Regardless of the fact that such a great authority as the Gaon of Vilna did it. Regardless of that. I don’t believe it was in conformity with Jewish ethics.

[audience member:] My question is whether a statement like that is a wish, an ideal, a flash, which has not become rooted as such in Jewish life, or whether it was a guiding principle.

[the Rav:] You are right. Whether it is just an ideal – Christianity has many ideals which have never been put into effect. Yes, that’s a good question. I believe – and I am very objective about it – I try to treat it in a detached manner; no use romanticizing our past, or trying to weave – our fantasy should weave a halo around our heroes – I believe, with certain exceptions, more or less, it was reality; with certain exceptions. Because human beings, however great, cannot, many times, cannot control themselves. But with certain exceptions, yes, I would say.

“Thou shalt neither vex” – alright. Yes. Why a widow and orphan? We shouldn’t oppress anybody. Why only a widow and orphan? Why are we not to vex the stranger; and the resident citizen, you’re allow it to vex, you’re allowed to annoy, you’re allowed to embarrass? No! I mean, the law – Maimonides says the law applies to everybody. But why did the Torah single out the stranger, the orphan, and the widow? The answer, as I said before, the widow, the orphan, the stranger, are typical of a class of people who are defenseless, weak, and occupy a very anonymous station in society. It is the symbol of anonymity, and there is specific emphasis placed upon hurting the anonymous individual. Because if you hurt the President of the United States, he can recover from the shock; but if you hurt an anonymous individual, the shock can be so powerful, that he’ll never recover from it. I mean mentally, emotionally.

Maimonides writes – Maimonides – if you want to know the source, it is Deiot. Deiot means virtues – the book which deals with virtues. 6, 9.

“A man ought to be especially heedful of his behavior toward widows and orphans, for their souls are exceedingly depressed and their spirits low. One must not speak to them, address himself to them, otherwise than tenderly. One must show them unwavering courtesy, not hurt them physically with hard toil, nor wound their feelings with harsh words. Whoever irritates them, provokes them to anger, pains them, tyrannizes them, or even shames them, or hurts their pride, is guilty of a transgression, and still more so, if one beats them or curses them.”

Again, the station of the non-prominent citizen…

Remarkably, the story revealed in the Mekhilta – it’s a midrash – It’s a strange story, strange story; it’s very typical. You know the history of the ten martyrs, the famous asarah harugei malchut, the ten martyrs during the Roman occupation of Palestine. Among them were the greatest Jewish scholars, like Rabbi Akiva, Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Yishmael, and actually the fathers of the Talmud, of Talmudic, halakhic Judaism – martyrs, because there was a wave of religious persecution, and they did not conform to the Roman edict prohibiting, enjoining Jews from practicing their religion. So the story – and it looks to be quite historical – the story is mentioned twice, once in the Mekhilta and in another Talmudic book. When Rabban Gamliel – Rabban Gamliel was the duke of the Jews; he was simply occupying the place of the king; the prince – he was called Rabban Gamliel the Prince – and Rabbi Yishmael, the high priest, he was the High Priest – were sentenced to death and taken to the place of execution, Rabban Gamliel the Prince began suddenly to sob, to cry. Rabbi Yishmael – it’s almost a literal translation – addressed himself to his colleague and said; I mean, it’s literal now – Prince in Israel, Nesi Yisrael, why do you cry? Just a few steps separate us, or thou, thee, from our father in heaven – and he said it, I mean, in Hebrew it’s still nicer – in a few short moments, you’ll be sitting in the lap of the Shekhinah. You know what Shekhinah means; this is divinity as a mother. Divinity symbolized as a mother […]. Rabban Gamliel answered, I’m not frightened by the prospect of death. I’m not afraid of the tortures. I cry because we are going to be executed like ordinary criminals, while we did not commit any offense for which we would have to suffer the death penalty.

Simply, he doesn’t understand why he’s killed. He asked the question, why? A martyr, a saint, a saint, about to incur, I mean, to sacrifice himself on the altar for the perpetuation of Jewish tradition and [the] Jewish people, and they are the ones who safeguard the Jews, the Jewish people from disintegration, at that time, by their example, by their fortitude, and boldness. So he asks a question; it’s a question, what do you call – a question which belongs in theodicy, the problem of evil: why? Why did God do that?

So, Rabbi Yishmael answered – and the answer is very typical […] – my prince and master […], nesi Yisrael, rabbi umori, my prince and master and teacher, permit me to say something to you. So, Rabbi Gamliel said, all right, go on. Perhaps once you were taking an afternoon nap, and while you were dozing off, a poor woman with a loaf of bread came into your house to inquire of you whether or not the bread was clean or unclean. It means, now you say, we come with a problem of meat, whether the meat is kosher or not kosher. In that period, they observed the laws of cleanliness with regard to bread. So, when a poor woman comes into the rabbi with a chicken to take a look whether the chicken is kosher or treif – at that time, they didn’t speak about chickens, they spoke about kikarot, I mean, loaves of bread, whether the bread is clean or unclean; it means fit according to the law for consumption or not; it means simply [she] came with a problem whether or not it was clean or unclean, and your servant or partner told her to wait a while until you will come out of your bedroom. He went into the bedroom and awakened Rabbi Gamliel from his sleep, the prince, but of course, he can’t jump out of bed and go out into the waiting room. He had to get dressed; so it took him a few moments to get dressed. And while you were dressing, the lonely widow sighed and felt hurt. She thought that if the person who came to the prince were more prominent, Rabbi Gamliel would have come out right away. All she had to wait is five seconds until he got dressed. You know, I mean, dressing in olden times didn’t take as much as it takes us now, you see. You, my prince and master, know that the penalty for such a transgression – it means to oppress a widow – is veharagti eschem becharev, and I’ll slay thee with the sword. We just read it. That’s all.

This paradoxical story is very unique. Not only was every woman whose mind was bothered by a problem allowed to approach the prince in Israel – apparently there was no telephone, no appointment – if Rabbi Gamliel had received visitors by appointment only, the whole problem couldn’t have developed, you see. So she, apparently, she opened the door and walked in, and Rabbi Gamliel [was] not an ordinary rabbi; this was the king of Israel, the prince, you see – [she] approached the prince and master of the Jewish community, and none was barred from the gates of the palace – whether he lived in the palace or not, I don’t know, or in a humble hut, but the prince was duty-bound to receive her at once, not to let her wait, lest she might feel hurt. Moreover, the Torah expects the prince to leave strict instructions with his valet, that he must wake him up in case [an] inquiry is made by some unknown person, and he must step out right away, I mean immediately, of his bedroom, in order to attend to business. And the penalty for it is death.

Of course, it is, it is almost impractical. It is an ideal. But, you see, you know, we say the Talmud was a bit Freudian about dreams; the Talmud also said, dreams reflect the personality. Ideals also reflect the religious conscience.

[audience member:] It means we shouldn’t have any waiting list in our […].

[the Rav:] Sure, but instead of addressing myself to you, I should address myself to myself. I shouldn’t let people wait. I’m just [as much] a sinner as all of us.

[audience member:] But somehow, I think evil can come from others, can come as a result of a very puritanical kind of attitude towards, just towards living and…

[the Rav:] You mean if men become completely not critical, so to say, and accept everybody. Yes, of course; but as I said to you before, Judaism has also, you see, Judaism operates with two valid – so it means with two – with the thesis and antithesis, I mean. I’ll come [to], with regard to the community, what Judaism requires, because it simply sometimes immobilizes and paralyzes action, this tender approach. But it is in Judaism. I’m just reporting, nothing else. When I say reporting about elementary things, I mean, there’s nothing to explain.

Imitatio Dei and God’s humility

This manifestation of peculiar considerateness, perseverance and tenderness toward the lowly and meek ones on the part of Judaic ethics can only be understood if seen in the light of the imitatio Dei idea, that man should imitate God. I emphasized in my previous lecture, or perhaps two lectures before, that man can reach God only as a forlorn, hopeless, lonely being, not as a powerful being. If man comes into the temple or into the synagogue, as a judge, as Kaufman did, so he has no contact with God. A judge is an authority, he wields power, there is no contact with God. Men endowed with power cannot approach God. Who can approach God? The man who is stripped of everything, forgotten by everyone; man forsaken and forgotten by everyone, no company, no friendship, save God; only God […]. The prophets emphasized time and again that God, the master of creation, of the great cosmic drama, of the innumerable galaxies, and the uncharted plains of the universe, humbles Himself to commune with the individual, and abides in the tents of the poor and oppressed. Sustenance of reality as a whole, in total, on the one hand, and support of the lonely person on the other hand, are two pursuits in which God engages with equal concern and love.

And, for instance, we’ll take Isaiah. Isaiah, the last chapter, it is 46. No, it’s 66; 66, verse 1 and 2.

“Thus says the Lord, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.”

It means complete mastery over the universe.

“Where is the house that ye have built unto Me? And where is the place of my rest?”

It means God is infinite.

“For all those things have My hand made, and all those things have been, says the Lord, but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My word.”

Both – on the one hand, infinity – what we call in Hebrew hispashtus, God is infinite – and God can become so small, so we say infinitesimal, that He can come in, in the low tent of the poor person. Kabbalah called it, it’s Ein Sof, [which] means infinity, and tzimtzum, complete contraction on the part of God. He fits in to the smallest tent. He doesn’t fit in to the cosmos; He fits also in to the smallest room. God exalted, over all creation, far and transcendent, is concerned with the poor and contrite spirit. He seeks the company of the lowly, and addresses himself to him. Now I ask, did you […] the veyiten lekho?

[organizer:] Yes, we gave it out.

[the Rav:] Now, at the end – interesting is, at the exit of the Shabbos, of the Sabbath – it’s very interesting – at the conclusion of the Sabbath – it’s very interesting – when a Jew recites concluding – recites the first prayer of the weekday, of chol – so at the end of this prayer, so the Jew quotes a passage from the Talmud.

“Rabbi Yohanan said, wherever you find the Lord’s greatness mentioned, you find His gentleness indicated. This is so in the Torah, again in the Prophets, and a third time in the Psalms. It is written in the Torah, ‘the Lord your God is the supreme God; the supreme Lord, the great God, mighty and revered, Who is never partial, and never takes a bribe;’ and immediately afterwards it says, ‘He secures justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.’”

Great! But the great God humbles himself to be the companion of the stranger. Can the president United States invite himself some foreigner if he’s not a diplomat? I mean, even about Roosevelt, I read – I don’t know whether it was true or not, but I take it as true – that Mrs. Roosevelt said once [about] him, my husband cannot relax in the company of such people who are culturally not his equals. I mean, it’s a very natural statement. There’s nothing derogatory about it. I cannot relax either in the company of people who are culturally below me, and I imagine someone is superior to me cannot relax in my company. So there is not democracy. But God, the greatest of all, can relax – if I may use this word, perhaps blasphemous, but [if I] may use the word – relax in the company of the ignorant, poor and lowly.

“Again it is written in the Prophets, ‘Thus says the high and lofty One, Who inhabits eternity, Whose name is holy: I dwell in the high and holy place,’ and imme[diately afterwards it says,] ‘Yet also with the contrite and the lowly in spirit, reviving the spirits of the lowly, reviving the hearts of the contrite.’ A third time in the Psalms, ‘Sing to God. Sing praises to His name; extol Him who is in heaven; the Lord is His name, and exult before Him.’ And immediately afterwards it says, ‘a father of orphans, a champion of widows, is God in His holy habitation.”

This [is the] combination. A man should not only be high; he should be low. He should be not always cultured; sometimes uncultured, be able to speak with the most primitive person. This is an ability, gentlemen.

As a rabbi, I know. I couldn’t.  Sometimes this primitive person, particularly in religion – a person comes with such primitive ideas, superstition. Of course, sometimes the boundary line between religious lofty ideals and superstition is simply so blurred that people don’t know, and they come to me at times with such foolish questions, and many times I display impatience. A woman comes to me; her husband died, and she is afraid that the spirit of her husband still abides in her home, because at night she puts away the dishes and then she finds the dishes in a different place. Of course, it’s a question of arteriosclerosis. I mean, she simply forgets. She’s an elderly woman; she forgets; she herself puts away the dishes. So, I mean, there can be different attitudes on the part of the rabbi how to treat this woman. You see, it’s a question of patience. And patience is always – of course, you can train yourself to be patient; I believe social workers don’t need any instruction in that.

But it’s also a question of axiological appraisal, how you appraise that woman. If you look upon her as your equal, because she has intrinsic worth, you and I will be patient; but if you look down upon her and him, then patience is a very difficult virtue; you have to constrain yourself to be patient, and the idea is not to constrain oneself to be patient; the idea refers to inner esteem, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, to inner esteem, to appreciate the lower spirit as perhaps as noble, as my, so to say, sophisticated spirit. This is exactly what Judaism – not only perseverance; perseverance can be a mechanical, just, quality, I mean, synthetic. Judaism doesn’t believe in this thing. On the contrary, Judaism did not believe that one should cover up feelings, because it’s hypocrisy, it’s already lying, it’s falsehood; but it should be ingrained in the person to have compassion – not only compassion for his fellow man, not only mercy, but also reverence.

Now we are come again to our secular writer Peretz. He wrote a short story. It’s translated in almost all European languages, and it’s well-known. The story is called “Bontzye Shweig.” You’ve heard of this story. “Bontzye Shweig” is to say, Bontzye is a name, and shweig means the silent Bontzye, but it means more than silent Bontzye. And whoever – I’ll tell you frankly, one had to live in a small, jewish town in Lithuania or Poland in order to appreciate Bontzye Shweig. In America, you haven’t seen that, because in America, such a Bontzye Shweig would be classified by the agency as a retarded child and put away; there is no Bontzye Shweig walking the streets of the town.

Bontzye Shweig […] when a retarded child was born, and he couldn’t attend cheder, the school; if he attended, his instruction was completely useless and worthless, so he grew up to be the moron of the town, what you call in Yiddish, a shtot meshugenneh. Sometimes they were very noisy, sometimes they were quiet, mute.

I knew such a man, we used to call him as a child, I remember – I was six years old, in a small town in Russia – we used to call him Alta Dama – Alta [was] the name – Alta the moron. So what did Alta do? Alta, for instance, the moron, he inherited a few hundred dollars from his father, so he, or someone, borrowed the money from him. So he used to receive, he was supposed to receive interest, of course. So the interest he used to receive is that he used to draw water and chop wood for the men who borrowed his money. I mean, this was, it was an institution in a small town, a small area. This is Bontzye Shweig. Otherwise, it’s hard to appreciate the story.

So, of course, if there is a person who, if there is a person who did not contribute, could not contribute anything to society, at the lowest station, this is the type of Bontzye Shweig, or as I call it, Alta the moron, the moron of the town, the town moron. So Peretz writes,

“The death of Bontzye Shweig made no impression. No one knew or cared to know.”

I have to translate it because I, I gave away the book, however, I had before. It is in Helena Frank’s, you’ll find the translation, but this I didn’t, because I didn’t have the book.

“No one knew or cared to know who Bontzye was, how he lived, and what was the cause of his death. Did he suffer a heart attack? Did his strength give out? Or did his spine collapse under the heavy loads he was wont to carry?” I mean, not being paid for them, of course, I mean. “For all we know, he might have died of hunger. This is the most probable solution. Bontzye lived quietly and died quietly. He passed through our world like a shadow. At the circumcision of Bontzye, the […] Bontzye, there was no clatter of wine glasses. No wine nor whiskey was drunk. No address was delivered at his bar mitzvah, and no brilliant speeches were made.”

“His life was grey and undistinguishable from the lives of millions of men around him, as one particle of sand is no different, is not distinguishable from the millions of particles of sand at the beach. And no one noticed when the wind carried a particle of sand across the sea. The beach remains the same. Bontzye left no footprints in the mud he – where he lived.”

“And after his death, the wind carried the small marker of his grave away. The wife of the gravedigger found it in some distant place away, picked it up, built with it a fire on which she cooked potatoes. Three days later, his death and not even his gravedigger – his death was forgotten, and not even his gravedigger knew where he’d buried him.”

If there is a masterly description of anonymity, about anonymity [about] which the Halakha spoke, Peretz gave it. But, there is – he was born quietly, he lived in silence, he died mutely, and he was buried noiselessly. This is alright. Now comes, so to say, the finale; of course, it’s a long story.

“In heaven, in heaven it was quite different. In heaven it was quite different. There, his death made a profound impression. The big shofar of Messiah sounded aloud and announced throughout the seven heavens, Bontzye Shweig has died, and he is coming into heaven. The most prominent among the angels whispered to each other. Bontzye was summoned before the court of the Most High. The great Bontzye is coming. The paradise was in uproar. Such joy! Such an excitement! It is no mean matter; Bontzye Shweig was coming.”

He expressed in a few sentences what I try to express unsuccessfully in, I believe, almost in an hour. That’s all. This is the Jewish view. And [at] the end of the story, Peretz says, how little he was, that when he came before the heavenly tribunal, and they told him all the treasures, every type of bliss, spiritual beatitude is his, all he asked is for a warm roll with his butter every day. It means his imagination was so limited. That’s all. And still he was great, great in his minuteness, because he had something; he has tenderness; he has something. The inner worth is not measured by his foolish behavior, not even by his foolish behavior in heaven. Yes, sir?

[Dr. Eisenberg:] I don’t think our problem is so much the attitude of us toward the simple. I think those people more likely bring out the best in us, or the better in us. The attitude is toward the arrogant, the haughty, the indecent. What, can we cover that later?

[the Rav:] Yeah, sure. But Dr. Eisenberg, aren’t we all arrogant, haughty?

[Dr. Eisenberg:] There are gradations of course, but no, I don’t think so; I don’t think quite.

[the Rav:] I am, I am. As far as I am concerned, I am; I can speak only of myself, but I am at many times arrogant.

[Dr. Eisenberg:] You’re probably tempering your arrogance with a lot of self-criticism.

[the Rav:] Certainly. I’ll give you an example. I’ll give you an example. I believe – in the classroom, I deliver my lecture…

[Dr. Eisenberg:] …but it does not seem as arrogant.

[the Rav:] You mean who does not do any soul-searching? I mean, right, yes. Yes, this is unmitigated arrogance. But, but it’s still – but I am also arrogant – but many a time – and I promise myself I will never do that again, and I trip and fall.

[Dr. Eisenberg:] We have given David and Jacob and other people a place in our pantheon, because these are the people who struggle with themselves, and wasn’t that the idea?

[the Rav:] Yes, Dr. Eisenberg, I’ll come to the problem of one’s struggle with himself later. I’ll take up this problem. You are right. A man cannot be born perfect. It’s an eternal struggle with himself. This is Judaism […]

[Dr. Eisenberg:] Is it peculiar to Judaism, though, this concept of the concern for the lowly and […]?

[the Rav:] Yes, of course you’ll take the Gospel. Heaven, the gates of Heaven, are open only for the meek. Blessed are the meek. Yes, but, first of all, what the Gospel said particularly in this regard was taken from Judaism. No theologian now, I want you to understand, no theologian now, in his, so to say – no sane theologian, in his ordinary senses, will say that this type, these chapters of the Gospel were invented by Christ; they were taken from the Jewish ethic – number one. Number two is – something else is important. [The] important [thing] is, it’s a chapter in the Gospel. To us it wasn’t only a chapter in the Gospel; it was to some extent practiced. You know there is in Shalom Aleichem a story, and the name of the story is called “Mir ist gut, ich bin a yasom.” I feel well or good, I feel good because I am an orphan. It means he’s somehow immune to everything. This is very typical. It’s very typical of the Jewish mentality. It’s very typical of the Jewish mentality – you see literature describes it – we were very careful about it – I mean, our rabbis, I can tell you that. Please don’t classify me, because I am already half Americanized and I see certain [of] the faults of the American rabbinate [which] I discovered and also seem to have assimilated. But I know I come from a rabbinical house; my grandfather, forefathers were rabbis for many generations – the democratic approach, this being accessible to everybody, this lack of arrogance, this sense of humility; it’s too bad that our people don’t know about it. It has not been perpetuated in the literature. Sometimes – you singled out the Gaon; the Gaon was also a humble person, but he was a spiritual aristocrat, basically. But, take the average rabbi. Take the Hasidic rabbis. What was great about Hasidism? – this democratic approach. Anybody with a […]. I mean, any moron – actually, Hasidism, in the beginning it was a movement of morons; of morons, yes; of cultural morons; of illiterates; of cultural illiterates; people who couldn’t read, who couldn’t write, who couldn’t say their prayers. What do you call it in Yiddish? – Yeshuvnik, the people who live in the villages, the villagers. It’s a moron. I mean, actually, it was a funny movement, but this was great; but basically, even before Hasidism, there was a certain democracy because a Jew – of course, we always spoke about the Jew; the Jew was concerned with himself; why should he universalize his ideals? Although his ideals are universal, basically, the Jew felt everybody is a Jew; I am in no way, in no way superior to him.

Take even our arrangement in the synagogue. It was the most democratic arrangement, the synagogue. We have no clergy; that’s why we have no clergy. The rabbi is a teacher. He’s a servant of the community. He’s not a clergyman, in the sense of the Catholic priest. He has no specific metaphysical endowment. He’s not invested with anything. He’s just one of the crowd. He’s more responsible, perhaps, but certainly has no more privileges; and that’s why we can daven, we can pray, we can organize a service without the participation of the rabbi. But you cannot recite Mass, to say Mass, without the participation of the clergyman.

This all, I mean – you’ll see the whole Judaic structure. That’s why we have no authority. That’s why I’m opposed to the idea of Sanhedrin in Eretz Yisroel. I’m deadly opposed to it. Perhaps Sanhedrin may serve a useful purpose now, particularly controlling the lunatic fringe of Orthodoxy. Yes, perhaps, but it means the establishment of authority, and there was complete freedom in the Halakhah.

[audience member:] There always was an aristocracy within the synagogue, within the temple, among the Jews.

[the Rav:] What kind of aristocracy?

[audience member:] We sat in certain places.

[the Rav:] You mean mizrach and ma’arav?

[audience member:] Yeah, and you had a better place, and you had a lower place.

[the Rav:] No, it didn’t mean much. It didn’t mean much. It didn’t mean much. And I’ll tell you, I tell you, listen, we sinned also; quite a few sins in our…

[audience member:] […]

[the Rav:] Huh?

[audience member:] In view of this economic struggle…

[the Rav:] Yes, of course, I mean, now they want to see Hasidism in terms of Marxist materialism, of historical materialism, and perhaps some elements are – we should not deny that this interpretation is completely – [we should not] say that this interpretation is false; perhaps there are a few motifs, correct. But you cannot – the whole Jewish society wasn’t built [that way]; you don’t have any aristocracy. Aristocracy is abhorrent to the Jewish conscience.

Now, Yes, sir?

[audience member:] Well, if this is true, what is the difference in the concept of the so-called – when you were asking a question about prayer, you talked about the fact that prayers were standardized for the people – it was an attempt to democratize the religious community. Well, doesn’t this smack of a hierarchical kind of concept about prayer?

[the Rav:] Hierarchical?

[audience member:] Yes; in other words, some people – why should words be more meaningful, as articulated by some people, and more beautiful? You used the expression that these prayers were more beautiful. In the sight of God, why should they be more beautiful, one set of words as compared to another?

[the Rav:] No, I didn’t say that God simply discriminated between the prayer, which was recited with ease, in a beautiful language, beautiful vernacular, and the prayer, which, I mean, one was, I mean, it was incoherent. I didn’t say that. All I said is, that since religion must become institutionalized, we have to accommodate the illiterates as well, and to leave prayer to the individual, [that] he should say what he feels, would be an ideal – as a matter of fact, would be an ideal – but there are many people who can’t express themselves, and that’s why they had to standardize prayer. That’s what I said. But I didn’t say that a man who offers a prayer, I mean, grammatically correct, and expressed in beautiful phrases, that his prayer is more acceptable to God than the prayer of the illiterate. I didn’t say that.

I’ll tell you, as far as prayer is concerned, I want to tell you something. There is a Sefer Chassidim, the Book of Chassidim, but not this Chassidism; it means of the medieval Chassidim in Germany, about the 12th, 13th, 14th century. There is a funny incident related, that there was a shepherd near a community, near Mainz, and he was an illiterate; he couldn’t pray. This story is already – Chassidim also had this story, but this is an original story. He couldn’t pray, so he used to say – but he was a shepherd, and he used to take care of the flock of sheep, goats, goats particularly; goats – I mean, the community never had – a Jew never in the middle ages had, couldn’t afford to buy a cow; a cow was already capitalist, but only goats, only actual goats; we know of this from the responsa; they had goats, lambs, sheep – so he used to take care of the goats, of the goat herd; so every morning he used to get up and say, “My God, I love you so much. I take care of the goats of the community, and I charge everybody five pennies a – five perutot for a week; I can promise you – I’ll take care of your goats, if you will entrust me with your goats, without any payment.” This was his prayer. It’s an historical incident. It was his prayer, a strange prayer, of an illiterate, primitive person. So one of the great scholars of the Baaley Hatosafot of the Rashi school, passed by, passed through this village, and overheard him – he was eavesdropping – and overheard him in his prayer, so he began to yell, “It is, it is blasphemy!  What do you mean, you say to God, you’ll take care of His goats?! […] So he said, “I cannot pray otherwise!” So he said, “I’ll teach you just one sentence, one verse,” and he taught him, Shema Yisrael, Adoshem Elokeinu, Adoshem Echad, Hear O Israel, God is our God, God is One. It’s not difficult to repeat; but, apparently, his mind being a bit stupid and dull, he forgot; one day he said it, and the next day he forgot it. So then this scholar, once dreamt and [the dream] said, “You have committed a crime. A man prayed and his prayer was most acceptable to God, and by your intervention, you stopped him from praying, because you told him it’s blasphemy, what he said, and the Shema Yisrael, it was forgotten, so he doesn’t say anything. The contact between him and God and being intimate was completely discontinued. Go, take a special trip to that village. Tell him to say the prayer, the old prayer. This is the best prayer.” And he went and he said it to him.

This is the story. I mean, Chassidim also have the same story. This shows you how Judaism has approached prayer. Of course, that’s what I have against the modern temple and the modern synagogue, and I’m not discriminating between the Reform temple or the Orthodox synagogue; I don’t care. They’re both wrong in this regard. There is already a hierarchy. The rabbi is a part of the hierarchy, the president is a part of the hierarchy, the board of trustees is a part of the hierarchy. Sometimes it’s repulsive, when you look at what’s going on in Jewish temples or synagogues; I can’t stand it.

Introduction to the problem of Jewish loneliness

Now let me continue for a while. In view of the foregoing analysis – I’m going now to take up the problem – it is caused – this problem is to me significant, relevant, because perhaps I personally suffered a great deal from that, and it’s also a problem of the Jew in general. It’s the problem of loneliness. I personally suffer from it – not as a Jew; as a person – and of course – and because, you know, experience is the mother of thought – not merely is experience the mother of invention, but experience is the mother of – suffering is the mother of thought; thought, self-analysis, soul searching.

Perhaps whatever I’ll say here is very subjective. It will sound like a confession, but I believe I have enough proof that this was the Judaic approach; and basically, I was raised in a house, in a house of Jewishness, so I’ve absorbed many things which are not spelled out in books, which I’m trying now to spell out from intuition.

In the view of the foregoing analysis – so please, if I am a bit subjective, so ignore me – but, however, I believe that this is the only approach which a Jew can take for the problem of Jewish loneliness, which should not be overlooked by any Jew, and now I’m not taking sides – nationalistic Jew, Jew who recommends assimilation as the solution to the Jewish problem, a religious Jew, a secular Jew – I don’t take sides in this. I’m completely – I detach myself from all ideologies; but I believe that this problem of loneliness is a common denominator in all Jews. Whether it’s our fault, or it’s the fault of our neighbors, I don’t know. I don’t want to indict anybody. Many times I think our gentile friends are not to be blamed; perhaps it’s our fault. But it’s a fact.

But I have to dwell with this problem at length. It’s a psychological problem, it’s depth psychology, and it’s also a metaphysical problem. To me, any problem which is involved in depth psychology becomes a metaphysical problem. I believe that our experiences, our inner experiences, not the superficial experiences, the platitudinous experiences, but the intrinsic experiences, reflect metaphysical ideas.

In view of the foregoing analysis – it means that I spoke about, again – numinous man, man for himself, and kerygmatic man, man who passes a message to others – it means he contributes to society; kerygma [is a] message.

In the view of the foregoing analysis, we may understand better the experience – I’ll call it for the time being “solitariness.” I’ll show you why I use this word.

As a matter of fact, we may say that there are two basic feelings in man. One feeling is that of loneliness; the second feeling is that of aloneness – if you’ll take the adverb “alone,” and convert it into a noun – aloneness. And let me, say, use an axiomatic formula; then I’ll explain.

Lonely is kerygmatic man – [it] means man in society is lonely; a man who wants to deliver a message is lonely.

Alone is numinous man, man for himself, the inner world in man himself.

Adam, before Eve was created – I’m referring to the previous lectures – roving along the uncharted lanes of the dreary world of animal, plant and mineral – there was no other being – was alone; he wasn’t lonely.

Adam, in Eve’s company – when he is unable to deliver the message of his experience to others, then he is lonely.

In order to understand the difference between these two unique experiences, let us look at it from a different viewpoint, the pragmatic psychological.

To be alone is identical with being the only one; the only one. The Greek word of monos, one, [or] the Hebrew yachid – not so much echad as yachid – would convey quite exactly the aloneness experience. It means not to be one, [but] the only one.

Loneliness is only possible among equals, when I am among people. When I am among people I am not alone, but I can be very miserably lonely. The peasant is not lonely among princes, but when he is excluded from his village community, then he becomes lonely; nor would civilized man suffer from loneliness if he had to spend some time among Australian Bushmen or South Sea Islanders. Only his expulsion from civilized society, in which he was born and reared, would hurt him deeply and evoke in him the feeling of loneliness.

Aloneness means not finding anybody but me; to differ; alone means to be different, and to be the only one; and I don’t mean it, ladies and gentlemen, in an egocentric sense; of course, it can be infused with some egocentrism, but I don’t mean that. I mean it at a metaphysical level – the only one. To be oneself is alone. Aloneness is when man finds himself in all the ramifications of individuality and otherness and uniqueness, and this is exactly [that] in which the inner worth of a personality is expressed according to Judaism. To be alone denotes the singular personal aspect, a new dimension which every personality has, a new dimension which is incommensurate with the unique dimension of the other personality, a new dimension which renders the existential experience incommensurate. You have an existential experience; I have

. You have a an I-awareness; I have an I-awareness. I have a consciousness of my existence, the ego-consciousness. Do not compare them, like a three-dimensional quantity with a two-dimensional quantity; they are not – they are incommensurate. The numinous in a person, the mysterious in a person, the subject which is not subject to kerygmatic externalization and objectification – this is, this spells aloneness. Adam for himself or Adam for – or the I for myself is alone. Please don’t interpret it in an ethical meaning, in the meaning of egotism.

Adam as a companion, when he is eager to deliver his message to his other, to his fellow man, who is incapable of suppressing his life story – this is how a man begins to contribute to society; he cannot contain himself; he wants to tell, to pass on his message. Everybody has an interesting message for others, whether it’s a scientific message, or it’s an ethical message, or it’s an economic message, or it’s a political message – everybody – contributions is a message. I mean it’s a kerygma – [when] he’s incapable of suppressing his life story and keeping it a secret, then he becomes sometimes lonely.

Sometimes, when a life story is too powerful, it cannot be contained, it is too great an adventure not to be told, it’s many time, it’s many time, I mean, man feels alone and he wants to approach the thou to whom he tries to deliver the kerygma, to relate his existential romance – then, if he finds out that the thou doesn’t care for his message, you understand – when I suddenly step out of my seclusion; I’m somehow not satisfied with myself, and I want to approach the thou, establish contact, liaison with the thou, and I tell him, listen, I have a nice story to tell you – I mean, the story may be scientific invention, or anything, a nice story – you’ll be interested to hear this story, I mean, a great message – and the thou turns around with scorn [or] disdain, then Adam came to Eve – I don’t know whether this transpired or not, apparently not – and said he wanted to deliver a message to her, probably a message of love, and Eve turns around, turned around haughtily, and said, I’m not interested in your feelings – then Adam was not alone at that time, because he was already in society; then he felt lonely. When a man feels, when a man – when society does not consider his message essential, and his contribution worthwhile, if his story is ridiculed, and his accomplishments rejected, then he feels he is not needed in society. Then he’s alone. If Eve rejects Adam Friday afternoon – Friday morning Adam was not lonely, because he had no need to communicate with anybody, because there was nobody – but Friday afternoon, after Eve sprang into existence, and he wanted to communicate with her, to flirt with her – and if Eve rejects Adam, the latter suffers from loneliness.

So it means, in other words, the solitary man, the man who is alone, can never be lonely; the lonely man is never alone.

He is alone; why is he not lonely? – because he is alone, because there is no one else like him. Association, direct communal existence, communication of existence, does not fascinate him. He doesn’t want, he refuses, to step out of himself to meet other fellows. His participation in communal life is indirect, and that’s why he’s not lonely.

Now, let us see. What do we suffer from? – from aloneness or loneliness? I’m not speaking about the Jew, but about modern man. Loneliness and aloneness represent not only two disparate metaphysical ideas – it means [the] numinous experience of Adam and the kerygmatic experience of Adam, Adam for himself and Adam in company with Eve, of numen and kerygma – but constitute two different experiences, even at the psychological level. Loneliness is a destructive emotion, very destructive. I can tell you; you know how you say in Hebrew, ein chacham keba’al hanisayon, no one is as wise as the man of experience. I can tell you, loneliness is a destructive emotion; it fetters one’s mind and expresses itself in morbidities, in simple morbidity, in unnerving anxiety, in mental dreariness, and self-negation, which borders almost on self-suicidal tendencies. Aloneness – it is – if I may use the expression by Adler – it is a disjunctive emotion, loneliness, basically a destructive emotion.

Aloneness, contrary to loneliness, is what Adler says, if I use this term – we don’t speak about that – but the term is a conjunctive emotion; it’s a creative experience, although not always a pleasant one. You see, an experience can be a great experience but not a pleasant experience. It sets all our aptitudes in motion, kindles the flames of rebellion against the trite and conventional, awakens in man his dormant talents and calls for action. If a man understands the feeling of aloneness – I’ll speak about that – the feeling of aloneness can be transformed into egocentrism, which again is a disjunctive emotion, but there are limits; Judaism was pretty aware of these fine-bounded lines.

Man – now let us come to man. Man is aware of both numinous and kerygmatic aspects. We said basically man can never be for himself completely; he can never be in society completely. Correct? – that’s what we said before. He is numinous; he is rooted in himself; he can never rid himself of these roots. On the other hand, he’s not satisfied with himself; he has to step out. Lo tov heyot ha’adam levado, it’s not good for man to be alone, and levado means there not lonely, but alone; e’eseh lo ezer kenegdo, I’ll create a helper opposite him. I mean, there is a dialectical experience. He oscillates, he fluctuates between two poles, between two extremes. He is for himself and then in society, both. So man –when I said the lonely man is never alone, the man who is alone is never lonely, I spoke about ideal types, but concrete man, practical man, is both. He can be alone; he also can experience loneliness. Man is aware of both the numinous and kerygmatic aspects. Within his personal existence, he must experience aloneness as well as loneliness. He experiences aloneness as numinous, as a mysterious person for himself; he experiences loneliness in his surge toward society, toward the thou.

He must feel alone because solitary Adam – in him, in every of us, there is a solitary Adam before the creation of Eve – does not care, nor is he able to communicate anything to others. He is silent, withdrawn into himself, lives in solitude, in hiding. He does not meet anybody who resembles him. He is the unique and the only one person, strange and one-timely. He is alone without friends and without tying himself or integrating himself into community existence, into togetherness and existential fellowship. As I said, Judaism considered all our ties, social ties, as relative, because – even marriage, no sacrament, can be divorced – for one reason, because only kerygmatic man can tie himself with the world. Adam from Friday morning before Eve was created did not enter the marriage union. This is why husbands survived the death of their most beloved wives; wives survived the death of their most beloved husbands, regardless of the impact of the first shock.

Now, yes, on the other hand, we must experience loneliness. Companionable Adam, not solitary Adam, who wedded to Eve, living in comradeship with others, anxious to deliver his message, to reveal his inmost self, to communicate something of his personal, intimate, existential awareness to, and live in communion with others – must at one time – and this experience must – everybody must go through this experience – must at one time or another find the ridicule or misunderstanding, his message not wanted, and his story rejected, […] the greatest and the lowest one. Even the great and mighty must reach the stage when they are not more needed, and hence looked upon with sympathetic disdain.

The great scientist who has, for instance, revolutionized thinking, and whose contribution to society was of enormous value, will finally discover that based on his very discoveries and ideas, other men, younger and more vigorous intellectually, since they did not have to struggle with the old and the obsolete as he did, and for whom he has paved the way, have advanced much farther than he. He must realize that he, the teacher of a whole generation, must listen carefully now – a time comes – to the opinions of his disciples, and that his message is no more relevant. If there was a man who experienced it, I can tell you, who was the greatest scientist of our generation, Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein’s creativity ran dry – you know this very well; scientists know about it – and his own theories, by far – I mean his disciples and young people worked with his own theories to such an extent that in his late years – he didn’t die old – [they were theories] with which he could not cope intellectually, and he was – I mean, people who were close to him told me – he was the most miserable person on earth. Of course, people paid tribute to him, lip service – the layman, not a –  [a] scientist [is] not interested in the tribute paid by the New York Times; it’s not important to him, it’s important – I know, even in the Halakhah, in Jewish scholarship, we are not interested in the crowd; we are interested in a few scholars; and the few scholars [in] whom Einstein was interested, they knew [it]. He is lonely; he cannot contribute anymore to society.

The same was true of Kant, the great German philosopher. Kant revolutionized German philosophy. His own disciple Fichte wrote that he himself, Kant, doesn’t understand the consequences or the conclusions to be drawn from the philosophy he developed, and the philosophers of the time agreed with Fichte, not with Kant.

And this is true of the President of the United States when he leaves office. I believe that Eisenhower is beginning to have this feeling now. That’s what I’m afraid [of] – not afraid, I wouldn’t say afraid – but I understand this feeling.

And this – everybody, everybody, a rabbi, when he gets old, at least older, not – a rabbi shouldn’t get too old in order to be not wanted by society. If he crosses the threshold of 40, I mean, he’s already on the other side of the fence, and so forth, so on.

We cannot escape from this experience, however excruciating it is. Loneliness is the twin-feeling of disillusionment; this is the twin-feeling of disillusionment. And Judaism said – I’ll come later to it – anybody and everybody must be disillusioned once in his life, must be defeated. A man cannot be victorious, and if he is victorious continuously, so at least he is defeated in death.

[audience member: ] Can’t win.

[the Rav:] Yeah, can’t win. But Judaism said that a man must be defeated – and there are ways and means how man can mitigate his defeat; I’ll come later to this problem – must be defeated not in death, but in lifetime, in his lifetime.

Loneliness is the twin-feeling of disillusionment. And since one must encounter frustration and defeat, he is ipso facto condemned to the agony of being rejected by society. Isn’t an old father rejected by his own children? – even if they are good children and they attend to his needs. I mean, I know that from my own experience. And anybody – there is no one who is – and even if his beloved wife, beloved husband takes sick, and the doctor comes in and tells the wife that the illness, the disease is fatal – of course, the shock at the beginning – as a rabbi, I happen to know, you certainly know of the same problem – the shock is terrific. Many shatter completely. The wife or the husband, cannot imagine, cannot visualize a life without his beloved mate. I mean, how would he go on living if the thread of life is torn, interrupted? Yes, correct; but he takes a little time, yes, and then he begins to readjust himself to that, and the beloved wife, the moment still that the wife or the husband is still sick, still in the house, she is looked upon – or he or she – looked upon as a dead person, not belonging to the circle of the family; and mentally, inwardly, this loving wife with regard to her husband, and the loving husband with regard to his wife, begins to readjust her or his life. I wouldn’t say he or she is thinking of marriage already, but I don’t know; I’m never sure about the human mind. I’m never sure about the human mind, and I don’t trust the human mind too much, and particularly when Freud introduced the subconscious; what’s going on there, no one knows. You see, we begin to readjust the furniture as a hostess, a very capable hostess which decided to take out a chair of the room, so already mentally begins to readjust, rearrange the furniture in the room.

I would recommend you to read by Tolstoy, [Leo] Tolstoy, his famous novel –it’s not a novel; it’s really a short story, more or less: The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It is translated into English, the death – poor translation – The Death of Ivan Ilyich. And described there, actually, [is] a sick person who was dying – a judge, a judge. He has a family, a station in society, and little by little – loving, loving, everything was loving, a warm atmosphere – but little by little, I see how the family is beginning to reconcile itself with the fact of his death. He notices already the seamstress coming into the house. What does the seamstress do in his house? Appar[ently his] wife is – has already placed an order for mourning, for a mourning veil and a mourning garment. And if there is a picture of the loneliness of man, of the mighty man in the […] of the […] society of old in the last century, here it is in this Ivan Ilyich, lonely.  When he died, no one sympathized with him.

I wanted to know, in – what’s the name?

[audience member:] “The visit.”

[the Rav:] No, just a moment; I wanted something else. What’s his name, the English writer? Woolf, yes? Thomas Wolfe, what’s his – Look Home[ward Angel]? Is – there is how a brother or a sister dies? I didn’t see the play, but I read the book. The sister died, and how – after the sister dies – I mean, they were mentally prepared for the death of the sister – how they get so excited that they get drunk, I believe, or they get intoxicated somehow; they become hysterical because they are relieved at death. At one point, at one time or another, the living person becomes a load on the others, and death is a relief. I mean, it’s in Wolfe, in Look Home […] the brother; it’s a brother; I don’t remember; I read it about 10, 15 years ago. I didn’t see the play. It’s the same thing.

You say a play “The Visit?” what kind of a […] is it?

[audience member:] A man who – anybody see it? A man who – against whom the whole village turns…

[the Rav:] This is a different story – different story; this is social reverse, yes, the loneliness, yes; but here is – what Tolstoy wanted to bring out – I don’t know whether Woolf, Thomas Woolf wanted to bring it out – but Tolstoy wanted to bring out the exact, the idea of defeat. Man is defeated. He’s not only defeated in death; he’s defeated before death.

[audience member:] […]

[the Rav:] Yes, this type of loneliness, because yes – but basically, loneliness is [an] excruciating feeling, and it borders on the neurotic […]. But the question is how Judaism has tried to solve this problem. Well, I can continue next week.

End of lecture 6