2020, 5780
Rosenzweig, Buber,
Soloveitchik, and The Road
The Jewishness of every individual has squirmed on the needlepoint of a “why.”
-Franz Rosenzweig
On postcards
in the trenches of World War One
Franz Rosenzweig writes
The Star of Redemption.
So,
it seems to me,
when he speaks of paths
and pathlessness,
he must be speaking
from experience:
i.e.
he knows what he’s talking about.
I never understood what Rosenzweig was talking about.
I didn’t understand Star of Redemption
when I read it at the Jewish Theological Seminary,
and I haven’t cracked it since.
But I recently read
his letter to Martin Buber
on Teaching and Law
(There’s no need to recount
this dispute for the sake of heaven
between Rosenzweig and Buber.)
What interests me is
how I read
Rosenzweig’s letter.
Rosenzweig tells us
of paths
and pathlessness
and “the goal”
always laying a step beyond,
in pathlessness.
“Does a path lead,”
asks Rosenzweig,
“to pathlessness?”
Rosenzweig speaks of
“that which we know”
and calls it a
“laborious and aimless detour
through knowable Judaism.”
This laborious and aimless path,
it seems,
is the sum of whatever Jewish knowledge
we have received up to now.
And it gives us the confidence
to venture into pathlessness:
the pathlessness of
the as yet undiscovered country
of the Torah
which we will bring.
So,
I picture myself
backpacking across the mountains:
maybe back to my Alaska days,
maybe back to my Isle Royale days.
I know how to read a map.
I know how to use a compass.
I can identify landmarks.
I can make a fire.
I know how to stay dry.
Rosenzweig turns,
shifting under the weight
of his own pack,
his boots caked in mud,
and says to me:
these wilderness skills
have been cultivated
along that laborious
and aimless path,
which has brought us
thus far.
At this point,
I identify
our other fellow traveller
Halakhic Man.
Halakhic Man
knows how to read a map,
knows how to use a compass,
and can identify landmarks.
He can certainly pitch a tent.
Indeed,
he can make a tent
out of dolphin skin!
Halakhic Man
has spotted a bubbling spring,
just a little further down,
down along the path
we have yet to tread.
“He already possesses
a fixed, a priori relationship
with this real phenomenon,”
Rav Soloveitchik whispers,
as he stops to measure
a fruit
to determine whether
it is at least
one-third of the way
to complete ripeness.
“By that do you mean,”
I ask Rav Soloveitchik,
“that he understands
the complex of laws
regarding the halakhic construct
of a spring?
And that we,
who are so rugged
and worn
from our wanderings,
might use yonder spring
as a mikveh?”
“Precisely so,”
responds the Rav.
“So this mikveh
must be our goal!”
I exclaim.
“Not at all,”
says Rosenzweig.
“Our immersion lies
just a step beyond,
in pathlessness.”
We can reach both the teachings and the Law only by realizing that we are still on the first lap of the way, and by taking every step upon it ourselves.
-Franz Rosenzweig
Notes:
I studied Rosenzweig’s letter “Teaching and Law: to Martin Buber”, with Chancellor Arnie Eisen, of the Jewish Theological Seminary, at the Troy, Michigan offices of the William Davidson Foundation, on the morning of Monday, October 28, 2019.
Dolphin skin — Exodus 25:5 Jewish Publication Society translates oros t’khashim ערת תחשים, as dolphin skin. In fact, it is not clear which animal is meant by takhash. Rabbinic tradition has proposed many different sorts of animals; some of them quite fantastic.
For specific quotes from Soloveitchik, see his Halakhic Man, p. 20-21, Jewish Publication Society, paperback edition of 1991