Guest-Blogging On Godol Hador
Check out my contribution to Godol Hador's blog, titled "Chareidi Modern Orthodoxy."
posted by Literati @ 5:33 PM
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Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Monday, August 01, 2005
Absolution In The Rabbinic Corpus
In Tolstoy’s "Anna Karenina," we encounter Konstantin Levin, a cattle-breeder residing in the country, who travels to Moscow set on proposing to the girl who for long consumed his thoughts, Kitty Shcherbatsky. Upon arrival, he discusses his intentions with his longtime friend, Stiva, who assures him that all will go well.
His resolve now strengthened, he relates to Stiva a certain malaise that now grips him, that of disgust: “But there’s one terrible thing… You’re married, you know this feeling… The terrible thing is that we older men, who already have a past… not of love, but of sins… suddenly become close with a pure, innocent being; it’s disgusting, and so you can’t help feeling yourself unworthy.” Not satisfied with his friend’s attempts at consolation, he finds solace on his own, “There’s one consolation, as that prayer I’ve always loved, that I may be forgiven not according to my deserts, but out of mercy. That’s also the only way she can forgive me.”1
I’d like to use this as a springboard for a treatment of the rabbinic conception of contrition. Stirred to repentance, how does one confront He whom he has wronged? On what basis does the supplicant implore God to cast away his iniquities? I proffer to the reader what I have culled thus far.
One justification for seeking pardon from God is the realization that He created both our body and soul; consequently, one who sinned should be pardoned perforce as though he’s part of Him. In fact, we commence the “Selichot” with precisely this defense: “The soul is Yours and the body is of Your handiwork; take pity on Your labor.”2 This approach alone deserves a full treatment which is beyond the pale of this essay.
At times we seek forgiveness on account of His name: if He were to take retribution from us, His claim to omnipotence would be sullied. It his for His sake, then, that we beseech Him for pardon. This approach is first utilized by Moshe at the scene of the Golden Calf. Hitherto impervious to Moshe's arguments, Moshe importunes God to forgive Israel so as not to sacrilege His name amongst the nations.
Interestingly, Ohr Hachaim notes3 that this argument was not to pardon Israel, as evidenced by the language in Moshe's argument4 and the observation that Israel was left not unscathed after the appalling incident, even after Moshe had succeded in securing this "pardon." Rather, it was a venerable attempt at preventing divine desecration. It follows, then, that a prayer formulated on this line of reasoning, that forgivness should be granted so as not to defile His sacred name, would prove grossly ineffectual and inadequate to the petitioner who seeks absolution. Why, then, has it found its way into the liturgy?5 Again, it is not the scope of this essay to find a resolution for this difficulty.
We mentioned at the beginning that Levin held an affinity for "that prayer I’ve always loved, that I may be forgiven not according to my deserts, but out of mercy." This prayer and its mode of reasoning is not peculiar to Levin's religious belief system; it occupies our liturgy6 and forms the basis of the Jewish corpus in this area. It derives from the divine compassion that is part of the thirteen divine attributes.
We also invoke God's "goodness" when pleading for pardon. This ostensibly appeals to a form of Divine mercy included in this selfsame attribute, or to that of "graciousness." Also rife in the Selichot liturgy is the invocation of the Patriarchal covenants7 and His promise not to "despise them, nor abhorr them to destroy them, to annul My covenant with them, for I am Hashem their God."8
A central theme in the interaction between petitioner and God is that the petitioner approach Him like a son approaches his father.9 Initially, I understood this to be part of the multi-pronged strategy the petitioner utilizes to further the realization of his aim: absolution. We discussed the "physical" reality that both man's body and soul are the handiwork of the Creator. We also mentioned the potential desecration that might come as a result of the exacting of divine retribution. The trait of mercy that pervades His existence was, yet, another "strategy" to procure His forgiveness. This too, I thought, was the petitioner attempting to underscore his kinship with God and use this to buttress his claims for forgiveness -- not as an appeal to God's general trait of mercy, rather to the mercy engendered in a father dealing with an estranged son.
So I thought, but Malbim differs10. This, I think, is very seminal in defining the petitioner's, nay, man's relationship with God. For if the "father figure" in God is merely a branch of the attribute of mercy, does that not dimish it's importance, it's palpability? Perhaps not, but this topic demands serious attention.
NOTE TO THE READER: I strongly recommend taking a look at the footnotes as they clarify and instantiate the text and, without which, I feel, the text is sorely lacking. The only reason they weren't included in the main body of text was my feeling that they would muddle the sentence structure and disrupt the flow of text.
[1]Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Anna Karenina (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 39.
[2]Artscroll translation. While in general keen on using my own translations, I utilize that of others when context is an issue.
[3]In his commentary to Numbers 14:15.
[4]Parsing the text, he notes that Moshe's consternation was at Israel's sudden demise; if Israel were to be punished intermittently with only part of the populace suffering the repercussions for their wrong at any given time, his worry would dissipate and, consequently, his argument would become moot.
[5]"Act for Your sake, our God, and not for ours, behold our spiritual position -- destitute and emptyhanded" is just one of the many places.
[6]"For not because of our righteousnees do we cast down our supplications before you, rather because of Your abundant compassion" is one instance.
[7]"Remember for us the covenant of the Patriarchs, as You said etc."
[8]Leviticus 26:44
[9]Malbim writes (Tehilim 103:13): The engendering of mercy by a father on his son is either caused as a result of the biological closeness the father and the son share or, because the father knows the son through and through, knowing from observation and experience the son's weaknesses and vile proclivities, recognizing his son's innate imperfection and, hence, judges him favorably. Similarly, God adopts this approach: whether because the soul is part of Him or, because of His recognition that physicality impedes the person from doing the divine will. See also Berachot 32a.
[10]ibid. There he concludes: "and this derives from the attribute of mercy."
His resolve now strengthened, he relates to Stiva a certain malaise that now grips him, that of disgust: “But there’s one terrible thing… You’re married, you know this feeling… The terrible thing is that we older men, who already have a past… not of love, but of sins… suddenly become close with a pure, innocent being; it’s disgusting, and so you can’t help feeling yourself unworthy.” Not satisfied with his friend’s attempts at consolation, he finds solace on his own, “There’s one consolation, as that prayer I’ve always loved, that I may be forgiven not according to my deserts, but out of mercy. That’s also the only way she can forgive me.”1
I’d like to use this as a springboard for a treatment of the rabbinic conception of contrition. Stirred to repentance, how does one confront He whom he has wronged? On what basis does the supplicant implore God to cast away his iniquities? I proffer to the reader what I have culled thus far.
One justification for seeking pardon from God is the realization that He created both our body and soul; consequently, one who sinned should be pardoned perforce as though he’s part of Him. In fact, we commence the “Selichot” with precisely this defense: “The soul is Yours and the body is of Your handiwork; take pity on Your labor.”2 This approach alone deserves a full treatment which is beyond the pale of this essay.
At times we seek forgiveness on account of His name: if He were to take retribution from us, His claim to omnipotence would be sullied. It his for His sake, then, that we beseech Him for pardon. This approach is first utilized by Moshe at the scene of the Golden Calf. Hitherto impervious to Moshe's arguments, Moshe importunes God to forgive Israel so as not to sacrilege His name amongst the nations.
Interestingly, Ohr Hachaim notes3 that this argument was not to pardon Israel, as evidenced by the language in Moshe's argument4 and the observation that Israel was left not unscathed after the appalling incident, even after Moshe had succeded in securing this "pardon." Rather, it was a venerable attempt at preventing divine desecration. It follows, then, that a prayer formulated on this line of reasoning, that forgivness should be granted so as not to defile His sacred name, would prove grossly ineffectual and inadequate to the petitioner who seeks absolution. Why, then, has it found its way into the liturgy?5 Again, it is not the scope of this essay to find a resolution for this difficulty.
We mentioned at the beginning that Levin held an affinity for "that prayer I’ve always loved, that I may be forgiven not according to my deserts, but out of mercy." This prayer and its mode of reasoning is not peculiar to Levin's religious belief system; it occupies our liturgy6 and forms the basis of the Jewish corpus in this area. It derives from the divine compassion that is part of the thirteen divine attributes.
We also invoke God's "goodness" when pleading for pardon. This ostensibly appeals to a form of Divine mercy included in this selfsame attribute, or to that of "graciousness." Also rife in the Selichot liturgy is the invocation of the Patriarchal covenants7 and His promise not to "despise them, nor abhorr them to destroy them, to annul My covenant with them, for I am Hashem their God."8
A central theme in the interaction between petitioner and God is that the petitioner approach Him like a son approaches his father.9 Initially, I understood this to be part of the multi-pronged strategy the petitioner utilizes to further the realization of his aim: absolution. We discussed the "physical" reality that both man's body and soul are the handiwork of the Creator. We also mentioned the potential desecration that might come as a result of the exacting of divine retribution. The trait of mercy that pervades His existence was, yet, another "strategy" to procure His forgiveness. This too, I thought, was the petitioner attempting to underscore his kinship with God and use this to buttress his claims for forgiveness -- not as an appeal to God's general trait of mercy, rather to the mercy engendered in a father dealing with an estranged son.
So I thought, but Malbim differs10. This, I think, is very seminal in defining the petitioner's, nay, man's relationship with God. For if the "father figure" in God is merely a branch of the attribute of mercy, does that not dimish it's importance, it's palpability? Perhaps not, but this topic demands serious attention.
NOTE TO THE READER: I strongly recommend taking a look at the footnotes as they clarify and instantiate the text and, without which, I feel, the text is sorely lacking. The only reason they weren't included in the main body of text was my feeling that they would muddle the sentence structure and disrupt the flow of text.
[1]Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Anna Karenina (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 39.
[2]Artscroll translation. While in general keen on using my own translations, I utilize that of others when context is an issue.
[3]In his commentary to Numbers 14:15.
[4]Parsing the text, he notes that Moshe's consternation was at Israel's sudden demise; if Israel were to be punished intermittently with only part of the populace suffering the repercussions for their wrong at any given time, his worry would dissipate and, consequently, his argument would become moot.
[5]"Act for Your sake, our God, and not for ours, behold our spiritual position -- destitute and emptyhanded" is just one of the many places.
[6]"For not because of our righteousnees do we cast down our supplications before you, rather because of Your abundant compassion" is one instance.
[7]"Remember for us the covenant of the Patriarchs, as You said etc."
[8]Leviticus 26:44
[9]Malbim writes (Tehilim 103:13): The engendering of mercy by a father on his son is either caused as a result of the biological closeness the father and the son share or, because the father knows the son through and through, knowing from observation and experience the son's weaknesses and vile proclivities, recognizing his son's innate imperfection and, hence, judges him favorably. Similarly, God adopts this approach: whether because the soul is part of Him or, because of His recognition that physicality impedes the person from doing the divine will. See also Berachot 32a.
[10]ibid. There he concludes: "and this derives from the attribute of mercy."
posted by Literati @ 10:10 PM
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