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Back to Question of the Week Q: What does Judaism say about what you are supposed to do with your life? -Harold |
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A: Dear Harold: Thank you for asking the kind of "look it up and roll the presses" kind of question that rabbis like to get right before dinner. . . . OK, OK, my first inclination is to say rather glibly: "do with your life? Why, study Torah, of course, so I expect to see you at Kolel every semester for the next 47 years!" However, glib answers do not respectful students make, and in fact I very much appreciate the seriousness of your question. In considering it, I hope to share not only classic texts, but my way of reading them. This will be my final Reb on the Web column, and it seems appropriate to offer a reflection on the most basic questions of religious life. Thus, let us turn to a few key texts from classic Jewish sources, beginning with the Bible itself. For example, the famous verse from the prophet Michah reduced all the laws and teachings of the Torah down to three essential principles: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8) On the other hand, the prophet Habbakuk said that "the righteous will live by his faith," which some commentators have interpreted as a kind of summary of religious life. (Hab. 2:4) The Torah provides the foundation for the concept of kiddush Hashem, or making God's name holy in the world, in a verse from Leviticus: Do not desecrate My holy name. I must be sanctified among the Israelites. I am God [and] I am making you holy. (22:32) Kiddush Hashem is traditionally contrasted with hilhul Hashem, or defiling God's name. We might understand these concepts like this: when we do something holy, like pray, or give aid to those in need, or act for justice, and it's clear that we're doing it out of religious convictions, then God's name is "made holy" in the world, because people will say: "wow, what an awesome God, Who gave such a great Torah, that people are willing to do such wonderful things!" Faith and goodness, the basic points of the Torah, are thus increased in the world. On the other hand, when a guy wearing a kippah, for example, spits on the homeless person in the street, people around him say: "Yuck! The Torah of the Jews must not be very good or holy, because nobody should be so harsh and cruel." That's a hilhul Hashem, because God's Torah is disgraced by those who should be upholding it. This is how we might understand Habbakuk's statement: living by faith means demonstrating in how we live just what kind of faith we really have. Let's also look at a few attempts by the rabbis of the Talmud to formulate the essence of living. A famous dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai centers on which is the "great principle" of the Torah: Akiva says it is loving one's neighbor as oneself, and Ben Azzai says it is the idea that every human is made in the image of God. Another famous saying, from Pirkei Avot, is that the world only stands on three things: on Torah, on Divine Service (prayer, for us) and on acts of lovingkindness. (Avot ch. 1) Maimonides, in his code of principles called Mishnah Torah, says that we are to emulate God's ways: as God is kind, we are to be kind; as God is forgiving, we are to be forgiving, and so on. In this way, we come to know the attributes of God, and thus achieve true wisdom. The first two chapters of the Mishhah Torah, "Fundamentals of Torah" and "Proper Ideas," [or "Mental States"] go into this in detail; you can find a good translation of these chapters on the Maimonides Resource Page. This is similar to the message of the famous mystic Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in the "Ways of the Righteous." [Mesillat Yesharim] He says, echoing the Talmud and other earlier sources, that true pleasure is not in this world, but the next. Furthermore, we cannot really, truly know God or delight in God's Presence in this world, because we are limited by our human understanding and frail bodies. Thus, we have been given the mitzvot, the commandments, so that we may perfect our own souls, and train them to focus on God's Presence at all times. This makes our sometimes unhappy sojourn in this world more bearable, and maximizes our reward for the next. (See the beginning chapters of Mesillat Yesharim in any of several translations.) Now, what do all these possible answers to "what is life's purpose?" have in common? For starters, none of them focus on bodily pleasure or wealth or professional achievement. Now, those things aren't considered bad, by any means, but they aren't the purpose of life, either. All of the text considered above, from the Torah to the mystics, talk of finding a purpose outside oneself- not to be happy, but to be holy, which is defined in terms of our actions. All of these text agree that holiness has both a religious and an ethical dimension; at the highest level, the love of humankind and the mystical or religious apprehension of God's Presence are one and the same. That's why Ben Azzai won the argument with Akiva- if you see and feel a spark of Godliness in other people, ethics and "religion" are inseparable. You can't be only ethical, because that leaves out the spiritual dimension of contemplating the wonders of creation and trying to expand the horizons of your own soul through prayer, study and meditation. Neither can one be "only" religious, because that makes for self-absorption. We are called make God's name holy in the world, not just in ourselves. So there's your answer: act in such a way that others will recognize the truth and power of the teachings by which you live. Now, how each person does that is another question, for as Maimonides points out, each person has a unique temperament and unique gifts and must find the best way to live in this world as an individual. (See the Maimonides links above for more details.) Judaism can give you the big goals, but an individual person must make those goals real in the context of a specific life- otherwise, we'd all be robots, doing exactly the same thing. That's not what God intended, according to these texts- we are to rise to the challenge as individuals within a holy community, guided by tradition, but expressing it uniquely. NJL |
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