Judaism & the Meaning of Life
In the eyes of Judaism, whatever
meaning life acquires derives from this encounter: the Divine accepts and
confirms the human…
I
Religions—which differ in much else—differ in substance according
to their experience and understanding of the meeting between the Divine and the
human: whether, when, and how it occurs, and what happens in and through it. In
Judaism, the fundamental and all-penetrating occurrence is a primordial
mystery, and a miracle of miracles: the Divine, though dwelling on high and
infinitely above man, yet bends down low so as to accept and confirm man in his
finite humanity; and man, though met by Divine Infinity, yet may and must
respond to this meeting in and through his finitude.
Some scholars attribute to the God of early Jewish faith
mythological finitude. But this reflects blindness to the religious realities
of Judaism—a blindness arising out of modern prejudice. In the very beginnings
of Jewish faith, God is experienced and conceived as the all-demanding God; and
it is only a question of time until the one-important God becomes the
one-existing God. Hence even His earliest followers smash the idols: Judaism is
anti-mythological from the start.
Just as the God even of “primitive” Judaism is infinite, so the
man even of “advanced’ Judaism remains finite. Man, though created in the
Divine image, is still a creature; he is neither a fragment of Divinity nor
potentially Divine. Such notions—the product of modern humanism—remain
unassimilable to the Jewish faith.
As a consequence of the miracle of miracles which lies at the
core of Judaism, Jewish life and thought are marked by a fundamental tension.
This tension might have been evaded in either of two ways. It might have been
held—as ancient Epicureanism and modern Deism, for example, do in fact
hold—that the Divine and the human are after all incapable of meeting. But this
view is consistently rejected in Jewish tradition, which considers Epicureanism
tantamount to atheism. Or, on the other side, it might have been held that the
meeting is a mystical conflux, in which the finite dissolves into the Infinite
and man suffers the loss of his very humanity. But this view, too, although a
profound religious possibility and a serious challenge, is rejected in Jewish
tradition. Such thinkers as Maimonides, Isaac Luria, and the Baal Shem-Tov all
stop short—on occasion, to be sure, only barely—of embracing mysticism. And
those who do not—such as Spinoza—pass beyond the bounds of Judaism. The
Infinity of the Divine, the finitude of the human, and the meeting between
them: these all remain, then, wherever Judaism preserves its substance; and the
mystery and tension of this meeting permeate all else.
In the eyes of Judaism, whatever meaning life acquires derives
from this encounter: the Divine accepts and confirms the human in the moment of
meeting. But the meaning conferred upon human life by the Divine-human
encounter cannot be understood in terms of some finite human purpose, supposedly
more ultimate than the meeting itself. For what could be more ultimate than the
Presence of God? The Presence of God, then, as Martin Buber puts it, is an “inexpressible confirmation of meaning. . . . The question
of the meaning of life is no longer there. But were it there, it would not have
to be answered.”
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II
In Judaism, however, this “inexpressible confirmation of
meaning” does, after all, assume expression; and
this is because the Divine-human meeting assumes structure and content.
First, it is a universal human experience that times of Divine
Presence do not last forever. But this experience does not everywhere have the
same significance or even reality. Conceivably mythological religions—for which
the world is “full of gods” (Thales)—may find divinity even in the most worldly
preoccupation with the most finite ends: this is not possible if the Divine is
an Infinity and radically other than all things finite. Mystical religions, for
their part, may dismiss all such worldly preoccupations as mere appearance, and
confine reality to the moment in which the human dissolves into the Divine:
this is not possible if the moment of Divine-human encounter itself confirms
man in his human finitude. In Judaism, man is real at every moment of his finite
existence—including those moments when he is divorced from the Divine. The God
of Judaism, while “near” at times, is—for whatever reason—“far” at other times.
But times of Divine farness must also have meaning; for the far God remains an
existing God, and nearness remains an ever-live possibility. These times of
Divine farness, however, derive their meaning from times of Divine nearness.
The dialectic between Divine nearness and Divine farness is all-pervasive in
Jewish experience; and it points to an eschatological future in which it is
overcome.
Secondly, the Divine-human meeting assumes structure and content
in Judaism through the way man is accepted and confirmed as a consequence of
this meeting. In Judaism God accepts and confirms man by commanding him in his humanity; and the response
called for is obedience to God—an obedience to be expressed in
finite human form. Here lies the ground for the Jewish rejection of the mystic
surrender. Man must remain human because in commanding him as human, God accepts him in his humanity and
makes him responsible in His very presence. In Judaism, Divine Grace is not
superadded and subservient to Divine Commandment. Divine Grace already is,
primordially, inthe commandment; and
were it not so, the commandment would be radically incapable of human
performance. It is in the Divine Law itself that the Psalmist finds his
delight, not only in a Divine action subsequent to observance of the Law; and
if the Law saves him from perishing in his affliction, it is because Divine
Love has handed it over to humans—not to angels—thereby making it in principle
capable of human fulfillment.
Because the Divine acceptance of the human is a commanding
acceptance, the inexpressible meaning of the Divine-human encounter assumes
four interrelated expressions of which two are immediately contained within the
commandment itself. First, there is a dimension of meaning in the very fact of
being commanded as a human by the Divine: to be thus commanded is to be
accepted as humanly responsible. And before long the undifferentiated
commanding Presence will give utterance to many specific commandments, which
particularize Divine acceptance and human responsibility according to the
exigencies of a finite human existence on earth.
Secondly, if to be commanded by God is to be both obligated and
enabled to obey, then meaning must be capable of human realization, and this
meaning must be real even in the sight of Divinity. The fear induced in the
finite human by the Infinite Divine Presence may seem to destroy any such
presumption. Yet the acceptance of the human by the commanding Love makes
possible, and indeed mandatory, human self-acceptance.
A third aspect of meaning comes into view because the Divine
commandment initiates a relation of mutuality between God and man. The God of Judaism is
no Deistic First Cause which, having caused the world, goes into perpetual
retirement. Neither is He a Law-giver who, having given laws, leaves man to
respond in human solitariness. Along with the commandment, handed over for
human action, goes the promise of Divine action. And because Divine action makes
itself contingent upon human action, a relationship of mutuality is
established. God gives to man a covenant—that is, a
contract; He binds Himself by its terms and becomes a partner.
The meaning of the Divine-human encounter, however, has yet a
fourth expression; and if this had not gradually emerged, the Jewish faith
could hardly have survived through the centuries. Because a pristine Divine
Love accepted the human, a relation of mutuality between an Infinite Divinity
and a finite humanity—something that would seem to be impossible—nevertheless
became possible. Yet that relation remains destructible at finite hands;
indeed, were it simply mutual, it would be destroyed by man almost
the moment it was established. Even in earlier forms of Jewish faith God is
long-suffering enough to put up with persistent human failures; and at length
it becomes clear that the covenant can survive only if God’s patience is
absolute. The covenant, to be sure, remains mutual; and Divine action remains part of
this mutuality, as a response to human deeds. But Divine action also breaks
through this limitation and maintains the covenant in unilateral love. The human race after Noah, and Israel
at least since the time of Jeremiah, still can—and do—rebel against their
respective covenants with God. But they can no longer destroy them. Sin still
causes God to punish Israel; but no conceivable sin on Israel’s part can cause
Him to forsake her. Divine Love has made the covenant indestructible.
In Judaism, covenantal existence becomes a continuous,
uninterrupted way of life. A Divine-human relation unstructured by commandment
would alternate between times of inexpressible meaning and times of sheer waiting
for such meaning. A relationship so structured by commandment, yet failing to
encompass both Divine nearness and farness, could not extend its scope over the
whole of human life. For if it were confined to times of Divine nearness,
covenantal existence would be shattered into as many fragments as there are
moments of Divine nearness, with empty spaces between them. If, on the other
hand, it were confined to Divine farness, it would degenerate, on the Divine
side, into an external law sanctioned by an absent God and, on the human side,
into legalistic exercises practiced in His absence. But as understood and lived
in Judaism, covenantal existence persists in times of Divine farness. The
commandment is still present, as is the Divine promise, however obscured for
the moment. The human power to perform the commandment, while impaired, is not
destroyed; and he who cannot perform the commandment for the sake of God, as he
is supposed to do, is bidden to perform it anyway—for performance which is not
for His sake will lead to performance which is for His sake. Times of Divine nearness,
then, do not light up themselves alone. Their meaning extends over all of life.
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III
So much for the general characteristics of the Divine-human
relationship according to Judaism. What humans partake of this relationship?
Individuals or communities? And some individuals and communities only, or
potentially the whole of the human race? It will become evident that in Judaism
these are not mutually exclusive alternatives, and indeed, that those modern
conceptions which would make them so—“individualism” versus “collectivism,” and
“particularism” versus “universalism”—are alien to the dynamic of the Jewish
faith.
Consider, first, “universalism” and “particularism.” Because the
God of the Divine-human encounter is Infinite, each meeting discloses
Him—potentially at least—as the One of every meeting. Because the man of this
encounter is finite, and accepted in his finitude, each meeting singles him
out—potentially at least—as a unique individual or a unique group. Mythological
deities may remain “particularistic”—i.e., confined to limits of time and
space: the Jewish God who smashes the idols breaks through such limits. The
mystical conflux may dissolve the here-and-now into a “universalistic”
eternity; the Jewish encounter with God accentuates the here-and-now in which
it occurs. If He did not from the start transcend the here-and-now of the encounter,
the Jewish God would fragment himself (in Buber’s phrase) into “moment-gods”
according to the moments of meeting; and if He did not in every encounter
single out this individual, this people, in the here-and-now, He would
accept not existing humans but only unreal abstractions. The Biblical God is
indeed the God of all the nations; but there is no word for the abstraction
“mankind” in the Hebrew scriptures.
To be singled out by the Divine is a crucial and persisting
Jewish experience. The first commandment given to the first Jew—that Abraham
leave his country—is addressed to him only, it does not call for a universal
migration of peoples. The commandment to become a holy people unto God
constitutes Israel as a unique people; it does not enunciate a universal
principle. The Talmud teaches that God has made each man unique and speaks to
him in his uniqueness, and this teaching is powerfully reaffirmed in modern
Hasidism. Even today, Jewish existence cannot be understood without reference
to such singling out. To be sure, some modern Jewish thinkers (Mordecai Kaplan,
for example) have identified the “essence” of Judaism with universal moral and
religious principles shared by all higher religions, but though they take great
pains to connect this “universal” essence with the “particular” existence of
the Jewish people, their efforts always end in failure.
Just as the human remains singled out even in the most
“advanced” Jewish experience, so God transcends, even in the most “primitive”
Jewish experience, the here-and-now in which such acts of singling-out occur.
The significance of the commandment addressed to Abraham is realized only in
future generations. The covenant between God and Israel has from the outset a
scope which transcends Israel; in time it will encompass the whole of the human
race.
“Universalism” and “particularism,” then, are not only both
present throughout Jewish religious experience; they are also internally
united, and their union is manifest in history. History is not
history unless each of the events that makes it up is unique; and it remains
fragmented into many histories unless these unique events nevertheless
constitute one “universal” whole. In Judaism, the events of history become one
through the direction it assumes as a result of Divine incursions
into it. The Jewish God is from the start a God of history; eventually He will
become the Lord of allhistory.
A crucial dimension of meaning in Judaism is therefore
historical. The Hebrew prophets do not only proclaim a universally applicable
Divine Will; it is their inescapable agony to be men of their own day. Jeremiah
demands passive submission to the enemy, well aware that armed resistance has
been the Divine Will at other times. And when he is confronted by another
would-be prophet offering the opposite counsel, he suffers—and the people
suffer—because no resort to general principles can settle the issue between
them. This issue may indeed be settled by the future. But by then it will be
too late for an action which is needed now: so radically singled-out and
singling-out can a prophetic message be, so wholly historical can a commandment
be. And yet, though a man of his time, the prophet is not for his time alone.
His moment is an epoch-making moment significant for all of history.
In addition to becoming historical in this way, the Divine
commandment also establishes the historical meaning of human action. A
Providence which in pursuit of its historical purpose reduced man to a
will-less automaton would not be a Providence which governed history, but
rather a blind Fate which destroyed it. The prophets do not predict an
inescapable future. Their predictions—such as they are—are contingent upon
human action. Human action, therefore, assumes a decisive historical meaning;
and this action is no less epoch-making than the prophetic message which
demands it. For it leaves an indelible mark on all future history.
This would, however, be impossible if history were composed of
human action only, albeit responding to Divine command. Human action is finite:
how can it give direction to history, or leave indelible marks upon it? The
answer is that it can do so only if it is not left to itself, only if it works
in persistent mutuality with a Divine action which responds to it. Thus, in
Judaism, the relation of mutuality between the Divine and the human becomes
manifest in history. Such early Jewish documents as the Book of Judges can see
an exact correlation between Israel’s obedience and national victories, and
between Israel’s defiance and national defeats: the victories are given by God
and the defeats are sent by Him. And naïve though this view may seem, some degree of belief in such a correlation
remains an element of all subsequent forms of the Jewish faith. For a history
dependent for meaning on human action alone would lead to despair, while Divine
incursions into history that were devoid of all reference to human action would
deprive human action of meaning.
Later stages of Jewish faith, however, modify the naïve view of
history reflected in the Book of Judges in three main respects. We have already
noted how in Judaism Divine action, mutually related to the human and
contingent upon it, is gradually seen to have a unilateral aspect as well. Such
unilateral Divine action comes to be part of the Jewish understanding of
history, and traces of it are already present in the Book of Judges itself:
behind the Divine punishment which is a reaction to man’s sinfulness is a Love
which seeks to produce repentance. This Love, to be sure, was not conceived as wholly
unilateral so long as it was considered possible that sufficiently grave sins
on Israel’s part might cause God to abandon or destroy His covenant with her.
But at least from Jeremiah on, Jewish faith rules this possibility out.
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In rabbinic literature, the inextricable connection between
Divine-human mutuality and Divine unilateralness becomes the object of explicit
theological reflection. God is Judge, and God is Father; and unless He were
both the world could not exist. God is Judge: love without judgment would
destroy the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, and hence all
human responsibility. God is Father: judgment without love would place on human
responsibility a greater burden than it could bear.
The Book of Judges harmonizes with ease a Divine power
encompassing all history with a human freedom to rebel against it. For its
interest is confined to Israel, and it sees Divine power as responding to
Israel’s deeds. But later Biblical writings reflect the awareness that a Providence
limited by human deeds would lose its providential character. Biblical thought
is not philosophical thought, and therefore it does not confront the problem
posed by the conflict between Divine omnipotence and human freedom. Neither,
however, does it fall into the dilemma of having to choose between the two.
Nebukhadnezzar is the instrument of a Divine Providence which uses him to
punish Israel. Yet he remains a free and responsible agent, and hence is
punished for his sins.
The rabbis of the Talmud recognize the paradox involved here,
but being no more philosophical than the Bible itself, they agree with the
Bible in rejecting the dilemma. Human action limits Divine power, which is why
men “strengthen” it when they obey the Divine will and “weaken” it when they
disobey. But human action limits Divine power only “as it were”: finite man
cannot literally either weaken or strengthen the Infinite God. And yet human
thought must remain content with such paradoxical symbolic statements. It
cannot rise to a literal truth which is free of paradox; it can only hold to
the double truth that “everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given.”
The implication is that history is wholly in Divine hands even
while man has a share in making it; that, whereas righteousness makes man a
partner in the realization of the Divine plan, sin, for all its reality and
power, is unable to disrupt or destroy it.
There is still a third respect in which the fully developed
Jewish understanding of history departs from the naive view of the Book of
Judges. In opposition to this view, Jeremiah complains that the way of the
wicked prospers, and the Book of Job is wholly devoted to refuting the
belief—persisting elsewhere, and in secular form even in modern times—that
prosperity and good fortune are a proof of virtue, adversity and disaster a
proof of vice. Such complaints might have been belittled either by the
admonition to worry about virtue only and not its reward, or by the restriction
of meaning in history to a spiritual dimension, exclusive of all worldly
fortune, good or ill. But while Jewish thought does occasionally give voice to
such an admonition, it rejects any suggestion that history is not, after all,
in Divine hands; and as for the restriction of significant history to the
domain of pure spirit, Judaism always and wholly repudiates it. The complaint
of Jeremiah and Job, then, cannot be evaded; and here, the Jewish quest for
meaning in history runs into certain limitations.
We have already come upon the outlines of two such limitations.
First, if Divine omnipotence co-exists with human freedom; if Divine power is
manifest in what yet remains the criminal act of a Nebukhadnezzar (or, for that
matter, the righteous act of an Abraham or Moses): then meaning in history, even
if and when disclosed, is disclosed only within the confines of finite
understanding. And this falls radically short of the understanding of God.
Secondly, meaning is not everywhere disclosed in history. Nebukhadnezzar is
seen as serving a Divine purpose; but not every tyrant is a Nebukhadnezzar. And
while a prophet proclaims the will of God to one generation, most generations
are lacking in prophets.
In such times, however, men are not left alone with their own
wisdom when engaged in historical action; nor are they forced to deny meaning
to history where none is disclosed. For even when God is far, His commandment
is still near; it is not merely on his own counsel that man falls back in
fathoming the task of the present hour. And the events of the present, although disclosingno
meaning, nevertheless possess meaning. For history remains in God’s hands
even when all is dark.
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This distinction between meaning and disclosed meaning in
history is crucial in Judaism and has been among the most vital factors in its
survival. Without it the Jews might have identified meaning in history with
what history discloses, and celebrated naked success: but how could they have
done so and yet resisted Babylonians and Romans in the name of their faith? Or
they might have abandoned history as a sphere of religious meaning: but how
could they have done so and yet carried forward a religious existence
inextricably bound up with history? Finally, they might have distinguished
between a sacred history in the keeping of God and a secular history outside
the Divine concern: but how could they have done so and remained true to
fundamental Jewish realities? The pristine Divine-human meeting in Judaism
accepts man in his totality; and the Divine commandment specifies itself
socially, politically, and economically, as well as individually and
spiritually. A meaning at once manifest in history and yet indifferent to
poverty, war, and tyranny is unthinkable to the Jewish mind.
But the Jewish search for meaning in history is bounded by yet a
third limitation, and this only gradually emerges. Not only is the disclosure of meaning in history fragmentary; the
meaning itselfis fragmentary. Past and present
point not only to a finite future but to one which is absolute and all-consummating
as well. Not until an eschatological dimension, a messianic belief, comes into
view is the Jewish understanding of meaning in history complete.
A Jeremiah sure of history, and ignorant only of a portion of
its contents, would not contend with God but merely seek Divine enlightenment;
a Job sure of history would begin where in fact he ends: with the
incommensurability of the Divine dispensation with all things human. Both
Jeremiah and Job, however, are forced to contend with God by the very nature of
the primordial Jewish experience. Divine Love has singled out man so as to make
him humanly responsible; is it not bound, then, to the consequences of its own
action—to a Divine Justice not wholly incommensurate with responsible human
action? Jews were thus forced to go beyond acceptance of an undisclosed meaning
in history. They had to question meaning in history itself, in the light of
historical realities. This questioning, to be sure, did not result in wholesale
skepticism, or a despair of meaning in history. But it did result in the belief
that meaning has remained incomplete in past history, and must remain so in any
future that does not differ qualitatively from the past.
The question to be asked of Judaism, then, is not so much why
the Messianic belief appeared on the scene as why it appeared so late. Is the
prosperity of the wicked or the suffering of the righteous so rare a
phenomenon, or one so difficult to perceive?
A partial answer may be that for early Biblical man the meaning
of life, when that meaning remains incomplete, can find completion in the lives
of others. If Abraham dies satisfied, it is because of a Divine promise
extending to his descendants. If the Book of Judges perceives complete justice
in history, it is at least to some extent because justice is due to the people
only, not to the individual members of it. Early Biblical man takes no offense
at a God who punishes the children for the sins of the fathers: and here lies
one reason why for him a finite future can consummate the meaning of past and
present.
But the God of Jeremiah and especially of Ezekiel will not
tolerate the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children: for the
God of Israel is God of each person as well. Once this becomes the explicit
Jewish faith—after long being implicit—the contention of Jeremiah and Job
becomes inescapable. Individuals do suffer unjustly, and their suffering cannot
acquire meaning through historical events after they have died. Meaning in
history, then, is fragmentary; and a merely historical future, no different in
nature from the past, cannot complete it. Thus an eschatological future comes
into view.
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IV
We have already rejected the disjunction of “universalism” and
“particularism” as alien to the dynamic and structure of the Jewish faith. We
must now do the same with the disjunction of “collectivism” and “individualism.”
Jewish faith ends by repudiating any reduction of the individual to his
communal or historical role, but this repudiation is implicit from the
beginning. For the acceptance of man in the pristine Divine-human meeting would
be incomplete if it did not encompass the individual in his own right as well
as the community. There is Jewish authenticity in the rabbinic legend which
makes the Sinaitic revelation address each individual Israelite.
Aspects of such “individualism” are present even where the
emphasis is “collectivistic.” In binding the community, the Mosaic code
nevertheless recognizes the individual within the community, which is why its
scope can also extend beyond the community, to strangers and slaves. This motif
becomes still more radical in post-Biblical thought. In the view of the rabbis,
the Divine spirit rests on all individuals according to their actions, whether
they be Gentiles or Israelites, men or women, slaves or handmaidens; and the
righteous among the Gentiles are priests of God.
The consequence of such “individualism” is that historical
change can hold no total sway over the commandments. Orthodox belief, of
course, considers the Mosaic Law to be exempt from historical change in any
case, but all Jewish belief takes this view concerning those laws which state
what is morally due to individuals: the wrongness of theft or murder does not
depend on historical circumstances. The distinction between the historical and
trans-historical commandments becomes fully explicit—and inescapable even for
Orthodox belief—in the prophets. Jeremiah proclaims submission to the enemy as
the task of the hour when armed resistance has been the task of another hour.
But it is unimaginable that he should adopt a similar position regarding what
is owed to widows and orphans.
“Individualism” is as much present in Divine promise and its
fulfillment as it is in the commandment. It is the individual who in the Psalms
comes upon Divine salvation—both that which rewards human faithfulness and that
which is the sheer gift of a gratuitous Love. Nor does this reflect an
“individualistic” piety unrelated to, let alone at odds with, the
“collectivistic.” Not a few Psalms were written in and for public worship, and
they retain an essential place in public Jewish worship today. Indeed, the
Jewish liturgy is so structured as to unite its communal and individual aspects
into an organic whole. The God addressed as God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by
the whole community is also addressed as his God by each individual member. And the
Jewish calendar which includes Pass-over, celebrating the origin of the
community of Israel, also includes the Day of Atonement, on which the
individual stands before God in radical solitariness—in the midst of the
congregation.
But just as history comes at length to point to an
eschatological dimension, so does the life of the individual. Early Biblical
man may immediately rejoice in a commandment wholly fulfilled or in a salvation
suddenly made manifest. In due course Jewish faith comes to accept that the
saving moment does not vanquish evil permanently, nor absolutely even while the
moment lasts; and that no man is free of sin. To be sure, there is forgiveness
wherever there is repentance, and a man ought to repent a day before his death.
Yet repentance itself remains fragmentary, and even the most righteous of
men—such as Abraham and Moses—do not die sinless. The Pharisaic insistence on
life after death is in the Jewish spirit; and there is poetic if not literal
truth in the rabbinic view that this belief is present in the Bible itself.
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V
Since prophetic times Jewish faith has looked to a Messianic
future. The goals of this future are no longer limited—to a united people, a
promised land, a central Sanctuary. They are, rather, all-encompassing: all
nations flow to Jerusalem; the Kingdom of God is forever established; and it
extends over the whole earth.
This is a hope for history. And it arises from a decisive
historical experience: the land was given as promised to Abraham, and the
central Sanctuary established, but the covenant still has at best only a
precarious existence. Time and again Israel has returned to God only to forsake
Him once more. And in the end the wearisome cycle is broken by catastrophe and
exile.
It was doubtless the original Jewish belief that the Divine
commandment is capable of total human performance, and that the Jewish
commitment to the covenant, once made, might have been kept with total
fidelity. Under the impact of historical experience, however, the prophets were
led to qualify this belief, and Judaism acquired a new dimension through the
qualification.
Israel has broken the covenant; so long as she can, she will
always break it sometimes. Man will
always sin so long as he is able: for sin, though not original, is nevertheless
universal. The covenant, then, remains threatened, and from without as well as
from within. For the nations not only tempt Israel to idolatry but also
endanger her very survival. History, in short, seems to have lost the direction
it once had; and it cannot re-acquire direction from a future which does not
differ qualitatively from present and past.
In the teeth of these perceptions, the prophets nevertheless
reaffirm the ancient faith in the direction of history. Revelation has
initiated meaning in history: it points to a Redemption which will complete
that meaning. The revealed commandment demands human performance; a Messianic
Redemption will place the commandment in man’s inward parts. Man has been able
to obey the Divine Will ever since the Divine commandment accepted him in his
humanity; in the Messianic future he will be neither willing nor able to
disobey it. For all Nature will have been cured of its anti-Divine potential:
the wolf will lie down with the lamb. And since Redemption will extend to all
nations, all history will be embraced in total consummation: the Kingdom of God
on earth will be complete.
For such a future, incommensurate as it is with human historical
action, men must wait, radically uncertain of the time of its arrival.
Throughout Jewish history, there seemed to be moments of human righteousness
ripe for Redemption in the sight of Divine Justice, and long periods of human
suffering ripe for it in the sight of Divine Compassion. But even popular
legend came to picture the Messiah as bound in fetters—anxious to come and yet
held back by a God who alone knows the secret of the right time. And the rabbis
prohibited all attempts to calculate the end.
And yet men must work for the Messianic end even as they wait for
it. A Messianic future simply incommensurate with all historical human action
would retroactively destroy the historical meaning which it was intended to
consummate; yet if Jewish faith has come to expect this future at all, it is
precisely because meaning, however fragmentary, is nevertheless actual in
pre-Messianic history. Hence men must, here and now, “prepare the world for the
Kingdom of God”; and it is to this goal that Jewish obedience to the
commandments is in due course directed. And so aware does Jewish faith become
of the weight of its Messianic obligation as to imagine that a single day of
wholehearted obedience would cause the Messiah’s immediate arrival.
But the incommensurability of human action with its Messianic
goal remains. When, for one thing, is the individual or community capable of
even a single day’s total faithfulness? How, for another, would the
righteousness of some cause all sinners (tyrannical rulers, for example) to
repent? The Messianic future, then, is at once connected with human action in
pre-Messianic history and yet incommensurate with it. The Messiah will arrive
when the world has become good enough to make his coming possible; or evil
enough to make it necessary. Men must act as though all depended on them; and
wait and pray as though all depended on God.
Because the Messianic end is tied to present history, the
prophetic expectation can even now imagine it; because it remains
incommensurate with all pre-Messianic history, the prophetic imagination cannot
make it literally intelligible. Thus, the Messianic peace is no unearthly
mystery but one in which men beat their swords into plowshares. And the hunger
stilled is not of the soul alone, but of the body as well. Yet such a peace and
prosperity transcend all literal comprehension. What transfiguration will make
the wolf lie down with the lamb—or men incapable of oppressing one another?
Jewish thought moves between a “left-wing” view which sees the Messianic world
as rid of tyrants but otherwise unchanged, and a “right-wing” view which sees
an apocalyptic transfiguration. But the mainstream of Jewish thought flows
between these extremes.
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The messianic future, while the earliest, is not the only
eschatological expectation in Judaism. Beside and beyond it emerges the hope
for a “world-to-come”—a hope which, although post-Biblical in origin, was
always implicit in the Jewish belief that God gives meaning to individual lives
wholly and in their own right. Whereas the Messianic future redeems an
incomplete history, the world-to-come redeems the incomplete individual lives
which exist in history.
Classical Jewish thought never achieves clarity as to the
relation between these two expectations, but all attempts to assimilate one to
the other are consistently rejected. Despite the absence of the belief in life
after death from the Hebrew Bible, Orthodox post-Biblical theology quite
deliberately embraces it. For the Divine commandment has accepted the
individual and therefore any Redemption would remain incomplete—as the
Messianic end by itself does—if it did not give completion to the individual.
But no more can the Messianic goal of a redeemed future be identified with an
Eternity beyond all time. A primordial Divine commanding Love has endowed
history with meaning, in that it calls for meaningful human action. The great
Divine-human drama of history thus initiated cannot be retroactively destroyed
by an end which makes this world merely a place in which to prepare for
another, and in itself meaningless. Redemption must consummate both the history
in which men work and wait, and the lives of the individuals who work and wait
in it.
The two aspects of the eschatological expectation, then, must
remain mutually irreducible, even despite the conscious recognition that
Eternity must surely supersede all future history. This can be so because the
world-to-come remains radically unintelligible. The rabbinic sources confine
themselves to saying that it will redeem the whole man whom the Divine
commandment has accepted from the beginning—not an immortal soul only, but a
resurrected psychosomatic totality. They are well aware that this is past all
understanding, and they view silence on the subject as a necessity imposed by
the silence of the Bible itself. “Rabbi Yohanan said: ‘Every prophet prophesied
only for the days of the Messiah; but as for the world-to-come, no eye has seen
what God has prepared for those who wait for Him.’”