I went out from Golgatha and I arrived
at Moria.
I searched for meaning for the death of the Six Millions,
and found - that I must cope with suffering - and not invent meaning
for it.
I found this in the ancient sources of Israel
which for me are sources of living water.
In them is hidden the experience of life and history, of nation and
Man.
The Aqedah [the Binding of Isaac]
is the symbol for Israel's faith,
and in it the message, that Isaac
was not sacrificed,
and that the vocation of man is to grow and to live, to procreate and
to bring to life.
The
inspiration for this introduction , which in its main part was
written already in 1971, came to me , when I leafed through the
two little books of
Rabbi Ignaz Maybaum , The face of God after Auschwitz,
What has to change in religion and culture to save mankind in
the nuclear age. London 1965 and
Ignaz Maybaum, The Sacrifice of Isaac. A Jewish Commentary. London
1959 |
And as the vocation of
Man, so is the vocation of the nation:
there is no need for human sacrifice,
no justification for martyrdom.
The goal of life and its meaning fulfill themselves in life itself.
Not in death, nor beyond death.
No need - maybe. But neither is it possible to avoid erring
and walking a "bad" path
which will lead towards sorrow and carry towards death.
"Badness" - ha-ra'ah - has the double meaning
of what is done by man and of what happens to man.
For hundreds of years man studied the laws of nature,
until he transformed from being its slave to being its master.
He is the master of nature, but he isn't the master of himself and
of his destiny.
Man, therefore, becomes better and better in mastering killing
and becomes worse and worse in shaping his destiny.
What are the laws of life which I have to know
in order to be able to cope with the twofold badness?
It's worthwhile to listen to the answer from our ancestors,
as it was heard for the first time from the mouth of Moses
and continued to be heard from the yekhidee-segulah (the unique individuals)
up to the last of the Sages in the Land of Israel.
There are three laws which they discovered in life
and on which they based their thinking and their behaving:
First law: the relation between doing and destiny.
Second law: the guarantorship between a man and his fellow
and between the community and the yakhid (individual).
Third law: the yakhid is an emissary for/to the community
These laws are not separate from each other -
all three of them have one focus, which is
that man is responsible for his destiny, i.e. - for his freedom.
If I take into account and apply this threefold Law of Responsibility,
I am a free person!
This is the result which I reached after five years of research
and this is the truth which proved itself in the five years of testing
it practically
by coping with one of the problems of the State of Israel (see end
of book).
It is true, that when meaningless
suffering prevails, in personal and national life, the attempts to
shirk coping multiplied also in Israel -
be it in a passive or be it in a violent way.
The passive people call suffering and death yesurim "chastisements".
These are wrapped in light and happiness and their meaning is good
and positive for those who strive to gain the life of the coming world.
Those sufferers slowly took the meaning out of life on earth
and transferred it to a world which is only good,
a world, which does not demand coping.
There is no sense in building a world, which allows life for all creatures,
for the goal is beyond history and not under our dominion.
The belief in "the meaning of suffering" replaces the doing
for "avoiding suffering".
On the other hand there were many Jews who loathed
passiveness
and shook off the "victim behavior".
But those only replaced weakness with weakness:
With violence did they wish to achieve life,
and brought down the catastrophe on themselves and on their generation.
For the violent evade facing up to the "badness" of life
no less.
They know the first law, According to which man determines his destiny.
But they ignore the second law, According to which
the deeds of the individual have an impact on the destiny of his fellow
and the foolishness of one individual
has the capacity of dragging the whole community into the abyss.
What then does it mean to
cope?
Who is truly a free man,
i.e. responsible for himself, including for his dependency on his
community?
This is the third law which says, that
"every single one is obliged to say: For my sake was the world
created".
which implies, that the existence of the world depends on me..
According to the second law I am a passive guarantor for what others
choose -
my sufferings are the consequence of their deeds, my death of their
neglects.
But the choice is in my hands to be an active guarantor,
to be responsible not only for my own actions, for my own neglects,
but also for my dependency on the behavior of my fellow and of my
community.
Then I'll no longer be a "guarantor" by force,
but a guarantor from my own will and volition.
Then I shall be truly free - i.e. master of my destiny.
That's the path which walked our prophets and many of our Sages;
they walked it before they instructed in it their generations.
"An active guarantor" can be only
some one
who is conscious of his uniqueness on the one hand
and solidary with his community on the other hand
- as oposed to the collectivism of the "herd", be its nature
passive or violent.
And as the vocation of the unique individual so is the vocation of
the unique nation
A unique person was Moses who led the herd of his brothers out of
the house of slavery. He wanted to educate the herd to become a unique
nation, a people aware of its uniqueness, in order for them to gain
real freedom.
"Who would give that all of HIS people would be prophets, like
Moses,
aware of their uniqueness, ready for responsibility."
I asked our ancestors how in their time they coped with the destiny
of the people.
I wanted them to contribute to me from their experience and their
thinking
concerning the avoidance of annihilation of Man today.
I believe wholy and truly,
that the teaching must come from Zion, with utmost speed in our time,
a teaching which shows the way to coping with life,
this is the Torah, the teaching , which "Man will do it and live
by it".
2. The Discovery of the
Law of Guarantorship
To be free, means to accept responsibility for everything that happens
to me.
This is the freedom which was meant for the slaves, be it by Moses
or by "God" .
Therefore from the moment in which the Children of Israel went out
from slavery
and reached the desert on their way to their land,
they were held responsible for every trouble that befell them (Loewenstamm
).
To be responsible for what happens to me, means to cope with it.
And to be able to cope with the troubles of life, I must know the
laws of life.
