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GOD and HUMAN PERFECTION in the JEWISH TRADITION Implications for Jewish Communal Professionals

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GOD and HUMAN PERFECTION in the JEWISH TRADITION Implications for Jewish Communal Professionals LIVING IN RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHER: GOD AND HUMAN PERFECTION IN THE JEWISH TRADITION Implications for Jewish Communal Professionals RABBI DR. DAVID HARTMAN Founder, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem The biblical ideal of perfection is rooted in relationship and interdependency, in contrast to the Greek conception of perfection as self-sufficiency. Our task as Jewish communal professionals is to create communities where people can fidly develop the capacity to love and care for others. As Jews, we cannot reject the world but must live in relationship to it. n a very deep way, our Jewishness itself is inner experiential dimension of living, spe­ Ibeing tested today. In response to this crit­ cifically freedom from neediness, including ical and challenging situation, let me analyze the need for others. and illuminate the condition of Jews today in Aristotle's conception of God expresses terms of two main visions of human perfec­ this ideal in its purest, most graphic form. tion that have shaped Western civilization: According to Aristotle, God is totally di­ (1) the Greek conception of perfection that vorced from the affairs of human history and informed the Stoic and Aristotelian traditions from any activity other than divine self-re­ and (2) the conception of God and human flection. God, the most perfect being, en­ flourishing rooted in the biblical and Jewish gages in the most perfect activity, thought, traditions. the content of which is the most perfect In the Greek tradition, self-sufficiency — subject matter, God. What does God do? not being in need of others — is an ideal to God thinks. What does God think about? which human beings should strive. The Sto­ God thinks about that which is most perfect. ics developed this idea in terms of apatheia, So God is thought on thought. the elimination of emotional involvement Aristotle's God has absolutely no interest and dependency on others. Aristotle's ideal in the human condition or in history. This of the philosopher and his conception of God impersonal God is totally distinct from and also reflect the enormous significance as­ unrelated to the personal God of history. If it cribed to self-sufficiency and independence were possible to speak of this God in human from others. terms, one would say that God is a totally In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle de­ self-sufficient, solitary being, the quintessen­ scribes the ideal human being, the philoso­ tial fulfillment of the Greek ideal of perfec­ pher, as a person who reaches a state of tion. self-sufficiency with respect to the contin­ Given this perspective, Athens and gencies of everyday life and the need for others. The philosopher actualizes the human Jerusalem become a stark contrast of oppo- potential to its fullest not only in terms of sites based on unbridgeable, if not incom­ knowledge - the intellectual virtues - but mensurable human ideals and theological also in terms of the practical virtues and the concepts. In contrast to Aristotle's descrip­ tion of divinity, the God of the Bible creates the world and has a deep and continuing Presented at the Opening Plenary of the lOth interest in His creation. In fact, the most Quadrennial of the World Council of Jewish striking characteristic of divinity in the Bible Communal Service, November 12, 2003 in Jerusalem. is the constant urge to project itself outside 145 Joumal of Jewish Communal Service / 146 of itself and to be in relationship with an­ sary for relationship, was never accepted other. within Judaism. The world is other than God. From a metaphysical, theological point of Humankind is other than God. Or, to sum­ view, the mystery of the Bible is why God marize the biblical account of God after the becomes so deeply enmeshed with His cre­ original act of creation: God has to learn that ation, specifically with human beings. Why He cannot fully control that which is other does God react so violentiy when the world than Himself. God, in the early chapters of does not tum out the way He, the Creator, Genesis, gradually learns that relationship expected and wanted? entails freedom, that if you control the other, The biblical narrative portrays a God who you destroy the possibility for a genuine is constantiy being offended by what human relationship. beings do. One of the most recurrent themes In contrast to the Greek ideal of perfec­ of the biblical drama is how the omnipotent tion as self-sufficiency, the biblical/Jewish God, who has great plans for the world He ideal of perfection through relationship re­ created, responds when He realizes that the quires a deep understanding and acceptance human beings He created with such great of the fact that my own fulfillment is depen­ expectations are actually undermining His dent on my relationship with an other who is original plans. free to choose not to live in relationship with God created human beings in His image, me. thinking that this would guarantee that the Every parent understands the anxiety and world would tum out according to His pain involved in arriving at this insight. In dreams. However, the creation of humans in some sense, we all believe that the children the image of God also involved the creation we "created" are going to grow up to reflect of human independence and freedom and the who we are. The great shock of being a potential for disobedience and rejection. parent is discovering that the apple can fall In the creation of human beings, God far from the tree. When I was a congrega­ expressed a divine desire for relationship tional rabbi, 1 often met with parents who with that which is other than Himself. God were beside themselves with guilt because therefore endowed human beings with free­ their children were leaving them and going dom, the essential condition of radical oth- off in strange and unfamiliar directions. emess. In the midst of an idyllic description "What did I do?" they asked despairingly. of the divine origin of the universe, the Bible "You didn't do anything," 1 told them. "You introduces the human being as a being sep­ have to realize that you don't control your arate from God, which among other things child, you are not the only influence on his or means a being capable of destroying the in­ her development." tended harmony and beauty of creation. The Becoming aware that you cannot shape story of the Garden of Eden is not a soothing, your child, your students, or your community fairy tale but the story of the unpredictable in your own image is the beginning of being dynamics of human freedom. a parent, a teacher, or a community profes­ In contrast to pantheistic religious tradi­ sional. You have to be able to work with tions, on the one hand, and to speculative people's freedom and independence, to rec­ philosophical theologies rooted in the Aris­ ognize the "othemess" of human beings. totelian tradition, on the other hand, the That the creator God had to learn this metaphysics of the Bible is informed by a lesson is one of the keys to understanding the fundamental relational matrix, which is ex­ biblical story. In the beginning God did not pressed in the philosophically "scandalous" understand this lesson, and therefore, when idea that God seeks relationship with that the world did not tum out the way He which is other than God. Pantheism, which thought it should. He decided to destroy it by obliterates the otherness and distance neces­ bringing a flood. God, however, did not SUMMER/FALL 2004 God and Human Perfection in the Jewish Tradition I 147 choose to end the world once and for all, but Abraham and between God and the people of rather to destroy what was existing until then Israel at Sinai is ultimately grounded in the and then to start from scratch on the basis of metaphysical theme of divine self-limitation his obedient and compliant servant, Noah. for the purpose of relationship with human Noah is noteworthy in the Bible for being beings. God gives up some of His power totally subservient and docile, like a child because of His awareness that He cannot who asks no questions. God tells him to create a world through His will alone. Unless build an ark, gives him precise and complete human beings cooperate and take responsi­ instructions and measurements, and Noah bility for their lives, the world—that is, his­ says, "OK." When God reveals to him, "I am tory—cannot be shaped according to the di­ going to destroy the world," Noah says noth­ vine intention. God therefore chooses to ing. When you read this passage, you want to become dependent on human beings. shout, "Noah, don't you have anything to Abraham Joshua Heschel captured the es­ say?" But Noah says not a word. Noah has sence of biblical theology in his seminal not yet discovered his independence and work, God in Search of Man. I concur fully freedom from God. with his view that the central metaphor de­ The biblical figure who does understand scribing God in the Bible is of a divine quest his independence from God is Abraham, and and need for relationship with human beings. it is for this reason that the relationship be­ If you cannot conceive of God in such tween God and Abraham marks the begin­ graphic anthropomorphic terms, you cannot ning of Jewish history and of the Covenant. really comprehend what the Bible is about. When God realizes that He cannot do it In this tradition, the concept of perfection alone, He chooses Abraham. God makes a that informs both human and divine spheres covenant with Abraham, saying to him, involves the need for relationship with an­ "Through you the world will be blessed." other.
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