I know I said only a few days ago that Robocop is the greatest production of human civilization (Elissa Toohill, you were there), but sorry, I must recant and say that this is: Eliezer Berkovits; God, Man, and History. To quote Berkovits elsewhere, from his book Towards Historic Judaism: The teachings of the Tora were not suspended in mid-air. They were closely related to living human institutions. Judaism looks upon life as the raw material which has to be shaped in conformity with the spiritual values contained in the Bible. Judaism is a great human endeavor to fashion the whole of life, every part and every moment of it, in accordance with standards that have their origin in unchallengeable authority. Its aim is not merely to cultivate the spirit, but to infuse prosaic, everyday existence with the spirit. Its great interest is not the human soul, but the living human body controlled by the forces of the soul. It is in and of this world. It will never yield to the obstinacy of that gigantic mass of raw material which we call life, and which so reluctantly allows itself to be molded by the spirit. It will never reconcile itself to a divided existence of which part is Caesars’ and part God’s. The whole of life is one piece; the whole of life is the testing place for man. Judaism is in love with life, for it knows that life is God’s great question to mankind; and the way a man lives, what he does with his life, the meaning he is able to implant in it – is man’s reply. Actual life is the partner to the spirit; without the one the other is meaningless.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 06:08:51 +0000
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