Guide for Perplexed and Weary Kaplanians

In this edition of the Contemporary Talmud Page, we begin with an affirmation of Kaplan that “Torah is lifelong moral education.” But is this always true? How might the idea of shlemut (spiritual wholeness), the inward Jewish peoplehood character of tikkun olam, and an appreciation of Shabbat challenge Kaplan’s own assertion that we must always be engaged in moral education?

Other Tosafot (commentators) will be adding their thoughts later in the Spring. For now, we invite you to use the page for your own reflections. We note that in framing the Talmud page this way, we recognize the complexity of Kaplan’s thought. To have Kaplan argue with himself is the supreme compliment to the richness of his thinking.

We thank Dr. Mira Wasserman and the Ethics Center of RRC for cosponsoring this edition of the Contemporary Talmud Page.

The purpose of Torah is life-long moral education

(Kaplan’s address for the opening of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, 1922)

Mel Scult on Kaplan

Perhaps the most important element in shlemut for Kaplan was integration. He pointed out that this exists on many levels. The first and perhaps the most basic level is the personal. The wholeness, the perfectibility, the integration of the self. For Kaplan, as for Emerson, the self was a process or a series of processes, not an entity. He has the wonderful word to “thingify.” We make processes into things. He pointed out our tendency to thingifciation in connection with Torah and with God and with Israel.

Future of the American Jew

But to qualify for participation in this struggle, Jewry must set its own house in order. The Jewish community is not free from the evils that beset society in general and must accept full responsibility for carrying on the fight against them on its own sector of humanity’s front. (Mordecai Kaplan, Future of the American Jew, 1948; page 54)

The Sabbath

In pursuit of other aims we frequently become so absorbed in the means as to lose sight of the goal… Here the Sabbath comes to our aid. An artist cannot be continually wielding his brush. He must stop at times in his painting to freshen his vision of the object, the meaning of which he wishes to express on his canvas.

“Living is also an art. We dare not become absorbed in its technical processes and lose our consciousness of its general plan… The Sabbath represents those moments when we pause in our brushwork to renew our vision of the object. Having done so we take ourselves to our painting with clarified vision and renewed energy.” (Mordecai Kaplan, The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion, page 59)

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Questions

1. These are argumentative, exhausting times. In and of itself, does this demand more “recovery sabbaticals”?

2. How do we pursue all these different goals in ways that are holistic and healthy?

3. Which of these selections would you make the Mishnah (anchoring) piece of your own Talmud page?

4. What might be the defining feature of a successful “sabbatical” from tikkun olam/ moral education?

Tosafot (additional commentary) by Rabbi Margie Jacobs

Rabbi Margie Jacobs

“An artist cannot be continually wielding his brush.” These are exhausting, deeply trying times. And yet, we are called to act to heal our very broken world.  How do we know when to engage in the urgent work of tikkun olam, and when to engage in tikkun hanefesh- taking time to restore our own souls?

Rabbi Isaac Luria’s concepts of mohin degadlut and mohin dekatnut, which we might understand as expanded and constricted consciousness, can be helpful in discerning when to “wield our brush”, and when to put it down and reflect on our work and our own inner landscape.

 When we are in a state of mohin degadlut– spacious, stable awareness, we are more likely to engage in the world in ways that are wise, generative and healing. We make better choices.  We are better able to listen- to take in a different opinion from our own, or the heartbreaking news of world events- and be moved to growth, insight, or wise action.

The Hasidic commentator, the Me’or Eynaim, wrote that “The secret meaning of the exile in Egypt is.. that awareness was in exile.”   When we are in a state of mohin dekatnut– when our awareness is in “exile,” or is constricted, we are like the Israelites in Egypt who  “couldn’t listen to Moses because of kotzer ruach (anguished spirit or shortness of breath)” (Exodus 6:9)- In katnut, we lose hope, and are unable to internalize or imagine the possibility of redemption. Like an artist who has lost connection to their internal source of creativity,  this might be a moment to put down our paintbrush, turn inward, and allow our “kotzer ruach” our tight, constricted breath and spirit, to settle and soften.