21st Century Schizoid Man[1]: Do great people need to be complex?

A Level History used to throw up questions like this: Was the main reason for Lenin’s success in 1917 due to his individual personality or due to the economy? The correct answer, invariably, was to list a few pros and cons for each side before concluding happily that both were true. People fascinate me. Their personalities; their complexities; their trials and triumphs. I have always loved biographies and reading about people of the past, and was never satisfied with the idea that everything they did could be reduced to simplistic economic or political determinism. But what makes a great personality? Before I start looking into things that have emerged from my travels in the 9^th century I would like to touch on two themes in the next two posts that will invariably recur in my subsequent rants: individuality and leadership.

For me, the individuals that I consider great are necessarily multi-faceted and ‘complex’. Let me try to explain by going on a ramble: I have noticed an interesting pattern within Jewish leadership in recent years where the following scenario plays itself out on repeat: Person A arises, unquestionably unique in a particular area, and becomes famous for their brilliance. Person A’s students, awestruck, furiously debate Person A's legacy, either posthumously or during Person A's lifetime, and try to determine who exactly they were, often vehemently insisting that they alone understood who person A was really about. Students B-Z try to classify and become person A then get stuck and confused when they realise they can’t.

 A few years ago I began to hear things being said about Rabbi Soloveitchik, for example, which went along the following lines: “He wasn’t a great leader because his legacy is so ambiguous” “My rebbe has testified personally that he changed his mind regarding secular studies at the end of his life” “He must have been confused because his students can’t agree what he stood for, why couldn’t he have been clear about what he actually thought?” I soon realised that “The Rav” wasn’t the only person who attracted such confusion. One of the rabbis in my Yeshiva who is renowned for his deep mind and sharp intellect would attract similarly intensive views and I would regularly hear conversations between students arguing about what this rabbi really thought about a particular matter and how in situation x he was only playing to the crowd but in situation y amongst elites (such as the person talking, naturally) he really spoke his mind. I was reminded of this topic recently when I was reading Eliyahu Stern’s biography of the Vilna Gaon The Genius where he mentions that the Gaon’s legacy remained blurred over a century after his death. One of his students, Chaim of Vilna relates that “even when he heard the Gaon on consecutive days it was as though he was a different person.” Was he the leader who encouraged a return to Zion? Was he the man who befriended and encouraged the Maskilim? The mentor of the founder of the Volozhin Yeshiva? Could he be all of the above? And most famously, The Rambam, the subject of apologetics from every faction, defending, excusing or vindicating the author of the philosophical Moreh Nevuchim or the largely halachic Mishnah Torah as though written by two different people. One thing which links these figures is that in order to be understood, students often had to come up with a one-liner, or at least one approach which could summarise them. To me this is entirely misses the point. To me their greatness is found precisely in their multi-faceted natures and their restless pursuit of knowledge and wisdom which formed the uniqueness of their world-views. This can be seen even in their weaknesses and their struggles.  

It seems to me that the broader idea is this: Humanity constantly needs to classify to make sense of the world. But this goes slightly haywire when applied to human beings, particularly exceptional ones, because we are complicated creatures full of longings, yearnings and impulses that can never be adequately expressed or defined. When we experience great people they can be blinding in their apparent transcendence. We want a piece of this greatness. And since we can’t understand it we simply project our own predispositions onto the people themselves, assuming that they must think along the same lines as us. But realising there is something missing, we look to them to mould rather than to guide us, to solve rather than to advise. We love a ‘correct derech ha limmud’(method of Talmud study) or a ‘clear hashkofo’(religious worldview) which we can sign up to and avoid struggling with the issues themselves. In short, we like it easy and by ignoring the complexities in those we admire, we lose the greatest joy of all exemplified by our heroes themselves – the long and winding road of individuality.

Many fear the consequences of embarking upon this lonely road, with all its pitfalls. So they clone rather than emulate. My response to things often involves applying the imagery found in old-school pop songs. “The long road” is one of my favourites. To be annoying, when I am fed up with something in my life, I will sometimes quote Neil Diamond’s ‘He aint heavy, he’s my brother’ and tell people that “the road is long with many winding turns”. I remember reading the Rambam’s introduction to the Moreh Nevuchim and being struck by the fact that he emphasises that if you ever want to understand anything at all don’t think you’ll just give it a google search (I don’t think he actually mentions google) and then you’ll just get it. A five minute summary of an idea is simply the end of a restless pursuit of truth and understanding. Life has to be played like a Test match, with effort and toil, not a 20/20 (Yep, cricket got in there). 

To me, the great individuals of our history teach us much more about the way we must set about our tasks as Jews living in the 21^st Century rather than the exact tasks themselves. Which is why honesty in understanding them is essential. We strive to understand their profound ideas and wisdom but invariably we will process them through our own world-views and experiences – and that is ok. And this led me to the slightly odd conclusion that the people I admire most in our history are the ones I can't claim to really understand. I heard from R. Rakeffet once that he saw this as one of the great shames of the Lubavicher Rebbe’s legacy. By all accounts he was an unbelievably great man in thought and character, to the extent that many couldn't relate to him as a human being, he had to be something more. Through grappling with the wonderful idiosyncrasies of the leaders of our past I am filled with enormous hope that by tapping in to the spirit of their characters and teachings rather than necessarily every detail that I too can achieve something worthwhile in my life in my own way.

 I love the Dylan song “Ballad of the thin man” where he sneers at the reporter “Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?” As soon as Dylan came along with uncannily profound observations about life and society in his songs, everyone jumped on him, demanding he gave them the explanation, to give them the ‘answers’. What Dylan found is that by being made into the prophet of a generation the whole spirit of the individual which opened up the possibility of that pursuit of excellence was replaced by a cult of followers. As soon as the world tried to box and define his creative spirit, Dylan longed to flee and run away. The Mr. Joneses of this world had simply missed the point.

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[1] For those of you who weren't around in 1969 this is the title of a song by Prog-Rock band King Crimson.