The advantages and disadvantages of being normal: Yeshiva days, the Masmid + the Boulevard of broken dreams.

When I was younger one of my favourite sit-coms was called 'Frasier'. In one episode, Frasier and Niles, two psychiatrists, have an argument about which of their wealthy friends to invite to a dinner party before Frasier turns to his father, the retired policeman: “Dad, do you think we're odd?” Martin:  “No, you're not odd. You're just special. Your mother told me that when you were kids and I still believe it. “

The idea of what is considered normal and what isn’t is an interesting one. Admittedly, it is also interesting that I find it so interesting. I will start by wondering whether being ‘normal’ is an aspiration, a statement of conformity, or something best avoided?

 You see, before I went to Yeshiva plenty of conversations went as follows:

Person A who sees me once a year and yet sees fit to give me life advice: “Don’t go too crazy there, make sure you come back normal!” “Stay balanced!”, “don’t overdo it”. In my teenage mind I sneered at them, thinking: You just don’t want me to be mediocre like you. Why should I want to be the way that you want me to be, you’re just scared that I’ll end up achieving things that you never could! So off I went, convinced that normality, balance and mediocrity were synonymous.

One of the great joys and yet great struggles that I had in Yeshiva, which I think exists for any ambitious student, was reflected by the paradigm called the ‘Masmid’ (dilligent student). You see, unlike in school or University where success is largely measured through tests, in most Yeshivas the buzzword is endurance. Devotion to studies demonstrates love of Torah and students are encouraged, either actively or tacitly, to push themselves to the very limit, learning every hour of the day till late at night.

Whilst most Rabbis would insist that we sleep properly and maintain healthy lifestyles, it was difficult to take seriously when the clock appeared to be ticking and you wanted to accomplish in an area that you cared greatly about, particularly amongst a group of similarly devoted peers. You didn't want to be the only guy to leave the beis on time. Night and day we devoted ourselves to learning Torah, trying to conquer 'peripheral' needs such as sleep.

But then “one day the dam breaks open many years too soon” and several, myself included, found ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun labelled: balance. It wasn’t really a choice anymore. Health had prevented the intensive lifestyle that myself and many others had grown so attached to and had become so beloved to us.

And then that sinking feeling and question would crop up: Does this mean I can’t make it anymore? It sounds sort of ridiculous but it reflected the feeling that, at 19 years old, the life ideal that had been such a crucial part of my life for several years had just been blown out the window. And those hounding words kept cropping up again: Balance. Normality. Balance. But I didn't want that. I didn't want to be mediocre. 

   

Which brings me back to R. Sa’adia Gaon, continuing where I sort of left off. In perusing a few of his writings around a month ago I found a few concisely written statements which summarised the mind-set which I have spent the last few years trying to get to grips with. Sa’adia enumerates various lifestyles advocated by different groups as a means of achieving perfection + life fulfilment in this world and critiques each of them respectively.

 Malter paraphrases Sa’adia’s conclusions in the following manner: “… even in the physical world it is only through a proper distribution and co-ordination of forces that we arrive at the highest possible good, how much more is it desirable that we should follow the same method in our moral and religious conduct. it is only through achievement of inner harmony and equilibrium that we can attain to a perfectly sound and godly life”.

Certainly, this idea of the ‘middle path’ is not uniquely Sa’adias, with its Aristotelian roots and far more comprehensive development by Maimonides, but it presented me with the image of harmony which rung very true. You see, sometimes when the dominant source of understanding is book-knowledge we can ignore the nuances and subtle experiences that life presents us with. The ability to admire the natural world, for example, and the appreciation of beauty and the sublime, which open up whole new levels of religious awareness, are vistas left largely unexplored by the Yeshiva bochur determined to master as much material as possible.

And thus, slowly, almost against my will, the idea of ‘balance’ began to be something more than simply a compromise and gradually started featuring as an ideal in itself. Peace of mind and inner harmony revealed themselves as something more than added bonuses in life’s experience but as key components of it. 

Sa’adia advises, for example, that man lives in accordance with the requirements of his natural inclinations and propensities, but keep them under strict control. Balance emerged not so much as a practical limitation of natural instincts or the need to avoid 'burn out' but as part of finding one's life mission. 

It became essential in order to gain a real appreciation for what you really liked, what kept your mind and body healthy, and in order to courageously stand by what you knew to be best for yourself. Or, in the words of Arthur the aardvark: “Believe in yourself, cos that’s the place to start”.

At the heart of this struggle exists a tension between a person’s desire for a genuinely purposeful existence and the feeling that if it cannot be realised in the way it first appeared to us in the trappings of youthful idealism then better lock it up in a cupboard and leave it as a memory. A token of the great past before reality set in.

When we came back home from Yeshiva and time moved on, suddenly things that were once second nature became extremely difficult; some would live for the moments during the week when they could imagine that they were back in those halcyon days. To others, it seemed, in Simon and Garfunkel’s words,  “the leaves that are green turned to brown”. Life could become a binary: Learning/ resignation to the inevitable.

Yet for me what is a powerful aspect of Sa’adia’s message is that self-actualisation and religious fulfilment is something that never stops in life. Perhaps this finds expression with greatest conviction in the writings of the Chassidic masters, or in my case, the writings of S.R. Hirsch. The challenge of the post-Yeshiva life is the challenge of maintaining a genuine desire to achieve a godliness and transcendence that can sometimes seem so elusive without those great experiential peaks. 

Historically, in some circles these peaks have been expressed in a focus on prayer and meditation, in others it would be manifest in trying to plumb the depths of philosophical understanding and truth. In Yeshiva it was through exertion in Talmudic study, gaining rigorous clarity of understanding, and that reassuring feeling of certainty that this experience will never leave us. Whatever people try and parrot at me by quoting the fourth chapter of Nefesh Ha Chayim, it has always appeared that everyone -  Litvaks included - ultimately seeks some form of D'veykus in whatever they are doing in life.

Which is partly why common designation of any medieval Jewish thinker as a ‘rationalist’ with all its cerebral connotations appears misleading. Similarly, the overreliance on the differentiation between emotional and intellectual individuals. When you dig deep enough you will always find a very potent emotional longing, and this appreciation has greatly helped me explore the depths of the religious experience as a Jew.