Into the mystic: My alterego John Lennon

We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic

Van Morrsion

Living in Brighton, I encounter many hippie lefties. Whilst of course they irritate me as a concept, as individuals I love being surrounded by them.

The other week I spoke to a group of people at the Sussex Jewish society on the topic of demystifying mysticism: Prague in the seventeenth century. 

Afterwards, people began to relate to me as something of a mystic. When the rabbi referred to the kabbalah in a sermon, a few of the shul members turned around pointing at me excitedly. 

Financially, this could lead somewhere.

If John Lennon and George Harrison were alive today they would visit my flat in Hove for the inspiration that I clearly provide.
And the guy a few floors above me for the herbal enhancements. 

Of course, if you have read a few of these blog posts, you would say that a cardboard box has more of a mystical disposition than I do.  

My thesis, however, is on the subject of one of the great works of Jewish mysticism, the Shelah ha kadosh, (holy Shelah, an acronym for the two tablets of the covenant). 
Like most mystical works, in the Orthodox world it is mentioned with great reverence, a work which most individuals would never themselves approach, but are aware contains very 'deep' things. 

When I mention to those who have been yeshivah for half a dozen years that I am doing a phd on the topic, they look at me like I'm a scrambled egg. My apparent irreverence towards most aspects of life doesn't easily correlate with a work of such holiness.

Outside that circle, my study of this text appears even more abstract than most academic phds which concentrate on such fascinating topics such as the sociology of gardening or the intersectionality of teddy bears. 

I have never shown any particular interest in anything that is normally considered 'mystical' and my Phd topic came about somewhat by accident. In fact, when I am reading the text I feel more detached than I usually do from Jewish texts. Many of the ideas which were late to form the basis of much of Ashkenazic philosophy are at complete odds with anything I have found engaging in any other walk of life.

Yet something about it engages me. I think one of the most important functions of being religious in a broad sense is the way it demands the process of becoming: there is more to know and more to learn and this never ends because God is infinite and you as an individual are important.

 As an axiom, this is wonderful: Aspiration is something crucial in leading a worthwhile and successful life - you must want to become better at things. Better at yourself, better to those around you, better at refining and developing skills, talents etc. Once that stops, well, life sucks.

This is not some utopian ideal, either. Broad societal transformations are irrelevant if it isn't internalised or appreciated by the individual - as my new hero Jordan Peterson likes to say 'Sort yourself out'. 

So put away your stupid Marxist signs - 'students of the world, disband'.  

The discovery of more knowledge was such a wonderfully giddy sensation of childhood. And as an adult, where the intellect has become more critical and appreciates that there are many different ways to approach new ideas, the world presents many opportunities.

But when you can see a ceiling things become frustrating. It is this point that I have suggested is the reason for so much religious indifference for people my age and older - it feels like there is so little left to explore, nothing left to conquer or pursue. 

Not in terms of quantity, certainly; but if you feel that the aspiration of gaining a greater quantity in a particular area knowledge which doesn't actually do anything for you what is the point? It's like being set more maths homework.

If the people who run the show and embody Judaism seem a little shallow and not particularly interesting then where is the aspiration? It is as if, before us, there is a choice: Do x and  you will be fulfilled, if you join community y you will be doing the right thing, study z and you are doing good by God. But then it stops when you cross the boundary rope. 
The drive to explore finishes.

Wanting what's best for your family or career is self justifying to a large extent, but the pursuit of personal excellence through the prism of the religious life is not.

So, mystical escapism? Not at all. What is quite fun about Judaism is that we don't really do too many abstractions outside of 'real life'. There is not really such thing as mysticism as an abstract expression of trying to feel close to God in most streams of Judaism, which is partly why I become irritated by the academics who love going off on one about the eroticism within kabbalah like a child who has raided the sweetie jar and skipped the meal.

It is interwoven into law and the broader concept of self improvement in pursuit of God through introspection and pursuit of appropriate steps.

Half of me despises the narrow prescriptive nature of the self-improvement Jewish literature, as if this somehow answers issues that can't be answered. 

But if there is a broad theme that exists within mystical literature (that admittedly ignores its specificity and context) it is that you must improve yourself before you improve society, and that you can overcome adversity by accepting the reality of life's evil and trying to transform them. 

And it is this that shines through the great religious literature - an endless quest to understand things more deeply, to incorporate different streams of thought into that timeless question what the hell should we do with our lives and do something about it. Then you will have lived well. 

Whilst many Orthodox groups have taken mystical ideas as literal truths, the profundity of the mystic lies in his refusal to accept things as being merely of surface value, which resonates when it comes to trying to understand society and its strange ways, and the individual's bewildering complexity which, for all intents and purposes, is irreducible to one or two factors.

 And if I was speaking to John Lennon at Woodstock in the summer of '69 I would probably tell him: Hey John, good music but those dumb one liners about saving the world? Yep, in fifty years time people will take them seriously and post them on facebook. Bet you never expected that. 

The blog returns: Teaching religion and science at University

Well, writing comes in fits and bursts doesn't it. I haven't been able to write very much for a while.

Partially because of my new found focus on trying to justify every sentence with a footnote and page, preferably with long citations from the bar ilan database, I think the joy just went away at some point.

Alternatively, it was an aversion to the fact that everyone seems to think they are entitled to an opinion and the old school classicist within me reared his ugly head and objected most profusely. 

December brought with it: 
Ooh Trump is a bigot, homophobe, misogynist etc. etc. we're all going to die.
Or, the left are a bunch of whiney ideologues with the emotional maturity of the average five year old. 

Those are your fun pegs on which to hang your proverbial coat and I'll let the discerning amongst you figure out which way I've drifted in the last few months.

You say it best, a great sage of the nineties once said, when you say nothing at all. 

There is no point writing a blog if you have to do something as sordid as justify your opinions. But when pressed, I didn't really know what those opinions were and it didn't seem to matter very much. 

I was also on a break from listening to Dylan after years of faithful service. In his place, the Smiths, the Kinks and Springsteen took pride of place. 

But I like writing in an informal context and have missed it. And whilst my writing has taken a break, this year I have had my first actual experiences in teaching - something I have been keen to do for a while without quite knowing the whats and whys.

And I suppose experience is a good buzzword here. 

Because I think we are very interested in how other people experience the world so perhaps this has become a new focus of mine.

Maybe because some of us share the same oddities. And oddities are what makes life fun. And I suppose creating oddity combined with a certain conviction of purpose is what life quite often seems to be about. And this is how I see it - there are serious goals, relationships and issues and there is chaos and let's just see who we can wind up today. Hmm. Psycho musings over.

So, having converted from the stagnation of a utopian let's-make-the-world-a-better-place-I'm-young idealistic-and-know-better-than-you approach to the more prosaic do things you enjoy and see how it goes attitude, I decided to try my hand earlier this year at teaching in University. 

 The first course I began to teach on was a fascinating one exploring the relationship between science and religion. My first thought was that this was going to be like the anti-Christ of the kiruv seminars I used to attend where the conclusion was that 'everything is happy and fine'; I enjoyed exploring evolving definitions of the two topics and challenges past and present. 

And I enjoyed exploring the fact that I was at a stage of my life that I could honestly say that being religious meant a great deal to me but that I wanted it to be something of a struggle so as not to get boring.

Give me some good old fashioned existential angst any day rather than  join the frum club of the great shires of north west London. 

Some students asked me how I dealt with some of the questions, particularly as I was keen to be as critical as possible on the issues. 

I replied that life is very dull if you don't have to grapple with things. So far so good. Teaching is great fun.

But I noticed something amongst many students that bothered me slightly because it is in fact one that many religious people hold themselves. 
I noticed that the attitude towards religion was very simply, if it is meaningful to you, go for it. Is it true? If it is to you then great. If not, then great. Everything is fine. Yolo.

If it makes you happy, if it is meaningful to you etc. Everything is about this wonderful term, 'meaning'. Science is true, religion is meaningful. 

You know, I generally love the live and let live approach. But in the twenty first century is there any depth left to describing religion or is it always going to fluctuate between dogmatic intensity and vacuous slogans about social action?

In fact, whenever anyone shoves meaning into every aspect of religious life it becomes incredibly irritating. Just stop talking.

Make shul meaningful? No, go away I don't want it to be meaningful I want you to be quiet.

Be inspired? Sod off. Happy twenty year old giving a long talk about what some aspect of practice really means deep deep deep down? Kiddie, what you smoking. You aint saying nufink.

People talk too much and write too many books infantalising us all trying to say that everything anyone has ever thought can be found in something Jewish and everything is ok and happy.

And yet, despite my sarcasm, to be religious is to recognise something as true in the sense that our experience life would be far poorer without it. I guess love is a parallel.  

And I suppose this is where I must conclude my returning post. Because being religious is fundamental to the part of me which says things like 'this is frum nonsense', criticises everything, becomes irritated when people call me 'Modern Orthodox', 
and flees the cholent where new ideas go to die.

 And I suppose if I keep writing things, which I might not, given the fluctuating fortunes of my thesis, I should write about how different areas of life come together in a way to build a picture that perhaps leads to God, perhaps leads to introspection, perhaps leads to your local cricket ground.  

I'm 25. And by this age, when it comes to this whole religion thing, many of my peers frankly my dear don't give a damn. The trappings are there to some extent, but either 'keep on singing for the sake of the song after the thrill is gone' or just empty shells on a well trodden shore. Money, women, family, career - these are the rock n roll Gods.

And despite my open dislike of much which makes up religious society, I do care a lot. Through my ramblings, sarcasm and self indulgence as a writer. Maybe I'll explore why.