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. 

What links Bob Dylan to Yom Kippur? An Ode to the Nobel Prize winner.

Three disconnected paragraphs coming up and a slightly longer post written in something of a rush:

Last week, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. I accepted many congratulations on his behalf. For those who are blissfully unaware, I obsess over Dylan like a Golders Green resident obsesses over an Etrog at an all-you-can eat arbah minim sale. 

A metronome is a strange little instrument that is used by musicians to make sure they are keeping with the correct beat. It is also used as an adjective to describe something incredibly consistent. Glenn Mcgrath, the great Australian fast bowler, was often described as possessing 'metronomic accuracy' for landing every ball on the same spot during a career which spanned over 10 years.

I have recently started giving a seminar at University on the relationship between science and religion. One of the most interesting aspects of this for me is the way many people relate to religion: It is something that, if it makes you happy, is a good thing. Ultimately, the way many students address the issue of challenges or contradictions that exist between the religious and scientific spheres is that religion is personal, feeling based and non-binding whereas science is factual and commands obedience.

I find this attitude to be quite familiar in terms of how religious people are encouraged to engage with their religion: make it personal, your own, and meaningful. 'Have a meaningful fast'.  What most people mean by meaningful is something along the lines of personal inspiration, an emotional interaction with the prayer book or general positive thoughts about the year ahead.

Yet in the midst of all this liberal meaning, which in principle I have nothing against, the conservative sporting a tweed jacket and coattails in me rears his ugly head: hogwash - this is about duty. Majesty. God is not simply your nice and warm friend. 
I think the same thing when it comes to people's obsession with halakhic details and general sentiments that religion is effectively about loving halakha in all its minutiae. I don't think the power of halakhic practice is enjoying it at all. It actually helps if you don't particularly love it.
 It is in its stability, its metronomic reliability and permanence that I think lies its real power and is why it is the Jewish expression of religiosity. The metronome, that reassuring presence, like family, which is part of your security and sense of self. Like family, it can also drive you up the wall. But it is always there, giving you a nudge or reminder in the direction of God. As the rabbi in our shul mentioned over Yom Kippur, looking at the list of regrets in the siddur is a bit like the data overload of being on facebook. And this is a point I would like to assert as something which rings true in my own mind at least: halakha provides religious context and boundaries but not necessarily content. 

To explain by example: As I was standing for the repetition of the Amidah during Rosh ha shana/Yom Kippur, I thought to myself: Why am I standing? Instantly I visualised someone running up to me with a Mishna brurah showing me a source. That made me want to lie on the floor and start digging. Nope, not because of that. I thought of all the times I have ridiculed some of the sailor-on a pirate ship-style liturgical tunes of the Ashkenazic community, is that meaningful to me? But nevertheless, there I was, singing my heart out and God knows I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world. Then the metronome came back into the picture. Then came Dylan. The two are linked.

Dylan is my metronome, to be frank. The disconnected, stream-of consciousness lyrics paint pictures that have accompanied me for the past ten years. What do they really mean? Even if I accept the premise of the question, it doesn't matter and I don't care. But they accompany me through many moments. Because the songs are loaded with ambiguities. Ambiguities that seem to produce many simultaneous and sometimes contradictory meanings.

Dylan uses language to penetrate the mind and heart like no other singer. There are no 'Love songs' that are simply descriptive of primal desire or heartbreak. Lyricists today seem to think that by exaggerating emotions as much as possible, they touch on something truly authentic. Well, I beg to differ. Take Adele's 'Someone like you' for instance, widely considered a modern day masterpiece. Or something from Ed Sheeran. Certainly, they manage to communicate something deeply felt but it usually can be summarised by the sentence: Breakups are sad and painful. 

Dylan's words are playfully ambiguous so they can mean several things; most importantly they realise that emotion is usually fraught with tension from several sides. You very rarely only feel one thing. Despair can be accompanied by relief. Words that sometimes sound like the most painful things on earth can in time come to communicate healing and comfort.
 People tell me it's a sin to know and feel too much within I still believe she was my twin but I lost the ring, she was born in spring and I was born to late, brought on by a simple twist of fate. 

Words that have no obvious meaning to the non-initiated start playing automatically in my mind at times that seem oddly appropriate
Aint it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet? 

Or just plain weird:

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he when off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row

Who's the jealous monk? No idea. But I've definitely seen the electric violinists on desolation row.

It is largely for this reason that I can listen to Dylan almost endlessly. It is as though his words adapt to suit the situation that I find myself in at present. This is what links Yom Kippur to Dylan. The power of the metronome. That meaning doesn't need to be some clever construction on the part of the individual, it is enough for it to be a familiar friend giving you a nudge, wink or pat on the back. A call from the ancient past as storms brew ahead.
Everyone likes a good revolution on Rosh ha shana, a reinvention. 
But truth be told, revolutions have a tendency to be bloody, destructive and not particularly effective. 

Atlantic City by the cold grey sea
Hear a voice crying, "Daddy, " I always think it's for me
But it's only the silence in the buttermilk hills that call
Every new messenger brings evil report
'Bout armies on the march and time that is short
And famines and earthquakes and train wrecks and the tearin' down of the wall

Did you ever have a dream, that you couldn't explain?
Ever meet your accusers, face to face in the rain?
She had chrome brown eyes that I won't forget as long as she's gone
I see the screws breakin' loose, see the devil pounding on tin
I see a house in the country being torn apart from within

I can hear my ancestors calling from the land far beyond

When they said REPENT, REPENT, I wonder what they meant?

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions 
Won't be nothing 
Nothing you can measure anymore 
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world 
has crossed the threshold 
and it has overturned 
the order of the soul 
When they said REPENT REPENT 
I wonder what they meant 

Leonard Cohen is up there with the greatest songwriters and speaks with a poetic voice even greater than Dylan's. He only loses marks with me because he concentrates too exclusively on death and religious doubt so he's hard to sing in the shower. But that aside, the idea of repentance cuts to the heart of the problem of sincerity in religious life: Feeling sorry for anything is so difficult, let alone for pretty much everything. 

Last week I took one of my all-too-rare early morning trips on the London Underground and I reflected on the scene before my eyes, which resembled those classic paintings about ageing: First, there were the new suits, immaculately attired in their tailored fits and quirky little ties, beads of perspiration pouring down their still excited faces; then, there were those in their mid-thirties who looked a little scruffier, some even wore T-shirts. They seemed less enthusiastic, clutching their coffees and smart-phones with a grim determination to persevere. But then I noticed a truly poignant sight: 

A young woman, around 30, fast asleep, holding tight to the pole on the tube with an expression of such tiredness I could only feel tremendous pity; instantly, my mind conjured up the phrase 'A sacrifice on the altar of capitalism'. I have no doubt that she needed to be there to earn a living, but honestly, London can sometimes resemble some sort of intense, money-obsessed dystopia, so far from the beach life we have in Hove. Communist rant over.

Sometimes it feels like the high holy days are a sacrifice on the altar of Judaism. Something we see as necessary to continue but not much beyond. 

Repent, repent? I can regret momentarily, I can commit briefly, I can introspect and aspire but in a world where we are bombarded by endless information, I am all too aware that these feelings, this model will be stored away somewhere where they can be re-opened at an appropriate time, probably in another year or so. The more I hear on the topic, the sturdier the file becomes.

Because everything we are meant to regret and improve upon are generally quite specific things and details that rarely touch upon the thing itself, a relationship with God, trying to understand my place in the greater context of existence and what on earth it means?

It is very possible to both mean something and not mean it at the same time, whilst being very sincere: For instance, when I read a list of the things I have not done properly this year, ignored or done wrong I may feel regret. And if I don't, I regret that I don't regret.

But this regret is utterly disconnected from the part of me that functions the rest of the year. Why? Because I have mentally filed that this is the time of year to repent and commit to something new and that file closes in about a month and a half. 

It feels like the woman on the tube: an intense commitment to something that I feel compelled to do. The rest of the year I hate feelings of guilt - they seem counterproductive and fairly pointless, and is probably one of the worst ways for me to change myself. Call me postmodern, but the link between guilt, shame and God is highly tenuous in the world I occupy.  

Once again, I know that I will be told I have missed the point, and that deep down all prayer is meant to lead to this true, sincere end. But truth be told, I think that religious society misses a general point when it comes to the God-man dynamic: These days, intensity is often counterproductive to religiosity because it is not something that ennobles us or makes us kinder, better people. Just more intense.

 Following every word meticulously in the siddur whilst reading its translation in the artscroll might momentarily allow me to focus on a particular concept but it is actually withdrawal and space which brings me to a place where I can actually begin to perceive what it means to repent because with withdrawal I can see the whole, the total with honesty and I said last week, without honesty you aint got nothing but a life of self-deception. 

Last week my wife and I briefly went to Devil's Dyke, an expanse of countryside near our house, which I had never been to before. I looked around me and suddenly I felt I understood. I had stopped concentrating and started absorbing the universe in a manner that reminded me of being a child with a siddur. And my mind cleared and I began to feel things that I actually regretted and where I wanted to go.

 Call me a cliche but when you upset someone you care about, you want forgiveness not only because of the action itself but because you value the relationship itself. Without the latter, the former is pointless. Nature is a wonderful thing, gets me every time - I should have remembered that. 

Someone who doesn't want to be named said something very perceptive to me yesterday: Jewish law is full of beauty but when it's taken to extremes I don't see that anymore. Either extreme: An obsession with every detail or reduced to rabbinic legal necessity. And when we see beauty, we are more likely to long for the mind behind it, I would suggest. 

(Don't get all 'that's subjective' with me, sonny Jim, if you didn't love the feeling of keeping rules you wouldn't be preaching, we all play that game.) 

Historian Jacob Katz made a very perceptive remark in his book Tradition and Crisis when he commented that the religious power of ritual observance brought communities together. When people are united by things they deeply care about, their differences are blurred in their common passion and aspiration.

I see this in small communities, funnily enough, even when the congregants aren't religiously observant. As someone said to me this morning, 'if I don't go to the minyan, the shul will die and I can't let that happen'. Once upon a time, the shul meant something deeply to people, and the older generation hold onto that with a great reverence in small communities. But Shul no longer conjures images of reverence, majesty, grandeur or even spirituality. 

It is a shame but times change, it's importance has diminished as a centre of Jewish life in the modern world.

So, to all those, including myself, who find themselves praying for the final whistle during Rosh ha shana and the happy-go-lucky distinctly Ashkenazi final kaddish which I find myself humming throughout the year,

Maybe take a walk outside, you might find a friend. Maybe that's what they meant?
 

Lost in Space: On being distant from God

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
American Pie

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me.
Bob Dylan, Every Grain of Sand.

I imagine the view of earth is quite beautiful from space. Even from the i360, Brighton's very own moving observation tower, there is something quite cathartic about looking down at dozens of tiny dot people going about their daily lives. Fascinating to watch, yet ultimately, so irrelevant, so petty as we soar high in the clouds.

This sensation of distance crops up frequently in daily life.  I felt it a few weeks ago during Tish'a b'av and I feel it again during Elul: 
Rather than creating emotion,  the occasions present a slideshow with clips of every possible meaning and emotional stimulus, and I simply observe them from a distance. 

 Tish'a B'av is a classic example because it's supposed to be so sad. But instead I go through the following process of considering all the various approaches towards the occasion. For instance,  outreach organisations will focus on points a,b and c using tools x.y and z.
The more modern orthodox will make sure to avoid those dramatics and instead do e,f and g to prove their intellectual credentials. I will probably try and remember something from childhood and attempt to trigger an emotion that way.  
But all this time I am an observer, somewhat curious but very removed from it all.

It is strange and rather sad to find yourself approach religion in this way, particularly when so many other areas of life are filled with such immediacy.

Quite often I hear my own former arguments about habituation and the need to stir oneself to religious feeling through action. I know every answer you could throw at me, I say back, and yet something makes me lack the inclination to do so.

And so it seems that what has been several years of obsessing over authenticity has led to a curious conclusion: I only value ideas when I find them interesting. Therefore I hate clear conclusions, easy answers or ideas that I have heard many times before. Interesting=good. Boring=bad. 

It seems that in the last few years, any ideas that don't seem to be moving or causing some sort of mental friction lose all their relevance.

What I think drove me more bananas about outreach organisations than anything else was the fact that these clearly intelligent people were content to dish out the same soundbite answers to life's problems year in year out without ever seeming to consider adapting, evolving or improving them.

It was like having to listen to Oasis on repeat for the rest of your life.

But I have the same problem with those who abandon religion altogether. It is as if they have simply given up when the going gets tough. For me, it may be a long and windy road but to shut out the great avenues of possibility and richness of the quest for God is a disappointing choice to make. I am no empricist, needless to say.

And this, perhaps, is the intrigue of mysticism for me. Not, necessarily in any recognisable form, but more the fact that mysticism is distinctly personal and hard to define. It has a point which recognises that the God-man relationship ultimately has a drop off zone where words fail. When I discovered this very notion in Maimonides it gave a whole new dimension to his rationalism.

It also raises the very simple point that you have to be honest when it comes to religion. What do I honestly care about? And what does it mean to believe in God beyond belonging to a particular social group?

 Honesty often comes at the price of conformity. For me, perhaps it was the stark realisation that I will only find God in those areas where I find that real passion, that raison d'etre in life.

And most of those areas are anathema to the mentality that I had been surrounded with growing up in north west London.

 Whilst I commit to halakha and particularly appreciate the rhythm and structure it gives to life, that isn't what gets me up in the morning.

 Go away society.
 And hello darkness my old friend.

Three weeks after tisha b'av I sat in shul thinking about the moments I used to use to feel solidarity with my fellow Jews and instead of those images inspiring a particular feeling I realised that it was more likely to be the process of image making that made it for me. It used to be leadership on youth camps that invigorated me but at one point it stopped.

The challenge of facing that emptiness and distance is part of what makes life worth living.


Life calls on you to find 'it' elsewhere and keep chasing. So I try to chase. Sometimes it is to challenge my comfortable opinions; sometimes it is to get irritated by postmodern nonsense;
sometimes it is that very same desire to impart education. Other times it's just watching the waves rolling back and forth.

And in the end, I think, feeling detached from all the things in religious life you are meant to feel attached to? Not such a bad thing. As an insider, people and things can drive you crazy. Drudgery can make religion a tiresome burden. And the guilt can drive you crazy.
But from a distance, that view is truly beautiful.

Do you want to be a saint?

Sometimes religious life is characterised by an odd sort of tension. The world of piety, which aims at a precise, quantifiable perfection and the world of holistic religiosity, which rejects detailed examinations of anything as being overly pedantic. The holistic religious person enters a neighbourhood such as Me'ah She'arim and leaves with bewilderment and a degree of disgust. The pious person feels the same way about going to Tel Aviv or Netanya.

When I was in Israel a few months ago, I observed what I consider to be the difference between a religious society and a pious society. Israel is a secular state, right? Well it isn't, really; even in Tel Aviv, that sin city. Religion plays its part in every aspect of life in Israel, sometimes more subtly than explicitly. It cultivates a particular mindset about the world and has God at its centre in some form or another. But, in a sense, it remains 'natural'. It hovers around regular life but does not necessarily infuse its every aspect by shoving it in your face. 

I don't think this has nothing to do with being 'Frum'. Frumkeit is often derided for being superficial and insincere. I will not go down this road as it seems very unfair to question other people's motives. Rather what I will point out is that groups of people who try to become 'frum' are concerned almost exclusively with piety, the quantifiable aspect of religiosity. Laws, intricate details of Shabbat observance, pots and pans, tzniut, what I should and shouldn't do. Even the perfection of particular traits. 

This is the road to saintliness. From what I have studied, the undercurrent of kabbalistic piety is that religiosity can be quantified. Even a perusal of the mussar literature that remain the works that are cited in terms of Jewish morals and ethics are quite determined to see character development as a systematic, quantifiable entity. There is a road, a path and a clear direction, even if it is difficult to achieve.

But you have to ask the question at one point, do I want to be a saint? No, not some guy who gives afterlife credits via spare body parts but rather do I really want to be perfect in this sense? In a particular, pedantic sense - do I aspire to scrutinise every action to achieve perfection? The honest answer is probably no. 

Why? Because I have never looked up to saint-like behaviour. I see how aspirations towards this way of life leads to boring, clone-like societies dominated by a certain insecurity, fear and looking over the shoulder. I can't bring myself to want that. It was the sort of irritated feeling I got when looking at a shidduch form. 

What I wrote: Keep Shabbat, tick, keep kosher, tick, cover hair tick. 

What I thought: Shut up and go away. Just go away. 

I think that piety is confusing as an aspiration because too often it seems rather irritating and pedantic. And by quantifying everything, the joy and spontaneity associated with mitzvah observance can quickly evaporate. Stop thinking about things that should not be overthought. Especially in the realm of interpersonal behaviour, reading about how to behave will often have the opposite effect.  

 And to many, piety is synonymous with being religious, and this can be extremely off-putting. A nicely drawn ladder of self-improvement seems kind of self-righteous and self-contained. It just isn't relaxed, calm or particularly easy to admire. 

Relationships are all about the details? Erm. Not really. If I was examined on every tiny thing I did all the time I would go bananas. Details have their moments.  

I always think of this one person who is widely admired for mastering his instincts and never getting too emotional but I always thought of him as a robot who has lost touch with fellow human beings. Saintliness might be for some but this-worldly toil and acceptance of fallibility does it much more for others because those people get life as it is.

Does this conflict with religious belief and observance? I think it very much depends what we mean by religious and it often plays out in my head as a battle between myself circa 2010 and myself now. And perhaps therein lies a conflict within how we understand religion itself. Should the direction of religious life be serene, clearly-marked and harmonious like a David Gower cover drive or should it be gritty, tough and fighting like an Alan Border at the crease? 

Steve Waugh, one of the most Australian captains in Test history, spoke of his need to evolve from a dashing young strokemaker to a gritty fighter who would not give away his wicket at all costs. Sometimes you need to figure out the time and place for mr. pious to come to the crease and when to tell him to go away.  

David Gower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLk3GudLFpg 
Alan Border: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65xgEnd6LSY

Reflections on turning 25: A sermon that can't be delivered.

Last week I turned 25. I had originally written a long post which began like this:

'Traditionally, I've always hated birthdays. It always triggers something of an 'existential' crisis ( a favourite crisis of the modern orthodox). What is the point of it all? Where on earth am I going and what have I achieved? Time can be a cruel thing. It lurks unnoticed and one day you look behind you and wonder where it has gone. And before you lies the chasm between what you thought you could be, should be and are.' 

But then I've deleted the rest. There is a time and place for cynical ranting and it seems rather ungracious to do so when by any standards I have a wonderful life. Also, because intense moods pass and leave with you a slight sense of shame. But the date does lurk every year and poses a challenge: Justify.  25 also seems significant: No longer a child. Nearer to 30 than 20. Hmmm.

Perhaps based on the optimism of teenage years, or the years I spent in organisations promoting 'meaningful' as opposed to 'meaningless' existence, I have struggled and will continue to struggle with the idea of making a mark on the world. Whatever I do I can't escape the fact that most of all, I want to be significant and original. 

Yes, to all Pokemon fans, I want to be very best that no-one ever was. And I'm beginning to understand things I never used to. The pursuit of wealth, for example. Mad, exhausted sleep-deprived city stooges? I get it. Perhaps it is wealth they pursue but perhaps it is also the fact that money is quantifiable. Promotions are quantifiable. Progress and self-actualisation is quite easy to visualise in the drab grey walls they occupy. They can be the best.  

It all seems rather selfish, I must admit.

In fact, sometimes I think PHD theses are trying to project the individual's desire for uniqueness into an obscure study of something fairly irrelevant. 

I know from experience that there is nothing worse than reading something which is very similar to something you have thought on a particular area. Argh, must find a small detail to nitpick and then crush: Yes, x was clearly influenced by outdated structuralist/ historicist perspectives! Ha! I can breath as I send the buffoon back to his lair and I am king again.

I had the same problem with finishing my Masters dissertation. By the end of it I disagreed with almost everything I had said at the beginning and hated the comfy prospect of defining mysticism and analysing Maimonides' writings accordingly to fit into whatever I wanted him to say.

 Because it was not good enough, nothing I could say would do the man justice. So what was I doing?

And this is a problem with writing blogs in general. So much happens in the news, so many emotions are felt and by the time you get round to putting proverbial pen to paper you have changed your mind. 

The problem with wanting to change the world is simply that the only thing you can conceivably actively change it to is some vague imitation of yourself: 
'I wish school could inspire people to value education for its own sake!' 'Shutup Picasso, kids need to learn how to pay taxes and get a job. What you been smoking?' 

To accept that requires a humility that is not easily acquired - most people don't want what I want. Massive medieval Libraries and cricket statues in a castle resembling Hogwarts may seem like heaven to me but I think it would bewilder most other people.

So a few weeks ago I wrote down a few aphorisms that from my little red book of turning 25 as part of the need to feel important upon reaching the landmark; but as I sit here looking at them I have seen that they require heavy editing, but I'll try and leave most of them intact.

 Living in Brighton, I can't really call this Eastern wisdom. Maybe Southern wisdom. Or just Southern trains. Choo Choo.

On Judaism: Judaism will always require a mystical element for it to have any continued relevance to its adherents. No, not necessarily 'Jewish mysticism', much of which is not mystical at all but are simply pieces of information derived from sources considered mystical due to their vaguely kabbalistic and oooh coool connotations. 
I use mystical in the universal sense - that which treats God as real, tangible and important. Sephardim at prayer real. If being religious can ever mean something similar to attending a football match it will have done well. That is something that may have to be found in unexpected areas. 

Broadly speaking, in the modern world this requires a system of thinking that can encompass all Jewish areas of the universal and particular into a worldview that treats both as important. We cannot ignore our minds or our moral compasses, but if your idea of authentic Judaism is something that could have been copied and pasted from the Guardian last week, I'm not interested: Mr. Zeitgeist, go and party with your adherents. That's all I have to say about that. 

Truth be told, if you're unwilling to live in a bubble, experiencing this feeling can be bloody difficult.

On ideologies: You know, one problem I've always had with modernity is its flimsiness - here today gone tomorrow. This has also affected the way groups looking to 'change' things come across. Thou shalt love authenticity; brother. Religion shouldn't just be a social institution, it should be a pursuit of truth. 

The flip side of this is that you need to grapple honestly with issues that don't sit comfortably. If you can't find God in the Gemarah, look for Him elsewhere.

Whatever you think, just be nice about it. Whatever it is. Because it's not the be all and end all. Accept your inherent limitations. When death comes along or pain comes along and we forget our grandiose opinions in an instant anyway..

The 'meaning' of life: You can say meaning is 'made' not 'found' all day but you'll keep asking the question all the same. I think that we want there to be one point in life where we can turn around and say 'It's alright Ma, I made it'. 

The point of Academia: Still not entirely sure. To add to the sum of knowledge? Knowledge that no-one seems to access.

Right now I think it's to try and reassert the link between knowledge and goodness in society, to encourage a quest of discovery that empowers and enthuses the individual as mind and spirit combine in a relentless ascendant search for the ring of power. 

General 'self-help' thoughts (copyright: American publications, anytime between 1980 and now): Don't take anything too seriously, especially yourself. Be good to people regardless of their merits. Invest in personal relationships. Treat God like a relationship and be prepared to struggle, grapple and scratch your head. 

Expect little from human beings but believe in their potential. Because the masses are morons capable of great things. 

Time is best viewed cyclically: You are not the same as you were 1, 5, and 10 years ago. Don't feel guilty about that. Guilt achieves nothing. Just strap in and embrace the journey ahead with all the tools you've acquired. 

Don't preach to people too much about mistakes you've made that they should avoid, mistakes can be the best things you will ever do. Don't worry too much about the future. That old story of a climax and fall in your life, the 'best days of our lives'? Just an illusion. Things sucked then as they do now, you've just forgotten those bits. Be nostalgic about now - play pokemon, it helps. 

People should take flight as they wish; to discover, seek and explore. But you aren't born in a vacuum, don't know everything and someone is always more informed than you. Have humility to see beyond your cleverness. Truth can't be reduced to things you can measure in a lab, and if it could I wouldn't want it. But seek it nonetheless. 

Rock n roll. Keep on keeping on. Listen to Bob Dylan.  

Sex abuse and the referendum: Us and them.

Us and them and after all we're only ordinary men. Pink Floyd.

A lot of things have happened over the last few weeks. 

 For the first time in my life I felt myself emotionally moved by politics, and also realised how strong certain feelings could spill into utter disdain for democracy and the ability of human beings to act wisely. But since then I've calmed down somewhat.

But far more harrowing that week was the breaking news of a scandal in the Jewish community where a sex abuser was retained as a capacity of rabbi by a number of institutions who ignored evidence of his conduct. 

It was particularly scary to read descriptions of his character: Controlling, making those around him emotionally dependant, living through them, crushing their confidence and lifting them out again. Without them realising. This resonated. I have experienced this type of character before, in my own life, and it is terrifying. 

But perhaps the issue that bothers me most comes down to these three words: Us and Them. 

We, the English. We want control of our money, our country, our laws, our people, our heritage. They the foreigners, they the immigrants, they the Europeans. Let them burn. The attitude scares me as a Jew and as a human being. 

Yes, I'm sure some used their calculators to argue that they will in the long term have more cash somehow but the number of slogans and comments suggesting otherwise leads me to think that this was not the only issue at hand.

And you never ask questions when God's on your side. Bob Dylan.

Us, the religious people, us in possession of truth and insight, we the select. When the whole concept of being religious is thought about exclusively in terms of knowledge of texts, Judaism is whatever the rabbi says it is as he's the expert, and Judaism covers all areas of life, he must be right. Or we must protect him as he must have just taken things a bit 'too far' but is essentially well meaning.

Do you see how easy it is to pretend that everything is ok?

You can make all the checks and supervision you want but once you're on the inside it's very hard to take a look at a situation from the outside. Changing attitudes that are so deeply ingrained would seem to some as an impossible struggle. When it's us and them you don't think about much beyond the walls of your mind. 

The tragedy in Israel recently only serves to galvanise this sort of attitude, and clearly I can't blame anyone for thinking that but... Us and them Us and them. Us and them.  

Reading this back, it looks like I have great anger towards being religious. I don't. I love being religious. 
But I used to think that insularity was a personality type or a lifestyle choice. 
But increasingly I see it as dangerous and dark. 
Us...
and them?

Is there virtue in being ignorant? Donald Trump as the main reason not to live in a big ivory tower.

In general, I find politics to be juvenile and irritating. But recently this sense of irritation has spread to the thing I spend my days most involved in, typing away on a laptop: Academia and education. At times it feels very hollow and incomplete. What do I mean? I mean that the message it generally promotes is either to make money or serve the lofty aim of being a valuable 'thing in itself''.

Sometimes I think of the rise of Trump as being the product of the utter failure of western education to have any significant impact upon the 'real' lives of 'real' people. 

I do not mean in terms of subject material, either. It is the process of education as much as the result of it that is important. Education should broaden the mind to allow you to view the world from multiple perspectives and understand where other people are coming from. Not only from a rationalistic standpoint but also in terms of human empathy.

This should be its purpose, and whilst obviously no system can account for all the quirks of human beings, it should at the very least bring to attention the ridiculousness of brazen extremes. It should, at the very least, teach you that the world is a complex place which requires a degree of caution before you are convinced of your own rightness or are persuaded by slogans. Apologies for the dismissive arrogance of my tone.

Academics in the humanities and social sciences  thrive on writing about issues that are self-contained to the extent that not only do normal people have no idea what they are talking about but that only a select few in their subject area do either. There is too often no relationship with other areas of thought and no attempt to make that jump to consider how to improve society or even to attempt to understand it better or even to dwell upon how a given topic relates to themselves as human beings.

The ultimate sign of intelligence remains financial success or the ability to express yourself unclearly. 'Truth' and 'facts' are just word games. 

The compartmentalisation of knowledge means that very few are able to achieve the next step: wisdom. And, with the ridiculousness of the American situation (not to mention Israeli politics) it would be nice to have a bit more of that in our society.

Take Richard Dawkins, for example; brilliant mind who regularly makes crude and hysterical statements that do not even attempt to understand a perspective beyond his own. To avoid accusations of religious prejudice I have often extended the same accusation to people involved in the rabbinate.

I had an entertaining example of this the other week, where a Frum guest spoke in Brighton synagogue about the great evils of women dressing inappropriately and how this is the worst spiritual generation that there has ever been. Yes, in Brighton. Laughing at the ridiculousness of his inability to ahem read his audience and also by the fact that such a scripted line remains compelling to a man in his fifties, I remembered that these exact sentiments could be communicated in a Yeshiva environment and no-one would bad an eyelid. 

There are many people out there, hiding in their broom cupboards with a wealth of knowledge and deep understanding to share; and yet, like the volumes they pore over, they fade into the dust and most people don't know any better. Instead, the headlines are dominated by the boorish statements of a rich tycoon and the angry prattle of indignant people on twitter, feeling very offended. 

Ah well, the sabbath beckons, off to return to my commune.

 .