|
|
CHAPTER EIGHT:Closing The Circle In Jewish Life Cycle: Rituals, Culture
And Us
Background
3. People
In his great work on the Prophets, Abraham Joshua Heschel suggested that
one of the features distinguishing the Prophets as great religious thinkers
from many of the world’s other great philosophers, in different
cultural systems, was the fact that other thinkers presented their gods
as concerned with lofty philosophical thoughts. The G-d of the Jewish
Prophets, said Heschel, was concerned with something totally different:
people; Heschel read the Judaism of the Prophets as centred on people
and the way they lived their lives. He was right: the Prophets, with all
their religious beliefs and passion for G-d, were ultimately concerned
with this world and with the people in this world. G-d was ever-present
in the thoughts of the Prophets, but at the centre of the Prophet’s
world were people and their behaviour.
The same message of concern for people sits at the hub of
the Jewish life cycle. The most important message about
the Jewish cultural system, as expressed in the life cycle patterns examined
here, is that it is meant for real people. It is essentially a very human
system, reflecting a way of for real human beings - with their limitations
and their faults, their bodily passions and their authentic emotional
states.
Evidence of this can be found in the first stage of life,
and again in the last.
The first topic explored was attitudes towards children and childbearing
in the Jewish family, stressing the fact that the family is the essential
unit at the heart of the Jewish culture.
In the Jewish family saga of Bereishit, one of the central themes in
the early generations is the importance of children and the tragedy of
childlessness. It might therefore be expected that the children who appear
would be presented as paragons of virtue, justifying the faith of their
parents and the tears of their mothers. However, in place of that, there
is some very questionable behaviour on the part of some of the longed-for
offspring. The scenario presented is one of intrigue and tension, as siblings
quarrel with each other (e.g. Jacob) and with the world around them (e.g.
the Prophet Samson): a world of real people, with all of their limitations.
The message, therefore, is not that children are to be desired
because they are perfect, but, rather, that children are to be desired
despite their imperfections.
The Jewish models are invariably flawed, but they are flawed in their
humanity. In the Jewish model of a human the multi-dimensionality of their
humanity is a prominent feature. People are not perfect, not because they
are flawed, but because they are real and the life cycle takes that into
account.
For example, the last chapter clearly shows how grief and anger are perceived
not only as legitimate in response to death, but more than that: the system
even steps aside to embrace these characteristics and accommodate them,
this being the reason for the stage of aninut. The entire essence and
framework of Judaism's ritual reaction to death recognises and adapts
to the harsh emotional and psychological reality of the state of the mourner.
Thus, rather than viewing the expression of real emotion as a negative
weakness, Judaism recognises it as authentic and integrates it into the
life cycle rituals, gently moving the individual forwards through a structured
framework, towards the wider perspective.
|
|