Wrestling with Contradiction

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Our People’s Contradictions

Humans both love and lose. God is both knowable and unknowable. Bad things do happen to good people. “Jewish” is both a religion and a people. The State of Israel is both Jewish and democratic. The Diaspora is both flourishing and unstable. Judaism is obligated to both the past and the future. Jewish life requires both learning and doing.

Cultural Contradiction: Inside Outsiders

[2] Sarah died in Kiryat-Arba—now Hebron—in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her.

[3] Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying:

[4] “I am a stranger resident (ger v’toshav) among you; sell me a burial site among you that I may remove my dead for burial.” […]

[9] Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah.

 Genesis 23:2-4, 9

The Double Cave

          “The cave of Machpelah.” Rav and Shmuel disagreed about the meaning of the cave’s name. One sage said: there are two caves, one inside of the other. And the other sage said: there are two caves, one on top of the other. The sage who said “one cave on top of the other” is justified—hence, the name Machpelah [caphal = “double”]. And for the sage who said “one cave inside of the other,” how would we justify the name Machpelah? By saying that the cave contained multiple [caphal = “multiplication”] couples (see Gen. 49:29ff.).

          “Kiryat Arba.” Rav Yitzhak said: The city of the four [arba] couples—Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah.

Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 53a

Two Ways of “Knowing”: Reason and Revelation

The double cave is a metaphor for the two spiritual paths. The first path, utilizing human intelligence and reason, is exemplified by Adam and Eve. The first man and woman were created with the highest level of refinement. With their robust mental faculties, they embodied the use of native intellect and reasoning for spiritual advance. The Patriarchs and Matriarchs, on the other hand, were the origin of the Jewish people, paving the way for the Torah’s revelation at Sinai. They represent the second spiritual path, that of the Torah. The double burial cave of Machpelah combined together these two paths. One room contained Adam and Eve, the pinnacle of natural intellectual capability. The second room hosted the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, the progenitors of the Torah. The name of the city, Hebron, comes from the word hibur (“connection”), hinting at the combination of both paths.

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), Gold from the Land of Israel, p. 55

Existential Contradiction: Permanent Impermanence

          Strangers resident (gerim v’toshavim) you are with Me (Leviticus 25:23).

          If they are “strangers,” how can they be “residents?” And if they are “residents,” how can they be “strangers?”

          The simple answer is: you and I are always in a relationship of Resident and Stranger. If you feel yourselves in this world to be Strangers, that this world is for you only a corridor, and your dwelling here is only a temporary dwelling, like a guest who stays the night, then I will be like a Resident with you—and I will dwell among you. But if your behavior in this world is like that of Residents, like permanent dwellers, consuming without care, then I will be like a Stranger with you. For “strangers resident are you with Me”—such that we are always changing, one of us the Stranger and one of us the Resident.

 The Maggid of Dubno (c.1740-1804, Belarus)

The Vision and the Way

Paradoxically, Judaism affirms both the dream and the reality, both the perfect, redeemed world to be brought into being by human effort and the imperfect, unredeemed world of today. However, it is extraordinarily difficult to live in the dialectical tension of the dream and the reality. The greater the power of the dream, the more it seizes the imagination. The more its fulfillment is postponed, the more it generates dissatisfactions that tear people apart.

The way to cope with the tension is live dialectically, which is the biblical way. This means, first, to accept the world, affirm its sanctity, participate in it fully and enjoy it. At the same time, the divine ideal prods the people to fundamental criticism of society’s status quo. By living in the world while at the same time offering a testimony of hope to redeem it, the Jews have become the prophets of permanent dissent, demanding a messianic perfection and insisting that it is not yet here. In the rabbinic, halachic style, this permanent revolution moves in ceaseless steps, acting in the best way possible in each moment until the final goal is achieved.

Yitz Greenberg (b. 1933), The Jewish Way, p. 128