Heschel and Hari
“Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well for me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.” Genesis 12:13 NASB
You are my sister – Justifying a paradigm usually means adjusting evidence to fit the assumptions. Scriptural defense of the doctrine of the Trinity is an example. There are no verses in the Bible that directly support this idea. Everything used to defend it is inferred. The same can be said of the Catholic idea of the Immaculate Conception, which, by the way, is not about the virgin birth but rather about the birth of Mary, the “Mother of God.” You might think this is a Christian problem, but it isn’t. Wherever men opted for principles and priorities rather than the messiness of living, evidence manipulation isn’t far behind. Here is an argument concerning the reason why the patriarchs didn’t need the Torah as revealed at Sinai. Notice the rampant philosophical assumptions about reason, clearly adopted from Hellenism.
“The difference between the primevals and us with respect to asceticism is this: Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had pure reason and faint passions; their souls followed their reason, and thus a minimum of mitzvot sufficed for them . . . when their descendants went down to Egypt and lived there peacefully for some seventy years in the time of Joseph, their desires grew stronger, and their lusts grew; their passions overwhelmed their reason, and they came to require a degree of retreat to that which would negate their desires and stand up to their passions. So their Creator gave them additional nonrational commandments . . . and when they conquered the Land of Canaan, entered it, and did well in it . . . the more that land was settled the more their reason was destroyed . . . and the more their desires increased and gained strength, the weaker became their reason . . . and they required a very strong asceticism.”[1]
Yes, this is all correct, as long as we ignore Abraham’s duplicity (more than once), Isaac’s multi-generational family dysfunctionality, Jacob’s deceit, Noah’s lack of compassion, and the virtually absent life story of Enoch. As long as we pretend that these men were models of human piety, then we can argue that they lived by pure reason. But, of course, no biblical text suggests such a thing. This is paradigmatic exclusion, not exegesis. If we really want to understand the patriarchs, we have to start with the fact that they are human, just like us. Johann Hari’s words push us in the right direction:
“Human beings only become addicted when they cannot find anything better to live for and when they desperately need to fill the emptiness that threatens to destroy them.”[2]
With that in mind, Heschel’s comments clarify:
“Human beings are addicted to the pleasures of this world. A person can barely achieve half of his worldly desires in his lifetime. Give him a hundred, and he wants two hundred. Life is a pursuit of pleasure, and the schemings of the ego know no bounds. Fortunate is the nation that recognized the value of austerity and the subjugation of the ego.”[3]
“‘A slave is happier with a wanton woman’—that is, he prefers being a slave and being permitted the unbridled sexuality of slave girls, to being a free man, permitted to a free Israelite woman, whose sexuality will not be cheap or ever-present for him.”[4]
Moshe Luzzatto argued that pleasure is the only real motivator. Unless and until a man finds pleasure in serving God, he will not, simply because other pleasures will take priority. “No man can serve two masters” is probably not about money. There can only be one great and abiding pleasure in a man’s life, the pleasure that continues to move him, to energize him, to command him to obey beyond all other things. As Heschel says, “Unless God is of supreme importance, He is of no importance at all.”
It’s not reason that motivates men. Reason is the excuse men use to justify what they desire. What motivates men is something far more earthy, more human, more real. Not my mind, but my heart.
Topical Index: reason, justification, addiction, motivation, pleasure, Genesis 12:13
[1] Hovot Halevavot, Sha’ar Haperishut, Chapter 7, cited in Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations (Continuum, 2007), p. 752.
[2] Bruce Alexander cited in Johann Hari, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, p. 180.
[3] Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, p. 740.
[4] Ibid.
