On Toleration And Celebration— In Two Discourses Of The Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe

MyLife Essay Contest

In the West today we have, in many respects, achieved the goals set by the fathers of the Enlightenment.  It has become a matter of course that the job of “the civil magistrate,” as Locke put it, lies in securing unto the citizen his civil interests and not in “the salvation of souls.”¹ While this eviction of religious institutions from the public sphere threatened their hegemony over the daily life and self­consciousness of the citizen, thus undermining, in some respects, social cohesion at the communal level,²  it also afforded religious minorities — like Jews — the opportunity to practice their traditions free from the threat of persecution.  This policy of tolerance constituted, therefore, an enormously beneficial revolution in political practice.

It seems to me, however, that as a global society we now suffer from what I would like to describe as a crisis of tolerance that may stem from the manner in which the notion was initially conceived.  The classical approach considered diversity from the standpoint of a secular government charged with negotiating the competing claims of its constituent communities and constructed citizenship accordingly.  It did not articulate the value of toleration from the standpoint of these constituencies themselves; it could not explain why — beyond narrow self­-interest — a particular community ought to celebrate diversity as a matter of principle.  I believe, however, that a pair of essays written in 1914³  by Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe,⁴  provides an insightful response to this particular question.

In his discourse on the Torah portion of BaMidbar that year, the Rashab treats the shattering of vessels which took place in the metaphysical world of ‘tohu.’⁵Generally speaking, he holds that these entities ‘broke’ because each constituted a “substance and a thing unto itself,”⁶  each exhibited such exaltedness⁷  that neither could another be endured nor even obtain a place to exist.  He then explains that this consequence contains an implicit contradiction: if the other has not even a place to be, in what sense is it unendurable?  That it cannot be endured suggests that, in the first place, it is.

The Rashab resolves this difficulty by proposing that there are, in fact, two forms of ‘exaltedness.’  In the following discourse⁸  a distinction is drawn between “mere exaltedness” and“essential exaltedness.”⁹ The ‘merely’ exalted is the one who is raised or raises himself above others such that his existential stature is ever relative to theirs.   However great this stature,¹⁰  the height and being of another will ever “subtract from it and reduce its existence”¹¹  for in that measure will it not be absolute.  The other will constitute a threat that demands neutralization.  “If he does not negate the other,” says the Rashab, “it is impossible that his exaltedness be absolute; in which manner would he exist above the other?”¹² Paradoxically, it is when dignity depends upon the recognition of others that they can be afforded no place to be.

“Essential exaltedness,” however, is of a rather different stamp.  It is, says the Rashab, “above height.”¹³ Because essence transcends existence, an exaltedness which derives from essence likewise transcends and does not pertain to the existence of that which bears it.¹⁴ If it is existence alone that bears relation to others, such exaltedness is, therefore, absolute and not relative.  It is not threatened by the existence of another but, rather “affords a place to all things; even things insignificant are afforded a place equal to that of great things.”¹⁵ Thus is supreme tolerance not a mark of weakness but, rather, indicative of extreme loftiness.  It is only a degraded form of exaltedness — a relative and dependant form — which cannot suffer others, which is threatened by diversity of being or, more concretely, diversity of opinion.  Consequently will a truly sublime conception of religious experience entail an appreciation for the virtue of universal toleration.

Yet, merely to tolerate is not to celebrate or, in so celebrating, to communicate, to appreciate shared experience.  The Rashab, therefore, goes on to explain that the sephirot of tohu¹⁶ were characterized not only by their exaltedness — albeit of a degraded sort, as we have discovered — but also by their perfection or completeness.¹⁷ In one sense, he says, “it is because one lacks and cannot, by himself, satisfy his need that he must receive from another who can.”¹⁸ Their apparent state of completion, therefore, rendered the sephirot of tohu “reluctant,”¹⁹  as it were, to accept from one another.  It likewise disinclined them to give to one another because, explains the Rashab, the act of giving reveals in the donor unprecedented powers, new and profound insights that would otherwise be inaccessible, such that to give is also to receive and implicitly, therefore, to lack.²⁰ That ‘completeness’ which thesephirot of tohu enjoy is one that cannot be shared; it precludes the “discovery of any merit in the other”²¹  by virtue of which communication of any sort would be desirable.

Considered more deeply, it is evident that such ‘completeness’ is rather incomplete.  A thing may indeed be infinitely perfect in its kind but, wanting of all possible perfections, be not infinitely perfect in the absolute sense.²² The Rashab expresses this insight as follows: “each sephira of tikkun”²³ — in contrast to those of tohu — “… senses than none is complete without the others… thus do they accept completeness from one another.”²⁴ Collectively, in society with one another, as it were, they embody infinite completion in the absolute sense.  Not despite, but precisely because of their differences, each celebrates the others and recognizes in them the elements of its own wholeness.  Just as true exaltedness was seen not to conflict with diversity, to entail not the negation of the other, but universal toleration, so too does the same imply the value and necessity of sharing with others, of communicating with them, learning from them, and, in doing so, giving rise to something far greater.

Now, as Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, is reported to have said,²⁵  “the entire idea of Chassidus is to change the nature of one’s attributes,” to change not only one’s natural characteristics themselves, but also the very “nature of one’s character.”²⁶ It is, therefore, to be granted that the Rashab speaks not simply of obscure metaphysical events and the reasons they took place but, rather, deploys his explanation of these events to teach us something about ourselves and the way we ought to relate to those around us.  In times such as ours when often it seems that our best course of action lies sometimes in aggression, sometimes in defense, it is best to recall that another option is ever at hand.  It is the difficult practice of opening our hearts to others without any guarantees.  It is a matter not of negotiations that proceed from an unbending and fundamentally — if subtly — intolerant state of self ­satisfaction but of seeing in the other someone of whom we have great need, someone without whom we are altogether incomplete.  It is a matter of seeing in the other a bearer of truths, even if those truths be difficult to accept, even if they run contrary to our most deeply held values and ideas.  It is a matter of constructing new truths together and of coming to see ourselves as members of a higher community, an ordered multiplicity of being.  It is, finally, a matter of seeing in all of this not a perspective born of weakness, neither admission of defeat nor the capitulation that follows, but something to which we aspire, a capacity indicative of having attained to things most lofty and most sublime.  Without fear of embellishment, I believe that this is what the Rashab has given us to understand.

 

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About the Author:

Hayyim Rothman was ordained at Machon L’Smicha in Miami and soon went on to earn a M.S. in urban education at Florida International University. After teaching special education in both public schools and Jewish day schools in the area he went on to earn a M.A. in Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University and a M.A in philosophy at Boston College. Hayyim is currently a doctoral candidate at Boston College.

 

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Footnotes and Sources:

1. Locke, J. 2003. A Letter Concerning Toleration. In Two Treatises of Government and a Letter Concerning Toleration. Newhaven: Yale U. Press. p. 218.

 

2. This was the central concern of the Alter Rebbe, Shneur Zalman of Liadi.  Several sources might be cited, but the most significant is his letter to Moshe Meisels: “If [Napoleon] Bonaparte is victorious,” he wrote, “then the power of the Jews will be elevated, and they will have plenty of riches. However, their hearts will become separated and alienated from their Father in Heaven. [On the other hand,] if [Czar] Alexander is victorious, the power of the Jews will be diminished, and poverty will increase among the Jews. However, the hearts of the Jews will rejoice, bind and become securely attached to their Father in Heaven.”

 

3. These appear in Schneersohn, S.D.B. 2001. Besho Shehikdimu: 5762. Vol.1. New York: Kehot Publication Society.

 

4. Henceforth I shall refer to him by the acronym in common use: Rashab (i.e.Rabbi Sholom Ber).

 

5. Stated in brief, this refers to the a world of chaos that preceded the present one which is, generally speaking, characterized by order and, therefore, referred to by the term ‘tikkun,” or ‘fixed.’  In tohu, the divine emanations or attributes known as ‘sephirot’ are said to have ‘shattered’ and later to have been reconstituted in tikkun.  See Shochet, J.I. 1979. Tohu and Tikun.  In Mystical Concepts in Chassidism: An Introduction to Kabbalistic Concepts and Doctrines. 143­146.  New York: Kehot Publication Society.

 

6. “Yesh we­davar bifne atsmo (Besho Shehikdimu. p. 466.)”

 

7. The terms ‘hithnasut’ and ‘romemut’ are used interchangeably, both signifying the state of being at a height or remove.  For the sake of convenience, I translate both by “exaltedness.”

 

8. This one being written for the first night of Shavuot, 1914.

 

9. Ibid. p. 470.

 

10. And, the Rashab notes, he may, indeed, attain to “extreme greatness (hagdalah yetera) (ibid. p. 473).”

 

11. Ibid. p. 477.

 

12. Ibid.

 

13. “Le­mala me­geder inyan ha­ilui (ibid. p. 471).”

 

14. As the Rashab puts it, “it is, like an essence, not in a state of existence in itself (ayno be­behinath metsiyuth be­atsmo kemo ha­etsem) (ibid.).”

 

15. Ibid. p. 475.

 

16. Of which we spoke above.  See n. 5.

 

17. Shelemut (ibid. p. 479).

 

18. Ibid. p. 480.

 

19. They “lo ratsu… le­kabel (did not want to accept).”

 

20. This argument  is based on the notion that “the first is wedged in the last and the last in the first (Sefer Yetsira, 1:7).” Interpreting ‘first’ and ‘last’ in terms of the relative status of teacher and student (and, by extension, giver and receiver) this is taken to suggest that “there is to be found in the recipient a novel thing which is not to be found in the donor (Besho Shehikdimu. p. 481).”  This, in turn, is taken to explain why, in the first place, the donor gives: “the reason for donation… is that by this means, the donor receives (ibid. p. 482)” said novelty.

 

21. Ibid. p. 483.

 

22. Here, I draw on Spinoza’s distinction between ‘absolute infinity’ and ‘infinity in kind.  See his Ethics, I.Def.6.Exp.

 

23. See n. 5 above.

 

24. Ibid. p. 480.

 

25. Schneerson, M.M. 1986. On the Essence of Chassidus. Trans. Greenberg, Y.H.; Handelman, S.S. New York: Kehot Publication Society. p. 3.

 

26. Schneersohn, Y.Y. 1987 Likutei Dibburim. Vol. 1. Trans. Kaploun, U.  New York: Kehot Publication Society.  pp. 56a­b.