The Power Of Mystery

MyLife Essay Contest

“The world endures only by virtue of the secret” – Zohar, 3:128a, Idra Rabba

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” – Elie Wiesel, US News & World Report (27 October, 1986)

Introduction

The amusing and thought-provoking comic strip, “Calvin and Hobbes,” features a frame in which Calvin and Hobbes lay against a tall tree with long branches and full leaves hovering over them. Looking inquisitively into the clear sky, Calvin says, “I suppose it will all make sense when we grow up.”
Such curiosity and wonder is a propeller towards a meaningful life.
Unfortunately, in contemporary society people more often walk with their heads down affixed to a phone, than they do with their heads up, taking in the mystery of the world around them. Ambition is often directed towards acquiring more in quantity than to probing deeper in quality. Genuine childlike curiosity about the world, ourselves, and other people is sorely lacking. We will look at three problem areas in which this lack of curiosity is manifest: relationships, education, and religious engagement.
Among the most fundamental teachings of Chassidus is that things are not simply as they appear. Chassidus’ focus on revealing the hidden and endless depth in ordinary life has the unique ability to open one’s sense of wonderment and interest in the world.
Cultivating an awareness and interest in the deeper layers of ourselves, others, and the world can play a vital role in countering complacency in relationships, education, and religious life.

The Problems

Relationships
In the well-known work, The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm writes, “No objective observer of our Western life can doubt that love – brotherly love, motherly love, and erotic love – is a relatively rare phenomenon, and that its place is taken by a number of forms of pseudo-love which are in reality so many forms of the disintegration of love.”1 This statement was written sixty years ago, yet studies verify that the state of relationships has only continued to deteriorate.
In the U.S., forty to fifty percent of first marriages and fifty to sixty percent of second marriages end in divorce.2 This inability to cultivate meaningful relationships holds true outside the context of marriage and romantic relationships as well.3 Studies show that seventy-five percent of people are not satisfied with their friendships and sixty- three percent are not confident their friends actually value the relationship. From 1985 to 2004, the number of people who say there is no one with whom they confide and discuss important matters has increased significantly.4
This deteriorated state of relationships is connected to a lack of curiosity in knowing and understanding other people. Leading marriage researcher, John Gottman, stresses the importance of “Enhancing Your Love Map,” by which he means constantly learning more about your partner’s history, personality, and feelings as they develop and change. Complacency with knowledge of one’s spouse or friend precludes such growth.5

[aside] This deteriorated state of relationships is connected to a lack of curiosity in knowing and understanding other people. [/aside]

Education
Education researchers report that, “Students view schooling as boring or as a mere grade game, in which they try to get by with as little effort at possible.”6 Similarly, in studying “student apathy” researchers report that, “Teachers in classrooms nationwide have expressed frustration toward the neutrality students demonstrate toward the academic experience… A low achieving, bored, checked-out student body can be found in virtually all institutions.”7
Further, even among the ostensibly successful and motivated students in Ivy League colleges, the quality of genuine learning has deteriorated. William Deresiewicz, former professor of English at Yale University, writes, “The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose.”8 Genuine interest and meaningful exploration often falls by the wayside in the competitive environment of modern intellectual circles.
This too relates to contentment with superficiality. Without curiosity there is no education. The German philosopher-poet, Novalis, commented, “Every stage of education begins with childhood.  That is why the most educated person on earth so much resembles a child.”9

Religious Engagement
In the Jewish community one need not look far to come across apathy in teens and adults. Educators speak of non-interested and stimulated students, parents of children they “can’t get to do anything,” and community leaders of a dearth of engaged and invested adults. Many of them portray this issue as a lack of meaningful connection, spirituality, and faith. Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zweibel writes,
The Torah community’s single greatest challenge as we face a frighteningly uncertain future: the undeniable fact that increasing numbers from across the spectrum of Orthodoxy – Chasidish, Yeshivish, Modern, Ashkenazi, Sefardi, young, not so young – feel no meaningful connection to Hashem, to His Torah, or even to His People.10
This challenge stems, at least in part, from a lack of mystery-awareness. If the heart and mind of man are filled and satisfied by the superficial world then spirituality and religious messages fall on deaf ears.

Chassidus: Revealing the Hidden

In the famed and celebrated 32nd chapter of Tanya, Rav Shneur Zalman of Liady (the Alter Rebbe) explains a most puzzling statement in the Talmud. A potential convert approached Shamai and asked to be taught the entirety of Torah while standing on one foot. Shamai naturally disregarded the man as befitted the absurdity of his request. Hillel, however, answered him in a most peculiar fashion: “That which you dislike do not do to your friend; this is the entirety of the Torah and the rest is explanation, go and learn.”11 The question on Hillel’s response jumps off the page: Could this single directive really be the entirety of Torah?! The Torah encompasses a vast range of topics, laws, and values; treating one’s friend favorably is certainly important, but it seems a far cry from the entirety of Torah.12
The Alter Rebbe offers a unique and remarkable interpretation. Truly fulfilling the commandment to treat your friend favorably requires a deeper understanding of the human being. A human being is not merely the flesh and blood he appears to be, nor is he simply a thinking rational mind. A human being is a “Chelek Eloka mi’maal mamesh” – “A part of God above, literally.”13 God creates by emanating His own light through a series of contractions until it is manifest in the world as we know it. One such emanation, or ray of light, which emerges from a particularly lofty aspect of Godliness, is what we refer to as a “person.”14 15 In fact, teaches the Alter Rebbe, all people are one ray of light, one Godly emanation. The apparent multiplicity of persons in different bodies with different personalities is merely the result of the vessels through which this light is shone.
By way of analogy, imagine a massive spotlight beaming down from high above. Twenty feet below, there is a plank of wood with three holes side by side. When standing below the plank, the light appears as three separate lights. However, one who is able to peer above the plank sees that in reality it is one light. Physical bodies are the plank of wood causing human beings to appear as distinct entities. Yet in essence they are in fact united as one Divine being. This understanding of the inherent unity between man and his fellow allows one to truly fulfill the imperative to love thy neighbor.
This is the entirety of the Torah, teaches Hillel. Not the specific directive of treating another human favorably, but the essential shift of perspective that is needed to accomplish such a task. In the words of the Alter Rebbe, “The foundation and root of all of Torah is to elevate one’s focus from body to soul,”16 to move from looking forward to looking above. Torah teaches us to peek into the mystery that lies above the plank of wood, beyond the superficial level of reality that meets the eye.
Rav Yoel Kahn, close disciple of the Lubavitcher Rebbe zt”l, writes, “The essence of Chassidus is the bringing together of the ‘revealed’ and the ‘hidden’ in everything.”17 Perhaps the most fundamental teaching of Chassidus is to look for the hidden depth in everything.

Chassidus Applied:

Chassidus’ focus on teaching people to uncover deeper layers in man, the world, and God is able to stimulate one’s thinking and curiosity. For this reason, it is particularly relevant and helpful in addressing the problem areas described above.

Relationships
Relationships are nourished by an interest to know one another more and more. Fromm lists “knowledge” as one of the basic elements of love. But not any knowledge, rather “The knowledge which is an aspect of love is one which does not stay at the periphery, but penetrates to the core… ‘To know the secret of man.”18
Chassidus teaches that the Hebrew word for stranger, zar, is the same letters as raz, secret; it is also the numerical value of the word ohr, light.19 Approaching our friends and loved ones with the knowledge that they hold layers still unknown to us, fosters an interest to learn more about them and discover their secret. This brings light and energy into the relationship as it stays fresh with new layers continually unfolding.

Education
Instilling genuine curiosity and interest within the student transforms the learning experience. When material is approached with a keen interest in learning and growing, it moves from an obligatory chore to a personal adventure of shaping one’s identity and soul.
On a practical level, teachers should focus more lessons on opening doors to further thought, rather than providing ready-made solutions and answers. Similarly, schools should assign significant class time to reading short amounts of material and instruct students not to read further, but instead to read the same material again. 20

Religious Engagement
Lastly, awakening a sense of wonderment and questioning primes a person for a meaningful relationship with religion. The Passover Seder night, the pinnacle moment of transmitting Jewish heritage to the next generation, is a night of questions. The Talmud teaches that adults should go out of their way to provoke the child’s curiosity and inquiry.21 Our sages understood, already thousands of years ago, that only through curiosity and inquisitiveness does Judaism gain its impact and worth.
In the “heart of Tanya,”22 the Alter Rebbe teaches us that the entirety of Torah is to see the world in a deeper way and cultivate a yearning to look behind the mask of nature. This yearning, even before any answers are provided, is a momentous step forward in the world of spirituality and religious connection.

Conclusion:

“The world endures only by virtue of the secret,” says the Zohar. The vitality of life is awakened when one lives with a longing to know the secret. When the quest for the secret is abandoned and man forgets there is a secret, progress halts. Without something unknown, nothing more is needed and complacency sets in. Chassidus reignites the awareness and thirst for the secret. This thirst has the unique capacity to bring new life to relationships, education, and religious engagement and to fundamentally transform one’s experience in this world.

Footnotes and Sources