משבר ואמונה, החיים האישיים, ד. משמעות, ערכים והפרטCrisis and Faith, II The Personal Life, 4 Meaning, Value and Person
א׳
1We saw that from the purely scientific point of view the world is an unplanned, inexplicable chance event that is because it happens to be. We also showed that such a universe lacks meaning and value. The insignificance of our globe in purely materialistic terms is explained by Eddington, to quote him once again, with the help of the following example. Imagine, he says, New York’s Grand Central Station filled with particles of dust from the floor to the ceiling and from one end to the other. Concentrate on one particle of dust. That particle of dust represents the size of the earth in relationship to the universe. In quantitative terms, this earth of man is as ridiculously insignificant in its comparative smallness as the rest of the universe is idiotic in its limitless vastness. There is nothing more stupid than mere quantitative size. The mathematically quantified and scientifically objectified universe lacks quality; because of that it is without meaning and value.
ב׳
2Yet, there is meaning in the world, for man knows about meaning. He searches for it. Even when he denies it, he affirms it. If he reaches the conclusion that there is no meaning to life, he must have some idea of what that meaning ought to be and looking around in the world he cannot find it. Only in the light of some expectation of meaning can he reach the judgment that existence is meaningless. Of course, where there is meaning, there is value; that which is meaningful is valuable, and only that which is valuable can be meaningful. What is the significance of the fact that man asks about meaning and searches for it?
ג׳
3Camus was of the opinion that the universe was meaningless; only man in it knew about meaning, only he can introduce meaning into it. Notwithstanding the high esteem in which one holds Camus, this kind of reasoning is clearly fallacious. If the universe were meaningless, a chance event, how could man know about meaning? He is part of that same universe, formed by the same impersonal forces. It would be the mystery of all mysteries, the miracle of all miracles, if an unplanned, purposeless, indifferent universe had produced meaning in that tiniest little lump of matter that owed its very existence to a failure of “antiseptic precaution” in Nature. It would be an even deeper mystery than God’s creating the universe ex nihilo. Meaning cannot be a chance event; it has to be meant, intended, willed.
ד׳
4That the world is God’s creation is not a statement about cause and effect. Creation is essentially different from causation.1Cf. this author’s volume God, Man and History, Jonathan David Publishers, New York, 1959, ch. 8. Causation is an event; creation is of the spirit. Creation introduces the idea of intention into the universe. The world is intended, planned, purposed. The world is because it is meant to be. This is, of course, not a scientific statement. But no statement about meaning can be scientific. Yet, meaning is of the very essence of man. To say that the world is divine creation is affirmation of its quality. Creation is the qualitative dimension of reality. The fact that reality issued from the will of God, that it is purposed by God, gives value to being as its essential quality. The world is valuable because of its creation. Creation redeems existence from the nausea of “Istigkeit” (to use a term of Meister Echhart), from the dumbness of mere being. The scientific-quantitative description is an attempt at showing how the world appears; it cannot deal with what it is. The world as creation dwells in the dimension of ends; its quantitative interpretation represents one of its aspects that has meaning only because it provides the means for the realization of ends. Without the reference to the dimension of ends, a scientifically objectified being drowns in absurdity.
ה׳
5If Camus’ Meursault found redemption for his alienation when, in the absurdity of his own existence, he discovered brotherhood with the meaninglessness of our indifferent universe, the man who lives in the created world is not in need of such desperate solutions at which one grasps in order to overcome the dread of a prison’s death row. The man of creation knows himself as part of a cosmos that comprehends all in the unity of a divine plan. He knows that his existence is intended like the being of everything else that surrounds him. He knows of no cosmic alienation. As God’s creature he belongs in God’s creation. He is not crushed in his physical insignificance by the vastness of the universe. He is meant like everything else. He has his place within the whole and holds it. The innumerable galaxies do not frighten him. The cosmos is his home, no less than it is theirs.
ו׳
6The man who knows himself as part of creation is distinct from the rest of the universe in that he knows. He who knows of plan and meaning is responsible. Facing the world as creation, man faces God. That is the foundation of his being as a person. To be a person is to be responsible. God’s call to man calls him from the realm of “thinghood” into personal life.
ז׳
7The Jew who lives in the presence of God knows that the world is purposed and that, therefore, it is valuable and meaningful. But what is the purpose, what is the meaning? The more fundamental question is, why creation at all?
ח׳
8The most common answer found in philosophical as well as kabbalistic writing is: “It is the nature of the Good One to do good.” Rabbi Shneur Zalman in the Likutei Amarim maintains that God created with His attribute of gedulah, which is the attribute of ḥesed. In other words, He created out of lovingkindness. But lovingkindness toward whom? There is no answer to the question. Prior to creation, there is nothing apart from God. Toward whom, then, is God exercising lovingkindness when He creates? All such and similar explanations are of no avail. In order to act kindly, there must already be something in existence to be the recipient of kindness. But nothing needs nothing, one cannot be kind to nothing.
ט׳
9The only acceptable explanation seems to be that of Maimonides, who maintains that all we can say in reply to the question why God created is: It was His will to create. Obviously, He must have willed this world, otherwise He would not have brought it into being. The point Maimonides makes is that, no matter what reason we may think we have found for God’s creating, we shall always be able to ask: What for? Did He create the universe to reveal His mightiness? What for? Did He wish to reveal Himself to man, to give him the Torah, the commandments? What for? An infinite being like God, possessing perfection, could not be in need of anything. To want anything would be desiring something. But why should God desire anything? What could He be lacking? Therefore, all we know is that the world is the result of an act of divine volition; but there is no answer to the “why?”
י׳
10We might go one step farther. The purpose of the act of creation must have been a divine one. On account of that, its knowledge is inaccessible to man. Even if God desired to communicate to man His own divine reason for wanting to create, our finite minds would not be able to grasp it. He would have had to bestow upon us His divine intellect in order to inform us of the meaning of creation unto Himself. It is, of course, an impossibility to be man, equipped with God’s mind.
י״א
11One thing, however, is certain. Since the world is creation, there is purpose to it; there must be meaning in existence. Victor Frankle, in his Man’s Search for Meaning, disagrees with those psychologists who are of the opinion that man is determined by his drives, such as the desire for pleasure or for power, or whatever else the case may be. According to him the importance of the drives is exaggerated. What is decisive for human existence is man’s will for meaning. In the concentration camps, Frankle found that it was not the physically fittest people who had the best chance for survival, but those who, in spite of everything, were still able to retain some sense of meaningfulness in existence.
י״ב
12Martin Buber maintains that one of the results of a revelational experience is that man comes out of it with the conviction of life’s meaningfulness, with the certainty that from now on nothing can be meaningless. However, what the meaning is according to Buber is not revealed. Revelation has no content according to him. With the certainty that life is meaningful, man has to go into the world and discover the meaning for himself. Sartre believes that man has to create his own values. As we saw earlier, Buber, in disagreement, maintains that values cannot be created; they exist, they are given; they have to be discovered. Similarly, there is meaning; one has to discover it for one’s personal life. In essence, Frankle says the same. One cannot tell anyone what the meaning of one’s existence is; but meaning confronts man and he has to respond to it. There is a serious problem inherent in such a position. If man alone can discover the meaning of his life, if he has to find it, to choose it from among many other possibilities, then clearly everyone is to choose the meaning of his own existence. But if it is up to man, to everyone individually to choose, who is to decide on right or wrong? Every choice of each person is as valid as that of any other. There are then no objective standards by which to choose and to decide. While the practice of human kindness toward all may be meaningful for one person, genocide may be equally meaningful for another. Yet meaning must be personal, it has to be the meaning of my own life; it cannot but be subjective. But if so, the distinction between right and wrong disappears. The floodgates of anarchy, everyone doing his own thing, have been opened on mankind.
י״ג
13The solution to the problem would seem to be that the subjectively chosen meaning has to be found or discovered or created within an objectively given frame of reference. For a Jew this objective frame of reference is the Torah and the Mitzvot (commandments), which determine for all Jews in common the meaning of being Jews, to live in accordance with the will of God as revealed in His Torah. Outside of this objectively given frame of reference there can be no meaning in being a Jew. In fact, even a person who does not practice Judaism can only be a Jew if he is qualified to be one in conformity with the objective standards that determine what it means to be a Jew.
י״ד
14However, while the objective frame of reference determines the meaning of being a Jew, it does not determine the specific meaning in the life of this specific Jew or of the other. In other words, that subjective meaning which is essential for every individual in his own personal, unique life situation is not determined by Torah and Mitzvot. It is here and here alone, that Buber and Frankle come into their own. It is up to every individual to discover the subjective meaning of his own personal life, what to do with his life within the objective frame of reference. Others may advise him, may help him, but ultimately the choice must be his own, the decision must be his.
ט״ו
15No one can really tell anyone else what the meaning of his life should be. This is just as well; only a puppet could be so instructed. It is of the very essence of human existence to search for this personal meaning to one’s personal existence, to formulate it, to discover it. It is of the very essence of life’s adventure and man’s creativity. It may even be that, while the meaning of one man’s life is something very tangible and definite, that of another is the search for it. It is told of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov that, lying on his death bed, he was heard to say: “Now I know what I have lived for.”
ט״ז
16As far as a Jew is concerned, despite the fact that he might often feel frustrated, depressed, or dejected at not being able to discover the subjective, personal element within the meaning of his existence, his life can never be completely meaningless. For he shares with all other Jews in the objective meaningfulness to be found within the frame of reference of Torah.
י״ז
17When modern man seeks for meaning in his life, he usually thinks of self-realization or self-fulfillment. Very often, however, self-realization becomes a form of depersonalization. What is the self? That which is complete within itself knows not of the desire for self-realization or of the drive to self-fulfillment. He or it is what it is and is thus already realized. A tree, for instance, does not strive for self-realization. True, it may be growing, developing from an acorn to an oak, yet at every moment of its existence it is what it is, without expectation of the next phase of its growth. As man looks upon it, an acorn may be seen as a potential oak. But the acorn knows nothing of its potentiality. It is complete in itself. This is the characteristic of every impersonal form of existence. It is fully comprehended in each now; fully realized in its momentary existence. The impersonal lives in timelessness, under the threshhold of time. Only of the impersonal is Locke’s definition of time valid. For the It, time is a continuous dying; each Now is the end of its world, to start again with every new Now.
י״ח
18To strive for self-realization presupposes freedom. One must be free to choose among different possible courses of action the one that will lead to self-fulfillment. But freedom is a possibility of being, i.e., a form of non-being, something yet to be, a not-yet. What is complete within itself has no freedom; it is already realized. Thus, the self is forever unfinished, is always what it may yet be. By way of its freedom the not-yet is incorporated in every Now of the self. Its Now is open-ended; it is anticipation of the future. The not-yet is forever present in the life of the self. Because of the element of freedom that is part of his destiny, man’s presence is expectation. What does he expect? Himself! In freedom man reaches out toward the not-yet of his being for selfhood. The self of the moment is the self that has to be transcended in order that man may come more richly and more authentically to himself. The personal life is a process of self-transcendence. If one accepts the moment-self as the authentic one, one should not really speak of self-realization. The self of the moment is already realized. In this case, self-fulfillment can only mean living completely in a Now that has lost its open-endedness toward the future. It is the “timeless” dimension of impersonal “thing-hood.”
י״ט
19When God addressed Adam and gave him his first commandment, He called him from the innocence of completed thinghood in an eternal Now into the personal reality of the not-yet and revealed to him human freedom as the source of responsibility. Only because man is forever not-yet, because his humanity consists in self-transcendence, can he be the recipient of divine commandments. A tree, an animal, and a man when he shuts himself into the satisfied self-acceptance of the eternal Now, know of no Thou-shalt or Thou-shalt-not. Responsibility is the freedom of self-transcendence. Only because of that could man be entrusted with the revelation of God’s word for him. If then man seeks for the specific meaning of his individual existence in “self-realization” within the process of self-transcendence, forever breaking out of the imprisoning Now along the road, he may be granted to hear the Word, guiding him to his own most personal self-transcending destiny.