A presentation of the philosophy Rabbi Neil Gillman

This is a speech given at the BSKI Synagogue in August 2009. Speaker: Richard Gavatin

“Dvar Torah” Aug 29,. 2009

Shabbat Shalom

So, who wrote the Bible? What?! Sorry! Wrong speech

As you most likely know by now, the Adult Education Committee is presenting a Scholar-in-Residence Weekend November 13 -15. This has made possible through a very generous gift in memory of Cillia Rotman Haffner. Our SIR is Rabbi Neil Gillman of the JTS.

In agreement with both Rabbi Gillman and Rabbi Miller, I am now about to substitute the traditional commentary on today’s Torah portion, Ki Tetze, with a shameless plug for the SIR Weekend and the upcoming Book Club sessions.

Rabbi Gilman’s teachings are up there, with the other “names” you know, of 20th Century thinkers, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Mordecai Kaplan and others. Some argue that the difference between Gillman, on the one hand, and Heschel & Kaplan on the other, is that in Gillman vs. Heschel, Gillman is more understandable, and in Gillman vs. Kaplan, Gillman is more correct….

Rabbi Neil Gillman has written a number of books, all worthwhile reading, and highly recommended. He has been a SIR for the last 20 yrs and also taught in Israel and in Russia.

He has, in my opinion, a unique ability to teach. Highly complex thought processes and concepts are being served to us in easy-to-swallow bites. Does that mean that everything he says is understandable right away and is integrateable in your mind without effort? No and No.

It does take an effort and that is why the Adult Ed committee has planned a series of events to help you.

In addition to this short presentation, we’ve published articles in the Shofar, we’ve submitted articles to the Light and we have three Book Club Sessions planned.

We encourage you to get to know Rabbi Gillman’s teachings and what follows is a first installment:
In order to understand the Gillman philosophy, one has to look at the definitions of some concepts to make sure that we are comparing apples to apples.
The first pair of concepts consists of Signs and Symbols. An example of a Sign is a “red light” on a road. We know that the color red represents a command to stop the vehicle until the light changes.

But there is no inherent connection between “red” and “stop”, the color could have been blue or purple. A Sign therefore is a convention that easily can be changed.
Another example is an American Flag. The flag represents The US. However, the connection is tighter, than with a sign. A flag is considered a Symbol in this context, and not as easy to change. Just imagine the uproar if Congress decided to change the American Flag to a green cross on a purple background.

Symbols live and they can die. An example is the masculine quality of traditional Jewish symbols of God, a quality that many people these days replace with more gender-neutral language. Instead of saying “we trust Him”, we say “we trust God” and so on.

Religion consists of symbols as well, although there are technical differences. An example is that we speak of God as Avinu Malkenu (‘our father, our king’) where strong symbols familiar to us (Father and King) are used to represent our community’s experience of God.

Many philosophers claim that all religious language has to be understood as “symbolic” or “mythic”.

In Popular parlance, a myth is understood to be either a fiction (the myth of the invincibility of a sports team) or a legend (like the myth of Oedipus). Technically, it is neither of these, but rather a structure of meaning through which we make sense of our experience. Let me repeat that a myth is a structure of meaning through which we make sense of our experience.

The world out there does not come to us in a nicely tied up package of objective meaning. Before we can even see the world “out there” a process has to take place to interpret it. Rabbi Gillman writes that even a simple thing as a glass of water is a process that does not take place in our eyes but in our brain. Billions of neurons are in action for us to actually see what’s there, but also our background, culture, gender, education, age and more play a role. We are not passive recipients of a premade reality out there, we construct what we see. In other words, we read it.

Myths are the spectacles, glasses, if you will, through which we understand the reality out there. Myths are not the same as lies or untruths. Myths deal with beginnings. So, for example, the Jewish myth is the Exodus from Egypt and the receiving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, which tells our community’s master story. This myth is then refined, shared and transmitted through generations. It becomes embodied in official, canonical texts. In its final form, it becomes authoritative, and quasi-invisible or implied.
Myths explain, account for, and give answers to questions like Why. In general, myths explain overt data by referring to an invisible or elusive world “behind the data”. This includes science. Take for instance the theory of quantum mechanics; it is not something you can see, touch or smell. So the theory of quantum mechanics is a myth that helps us understand a specific reality. Or Freud’s theory of the subconscious and his entire psychoanalytic theory. Or even astronomy. They are all technical myths. Again, that doesn’t mean they are untruths or do not exist. They are just ways to explain something that is “out there” and does not readily come to us right away, like the seeing of this glass of water. They need interpretation and that interpretation is what is called a myth.

A community is defined by its myth. What separates one community from another is their myths. Language, history, traditions, culture, music, and food, are all components that make up a community’s myth.

So, what is different with a religious myth? There are two ways that a religious myth differs from other myths:
One is that a religious myth addresses ultimate questions, like “Why am I here?”, “What happens to me after Death?”, “How do I live authentically?”, “How do I reach fulfillment?”, “What does salvation mean?” - In short, a religious myth provides answers to people’s intuitive, inherent search for meaning.
The second is that a religious myth, at least in the monotheistic setting, provides answers to these questions through viewing nature and history as the work of a transcendent God.
We can only, as humans, characterize God through the tools that we have at hand. We can only speak of God with the tools of language – that’s all we have. God is – in this setting – within the mythic structure that we associate with. In our case, the Jewish myth, speaks of a very specific God, Adoshem, that has all the characteristics that our tradition has bestowed upon God.

That is NOT to say that God is a fiction. Our ancestors no more “invented” God than Freud invented the psyche. I think we can all agree that there was a psyche long before there was Freud.
But our ancestors experienced God’s presence in nature and in history, and the source for this experience was the revelation at Sinai; Here is where you can clearly see that myth does not equal fiction.

The myth and the original experience continued to feed on each other: Quote: (from “The Seminary at 100” – a book celebrating 100 yrs of The Jewish Theological Seminary’s from 1987)

“ The mythic characterization of God shapes the experience (of the revelation at Sinai). But at the same time, the ongoing experience of God’s presence has verified the myth over countless generations” End quote.

In other words, a person who sees himself or herself as a believing Jew, continues to see God’s presence just as the ancestors did at Sinai.

Religious myths are canonized in sacred texts, like the Torah for us, the Book of Mormons for the Latter Day saints, and the Koran for the Muslims and so on. Although the book or books are sealed, the myth itself must be elastic enough so that generations can expand, change and revise the myth so that it, the myth, speaks to them. We Jews have a special term for his process. What is it?

We call it Midrash. Just think of the Akeidah, the near sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, that in only 3 weeks, we will re-read on Rosh Hashanah. How many interpretations of that story have you heard throughout your lifetime? Just think about it.

Scholars claim that if we do not re-interpret our historic myths, they will die. That is, they become untrue or in other words they then become “myths” in the popular sense of the word.

An example of that is the ‘myth’ that six million people died in the Holocaust because God punished them for their sins. This is a myth in a technical sense. However, it is one that has “died” for most of us. In other words, here is an example of myth that is untrue because we no longer believe it. Needless to say that there is a minority of ultra-orthodox people who would hold this myth as true, but for the majority of us, this would be a non-functioning myth.

As you can understand, there is so much more to learn about this, and I encourage you to read the Book Club book, “Sacred Fragments”, copies of which I believe are supposed to be available in the Office. Please check with Harvey.

And please sign up for the Book Club sessions through the office. One more thing, we’re hoping that this weekend of Programs will attract people in the community who are interested in Jewish learning, We therefore urge all of you to, quote, “be part of the BSKI PR Committee” if not literally at least in action: Talk to friends, colleagues, neighbors, and let them know about the weekend. Please read the articles in the Shofar - this is an opportunity to show the St. Louis Jewish community what BSKI is all about.

Lastly I want to think Rabbi M for letting me advertise on Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom