The New Criterion

Jul 05, 2007 02:54 PM

The Meaning of Suffering: Part XII

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Roundtable Index: Introduction | Part I: Roth | Part II: Palazzi | Part III: Pearl | Part IV: Yellin | Part V: Guimond | Part VI: Glazov | Part VII: Evanier | Part VIII: Kimball | Part IX: Roth | Part X: Palazzi | Part XI: Pearl | Part XII: Yellin | Part XIII: Guimond | Part XIV: Glazov | Part XV: Evanier | Part XVI: Kimball (Conclusion) |

Yellin: Feeling enriched by the discussions on suffering brings me only to suffering with a conversation that leads to obfuscation. Terminology and semantics inevitably blunt communication. For different faiths to communicate we need to understand each others myths, sociologies, and histories to begin to penetrate the understanding of elusive terms. Judaism could probably be defined as an attempt to contract the “HOLY” into extremely limited arenas, where God is never mentioned, and places are never sanctified. Christians love to say “Holy Land” when Jews say “Land of Holiness” (Eretz Hakodesh not Haaretz Hakedushah) where, how people treat their fellowman is the sole criterion of Holiness.

God in Jewish tradition can never be pronounced in the Hebrew – in fact when we use the tetragrammaton it is always substituted with a kind of “I Do Not Know” phrase which indicates if we can’t talk about it in a way that does not use the WORD, then we have no right to use it in conversations with our diverse fellows. IF God means nothing then it means everything so let us speak about everything else and learn how to live with others as individuals whose behavior is filtered by centuries of his or her parochial civilization which just might have intuited the proper moral and civilized nature of humanity.

Suffering too is one of those outrageous words no matter what the philosophers and writers have penned or opined about it. I prefer the Hebrew “yissurim” meaning something in the order of “instruction – musar.” Instead of speculating about philosophy we should talk of how we view what some call pain and others call pleasure and love. All things that chance upon us create different reactions in the “sufferers.” How much trouble pain and suffering does it take to climb Everest or to root out a group of terrorists in a war who murder innocents; “suffering” terrorists are glorified by miscreants who use God and Holiness and justice to pervert the very values that enable respect for diversity to exist in the first place.

Suffering used with regard to God cannot be defined properly unless it is used in a way that all peoples understand. Let’s take the “Suffering of the Jewish People” concept. It is used by Anti-Semites and Christians and Moslems and by Jews, and for each it means something different. Jews say “schver zu zein ah Yid” – it is difficult to be a Jew, which means that it is a privilege to be one who stands up for civilization. Hence this non-Jewish word suffering means that life and its tribulations are instructive and ennobling if you look at life as “musar.[instruction]”

And getting back to the notion of reducing and almost eliminating all of the HOLY from the domain of diversity, take Maimonides Code over the Hippocratic Oath. Hippocrates calls doctors to accountability. Maimonides says all humanity has the exact same holy calling of healing and if one has a medical talent called medicine, that expertise must be used with the same responsibility the “ordinary” person has with regard to using all of his own less informed power to save life. Either all are HOLY or no one is holy.

With all due respect to individual stories or the suffering of any ONE unusual MAN, we must never let the biography or gore of the individual trump the well being of the whole people. I am in Jerusalem right now looking from the Mt. of Olives and seeing the supposed site of Moses’ grave on far off Nebo on a Jordanian mountain range. Christians built a Church there and Jews couldn’t care less, because the individual must never be more important than the people. If there is a God in this world then he is concerned with all of humanity and HIS revelations are fathomless; but if a people lives that subscribes to a non hierarchical holiness of all humanity and a sacredness concept of all of God’s earth, then any so called suffering should very simply be called the human condition, with our responsibility being to help each other using all our abilities with all of our limitations.

Anne Frank’s story or Jesus’ or Mohammed’s story, or Daniel Pearl’s story, is only important in so far as it changes humanity for the better like ANY truly human story will do. No one’s “sufferings” is any more or less harsh than any other’s, for a humane civilized message directed to the group collective, might just make for a better world.

Again, the purpose of a Jewish religious tradition is to reverse all conventional systems; to polemicize against commonly held mis-beliefs, and to replace them with values that prefer humanity over ethnicity, race, preferenced self enhancement, and triumphal boasting of individual or parochial preachments. He who speaks best appeals to the goodness of all.

When Cain killed Abel, the Bible says ingeniously, “the bloods of your brother Abel cry out to ME. All sufferings are indeterminant and they must be reduced to musar lessons which all of us can use to upgrade our common moral or human quotient. Either all of us are protected, or none of us are, and therefore the concept of “protected” is utterly useless and disfiguring. One’s personal suffering is indivisibly linked to everyone else’s human condition, and realizing that, brings us all closer to loving others the way we try to love ourselves. At best love must be reduced to bringing us all closer to the concept of eliminating all that is hateful to all of our fellow residents on this special earth given to all as a universal sacred trust. We must all bloom where we are planted in our own parochialisms, but humanity demands that we transcend our limited and blighted notions and branch out and fructify the world. And it is not important who does it best but to get on with the doing of it so that all are the recipients of humanity. Yesterday I went through the new Yad Vashem Memorial –Holocaust Memorial- in Jerusalem. It has only one purpose and the mission statement is visually seen at the end of the long dark tunnel of humanity’s suffering- the window looking out over a peaceful Jerusalem scene. Walking through that tunnel with me were peoples as diverse as some Sudanese, Nigerians, Indians, et al. We all had tears- all the tears were irrelevant in the face of our resolve to learn the common lessons of decency for us all.

I am humbled by all with whom we share this forum who have challenged us to think more clearly about a subject that forces us into a world of a higher level of humaneness. May the GRAND GENERIC IMPERATIVE bless all.