What Can We Learn from Chanukah? - Part 4 - Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb

I just want to start with reporting on something it was in today's times I the irony I know they waited till now to publish it they found something in 2009 and that's reporting on it now what is it it's a large table sized artifact found in a synagogue in the Galil excavated and it comes from during the Second Temple period and this it has you know it's not just flat but it has sides and on the sides there are very elaborate carvings of the Temple in Jerusalem and this has caused a major revolution in the thinking of at least some historians I'll admit a snide remark their thinking was that synagogues were we call synagogues but the Knesset were like community centers during Second Temple period place where people got together and maybe they talked and discussed and debated and plans community actions as over the so on and then when the temple was destroyed and the sacrifice is no longer could be offered then it was turned into a place of prayer that was their attitude but then why would you have one of these community centers at a time when the temple is existing and the sacrifices are going on using those motifs to decorate this community center maybe could it be that the beit knesset the community center was used for prayer even then and that's up ending all their assumptions about the way in which prayer developed turns over the zone now that's especially ironical for us because our tradition tells us that organized prayer was invented at the beginning of the Second Temple period prayer and sacrifices went hand in hand for four hundred and twenty years so of course a bit less than the time of the Second Temple was used for prayer of course it was / have been going on for you for hundreds of years the end of the Second Temple period why these historians of Judaism don't take seriously our documents you have to ask them our documents are just fantasy they're made up there they have no historical value all of a sudden is a direct confirmation for it indeed the Talmud is very careful with this language when it describes the creation of formalized prayer it uses the word connected the prayers were created to correspond to the sacrifices not in place of the sacrifices but to correspond with the sacrifices and indeed if you want to trace it back further there's a famous verse in Isaiah where Isaiah is talking about when the temple will be restored and rebuilt and the verse says varios email hikuushi you see my theme of a steel c-loc hem is it avail the rotten Elizabeth II keep a sea bass pou Caray the hollow I mean I will bring turn to a holy mountain and cause them to rejoice in my house of prayer their sacrifices will be acceptable on the altar because my house will be called the house of prayer for all nations now if you read that verse and pay attention it could raise questions in your mind Isaiah starts piccoli it has a player then he describes what's going to happen there what's going on there is sacrifices and then he says because it has a prayer so how is house of prayer the right title for the temple of which sacrifices were offered apparently in Isaiah's mind prayer and sacrifices go hand in hand and the place of sacrifices is called house of prayer that's Isaiah at the end of the first Temple period what about Solomon Solomon built the temple and the beginning of the book of Kings first book of Kings chapters 5 6 7 8 Solomon dedicates the temple me go i read it i recommend you read it the only activity that solomon associates with the temple is prayer if all you had was Solomon's dedication you wouldn't know that they were sacrifices there at all when Jews pray there please hear them when she was pray for other places their prayers will go to you through the temple and hear them when non-jews pray here the moso and answer them that's all he talks about so prayer and sacrifices go hand in hand in the earliest sources the temple is destroyed there was no organized prayer but idea of prayer the performance of prayer the spiritual entity of prayer exists all the way back Isaac prade's firs his wife to become pregnant Moses prayed for his sister to become cured of leprosy the beginning of the Second Temple the rabbi's got together and organized prayer to correspond to the sacrifice that's what it says in the Talmud prayer corresponds can negate the sacrifices and they went Hampton here for 400 years so finding this table this Magdalene stone in the in the Galil which was from it as a synagogue and it clearly indicates that it has relationship to the temple it's carrying over the spirit the temple for us that's gold we've been saying that since 12 2,500 years ago but this upset all the Jewish historians because now there are theories of how prayer arrived in synagogues as a result of the structure the Second Temple all of that of course is now bunk and now that's a rethink of course have they taken our sources seriously even its possibility for investigation or thought that it wouldn't be so upsetting but they don't take our sources seriously there are sources count for nothing so it's just and this goes on all the time they attention the archaeology last 10 years the number of things have been found which correspond to our tradition are really astonishing and you can old enough to live through enough of it and you accumulate these these findings you get to feel that the critics are just willfully ignoring what is historically not a valid material okay now talking again about Greece and our attitude towards Greek life and Greek values one of the things that Greece stressed as a cultural value is beauty they excelled at painting in it at statuary architecture indeed now I'm not a story I'm reading snippets here and there so I speak on the correction of what I've read one of the things that the Greeks introduced is the idea that beauty is not something that belongs in a museum everyday life should be surrounded by beauty so you have functional vessels for use in the kitchen or use in dining with beautiful pictures on the on the vessels it's not something you do as a localized specialized activity like going to museum but something you should be surrounded by in life why the philosophy of beauty is just as confused today as it has been for thousands of years there's no clear understanding of it but many simply recognize that there is something in experiencing contemplating interacting with your mind your sensitivities your heart with a thing of beauty does something good for you and me what exactly good it does I had one professor who told me was all cognitive because that was his bias and he made some very good points there was Nelson Goodman wrote a book or languages apart and there are many others was catharsis releasing pent-up emotions and giving you better it's an emotional health or whatever but people recognize and every every culture has this expression of beauty though some of the styles vary but but some of them are common and every culture has an appreciation of beauty now does Judaism does the torah care about beauty is it a topic is it anywhere mentioned in any positive or negative context well as a matter of fact the Torah tells us that certain women were very beautiful Rebecca was very beautiful Rachel was very beautiful Esther was very beautiful and lest someone fall into the mental sloth of misogyny and think oh that's just because they're talking about women Joseph is also described as very beautiful and he's a man now these are great people there's not just a casual observation anything that you do it's a description of someone whom the text treats as a hero has got to be very significant should we think of this as a kind of handicap look how great they became in spite of the fact that they were beautiful doesn't seem so does it seem so nothing in the context indicates of that so and Jacob was they certainly noticed her beauty and that was something that he took into account in resolving to marry her well there's a famous verse in the end of the Mishler Proverbs which we say every Friday night singing your praise of the Jewish woman and that is shekarau hain heavily yofi in sherry recession-hit asala false is charm and beauty is empty the woman who has awe and fear for God she shall be praised ha there you have it black and white charm and beauty are false and empty worthless obviously the Torah is against these things but then it is against these things how we're going to understand that these words are used to describe the greatest people in history and the oral tradition so I can't say that I know the whole tradition obviously I'm not aware of any source anywhere indicating the fact that these heroes of the scriptures were beautiful is somehow a handicap that they had to overcome Joseph beautified himself inappropriately and was attacked by part of his wife but that's because he took care to enhance his beauty not because he was beautiful the gone of Vilna has a very remarkable comment on that verse in michigan proverbs he says false is charm and empty is beauty when it's only external when it's only external but the second half of the verse rehabilitates it the second of the verse says a woman who has all unfair for God she shall be praised and says the governor bill she should be praised for her beauty because if her inner reality is that of great oh and fear for God then the external beauty reflects that in a reality and that it's right it's appropriate it's good to be beautiful the problem in beauty is not that beauty is negative this is the theme that I started with three days ago these other beauty is negative it does it creates a false impression it creates a false reaction it attracts it dazzles it draws you in it draws you in with with your sense of preciousness and value to something which may indeed be terrible but when the beauty matches the inner when it creates an attitude towards something which is appropriate for the inner reality than the beauty enhances it indeed the city of Jerusalem is described as beautiful clean losophy the most exquisite expression of beauty so that being the case the question is not what's that not an attitude towards beauty and per se but the reaction that beauty provokes whether it's appropriate to the substance that lies behind it I'll give you an example of the kind of psychological subtlety that I'm talking about I'm often asked whether it's appropriate to reflash these people who are trying to run their lives according to Jewish values and Jewish fidelity and I say first of all it's a legal question you have to go to someone who's competent to give but she was legal ruling that's not me I'm not comedy to do that but he asked me as someone who studied philosophy I would say that it's only dangerous if you read a little the danger is you read a little and you think that what you read is true if we a lot you'll find out that in philosophy every question has five inches and every answer has five objections philosophy is a mess and you want to see this you want to verify what I'm saying shouldn't take what I say for granted look at my hat you shouldn't trust me look at the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy online and look up any subject there are written by leaders in professional philosophy and the outline of any subject has four or five different views on the subject and these are the standard objections and this is where they contradict one another that's the way it is possible so the dangers in reading a little flaws we read a lot of it you'll come to understand that there's an enormous amount of controversy when I make make reference to second the philosophy my point is almost always simply our position isn't ruled out because some of the leaders hold our position and of course there are others who disagree because there are people disagree with everything but reading novels that's much more dangerous that's much more dangerous because when you read philosophy and the writer says this is true and this is why so you're on your guard oh really it is true that's why is that a good enough reason what other reasons could I think of we really novel you reading for enjoyment for escape and you naturally identify with the agents in the novel and then you can be fed philosophy without your critical faculties working it's much more dangerous to read novels maybe that's why I'm doing a little bit of my negative thinking about certain groups and nationalities maybe that's why the Philosopher's in France in the middle of the 20th century they said just last week wrote novels I Sartre wrote novels and kibou wrote novels because you get your philosophy across the people who aren't thinking too clearly an rant wasn't the philosopher at all no one ever reads her work no discusses her in any of us out philosophy department anywhere but she wrote my monumental novels Atlas Shrugged when I was in college everybody's really nad and then depressed by what by the strength of the characters who happen to mouth certain philosophies but not by argument not by reasoning so it's much more dangerous because the novel draws you in it draws you to identify with the characters and their experiences and their challenges than their ups and downs successes and failures and the philosophy that you're being told goes in by the by was it by the by nature sometimes is cited in these discussions I taught philosophy Johns Hopkins a very small department only 10 of us every thesis had to be monitored by three monitors three faculty members very rarely could you find three faculty members who are expert in the subject that the subject was writing about the students writing about I happen to be the third monitor thesis on each if I know anything about DJ never read him seriously okay I could read what he wrote and check the internal consistencies over the song i said to the student you're doing your thesis on nietzsche find me one argument and argument to a conclusion that's controversial designed to convince someone who might not agree with him and an argument that's compelling in terms of logic find me one one in the whole corpus he says there aren't any there aren't any Nietzsche wrote poetry he wrote a very powerful political language and he described his position and people are sucked into the poetry come on feeling wow wow that's really terrific i won you know but there's nothing there in terms of substance of reason there's nothing there so this is the danger now this is danger with beauty why do you use beautiful women to sell automobiles because you're not going to check the acceleration acta the sharkbite spark plugs x check the the the the emissions haha the beautiful girl standing there so I'm hip the thighs with the car right that's to turn off your reason to turn off your critical thinking to suck you into by the lowest part of your nature and that's the danger now not there it's obviously danger people know it that doesn't stop the appetizer using it and they only use it because it works otherwise they wouldn't use it even though you know it but it still works but in other cases like the fabulous language of nature it can be used and the novels that you know in my time who didn't read the dirty hands by Sartre or the stranger by camus everybody write those novels and that's the danger so now the crucial thing is that when we use beauty it has to correctly express the inner reality so this is what you have with Rebecca and with Rachel and with Joseph and with Esther all of them are beautiful because they reflected and inner reality and therefore because it was there was a common essence between the extra of a beauty in a reality that's what the governor Vilna says can be praised she can be praised for the beauty itself because it's a reflection of that in reality now what would be good to have here is some really really solid aesthetics to figure out what beauty does and then to apply how it expresses that in a reality trouble is that aesthetics is a mess it's much of a backwater in philosophy usually the best philosophers don't go into aesthetics partly because it's a it's a wasteland with very little progress has been made I read a very powerful book by Gary gutting of Notre Dame about a year ago anesthetics and I was very moved by I thought he had some very interesting but it's very difficult so I can tell you a few things which are external view things that are that are worthwhile which we can use but I don't in any way pretend that this is complete or it's a critical or even that won't be changed in the future it's just some things that I think are pretty close to the surface which might have a which might have a application much beauty is characterized by harmony harmony means organization there's some kind of theme and the elements in the work of art whatever it is all reinforce that theme you can see how they're related you can see how they do this you take a painting so painting will have a foreground a certain subjects you don't have a background and they'll be if it's a forest scene so in the foreground there would be some animals usually wild animals in some kind of posture in some kind of activity and then you have the vegetation and you have the time of day and you have the quality of the air all and it all creates an integrated portrayal and 28 a portrayal of a single theme perceiving it and seeing how all the pieces fit together is part of the idea of harmony and that's part of it i'm not that harmony is part of the idea of beauty now let me quote to you something which is relevant this context and see if we can we can apply it when sarah dies the Torah says that she was a hundred years 20 years and seven years each time it says years so they're all tradition comments this is to teach you that there are comparisons between her ages she was at a hundred as guiltless as she was at 20 and by the way this refers to a certain tradition that in the eyes of heaven a person has not become an adult for the age of 20 in the eyes of a civil court on a criminal court that's the age of 13 for a boy 12 for a girl from there on they commit any crimes they'll be penalized by the civil court as adults but in the eyes of heaven only happens at the age of 20 so automatically in the eyes of heaven but you're guiltless at 20 she was as guiltless at a hundred and she was at 20 you can imagine what that means about her character and she was as beautiful at 20 as she was at seven she was as beautiful at 20 she was at seven what is that we blaring arrived three daughters and last counts something over 50 grand children approximately 50 50 boys and girls and approximately ten great-grandchildren also we've seen a lot of little girls grow up some of our female progeny were very beautiful the age of seven look at them and you look twice you don't say what what you look twice but what kind of beauty is that you might even use the word attractive but obviously you're not talking about something sexual there's something in the innocence the sense of poise the sense of understanding that attracts your attention I was in California at some kind of function and there was a BBQ it was a long line of people waiting to get to get food I was standing in line with everybody else and a young girl probably about seven years old came over to me and said would you like me to get you some food I don't know a complete stranger I thought wow she's coming over to a person who is an unknown adult and dresses very peculiarly right and somehow she thought I shouldn't have to stand in line waiting for the food I thought wow you know that attracts your admiration attracts your attention a beauty of a seven-year-old can do that now imagine a twenty-year-old was beautiful like that you look at her and you say wow but there's absolutely no sexual attraction whatsoever just something about her you know think if you achieve that age 20 you have achieved something I think that's unique I can't imagine anybody and it's certainly in the Western world a 20 year old who's really beautiful having no attraction whatsoever it's a farthest thing from you right when you look at her all you see is something of charm harmony substance poise and no sexual attraction whatsoever so the tradition is saying something about the theme of her beauty what theme did it project and then every aspect of it projected that theme that's one element of beauty the idea of harmony organization of a myriad of things which support this one idea or one thing also the support shouldn't be mechanical we're not talking about you know just taking bricks and putting them on top of one another you see it 80 story building in Manhattan is made out of bricks it's organized all right and roll Express is one theme you know all the bricks are on the same position you know row by row floor by floor but no the theme has to express the way that's not obvious certain things work into the FEMEN things uh-huh now I see because this is here that state that has to be over there and that's you know and when you're first attracted you may not see how we fit together but there's something there which has that that that impression and as you look into it more and by the way this especially applies in art like music I was a musician music is crucially different let's say from from pictures because pictures present all at once music realize critically on memory you have to be able to remember what happens at the beginning in the middle to appreciate the end and usually brings the themes together in a certain way and sometimes things happen in the beginning or the middle and two seem very peculiar like what are you doing there and only to remember it to the end you see how the composer brings them together so that's one element of of beauty and that is certainly an element that was used in the temple the temple had artistic touches in many places statuary there were statues in the Holy of Holies statues of angels and the covering of the of the they aren't called name is the box with which the tablets we put our key are critical in art and the divider which was which was a tapestry and it was woven in various images indeed according to some the images on the inside the outside were quite different images and I was still woven all the way through kind of artistic Marvel and the themes almost everything in that in the tabernacle is gold almost everything is called the earth you touches the silver here and there but almost everything is gold golden our traditions signifies strict justice silver signifies loving kindness and mercy gold signify strict justice so then as a message what's going on in the temple it's supposed to be satisfactory to God on the highest demands the highest standards no mercy nothing like a half half shot a performance guys it's ok you know you tried so it's perfectly all right no here the standards of the high esteem and then that reflects on the performance that the priests to go through because they're doing it in a context of gold so this type of organizing a myriad of items under a single theme is something that expresses beauty and that's something which we definitely use in terms of our in terms of what about music some of you know that in the temple the the sacrifice were accompanied by music even the Psalms when you say the title of Assam some of them is more mismo sheer or sheer ms more sheer does not mean someone usually does not mean song sheer means poetry in an older form of English 200 years ago they talked about song as poetry sonnets were called songs sheer means so ms for me as means means poetry ms more means music zemer is music so ms more she means it's a poem that was put to music Sherman's war means sometimes it was music to which poetry was fitted that Levites had acquired and had an orchestra in the temple and they used music to accompany the sacrifices what we only know what the music was I don't know that there's any record anywhere of what the actual music was but the auditory integration and as I said visual is presented all at once though it may take you time to digest all that but presented all at once auditory requires memory requires continuous a continuity of experience so you had both types of aesthetic expression going on simultaneously both of them to integrate into the central service of God that took place in the temple vocal aesthetics is something which has accompanied the Jewish people for thousands of years when you go into a synagogue if you have a gifted cousin and they're even concerts of house honest but the prayers when you have a gift to the house and he uses it to to beautify the prayer which can certainly be done I've heard then hundreds of times is something which is again a aesthetic projection now this point that i made you at the beginning was brought home to be very forcefully when i was in a certain synagogue and i was listening to the husband singing in a beautiful voice and friend of mine said to me what do you think he's thinking about that killed it because he's clearly thinking about his voice he's really thinking about how to hit the high note clear thinking about the aesthetics of the performance that isn't supposed to be what it is he's supposed to be thinking about the spiritual message and the music is supposed to be a natural expression of the spiritual message and in his case it wasn't so then I became a little more I don't need to be a favor not but get a little more critical and to think who am i listening to what's going on inside the same complaint is that outside and it's a reflection of the inside or is gonna reflection of the insights I was I was a musician I performed hundreds of times in orchestras and chamber music and and solo if you become a performing musician you know if you have to think about the notes yet the thing about which thing is to put that for which notes forget it yeah before me you have to think of the meaning of the music and then the fingers flow to express that meaning you have to be in touch with what the music is trying to express if you do that then the notes and you're well trained then they're also carry themselves that's the way it has to be the same things true here and sometimes if you analyze the text that the person singing you can tell he stopped at their own place where he emphasized the wrong thing and then you know that either he's trying its best is just out of touch isn't enough of a scholar to know where the emphasis should be or is not thinking about the text at all the words are just their soul is beautiful voice can show it's a show it's all off that's not the beauty we're talking about it's where the beauty expresses the inner character of the person now let's work backwards if we're talking about harmony as an element of beauty harmony and something that's organized fit well well crafted what about the inside I came across something which I guess I should have known I'd rather before better to make an impact on me my first chapter this is assuring what's translated as the path of the just whatever that means he says he's talking about our relationship to the physical pleasure and he says as everyone says physical pleasures dangerous people can overemphasize it can become addicted to it but it has a positive place physical pleasure he says should be used to produce in a person Nahas luuk and he shoe Hadassah nasrullah means satisfaction pleasantness of spirit satisfaction and pleasantness of spirit yeshivah das means a collected mind a clear collected mind so as to be able he says to turn your heart to the service of God unreservedly now you have three things physical pleasure the state of mind and service of God and he's telling you the physical pleasures produce a state of mind and with that state of mind you can then engage in ideal service of God what's the state of mind knock us rua now that will be something like this how are you fine I'm fine things are good is it good I'm great that type of expression not wow I'm great no no fine I'm fine I'm three things are good a certain calm a certain lack of worry and anxiety yes I have projects yes they might succeed at it might fail but I'm doing what I'm doing I believe in what I'm doing I know what I'm trying to achieve it's important to try to achieve it things are fine things are good when I read that recently I thought to myself is that how I picture great said he came great righteous people great leaders of the generation great saintly holy people I don't think I really appreciated it before but then I thought to myself if you are walking hand in hand with god-like king david says loi rocky artery Marty I do not fear evil bakar you because you're with me he didn't mean because you're with me I'm immune he suffered every evil that a person can suffered he suffered every evil a person could suffer including the loss of two children one of whom rebelled against him to started a civil war but I won't be afraid of the evil because you're with me there was a very great man lived in the old city died ten years ago when he saw me Silverman great scholar and a gravy created a whole movement in our community which now has branches all over the world he when he was in his last week's someone asked him are you afraid and he said my father is holding my hand how could I be afraid he took that verse King King David's Twenty twenty third son he took that that that verse literally he experienced it that way that's what you call na hua of Dessler who died of a heart attack while the heart attack was occurring he said to the doctor it's starting here now it's moving across my chest nothing shook him nothing not even a heart attack because that's the way he was trained and kelp that's why you were trained nothing shakes you nothing destroys your poise your equilibrium that's natural now beauty which is a projection of harmony organization integration beauty can be that kind of beauty could be an expression of that kind of inner reality look at the person and you see that beauty and you say what's inside if the inside matches that then the beauty itself becomes positive why does it beauty become positive because the beauty itself portrays that inside I look at the beauty and I say wow that's not just a mask I knew someone who liked to wear t-shirts which reproduces great paintings there was such a time you know you can read about in history books no one where that today you know that's just Western trashy culture you know the Mona Lisa and things like that I said why do you want to wear a cloth that has printed on it beauty why not make yourself beautiful I don't mean to go to beauty school I'll go to a beauty specialist why don't you work on making yourself beautiful not just wear pieces of cloth that I've yuliana because this way when I'm attracted and I think wow inside that person there's this kind of reality so a person could be like then that beauty has a positive effect as a positive positive role to play that's when ya still came the sec oh holy shame that the progenitor of Greece can live in an intensive tour and I think that's the reason why beauty was used in the temple in the visual and in architectural and in the the musical and why we use it in the musical as well and we do have Illustrated literature by the way we don't do this anymore in our holy books but i know from seven eight nine hundred years ago there are museum pieces where some of the Holy literature like like the book of Esther and other had illustrations in them I don't know what the status of is legally I'm not sure I mean the letters some of the word artistically done this is something which definitely has a positive place it just has to be under control now I just wanted one last remark lest I be misunderstood there is a kind of fixation in aesthetics with beauty Nelson Goodman whom I learned a little bit of ascetics in graduate school pointed out that aesthetics has a lot more to it than beauty some of the greatest works of art not beautiful at all they're very disturbing Picasso's Guernica which is a portrayal of the Spanish Civil War and it's horrific it's horrific give you nightmares a few if you look at it and got played and it is great art so one should not confuse great art with beauty and if you want to talk about what great art is you have to go much further than than what I have said some of them are immensely said sense disturbing Arnold inch the scream which you look at that it gives me a headache and there's another one where a man painted a picture of his wife with a sad expression with a teardrop coming out of her eye I saw at the Museum in Washington many years ago and it was really saying really see it I don't know whether the word beauty applies that I don't want you to think that from my point of view aesthetics is captured by beauty alone but we didn't use that type of aesthetic for whatever reason we didn't use that type of that we used beauty out why should I should mention linguistic we have poetical passages throughout the throughout the time and the poetry is designed to enhance the power of the of the communication King Castillo who lived through the siege of Sahara some crater surrounded rusul with an army and the one night the army was destroyed by a miracle the cataumet says that he could have been the Messiah had he risen to the challenge that we presented it what was the challenge to commemorate that event in Shira as I told you a few moments ago Shira means poetry how he commemorate the event and Shira he would have been the Messiah what greater value can you put on something that has this aesthetic character then it could have converted him and his time and that event into the times of the Messiah but it into it Shira somehow commemorates it incorporates it captures the essence of an event which no other form can and that's why Shira is used much of the prophets express themselves in Shira the turrets up as she reaches a yam when we could when the sea was opened and closed on the Egyptians it's another use of the aesthetic so that as an aesthetic in this case being beauty beauty has a very positive role to play in Jewish life into our life but it has to be an expression of the appropriate inner spiritual reality that's the message you