This is why I like ej

From the comments on my DH post:

Your post, both clever and witty, made me laugh. Like other simple truths that we prefer not to face, your post also made me want to cry … woe unto us that we don’t really know what to say. And woe onto our generation when the laymen have a clearer moral and epistemic common sense than the rabbanim, a generation that needs bloggers to show what is happening. Children teaching parents, young preaching to old is both comical and a source of pain.

It is the job of a blog that questions, a blog that turns the charedi world upside down, to create these carnival effects. As Bakhtin taught us, the greatest weapon against tyranny and unjustified privilege is laughter. Well done. The possibility of a cheeky blog like yours being part of the dialogue can occur only when we are confused, when there is no story that is emotionally satisfactory. For me this shows we are close to the end, a bikvasa demeshicha, where chutzpa grows exponentially and in a strange way rightly so.

As I argued a few days ago, emunah in this context means the hope that in the future there will be a relief and deliverance from our theological dilemmas from some source or other; maybe not in every last detail but at least in broad outlines. We hope for a change in perspectives no different in magnitude than the Enlightenment and Modernity that will help us see clearly why our history is so uncanny, why we survived these many years, and what was the point of accepting torah and mitzvot.

Maybe a new Hegelianism, like the chasidisher vort, acharei mos, kedoshim emor…after the death of simple faith via the skepticism of Hume and Kant speak of holiness, that which belongs to the Spirit, i.e. Hegel. Hopefully we will be zocheh to have a Rav Kook, for our generation. It is not totally mad to believe there are alternatives to the Enlightenment and Modernity. Perhaps some new version of post modernism, perhaps some deeper understanding of virtual realities and the role of avatars.

We need not end up in a religious dystopia, ruled by power hungry ayatollahs where like the Stepford Wives we become brainwashed robots. Nor must we end up in a world of anarchy where Jewish life is destroyed. Relief and deliverance will come to the Jews both materially and spiritually. This is part of emuna.

But you will say all this is just talk, nice talk but it doesn’t really answer the question…where is the answer today? [XGH: Actually I was going to say you're dreaming, but never mind]

I would like to point to a new, just published, very difficult, obscure book that tries to show how a new revelation is possible. In our jargon, the validity of torah doesn’t depend on the historical validity as a description of the past, but on its role in a messianic future, which in a strange mystical way might also be now. The hope is that torah will bring a new vision when the immanent light hidden in torah is revealed.

The book is called “The Open Secret” by Eliott Wolfson. The secret referred to is the secret of Chabad and the role of messianic thinking as understood through their distinctive chassidic vision. Not for everybody and maybe not for anybody. But it did receive a favorable review both on a Lubavitcher web site [XGH: wow] and in secular academic circles where Wolfson is a major voice. For those who know some of the literature and are willing to work, it is fascinating and strange and relevant.