The Disciple of the Wise remained the central hero-image of Jewish life down to the present day, but different aspects of this ideal were emphasized in the different periods of Jewish life and among the several schools of thought within Judaism.
The rationalists would stress the philosophical ideal of universality and harmony—Ha-adam hasholem, the complete or perfect man, who is at home in all the domains of wisdom. He studies philosophy, follows the progress of science, reads poetry, even as he faithfully pursues the ways of Jewish piety in prayer, Torah-study and communal responsibility. His guidelines are reasonableness and moderation.
The romanticists would stress the superiority of Jewish over secular studies, and of faith and tradition over reason and the general consensus of mankind. They would minimize the importance of a sense of balance and harmony, while they would rhapsodize over the wonder and mystery of the transrational treasure in Judaism and the transnatural vision of the world to come. They would glorify all that is specifically Jewish, and restrict their philanthropic enterprises to their own people. They would still study “external categories of wisdom,” but largely for the purpose of recognizing the “vanity” of non-Jewish learning and of all worldly goods. In the minds of the romanticists, the Vision of eternal life and the World to come triumphed over the concerns of this world and the life of reason.
The great legalists of the Orthodox tradition were frequently neither rationalists nor romanticists, in the philosophic sense. They considered all speculation to be a danger-filled area, bordering on the forbidden. The Law encompassed the whole of life, and meditation upon its intricacies was the noblest task of the Jew. The Disciple of the Wise of this school was a legalist and a pragmatist, satisfying his romantic-mystical interests in private prayer, public worship, and the most scrupulous observance of the rituals.
But, even the dry legalistic Torah-scholar was not a stranger to the occult nuances of mysticism. It was essential to his own self-image. Here are excerpts from a recent book by the master of a Lithuanian, non-Hassidic Yeshiva:
. . . and in pursuing the dialectic of the law you feel how you are uplifted. Your soul unites itself with the spiritual currents, holy and pure, that flow from above, and you exult in sacred delight. You begin to feel the sacred and exalted joy for which there is no comparison in all the pleasures of this world . . . You then begin to feel the motivations and arguments of the Law in all the parts of your soul, and the right thought comes to you by itself, and this is a kind of holy inspiration (meain Ruah Haokodesh), like the Holy Spirit. . . .
He used to say that he would hear and feel a kind of ring above, whenever he would render a difficult decision in matters of law, a ring, which he was certain confirmed and endorsed the truth.59
The mystics and the Qabbalists concentrated on the single goal of achieving direct immediate contact with the Divine. They would, as a rule, spend the first half of their life in mystical studies and exercises, returning to public activity after they had attained certain “levels of holiness.” They would then be honored as “holy men,” whose prayers could work wonders. The Zaddikim of the Hassidic movement in the eighteenth century belonged to this school.
NOTES
1. Genesis 14:18.
2. Malachi 2:8–10.
3. Exodus 19:6.
4. Ezekiel 44:31.
5. “The Prophet in Modern Hebrew Literature,” HUC Annual, 1957.
6. Wm. F. Albright, Samuel and the Beginnings of the Prophetic Movement (Cincinnati, 1961), p. 19.
7. Proverbs 8:22.
8. Jeremiah 18:18.
9. Philo, Life of Moses, Loeb Classics (Cambridge, Ma. 1930), II, 66.
10. Ibid., p. 88.
11. Ibid., VI.
12. Hagigah 18b.
13. Airuvin 21b.
14. Berochot 172.
15. Moed Katan 6a.
16. Abot 4:8.
17. Ibid.
18. Sifri; Deuteronomy 6:5.
19. Kiddushin 30b.
20. Ecclesiastes and standard Prayer Book.
21. Sota 3a.
22. Deuteronomy 12:18.
23. Shabbat 30b; Yerushalmi, end of Kiddushin.
24. Berochot 17b.
25. Taanit 10b.
26. Cicero, De ojficiis.
27. Gittin 1 ob.
28. Aboth 2:3.
29. Gittin 61 a.
30. Kethubot 105a.
31. Sota 5a.
32. Aboth 2:2.
33. Ibid., 3:11–13.