What The Hidden God Does Reveal

« Cyrus the Great. The First Man the Bible calls the Messiah ».

Taken together, the Self, the inner being, hidden in its abyss, under several veils, and the Ego, the outer being, filled with sensations, thoughts, feelings, vibrating with the life of circumstances and contingencies, offer the image of a radical duality.
This constitutive, intrinsic duality is analogous, it seems to me, to that of the God who ‘hides’ Himself, but who nevertheless reveals Himself in some way, and sometimes lets Himself be seen (or understood).
This is a very ancient (human) experience of the divine. Far from presenting Himself to man in all His glory, God certainly hides Himself, everywhere, all the time, and in many ways.
There are indeed many ways for Him to let Himself be hidden.
But how would we know that God exists, if He were always, irremediably, hidden?
First of all, the Jewish Scriptures, and not the least, affirm that He is, and that He is hidden. Isaiah proclaims:
Aken attah El misttatter. אָכֵן, אַתָּה אֵל מִסְתַּתֵּר .

Word for word: « Truly, You, hidden God » ⁱ.

Moreover, though admittedly a negative proof, it is easy to see how many never see Him, always deny Him, and ignore Him without remorse.
But, although very well hidden, God is discovered, sometimes, it is said, to the pure, to the humble, and also to those who ‘really’ seek Him.

Anecdotes abound on this subject, and they must be taken for what they are worth. Rabindranath Tagore wrote: « There was a curious character who came to see me from time to time and used to ask all sorts of absurd questions. Once, for example, he asked me, ‘Have you ever seen God, Sir, with your own eyes?’ And when I had to answer him in the negative, he said that he had seen Him. ‘And what did you see?’ I asked. – ‘He was agitated, convulsing and pulsating before my eyes’, he answered.» ⁱⁱ

I liked this last sentence, at first reading, insofar as the divine seemed to appear here (an undeniable innovation), not as a noun, a substance, or any monolithic or monotheistic attribute, but in the form of three verbs, knotted together – ‘agitate’, ‘convulse’, ‘palpitate’.

Unfortunately, either in metaphysical irony or as a precaution against laughter, the great Tagore immediately nipped this embryonic, agitated, convulsive and palpitating image of divinity in the bud in the very next sentence, inflicting on the reader a brief and Jesuitical judgment: « You can imagine that we were not interested in engaging in deep discussions with such an individual. » ⁱⁱⁱ

For my part, on the contrary, I could not imagine that.
It is certain that, whatever it may be, the deep « nature », the « essence » of God, is hidden much more often than it shows itself or lets itself be found.

About God, therefore, the doubt lasts.
But, from time to time, sparks fly. Fires blaze. Two hundred and fifty years before the short Bengali theophany just mentioned, Blaise Pascal dared a revolutionary and anachronistic (pre-Hegelian and non-materialist) dialectic, of the ‘and, and’ type. He affirmed that « men are at the same time unworthy of God and capable of God: unworthy by their corruption, capable by their first nature » ^iv.

Man: angel and beast.

The debate would be very long, and very undecided.
Excellent dialectician, Pascal specified, very usefully:
« Instead of complaining that God has hidden himself, you will give him thanks that he has discovered himself so much; and you will give him thanks again that he has not discovered himself to the superb wise men, unworthy of knowing a God so holy. » ^v
Sharp as a diamond, the Pascalian sentence never makes acceptance of the conveniences and the clichés, of the views of the PolitBuro of all obediences, and of the religious little marquis.
Zero tolerance for any arrogance, any smugness, in these transcendent subjects, in these high matters.
On the other hand, what a balance, on the razor blade, between extremes and dualisms, not to blunt them, but to exacerbate them, to magnify them:
« If there were no darkness man would not feel his corruption, if there were no light man would not hope for a remedy, so it is not only right, but useful for us that God be hidden in part and discovered in part since it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his misery, and to know his misery without knowing God. » ^vi
This is not all. God makes it clear that He is hiding. That seems to be His strategy. This is how He wants to present Himself, in His creation and with man, with His presence and with His absence…
« That God wanted to hide himself.
If there were only one religion, God would be very obvious. Likewise, if there were only martyrs in our religion.

God being thus hidden, any religion which does not say that God is hidden is not true, and any religion which does not give the reason for it is not instructive. Ours does all this. Vere tu es deus absconditus.^vii«

Here, Pascal quotes Isaiah in Latin. « Truly, You are a hidden God. »
Deus absconditus.

I prefer, for my part, the strength of Hebrew sound: El misttatter.

How would we have known that God was hidden if Scripture had not revealed Him?
The Scripture certainly reveals Him, in a clear and ambiguous way.
« It says in so many places that those who seek God will find him. It does not speak of this light as the day at noon. It is not said that those who seek the day at noon, or water in the sea, will find it; and so it is necessary that the evidence of God is not such in nature; also it tells us elsewhere: Vere tu es Deus absconditus. » ^viii
Absconditus in Latin, misttatter in Hebrew, caché in French.

But, in the Greek translation of this verse of Isaiah by the seventy rabbis of Alexandria, we read:

σὺ γὰρ εἶ θεός, καὶ οὐκ ᾔδειμεν
Su gar eï theos, kai ouk êdeimen.

Which litterally means: « Truly You are God, and we did not know it »… A whole different perspective appears, then. Languages inevitably bring their own veils.
How do we interpret these variations? The fact that we do not know whether God is ‘really God’, or whether He is ‘really hidden’, does not necessarily imply that He might not really be God, or that He will always be hidden.
Pascal states that if God has only appeared once, the chances are that He is always in a position to appear again, when He pleases.
But did He appear only once? Who can say with absolute certainty?
On the other hand, if He really never appeared to any man, then yes, we would be justified in making the perfectly reasonable observation that the divinity is indeed ‘absent’, and we would be led to make the no less likely hypothesis that it will remain so. But this would not prevent, on the other hand, that other interpretations of this absence could be made, such as that man is decidedly unworthy of the divine presence (hence his absence), or even that man is unworthy of the consciousness of this absence.

Now Pascal, for his part, really saw God, – he saw Him precisely on Monday, November 23, 1654, from half past ten in the evening to half past midnight. « Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not God of the philosophers and scholars. Certainty. Certainty. Feeling. Joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ. » ^ix
This point being acquired (why put in doubt this writing of Pascal, discovered after his death, and sewn in the lining of his pourpoint?), one can let oneself be carried along by the sequences, the deductions and the exercise of reason that Pascal himself proposes.

« If nothing of God had ever appeared, this eternal deprivation would be equivocal, and could just as well refer to the absence of any divinity as to the unworthiness of men to know it; but the fact that he appears sometimes, and not always, removes the equivocation. If he appears once, he is always; and thus one cannot conclude anything except that there is a God, and that men are unworthy of him» ^x.
Pascal’s reasoning is tight, impeccable. How can one not follow it and approve its course? It must be admitted: either God has never appeared on earth or among men, or He may have appeared at least once or a few times.
This alternative embodies the ‘tragic’ question, – a ‘theatrical’ question on the forefront of the world stage…
One must choose. Either the total and eternal absence and disappearance of God on earth, since the beginning of time, or a few untimely divine appearances, a few rare theophanies, reserved for a few chosen ones…

In all cases, God seemed to have left the scene of the world since His last appearance, or to have decided never to appear again, thus putting in scene His deliberate absence. But, paradoxically, the significance of this absence had not yet been perceived, and even less understood, except by a tiny handful of out-of-touch thinkers, for whom, in the face of this absence of God, « no authentic human value has any more necessary foundation, and, on the other hand, all non-values remain possible and even probable. » ^xi
A Marxist and consummate dialectician, Lucien Goldmann, devoted his thesis to the ‘hidden god’. He established a formal link between the theophany staged by Isaiah, and the ‘tragic vision’ incarnated by Racine, and Pascal.
« The voice of God no longer speaks to man in an immediate way. Here is one of the fundamental points of the tragic thought. Vere tu es Deus absconditus‘, Pascal will write. » ^xii
Pascal’s quotation of the verse from Isaiah will be taken up several times by Goldmann, like an antiphon, and even in the title of his book.
« Deus absconditus. Hidden God. Fundamental idea for the tragic vision of God, and for Pascal’s work in particular (…): God is hidden from most men but he is visible to those he has chosen by granting them grace. » ^xiii

Goldmann interprets Pascal in his own strictly ‘dialectical’ way. He rejects any reading of Pascal according to binary oppositions ‘either…or…’. « This way of understanding the idea of the hidden God would be false and contrary to the whole of Pascalian thought which never says yes or no but always yes and no. The hidden God is for Pascal a God who is present and absent and not present sometimes and absent sometimes; but always present and always absent. » ^xiv
The constant presence of opposites and the work of immanent contradiction demand it. And this presence of opposites is itself a very real metaphor for the absent presence (or present absence) of the hidden God.
« The being of the hidden God is for Pascal, as for the tragic man in general, a permanent presence more important and more real than all empirical and sensible presences, the only essential presence. A God always absent and always present, that is the center of tragedy. » ^xv

But what does ‘always present and always absent‘ really mean?
This is the ‘dialectical’ answer of a Marxist thinker tackling the (tragic) theophany of absence, – as seen by the prophet Isaiah, and by Pascal.
In this difficult confrontation with such unmaterialist personalities, Goldmann felt the need to call to the rescue another Marxist, Georg von Lucàcs, to support his dialectical views on the absent (and present) God.
« In 1910, without thinking of Pascal, Lucàcs began his essay: ‘Tragedy is a game, a game of man and his destiny, a game in which God is the spectator. But he is only a spectator, and neither his words nor his gestures are ever mixed with the words and gestures of the actors. Only his eyes rest on them’. ^xvi

To then pose the central problem of all tragic thought: ‘Can he still live, the man on whom God’s gaze has fallen?’ Is there not incompatibility between life and the divine presence? » ^xvii

It is piquant to see a confirmed Marxist make an implicit allusion to the famous passage in Exodus where the meeting of God and Moses on Mount Horeb is staged, and where the danger of death associated with the vision of the divine face is underlined.
It is no less piquant to see Lucàcs seeming to confuse (is this intentional?) the ‘gaze of God’ falling on man with the fact that man ‘sees the face’ of God…
It is also very significant that Lucàcs, a Marxist dialectician, combines, as early as 1910, an impeccable historical materialism with the storm of powerful inner tensions, of deep spiritual aspirations, going so far as to affirm the reality of the ‘miracle’ (for God alone)…

What is perhaps even more significant is that the thought of this Hungarian Jew, a materialist revolutionary, seems to be deeply mixed with a kind of despair as to the human condition, and a strong ontological pessimism, tempered with a putative openness towards the reality of the divine (miracle)…
« Daily life is an anarchy of chiaroscuro; nothing is ever fully realized, nothing reaches its essence… everything flows, one into the other, without barriers in an impure mixture; everything is destroyed and broken, nothing ever reaches the authentic life. For men love in existence what it has of atmospheric, of uncertain… they love the great uncertainty like a monotonous and sleepy lullaby. They hate all that is univocal and are afraid of it (…) The man of the empirical life never knows where his rivers end, because where nothing is realized everything remains possible (…) But the miracle is realization (…) It is determined and determining; it penetrates in an unforeseeable way in the life and transforms it in a clear and univocal account. He removes from the soul all its deceptive veils woven of brilliant moments and vague feelings rich in meaning; drawn with hard and implacable strokes, the soul is thus in its most naked essence before his gaze. »
And Lucàcs to conclude, in an eminently unexpected apex: « But before God the miracle alone is real. » ^xviii

Strange and provocative sentence, all the more mysterious that it wants to be materialist and dialectic…

Does Lucàcs invite man to consider history (or revolution) as a miracle that he has to realize, like God? Or does he consider historical materialism as the miraculous unfolding of something divine in man?
Stranger still is Lucien Goldmann’s commentary on this sentence of Lucàcs:
« We can now understand the meaning and importance for the tragic thinker and writer of the question: ‘Can the man on whom God’s gaze has fallen still live?’» ^xix

But, isn’t the classic question rather: ‘Can the man who looks up to God still live?
Doesn’t Lucàcs’ new, revised question, taken up by Goldmann, imply a univocal answer ? Such as : – ‘For man to live, God must be hidden’ or even, more radically: ‘For man to live, God must die’.
But this last formulation would undoubtedly sound far too ‘Christian’…

In the end, can God really ‘hide’ or a fortiori can He really ‘die’?
Are these words, ‘hide’, ‘die’, really compatible with a transcendent God?
Is Isaiah’s expression, ‘the hidden God’ (El misttatter), clear, univocal, or does it itself hide a universe of less apparent, more ambiguous meanings?
A return to the text of Isaiah is no doubt necessary here. In theory, and to be complete, it would also be necessary to return to other religious traditions, even more ancient than the Jewish one, which have also dealt with the theme of the hidden god (or the unknown god), notably the Vedic tradition and that of ancient Egypt.
The limits of this article do not allow it. Nevertheless, it must be said emphatically that the intuition of a ‘hidden god’ is probably as old as humanity itself.
However, it must be recognized that Isaiah has, from the heart of Jewish tradition, strongly and solemnly verbalized the idea of the ‘hidden God’, while immediately associating it with that of the ‘saving God’.
אָכֵן, אַתָּה אֵל מִסְתַּתֵּר–אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, מוֹשִׁיעַ.
Aken attah, El misttatter – Elohai Israel, mochi’a.
« Truly, You, hidden God – God of Israel, Savior. » ^xx
A few centuries after Isaiah, the idea of the God of Israel, ‘hidden’ and ‘savior’, became part of the consciousness called, perhaps too roughly, ‘Judeo-Christian’.
It is therefore impossible to understand the semantic value of the expression « hidden God » without associating it with « God the savior », in the context of the rich and sensitive inspiration of the prophet Isaiah.
Perhaps, moreover, other metaphorical, anagogical or mystical meanings are still buried in Isaiah’s verses, so obviously full of a sensitive and gripping mystery?

Shortly before directly addressing the ‘hidden God’ and ‘savior’, Isaiah had reported the words of the God of Israel addressing the Persian Cyrus, – a key figure in the history of Israel, at once Persian emperor, savior of the Jewish people, figure of the Messiah, and even, according to Christians, a prefiguration of Christ. This last claim was not totally unfounded, at least on the linguistic level, for Cyrus is clearly designated by Isaiah as the « Anointed » (mochi’a)^xxi of the Lord. Now the Hebrew word mochi’a is translated precisely as christos, ‘anointed’ in Greek, and ‘messiah‘ in English.

According to Isaiah, this is what God said to His ‘messiah’, Cyrus:
« I will give you treasures (otserot) in darkness (ḥochekh), and hidden (misttarim) riches (matmunei) , that you may know that I am YHVH, calling you by your name (chem), – the God of Israel (Elohai Israel). » ^xxii

Let us note incidentally that the word matmunei, ‘riches’, comes from the verb טָמַן, taman, ‘to hide, to bury’, as the verse says: « all darkness (ḥochekh) bury (tamun) his treasures » ^xxiii.
We thus learn that the ‘treasures’ that Isaiah mentions in verse 45:3, are triply concealed: they are in ‘darkness’, they are ‘buried’ and they are ‘hidden’…

The accumulation of these veils and multiple hiding places invites us to think that such well hidden treasures are only ever a means, a pretext. They hide in their turn, in reality, the reason, even more profound, for which they are hidden…

These treasures are perhaps hidden in the darkness and they are carefully buried, so that Cyrus sees there motivation to discover finally, he the Anointed One, what it is really necessary for him to know. And what he really needs to know are three names (chem), revealed to him, by God… First the unspeakable name, ‘YHVH’, then the name by which YHVH will henceforth call Cyrus, (a name which is not given by Isaiah), and finally the name Elohéï Israel (‘God of Israel’).

As for us, what we are given to know is that the ‘hidden God’ (El misttatter) is also the God who gives Cyrus ‘hidden riches’ (matmunei misttarim).
The verbal root of misttatter and misttarim is סָתַר, satar. In the Hithpael mode, this verb takes on the meaning of ‘to hide’, as in Is 45:15, « You, God, hide yourself », or ‘to become darkened’, as in Is 29:14, « And the mind will be darkened ».

In the Hiphil mode, the verb satar, used with the word panim, ‘face’, takes on the meaning of ‘covering the face’, or ‘turning away the face’, opening up other moral, mystical or anagogical meanings.
We find satar and panim associated in the verses: « Moses covered his face » (Ex 3:6), « God turned away his face » (Ps 10:11), « Turn away your face from my sins » (Ps 51:11), « Do not turn away your face from me » (Ps 27:9), « Your sins make him turn his face away from you » (Is 59:2).

Note that, in the same verbal mode, satar can also take on the meaning of « to protect, to shelter », as in: « Shelter me under the shadow of your wings » (Ps 17:8).
In biblical Hebrew, there are at least a dozen verbal roots meaning « to hide » ^xxiv , several of which are associated with meanings evoking material hiding places (such as « to bury », « to preserve », « to make a shelter »). Others, rarer, refer to immaterial hiding places or shelters and meanings such as ‘keep’, ‘protect’.
Among this abundance of roots, the verbal root satar offers precisely the particularity^xxv of associating the idea of « hiding place » and « secret » with that of « protection », carried for example by the word sétèr: « You are my protection (sétèr) » (Ps 32:7); « He who dwells under the protection (sétèr) of the Most High, in the shadow (tsèl) of the Almighty » (Ps 91:1).^xxvi

Isaiah 45:15, « Truly, You, the hidden God, » uses the verbal root satar for the word « hidden » (misttatter). Satar thus evokes not only the idea of a God « who hides » but also connotes a God « who protects, shelters » and « saves » (from the enemy or from affliction).
Thus we learn that the God « who hides » is also the God « who reveals ». And, what He reveals of His Self does « save ».

_________________________

iIs 45, 15

iiRabindranath Tagore. Souvenirs. 1924. Gallimard. Knowledge of the Orient, p. 185

iiiRabindranath Tagore. Souvenirs. 1924. Gallimard. Knowledge of the Orient, p. 185

ivPascal. Thoughts. Fragment 557. Edition by Léon Brunschvicg. Paris, 1904

vPascal. Thoughts. Fragment 288. Edition by Léon Brunschvicg. Paris, 1904

viPascal. Thoughts. Fragment 586. Edition by Léon Brunschvicg. Paris, 1906

viiPascal. Thoughts. Fragment 585. Edition by Léon Brunschvicg. Paris, 1904

viiiPascal. Thoughts. Fragment 242. Edition by Léon Brunschvicg. Paris, 1904

ixPascal. Memorial. In Pensées, Edition by Léon Brunschvicg. Paris, 1904, p.4

xPascal. Thoughts. Fragment 559. Edition by Léon Brunschvicg. Paris, 1904

xiLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 44. Expressions in italics are by the author.

xiiLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 45

xiiiLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 46

xivLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 46. Expressions in italics are by the author.

xvLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 46-47. Expressions in italics are by the author.

xviLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 46-47. Expressions in italics are by the author.

xviiLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 47

xviiiGeorg von Lucàcs. Die Seele und dir Formen. p. 328-330, quoted in Lucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 48-49

xixLucien Goldmann. The Hidden God. Study on the tragic vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s theater. Gallimard. 1955, p. 49

xxIs 45,15

xxi« Thus says the LORD to his Anointed, to Cyrus, Is 45:1.

xxiiוְנָתַתִּי לְךָ אוֹצְרוֹת חֹשֶׁךְ, וּמַטְמֻנֵי מִסְתָּרִים: לְמַעַן תֵּדַע, כִּי-אֲנִי יְהוָה הַקּוֹרֵא בְשִׁמְךָ–אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל . (Is 45.3)

xxiiiJob 20.26

xxivIt would be out of place to make an exhaustive analysis of this in this article, but we will return to it later. The roots in question are as follows: חבא, חבה, טמן ,כּחד,כּסה, נצר, כּפר, סכךְ, סתם, סתר, עמם, עלם. They cover a wide semantic spectrum: ‘to hide, to hide, to bury, to cover, to cover, to keep, to guard, to protect, to preserve, to make a shelter, to close, to keep secret, to obscure, to be obscure’.

xxvAs well as the verbal roots צפן and סכךְ, although these have slightly different nuances.

xxviIt would be indispensable to enter into the depths of the Hebrew language in order to grasp all the subtlety of the semantic intentions and the breadth of the metaphorical and intertextual evocations that are at stake. Only then is it possible to understand the ambivalence of the language, which is all the more amplified in the context of divine presence and action. The same verbal root (tsur) indeed evokes both ‘enemy’ and ‘protection’, ‘fight’ and ‘shelter’, but also subliminally evokes the famous ‘rock’ (tsur) in the cleft of which God placed Moses to ‘protect’ him when He appeared to him in His glory on Mount Horeb. « I will place you in the cleft of the rock (tsur) and I will shelter you (or hide you, – verb שָׂכַךֽ sakhakh) from my ‘hand’ (kaf, literally, from my ‘hollow’) until I have passed over. « (Ex 33:22) For example, puns and alliterations proliferate in verse 7 of Psalm 32. Just after the first hemisphere ‘You are my protection (attah seter li)’, we read: מִצַּר תִּצְּרֵנִי , mi-tsar ti-tsre-ni (« from the enemy, or from affliction, you save me »). There is here a double alliteration playing on the phonetic proximity of the STR root of the word sétèr (‘protection’), of the TSR root of the word tsar, denoting the enemy or affliction, and of the tsar verb ‘to protect, guard, save’. This is not just an alliteration, but a deliberate play on words, all derived from the verbal root צוּר , tsour, ‘to besiege, fight, afflict; to bind, enclose’: – the word צַר, tsar, ‘adversary, enemy; distress, affliction; stone’; – the word צוּר , tsur, ‘rock, stone’; – the verb צָרַר, tsar, ‘to bind, envelop, guard; oppress, fight; be cramped, be afflicted, be in anguish’.

The Dangers of Christianity and the Dangers of Judaism

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Born in 1886 into an assimilated Jewish family, Franz Rosenzweig decided to convert to Christianity in the 1910s, after numerous discussions with his cousins, Hans and Rudolf Ehrenberg, who had already converted, and with his friend Eugen Rosenstock, also a converted Jew. But he renounced the conversion after attending the Yom Kippur service in a Berlin synagogue in 1913.

Shortly afterwards, he wrote in the trenches of the First World War his masterpiece, The Star of Redemption, which offers a kind of parallelism between Judaism and Christianity.

Parallels that do not meet, except perhaps at the end of Time.

I find Rosenzweig’s essay truly significant for a double distance, for a constitutive split, the outcome of which is difficult to see, unless there is a total change of paradigm – which would perhaps be the real issue, in some future.

Rosenzweig asserts that Christianity faces three « dangers » that it « will never overcome ». These « dangers » are essentially of a conceptual nature: « the spiritualization of the concept of God, the apotheosis granted to the concept of man, the panthetization of the concept of the world ». ⁱ

The Christian concept of God, the Christian concept of man, the Christian concept of the world, are wrong and dangerous, according to Rosenzweig, because they imply an attack on the absolute transcendence of God, to which, by contrast, Judaism is supposed to be fundamentally attached.

« Let the Spirit be the guide in all things, and not God; let the Son of Man, and not God, be the Truth; let God one day be in all things, and not above all; these are the dangers. »ⁱⁱ

Rosenzweig cannot accept that the absolutely transcendent God of Judaism can be represented by His « Spirit », even though this Spirit is « holy ».

Why not? Is God not His own Spirit?

No. God’s transcendence is probably so absolute that the use of the word « spirit » is still too anthropomorphic in this context. From the point of view of Judaism, as interpreted by Rosenzweig, to use the word « spirit » as an hypostasis of God is an attack on its absolute transcendence.

But, is not God called in the Torah the « God of spirits » (Num 16:22), because He is the Creator? Could the spirit, as created by God, then be a « substance » which God and man would then have in common? No. This is not acceptable. The very principle of the absolute transcendence of God excludes any idea of a community of substance between the divine and the human, even that of the « spirit ».

Nor can Rosenzweig accept that the absolutely transcendent God of Judaism could be represented here below by a « Son », or horresco referens, could lower Himself to humiliation by consenting to a human « incarnation », to whom He would further delegate, ipso facto, the care and privilege of revealing His Truth to men.

Finally, and a fortiori, Rosenzweig obviously cannot accept that the absolutely transcendent God can condescend to any immanence whatsoever, and in particular by coming into the « world » to dwell « in all ».

Judaism will not compromise.

The absolute transcendence of God, of His revelation, and of Redemption, are infinitely beyond the spirit, infinitely beyond the human, infinitely beyond the world.

Rosenzweig’s attack on Christianity focuses on its supposed « concepts ».

Concepts are positive attempts by the human mind to capture the essence of something.

The dogma of the absolute transcendence of God excludes from the outset any attempt whatsoever to « conceptualize » it, whether through names, attributes or manifestations.

The only acceptable conceptualization is the concept of the impossibility of any conceptualization. The only possible theology is an absolutely negative theology, rigorously and infinitely apophatic.

But then what about the revelation of His Name, made to Moses by God Himself?

What about the theophanies found in the Torah?

What about God’s dialogues with the Prophets?

Or in another vein, what about the granting of a Covenant between God and his People?

What about thewandering of the Shekhina in this world, and her « suffering »?

Or, on yet another level, how to understand the idea that heaven and earth are a « creation » of God, with all that this entails in terms of responsibility for the content of their future and the implications of their inherent potentialities?

Are these not notable exceptions, through word or spirit, to thevery idea of God’s absolute, radicaltranscendence? Are they not in fact so many links, so many consensual interactions between God Himself and all that is so infinitely below Him, – all that is so infinitely nothing?

These questions are not dealt with by Rosenzweig. What is important to him is to reproach Christianity for « exteriorizing itself in the Whole, » for « dispersing its rays » in the march through time, with the spiritualization [of the concept of God], the divinization [of the concept of man] and the mondanization [of transcendence].

But Rosenzweig’s reproaches do not stop there. For good measure, he also criticizes the « dangers » peculiar to Judaism.

Where Christianity sins by « dispersing », by « externalizing » the idea of God, Judaism sins on the contrary by « shrinking », by confinement in « the narrow », by refuge in « a narrow home »ⁱⁱⁱ. To sum up: « The Creator has shrunk to the creator of the Jewish world, Revelation has only taken place in the Jewish heart.» ^iv

Franz Rosenzweig analyzes the « Jewish dangers » in this manner :

« Thus, in the depths of this Jewish feeling, any split, anything that encompasses Jewish life, has become very narrow and simple. Too simple and too narrow, that is what should be said, and in this narrowness, as many dangers should be fanned as in Christian dilatation. Here it is the concept of God that was in danger: in our midst, it is His World and His Man who seem to be in danger (…) Judaism, which is consumed within, runs the risk of gathering its heat in its own bosom, far from the pagan reality of the world. In Christianity, the dangers were named: spiritualization of God, humanization of God, mondanization of God; here [in Judaism] they are called denial of the world, contempt for the world, suffocation of the world.

Denial of the world, when the Jew, in the proximity of his God, anticipated the Redemption for his own benefit, forgetting that God was Creator and Redeemer, that, as Creator, He conserved the whole world and that in the Revelation He ultimately turned His face to mankind at large.

Contempt for the world, when the Jew felt himself to be a remnant, and thus to be the true man, originally created in the image of God and living in the expectation of the end within this original purity, thus withdrawing from man: yet it was precisely with his hardness, forgetting God, that the Revelation of God’s love had come about, and it was this man who now had to exercise this love in the unlimited work of Redemption.

Choking of the world, finally, when the Jew, in possession of the Law revealed to him and becoming flesh and blood in his spirit, now had the nerve to regulate the being there at every renewed moment and the silent growth of things, even to pretend to judge them.

These three dangers are all necessary consequences of the interiority that turned away from the world, just as the dangers of Christianity were due to the exteriorization of the self turned towards the world. » ^v

Not being able to resolve to elect a single champion, Rosenzweig concludes that Jews and Christians are in fact working at the same task, and that God cannot deprive Himself of either of them: « He has bound them together in the closest reciprocity. To us [Jews] He has given eternal life by lighting in our hearts the fire of the Star of His truth. He has placed Christians on the eternal path by making them follow the rays of the Star of His truth throughout the centuries to the eternal end.»^vi

The life, the truth, the way. The Anointed One from Nazareth, the Christian Messiah, had already designated himself by these three words, identifying them with his own Person.

Shrinkage, narrowness, suffocation.

Dispersion, expansion, paganization.

Let the millennia flow, let the eons bloom.

What will the world be like in three hundred billion years? Will it be Jewish? Christian? Buddhist? Nihilist? Gnostic? Or will the world be All Other?

Will we one day see the birth of a non-Galilean Messiah or a non-Anointed Anointed One, far away in galaxies at the unimagined borders of the known universes, revealing in clear language a meta-Law as luminous as a thousand billion nebulae assembled in one single point?

Or is it the very message of the Scriptures that, by some miracle, will be repeated, word for word, letter for letter, breath for breath, in all the multiverse, crossing without damage the attraction and translation of multiple black holes and vertiginous wormholes?

The path before us is infinitely, obviously, open.

We only know that at the very end there will be life – not death.

What kind of life? We don’t know.

We know that with life, there will also be truth.

Truth and life are indissolubly linked, as are transcendence and immanence.

« What is truth? » asked Pilatus once, famously.

One could also ask : « What is life? »

Since transcendence is so infinitely above the human mind, how can one dare to ask even these kinds of questions?

That’s exactly the point.

Daring to ask these questions is already, in a way, beginning to answer them.

I have no doubt that in six hundred million years, or thirty-three billion years, some truth will still be there to be grasp, – if there are still, of course, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

_________________

iFranz Rosenzweig. The Star of Redemption. Alexandre Derczanski and Jean-Louis Schlegel, Seuil , 1882, p.474.

iiFranz Rosenzweig. The Star of Redemption. Alexandre Derczanski and Jean-Louis Schlegel, Seuil , 1882, p.474.

iiiFranz Rosenzweig. The Star of Redemption. Alexandre Derczanski and Jean-Louis Schlegel, Seuil , 1882, p.478.

ivFranz Rosenzweig. The Star of Redemption. Alexandre Derczanski and Jean-Louis Schlegel, Seuil , 1882, p.476.

vFranz Rosenzweig. The Star of Redemption. Alexandre Derczanski and Jean-Louis Schlegel, Seuil , 1882, p.479-480.

viFranz Rosenzweig. The Star of Redemption. Alexandre Derczanski and Jean-Louis Schlegel, Seuil, 1882, p. 490.

Two « Sons » : Bar and Ben

Publié par Philippe Quéau

« Michel d’Anastasio. Calligraphie hébraïque »

There are two words in Hebrew for the idea of filiation : ben בן and bar בר.

These two words mean « son », but with very different shades of nuances, due to their respective roots. Their etymologies open surprising perspectives…

The word ben comes from the verb banah בָּנָה, « to build, to construct, to found, to form », which connotes the idea of a progressive emergence, an edification, a construction, necessarily taking a certain amount of time.

The word bar comes from the verb bara‘ בָּרַא, « to create, to draw from nothing, to give birth » and in a second sense « to choose ». The idea of filiation is here associated with a timeless or instantaneous creation, that may be congruent with a divine origin. Thus the verb bara’ is used in the first verse of Genesis, Berechit bara’ Elohim . « In the beginning created God… ».

In a figurative sense, bar also means « chosen, preferred », connotating choice, election or dilection.

What does the difference between ben and bar teach us?

There is a first level of reading: with bar, the idea of filiation begins with a ‘creation’, appearing from nothingness (bara’), but with ben, it rather implies a long work of ‘construction’, and ‘foundation’ (banah).

On the one hand, bar evokes the atemporality (or timelessness) of a transcendence (coming from nothingness), and by opposition, ben implies the necessary temporality of immanence.

In the biblical text, these words, (banah and bara’, ben and bar) so common, so familiar, are like two opposite doors, opening on very different paths.

Doors, or rather trapdoors, under which profound abysses are revealed.

Let’s start with creation. Berechit bara’.

The word bar has its own depth, its subtle ambiguities. Its primary meaning is ‘son‘, but it may mean son of man, son of Elohim, or son of the Gods.

« What! My son! What! Son of my guts! « (Prov. 31:2)

The Book of Daniel uses the expression בַר-אֱלָהִין , bar-elohim, literally « son of the Gods » (Dan 3:25). In this case, bar-elohim refers to an « angel ».

But bar seems to be able to also mean « Son of God ».The psalmist exclaims, « Worship the Lord with fear » (Ps 2:11), and immediately afterwards David cries out, « Nachku bar », « Kiss the Son » (Ps 2:12).

Who is this ‘Son’ (bar) to be kissed or embraced ? He indeed has a special status, since he is refered to by David, just after the name YHVH, and in the same elan of praise.

According to some, this ‘Son’ is to be understood as ‘the king’, and according to others, it refers to ‘purity’.

Why the ‘king’? Why ‘purity’?

Because bar comes from the verb bara’, one of whose original meanings is « to choose ». Bar also means ‘chosen, elected, preferred’.

In Psalm 2, the word bar may well mean the ‘Chosen One’, the ‘Anointed’ (mashiah, or ‘messiah’) of the Lord.

By derivation, bar also means ‘pure, serene, spotless’, as in bar-levav, ‘pure in heart’ (Ps. 24:4) or ‘the commandments of YHVH are pure (bara)’ (Ps. 19:9).

So, what does ‘nachqou bar’ really mean ? « Kiss the Son », « kiss the king », « kiss the Chosen One », « kiss the Anointed One », « kiss the Messiah », or even « embrace purity »?

Who will tell?

Let us note here that Christians could interpret this particular bar (in Ps 2:12) as a prefiguration of Christ (the name ‘Christ’ comes from the Greek christos which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word mashiah, ‘anointed’).

As for ben, like I said, this noun derives from the verb banah, that we find used in various ways (to build, to form, to found):

« I built this house for you to live in. « (1 Kings 8:13)

« The Lord God formed a woman from the rib. « (Gen 2:22)

« By building your high places » (Ez 16:31).

« He founded Nineveh » (Gn 10:11).

Solomon played with the word and its ambivalence (to build/ a son), as he made his speech for the inauguration of the Temple. He recalled that it was indeed David’s idea to build (banah) a temple in honor of God, but that the Lord had said to him, « Yet it is not you who will build (tibneh) this temple, it is your son (bin or ben), he who is to be born of you, who will build (ibneh) this temple in my honor. « (1 Kings 8:19)

Solomon was to be the son (ben) who would build (ibneh) the Temple.

Noah also built an altar (Gen 8:20). Here too, one can detect a play on words with even deeper implications than those associated with the construction of the Temple.

« What does ‘Noah built’ mean? In truth Noah is the righteous man. He ‘built an altar’, that’s the Shekhina. His edification (binyam) is a son (ben), who is the Central Column. » ⁱ

The interpretation is not obvious, but if one believes a good specialist, one can understand this:

« The Righteous One ‘builds’ the Shekhina because He connects it to the Central Column of the divine pleroma, the Sefira Tiferet, called ‘son’. This masculine sefira is the way by which the Shekhina receives the ontic influx that constitutes her being. »ⁱⁱ

The Shekhina represents the divine « presence ». It is the ‘feminine’ dimension of the divine pleroma. And even, according to some daring interpretations proposed by the Kabbalah, the Shekhina is the « spouse » of God, as we have seen in a previous article.

The Kabbalah uses the image of the union of the masculine (the Central Column) and feminine (the Abode) to signify the role of the Just in the ‘construction’ of the Divine Presence (the Shekhina).

« The Righteous One is the equivalent of the sefira Yessod (the Foundation) represented by the male sexual organ. Acting as the ‘righteous’, the man assumes a function in sympathy with this divine emanation, which connects the male and female dimensions of the Sefirot, allowing him to ‘build’ the Shekhina identified at the altar. » ⁱⁱⁱ

Ben. Son. Construction. Column. Male organ.

And from there, the possible theurgic action of the righteous man, ‘edifying’ the Shekhina.

We see that bar and ben offer two paths linking the divine and the human. One path (bar) is a descending one, that of choice, of election, of the Anointed One, of the Messiah.

The other path (ben) rises like a column in the temple, like a work of righteousness, erected upright, toward the Shekhina.

_____________

iZohar Hadach, Tiqounim Hadachim. Ed. Margaliot, Jerusalem, 1978, fol. 117C cited by Charles Mopsik. The great texts of the cabal. Verdier. Lagrasse 1993, p. 591

iiCharles Mopsik. The great texts of the cabal. Verdier. Lagrasse 1993, p. 591

iiiCharles Mopsik. The great texts of the cabal. Verdier. Lagrasse 1993, p. 593

The « Liquidation » of Christianity

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Two years before his own death, C.G. Jung evoked as a strong possibility the prospect of the « definitive destruction » of the « Christian myth ».

However, psychology could still help « saving » this myth. Through a better understanding of mythology and its role in intrapsychic processes, « it would be possible to arrive at a new understanding of the Christian myth, and especially of its apparently shocking and unreasonable statements. If the Christian myth is not finally to become obsolete, which would mean a liquidation of unpredictable scope, the idea of a more psychologically oriented interpretation is necessary to save the meaning and content of the myth. The danger of definitive destruction is considerable. » ⁱ

Christianity, from the beginning, had already been considered « scandal for the Jews and folly for the Greeks »ⁱⁱ. Now, it had even become « shocking » and « unreasonable » for the Swiss and « obsolete » for psychologists.

The fall in religious vocations, the desertion of the faithful and the decline of the denarius were already beginning to be felt at the end of the 1950s of the last century. All this seemed to give some consistency to these Jungian prophecies of the « destruction » and « liquidation » of the « Christian myth » as a logical consequence of its supposed « obsolescence ».

The movement of disaffection with Christianity has not stopped growing over the last six decades, one might add, at least if we look at the indicators already mentioned.

Is the « Christian myth », to use Jung’s expression, now dying, or even « dead »?

And if so, can it still be « resurrected »?

And if it could indeed be resurrected, in what form, and for what purpose?

Like a Saint George slaying the dragon of obsolescence, an obsolescence less flamboyant than sneaky, silent, but swallowing credence, Jung brandishes in his time the victorious spear of psychology, the only one capable, according to him, of reviving the Christian myth.

To understand Jung’s idea of the assimilation of Christianity to a « myth » – and to a myth in the process of becoming obsolete, one must return to what underlies his entire understanding of the world, the existence of the unconscious, and the « creative » character of the psyche.

For Jung, any « representation » is necessarily « psychic ». « When we declare that something exists, it is because we necessarily have a representation of it (…) and ‘representation’ is a psychic act. Nowadays, however, ‘only psychic’ simply means ‘nothing’. Apart from psychology, only contemporary physics has had to recognize that no science can be practiced without the psyche. » ⁱⁱⁱ

This last assertion seems to allude to the opinion of the Copenhagen School^iv, hard fought by Einstein et al., but an opinion to which the latest conceptual and experimental developments seem to be giving reason today.

Despite such assurances, at the highest theoretical and experimental level of contemporary science, and despite the flattering successes of analytical psychology, C.G. Jung, while at the peak of his brilliant career, seemed bitter about having to fight again and again against the outdated cliché (typical of modern times) that « only psychic » means « nothing ».

No doubt cruelly wounded in the depths of his soul, C.G. Jung may have wanted to take a terrible revenge, by showing that this « nothing » can still, and in a short time, put down one of the most important foundations of European, and even world civilization…

The unconscious exists, it is a certainty for Jung, and for many people. But few have understood the immense power, almost divine, or even divine at all, of this entity.

« No one has noticed, » explains Jung, « that without a reflexive psyche, there is virtually no world, that therefore consciousness represents a second creator, and that cosmogonic myths do not describe the absolute beginning of the world, but rather the birth of consciousness as a second creator ». ^v

Before Jung: In the beginning God created the earth, etc.

After Jung: The Unconscious Mind created the idea that « God created the earth etc. ».

Myths correspond to psychic developments. They can grow and die, just like the latter. « The archetypes all have a life of their own that unfolds according to a biological model. » ^vi

This metaphor of the « biological model » must be taken literally, including birth, maturity and death.

« A myth is still a myth, even if some consider it to be the literal revelation of an eternal truth; but it is doomed to death if the living truth it contains ceases to be an object of faith. It is necessary, therefore, to renew one’s life from time to time through reinterpretation. Today Christianity is weakened by the distance that separates it from the spirit of the times, which is changing (…). It needs to re-establish the union or relationship with the atomic age, which represents an unprecedented novelty in history. The myth needs to be told anew in a new spiritual language ». ^vii

All the nuances of the biological model can be subsumed under a much broader concept of life, a much more global power of meaning, including in particular the idea of resurrection (– an idea, it will be recalled, « scandalous », « crazy » and « shocking »).

If we apply the idea of resurrection in particular to the Christian myth itself, it is possible that the latter in fact escapes its natural, « biological » destiny and its inevitable death, provided that it is subjected to a total « renovation », to an unprecedented reinterpretation, a sine qua non condition for its « resurrection« .

The idea of the « resurrection » of a myth incarnated by a dead Savior, and whose apostles based their faith on the certainty of his own resurrection (as Paul reminds us), is not lacking in salt.

But in order to taste this salt, it would be necessary to be able to reinterpret the resurrection of Christ under the species of a new « resurrection », which is more in accordance with the spirit of the (atomic) time.

The idea of an ‘atomic’ zeitgeist was probably obvious to a psychologist living in the 1950s, after Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the rise of nuclear winter threats made tangible by Cold War arsenals.

Nowadays, the ‘spirit of the time’ of our time is a little less ‘atomic’, it seems, and more ‘climatic’ or ‘planetary’. It is inclined to let itself be influenced by new global threats, those towards which global warming and the foreseeable extinction of entire sections of the biosphere are pointing.

In this new context, what does it mean to « renovate » or « resurrect » the Christian myth of the « resurrection » (as distinct, for example, from the myths of the resurrection of Osiris or Dionysus)?

A first response would be to apply it (quite literally) to the putative resurrection of the millions of animal and plant species now extinct.

But would the idea of an « ecological » Christianity, relying for its own rebirth on the effective resurrection of billions of insects or amphibians, be enough to bring the faithful back to the parishes and to resurrect vocations?

This is doubtful.

It is not that we should not strive to bring back to life the dead species, if this is still humanly (or divinely?) possible. The modern myth that is being constituted before our eyes lets us imagine that one day a few traces of DNA will be enough to recreate disappeared worlds.

Such a re-creation by a few future learned priests, packed into their white coats and their spiritual laboratories, would then in itself be a kind of miracle, capable of melting the hardest, most closed hearts.

But one can also assume that this would still be insufficient to extricate the « Christian myth » from its spiral of obsolescence, in which accumulated millennia seem to lock it up.

But what? Will the resurrection of an immense quantity of fauna and flora, abolished from the surface of the globe, not be like a sort of living symbol of the resurrection of a Savior who died two thousand years ago?

Wouldn’t that be enough to announce to the world, urbi et orbi, that the very idea of resurrection is not dead, but alive again?

No, that would not be enough, one must argue with regret.

How can the resurrection of only half of the Earth’s biodiversity be weighed against the resurrection of the one universal Messiah?

The bids are going up, we can see it.

If Jung is right, the majority of humanity can no longer believe in the very myth of salvation and resurrection (as embodied by Christ in history two thousand years ago).

Why is that? Because this Messiah seems too dated, too local, too Galilean, too Nazarene even.

The story of that Messiah no longer lives on as before.

Why is that? The spirit of the times « has changed ».

And it is not the tales of the agony of the world’s fauna and flora, however moving they may be, that will be able to « convert » minds deprived of any cosmic perspective, and even more so of eschatological vision, to the call of a « renewed » Christian myth.

In the best of cases, the rescue and (momentary?) resurrection of half or even nine-tenths of the Anthropocene could never be more than a short beep on the radar of the long times.

We no longer live in Roman Judea. To be audible today, it would take a little more than the multiplication of a few loaves of bread, the walking on still waters or the resurrection of two or three comatose people; it would even take much more than the resurrection (adapted to the spirit of the time) of a Son of Man, a Son of God, both descended into Hell and ascended into Heaven.

After Season 1, which apparently ended with a sharply declining audience, Christianity’s Season 2, if it is to attract a resolutely planetary audience, must start again on a basis that is surprising for the imagination and fascinating for the intellect.

Reason and faith must be truly overwhelmed, seized, petrified with stupor, and then transported with « enthusiasm » by the new perspectives that want to open up, that must open up.

So one has to change words, worlds, times and perspectives.

The little Galilea must now compete with nebulous Galaxies.

The resurrected Carpenter must square black holes, plane universal constants and sweep away dark energy, like a simple cosmic sawdust.

The once dead Messiah must now truly live again before us, and at once tear all the veils, – the veils of all Temples, of all Ages, of all spirits, in all times, whether in the depths of galactic superclusters, or in the heart of quarks.

Quite an extensive program. But not unfeasable.

_______________________

iLetter from C.G. Jung to Pastor Tanner Kronbühl (February 12, 1959). In C.G. Jung. The Divine in Man. 1999. p.136

ii1 Co 1,23

iiiLetter from C.G. Jung to Pastor Tanner Kronbühl (February 12, 1959). In C.G. Jung. The Divine in Man. 1999. p.135

ivThe Copenhagen School, led by Niels Bohr, stages the intrinsic role of the « observer » in the experimental definition of the observed « reality ».

vLetter from C.G. Jung to Pastor Tanner Kronbühl (February 12, 1959). In C.G. Jung. The Divine in Man. 1999. p.135

viLetter from C.G. Jung to Reverend David Cox (November 12, 1957). In C.G. Jung. The Divine in Man. 1999. p. 128

viiLetter from C.G. Jung to Reverend David Cox (September 25, 1957). In C.G. Jung. The divine in man. 1999. p. 126

The Pagan and the Rabbi

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Is a « beautiful girl », whose beauty is « without soul », really beautiful?

Kant thought about this interesting question.

« Even of a girl, it can be said that she is pretty, conversational and good-looking, but soulless. What is meant here by soul? The soul, in the aesthetic sense, refers to the principle that, in the mind, brings life.» ⁱ

For Kant, here, the soul is an aesthetic principle, a principle of life. Beauty is nothing if it does not live in some way, from the fire of an inner principle.

Beauty is really nothing without what makes it live, without what animates it, without the soul herself.

But if the soul brings life, how do we see the effect of her power? By the radiance alone of beauty? Or by some other signs?

Can the soul live, and even live to the highest possible degree, without astonishing or striking those who are close to her, who even brush past her, without seeing her? Or, even worse, by those who see her but then despise her?

« He had no beauty or glamour to attract attention, and his appearance had nothing to seduce us. » ⁱⁱ

These words of the prophet Isaiah describe the « Servant », a paradoxical figure, not of a triumphant Messiah, but of God’s chosen one, who is the « light of the nations »ⁱⁱⁱ and who « will establish righteousness on earth^iv.

A few centuries after Isaiah, Christians interpreted the « Servant » as a prefiguration of Christ.

The Servant is not beautiful, he has no radiance. In front of him, one even veils one’s face, because of the contempt he inspires.

But as Isaiah says, the Servant is in reality the king of Israel, the light of the nations, the man in whom God has put His spirit, and in whom the soul of God delights^v.

« Object of contempt, abandoned by men, man of pain, familiar with suffering, like someone before whom one hides one’s face, despised, we do not care. Yet it was our suffering that he bore and our pain that he was burdened with. And we considered him punished, struck by God and humiliated. » ^vi

The Servant, – the Messiah, has neither beauty nor radiance. He has nothing to seduce, but the soul of God delights in him.

A beautiful woman, without soul. And the Servant, without beauty, whose soul is loved by God.

Would soul and beauty have nothing to do with each other?

In the Talmud, several passages deal with beauty; others with the soul; rarely with both.

Some rabbis took pride in their own, personal beauty.

R. Johanan Bar Napheba boasted: « I am a remnant of the splendors of Jerusalem ». ^vii

His beauty was indeed famous. It must have been all the more striking because his face was « hairless ».^viii

And, in fact, this beauty aroused love, to the point of triggering unexpected transports.

« One day, R. Johanan was bathing in the Jordan River. Rech Lakich saw him and jumped into the river to join him.

– You should devote your strength to the Torah, » said R. Johanan.

– Your beauty would suit a woman better, » replied Rech Lakich.

– If you change your life, I’ll give you my sister in marriage, who is much more beautiful than I am. » ^ix

At least this R. Johanan was looked at and admired ! The same cannot be said of Abraham’s wife. She was beautiful, as we know, because the Pharaoh had coveted her. But Abraham did not even bother to look at her…

« I had made a covenant with my eyes, and I would not have looked at a virgin (Job, 31:1): Job would not have looked at a woman who was not his, says Rabbah, but Abraham did not even look at his own wife, since it is written, « Behold, I know that you are a beautiful woman (Gen. 12:11): until then he did not know it. » ^x

From another point of view, if someone is really beautiful, it can be detrimental, even deadly.

The very handsome rabbi R. Johanan reported: « From the river Echel to Rabath stretches the valley of Dura, and among the Israelites whom Nebuchadnezzar exiled there were young men whose radiant beauty eclipsed the sun. Their very sight alone made the women of Chaldea sick with desire. They confessed it to their husbands. The husbands informed the king who had them executed. But the women continued to languish. So the king had the bodies of young men crushed.» ^xi

In those days, the rabbis themselves did not hide their appreciation of the beauty of women :

« Rabbi Simon b. Gamaliel was on the steps of the Temple Hill when he saw a pagan woman of great beauty. How great are your works, O LORD! (Ps. 104:24) he exclaimed. Likewise, when R. Akiba saw Turnus Rufus’ wife^xii, he spat, laughed, and wept. He spat because she came from a stinking drop; he laughed because she was destined to convert and become his wife; and he wept [thinking] that such beauty would one day be under the earth. » ^xiii

That Rabbi Akiba dreamt of converting and seducing the wife of the Roman governor of Judea can be attributed to militant proselytizing.

Or was it just a parable?

Why did Rabbi Akiba mourn the beauty of this pagan?

Shouldn’t the beauty of her « converted » soul have obliterated forever the beauty of her body, destined moreover to be buried some day?

_____________

iEmmanuel Kant. Criticism of the faculty of judgment.

iiIsaiah, 53.2

iiiIsaiah, 42, 6

ivIsaiah, 42.4

vIsaiah, 42.1

viIsaiah 53:3-4

viiAggadoth of the Babylonian Talmud. Baba Metsi’a. §34. Translated by Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre. Ed. Verdier. 1982, p.895.

viiiIbid.

ixIbid. §35, pp. 895-896.

xIbid. Baba Bathra. §37, p. 940.

xiIbid. Sanhedrin. §143. p.1081.

xiiRoman governor of Judea in the first century of the Christian era.

xiiiIbid ‘Avoda Zara. §34, p. 1234

The Murder of Moses

Publié par Philippe Quéau

John Everett Millais‘ *Victory O Lord!* (1871)

« All men are either Jews or Hellenes; either they are driven by ascetic impulses which lead them to reject all pictorial representation and to sacrifice to sublimation, or they are distinguished by their serenity, their expansive naturalness and their realistic spirit, » wrote Heinrich Heineⁱ.

The over-schematic and somewhat outrageous nature of this statement may surprise in the mouth of the « last of the Romantic poets ».

But, according to Jan Assmann, Heine here would only symbolize the opposition between two human types, each of them holding on to two world visions, one valuing the spirit, without seeking a direct relationship with material reality, and the other valuing above all the senses and the concrete world.

In any case, when Heinrich Heine wrote these words at the beginning of the 19th century, this clear-cut opposition between « Hebraism » and « Hellenism » could be seen as a kind of commonplace “cliché” in the Weltanschauung then active in Germany.

Other considerations fueled this polarization. A kind of fresh wind seemed to be blowing on the European intellectual scene following the recent discovery of Sanskrit, followed by the realization of the historical depth of the Vedic heritage, and the exhumation of evidence of a linguistic filiation between the ‘Indo-European’ languages.

All this supported the thesis of the existence of multi-millennia migrations covering vast territories, notably from Northern Europe to Central Asia, India and Iran.

There was a passionate search for a common European origin, described in Germany as ‘Indo-Germanic’ and in France or Britain as ‘Indo-European’, taking advantage as much as possible of the lessons of comparative linguistics, the psychology of peoples and various mythical, religious and cultural sources.

Heine considered the opposition between « Semitic » and « Aryan » culture as essential. For him, it was a question not only of opposing « Aryans » and « Semites », but of perceiving « a more general opposition that concerned ‘all men’, the opposition between the mind, which is not directly related to the world or distant from it, and the senses, which are linked to the world. The first inclination, says Heine (rather simplistically, I must say), men get it from the Jews, the second, they inherited it from the Greeks, so that henceforth two souls live in the same bosom, a Jewish soul and a Greek soul, one taking precedence over the other depending on the case.» ⁱⁱ

A century later, Freud thought something comparable, according to Jan Assmann. « For him, too, the specifically Jewish contribution to human history lay in the drive toward what he called « progress in the life of the spirit. This progress is to the psychic history of humanity what Freud calls ‘sublimation’ in the individual psychic life.”ⁱⁱⁱ

For Freud, the monotheistic invention consisted « in a refusal of magic and mysticism, in encouraging progress in the life of the spirit, and in encouraging sublimation ». It was a process by which « the people, animated by the possession of truth, penetrated by the consciousness of election, came to set great store by intellectual things and to emphasize ethics »^iv.

This would be the great contribution of « Judaism » to the history of the world.

At the same time, however, Freud developed a particularly daring and provocative thesis about the « invention » of monotheism. According to him, Moses was not a Hebrew, he was Egyptian; moreover, and most importantly, he did not die in the land of Moab, as the Bible reports, but was in fact murdered by his own people.

Freud’s argument is based on the unmistakably Egyptian name ‘Moses’, the legend of his childhood, and Moses’ « difficult speech, » an indication that he was not proficient in Hebrew. Indeed, he could communicate only through Aaron. In addition, there are some revealing quotations, according to Freud: « What will I do for this people? A little more and they will stone me! « (Ex. 17:4) and : « The whole community was talking about [Moses and Aaron] stoning them. » (Numbers 14:10).

There is also that chapter of Isaiah in which Freud distinguishes the « repressed » trace of the fate actually reserved for Moses: « An object of contempt, abandoned by men, a man of sorrow, familiar with suffering, like one before whom one hides his face, despised, we took no notice of him. But it was our sufferings that he bore and our pains that he was burdened with. And we saw him as punished, struck by God and humiliated. But he was pierced because of our crimes, crushed because of our faults. « (Is. 53:3-5)

Freud infers from all these clues that Moses was in fact murdered by the Jews after they revolted against the unbearable demands of the Mosaic religion. He adds that the killing of Moses by the Jews marked the end of the system of the primitive horde and polytheism, and thus resulted in the effective and lasting foundation of monotheism.

The murder of the « father », which was – deeply – repressed in Jewish consciousness, became part of an « archaic heritage », which « encompasses not only provisions but also contents, mnemonic traces relating to the life of previous generations. (…) If we admit the preservation of such mnemonic traces in the archaic heritage, we have bridged the gap between individual psychology and the psychology of the masses, we can treat people as the neurotic individual.”^v

The repression is not simply cultural or psychological, it affects the long memory of peoples, through « mnemonic traces » that are inscribed in the depths of souls, and perhaps even in the biology of bodies, in their DNA.

The important thing is that it is from this repression that a « decisive progress in the life of the spirit » has been able to emerge, according to Freud. This « decisive progress », triggered by the murder of Moses, was also encouraged by the ban on mosaic images.

« Among the prescriptions of the religion of Moses, there is one that is more meaningful than is at first thought. It is the prohibition to make an image of God, and therefore the obligation to worship a God who cannot be seen. We suppose that on this point Moses surpassed in rigor the religion of Aten; perhaps he only wanted to be consistent – his God had neither name nor face -; perhaps it was a new measure against the illicit practices of magic. But if one admitted this prohibition, it necessarily had to have an in-depth action. It meant, in fact, a withdrawal of the sensory perception in favor of a representation that should be called abstract, a triumph of the life of the mind over the sensory life, strictly speaking a renunciation of impulses with its necessary consequences on the psychological level.”^vi

If Judaism represents a « decisive progress » in the life of the spirit, what can we think of the specific contribution of Christianity in this regard?

Further progress in the march of the spirit? Or, on the contrary, regression?

Freud’s judgment of the Christian religion is very negative.

« We have already said that the Christian ceremony of Holy Communion, in which the believer incorporates the Saviour’s flesh and blood, repeats in its content the ancient totemic meal, certainly only in its sense of tenderness, which expresses veneration, not in its aggressive sense ».^vii

For him, « this religion constitutes a clear regression in the life of the spirit, since it is marked by a return to magical images and rites, and in particular to the sacrificial rite of the totemic meal during which God himself is consumed by the community of believers.”^viii

Freud’s blunt condemnation of Christianity is accompanied by a kind of contempt for the « lower human masses » who have adopted this religion.

« In many respects, the new religion constituted a cultural regression in relation to the old, Jewish religion, as is regularly the case when new, lower-level human masses enter or are admitted somewhere. The Christian religion did not maintain the degree of spiritualization to which Judaism had risen. It was no longer strictly monotheistic, it adopted many of the symbolic rites of the surrounding peoples, it restored the great mother goddess and found room for a large number of polytheistic deities, recognizable under their veils, albeit reduced to a subordinate position. Above all it did not close itself, like the religion of Aten and the Mosaic religion which followed it, to the intrusion of superstitious magic and mystical elements, which were to represent a serious inhibition for the spiritual development of the next two millennia.”^ix

If one adopts a viewpoint internal to Christianity, however hurtful Freud’s attacks may be, they do not stand up to analysis. In spite of all the folklore from which popular religiosity is not exempt, Christian theology is clear: there is only one God. The Trinity, difficult to understand, one can admit, for non-Christians as well as for Christians, does not imply « three Gods », but only one God, who gives Himself to be seen and understood in three « Persons ».

To take a cross-comparison, one could infer that Judaism is not « strictly monotheistic » either, if one recalls that the Scriptures attest that « three men » (who were YHVH) appeared to Abraham under the oak tree of Mamre (Gen 18:1-3), or that the Word of God was « incarnated » in the six hundred thousand signs of the Torah, or that God left in the world His own « Shekhinah » .

From the point of view of Christianity, everything happens as if Isaiah chapter 53, which Freud applied to Moses, could also be applied to the figure of Jesus.

It is the absolutely paradoxical and scandalous idea (from the point of view of Judaism) that the Messiah could appear not as a triumphant man, crushing the Romans, but as « an object of contempt, abandoned by men, a man of sorrow, familiar with suffering, like someone before whom one hides one’s face, despised. »

But what is, now, the most scandalous thing for the Jewish conscience?

Is it Freud’s hypothesis that Isaiah’s words about a « man of sorrow », « despised », indicate that the Jews murdered Moses?

Or is it that these same Isaiah’s words announce the Christian thesis that the Messiah had to die like a slave, under the lazzis and spittle?

If Freud is wrong and Moses was not murdered by the Jews, it cannot be denied that a certain Jesus was indeed put to death under Pontius Pilate. And then one may be struck by the resonance of these words uttered by Isaiah seven centuries before: « Now it is our sufferings that he bore and our sorrows that he was burdened with. And we considered him punished, struck by God and humiliated. But he was pierced because of our crimes, crushed because of our faults. « (Is. 53:4-5)

There is obviously no proof, from the Jewish point of view, that these words of Isaiah apply to Jesus, — or to Moses.

If Isaiah’s words do not apply to Moses (in retrospect) nor to Jesus (prophetically), who do they apply to? Are they only general, abstract formulas, without historical content? Or do they refer to some future Messiah? Then, how many more millennia must Isaiah’s voice wait before it reaches its truth?

History, we know, has only just begun.

Human phylum, if it does not throw itself unexpectedly into nothingness, taking with it its planet of origin, still has (roughly) a few tens of millions of years of phylogenetic « development » ahead of it.

To accomplish what?

One may answer: to rise ever more in consciousness.

Or to accomplish still unimaginable « decisive progress »…

With time, the millennia will pass.

Will Isaiah’s words pass?

What is mankind already capable of?

What will be the nature of the « decisive progress » of the human spirit, which has yet to be accomplished, and which still holds itself in the potency to become?

It is necessary to prepare for it. We must always set to work, in the dark, in what seems like a desert of stone, salt and sand.

For example, it would be, it seems to me, a kind of « decisive » progress to “see” in the figure of Moses « put to death » by his own people, and in that of Christ « put on the cross », the very figure of the Sacrifice.

What Sacrifice?

The original Sacrifice, granted from before the creation of the world by the Creator God, the « Lord of Creatures » (that One and Supreme God whom the Veda already called « Prajāpati » six thousand years ago).

It would also, it seems to me, be another kind of « decisive » progress to begin to sense some of the anthropological consequences of the original « Sacrifice » of the supreme God, the « Lord of Creatures ».

Among them, the future of the « religions » on the surface of such a small, negligible planet (Earth): their necessary movement of convergence towards a religion of Humanity and of the World, a religion of the conscience of the Sacrifice of God, a religion of the conscience of Man, in the emptiness of the Cosmos.

iHeinrich Heine. Ludwig Börne. Le Cerf. Paris, 1993

iiJan Assmann. Le prix du monothéisme. Flammarion, Paris 2007, p. 142

iiiIbid. p. 143

ivSigmund Freud, L’Homme Moïse et la Religion monothéiste, traduit de l’allemand par Cornelius Heim, Paris, Gallimard, 1993, p.177, cité par J. Assmann, op.cit. p.144

vIbid. p.196

viIbid. p.211-212

viiIbid. p.173 et 179

viiiJan Assmann. Le prix du monothéisme. Flammarion, Paris 2007, p. 163

ixSigmund Freud, L’Homme Moïse, p.211-212

Shadows of God

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The biblical name Bezaleelⁱ literally means « in the shadow of God ». Philo offers this interpretation: “The ‘shadow of God’ is the Logos. Just as God is the model of His own Image, which He has here called ‘shadow’, so the Image becomes the model of other things, as He showed at the beginning of the Law (Gen. 1:27) (…) The Image was reproduced after God, and man after the Image, who thus took on the role of model.”ⁱⁱ

Man then is only the shadow of a shadow, the image of an image, or the dream of a dream. For the word shadow evokes the dream, the dream, according to Philo, who quotes the verse: « God will make Himself known unto him in a vision, that is, in a shadow, and not in all light » (Num. 12:6).

In truth, this quotation from Philo is a bit approximate.

The King James version says, more faithfully: “If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.”

In fact, in the original Hebrew, we read not the word « shadow » (tsal), but « dream » (halom).

If one renders the translation with this word, the verse reads:

« Listen to my words. If he were only your prophet, I, the LORD, would manifest myself to him in a vision, I would speak with him in a dream. But no: Moses is my servant; he is the most devoted of all my house. I speak to him face to face, in a clear apparition and without riddles; it is the very image of God that he contemplates. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses? »ⁱⁱⁱ

Even to a ‘prophet’, God may manifest Himself in ambiguous and fragile ways: through a vision or a dream.

But to Moses, God appeared face to face, clearly, ‘without riddles’. And Moses contemplated God as an « image ».

He had the great privilege of seeing God face to face, but in reality he saw only His image. This image, this « shadow », was the Logos of God, if we are to follow Philo.

Evidently, here, the Platonic theories of the Logos had percolated and sowed some seeds in the mind of a great Jewish thinker.

Born in Alexandria just before our era, Philo appears in history shortly before a certain Yĕhōshúa of Galilea, who was later destined to be granted the name of the divine Logos by his followers.

From Moses to Jesus, one can see some continuity and some difference. Moses talks face to face with the Logos of God, i.e. His « image », or His « shadow ». Jesus also talks face to face with God, but he is himself called Logos.

What is the difference? Maybe a difference in the degree of ‘incarnation’ of the Divine Spirit.

The prophets usually are given visions and dreams. To Moses, was given the image and vision of the Logos. To Jesus was given to be the Logos.

And to the Prophet Muhammad what was given? He was given the Qur’an. As the prophet was notoriously illiterate, this text was first dictated to him in oral form, by an angel. Some scribes then took it upon themselves to transcribe the revealed text for posterity.

Can we say that the Qur’an is an instance of the divine Logos? Admittedly, the Qur’an and the Logos are both different instances of the Word of God.

So what is the (ontological) difference between the experience of Moses, that of Jesus and that of Muhammad?

In all three cases God manifests Himself through His Word.

Three brands of monotheism came out to celebrate these manifestations.

The Jews conserve the ‘words’ that God spoke to Moses. They believe that the Logos can be embodied in the vision that Moses saw, and in the Law that he heard.

The Christians believe that the Logos can incarnate Himself in a Messiah, called « Son of God », and that the (divine) Word is « the Son of God ».

The Muslims believe that the « Uncreated Qur’an » is the Word of God.

In reality, nothing may prevent the Logos to ‘descend’ and ‘incarnate’ in this world, wherever and whenever He or She wishes to do so.

iEx 31,2

iiLegum Allegoriae, 96

iiiNum. 12,6-8

The Egyptian Messiah

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Human chains transmit knowledge acquired beyond the ages. From one to the other, you always go up higher, as far as possible, like the salmon in the stream.

Thanks to Clement of Alexandria, in the 2nd century, twenty-two fragments of Heraclitus (fragments 14 to 36 according to the numbering of Diels-Kranz) were saved from oblivion, out of a total of one hundred and thirty-eight.

« Rangers in the night, the Magi, the priests of Bakkhos, the priestesses of the presses, the traffickers of mysteries practiced among men. » (Fragment 14)

A few words, and a world appears.

At night, magic, bacchae, lenes, mysts, and of course the god Bakkhos.

The Fragment 15 describes one of these mysterious and nocturnal ceremonies: « For if it were not in honour of Dionysus that they processioned and sang the shameful phallic anthem, they would act in the most blatant way. But it’s the same one, Hades or Dionysus, for whom we’re crazy or delirious.»

Heraclitus seems reserved about bacchic delusions and orgiastic tributes to the phallus.

He sees a link between madness, delirium, Hades and Dionysus.

Bacchus is associated with drunkenness. We remember the rubicond Bacchus, bombing under the vine.

Bacchus, the Latin name of the Greek god Bakkhos, is also Dionysus, whom Heraclitus likens to Hades, God of the Infernos, God of the Dead.

Dionysus was also closely associated with Osiris, according to Herodotus in the 5th century BC. Plutarch went to study the question on the spot, 600 years later, and reported that the Egyptian priests gave the Nile the name of Osiris, and the sea the name of Typhon. Osiris is the principle of the wet, of generation, which is compatible with the phallic cult. Typhoon is the principle of dry and hot, and by metonymy of the desert and the sea. And Typhon is also the other name of Seth, Osiris’ murdering brother, whom he cut into pieces.

We see here that the names of the gods circulate between distant spheres of meaning.

This implies that they can also be interpreted as the denominations of abstract concepts.

Plutarch, who cites in his book Isis and Osiris references from an even more oriental horizon, such as Zoroaster, Ormuzd, Ariman or Mitra, testifies to this mechanism of anagogical abstraction, which the ancient Avestic and Vedic religions practiced abundantly.

Zoroaster had been the initiator. In Zoroastrianism, the names of the gods embody ideas, abstractions. The Greeks were the students of the Chaldeans and the ancient Persians. Plutarch condenses several centuries of Greek thought, in a way that evokes Zoroastrian pairs of principles: « Anaxagoras calls Intelligence the principle of good, and that of evil, Infinite. Aristotle names the first the form, and the other the deprivationⁱ. Plato, who often expresses himself as if in an enveloped and veiled manner, gives to these two contrary principles, to one the name of « always the same » and to the other, that of « sometimes one, sometimes the other ». »ⁱⁱ

Plutarch is not fooled by Greek, Egyptian or Persian myths. He knows that they cover abstract, and perhaps more universal, truths. But he had to be content with allusions of this kind: « In their sacred hymns in honour of Osiris, the Egyptians mentioned « He who hides in the arms of the Sun ». »

As for Typhon, a deicide and fratricide, Hermes emasculated him, and took his nerves to make them the strings of his lyre. Myth or abstraction?

Plutarch uses the etymology (real or imagined) as an ancient method to convey his ideas: « As for the name Osiris, it comes from the association of two words: ὄσιοϛ, holy and ἱερός, sacred. There is indeed a common relationship between the things in Heaven and those in Hades. The elders called them saints first, and sacred the second. »ⁱⁱⁱ

Osiris, in his very name, osios-hieros, unites Heaven and Hell, he combines the holy and the sacred.

The sacred is what is separated.

The saint is what unites us.

Osiris joint separated him to what is united.

Osiris, victor of death, unites the most separated worlds there are. It represents the figure of the Savior, – in Hebrew the « Messiah ».

Taking into account the anteriority, the Hebrew Messiah and the Christian Christ are late figures of Osiris.

Osiris, a Christic metaphor, by anticipation? Or Christ, a distant Osirian reminiscence?

Or a joint participation in a common fund, an immemorial one?

This is a Mystery.

iAristotle, Metaph. 1,5 ; 1,7-8

iiPlato Timaeus 35a

iiiPlutarch, Isis and Osiris.

Leaving aside Joy and Sorrow

Publié par Philippe Quéau

All religions, all beliefs, play their part in this world.

They are all quite different in a sense, But they all play a role in the current global, political and moral crisis.

Whether Vedic, Egyptian, Zend, Chaldean, Jewish, Buddhist, Hinduist, Christian, Islamic, all religions have something essential in common: they all have some kind of responsibility for the misfortune of the world.

Whether they say they are « outside » the world, or « inside » the world, they are responsible for what they say or let say, for what they do or let do on their behalf.

They are part of the world, taking on the most eminent place, that of judge, master and sage.

How could they not be linked to the actions and speeches of their followers?

How can we not judge them as much on what they say as on what they don’t say?

How can we not bring their great witnesses to the public arena and ask their opinion on the state of the world, as we would on election night or on a day of disaster?

We don’t really know where the chain of prophets began or when it will end.

Is the seal of the word sealed for eternity? Who will tell?

Will the Messiah return? Who will see that day?

Will eschatology come to an end? Who will hear the final Word?

If ten thousand years is not enough to lower the pride of the presumptuous, let us give ourselves a hundred centuries or a million millennia, just to see what will remain of the dust of words once tables, once stones, once laws.

Lists of names can be listed, to stimulate memories. How far back do we go?

Agni, Osiris, Melchizedek, Zoroaster, Moses, Hermes, Buddha, Pythagoras, Isaiah, Jesus, Muhammad…

In a few million years, we will see that they all shared their differences, their aspirations, their visions, their breaths, their ends.

What does the « religion » of these prophets have to do with « entities » now called Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, India, Greece, China, France, Germany?

Will History teach us some day the essence of the difference between the « religion » of the Khârijites, the Zaydites, the Imâmites, the Ismaili Shi’ites and the Sunni ‘majority’ of Islam?

What was really the origin of the « religion » of the Nizarrians, and that of Hassan ibn al-Sabbah’s Assassiyoun?

What is the « religion » of the Taliban?

These questions are pointless, useless, apparently. There are better things to do, as it seems, such as fighting, killing people, bombing cities, beheading bodies, murdering children.

The religions of the past illuminate the wanderings of the present and those of the future with a special light, a premonitory aura.

Their slow epigenesis must be observed.

Their (implicit, slow) convergence must not be excluded, in the long run, beyond their differences.

Memory is necessary for understanding the present, as time takes its time.

But who still has time to remember?

Religions highlight, with words, curses and targeted blessings, much of the world’s misfortune.

They reveal the fragility, weakness, instability, irreducible fracture of Man.

They encourage us to take a long and global perspective, to observe the events of the day, to understand them, to anticipate their consequences, and to overcome pain, anxiety, fatigue and the desire for revenge, the drive for hatred.

For more than fifty-five centuries, several religions have been born and deployed in a limited geographical area, it is worth noting.

This privileged area, this node of beliefs and passions, extends from the Nile Valley to the Ganges basin, via the Tigris and Euphrates, the Oxus, and the Indus.

Geography changes more slowly than the hearts of mortals….

Between the Indus and the Oxus, which country best reflects today the past millennia, the erased glories?

Pakistan? Afghanistan?

How can we forget that Iran and Iraq (like Ireland) take their names from the ancient Aryas, attesting to the ancient Indo-European ties of Persia, Elam and Europe?

The Aryas, long before they even received their « Aryan » name, founded two major religions, the Veda in India, and the Zend Avesta in Iran.

Colossal forces! Immaculate memories!

Antoine Fabre d’Olivet reports that Diagoras de Melos (5th century BC), nicknamed « the atheist », a mocking and irreverent character, discredited the Mysteries by disclosing and ‘explaining’ them. He even went so far as to imitate them in public. He recited the Orphic Logos, he shamelessly revealed the Mysteries of Eleusis and those of the Cabires.

Who will dare to unveil today, like Diagoras, the actual mysteries of the world to the amazed crowds?

« Religion » is a prism, a magnifying glass, a telescope and a microscope at the same time.

« Religion » is above all an anthropological phenomenon.

Dogma bring nothing to this debate, or rather ignite it without benefit to the heart or the mind.

A global anthropology of « religion » could possibly reveal some constants of the human mind.

These constants do exist. Thus, the latent, impalpable or fleeting feeling of « mystery ».

This « mystery » is not defined. It escapes any categorization. But implicitly, indirectly, by multiplying approaches, by varying angles, by accumulating references, by evoking the memory of peoples, their sacredness, perhaps we sometimes manage to see the shadow of its trace, its attenuated effluvium.

There is also the idea of a unique, principal, creative divinity. It is found in various forms, in ancient times, long before Abraham’s time, before the Zend, even before the Veda.

Constant again is the question of origin and death, the question of knowledge of what we cannot know.

What breath then goes through the pages of the Book of the Dead, the manuscripts of Nag Hammadi, the hymns of Ṛg Véda or the Gāthās of Zend Avesta? What breath, even today, runs through the world, in a time so different from the origins?

This breath, it is still possible to perceive it, to breathe its smell.

A world of ideas and beliefs, distant, astonishing, serves as a foundation for today’s world, filled with violence and lies, populated by « saints » and murderers, wise men and prophets, fools and crooks, death cries and « divine winds » (kami-kaze).

Who, today, thinks the world’s destiny?

When reading the Upaniṣad, let us also think of the « masters of the world », the « gnomes » enslaved to the banks, the political « dwarves » governing the peoples, perched on the shoulders of centuries?

« Those who are agitated in ignorance consider themselves wise. They run wildly around like blind people, led by a blind man. »ⁱ

It is a fact that we often observe, at the highest level, hypocrisy, lies, baseness, cowardice, and much more rarely wisdom, courage, truth.

But it is also a fact that anything can happen, always., at any time.

Anything is possible, on principle. The worst. The best. The mediocre. The unspeakable. The unheard of.

The world is saturated with ideas from all ages. Sometimes, from nowhere, new forms are born, shimmering above the rubble and catacombs, relics and hypogoria, crypts and hidden treasures.

Who will see these incredible visions, yet to appear?

Those who will be able to « meditate on what is difficult to perceive, penetrate the secret that is deposited in the hidden place, that resides in the ancient abyss ».

Those who « leave aside the joy and sorrow. »ⁱⁱ

i KU. 2.5

iiKU. 2.12

The Koran is a Torah of « Kindness » said Sabbatai Tsevi

Publié par Philippe Quéau

By proclaiming himself « Messiah » in 1648, Sabbatai Tsevi created a movement that was both revolutionary and apocalyptic. He achieved great success, and his messianic vocation was recognized as such by the Jews of Aleppo and Smyrna, his hometown, as well as by many Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Middle East.

But, after a beginning as shattering as it was promising, why did Tsevi then apostasize Judaism and convert to Islam in 1666?

Gershom Scholem reports in his study of him that Tsevi was actually seeking, in apostasy, the « mystery of the Divinity ».

In any case, one cannot fail to admire his courage and his spirit of transgression. Tsevi converted spectacularly to Islam, when he was seen as Messiah by a large part of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora. Why? This is due to a profound, difficult, but not unimportant idea – even today.

Tsevi believed that his apostasy, as Messiah, would advance tiqoun (« reparation » or « reconstruction »), thereby working for the restoration of the world.

A foolish bet, full of good intentions.

The tiqoun required broad, radical, revolutionary gestures.

Moses had brought a Law of Truth (Torah Emet) and the Koran a Law of Kindness (Torah Hessed), he said. These two laws had to be reconciled in order to save the world, as the Psalmist says: « Goodness and truth meet » (Ps. 85:11).

It was not necessary to oppose laws and traditions, but to unite them, to conjoin them. As proof, Kabbalists argued that the « divine mystery » is symbolically embodied in the sixth Sefira, Tiferet, which corresponds to the third letter (ו Vav) of the Tetragrammaton, which marks the conjunction, in Hebrew grammar (ו means « and »).

Tsevi, well versed in Kabbalah, was not satisfied with it, however. He thought that the divine mystery was located far above the Sefirot, even beyond the first principle, beyond the idea of the First Cause, beyond the inaccessible Ein-sof, and finally far beyond the very idea of mystery.

The ultimate remains in the holiest simplicity.

That is why, after having been influenced by it for a long time, Sabbatai Tsevi finally rejected the Kabbalah of Luria. He said that « Isaac Louria had built an admirable tank but had not specified who was driving it ».

The admirable chariot was the metaphor then accepted to designate the Sefirot of Louria. This expression also referred to Ezekiel’s famous vision.

The Tsevi question remains relevant today. Who drives the Sefirot’s chariot?

An even more important question, maybe :

Where is this chariot really going?

Deus and humus

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Christianity offers the opportunity to ask a question that has no place in Judaism or Islam.

Why does such a high, transcendent God, creator of the worlds, king of the universe, stoop so low, dying crucified, under the spitting and mocking of some of his creatures? Why does he humiliate himself by incarnating himself? What does the Deus have to do with humus?

The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar proposes the idea of « kenosis » in response to these questions. The « kenosis » of the Son (the God nailed to the cross) is linked to another « kenosis », that of the Father (the « descent » of God to man).

Two thousand years ago, Paul of Tarsus had already strongly marked that this idea of kenosis was a « madness » for the Greeks, and a « scandal » for the Jews.

Why is kenosis scandalous to them? Jewish Tradition admits that there is a certain analogy between God and man, since according to Scripture, man is created in the « image » and « likeness » of God.

If man and God have any « similarity », any « resemblance », it is first and foremost the fact of « being ». Scholastics called this similarity relationship the analogy of being (« analogia entis »).

But does the fact of « being » have the same meaning for God and for man? There is a good chance of misunderstanding this word, with its multiple meanings, and its drawer obscurities.

Objections abound on this subject, even within Christianity. Karl Barth points out that Reform theologians formally deny the analogy of being. Since creation is stained by original sin, there can be no analogy between the being of man and the being of God.

The only accepted analogy, according to these same theologians, is the analogia fidei, the analogy of faith. Only faith can bring us closer to the mystery of being. By means of reason, no knowledge of God is possible. Only a gift of grace makes it possible to « know God ». Philosophy and its representations, ideas or images – like the analogy of being – are in this context powerless, useless.

The God of the Reformation is certainly not a God accessible to philosophers.

However, how can we understand this name of God, revealed to Moses: « I am he who is »?

How can we understand « I am », and « He who is », if no « analogy of being » can make us understand its meaning?

If no analogy of being is admissible in the context of the encounter between God and Moses, it means that the word « being » itself is only an empty word, a false image, which does not reflect the infinite difference in nature between being as it is said by God (« I am he who is ») and being as it is lived by man. We use the same word (« to be »), but for things that have nothing to do with each other. We are in the middle of an illusion, in the middle of a mistake.

But then why bother with this question, if the language is perfectly useless? Why read the Torah if the word « to be » is meaningless?

Why would God tell Moses words that would objectively have no meaning for human understanding? Why would God maintain confusion in this way, by playing on the obvious inability of human language? Is this God a « deceitful » God?

If the word « to be » is devoid of any common sense, does it nevertheless have a real meaning, reserved for the initiated?

If each way of being is only a fleeting image, a partial appearance, a transitory phenomenon, where does the ultimate essence of being stand?

God revealed to Moses to be the being who is « the being who is ». By contrast, it is deduced, man is a being who is not « a being who is »; he is a being, undoubtedly, but he is not « the being who is ». Nor is he a being who is not, because then he would be nothing more than a void, and the question would be resolved. This is clearly not the case. What is it then?

The metaphor of being like a « garment » can put us on a track. Serge Bulgakov dares the idea of a God who undresses himself freely from his Glory, while remaining God in himself.

To what extent can this free disregard for God by Himself go? To infinity? Is there a lower limit below which God can no longer « undress », or infinitely « naked »?

Impotence of metaphors…. What does it mean, « to undress », or « to be naked », for God?

In the absence of a precise answer, we borrow from Paul a Greek word, « kenosis », which means « emptying », to enrich a deficient theological vocabulary. « Kenosis » refers to the fact of a naked God, as delivered in Scripture, but does not explain why, the end or the essence of it.

When God says: « I am the one who is », does he then « undress » himself with the Glory of his « being », by this very word? Or is this word still a glorification?

Does he undress from his glorious « Being » to remain humbly gathered in this simple word, which twice uses the word « to be », which is also part of the miserable lexicon of man?

The word that Moses heard on the mountain has no visible equivalent. The « burning bush » was well visible to him, but it was not the visible image of the divine words (« I am he who is »). At the very least, it can be argued that the « burning bush » is perhaps an image of Glory, of which it is precisely a question of seeing if God can decide to undress himself from it.

If Glory is a garment, and God undresses himself, what remains to be « seen »? Or to « hear »? A fortiori, if the being is a garment, and the man undresses himself in it, what remains to be shown or said?

Under the garment of the being, what ultimate nakedness is she lying waiting for? Under the divine Glory, what darkness reigns?

Boring questions, no possible answers. And yet we must continue to wander, in search of new paths, as the darkness thickens here.

Noxious darkness invades the brain as soon as we speak, not of the Divinity that is said, or that reveals itself, but of the one that hides or lowers itself.

« The darkness of the abandonment of the Son has its roots in the darkness of the Father » (Adrienne von Speyr).

These similar darknesses may also, in their darkness, carry an infinitely weak glow. The deeper they are, the deeper you dive in them, the more you drown in them, the more they make you hope to find at the bottom of the sea the glow of the unheard-of, the glow of the unthinkable.

An infinitely weak glow at the bottom of infinitely dark darkness is a good metaphor for the infinite.

Any concept or image that can be formed about divine infinity must be renounced immediately. It is necessary to leave (as if by iteration, in the construction of a mathematical infinity) the place to a new enigma, to a new darkness, always deeper, each provisional concept annihilating itself, each proposed image immediately becoming obscured.

In the absence of being able to say anything positive, therefore, we can only try the negative path, the one that one of the best specialists in the field has called the « dark night ».

It is necessary to hypothesize that God is also incarnated, in his own way, in « night » and « powerlessness ». He can be « night » to himself, reveal himself deep darkness and absolute nakedness under the garment of his Glory; admit to himself « absence » at the heart of his Presence.

These are other ways of defining kenosis, other metaphors.

In the 4th century, Hilaire de Poitiers said that the Word of God has a « disposition to annihilation » which consists in « emptying himself within his power ».

This idea is still based on the raw fact of kenosis, as reported in the biblical text.

Let us return to an index, the only one we have of « annihilation » and « emptiness ». Jesus shouted just before he died: « Elôï, Elôï, lema sabachtani? »

Jesus expresses himself in Aramaic, and this phrase is translated as follows: « My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? »

This cry of agony and dereliction is also a notable, though not obvious, reference to the first verse of David’s Psalm 22, which reads in Hebrew as follows (note the difference with Aramaic):

אֵלִי אֵלִי, לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי

« Eli, Eli, lamah, azabthani? ‘’

The spectators who were watching Christ’s agony on Golgotha made a mockery of Christ’s cry: « And now he is calling Elijah to help him! ».

It can be assumed that the dying person misspoke the words, suffocated by the cross, or that his dying breath was too weak for the crowd to hear him clearly. Another hypothesis is that Aramaic was perhaps not well understood by the Roman soldier? Or was the allusion to the verse in David’s psalms perhaps not obvious to the witnesses present?

All these hypotheses are obviously superfluous, inessential; but they refer to a single question that is essential:

Why this cry of abandonment, in the mouth of the « Messiah »?

The abandoned Son, the Father abandoning. At the supreme moment, extreme loneliness. Absolute failure, total nil. Jesus denied, despised, mocked by Man. And abandoned by God.

All this, from beginning to end, even today, incomprehensible, laughable, scandalous: « Madness for the Greeks, scandal for the Jews. »

This madness and scandal are two thousand years old. What can they still mean, under the lazzis, hatred or indifference, for a civilization of reason, order and « lights »?

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Metaxu. Le blog de Philippe Quéau

Pour une anthropologie de la conscience

Messiah

What The Hidden God Does Reveal

The Dangers of Christianity and the Dangers of Judaism

Two « Sons » : Bar and Ben

The « Liquidation » of Christianity

The Pagan and the Rabbi

The Murder of Moses

Shadows of God

The Egyptian Messiah

Leaving aside Joy and Sorrow

The Koran is a Torah of « Kindness » said Sabbatai Tsevi

Deus and humus

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