In the version in the Babylonian Talmud a different form of exegetical dialogue appears as well.264 Rabbi Meir drags Aher to the study hall and asks a child to recite the verse he is learning that day. This is a somewhat common form of divination that appears throughout the Talmud. Following the cessation of prophecy, a way of conjuring divine guidance was through listening to the implications of a random verse cited by a child.265 Rabbi Meir, clearly hoping for a promising answer, visits thirteen houses of study. Each time the child responds with a foreboding verse. The final child in the thirteenth house cites the most troubling passage. The Talmud writes:
At the last one, he said to him: Recite your verse to me. He recited to him: “[a]nd to the wicked [ve-lerasha] God says, what is it for you to declare My statutes” (Psalms 50:16). That child had a stutter, so it sounded as though he were saying to him: Ve-le’elisha (i.e. and to Elisha) God says.
Aside from the ominous exegetical signs appearing before Aher, both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud feature an even more hostile testament to Aher’s condemnation: a heavenly voice. At some point in each Talmudic narrative Aher relates that he heard a bat kol, a heavenly voice, declare, “Return rebellious children (Jeremiah 3:22)—except Aher.” His fate, it would seem, had already been sealed. Aher’s exit left no invitation to return.
Now would be an important time to emphasize that I have not presented the Aher narrative in its entirety, nor have I presented all of the nuanced differences in text and structure within the different retellings. There are already scholars far greater than I, most notably Rubinstein, who have presented a clear structural breakdown and analysis of these texts. I have only given abbreviated highlights of some of the key moments from Aher’s life distilled in rabbinic texts. Instead I would like to narrow my focus to consider Aher as the prototype for the failed rabbinic leader. What can the story of Aher tell us about failed leaders?
Aher is convinced that he is hopeless. A cursory reading would suggest that he has good reason to believe so. No less than a voice from heaven proclaims him irredeemable. Each child in the study hall quotes a verse pointing towards his bleak fate. Everyone has hope except him. But what if Aher only hears what he wants to hear? Neither heavenly voices nor exegetical divination provide definitive judgement. Both in fact were interpretive frameworks employed primarily following the cessation of prophecy. Once God’s explicit voice ceased, these were ways to reconstruct His message through interpretive devices. Normally, at least in the context of Jewish law, such divinations are to be ignored. Jay Rover alludes to this point as well:
[Aher] is far too easily discouraged by the declaration of his doom. Instead of calling the heavenly bluff by repenting, Elisha becomes Aher, an apostate incapable of entertaining the possibility of doing so. True, the evil decree was confirmed by a bat kol, but the Bavli elsewhere affirms that ein mashgihim be’vat kol (“We do not regard a bat kol as authoritative”).266
Aside from Rovner’s correct contention that heavenly voices are normally ignored, their meaning is very much a product of the recipient’s interpretation. Heavenly voices are a reflection of the inner construct and interpretive lens of the listener. Aher doesn’t become hopeless because he heard a heavenly voice; his hopelessness is the filter through which he hears all heavenly messages. Rovner assumes the voice and the bibliomancy are legitimate, but he also acknowledges that Aher’s reaction is a product of his inner world. Discussing the narrative strategy of the Talmudic redactor, he writes:
Not only has he (i.e. the Talmudic redactor) recreated Elisha as a sympathetic character whose apostasy resulted from an innocent mistake, but he has located the problem in part in Elisha’s personality: certain character issues contributed to the latter’s unfortunate decision to accept the bat kol’s decree and embark on a life of sin thereby sealing his fate.267
Heaven does not reject Aher; Elisha ben Avuyah rejects Aher. He could not reconcile his Torah with the direction of his life. He therefore begins to interpret all Torah and divinity as pointing him in the direction away from God. Rubinstein addresses this point as well:
Elisha’s interpretation and self-exemplification amount to a pessimistic fatalism; what was bad from the beginning turns out bad in the end. So, there is no “return” for him, no way to remedy the loss of faith, of merit and of opportunity to repent.268
At the core of Aher’s failure is theological cynicism and pessimistic fatalism. Everything he sees points him in the wrong direction. His loss of faith in God is intertwined with the loss of faith in himself. Aher—the Other—is in many ways what he condemns himself to be.
Optimistic Leadership
In the damp prison cell, the Grand Inquisitor explains to Jesus why they have obscured his work and replaced it with the Church’s authoritative religious structure. The Grand Inquisitor did not have faith in the people’s ability to make the right choices. His words:
But what about the rest? Why should the rest of mankind, the weak ones, suffer because they are unable to stand what the strong ones can? Why is it the fault of a weak soul if he cannot live up to such terrifying gifts? Can it really be true that You came only for the chosen few? If that is so, it is a mystery that we cannot understand; and if it is a mystery, we have the right to preach to man that what matters is not freedom of choice or love, but a mystery that he must worship blindly, even at the expense of his conscience. And that is exactly what we have done. We have corrected Your work and have now founded it on miracle, mystery, and authority. And men rejoice at being led like cattle again, with the terrible gift of freedom that brought them so much suffering removed from them.
Much like the story of Aher, pessimism underlies the perspective of the Grand Inquisitor. Aher suffered from his own self-contempt, the Grand Inquisitor from cynical contempt for man’s capacity for choice and change. Both religious leaders allow their fatalistic negativity to coopt the opportunity to alter a perceived religious destiny.
If Aher is the quintessential failed religious leader, his foil is Rabbi Akiva, who entered pardes and emerged complete. Aher, to paraphrase Churchill, saw the difficulty in every opportunity while Rabbi Akiva saw the opportunity in every difficulty. Throughout Aher’s dialogue with Rabbi Meir, Akiva’s exegetical perspective suggests indefatigable opportunity. Rabbi Akiva’s own outlook on life was optimistic. Aher began a scholar and ended a heretic, while Akiva began his life antagonistic of rabbinic authority and ended his life a scholar.269 Akiva, even as the second Temple was aflame, managed to find reason for positivity. While others were crying destruction, Akiva found reason for laughter. In this oft-cited Talmudic story, Akiva’s colleagues respond to him, “Akiva, you have comforted us, Akiva you have comforted us.”270 Aher the unrelenting pessimist saw closed doors even when there was still hope of an entrance. Akiva found reason for comfort even when all entrances seemed obstructed.
Tractate Yoma (39b) retells the story of the death of Shimon Ha-Tzadik, one of the most celebrated High Priests in Jewish history. In the last year of his life Shimon Ha-Tzadik gathered all his students and told them he was going to die. How did he know? He explained to them that each year on the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, in the holiest place in the world, the Holy of Holies, he had a vision. When Shimon was alone inside the Holy of Holies, he met an old man who was dressed in white and wrapped in all white garments. This man would enter with Shimon and exit with him. This year, however, he saw someone else. Shimon saw a man dressed all in black. The man entered with Shimon but did not exit with him. And as Shimon predicted, he died a few weeks after Yom Kippur. Of course, the glaring question is who was the man he envisioned appearing in the Holy of Holies? I once heard a moving suggestion that encapsulates much of our discussion of leaders—both successful and failed.271 The man whom Shimon saw was the Saba Kaddisha of the Jewish people—the manifestation of how Shimon Ha-Tzadik viewed the Jewish people. As long as Shimon’s vision was of the congregation dressed in white—optimistic, ambitious, and open to opportunity—he knew he still h
ad a future as a leader of these people. However, once his representation of the Jewish people was dressed in all black—pessimistic, cynical, and negative—he knew his time as a leader was expiring.
A leader’s success or failure is very often a reflection of that person’s own self-image and image of their followers. Aspirational leaders see the best in themselves and insist on the same for their constituents. Cynical leaders project the same negativity and hopelessness they see in themselves in those they serve as well. To estimate a leader’s success, find out how they look at themselves and their followers.
9
AN ALCOHOLIC WALKS INTO A BAR: PUTTING YOURSELF IN SIN’S PATH
“I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
—Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Who Should Bartend?
Alcoholics are not great bartenders. Sure, they know the product—but far too intimately. Whether a recovered alcoholic would make a good bartender is a much more hotly contested question. A 2009 New York Times profile highlighted the challenges for recovered alcoholics who serve as bartenders.272 The article presents two approaches for bartenders struggling with sobriety. The first is championed by the story of Del Pedro, a recovered alcoholic with fifteen years of sobriety. Del Pedro doesn’t drink at all socially but allows himself once a week carefully to taste new drinks he has concocted. He admits his profession does not make sobriety easy and, according to the standards of Alcoholics Anonymous, he is not even technically sober. Mr. Pedro compares himself to a vegan chef who has to eat pork but quickly adds that the comparison isn’t perfect—“People don’t lose everything because they eat too much pork.” At the other end of the spectrum is Liz Scott, a former chef for Brooke Astor who, following a near-fatal car accident, has been sober for ten years. Her approach, which she relayed in a lecture at the Culinary Institute, is drastically different. For Ms. Scott abstinence from alcohol must be absolute. She uses substitutes for recipes that require alcohol, much as you would prepare a meal for someone who keeps kosher or who has an allergy. The approaches of Mr. Pedro and Ms. Scott, as well as everything in between, certainly have merit, but they raise important questions about how people should relate to the areas of weakness in their lives. What is the authentic sign of vanquishing a vice—complete avoidance or the ability to abstain even in its presence?
The famed Big Book, which has guided the practices and policy of Alcoholics Anonymous for nearly eighty years, takes a moderate approach to this issue:
In our belief any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself he may succeed for a time, but he usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods. These attempts to do the impossible have always failed.
So our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking, if we have a legitimate reason for being there. That includes bars, nightclubs, dances, receptions, weddings, even plain ordinary whoopee parties. To a person who has had experience with an alcoholic this may seem like tempting Providence, but it isn’t … But be sure you are on solid spiritual ground before you start and that your motive in going is thoroughly good.
It is not entirely clear what constitutes a “legitimate reason.” Should an alcoholic walk into a bar just to test his fortitude? The answer to this question is central to overcoming all weaknesses, including religious. Much like the differing approaches alcoholics take for their sobriety, struggling with sin presents a similar set of dilemmas. What is the correct approach to surmounting our spiritual vices? The answer, much like the question of the alcoholic, has spurred spirited debate among rabbinic scholars.
Same Time, Same Place
When is someone ever properly rehabilitated from sin? The Talmud (Yoma 86) cites the opinion of Rav Yehudah who says that a person is not considered completely rehabilitated from sin until two opportunities to sin again present themselves and sin is avoided each time. What qualifies as an opportunity to sin? Rav Yehudah follows up his statement with a startling qualification: “The same woman, the same time, the same place.” It seems Rav Yehudah insists that in order to be considered truly rehabilitated, the alcoholic must revisit the proverbial bar. Maimonides adopts the plain reading of this passage as well.273 According to Maimonides complete repentance requires a sinner to be placed in the same exact situation as the original sin and leave spiritually unscathed.
Some, however, rightfully pointed out that such a literal interpretation of this passage could be dangerous. The Hasidei Ashkenaz had many radical ideas regarding repentance.274 One distinctive feature of their thought was the doctrine of Teshuvah Ha-Ba’ah , meaning repentance that denies succumbing to sin even when given the opportunity. This form of repentance, which is based on the aforementioned passage in Yoma, figures prominently into the school of thought of the Hasidei Ashkenaz. While this form of repentance is lauded, they caution that it cannot be arranged voluntarily, meaning alcoholics would be decidedly prohibited from voluntary entering a bar to prove their resolve. Engineering opportunities to resist temptation was simply considered too risky, however valuable Teshuvah Ha-Ba’ah may be.275 Given the danger of entering such situations, Hasidei Ashkenaz noted that Teshuva Ha-Ba’ah was not frequently realized.276
Interestingly regarding the system of penance employed by the Hasidei Ashkenaz, some scholars speculate whether the notion of Teshuvah Ha-Ba’ah has some Christian parallels. Much like Hasidei Ashkenaz, Christian scholars living in the same area in Europe also cautioned priests from arousing their temptations even for the sake of repentance. Fishman notes, “A work composed by a Christian cleric who lived closer to the locale of Hasidei Ashkenaz contains another condemnatory allusion to the attempt to promote spiritual progress by arousing and withstanding temptations of the flesh.”277 It is hard to say definitively which work, if any, was influencing which. Of course, in any system prizing religious purity extremes of self-discipline are bound to be explored. As Rubin mentions in his study on repentance in the world of Hasidei Ashkenaz, “Wherever the duty of resisting temptation to sin was placed in the forefront of religious practice, as it was among monks and priests, there was bound to occur certain radical elements who carried the practice to extremes.”278
Rabbi Nahman and Rabbi Zadok Struggle with Struggle
The Hasidic leaders Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1810) and Rabbi Zadok of Lublin (1823–1900) both stand out as iconoclasts even within the revolutionary world of Hasidut. Both were associated with persecuted Hasidic sects and their respective works confront some of the most controversial aspects of Hasidic theology, such as redemptive sin, sexuality, and Maimonidean controversy. Although they lived a generation apart, Rabbi Zadok, who became Hasidic later in life, was clearly influenced by Rabbi Nahman’s works. Rabbi Zadok even annotated Rabbi Nahman’s Sefer ha-Midot, a book of rabbinic aphorisms. The area of Hasidic thought where Rabbi Nahman’s influence is most apparent in Rabbi Zadok’s work is their approach to religious resilience even in the face of despair.279 However, as we shall see, their respective approaches to the religious value of religious struggle also highlight an area where Rabbi Zadok clearly departed from the influence of Rabbi Nahman.
One of the most pervasive themes in Bratslav Hasidut is the exhortation never to give up hope and never to despair. In what has now become a slogan among contemporary Bratslav Hasidim, Rabbi Nahman famously declared, “There is absolutely no despair in the world whatsoever.”280 Though the actual passage citing this phrase in Rabbi Nahman’s work Likutei Moharan is quite brief, it clearly played a defining role in general Bratslav theology.281 The passage reads:
And the core idea is to strengthen oneself however possible; for there is absolutely no despair
in the world whatsoever. And this he explained in the following language “keyn ye’ush iz guer nit fahr hondin,” and he prolonged the (pronunciation of the) words “keyn ye’ush…” and he said them with great strength and wondrous depth and awesomeness in order to indicate and allude to each and every one, for all generations, that he should not despair whatever the case may be, no matter what has transpired to him and his current state. Even if he has fallen to the place where he has fallen, God forbid, once he can strengthen himself to whatever degree, there is still hope for him to return and to have the Blessed One returned to him.283
The phraseology in Rabbi Zadok’s work is nearly identical. He writes:
A Jew should never despair for any reason. Whether in matter of physical well-being, of which it is said, “Even if a sharpened sword is on your neck to not withhold yourself from seeking mercy,” (Berakhot 10a) or in matter of spiritual well-being—even if you have entrenched to the place where you have been entrenched and you have sinned in a matter of which it is said (Zohar I:219:2) that repentance will not help, God forbid, or that repentance is exceedingly difficult, or you see that you have fallen and become absorbed in mundane matters, regardless, never despair on yourself and say that you will not be able to separate (from sin) any longer. Because there is no despair at all for a Jewish man and God can help him in any circumstance.284
Nahman’s ability to address the most downtrodden and forlorn Jews influenced Rabbi Zadok’s ideas and terminology. The term “there is absolutely no despair in the world” trickled into Rabbi Zadok’s works; more generally, Reb Zadok adopted Bratslav’s radical Hasidic optimism even when confronting religious desolation. In fact Shilo Pachter, in his invaluable dissertation regarding the prohibition of masturbation, singles out Rabbi Nahman and Rabbi Zadok as the embodiments for what he calls, “Encouragement and Comfort in the Hasidic View.”285
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