The Great Reality

 

Evelyn Underhill was a British Catholic writer of mystical topics from the turn of the twentieth century to her death in the 1940s.  She was extremely popular for a time, becoming the most widely read modern mystic writing for popular audiences.

Her 1915 book, Practical Mysticism, is a case in point.  Geared toward a general audience, Underhill set about to show that mystical contemplation is an active pursuit, not a monastic calling which takes men and women out of society. 

Yet Underhill performs some very standard mystic moves.  She sets forth a program of contemplation to enable a person to move beyond their ego, their common perceptions of reality, and toward a wider, grander vision.   

She does not view the goal of mysticism as the merger of the person with God, but with something she calls Reality.  It is the goal of both dropping the individual ego and its concerns, cleansing the perceptions of the human mind, and enabling a person to have a clearer, wider vision of the nature of the universe.

In this sense, she is very much a precursor to more New Age versions of mysticism.  She combines Christian ideas of mystical thinking (especially the medieval The Cloud of Unknowing) with post-Kantian philosophy.  This is far less dry than it sounds.  Underhill provides a very compelling, rich and loving account of the mystical pursuit.   

A Hoary Tradition

The Sages Speak: Rabbinical Wisdom and Jewish Values, by William B. Silverman, sets out the encyclopedic task of ordering rabbinical opinions about various topics, including, God, Man, Prayer, Holiness, Justice, Faith, Eternal Life, The World to Come, and Hope.  Each of these chapters is divided into sub-chapters, taking an element of the broader topic and exploring one aspect.

There is a hoary tradition in Judaism for such endeavors.  Rabbinical literature is a sprawling corpus, spread across two Talmuds, commentaries, responsa, books and books, and complete command of this literature is for the select few.  So, writers like Silverman take this unorganized material and organize it.  Taking a passage from the Babylonian Talmud and placing it alongside a story about the Baal Shem Tov which share a common theme.

There will always be a place in Jewish life for such a work, since it provides a vital bridge to a past literature this is out of the reach of most.  We need such books to provide a thread leading to the past, giving us sustenance in the present, and a line to the future.

Suffering, suffering… and some more suffering

The first thing that strikes you when watching War of the Century, a documentary about the Soviet experience during World War Two, is how qualitatively and quantitatively different it was from the war in the West.  We can say this both in sheer numbers of dead, destruction of cities, and abominable behavior.

Nazi ideology considered the Slavs a sub-human category, and acted accordingly on the battlefield.  When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, atrocities in the subjugated areas were more than norm than the exception.   Jews and communists were singled out for execution, as were civilians for no other reason than the whim of local commanders, or the anarchic tendencies of German troops.  Slavs were not fully human, and their lives were cheap.

The people of the Soviet Union were further made to suffer by Stalin, who expected them to sacrifice themselves for the motherland to the point of death.  At the end of the documentary, we see a camp where Russian POWs are accused of anti-Soviet activities after their liberation by the Red Army.  Most were given lengthy sentences in the gulag.

People on both sides did horrible things on the Eastern Front, and you can watch them explain themselves in this documentary.  Very few actually consider themselves war criminal or murderers.  In the context of the times, they usually explain, what they did was justified.   

And it is hard to judge actions of soldiers in the field based on peace time morality, but if we don’t ask such hard questions, then what are human beings reduced to?  Is it really an excuse to say I had no choice, it was part of the time, we were under tremendous pressure?  It is difficult to watch an old man, a former Russian solider, smile and chuckle about the rape of German women.  How can we forgive this?  Should we ever?

What War of the Century does prove is how terribly low the human race can fall in absolute moral terms.  A war of all against all is not impossible, but probable.  It happened, and continued after the war, as Stalin committed atrocities against his own people that rival or surpass Hitler’s.

Yet more dead and exiled people.   More suffering in absolute terms. More people treating other people as mere objects.

Once upon a Tale: 12 Illustrated Parables from the Dubno Maggid

Once Upon a Tale: 12 Illustrated Parables from the Dubno Maggid, by Gadi Pollack is a frum, or religious cartoon, based, as the title says, on the stories of the Dubno Maggid.   

The stories have a typical trajectory of Hasidic legendary tales.  The events in the world that we see, seemingly random, are really a part of God’s scheme to further both His will, and for the betterment of people. Usually, the conclusion of the story shows how God has been acting all along, pushing the story ahead, without the actors being aware of the divine script they follow until the very end.

Gadi does a good job in telling these stories, and his illustrations are brilliant and warm.  The Hebrew original is relatively easy to read with an intermediate knowledge of Israeli Hebrew, and some reading knowledge of more religious forms of the language, like Rabbinical Hebrew.

Flipping Out : Israeli Youth in India

This disturbing BBC documentary, Flipping Out, shows the problems of occupation in Israel of Palestinian territories, this time from the prospective of former soliders going to India following their three years of mandatory service.

For most, it is a rite of passage. A breathing space between the army, going to school, getting a job, and getting married.  But for some, it becomes a place to hide, to take drugs to mask mental problems, PTSD, depression, psychosis, caused or worsened by military service.

This is a sad film, which shows the terrible cost of living in Israel, at least for the individuals depicted here.  Once more, this film shows the price paid by the occupier.  It is a big toll; and young people pay the price.