Of course it is vital to make whatever it is you are doing, meaningful for you, so that you live a life that is full of meaning. To find reason, purpose and fulfilment in the rituals, to look and search for notions and ideas that resonate with your deepest being.
However, the Talmud is not the only voice in the sea of Jewish thought, if we contrast it with the more esoteric literature, of the Zohar or the teachings of Hassidism, we find a slightly new take on the either/or dispositional style of the Talmud.
They teach us to know at the same time that whatever any of us come up with is only ever part of the story, that there are always different and valid opinions that seem to contradict our own views, this is Talmudic, to enjoy multiple views on any one topic, subject etc.
But this notion of ‘truth’ is a much more post-modern perspective, as dialog, as any singular view being only a fractured fraction of a truth that we as individuals may never really access?
Moreover, if as i have done, we attempt to see Judaism’s essential soul from the perspective of ‘at the end of the day’ - i.e. what Jewish thought desires, aspires and looks forward to in the Messianic future, we discover an alternative ‘truth’.
Which is Singular in nature - it is not based purely on reason - but rather on the actual experience of Reality - a divine reality that we are ONE with.
My point - as i’m often accused of loosing - is that Yes you are correct if you believe that the Talmud is the highest form of Jewish dialogue with God, but if you let go of the Talmud, let go of the strict parameters and distinctions between internal and external reality, between the physical and spiritual worlds then, a new view comes to the fore.
The generation of the dessert failed to learn the Meaning In the World, (from the perspective of Hassidism) they wanted to remain in the dessert to commune with God out of the world. That was primarily their mistake.
They failed to find meaning IN the physical world.
But if we follow this logic, we find that the Talmud for all it’s worldliness - nonetheless still fails to find real meaning in the world.
Whereas the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (as expounded my me) find true and deeply existential meaning in the world as it is.
Joining opposites and the unified together. The individual view- no, the individual themselves, is absolutely Divine - the very division itself a revelation of God’s ultimate power.
Each of us must uncover the Torah within us and join it together - with the voices of each mini Moses/messiah, with each part of a New Torah that we are all revealing.
That the Torah is revealed to us New everyday - not just through reason - but through the World Itself, through our very experience of the Divine in our everyday lives, as it says
‘and these commandments that I command you Today’
That God speaks to each of us each and every moment in our lives, that life itself is an ongoing dialogue with the Divine - that it is Experience rather than reason that is the basis of Torah.
This is a New Torah - the torah in our very deepest - but completely everyday - parts of ourselves.
In short - the Talmud itself explains that in the Messianic Era it will no longer be studied.
Related posts:
- Place related post plugin php here...
