1050.00 MAN OF HALACHAH AND THE UNIFIED FORMULATION (pps.160-163)
hard cover page 162
slavery-and does not obsessively resist to the utter limits of the plausible—he also yields on Divine dignity.
Man, who has been granted the infinitely precious gift of freedom, must guard it with obsessive vigilance. Granted that we are geniuses in retrospect, nevertheless the lessons must be ingrained into the cumulative consciousness. For the Jew, in particular, has learned that, incredible as it might be to conceptualize, the forces of evil will, in one way or another, ultimately coalesce yet again to strike at man’s freedom and dignity.
A new era of possibility
Judaism today is in a position without precedent. Major elements are in place for a bona fide Golden Age of Jewry quite capable of equaling the Golden Age of Spain in creativity, intensity, and scope. The American Jewish community and the State of Israel have each been impressive in their respective spheres. The American Jewish community is at a historical apex, and the State of Israel is at a 2000-year historical apex.
Each community has built up powerful, diversified, and continually expanding educational infrastructures along with well developed intracommunity communications media. Each community is independently vibrant. An accelerated maturation process is also evident. Increased cross-fertilization between the two major Jewish communities alone, let alone the interaction with the secular world, complete with new and expanded Jewish Studies, Religion, and Bible departments at universities throughout the Western world, present excellent ingredients for achieving a critical mass of intellectual dynamism.595
Yet at the same time (naturally, we would maintain), man stands at the gates of self-annihilation. Should man succeed in destroying himself, and extinguish the possibility of reaching his human potential this time around, will the infinite potential of the primary essence be less infinite? Would the cosmic mandate fold back on itself towards the infinitely minute-only to be boreh (“creating”) once again later on through the eons?
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595 See my article “The Quantification of Jewish Education: A Strategic Error,” Midstream, December 1983.
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