When the curse is a blessing and the blessing is a curse: We came to bless and found ourselves cursing, we came to curse and found ourselves blessing. On the theology of an aesthetic revolution of values in the Jewish world, while taking Judaism out of its light - into darkness
Rarely do we get to witness an important theological development of our religion in real time, but precisely such an exciting event has been arranged for Judaism in the last half decade, with the meteoric appearance of the most important - and most dangerous - Jewish theologian operating today: Yishai Mevorach. But Mevorach is a cursed theologian, and it seems that since Sabbateanism, such a theological powder keg has not been created within Judaism: on the one hand, powerful, whose implications and developments for generations can be far-reaching, and on the other hand, with clear and obvious destructive potential, and prone to extremism due to its hyperbolic and paradoxical nature (in this, Mevorach bypasses the theological worlds of Izhbitza, the Chabad extremism in the last generation, the secret doctrine of Breslov in the first generation, and more).
The irony of fate is that precisely from the world of one of the most moderate, cautious and responsible among the important Jewish theologians of the 20th century, Shagar, who had a conservative character and even tended often to romanticism to the point of beautification, grew an anti-romantic, perverse and radical thinker like Mevorach. Perhaps this can be compared to the way in which from Rav Kook's harmonistic thought emerged the extremism of Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook, but the comparison would not be complete, because Mevorach is a much more systematic and daring thinker than his always doubting and hesitant teacher, and in many ways surpasses him, not just in self-confidence (and this is in contrast to the theological dwarfs who continued Kook). If Shagar was a fox, and this is evident even in his books which are built as collections and also in his basic attraction to postmodernism, then Mevorach is a hedgehog, who this year finished publishing an orderly philosophical trilogy around a clear center - and strikingly prickly. Indeed, the chances of this bursting ball of thorns to shed blood, reveal nakedness and worship the Other Side in future generations, when it undergoes simplifications on its way to the broader religious public and to children, are greater than any other significant Jewish theology created in our time (and this is certainly contrary to the intention of its creator, but radical religious ideas have a life of their own).
The reason for this is quite simple, and lies at the core of the Mevorach project, inseparably from its brilliant side (just as the idea of "state of emergency" is inseparable from Nazism, and who like Mevorach loves the "state of emergency"). The Mevorach theology contains within it the mechanism of its own extremism and escalation (and perhaps even destruction), in an uncontrolled manner, like a ticking bomb: "compliments" that we distributed here, like sick and dangerous thought, perversion, destructiveness, extremism, radicalism, and "other curses" are really genuine compliments (that is: of the Real) for Mevorach, and basic concepts in his thought, to which he is drawn in a dazzling intellectual dance - like a butterfly to a flame. For this is the sting of this thought: in the absolute reversal of values in the Jewish world.
Enough with apologetics - long live pathology
Mevorach, like other profound thinkers, is a classic thinker of the type that the Netanyahuite characterized as thought of "indeed so". This is thought of the unapologetic and non-apologetic type (in this it is even related to the Israeli era of Bibi! And indeed sanctifies pathological stubbornness as an ideal): you (the secular) say that we (the religious) are messed up and psychotic? So unlike secularized religious thinkers who will explain why we are not messed up and not really psychotic, and actually quite okay, just like you, and how it all fits together (and thus internalize secularization and criticism into religion), we will say loudly and proudly: quite right, we are really messed up. Because that's what needs to be: psychotic. That's what God (the completely messed up and psychotic) wants from us: pathology.
If liberal secularism criticized religiosity for primitiveness, anti-enlightenment, unreasonableness, and irrationality, then we will not be apologetic thinkers, but will adopt the criticism as our flag and pillar of fire. We will actually intensify the pathologies and irrationality until all ends are exhausted: anti-enlightenment that stems not from naive and conservative ultra-Orthodoxy, but as expected for one who aspires to the extreme - from Lacan (the guru of psychos - even if they are psychologists, or irresponsible and radical philosophers on the cheap, like Žižek - and whose aspiration to the Real is the fig leaf for all destructive thought in our day. Because the Real is psychotic, right?). If Shagar is Mevorach's rabbi - Lacan is his Rebbe. Shagar may have released the intellectual method for him - but in Lacan he found the root of his soul. From tradition - to revolution. The "problem" becomes an ideal, and even one of the most powerful kind: a religious ideal.
And if Christianity received its deep perverse theological twist and perhaps inevitable from the crucifixion, then Mevorach is the one who seeks to bring the message of deep and inevitable perversion to Judaism - from the Holocaust. If we take Gershom Scholem's thesis on the growth of Sabbateanism as an inevitable checkmate in three or four moves that stemmed from the shock of the Spanish Expulsion, and from its deep and slow theological digestion in the third and fourth generation (in the sense of visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation...), then the Holocaust was such a radical event - that the theology of the third and fourth generation to the Holocaust that he creates is (how not?) radically amazing. Thus, in the paradoxical way of the spirit, a radicalism completely foreign to it is internalized into Jewish theology from the image of its black mirror: Nazi theology. Holocaust? Indeed so! If the destruction of Spanish Jewry was a break that created the breaking of the vessels, then the Holocaust invites an even more radical response - where the entire religious state turns into a permanent state of emergency, and catastrophe is present as the basis of religion itself: our planet is the one that turns into another planet. Where was God in Auschwitz? Pffft. Where is God possible if not in Auschwitz?
Look at the growths you have grown
Where did such thought grow from? Shagar's own teacher is (as claimed) surprisingly one of the true greats of the Torah world (Rabbi Shlomo Fisher, whose lectures can be heard on Kol Halashon, the site that revolutionized the accessibility of the last word in Talmud study in our time from within the elite of the yeshiva world - to the whole world). But as said in the midrash: "Torah in knitted [kippot] - do not believe. Thought in knitted [kippot] - believe". Haredim do not engage in theology, but in Torah, and therefore the important theologians of the 20th century were precisely in the realms of Religious Zionism, which is in between the core of Judaism and the secular world. Because theology is by nature foreign to Judaism, and therefore was always in the sign of import from philosophy into Judaism, and in this sense the importer Mevorach Ltd. is actually a classic Jewish thinker, precisely because of his external and foreign sources - this is tradition.
If the medieval thinkers (like Maimonides) were Greek philosophy in a Jewish version, then in the last century all modern thought was crammed into Judaism, and created a theological flourishing: Leibowitz was Jewish Kantianism (someone asked for a categorical imperative?), Kook was Jewish Hegelianism (hence the idealism from which we suffer to this day), Soloveitchik was Jewish Neo-Kantianism ("Halakhic Man") that deteriorated into Jewish existentialism ("The Lonely Man of Faith"), and so on, and Shagar was already Jewish philosophy of language and postmodernism, and Mevorach is his successor in the Continental direction, as the Jewish Lacanian No. 1 (there is currently also a "Jewish project" in the realms of analytic philosophy, which as is known is abundant with American Jews). So in addition to all the troubles, Mevorach imports the jargon into Jewish thought (Shagar was quite careful about this), which will allow his successors to read a radical reading into it as they wish, and to realize in reality the Real (that is: the catastrophic).
Let us ask: What is the secret of Mevorach's dark charm? The darkness itself. The Mevorach thought is thought with passion, and its list of passions is long (but actually quite monotonous): the impossible, the boundary-breaking, the trauma, the anxiety, the chaos, the disturbance, the unraveling, the anguish, the aggression, the dissonance, the lack, the break (for the advanced: the crack), the apocalyptic, the anti-rational, the incurable darkness, the lack of solution, the conflict, the stuckness, the compulsiveness, the neurosis, the trauma (already was?), the repressed, the otherness (absolute, if possible), and so on and so forth. Like a lover who cannot get excited about his beloved without danger, quarrel, jealousy, and destructive relationships. It doesn't turn him on if it doesn't play with fire (yes, Mevorach thought also contains a conception of sexuality and love in its image and likeness - as a religious ideal). It's not real if it doesn't cut. Where's the blood? Even jihad and the Crusades are necessary expressions of response to the divine, to the total, to the all-demanding, to the great (than life) and exciting and disturbed lover. The Holy One, Blessed be He, woke up in the morning - and never felt so pagan. Who said the urge for idolatry was slaughtered?
And what is actually the difference between us and the pagans (long live the small difference)? According to Mevorach, it is the Halakha that is supposed to tame the rampaging god, as if it were a dog (and see: Agnon's Balak), and allow us to cope with him and his evil, crazy, senile, instinctive and creative harm. While the very glorification of pathology produces an atomic bomb and praises its power and requires permanent stay in ground zero - we are brought an old (and perforated) radiation suit. How reasonable is this solution from a religious point of view, not to mention from a psychological point of view, not to mention just cancerous religious growths? Won't Mevorach's destructive lover tear like tow the already tired and worn shackles of Halakha, which is still perceived here as meaningless? Even if Mevorach himself lives this borderline balance on the edge - the slide down the slope is much more likely than him, and the small push that is missing - is never missing. When the correction is so pale and boring and the corruption so alive and bleeding and interesting, who is interested in correction? Soon the Shekhinah will complain: #MeToo.
Towards a Torah of non-alignment
But is this all we have to say about this important development, and about the appearance of the great Jewish theologian of this time? Oy-oy-oy? Has The Degeneration of the Nation become a warner against the degeneration of the heavens? In fact, Mevorach is a paradigmatic example of current Jewish thought, and his great impact will only allow us, in the next part, to be impressed by the junction with three spatial directions in which Judaism stands today - lost, but open to innovative possibilities that our fathers did not imagine. Mevorach is an example of external coping, in a genre outside the Torah itself (theology, philosophy), with the problems of the Torah - and hence his problems arise (he might prefer the term: his illness).
The attempt to create directly within the core secret of the Torah itself, that is, within the mystical world itself, is beyond the audacity (and perhaps even the literary and creative talent) of these Jewish thinkers, such as Shagar and Mevorach, and certainly beyond the reach of groundbreaking secular researchers (like Scholem in his generation and Liebes in ours). They lack the authenticity of the last Rebbe of Chabad, for example, and the need to use external theological(/research...) aids stems only from the internal stuckness of tradition and Torah itself, which is in increasing and unbridgeable dissonance with rapidly advancing reality, and with the development of history itself (the Holocaust, the state, the sexual revolution, technology, etc.).
This is the real background to Mevorach - Torah study stopped learning from the world. And now we need to justify the autism, schizophrenia and retardation (yes, sometimes that's simply the word). The mystical attempt is reserved for real psychotics (the local example here: black circle), while the attempt to touch psychosis through research or thought or preaching "about" - is actually an attempt at psychology (hence: Lacan). And hence also the inauthenticity of these attempts: their excess of self-awareness. The schizophrenic diagnoses himself with schizophrenia and runs to get a certificate: I am a schizophrenic. The psychotic shouts: I'm psychotic! (He's a proud psychotic). Because there is no subject - only symptom. Therefore, in the end, this is mainly empty thought, that is, thought about emptiness (whatever name we call it, so that we feel daring), from the outside, and not one that creates within it - as an empty space. To go without - and feel with. They don't write the new Zohar, or the messianic Torah, or found a post-human monotheistic religion - because they are very far (of course) from any real religious radicalism. They are radicals of the framework (and even that conceptual), and not of creating the Torah within it, where they are good children with a kippah.
Would Mevorach himself use his own mechanism that sees Halakha as an evasion of a psychotic and unbearable divine demand to actually permit homosexuality? God forbid! After all, he is Orthodox (radical). Therefore, Halakha for him is also... "meaningless" (let's note that this is not a liberal criticism of "poor homosexuals", but a criticism of the lack of innovation within the Torah - as opposed to innovation, which is less threatening, in the framework and ideological context of the Torah - that is in Mevorach-ism). Such thought simply preserves the existing (even if it calls it names. Such as "pathological"), and therefore inherently sanctifies stuckness for its own sake (!) and the Torah in its current form, lacking the ability to learn (Torah learning!), which indeed leads Judaism to non-alignment - and to the abyss.
It's no longer Leibowitz ("Why? Because") or Soloveitchik ("Why? Because I"), the excuses are becoming more sophisticated - and even amazingly sophisticated, like with Mevorach - but at the end of the day, what about answers? After the brilliant excuses and worship of sand that sparkles like stars, what is there to eat? Even if the excuses (that is: answers whose result is known in advance, and only the way is important) are wonderful, what about responding to questions? To real problems? What is the response to the lack of creativity of the Torah (not to mention Halakha)? "Cultural criticism" from religion towards secularism (that is, in the easy direction, outwards)? Come on, you really innovated (and interests the Tosefta of the secular. Another mechanism for "customer retention" on the way to becoming ex-religious). Mevorach & Co. abandon internal religious creativity in the direction of liberal criticism (for example: Rabbi Sperber), and therefore always lose. To the secular. And not in the (imaginary) away game - but on the real home field. Post-secularism? Maybe it's time for post-religiosity. Or at least post-Judaism. Or at the very least post-religious-Zionism. Not to mention the post-humanity at the door.
Theology of tastelessness
For real creativity in Torah - we already need a completely different spiritual world, which is not part of the paralysis and evasion in front of the psychotic God, and is not a philosophical-theological world by its very nature (that is, ultimately, there is a return to the old disease of the religious Zionists: ideology). And we also need something that is very far from the narrow horizons and poor education of the knitted kippah wearer - aesthetic, literary ability (that is, integration between all levels of meaning of the text), and this is evidenced by his miserable artistic products, which stem from his insulting artistic horizons (and from his inferior ideological way of thinking). If there is something that Mevorach-ism might be able to help with - it is taking religiosity out of kitsch and aesthetic conservatism (in my humble opinion, his next philosophical trilogy should have dealt entirely with the theory of aesthetics, and decisively disconnect from the poor literary taste of Shagar-ism, not to mention Shagar himself). In order to write a new Torah, and let's call it whatever you want, dear religious Zionists (Torah of the Land of Israel?) - you need, first of all, to know how to write.
At the end of the day, theology by its nature is very external to the core of the real Torah: mysticism, creation in myth, innovation, divine inspiration, dealing with the future (formerly prophecy), bringing the Messiah. And a frame is measured not only by its own beauty and strength, but also and mainly by its effect on what happens in the picture inside it (and not just in its preservation, faded, brown and peeling). This is the source of the failure of almost all theology (non-liberal, Orthodox) of the 20th century: justification of the existing. Where is Torah study as a creative and innovative action? Even Chabad's messianism is much more innovative, from this perspective. The Rebbe had balls.
Hence the excessive talk "about" - at the expense of the thing itself. Because language is in excess - and learning is in deficit. Indeed, the most brilliant places of this thought are precisely in preaching (that is, in using an internal Torah method) - and not in the work of foreign conceptualization. It is not the philosophy here that is great - but the religious audacity. When it's not a technical use of some imported philosophical tool on the Torah, but an action within the Torah itself - it's a powerful bomb. Because learning is always within the system, and not from outside. Therefore Mevorach, with all his innovation, is still (like his rabbi) a theologian of language, that is, of the 20th century - and not a theologian of learning, that is, of the 21st century. They haven't yet heard that their own philosophy, which they bring to the realms of Judaism as the latest new discovery shaking the foundations - is already passé.
And it's not just the philosophy that is outdated, but (and this is the real problem) - the Torah itself. After all, what is Mevorach's claim against all previous theology, including Shagar? You did romantic beautification - to death (to the terrible abyss, to the incomprehensible, to the irreparable... blah blah). You built beautiful cabinets around the Torah to hold it, you made developments in the sarcophagus, you mummified it and built a pyramid, while I am the only one who really deals with the phenomenon as it is (and he really is the only one whose thought holds water after the Holocaust!). I don't bury in the ground and don't sweep under the surface, but take the corpse of the Torah, the stinking, rotting, blackening one, with the worms, and put it on the table in the mourners' living room and make the real death present in the middle of the room - and that's what it means to be religious. See how brave and blunt I am. But wait, isn't the Torah supposed to be alive?
To Part 2