OHR CHADASH
Writings on Jewish themes
This web page currently includes five papers of mine on Jewish religious and/or philosophical themes.
1. Thoughts on Some Shabbat Prayers
2. A Conversation on Theodicy
3.1 The Diagram of the Supreme Pole and the Kabbalistic Tree: On the Similarity of Two Symbolic Structures
3.2 Symbolic Structures as Systems: On the Near Isomorphism of Two Religious Symbols
4. Mussar and the Renewal of Judaism (Draft #01)
Paper #1 is personal. Papers #3.1 and 3.2 are scholarly (3.2 is a longer version of 3.1 and includes also some systems-theoretic ideas). Paper #2 is partially personal and partially scholarly. Paper #4 is mostly personal and is just a first very rough draft. Comments on any of these papers would be very welcome (email me). I hope to add to this page at some point a philosophical essay inspired by Franz Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption.
Professionally, I’m a systems theorist at
‘Ohr chadash’ means ‘new light;’ these are the first two
words of the prayer, “A new light will illuminate
-Martin Zwick
Feb. 4, 2011
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1. Thoughts on Some Shabbat Prayers (2002)
Introduction:
What follows are thoughts
about several of the Shabbat and daily prayers which are collected together,
with translations, in Shiru Ladonai, a Siddur prepared by Rabbi Aryeh
Hirschfield, alav ha’shalom, of P’nai Or, the Jewish Renewal congregation of
Portland, Oregon. These thoughts reflect
how I understand the prayers, what they mean to me when I am able to make a
personal connection with them. Most of
the ideas expressed below are not original, but draw from a variety of sources.
The format is the following: the Hebrew prayer,
or a fragment of it, is followed by an English translation, usually Reb Aryeh's
but occasionally my own, and then by an interpretation or drash, in italics.
For most of us, there are
too many prayers. It is like a long
seminar in quantum mechanics that we, middle school students who have studied
some biology but not yet any physics, are invited to attend. For the spiritually advanced and for those who
are steeped in tradition, the array of prayers of the traditional service may
be rich and potent, but for the rest of us, even the prayers of abbreviated
services are too many. A single prayer
said with intention, or from a broken heart, or felt with one's body is worth
more than a thousand prayers uttered without kavana. If one can say (feel) such a prayer, dayenu. This should be the goal of the prayer service.
The
full paper on Shabbat Prayers is here (pdf).
The
home page devoted to the memory of Reb Aryeh, which is a blessing, is here.
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2. A Conversation on
Theodicy
The Global Spiral, January 9, 2008.
This paper is a dialog on theodicy—more
precisely, on a modern version of the classical religious-philosophical conundrum
of how it can be that (a) Evil exists, and yet (b) God is beneficent, and (c)
God is omnipotent. The dialog was inspired by Susan Neiman's Evil in
Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy,
The
full paper on Theodicy is here (pdf) or here
(html)
in The Global Spiral.
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3.1 The Diagram of the Supreme Pole and the Kabbalistic Tree: On the Similarity of Two Symbolic Structures
Religion East & West, the Journal of the Institute for Word Religions, Issue #9, October 2009, pp. 67-87.
Abstract:
This paper discusses similarities of
both form and meaning between two symbolic structures: the Diagram of the
Supreme Pole of Song Neo-Confucianism and the Kabbalistic Tree of medieval
Jewish mysticism. These similarities are
remarkable in the light of the many differences that exist between Chinese and
Judaic thought, which also manifest in the two symbols. Intercultural influence might account for the
similarities, but there is no historical evidence for such influence. An
alternative explanation would attribute the similarities to the ubiquitousness
of religious-philosophical ideas about hierarchy, polarity, and
macrocosm-microcosm parallelism, but this does not adequately account for the
similar overall structure of the symbols. The question of how to understand
these similarities remains open.
The full paper on the Diagram and the Tree is here (pdf).
3.2 Symbolic Structures as Systems: On the Near Isomorphism of Two Religious Symbols
In Markus Locker, ed., Systems
Theory and Theology: The Living Interplay between Science and Religion, pp.
62-96.
Abstract:
Many symbolic structures used in religious and philosophical traditions are composed of “elements” and relations between elements. Similarities between such structures can be described using the systems theoretic idea of “isomorphism.” This paper demonstrates the existence of a near isomorphism between two symbolic structures: the Diagram of the Supreme Pole of Song Neo-Confucianism and the Kabbalistic Tree of medieval Jewish mysticism. [The abstract is afterwards the same as the abstract for the Religion East and West version.]
The full paper is here (pdf).
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4. Mussar and the Renewal of Judaism
This is a very rough first draft. Feedback would be especially welcome (email me).
Abstract:
In its neglect of Mussar,
Judaism has been missing a big opportunity.
No other component of Jewish thought and practice -- neither Halachic
observance, nor mysticism or Chasidut, nor commitment to Israel, nor Jewish
culture, nor action for social justice – can serve as well as Mussar as a vital
center of a renewed Judaism and a unifying factor that can appeal to every kind
of Jew.
The full paper is here (pdf).
Two important sites:
Philadelphia Musar Institute, Rabbi Ira Stone, http://www.phillymussar.org/stone.html
Mussar Institute, Alan Morinis, http://www.mussarinstitute.org/