As a seminary student, I am constantly in the process of figuring out my relationship to authority. I often struggle with stepping into my own rabbinic or pastoral authority. Likely, my ambivalence about asserting my own authority stems from my resistance to outer authorities. These authorities can encompasses anyone who tells me I must do or not do something that I don’t agree with, be it a teacher, a boss, the government, or religion, to name a few.
In addition to my own personal sense of authority and the external authority figures in my life, there is, of course, my relationship to the Authority On High. Though my own personal conception of Gd does not fall into this rubric, as I don’t conceive of Gd as an authority figure, much of Jewish worship is structured around the need for us to submit to the Gd’s ultimate authority and much of tradition speaks of Gd as such.
The incongruity between the language of prayer and my own view of Gd forces me to confront many questions of authority: who has the authority to define what Gd is? Do I find the prayers and traditions of my community to be authoritative? Does a framework for relating to Gd have more authority the more ancient it is? Are words printed on a page more or less authoritative than my own thoughts or feelings? Is there merit to submitting to forms of authority even if I don’t totally buy into them? Do I need to assert my own authority by making a statement about not buying into some other authority? Is my resistance to authority self-centered? What is lost and what is gained by submitting to an outer authority?
This summer I co-facilitated a program for a group of 80 religiously diverse emerging Jewish leaders, the subject of which was Text: Authority, Gender, and Creativity. Throughout the week people from across the Jewish religious spectrum came together explore the relationship between text and authority in our lives. We asked one another: to whom or to what do we grant authority? Answers included many traditional responses such as rabbis, teachers, the Torah, halachah (Jewish law), and Gd. While I agreed that each of these influence my life, only Gd is “authoritative.” Through continued conversation I understood that I saw Gd’s “authority” very differently than did many of my colleagues.
For example, the religious laws excluding and condemning gay Jews pain many Orthodox students in this program. Yet, in spite of their own personal feelings or life experiences that may suggest that one can live a committed and beautiful Jewish religious life and be gay, authority is given to interpretations of our texts that condemn this lifestyle. In this framework Gd, as understood through text and rabbinic tradition, is authoritative and must be submitted to.
I, on the other hand, believe that though text and tradition can help to elucidate Gd’s will, it is an incomplete picture. While each rabbi, sage, and scribe who crafted and recorded law was seeking to discern and disseminate Gd’s will, I believe that each of us also has the responsibility to discern this will for ourselves.
The question is: how?
In addition to the tools of my tradition, I understand Gd through my body. Ultimately I had to answer the question of what is authoritative in my life—meaning to what do I submit no matter what—as the sensations in my body. If I feel on a gut level that something is incorrect, I cannot and will not submit to it no matter what “authority” it has.
Both systems can be useful or dangerous, depending on how they are used. Understanding my body’s signals to me as authoritative can put me at the center of the world and cause me to separate from community when I feel something different than those around me. Even scarier, in a world where are constantly muting or ignoring messages from our body, what equips me to say I can actually discern what my body is saying? On the other hand, we live in a world that is constantly in need of radical healing from the damages of the status quo. How can this change manifest other than through each one of us, no matter how imperfect we are?
During the minchah (afternoon) service on Yom Kippur we read Leviticus 18. The reading is comprised of a list sexual prohibitions, including the now infamous Leviticus 18:22, “A man shall lie with a man as he does with a woman, it is an abomination.” Many interpretations have been offered for why we in the liberal Jewish world choose to continue to read a passage hat has caused so much pain and suffering on the holiest day of the year (to bring visibility to the queer community, to reinterpret the meaning of the verse, etc). Today I want to offer one more that connects the scriptural readings for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur and further explores the concept of authority.
On Rosh HaShanah we read the story of the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac). Though many use this story to prove the righteousness of full submission to Gd’s authority, I see just the opposite in this painful tale. Abraham blindly follows Gd’s word, thereby causing his son’s blindness, and, it can be argued, his wife Sarah’s death (she dies soon after).
I believe that the Akedah was a test that Abraham failed because he refused to check the word of Gd against his own feelings. Early in the morning he awoke for this journey, leaving no time to stop and feel for his son, for his family, or for his personal sense of what was right. How disappointed Gd must have been that a man so courageous as to leave his father’s home and venture out into the great unknown and so righteous as to argue on behalf of the strangers of Sodom and Gomorrah couldn’t assert his authority when it mattered most.
If on Rosh HaShanah we gain a picture of what can happen when we submit blindly to authority, Yom Kippur is our opportunity to choose another path.
Each year, specifically on the holiest day in our calendar, we read aloud Leviticus 18:22. With this public reading on the heels of Akedah, we attest to the fact that, combined with scripture and tradition, our own personal sense of what is right and wrong must be authoritative as well. On this day we seal for ourselves which practices we want to continue and which we want to leave behind. As we acknowledge our transgressions against Gd and humanity, we have the opportunity to still our minds, open our hearts, and feel the resistance that forms in the pit of our stomach when we hear these words condemning homosexuality.
At Neila (concluding service of Yom Kippur), in the waning hours of the day, it is said that the gates on high are as open as they will get. Our Ashamnus (confessions) have been said countless times since daybreak. We’ve beaten our chest, hung our head, and starved our stomachs. As the day ends and the Book of Life is sealed, perhaps the final and most vital step in our process of teshuva (returning) is to step into our power and authority as true co-creators, partners with Gd in this amazing project we call life.
Image from Adi Holzer (via Wikimedia Commons)
I always love your writing and this is an awesome post. Thanks Adina!
Adina, this is a beautiful piece of writing.
The idea of submitting to something other than myself comes to my mind a lot, especially in davennen. In the words of tefillah, I feel I can submit to the words and traditions themselves, finding in them depth and connectedness, stam. But there are times when the words and traditions meet with my own stories and self, and only then do the words feel lifted up to the status of true prayer — when the traditions themselves have an impact on me AND I can transform them.
I was thinking in reading your piece that perhaps our bodies and gut feelings need something to respond to, much like two partners dancing. So we use our gut to respond to the words and traditions of our ancestors, to use intuition to discern, re-interpret and re-imagine traditions past. This is a beautiful dance — and like all dance, though there are boundaries and limits set by the parameters of the partners and style, there is room for transcendence. To be most true, the self/gut is also transcended, just as the words themselves are transformed. In transcendence, one reaches an authority that can be trusted, because it is as close to the experience of Sinai as we can get.
I find that I can trust my own intuition best when there is another partner involved, and perhaps the words and traditions — and all those who we share them with — are our best partner in that process.
Lots of love, looking forward to seeing you soon!
Love this, David. It is a beautiful metaphor to think of our relationship with Gd and tradition as a dance. As we continue to learn in Movement Minyan, things can become much clearer when there is some boundary in place. Perhaps the art becomes figuring out when it’s our turn to lead.
Thanks for your comment, can’t wait to see you soon!
I’m very excited to read this post, both because it is richly written and very thoughtful, and because it seems to open up the possibility of critically questioning what role a God might have in the creation of moral judgments. You say “If I feel on a gut level that something is incorrect, I cannot and will not submit to it no matter what “authority” it has.” It seems to me, then, that a God (or any other source of moral judgments external to your own feelings) is rather irrelevant to the process of making moral decisions.
Under this view, as your post beautifully demonstrates, if a religious text seems to go against one’s deeply felt moral intuition, then one follows one’s intuition rather than the text, or tries to reinterpret the text to fit one’s intuition (as in your reinterpretation of the story of Isaac and Abraham – an interpretation very difficult to square with 22:16-18, by the way – why reward Abraham and praise him for failing the test?).
So the question then becomes, what role does a God have in the moral process at all? If we are in the position of judging God’s commandments, then it seems that God must not be God. Or, we can accept that the religious texts we hold dear are in fact written by fallible human beings who could be wrong, morally speaking. In which case what authority can they claim?
For me, one of the richest insights of the Humanist tradition is that human beings are the generators and arbiters of morality. Many of our greatest thinkers started down their path to freethinking when they questioned what they saw as the unjust demands of their deity. Historian Anthony Pinn has seen this tendency – the willingness to judge God, and not be judged by it – as central to many of the greatest civil rights movements in the world. I’m excited to see this sort of thinking expressed so powerfully by you!
I’m reading Kant right now in a philosophy class, and your writing evokes for me one of the things I really appreciate about his thought: that all of our texts must be interpreted in light of our own inner sense of morality, and if they don’t measure up, then they should not be held as authoritative over our lives. Obviously, as you point out, relying on a perhaps flawed inner sense of right and wrong can be dangerous, but it’s a beautiful idea of Kant’s that this voice can, at some level, be the voice of God.
I misread your comment in a delightful way – I thought you had written: “it’s a beautiful idea that Kant’s voice can, at some level, be the voice of God.”
A beautiful idea indeed! =D
I suppose Kant’s voice CAN be the voice of God…not that it always IS. 🙂
Thanks so much for this discussion! That is beautiful, I didn’t know that Kant wrote that. I would be excited to brainstorm from this – if it is true that Gd’s voice is heard through each of us, what internal tools do we need to hone so as to become clearer, conscious, and more receptive?
What I get from Kant (this is coming from Religion Within the Bounds of Reason), or at least where he meets my own imagination, is that a good way to discern whether we’re on the right track about truly listening to the voice of God (for him, the inner moral call), is to look at our lives. Do our hopes and beliefs make us better, more moral people? Do they help us be more honest and loving, as evidenced by our “fruits” (to use a gospel metaphor)? When we look over the course of our lives, are we getting better at being moral, or worse? These questions help us discern if our beliefs and hopes are taking us along the right path.
Personally, this is why I can’t accept certain biblical portrayals of homosexuality. I can’t integrate them into an overall code of beliefs and actions that are conducive to integrity, love, and the pursuit of morality.
If you do look at that text, I should state up front that it has distinctly anti-Semitic moments. I think those come from a flawed sense of the universality of reason as opposed to his ethic of evaluating religious belief.
In addition to what you rightly describe as “a flawed sense of the universality of reason”, I’d add that the anti-Semitic flavor of RWLRA (I think that the general impulse in that book towards abstracting universal principles from text and dismissing the text’s particularities as a more primitive stage of understanding contributes to that flavor) has to be understood in historical context. Enlightenment-era protestantism, as a rule, ranged from passively to virulently anti-Semitic, and as much as Kant might have striven towards governing his thought through reason alone, he wasn’t any more immune to socio-cultural influences than anyone else.
“I believe that the Akedah was a test that Abraham failed … How disappointed Gd must have been that a man so courageous as to leave his father’s home and venture out into the great unknown and so righteous as to argue on behalf of the strangers of Sodom and Gomorrah couldn’t assert his authority when it mattered most.”
This interpretation (I heard a variation on it for the first time during a Rosh Hashana service in my girlfriend’s home synagogue) has been the only one that has been able, from a moral perspective, to rescue the Akeydah for me. (As the Sage Woody Allen writes: “And the Lord said, ‘It proves that some men will follow any order, no matter how asinine, as long as it comes from a resonant, well-modulated voice.’ “)
I have to admit, however, that I’m somewhat troubled by the privileging of bodily or “gut-level” sensations as a source of authority. I can think of several instances where my overwhelming bodily or gut-level instincts have steered me toward an end that was morally questionable, or just plain dumb. I think we can see a similar pattern on a societal level as well– I’m thinking specifically of figures like Jenny McCarthy crediting their gut feelings (or “mommy instincts”) for leading them toward actions which are dangerous toward their children and the public. Particularly disturbing in these instances is that the privileging of these instincts is explicitly paired with a distrust of external authority.
Now, I agree that in the case of religious texts it’s often useful and, indeed, critical, to approach them with a strong sense of moral skepticism. But I also believe it’s important to acknowledge that there are cases in which our gut-level instincts simply aren’t equipped to make decisions, because we simply don’t have the relevant expertise. My body’s immediate reaction tells me that sticking a needle, or any sharp thing, into my arm, is a terrible idea. But years upon years of scientific research, by people who understand the way my body works far better than I do, tells me that despite that immediate reaction, it’s a much worse idea to leave myself vulnerable to communicable disease.
I also think there are cases where this is true in religion. My native moral sense is valuable, but it has to be balanced against some sort of communal (and, in some cases, textual) authority.
And. Longwinded reply is longwinded.
Interestingly, I found myself having similar questions with regard to this article by Jay Michaelson: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/5208/_queer_repentance%3A_on_not_surrendering_to_a_text%2C_to_guilt%2C_or_to_habit
Rebecca, thanks for your comment and for your challenges to flesh this idea out more.
I was excited to check out your blog and read your post “The Value of Discomfort” with your reflections on this very same Torah portion. As you write, “Passive acceptance is not a fitting way to receive the foundational texts of our tradition, and parts of the Hebrew Bible reflect this…It should demand that you think critically about yourself and about it, and it should require that when you see something that isn’t right, in it or in yourself, that you speak up and DO something.” I fully agree. I wonder, in light of your probing in asking how much we can trust our gut level instincts, where do you see the knowledge that something “isn’t right” coming from? Perhaps we are using different vocabulary to get at the same idea?
Your comment brings up some useful points. The first is to show how minimal most of our skills are at hearing/listening to our body. I don’t know about the Jenny McCarthy example, and I would be interested to hear what examples come to mind from your own life. My sense is, at least for myself, that when “my body” steers me in a direction that is harmful or incorrect, it usually isn’t my body talking. More often, it is my body clouded by layers of pain, exhaustion, addiction, etc. telling me to do something. Clearly, to listen to the body’s messages on a deep level is a difficult task that most of us are not practiced in. It is hard, usually painful, and it takes time and practice to really hear. In your example of the needle, I would say that an immediate reaction to something is different than really asking the body if something is correct. If one took the time to really sit and ask the body, it might give a very different answer.
I think if on a deep level after really sitting with a question there is a real aversion to something, taking certain medications, for example, that that does indeed need to be listened to. Medical professionals, just like rabbinic authority, have a tremendous amount of learning and experience, but each comes from a specific school of thought, holds a particular world view, and therefore will give you answers that reinforce that world view. The place where personal authority comes in is asking oneself: to what extent do I share this world view?
And, as you bring up, balancing my own personal sense of what is right needs to be in conversation with my community as well. Not only do I personally think this line in Torah saying homosexuality is abominable demands us to challenge it, I also must look at the community that I am a part of – and my community, largely queer, gives support to my view.
As someone dedicating 6 years to rabbinical school and the rest of my life to the rabbinate, of course I agree that ones personal authority needs to be “balanced against some sort of communal (and, in some cases, textual) authority,” as you write. As you and Zach and David write, the tradition and the texts give us something to push off of, to dance with, to be in conversation with.
Asserting personal authority is a part of our tradition. The classic example of the rabbis reinterpreting scripture to fit their world view is that of the evil child who is to be stoned. Clearly not wanting to stone their children, the rabbis reinterpret this line of Torah to say there never was such a child, and there never will be.
Personal authority and reinterpretation is what our tradition is all about. My point is that I and we all are part of the ongoing evolution of our tradition, and we have the authority, even the imperative, to add our own voices to the conversation. It is by doing so that we ensure Torah is “Eitz Chayim,” a Tree of Life.
Adina, I would absolutely agree that we are, as you say, “using different vocabulary to get at the same idea.” (I’m thrilled that you visited my blog– and, in fact, an edited version of the post you mention will be my first article as a contributor at SOF.) I suppose that for myself, I would locate the source of my probing of tradition as a complex interaction between my own experience and that of others, external knowledge or data, and yes, my own bodily feelings in both the immediate and deep senses you describe (the peshat and the remez of my body, if you will), hopefully processed through my faculty of rational discernment. I don’t by any means deny the importance of the messages of one’s body. Rather, I think that what bothered me about the specific privileging of the body as I initially read it was that it didn’t seem to subject one’s gut feelings to rational analysis or comparison to empirical data.
It’s here that the example with Jenny McCarthy becomes germane. I refer to her anti-vaccine activism—specifically her advocacy of the now thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines are linked to autism or other developmental disorders. In interviews, etc., she strongly credits her gut-level instincts for bringing her towards this conclusion (PBS did a great documentary on this issue a couple of years ago that provides some prime examples of this); but in this case those instincts appear to have closed her off to data that conclusively demonstrates her initial instinct to have been false. While I hear what you are saying with regard to worldview, there are, I think, some areas of knowledge that are far less contingent than others. I have no doubt that it is a sincere part of Jenny McCarthy’s worldview that her son was developmentally delayed due to a vaccine. However, according to every practical standard, she is in this case simply wrong.
Here’s an example, off the top of my head, from my own life. I’m afraid of flying. Particularly with regard to international flights, I will usually spend the hour before I board sitting in the waiting room trying to distract myself from the deep and pervasive feeling—quite literally, in my gut— that within the next several hours I will plunge to a fiery doom. On the few occasions when I have tried to sit and listen to my body in this circumstance, hoping for some sort of mystical calm, this feeling of dread and doom is only intensified. Conversely, I spend little if any time considering the risk to my body when I get into a car—if anything, the reaction my body and mind often have on these occasions, if it has anything to do with the incipient trip, is something along the lines of, “yay, I’m going somewhere fun!” or “yay, a road trip with my girlfriend!” However, pretty much every relevant statistic ever demonstrates that getting into a car puts me at FAR greater risk of death or serious injury than does getting on a plane.
All that said, I suspect that what you define as “taking the time to really sit and ask the body” is a very similar process to what I would call “subjecting the body’s messages to rational analysis.” In fact, one thing that has troubled me about my own response is that it gives the impression that I buy Cartesian mind-body dualism, which I most emphatically do not; so in that sense, using a mental process to analyze my feelings in light of data brought to me by my eyes, ears, etc, is simply a very multivocal (one might say Rabbinic) way of using or listening to my body. A useful way to conceptualize this for me is by way of physical systems—my circulatory, respiratory, digestive, sensory, and various parts of my nervous systems, as well as the elusive spiritual or life force I might call “soul” or nefesh, all work together (or, sometimes, disagree with one another!) to help me locate my own authority and moral sense. And as for the importance of bringing that product (in dialogue with those of others) as a primary tool when interpreting Scripture, tradition, and practice, I am in complete agreement with you—and in particular the final four paragraphs of your comment, which are as precise and beautiful an articulation of Judaism’s dance between authority and ingenuity, and between text, practitioner, community, and God, as I have seen.
I just want to recognize this AWESOME reply!
This is extremely well-written, Adina. While I was reading the piece, I thought–aha! Adina’s God is a Kantian one, and then I saw that others commented on this similarity. I am with you (I think this is your position, but perhaps I’m just projecting) in believing that moral judgments have to pass through our individual reasoning processes. Which then means that “reason” exists in some kind of objective sense, and that, even with all of our cultural and social and historical differences, it is somehow universalizable. Hear hear. If we call anything “religion,” I think it probably has to recognize this as its basis or root–because wouldn’t we want the initial devotees in any tradition (before it was a “tradition”) to have used their reasoning powers to assent to join this community of believers? This is religion viewed through a post-Enlightenment prism, and I think that’s a good thing.
I think something you touched on, but I’d like to hear more about, are your thoughts on the nature of authority in general. As far as my limited knowledge goes, in Jewish textual study primary texts are studied next to secondary texts explaining the first, and then so on and so on. The secondary texts take on an air of (almost?) holiness to them. But these texts are not, even in their most traditional interpretation, passed directly from God to man like Moses at Mt. Sinai. They are the work of men who lived and died in certain places, with certain experiences and biases and blind spots about life. How can we reconcile their genius (if we take them to be so) with their humanity? Should we preserve a textual air of untouchability around something created by a mere man? When our mental field of vision presumes something to be wise or holy, how does that affect the way we “read” into it, to project what we want to see in it in the text itself, even if it’s not apparently there from a literal reading of the text?