I am struck by the fact that we really don't know all that much about what Jesus actually taught in the synagogues. For example in the gospel of Mark we just know that he went and taught in the synagogue but what he actually said, we don't know. We don't have the tape, it isn't on the web, and no one has dug it up in an urn somewhere--at least not yet. The Markan narrative didn't see fit to tell us what he said, but did see fit to tell us what he did: he helped people who had needs. Jesus dealt with demons, healed lepers, and got Simon's mother's fever down, all within just a few verses of being told that he taught in the synagogue.
The needs of people are endless. The alterity of each individual is, of course, infinite. Is my life bound up in what I know, or about in how much I use what I know to benefit those around me in some tangible meaningful way that makes a difference?
As the Israelites responded to Moses at Sinai (Exod 24:7) "We will do and we will hear." (see the Hebrew text, not the English version) The commitment to follow the Torah preceded hearing it. The obligation to serve the Other precedes even knowing what it would entail. This is not a childish faith, but as Levinas says, a religion for adults. Taking up the responsibility to live for the benefit of others is one that commits "before" knowledge--it is a commitment to human beings before it is a commitment to knowledge. As Levinas would argue in his Talumudic readings, there is a great temptation to know before doing--to reverse the process--and to hold others at bay while we evaluate the information in the Torah and then make a decision on what we will do and what we won't do. Yet in the spirit of Torah, we do and then we hear.
Reading the gospel of Mark as Torah. It isn't important to know what Jesus taught before observing what he did. In the spirit of Torah, we know what did, before we hear what he taught. Before we read any kind of extensive sermon (and there is no "sermon on the Mount" in Mark) we see Jesus simply doing. As readers of this gospel, we experience "we will do, and we will hear."
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Asymmetry
Key to Levinas's understanding of the inter-human relation is asymmetry. The demand of the Other stands irrespective of reciprocity. In other words, I am responsible to you regardless of whether or not you reciprocate to meet my needs. Your desire or ability to meet my needs is entirely up to you, and does not impact the responsibility I have to you. Levinas has been criticized for the impracticality of actioning such a concept. Because of the asymmetrical nature of the intersubjective relation, it is often held that Levinas really doesn't have a true inter-human perspective. The situation is further complicated when one considers the "entry of a third" where in my responsibility to the Other is challenged by a competing claim from yet a second Other, and so on into infinity. Levinas writes in the vein of the Jewish maxim that "every Israelite is responsible for every other" (and so on into infinity) in the society of Torah. And so, how do I meet your need and the need of a second Other at the same time with out compromising one or the other. Here Levinas would argue that justice, or the meeting of needs and claims, is first, violence. In other words, I must make a choice between the two Others before me, and to choose one is to not choose the other, and so the one whose needs must come "second" is violated. Following Levinas, ethics is then the complex inter-subjective relational situation where needs and claims must be weighed by all so that needs are met (justice).
Jesus said it this way, "Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:35-36).
So, how do we give without expecting anything in return? Levinas seems to put into phenomenological dialogue that which Jesus instructs in the gospel.
I would submit that one perspective on the issue of asymmetry and how to deal with "justice as first violence" is found in the story of Cain and Able. We often get boluxed up in this story trying to figure out what it was about Able's sacrifice that was better than Cain's. The fact of the matter is, we don't know, and that element is irrelevant. No command was given, no instruction was outlined on either how to bring the sacrifice before God, or what to bring as a sacrifice. Both men brought what they had from their respective places of work. God was faced with making a choice (as God certainly has the right to do). The fact that he chose Able (he gazed at it, which is more indicative of pleasure than it is a judgmental kind of regard), meant that Cain "came in second place" so to speak.
We need to keep in mind that the conversation recorded in Genesis 4 is between God and Cain, not between Able and God. Able has no words in this story. None. The instructive part of the story is actually the dialogue that God has with Cain. The issue is desire. Cain must learn to control desire or it will control him. Here in is a key to understanding the asymmetrical relation: we have to bring desire under control. Desire wants to collapse in on the self, to erase the Other so that the self can be satisfied at all cost. God's instruction to Cain was that if he continued to do right things would work out for him--in the Hebrew, it says there will be "uplift". But the sin that crouched at the door was the unbridling of desire, the giving of free reign to desire, emotions, raw instinct.
We know the rest of the story. Cain did not master desire. It welled up and resulted in killing his brother Able.
It is hard not to get what we want all the time. It is hard when you are my enemy by virtue of the fact that you do not behave according to my world view. Across the vistas of my understanding, your alterity interrupts my comfort and my logic. My desire wants to "set you straight", to totalize you, systematize you so that you become aligned with me--aka, my friend. But either you do not want to, cannot, or do not understand. You do not respond. You do not reciprocate.
What am I to do? Levinas says the first command from the face of the Other is "Thou shall not kill." Jesus says "Love your enemies."
It is in the pain of quelling desire that we actually enter into the face-to-face relation in all of its fulness and danger. In the Hebrew Bible, the "face" of anything is not a safe place. The "face" is a place of pain, darkness, danger, uncertainty, and wounding. Jacob wrestled with God at a place called Peniel or "the face of God", and there he was wounded, yet his life was spared. It is losing the match, that we come in contact with the alterity of the other, as well as our own weakness, frailty, and humanness. If wounding and suffering is to have any meaning, it is because it is a half-opening (to quote Arthur Frank) to beholding the face of the Other, and to respond to the invitation to serve the Other.
Jesus said it this way, "Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:35-36).
So, how do we give without expecting anything in return? Levinas seems to put into phenomenological dialogue that which Jesus instructs in the gospel.
I would submit that one perspective on the issue of asymmetry and how to deal with "justice as first violence" is found in the story of Cain and Able. We often get boluxed up in this story trying to figure out what it was about Able's sacrifice that was better than Cain's. The fact of the matter is, we don't know, and that element is irrelevant. No command was given, no instruction was outlined on either how to bring the sacrifice before God, or what to bring as a sacrifice. Both men brought what they had from their respective places of work. God was faced with making a choice (as God certainly has the right to do). The fact that he chose Able (he gazed at it, which is more indicative of pleasure than it is a judgmental kind of regard), meant that Cain "came in second place" so to speak.
We need to keep in mind that the conversation recorded in Genesis 4 is between God and Cain, not between Able and God. Able has no words in this story. None. The instructive part of the story is actually the dialogue that God has with Cain. The issue is desire. Cain must learn to control desire or it will control him. Here in is a key to understanding the asymmetrical relation: we have to bring desire under control. Desire wants to collapse in on the self, to erase the Other so that the self can be satisfied at all cost. God's instruction to Cain was that if he continued to do right things would work out for him--in the Hebrew, it says there will be "uplift". But the sin that crouched at the door was the unbridling of desire, the giving of free reign to desire, emotions, raw instinct.
We know the rest of the story. Cain did not master desire. It welled up and resulted in killing his brother Able.
It is hard not to get what we want all the time. It is hard when you are my enemy by virtue of the fact that you do not behave according to my world view. Across the vistas of my understanding, your alterity interrupts my comfort and my logic. My desire wants to "set you straight", to totalize you, systematize you so that you become aligned with me--aka, my friend. But either you do not want to, cannot, or do not understand. You do not respond. You do not reciprocate.
What am I to do? Levinas says the first command from the face of the Other is "Thou shall not kill." Jesus says "Love your enemies."
It is in the pain of quelling desire that we actually enter into the face-to-face relation in all of its fulness and danger. In the Hebrew Bible, the "face" of anything is not a safe place. The "face" is a place of pain, darkness, danger, uncertainty, and wounding. Jacob wrestled with God at a place called Peniel or "the face of God", and there he was wounded, yet his life was spared. It is losing the match, that we come in contact with the alterity of the other, as well as our own weakness, frailty, and humanness. If wounding and suffering is to have any meaning, it is because it is a half-opening (to quote Arthur Frank) to beholding the face of the Other, and to respond to the invitation to serve the Other.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Appearing
How do we genuinely learn to see the "face" of the Other? Is it possible that we need to first "see" ourselves, to perceive our own alterity, to accept about ourselves what does not fit into any category, system, or method of interpretation. Does not embracing the alterity of the my friend and my neighbor, not begin with my own self-acceptance?
Perhaps I have "invented" a self, a persona, a "face", that is not a face at all, but an appearance, something that I want you to believe about me, but a something that is only a trace, or a suggestion of the true self. If you are to respond to my alterity, must you be forced to run an obstacle course, jumping through hoops, as if your experience of me was "parcours"?
The true self is shy, reticent, unsure, vulnerable. The true self, the "me" is characterized by a nakedness, and a more-than-weakness. I don't want to admit it to you. I don't want you to see it. Perhaps, not even I want to look at it. Yet, my alterity presents itself to me, in the privacy of my own existence, in the same faltering way. It is as if I become split between the "me" I want others to perceive, and the genuine "me" which may be scarcely known to me.
I write my story. But the narrative is continually interrupted by the self that is asking to be seen, to appear, to become visible to the outside world. My plot lines, characterizations, themes, scenery, and scripts are fragile and in danger of collapse when read by the self. Yet,the self makes him/her self known in me. Yes, there is biology, gender, culture, difference. But is not the true self beyond biology, beyond gender, beyond stereotypes. Has not the Apostle Paul centered us in this reality by saying that "In Christ, there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free"? Am I not a unique blend of humanness, unmarked on any map, asking to be traversed, explored, even dwelled within? Does not the Christ event call me to that centered unique me?
My self is authoritative, but as Levinas is careful to say, not forceful. There is a difference between authority and force. Just as God cannot force us to reckon with his alterity, neither can I force you--or even me!--to reckon with my alterity--that which does not submit to any category of explanation. I am me, and that is it. I can be nothing else in truth and in fact.
So, isn't that what I seek? My true self? Do I not want you to respond to who I actually am--not what I have invented myself to be? Then, am I not called to be authentic? To allow myself to be. As Herschel said, it is not "what we are to be", but "how we are to be" that is the question.
Perhaps I have "invented" a self, a persona, a "face", that is not a face at all, but an appearance, something that I want you to believe about me, but a something that is only a trace, or a suggestion of the true self. If you are to respond to my alterity, must you be forced to run an obstacle course, jumping through hoops, as if your experience of me was "parcours"?
The true self is shy, reticent, unsure, vulnerable. The true self, the "me" is characterized by a nakedness, and a more-than-weakness. I don't want to admit it to you. I don't want you to see it. Perhaps, not even I want to look at it. Yet, my alterity presents itself to me, in the privacy of my own existence, in the same faltering way. It is as if I become split between the "me" I want others to perceive, and the genuine "me" which may be scarcely known to me.
I write my story. But the narrative is continually interrupted by the self that is asking to be seen, to appear, to become visible to the outside world. My plot lines, characterizations, themes, scenery, and scripts are fragile and in danger of collapse when read by the self. Yet,the self makes him/her self known in me. Yes, there is biology, gender, culture, difference. But is not the true self beyond biology, beyond gender, beyond stereotypes. Has not the Apostle Paul centered us in this reality by saying that "In Christ, there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free"? Am I not a unique blend of humanness, unmarked on any map, asking to be traversed, explored, even dwelled within? Does not the Christ event call me to that centered unique me?
My self is authoritative, but as Levinas is careful to say, not forceful. There is a difference between authority and force. Just as God cannot force us to reckon with his alterity, neither can I force you--or even me!--to reckon with my alterity--that which does not submit to any category of explanation. I am me, and that is it. I can be nothing else in truth and in fact.
So, isn't that what I seek? My true self? Do I not want you to respond to who I actually am--not what I have invented myself to be? Then, am I not called to be authentic? To allow myself to be. As Herschel said, it is not "what we are to be", but "how we are to be" that is the question.
Invented People
Emmanuel Levinas says that the face is a fundamental event. The face is not the mere difference of your hair color being different than mind, or your eyes being blue and mine being green. Rather the face is that which is non-submissive to categorization, that which is language, but beyond language, the part of you that overflows and will not submit to a description or category of thinking. Your face asks of me one thing "You shall not kill."
There is within myself a desire to make you the same as me. I want you to be like me. I want to thematize you so you fit into my categories of thinking. But alterity--your very transcendence--refuses my categories. It asks that I not kill you by trying to fit you into my way of thinking. It invites me to consider you as you are, mysterious, elusive, unexplainable, and allow you to be. Your face invites "love".
But I am not speaking of romantic or erotic love, but rather the response to your needs, your requests, your interests. I respond in love to you when I allow you to be yourself, and do not demand that you become "like me" so that in your sameness you are deserving of my attention.
No. Your face is before your being. Your face comes to me prior to any beginning. Your request for me to meet your needs is preexistent. Your face precedes my very existence and does not depend on any prior condition or set of rules. Your request for me to serve you does not depend on whether or not you will serve me back, or meet my needs, but rather stands on its own.
But it is hard to understand you, to figure out what it is you want, what it is you need. There are gaps, holes, asymmetries of thought between us. I can reckon perhaps with the difference in your appearance, even your culture, or your language. I can account for difference in background, education, and whatever other category there may be. But what I cannot assume, what I cannot hold, what I cannot grasp, is your alterity.
Do I know you? I know things about you, but do I truly know you? There are so many gaps. Yet through these gaps, your face appears. To make "sense of you" is to "kill you," but nonetheless, I struggle not to invent you so that you can fit into my world. I fill in the gaps, make adjustments, rationalize your behavior, even create excuses why your behavior is so very different, so very unpredictable and so alien to my own.
I don't understand why you do what you do. It fails to dawn on me why you don't respond the way I would respond. Yet your alterity stands. I go to great lengths to try to make you "fit" into my way of understanding. And in so doing, I violate you. I erase you. I disallow your alterity, the very transcendent part of you through whom God is speaking, and through which God desires that I come to understand how to love you and serve you.
It is hard. I am limited. I do not understand. I feel as though you don't understand me. There are others putting their claims on me as well. Others need my attention. Their faces call to me. And I must choose one, then the other. And how am I to function if my needs are not met? Does my providing for your needs mean that I must violate the needs others who require my service? Still, your alterity remains. We must work it out.
My desire is to serve you, to love you, to be what you need.
There is within myself a desire to make you the same as me. I want you to be like me. I want to thematize you so you fit into my categories of thinking. But alterity--your very transcendence--refuses my categories. It asks that I not kill you by trying to fit you into my way of thinking. It invites me to consider you as you are, mysterious, elusive, unexplainable, and allow you to be. Your face invites "love".
But I am not speaking of romantic or erotic love, but rather the response to your needs, your requests, your interests. I respond in love to you when I allow you to be yourself, and do not demand that you become "like me" so that in your sameness you are deserving of my attention.
No. Your face is before your being. Your face comes to me prior to any beginning. Your request for me to meet your needs is preexistent. Your face precedes my very existence and does not depend on any prior condition or set of rules. Your request for me to serve you does not depend on whether or not you will serve me back, or meet my needs, but rather stands on its own.
But it is hard to understand you, to figure out what it is you want, what it is you need. There are gaps, holes, asymmetries of thought between us. I can reckon perhaps with the difference in your appearance, even your culture, or your language. I can account for difference in background, education, and whatever other category there may be. But what I cannot assume, what I cannot hold, what I cannot grasp, is your alterity.
Do I know you? I know things about you, but do I truly know you? There are so many gaps. Yet through these gaps, your face appears. To make "sense of you" is to "kill you," but nonetheless, I struggle not to invent you so that you can fit into my world. I fill in the gaps, make adjustments, rationalize your behavior, even create excuses why your behavior is so very different, so very unpredictable and so alien to my own.
I don't understand why you do what you do. It fails to dawn on me why you don't respond the way I would respond. Yet your alterity stands. I go to great lengths to try to make you "fit" into my way of understanding. And in so doing, I violate you. I erase you. I disallow your alterity, the very transcendent part of you through whom God is speaking, and through which God desires that I come to understand how to love you and serve you.
It is hard. I am limited. I do not understand. I feel as though you don't understand me. There are others putting their claims on me as well. Others need my attention. Their faces call to me. And I must choose one, then the other. And how am I to function if my needs are not met? Does my providing for your needs mean that I must violate the needs others who require my service? Still, your alterity remains. We must work it out.
My desire is to serve you, to love you, to be what you need.
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