judaism what seems to be the purpose of human life, and how is this expressed?

I

Religions—which differ in much else—differ in substance according to their feel and understanding of the meeting between the Divine and the human: whether, when, and how information technology occurs, and what happens in and through it. In Judaism, the fundamental and all-penetrating occurrence is a primordial mystery, and a phenomenon of miracles: the Divine, though dwelling on high and infinitely to a higher place man, all the same bends downwards low so every bit to accept and confirm homo in his finite humanity; and human, though met by Divine Infinity, nevertheless may and must respond to this meeting in and through his finitude.

Some scholars aspect to the God of early on Jewish religion mythological finitude. But this reflects blindness to the religious realities of Judaism—a blindness arising out of modern prejudice. In the very beginnings of Jewish faith, God is experienced and conceived every bit the all-enervating God; and information technology is only a question of time until the i-important God becomes the one-existing God. Hence fifty-fifty His earliest followers blast the idols: Judaism is anti-mythological from the commencement.

Just as the God even of "primitive" Judaism is infinite, so the homo even of "advanced' Judaism remains finite. Human being, though created in the Divine image, is still a creature; he is neither a fragment of Divinity nor potentially Divine. Such notions—the product of mod humanism—remain unassimilable to the Jewish faith.

As a consequence of the miracle of miracles which lies at the core of Judaism, Jewish life and thought are marked past a central tension. This tension might take been evaded in either of two ways. It might have been held—as ancient Epicureanism and modern Deism, for instance, practise in fact hold—that the Divine and the human are subsequently all incapable of meeting. Just this view is consistently rejected in Jewish tradition, which considers Epicureanism tantamount to disbelief. Or, on the other side, it might have been held that the meeting is a mystical conflux, in which the finite dissolves into the Infinite and man suffers the loss of his very humanity. But this view, likewise, although a profound religious possibility and a serious challenge, is rejected in Jewish tradition. Such thinkers as Maimonides, Isaac Luria, and the Baal Shem-Tov all cease short—on occasion, to exist sure, but barely—of embracing mysticism. And those who do non—such as Spinoza—laissez passer beyond the bounds of Judaism. The Infinity of the Divine, the finitude of the human, and the meeting betwixt them: these all remain, so, wherever Judaism preserves its substance; and the mystery and tension of this meeting permeate all else.

In the eyes of Judaism, whatever meaning life acquires derives from this meet: the Divine accepts and confirms the human in the moment of meeting. Only the meaning conferred upon human life past the Divine-human being encounter cannot be understood in terms of some finite human purpose, supposedly more than ultimate than the meeting itself. For what could be more ultimate than the Presence of God? The Presence of God, so, as Martin Buber puts it, is an "inexpressible confirmation of meaning. . . . The question of the significant of life is no longer there. Merely were it in that location, information technology would not have to be answered."

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II

In Judaism, nonetheless, this "inexpressible confirmation of significant" does, later all, assume expression; and this is because the Divine-human meeting assumes construction and content.

First, it is a universal human experience that times of Divine Presence do not last forever. Only this experience does non everywhere take the same significance or even reality. Feasibly mythological religions—for which the world is "total of gods" (Thales)—may find divinity even in the nigh worldly preoccupation with the well-nigh finite ends: this is not possible if the Divine is an Infinity and radically other than all things finite. Mystical religions, for their office, may dismiss all such worldly preoccupations as mere appearance, and confine reality to the moment in which the human being dissolves into the Divine: this is not possible if the moment of Divine-homo encounter itself confirms man in his man finitude. In Judaism, man is real at every moment of his finite existence—including those moments when he is divorced from the Divine. The God of Judaism, while "near" at times, is—for whatever reason—"far" at other times. But times of Divine farness must likewise have meaning; for the far God remains an existing God, and nearness remains an always-live possibility. These times of Divine farness, however, derive their pregnant from times of Divine nearness. The dialectic betwixt Divine nearness and Divine farness is all-pervasive in Jewish feel; and it points to an eschatological future in which information technology is overcome.

Secondly, the Divine-human meeting assumes structure and content in Judaism through the way man is accepted and confirmed every bit a effect of this coming together. In Judaism God accepts and confirms man by commanding him in his humanity; and the response chosen for is obedience to God—an obedience to exist expressed in finite human form. Here lies the basis for the Jewish rejection of the mystic surrender. Human being must remain human because in commanding him as homo, God accepts him in his humanity and makes him responsible in His very presence. In Judaism, Divine Grace is not superadded and subservient to Divine Commandment. Divine Grace already is, primordially, in the commandment; and were information technology non then, the commandment would be radically incapable of human being performance. It is in the Divine Law itself that the Psalmist finds his delight, non merely in a Divine activeness subsequent to observance of the Police; and if the Police saves him from perishing in his affliction, it is because Divine Dearest has handed it over to humans—not to angels—thereby making it in principle capable of human fulfillment.

Because the Divine acceptance of the human being is a commanding credence, the inexpressible pregnant of the Divine-homo encounter assumes four interrelated expressions of which two are immediately contained inside the commandment itself. Kickoff, there is a dimension of meaning in the very fact of beingness commanded equally a human past the Divine: to be thus allowable is to be accepted equally humanly responsible. And earlier long the undifferentiated commanding Presence will give utterance to many specific commandments, which particularize Divine acceptance and human responsibility according to the exigencies of a finite human existence on earth.

Secondly, if to exist commanded by God is to be both obligated and enabled to obey, then meaning must exist capable of human realization, and this meaning must be real even in the sight of Divinity. The fear induced in the finite human by the Space Divine Presence may seem to destroy any such presumption. Yet the credence of the human by the commanding Honey makes possible, and indeed mandatory, human self-acceptance.

A 3rd attribute of meaning comes into view because the Divine commandment initiates a relation of mutuality between God and man. The God of Judaism is no Deistic First Cause which, having caused the earth, goes into perpetual retirement. Neither is He a Police force-giver who, having given laws, leaves human to reply in human solitariness. Along with the commandment, handed over for man activity, goes the promise of Divine activity. And because Divine action makes itself contingent upon human being action, a human relationship of mutuality is established. God gives to man a covenant—that is, a contract; He binds Himself by its terms and becomes a partner.

The meaning of the Divine-human encounter, all the same, has however a fourth expression; and if this had non gradually emerged, the Jewish faith could hardly accept survived through the centuries. Considering a pristine Divine Dearest accepted the human being, a relation of mutuality betwixt an Infinite Divinity and a finite humanity—something that would seem to be impossible—nevertheless became possible. Yet that relation remains destructible at finite hands; indeed, were it just mutual, it would be destroyed by homo most the moment it was established. Even in earlier forms of Jewish religion God is long-suffering enough to put upwards with persistent human failures; and at length information technology becomes clear that the covenant can survive merely if God's patience is absolute. The covenant, to be certain, remains common; and Divine activity remains role of this mutuality, as a response to homo deeds. But Divine action as well breaks through this limitation and maintains the covenant in unilateral love. The man race after Noah, and Israel at least since the time of Jeremiah, nevertheless can—and do—rebel confronting their respective covenants with God. But they tin can no longer destroy them. Sin still causes God to punish Israel; only no conceivable sin on State of israel's part can crusade Him to abdicate her. Divine Love has fabricated the covenant indestructible.

In Judaism, covenantal existence becomes a continuous, uninterrupted way of life. A Divine-human relation unstructured by commandment would alternate between times of inexpressible significant and times of sheer waiting for such meaning. A human relationship and then structured by commandment, yet declining to embrace both Divine nearness and farness, could not extend its scope over the whole of human being life. For if information technology were confined to times of Divine nearness, covenantal beingness would exist shattered into equally many fragments as there are moments of Divine nearness, with empty spaces between them. If, on the other paw, it were confined to Divine farness, information technology would degenerate, on the Divine side, into an external police sanctioned by an absent God and, on the homo side, into legalistic exercises good in His absence. But equally understood and lived in Judaism, covenantal existence persists in times of Divine farness. The commandment is nevertheless present, every bit is the Divine promise, still obscured for the moment. The human power to perform the commandment, while impaired, is not destroyed; and he who cannot perform the commandment for the sake of God, equally he is supposed to exercise, is bidden to perform it anyway—for functioning which is not for His sake will lead to performance which is for His sake. Times of Divine nearness, so, do not calorie-free upward themselves lone. Their meaning extends over all of life.

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III

So much for the general characteristics of the Divine-human relationship according to Judaism. What humans partake of this relationship? Individuals or communities? And some individuals and communities merely, or potentially the whole of the human race? Information technology will become evident that in Judaism these are non mutually exclusive alternatives, and indeed, that those modernistic conceptions which would make them so—"individualism" versus "collectivism," and "particularism" versus "universalism"—are alien to the dynamic of the Jewish religion.

Consider, kickoff, "universalism" and "particularism." Considering the God of the Divine-human encounter is Infinite, each coming together discloses Him—potentially at least—every bit the Ane of every coming together. Because the man of this come across is finite, and accepted in his finitude, each meeting singles him out—potentially at least—as a unique individual or a unique grouping. Mythological deities may remain "particularistic"—i.e., confined to limits of time and space: the Jewish God who smashes the idols breaks through such limits. The mystical conflux may dissolve the here-and-now into a "universalistic" eternity; the Jewish meet with God accentuates the here-and-at present in which it occurs. If He did not from the start transcend the here-and-now of the run across, the Jewish God would fragment himself (in Buber'southward phrase) into "moment-gods" co-ordinate to the moments of meeting; and if He did not in every meet single out this individual, this people, in the here-and-at present, He would have not existing humans only simply unreal abstractions. The Biblical God is indeed the God of all the nations; but there is no word for the abstraction "mankind" in the Hebrew scriptures.

To be singled out by the Divine is a crucial and persisting Jewish experience. The start commandment given to the first Jew—that Abraham leave his country—is addressed to him only, it does non phone call for a universal migration of peoples. The commandment to become a holy people unto God constitutes State of israel equally a unique people; it does not enunciate a universal principle. The Talmud teaches that God has made each man unique and speaks to him in his uniqueness, and this teaching is powerfully reaffirmed in modern Hasidism. Even today, Jewish existence cannot be understood without reference to such singling out. To exist sure, some mod Jewish thinkers (Mordecai Kaplan, for example) have identified the "essence" of Judaism with universal moral and religious principles shared past all higher religions, just though they have great pains to connect this "universal" essence with the "particular" existence of the Jewish people, their efforts ever end in failure.

Only equally the man remains singled out even in the most "avant-garde" Jewish feel, so God transcends, even in the most "primitive" Jewish experience, the here-and-at present in which such acts of singling-out occur. The significance of the commandment addressed to Abraham is realized only in future generations. The covenant between God and Israel has from the outset a scope which transcends Israel; in time it volition encompass the whole of the human race.

"Universalism" and "particularism," so, are not only both nowadays throughout Jewish religious experience; they are also internally united, and their spousal relationship is manifest in history. History is not history unless each of the events that makes it upward is unique; and it remains fragmented into many histories unless these unique events nevertheless establish one "universal" whole. In Judaism, the events of history become ane through the direction it assumes equally a result of Divine incursions into it. The Jewish God is from the beginning a God of history; eventually He will become the Lord of all history.

A crucial dimension of meaning in Judaism is therefore historical. The Hebrew prophets do not just proclaim a universally applicable Divine Will; it is their inescapable agony to be men of their own 24-hour interval. Jeremiah demands passive submission to the enemy, well aware that armed resistance has been the Divine Will at other times. And when he is confronted by some other would-be prophet offering the contrary counsel, he suffers—and the people suffer—because no resort to general principles tin can settle the issue between them. This outcome may indeed be settled by the future. Merely by then it will be too late for an activity which is needed now: so radically singled-out and singling-out can a prophetic message be, so wholly historical tin can a commandment exist. And yet, though a man of his fourth dimension, the prophet is non for his time alone. His moment is an epoch-making moment meaning for all of history.

In add-on to becoming historical in this way, the Divine commandment also establishes the historical significant of man activity. A Providence which in pursuit of its historical purpose reduced human to a will-less automaton would not exist a Providence which governed history, just rather a blind Fate which destroyed it. The prophets practice not predict an inescapable hereafter. Their predictions—such as they are—are contingent upon homo action. Human activity, therefore, assumes a decisive historical pregnant; and this activeness is no less epoch-making than the prophetic message which demands it. For it leaves an indelible mark on all future history.

This would, however, be incommunicable if history were equanimous of man action just, albeit responding to Divine command. Human being action is finite: how tin it give direction to history, or leave enduring marks upon information technology? The respond is that information technology can do then but if information technology is not left to itself, merely if it works in persistent mutuality with a Divine action which responds to it. Thus, in Judaism, the relation of mutuality between the Divine and the human being becomes manifest in history. Such early on Jewish documents as the Book of Judges tin can see an exact correlation between State of israel'south obedience and national victories, and between State of israel's defiance and national defeats: the victories are given by God and the defeats are sent by Him. And naïve though this view may seem, some degree of conventionalities in such a correlation remains an element of all subsequent forms of the Jewish faith. For a history dependent for meaning on act alone would lead to despair, while Divine incursions into history that were devoid of all reference to human being action would deprive human being action of meaning.

Afterward stages of Jewish faith, still, modify the naïve view of history reflected in the Book of Judges in three chief respects. Nosotros have already noted how in Judaism Divine action, mutually related to the homo and contingent upon it, is gradually seen to take a unilateral aspect too. Such unilateral Divine action comes to exist part of the Jewish understanding of history, and traces of information technology are already present in the Volume of Judges itself: behind the Divine punishment which is a reaction to man's sinfulness is a Dearest which seeks to produce repentance. This Love, to be certain, was not conceived as wholly unilateral and then long as it was considered possible that sufficiently grave sins on Israel'due south part might crusade God to abandon or destroy His covenant with her. Just at least from Jeremiah on, Jewish organized religion rules this possibility out.

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In rabbinic literature, the inextricable connectedness betwixt Divine-human mutuality and Divine unilateralness becomes the object of explicit theological reflection. God is Judge, and God is Father; and unless He were both the earth could not exist. God is Guess: love without judgment would destroy the distinction betwixt the righteous and the wicked, and hence all man responsibleness. God is Father: judgment without dear would place on human responsibleness a greater burden than it could carry.

The Volume of Judges harmonizes with ease a Divine power encompassing all history with a human freedom to rebel against it. For its interest is bars to Israel, and it sees Divine ability as responding to Israel'due south deeds. But afterward Biblical writings reflect the awareness that a Providence limited past human deeds would lose its providential character. Biblical thought is not philosophical thought, and therefore it does non confront the problem posed by the conflict between Divine omnipotence and human freedom. Neither, however, does it fall into the dilemma of having to choose between the ii. Nebukhadnezzar is the instrument of a Divine Providence which uses him to punish State of israel. Yet he remains a complimentary and responsible agent, and hence is punished for his sins.

The rabbis of the Talmud recognize the paradox involved here, only beingness no more philosophical than the Bible itself, they agree with the Bible in rejecting the dilemma. Human activeness limits Divine power, which is why men "strengthen" information technology when they obey the Divine volition and "weaken" it when they disobey. But human action limits Divine ability just "as it were": finite man cannot literally either weaken or strengthen the Infinite God. And yet human being thought must remain content with such paradoxical symbolic statements. It cannot rising to a literal truth which is free of paradox; it can just concord to the double truth that "everything is foreseen, still liberty of pick is given."

The implication is that history is wholly in Divine hands even while human has a share in making it; that, whereas righteousness makes man a partner in the realization of the Divine plan, sin, for all its reality and power, is unable to disrupt or destroy it.

At that place is still a 3rd respect in which the fully developed Jewish understanding of history departs from the naive view of the Book of Judges. In opposition to this view, Jeremiah complains that the fashion of the wicked prospers, and the Book of Job is wholly devoted to refuting the belief—persisting elsewhere, and in secular form even in modern times—that prosperity and good fortune are a proof of virtue, arduousness and disaster a proof of vice. Such complaints might have been belittled either by the admonition to worry about virtue but and non its reward, or by the restriction of pregnant in history to a spiritual dimension, sectional of all worldly fortune, good or ill. But while Jewish thought does occasionally give vox to such an admonition, it rejects whatsoever suggestion that history is not, after all, in Divine hands; and as for the restriction of significant history to the domain of pure spirit, Judaism always and wholly repudiates it. The complaint of Jeremiah and Job, then, cannot be evaded; and hither, the Jewish quest for significant in history runs into certain limitations.

Nosotros have already come up upon the outlines of two such limitations. First, if Divine omnipotence co-exists with human freedom; if Divine power is manifest in what yet remains the criminal act of a Nebukhadnezzar (or, for that affair, the righteous human activity of an Abraham or Moses): then meaning in history, even if and when disclosed, is disclosed only within the confines of finite agreement. And this falls radically brusque of the understanding of God. Secondly, pregnant is not everywhere disclosed in history. Nebukhadnezzar is seen as serving a Divine purpose; but not every tyrant is a Nebukhadnezzar. And while a prophet proclaims the will of God to one generation, about generations are lacking in prophets.

In such times, all the same, men are not left alone with their own wisdom when engaged in historical action; nor are they forced to deny pregnant to history where none is disclosed. For fifty-fifty when God is far, His commandment is still near; it is not only on his own counsel that homo falls back in fathoming the task of the present 60 minutes. And the events of the present, although disclosing no meaning, nevertheless possess meaning. For history remains in God's hands fifty-fifty when all is dark.

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This distinction betwixt meaning and disclosed meaning in history is crucial in Judaism and has been amongst the nigh vital factors in its survival. Without it the Jews might have identified significant in history with what history discloses, and celebrated naked success: only how could they accept done and then and yet resisted Babylonians and Romans in the name of their faith? Or they might take abased history every bit a sphere of religious meaning: just how could they have done so and yet carried forward a religious existence inextricably jump up with history? Finally, they might have distinguished between a sacred history in the keeping of God and a secular history outside the Divine concern: just how could they accept washed and so and remained true to fundamental Jewish realities? The pristine Divine-human being meeting in Judaism accepts homo in his totality; and the Divine commandment specifies itself socially, politically, and economically, as well as individually and spiritually. A meaning at in one case manifest in history and nonetheless indifferent to poverty, war, and tyranny is unthinkable to the Jewish listen.

But the Jewish search for pregnant in history is bounded by yet a third limitation, and this but gradually emerges. Non only is the disclosure of meaning in history bitty; the pregnant itself is fragmentary. By and present point not only to a finite futurity but to i which is absolute and all-consummating besides. Not until an eschatological dimension, a messianic belief, comes into view is the Jewish understanding of meaning in history complete.

A Jeremiah sure of history, and ignorant only of a portion of its contents, would not debate with God just merely seek Divine enlightenment; a Task sure of history would brainstorm where in fact he ends: with the incommensurability of the Divine dispensation with all things man. Both Jeremiah and Task, however, are forced to debate with God by the very nature of the primordial Jewish experience. Divine Beloved has singled out human being so as to make him humanly responsible; is information technology not bound, then, to the consequences of its own action—to a Divine Justice not wholly incommensurate with responsible homo action? Jews were thus forced to go beyond acceptance of an undisclosed meaning in history. They had to question meaning in history itself, in the light of historical realities. This questioning, to be sure, did not effect in wholesale skepticism, or a despair of pregnant in history. But it did result in the conventionalities that meaning has remained incomplete in past history, and must remain and so in whatever hereafter that does not differ qualitatively from the past.

The question to exist asked of Judaism, then, is not so much why the Messianic belief appeared on the scene as why it appeared so late. Is the prosperity of the wicked or the suffering of the righteous so rare a phenomenon, or 1 then difficult to perceive?

A fractional answer may be that for early Biblical man the meaning of life, when that meaning remains incomplete, can find completion in the lives of others. If Abraham dies satisfied, it is because of a Divine promise extending to his descendants. If the Book of Judges perceives consummate justice in history, it is at to the lowest degree to some extent because justice is due to the people only, not to the individual members of information technology. Early Biblical human takes no offense at a God who punishes the children for the sins of the fathers: and hither lies 1 reason why for him a finite future can consummate the significant of past and present.

But the God of Jeremiah and especially of Ezekiel will not tolerate the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children: for the God of State of israel is God of each person likewise. Once this becomes the explicit Jewish organized religion—after long beingness implicit—the contention of Jeremiah and Task becomes inescapable. Individuals practice suffer unjustly, and their suffering cannot acquire meaning through historical events after they have died. Meaning in history, then, is fragmentary; and a but historical futurity, no different in nature from the by, cannot consummate information technology. Thus an eschatological future comes into view.

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4

Nosotros have already rejected the disjunction of "universalism" and "particularism" as conflicting to the dynamic and structure of the Jewish organized religion. We must now do the same with the disjunction of "collectivism" and "individualism." Jewish faith ends by repudiating any reduction of the individual to his communal or historical role, just this repudiation is implicit from the beginning. For the acceptance of human being in the pristine Divine-human coming together would be incomplete if it did non encompass the individual in his own correct as well as the community. There is Jewish authenticity in the rabbinic legend which makes the Sinaitic revelation address each individual Israelite.

Aspects of such "individualism" are nowadays even where the accent is "collectivistic." In binding the community, the Mosaic code nevertheless recognizes the individual inside the customs, which is why its scope can likewise extend beyond the customs, to strangers and slaves. This motif becomes notwithstanding more radical in mail-Biblical thought. In the view of the rabbis, the Divine spirit rests on all individuals according to their actions, whether they be Gentiles or Israelites, men or women, slaves or handmaidens; and the righteous among the Gentiles are priests of God.

The consequence of such "individualism" is that historical change tin can hold no total sway over the commandments. Orthodox conventionalities, of course, considers the Mosaic Law to be exempt from historical change in any example, simply all Jewish belief takes this view apropos those laws which state what is morally due to individuals: the wrongness of theft or murder does not depend on historical circumstances. The distinction betwixt the historical and trans-historical commandments becomes fully explicit—and inescapable fifty-fifty for Orthodox belief—in the prophets. Jeremiah proclaims submission to the enemy every bit the task of the hour when armed resistance has been the task of another hour. But information technology is unimaginable that he should prefer a similar position regarding what is owed to widows and orphans.

"Individualism" is as much present in Divine promise and its fulfillment as it is in the commandment. It is the individual who in the Psalms comes upon Divine salvation—both that which rewards human being faithfulness and that which is the sheer gift of a gratis Dear. Nor does this reflect an "individualistic" piety unrelated to, let alone at odds with, the "collectivistic." Non a few Psalms were written in and for public worship, and they retain an essential place in public Jewish worship today. Indeed, the Jewish liturgy is and then structured as to unite its communal and individual aspects into an organic whole. The God addressed as God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the whole community is also addressed as his God by each private member. And the Jewish calendar which includes Pass-over, jubilant the origin of the community of Israel, besides includes the Day of Atonement, on which the individual stands before God in radical solitariness—in the midst of the congregation.

But just as history comes at length to indicate to an eschatological dimension, so does the life of the private. Early on Biblical man may immediately rejoice in a commandment wholly fulfilled or in a conservancy suddenly made manifest. In due course Jewish faith comes to accept that the saving moment does not vanquish evil permanently, nor admittedly even while the moment lasts; and that no man is complimentary of sin. To be sure, there is forgiveness wherever there is repentance, and a man ought to repent a solar day before his death. Still repentance itself remains bitty, and even the virtually righteous of men—such as Abraham and Moses—do not die sinless. The Pharisaic insistence on life after death is in the Jewish spirit; and there is poetic if not literal truth in the rabbinic view that this conventionalities is nowadays in the Bible itself.

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V

Since prophetic times Jewish organized religion has looked to a Messianic future. The goals of this future are no longer limited—to a united people, a promised state, a fundamental Sanctuary. They are, rather, all-encompassing: all nations flow to Jerusalem; the Kingdom of God is forever established; and it extends over the whole globe.

This is a hope for history. And it arises from a decisive historical feel: the land was given as promised to Abraham, and the primal Sanctuary established, simply the covenant nonetheless has at all-time merely a precarious existence. Fourth dimension and once again State of israel has returned to God only to abdicate Him over again. And in the end the wearisome wheel is broken by catastrophe and exile.

It was doubtless the original Jewish conventionalities that the Divine commandment is capable of total human performance, and that the Jewish commitment to the covenant, in one case made, might accept been kept with total fidelity. Under the impact of historical feel, however, the prophets were led to qualify this belief, and Judaism acquired a new dimension through the qualification.

State of israel has broken the covenant; so long as she can, she will always break information technology sometimes. Man will ever sin and then long equally he is able: for sin, though not original, is nevertheless universal. The covenant, and so, remains threatened, and from without likewise as from inside. For the nations not only tempt Israel to idolatry but also endanger her very survival. History, in short, seems to accept lost the direction it one time had; and information technology cannot re-larn management from a hereafter which does non differ qualitatively from present and past.

In the teeth of these perceptions, the prophets nevertheless reaffirm the ancient organized religion in the direction of history. Revelation has initiated meaning in history: information technology points to a Redemption which will complete that pregnant. The revealed commandment demands human performance; a Messianic Redemption will place the commandment in man'south in parts. Man has been able to obey the Divine Will ever since the Divine commandment accepted him in his humanity; in the Messianic future he will exist neither willing nor able to disobey it. For all Nature will have been cured of its anti-Divine potential: the wolf volition lie down with the lamb. And since Redemption volition extend to all nations, all history volition be embraced in total consummation: the Kingdom of God on earth will be complete.

For such a time to come, incommensurate every bit it is with human being historical action, men must wait, radically uncertain of the time of its arrival. Throughout Jewish history, there seemed to be moments of human righteousness ripe for Redemption in the sight of Divine Justice, and long periods of homo suffering ripe for information technology in the sight of Divine Pity. Simply even pop legend came to pic the Messiah as spring in fetters—anxious to come and yet held dorsum by a God who alone knows the secret of the right fourth dimension. And the rabbis prohibited all attempts to calculate the end.

And yet men must work for the Messianic stop even every bit they look for it. A Messianic futurity simply incommensurate with all historical homo action would retroactively destroy the historical meaning which it was intended to consummate; yet if Jewish faith has come to expect this future at all, it is precisely considering meaning, however fragmentary, is nonetheless actual in pre-Messianic history. Hence men must, here and at present, "prepare the earth for the Kingdom of God"; and it is to this goal that Jewish obedience to the commandments is in due course directed. So enlightened does Jewish religion become of the weight of its Messianic obligation as to imagine that a single day of wholehearted obedience would crusade the Messiah's immediate arrival.

But the incommensurability of homo action with its Messianic goal remains. When, for one thing, is the individual or community capable of fifty-fifty a single solar day'southward total faithfulness? How, for another, would the righteousness of some crusade all sinners (tyrannical rulers, for example) to apologize? The Messianic future, then, is at once connected with human action in pre-Messianic history and yet incommensurate with information technology. The Messiah will make it when the world has become good enough to brand his coming possible; or evil enough to make it necessary. Men must act as though all depended on them; and wait and pray as though all depended on God.

Because the Messianic end is tied to present history, the prophetic expectation can even now imagine it; because information technology remains incommensurate with all pre-Messianic history, the prophetic imagination cannot go far literally intelligible. Thus, the Messianic peace is no unearthly mystery but one in which men beat their swords into plowshares. And the hunger stilled is not of the soul alone, merely of the body besides. Withal such a peace and prosperity transcend all literal comprehension. What transfiguration volition brand the wolf lie down with the lamb—or men incapable of oppressing one some other? Jewish thought moves between a "left-wing" view which sees the Messianic earth every bit rid of tyrants but otherwise unchanged, and a "correct-wing" view which sees an apocalyptic transfiguration. But the mainstream of Jewish idea flows between these extremes.

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The messianic future, while the earliest, is non the just eschatological expectation in Judaism. Abreast and across it emerges the hope for a "earth-to-come"—a hope which, although post-Biblical in origin, was always implicit in the Jewish belief that God gives meaning to individual lives wholly and in their own correct. Whereas the Messianic futurity redeems an incomplete history, the globe-to-come redeems the incomplete individual lives which exist in history.

Classical Jewish idea never achieves clarity every bit to the relation between these ii expectations, but all attempts to digest i to the other are consistently rejected. Despite the absenteeism of the conventionalities in life after death from the Hebrew Bible, Orthodox post-Biblical theology quite deliberately embraces it. For the Divine commandment has accepted the individual and therefore any Redemption would remain incomplete—as the Messianic end by itself does—if it did not give completion to the private. Simply no more can the Messianic goal of a redeemed future be identified with an Eternity across all time. A primordial Divine commanding Love has endowed history with meaning, in that it calls for meaningful human being action. The great Divine-human being drama of history thus initiated cannot be retroactively destroyed by an end which makes this world merely a place in which to prepare for another, and in itself meaningless. Redemption must complete both the history in which men work and wait, and the lives of the individuals who work and look in information technology.

The two aspects of the eschatological expectation, so, must remain mutually irreducible, even despite the witting recognition that Eternity must surely supersede all future history. This tin be so because the world-to-come remains radically unintelligible. The rabbinic sources confine themselves to proverb that information technology volition redeem the whole human being whom the Divine commandment has accepted from the get-go—not an immortal soul but, but a resurrected psychosomatic totality. They are well aware that this is past all understanding, and they view silence on the subject equally a necessity imposed by the silence of the Bible itself. "Rabbi Yohanan said: 'Every prophet prophesied only for the days of the Messiah; but as for the earth-to-come, no heart has seen what God has prepared for those who expect for Him.'"

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Source: https://www.commentary.org/articles/emil-fackenheim-2/judaism-the-meaning-of-life/

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