Intro.
1. Heretical Imperative
2. Integration
3. Very Nervous Prometheus.
1. Heretical Imperative
2. Integration
3. Very Nervous Prometheus.
Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom What then is the meaning of freedom for modern man?He has become free from the external bonds that would prevent him from doing and thinking as he sees fit. He would be free to act according to his own will, if he knew what he wanted, thought, and felt. But he does not know. He conforms to anonymous authorities and adopts a self which is not his. The more he does this, the more powerless he feels, the more is he forced to conform. In spite of a veneer of optimism and initiative, modern man is overcome by a profound feeling of powerlessness and enslavement.What is Fromm’s critique? When do we as a school experience Fromm’s critique of modernity ? How do we respond to or cope with his challenge? When is modernity positive or negative?
Alan Bloom, “The Closing of the American Mind, p. 42.“Openess, as currently conceived, is a way of making surrender to whatever is most powerful, or worship of vulgar success, look principled…To be open to knowing, there are certain things one must know which most people don’t want to bother to learn and which appear boring and irrelevant…True openness means closedness to all the charms that make us comfortable with the present.”
John Dewey, “The Need of a Theory of Experience” (Father of American Progressive Education in the 20th Century)The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative. Experience and education cannot be directly equated to each other. For some experiences are mis-educative. Any experience is miseducative that has the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of future experience. An experience may be such as to engender callousness; it may produce lack of sensitivity and of responsiveness. …An experience may be immediately enjoyable, yet promote the formation of a slack and careless attitude; this attitude then operates to modify the quality of subsequent experience so as to prevent a person from getting out of them what they have to give… Again experiences may be so disconnected from one another that while each is agreeable, or even exciting in itself, they are not linked cumulatively to one another. Energy is then dissipated and a person becomes scatterbrained. Each experience may be lively, vivid, and “interesting,” and yet their disconnectedness may artificially generate dispersive, disintegrated, centrifugal habits. The consequence of formation of such habits is inability to control future experiences.” (Ibid.)
1.What are Dewey's concerns about liberal education?
2. How is this concern related to the Heretical Imperative and Eric Fromm's concern?
3. Are you susceptible to Dewey's concern?
2. How is this concern related to the Heretical Imperative and Eric Fromm's concern?
3. Are you susceptible to Dewey's concern?
וְאָמַר רַבִּי חֲנִינָא: וּמָה מִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְצֻוֶּוה וְעוֹשֶׂה – כָּךְ, מְצֻוֶּוה וְעוֹשֶׂה – עַל אַחַת כַּמָּה וְכַמָּה. דְּאָמַר רַבִּי חֲנִינָא: גָּדוֹל מְצֻוֶּוה וְעוֹשֶׂה מִמִּי שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְצֻוֶּוה וְעוֹשֶׂה.
And Rabbi Ḥanina says: And if this is related about one who is not commanded by the Torah to honor his father, as Dama was a gentile, and nevertheless when he performs the mitzva he is given this great reward, all the more so is one rewarded who is commanded to fulfill a mitzva and performs it. As Rabbi Ḥanina says: Greater is one who is commanded to do a mitzva and performs it than one who is not commanded to do a mitzva and performs it.
1. What is your initial reaction to this text? Why is it problematic for a modern Jew?2. Reading generously, what arguments can you make on its behalf? What are the arguments for being commanded and doing the mitzvah?
3 How do you understand the argument against not being commanded and doing?
4. How does this piece of Talmud impact character?
3 How do you understand the argument against not being commanded and doing?
4. How does this piece of Talmud impact character?
גדול המצווה ועושה - נראה דהיינו טעמא דמי שמצווה ועושה עדיף לפי שדואג ומצטער יותר פן יעבור ממי שאין מצווה שיש לו פת בסלו שאם ירצה יניח:
Greater is the one who is commanded and does: It appears that the reason the one who is commanded and does is preferred is because he worries and is pained more, lest he transgress, as opposed to the one who is not commanded and there is to him bread in his basket (for if) he wants he can leave it.
גדול המצווה ועושה - פי' מפני שהוא דואג תמיד לבטל יצרו ולקיים מצות בוראו:
Because he worries constantly about nullifying his (evil) inclination and fulfilling the commandments of his Creator.
דאמר רבי חנינא גדול המצוו ועושה משאינו מצווה ועושה. פיר' ז"ל טעם הדבר שזה שטן מקטרגו כשהוא מצווה וזה אין שטן מקטרגו ולפום צערא אגרא.
ורבינו הגדול ז"ל פי' שהמצות אינן להנאת האל יתברך המצות אלא לזכותינו ומי שהוא מצוה קיים גזירת המלך ולפיכך שכרו הרבה יותר מזה שלא קיים מצות המלך מכל מקום אף הוא ראוי לקבל שכר שהרי מטוב לבב וחסידות הכניס עצמו לעשות מצות הש"י
ודוקא במצות שצוה הש"י לאחרים שיש לו בהן רצון אבל העושה מאליו מצות שלא צותה בהם תורה כלל זו היא שאמרו כל שאינו מצווה בדבר ועושהו נקרא הדיוט:
ורבינו הגדול ז"ל פי' שהמצות אינן להנאת האל יתברך המצות אלא לזכותינו ומי שהוא מצוה קיים גזירת המלך ולפיכך שכרו הרבה יותר מזה שלא קיים מצות המלך מכל מקום אף הוא ראוי לקבל שכר שהרי מטוב לבב וחסידות הכניס עצמו לעשות מצות הש"י
ודוקא במצות שצוה הש"י לאחרים שיש לו בהן רצון אבל העושה מאליו מצות שלא צותה בהם תורה כלל זו היא שאמרו כל שאינו מצווה בדבר ועושהו נקרא הדיוט:
Ritba: Rishonim (pre-1550) The reason is that the Satan (Prosecuting attorney) prosecutes him when he is commanded, and the other Satan does not prosecute. And according to the pain is the reward. And Ramban explains that mitzvot are not for the pleasure of G-d the commander, rather for our merit and the one who is commanded fulfills the decree of the King, and therefore his reward is greater than the one who does not fulfill the command of a King. At any rate, he is also fitting to receive reward, for behold from the goodness of his heart and piety he enters himself to do G-d’s commandment, and davka (precisely) in mitzvot that G-d commanded for others that there is to him in them will (of G-d), but one who does on his own commandments that the Torah did command at all, this one is called “all that are not commanded and do it” (such a person) is called foolish.
Harold Kushner, “Conservative Judaism in an Age of Democracy”