The Wake

I could spend this article discussing every detail of the lecture on how Kabbalah, a mystical sect of Judaism, relates to rationalist thought, but instead I’d like to focus on the simpler theme of the discussion: happiness. More specifically, what it has to do with astrology, incest, Britney Spears and Christian rock.

All of these subjects began connecting in my mind as I sat in a sunny, rose-colored library and munched on a free lemon bar. I was in the Nolte Center library, where the only book spines I could read were about Hebrew verbs, listening to Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, an Israeli scholar of Judaism. It was part of the Institute for Advanced Study series, which brings in a new speaker every Thursday at 4:00 p.m.

I felt slightly out of my territory among the small crowd of people who didn’t blink twice when Tirosh-Samuelson launched into foreign terms and nodded knowingly when she discussed traditional methods of reading the Torah. I didn’t even know if the free snacks were themed for the discussion. A lapsed Catholic, I was lost on some of the technicalities, but at least I’d done my share of thinking about how religion relates to happiness. In high school psych I’d even done a research project about whether religious people were happier than atheists. (My findings: a slight correlation.)

Tirosh-Samuelson, however, was an expert on the subject. She had discovered a parallel between the works of Aristotle and the scholarly interpretations of the Torah, in that both claimed that happiness was the result of a virtuous lifestyle. However, this doesn’t mean that a person can pet kittens, coo at babies, and recycle to be virtuous. Instead, virtue is reached by constant contemplation, shunning the “imaginative” part of our minds that supposedly control us, and instead focusing on the rational capabilities believed to make us resemble God.

Just like Descartes claiming that animals were about as important as wind-up clocks, this struck many people as a stiff, passionless starting point for making it through existence, let alone doing it without the occasional bottle of wine or double serving of lemon bars. In addition, it failed to account for differences in human aptitude. Were both of these parties claiming that people with mental disabilities had no hope of spiritual salvation? Just like Whitman came out with his white beard blowing and Thoreau retreated to the woods, a counter-approach to happiness and virtue was presented in the form of the Zohar, the Kabbalist text.

Influenced by astrology, a numerical system called “Gemetria,” a tinge of tantric sensuality, and even Christianity, the Kabbalah provided an opportunity for emotion to dominate religious practice, rather than philosophy and intellect. According to Tirosh-Samuelson, to be a good Jew, one must have a correct vision of God. The novel vision presented in the Kabbalah was of a pantheistic God, comprising the entire universe, who was an almost erotic union of the masculine and feminine aspects of existence. This God was a source of energy to be “tapped into,” commanding awe from worshippers rather than fear. Through this awe, followers find happiness in imagination and exploration of ideas.

According to Tirosh-Samuelson, a postmodernist worldview has fragmented society’s conception of happiness, making it impossible to have a universal prescription any longer. Instead, happiness has regressed to being a word that merely describes ephemeral physical states, controlled as much by cocktails, anti-depressants, and caffeine-deprivation as by our own personalities. This is evident in Hollywood’s version of the Kabbalah, which claims that selfishness can breed virtue, but assures us that identifying motives as ultimately selfish is nothing to be ashamed of. Its holy land is the Kabbalah Centre, which features a “Kabbalah Cafe,” selling “blessed” water, t-shirts with one of the 72 alternative names for God printed on their surface, and the thin red strings seen on the wrists of everyone from Britney Spears to Demi Moore.

Considering her view that happiness is now defined in hedonistic, pleasure-seeking terms, Tobias believes it’s the sexuality of the Kabbalah that caught the attention of Hollywood. While Scientology won over Tom Cruise with its aliens and volcanos, the Kabbalah’s creation stories unapologetically speak of not only intimacy between Adam and Eve, but between brothers and sisters. It could be that in the absence of a rational element in modern religion, the emotional element is prevailing, often being connected to eroticism. From this standpoint, even modern Christianity in America flirts with this idea. Many Christian rock songs are eerily intimate, like a Switchfoot song whose lyrics are, “you’re on fire when he’s near you/ you’re on fire when he speaks.” The difference is that Christianity promotes abstinence and chastity, so the same sexual element is simply sublimated into ultrapassionate worship of God.

The irony of the situation is that Aristotle’s prescription for happiness—intense philosophical thought—seemingly led to its own demise. As Ernest Hemingway wrote, “happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”