Title: CREATIVE DISCONTENT AND IMAGES OF JEWISH WOMEN IN STORIES BY MICAH JOSEPH BEN-GORION (BERDYCHEVSKY)
Abstract: Micah Joseph Berdychevsky once referred to the Talmudic scholar from whom he took his own name?Hananya Ben Gorion?as an example of one who labored to renew the old. He tells how the rabbinic authorities were about to exclude the book of Ezekiel from the canon because it contradicted the words of the Torah (the holidays, temple worship, and other details as understood by Ezekiel conflict with the normative picture given in the Pen tateuch). To justify the book, Hananya Ben Gorion ascended into his cham bers and stayed locked up with 300 barrels of oil and interpreted the text that no contradictions remained (Shabbat 13b). Berdychevsky commented, How much work and effort are needed to remove from the past those ele ments which contradict the present.1 This concern to renew the past by the removal of contradictions with the present represents an important theme in Berdychevsky's view of Judaism. All life, he claims, is characterized by change. A tradition or a people that refuses to change has forfeited its claim to life. Creation is new every day and a religious culture that shuts its eyes to this newness has lost its tie with creation.2 The need for such change is often denied by traditionalists. Partisans of change like Berdychevsky often find themselves in conflict with tradition alists. Progress is defined as casting off the outgrown and outmoded skin of earlier generations. Berdychevsky found one of his most important tasks to be criticism of those unwilling to grow. He consistently painted the near past in dark, somber colors. As one critic commented, .. .every one of his stories is motivated by the Shtetl and by his desire to tear off its covering.' At the same time he took the conflict between past and present seriously ? it could not be decided merely by destroying tradition. The dilemma he faced was critical just because he could not lop off one segment of Judaism and remain content with just the other. Human beings cannot create out of themselves but need a form, an of God by which to govern their works. Innovation must always be innovation out of the old, a renewal and not just a new creation.4 The image of Hananya Ben Gorion is appropriate because it shows an individual wrestling with the creation of the new out of the old. There is, however, another story told about the canonization of the book of Ezekiel. In this story the objection is not that Ezekiel contradicts Torah but that its natural power is too strong. The tale tells of a youth (literally tinok, and we are probably dealing with a precocious infant as in stories about a yenuka in the Zohar and elsewhere) who was studying Ezekiel. As he studied he understood the secret of Hashmal and fire broke out. The rabbis sought to hide the book of Ezekiel, but Hananya Ben Gorion spoke in its defense, If this lad is wise, does it mean that everyone will be so (Haggiga 13a). Ben Gorion, in this story, is at odds with traditionalists because they distrust the natural power of certain secrets. His response is that since only few un
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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