Wed, 11 Mar 1998 22:17:34 +0300 (WSU)
William S. Stoertz
RE: "A little more on undercurrents of tradition..."
This is a little sequel, talk about being long-winded...!
I was looking once again over your note on Tradition and Indemnity in
Culture, and saw that I didn't completely answer your question.
Thank you for such a thought-provoking letter, Mary. You are rightly a scholar.
As I mentioned about "Collective Unconscious", it is really the point. You
may analyze the dynamics of cultural transmission, but all in all, the theory
of Collective Unconscious is more facile at describing and explaining
transmission of the internal essence of culture in a vertically connected social
group, like the lineage of Jewish people which is connected over thousands of
years and relatively homogeneous.
Basically, it is an all-channel transmission. It is true, there are
external manifestations or characteristics of culture, such as song, dance,
folklore, oral tradition, artifacts, blood lineage -- but who can explain the
"khutspa" (oomph!) of the culture. It is not a collection of observables, but
rather a "gestalt". That is, what it means to be Jewish cannot be conveyed by
the Bible, the Ark (which is long gone), the candelabra, the suffering (which
also has come and gone), the language (Hebrew? Aramaic? Yiddish?), or any other
"merkmal" of culture. It is a oneness, a "geist" or spirit and heart, which you
have to be Jewish to know.
I used German words to describe Jewish culture. Is that a sin? In
contemporary political correctness... Who cares? If a German loves a Jew, or is
a Jew, or a Jew is a German, it is Beautiful.
I like the word, "Soul". There is a "soul of Russia". Most Western cultures
annihilated that soul. American Indians have soul. That is what it is which our
modern civilization is craving for, and which they are returning for in the
quest to find.
Now, let me make a commentary on that trend.
It is good, soul is human and good. It is spiritual and heartistic and
artistic and cultural and traditional and mystical and mysterious.
HOWEVER...
The "providential religions" (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) were
recently brought forth on this earth for a purpose. Obviously, they enabled our
modern civilization. Furthermore, they have the hope to finish this sorrowful
course of history, this path of blood and tears, and wind up in the beautiful
world of the ideal. On that path, as we come close to home, inevitably we have
to find once again our lost "soul". I don't mean the Christian idea of soul
which is the object of salvation. I mean more the vague idea of the soul which
needs to be saved from modern civilization, including providential Christianity.
I know very well, because I am in that business, and I hold this before myself
as a caution warning too.
Actually, Mary, you hit the button, in terms of cultural heritage. I always
asked myself, "If it was so important that the Israelite people go to Canaan,
why didn't they just go there and get it over with?"
The answer is: Because God wasn't just conducting a providence of entering
the Promised Land. If the Israelites would have entered the Promised Land, but
had no soul, no heart, no love, no culture, why should He be interested in them
any more than in any other cultural group? What was special about the Jewish
people was not only their obedience to the commandments, but their soul, as a
people, and that evidently took longer than 4,000 years to raise up.
Finally, God is a lot deeper and more complex and mysterious (yet at the
same time simple and childlike) than we can imagine. When we think we understand
Him and His ways and principles and truth, we don't.
The "Way" is a balance of these things. Keep going forward; preserve the
love and the culture, but don't forget the vast desert that must be crossed, the
distant mountains where the sun is rising.
End?
William Stoertz
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