The Book of Lights by Chaim Potok
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mysticism Demystified

Anarchism is a visionary politics
Mysticism is the anarchism of religion
Mystics don't rely on structure
- William Everson

Mystics, as William Everson suggests in his poem, are anarchists. This does not mean that they throw bombs, at least any more frequently than other people. But it does mean that they have little regard for dogmatic religion or hierarchical pronouncements. They are also entirely ordinary and lack any notably heroic qualities, which makes them particularly unsuitable as fictional protagonists unless the author can find a hook. Chaim Potok finds his hook in the Jewish mystical study of Kabbalah. Kabbalah is rather heroic in ways that Kabbalists are not.

Kabbalists are Jewish mystics who study the Torah. For some Jews, this is an affront, not only to the Torah, but to the Talmud which is the traditional scholarly, some would say scholastic, method of exegesis and explication of the Torah in rabbinic Judaism. Such exegesis requires years of patient study in order to become intimately familiar with the various historical opinions and interpretations of every nuance of the Torah as Law.

Kabbalists take the Torah no less seriously than Talmudic scholars. But like all mystics, secular as well as religious, what interests them is not historical opinion but novel connections which may occur not as the result of painstaking research but as spontaneous insight. It is the making of connections - among words, ideas, incidental comments, or events - that is what mystics do. They do it randomly, unconsciously and sometimes even unwillingly. They are unable to stop themselves. It's as if their nervous systems are wired to notice important associations that reveal the Torah as Reality.

This Kabbalistic spontaneity of interpretation appears as lack of discipline and egotistical eccentricity to Talmudic scholars. In Kabbalah the text of the Torah is interpreted through meditations on the Sefirot or divine names which call the world into existence. Tradition, precedent, doctrine are merely suggestions for unrestrained interpretation. The Book of Lights is a fictional attempt to understand how the mystical mind works and why it's important for the rest of us that it continues to do so. It's protagonist, Gershon, is a typical, garden-variety mystic: introverted, awkward, untalented in expression, appearing somewhat lost and perpetually distracted in a society which can only find him ill-suited to the routine tasks of making a living.

Surprisingly perhaps, mystics may be obsessive but they are rarely 'en theos', that is they have little feeling of being infused in any special way by the divine; they are not enthusiasts. They have little tendency toward the occult, magic, or superstition. They do what they do not out of passion or calling but because it is what they do. Like Gershon, they may appear to be apathetic simply because their talents of associative insight are so little valued. It is suggested often by parents, relatives, friends, particularly girl-friends, that they should get a grip and buckle down to something serious, which means an established profession or discipline that keeps them 'home' more, that is spending less time on making random connections. They are rarely good prospects for marriage. And they mostly end up pursuing a career in Wal-Mart or as a corporate bond salesman unless they happen to encounter a sympathetic mentor.

By definition, potential mystical mentors are themselves rather unsympathetic characters, thus presenting a difficulty in the establishment of any continuous mystical academic or religious line. The sectarian in-fighting and fragmentation of many Hasidic communities seems to be standard mystical practice. Gershon's mentor, Keter (the name itself is from Kabballah, the top most name of God), overcomes his natural reticence around other human beings and notices Gershon because of his associative talents.

The dark heart of Kabbalah is death and the necessary evil of death. Death is an essential part of existence, not to be overcome as in Christianity, or temporised as in some other parts of Judaism, but incorporated as one of the inherent contradictions of the Divine Life and its creation. Gershon's parents are dead, killed before WWII in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. Entirely random therefore. His intimate cousin is killed as a fighter pilot in the Pacific. A systematic death one might say. But their deaths and consequent absence means the consecration of memories that would otherwise be lost. Death creates living memories, Gershon's life, which contains his parents' and cousin's deaths. This is Kabbalah for Potok.

Decay, moral evil, and potential destruction constitute the context of Gershon's life, as it does for virtually everyone else. His is the era of Senator McCarthy in domestic politics and the Korean War in international affairs. Israel is fighting for its survival and the hydrogen bomb hangs over everything. His Brooklyn neighbourhood is deteriorating before his eyes. As are his aged aunt and uncle. His room-mate in the midst of a breakdown. All of this is of course noticed by Gershon but never spiritualised or rationalised as 'God's will' or 'ultimately for the best'. He is mildly resentful but he neither drops out nor commits to 'making the world a better place'. He is badgered to 'choose' among defined alternatives. But to him the choices generally seem unimportant. Such ills are part of Potok's Kabbalah.

There is no doctrine of Kabbalah. There is no definition of correct or incorrect Kabbalah. Consequently, Kabbalah frequently verges on the heretical and the despairing. Each epoch has its own Kabbalah - of exile, of persecution, of dispersion, of grief. Each Kabbalist has his own version of the meaning of the divine names and their connections. Gershon's Kabbalah is both intellectual and emotional. It includes theoretical physics as well as dream-like visions (or visionary dreams, the distinction is irrelevant) of his classmate, teacher, and family. The concrete things he encounters from faulty boilers to crosses on the army's Jewish chapel have significance because they can be interpreted. With an infinity of connections to be made, each interpretation is unique. So each Kabbalist is in a certain sense entirely alone, particularly on a cold Korean hillside in an ill-equipped Army tent. Complete responsibility for one's interpretation of the situation is an aspect of Potok's Kabbalah.

Most of the words, in speech or print, that are encountered in everyday life are empty. They have as much significance as an army logistics memorandum. These empty words must be noted for practical reasons but otherwise unheeded as unimportant to life. If a form is made available, use the form. If not write a letter. But recognise that some words are important to life and should be allowed to 'touch' us, as they occur. These are words of love and regard and friendship and attachment, as well as the loss of these things. These are versions of the Sefirot, the divine names, as they occur naturally, as it were, in the course of continuing creation. This is where Kabbalah and Talmud converge: in Rabbi Akiva's (and Jesus's) dictum that the love of God and the love of one's fellow is the entirety of the Law. Such discernment is also part of Kabbalah a la Potok.

Kabbalah does not make better automobile drivers, soldiers, lovers, Jews, or better human beings. Kabbalah is not presented as a retreat within which one can hide from the ills and insanity of the world. Kabbalah is not a technique of psychic or moral healing that can be aspired to or taught or learned except as experience, in this case as the only Jewish army chaplain in Korea. It does not seek to prove or convert, not even Mormons, not even fundamentalist Jews. Kabbalah offers nothing (ayin), which is to say the reality that is everything (God). At this Kabbalah is effective; for anything else, it is useless. Kabbalah, therefore, is rarely comforting and always unexpected. Its revelations are hardly momentous - the vastness of creation in the night-sky, the fascinating act of birth.

The language Potok uses to convey the experience is simple, direct, and un-defensive. The Book of Lights is prosaic; in parts it is aesthetically tedious; there are no profound aphorisms, no elegant constructions, no poetic interludes. Just a story of maturation. The mystical is not mystified. It is not made mysterious. It is normal, at least for a certain class of human beings. Mystics are ordinary. So is their experience, which is one of homelessness but not isolation. There is no certainty but there is trust in something beyond oneself. The diffuse anxiety of passion appears to give way to a deliberate calm. These are consequences, however, not intentions. The state Potok describes is too muscular to be Zen, too low-key and routine to be Christian mysticism, too chaotic to be Sufism. This is Potok's Kabbalah

[An editorial aside: Mystics only incidentally belong to religious groups. Some mystics, by birth or circumstances, get lucky and therefore famous in secular life. Neils Bohr was a mystical physicist; Albert Einstein was not. Walt Whitman was a mystical poet; T. S. Eliot on the other hand merely wrote mystical poems. Eleanor Roosevelt was a political mystic; Mother Teresa was a mystical politician not a mystic. Chaucer and Petrarch, despite their differences were mystics; Dante, despite his similarities to both, was not. Immanuel Kant was a philosopher-mystic; William James was a pragmatist who wrote about mystics. Not all mystics are likeable: Donald Trump is a (very possibly malign) mystic; Barack Obama is not. The Identify the Mystic Game is an interesting way to make the time pass on a long journey. Potok knows how to play this game and so is able to avoid cliché:]

Some additional references for Kabbalah in literature:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

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