Doing Jewish Theology in honor of R. Neil Gillman
A couple of weeks ago there was an evening at the Jewish Theological Seminary in honor of my teacher Rabbi Neil Gillman on the occasion of his retirement. Since there was another event for that a year or two ago, I’m not sure exactly what the occasion was. I think the first time was his retirement from full time faculty status, and this from teaching at all, but I’m just speculating. The evening was called “Doing Jewish Theology.”
The first part of the evening was a panel with Rabbis Gordon Tucker ( also former Dean of the Rab. School and philosophy faculty, as well as rabbi in White Plains) and Julie Roth ( Hillel rabbi at Princeton U). Chancellor Arnie Eisen moderated and also inserted his own two cents.
Gordon began “Jewish philosophy flowers when Judaism becomes problematic,” forcing us to confront our limits. He quotes Ansky from “The Dybbuk” on the hierarchies of place (to Holy of Holies), time (to Yom Kippur), people (to the High Priest), and language (to the 4 Letter Name). Today we question all of those hierarchies. Neil is and always has been honest about that.
There are three areas that Neil has written about
1) Importance of trusting religious experience - Experience is what has created religious community.
2) Going beyond Myth and Metaphor - must be accompanied by reconstructing our external realities
3) Need to find a basis for Jewish thought beyond the “norms,” because that will not be enough.
Julie Roth said that, on campus, the questions are commonly “What is God?” and “Why be Jewish?” Neil taught that teachers need to model their vulnerability, even doubts. The idea of Myth(a deeper truth beyond literal truth) allows them to find a language, a meaning. “In the modern age, the authority ultimately rests in ourselves.” (NG) External authority has less strength.
Arnie Eisen asks “Are we in a moment more open to Neil Gillman’s ideas and work?” Gordon - agrees we live in more of an a la carte culture. There is more talk about God these days. Julie - Students who want to ask “What is the truth?” go to the Chabad rabbi, not me.
Arnie - I agree with NG that we have to put God back in the conversation. For instance look at Gen. 22 from God’s perspective, why did God set up the Akeda?
We need to go from Beshalach (crossing the Sea, beginning of Manna) to Sinai. The Midrash is that the manna tasted different to each Israelite, so to the commandments. God had to accommodate, pay attention to how the People will respond. How to get the Israelites to understand God fulfilling a promise made long ago? Have them do the same - take Joseph’s bones out of Egypt.
At the beginning of Beshalach God fights their battles (at the Sea). At the end the people themselves fight Amalek (with God’s help)
This is what Neil Gillman teaches. Students (rabbis) need to get inside the story, the experience. NG teaches that God is not ethereal, but embodied in our experience. God is inherent in the miracle that is us. Moral principles, love, etc., are reflections of Divine nature.
What people experience is more important than systematic theology. (Was all this Arnie? I think so)
Gordon - Heschel says the the halachah is dependent on the aggadah. No norm makes sense without a framing narrative.
Neil Gillman Responds
His intention is to review the trajectory of his career - beginning with his encounter with Will Herberg in 1953 at McGill U in Montreal, which made him interested in Jewish thought (as opposed to general philosophy). He has been at JTS since 1954 as a student or teacher, more than half the life of JTS, measured since Solomon Schechter arrived in 1902.
He notes that he spent years going around saying that there was little theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He now feels that there was much theology at JTS,. It underpinned everything, but little trickled down to the classroom. “I found the theology because I was hungry for it and went looking for it.”
I arrived in 1954 a confused Rosensweigian, fundamentalist on halachah (because I didn’t know the problems). I learned Sinai never happened, halachic observance is demanded, and theology was not to be found.
Then there was Kaplan, who taught that we must integrate theology, ideology, and practice. “Mr. Gillman, Judaism is whatever the Jewish people say it is.” That’s all there is? Kaplan - that’s a great deal. Kaplan called him up in dorm, invited (summoned) him over, challenged him in the way he needed to be challenged.
When I began teaching, I learned how not to teach. I had to teach theology, ideology, practice, and the decisions of the RA Law Committee. At this point he encountered Paul Tillich’s “Dynamics of Faith.” Tillich gave me a language - after I could no longer believe in the literalness of Sinai and the historicity of Torah.
NG learned method from Kaplan, but substance from Heschel - Divine pathos, vulnerable God, God a failure throughout history. God never had success throughout Tanach (Jewish Bible) - a God who fails but tries again and again. The need to look at tradition with a second naiveté (Heschel never used that term)
After Kaplan and Heschel was Yochanan Muffs. He took from Heschel the idea that God is, so to speak, totally human - full of human emotions. He stretched the Heschelian envelope.
Third step - Steve Geller and Summer (folks I don’t know) . Team teaching of Biblical theology. I pushed him to go beyond Muffs. How? “They looked in the mirror and could see God in themselves and themselves in God.”
Schechter -> Kaplan -> Heschel -> Muffs -> Geller -> Summer
How did Schechter get in there? “God inevitably agrees with the people Israel.”
Thus theology underlies everything at JTS, even if it not explicit.
The last step - team teaching with Steve Brown in the Ed School. I taught Jewish theology and he taught “Teaching Neil Gillman.”
Neil Gillman’s Three Pleas to JTS
1) Acknowledge theology is at the bedrock
2) Team teaching is terribly important (to the faculty, for its growth)
3) Understand there is a theologian at the heart of every human being. We must begin by asking them what they believe. (Spoke about having his students write a spiritual autobiography - how hard and important this is)
From some questions -
What is the meaning of “second naiveté?” K’ilu as K’ilu yatza mimitzraim
Each must look upon him/herself as if s/he was the one who came out of Egypt.
What about Sinai? We were all at Sinai, ... no K’ilu !!!???
This was a stimulating and exciting, but also sad evening, the drawing to the close of an era and a brilliant teaching career. The room was full of people who have been touched by Neil, and full of love.