Mussar Leadership

Mitzvot

Middot and Mitzvot

[The following passage is from chapter fourteen of Rabbi Stone's A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar. Aviv Press, 2006. All rights reserved.]

The relationship between middot (character traits) and mitzvot (commandments) is complex. Does the performance of mitzvot necessarily inculcate middot? Clearly not, since if this were the case, every mitzvah-observant Jew would also be a ba'al middot, an ethi­cally self-disciplined person. On the one hand, if the goal of mitzvot is to produce an ethically self-disciplined person, and if someone can achieve this goal without doing mitzvot, then of what intrinsic value are the mitzvot? As long as mitzvot and middot are seen as independent realms, we might wish to privilege one over the other, or to choose one over the other. Given a choice between being ethical and being ritually observant, how should we choose? On the other hand, if we do not feel compelled to bifur­cate these notions and make a choice between them, we might assert some degree of dependence—namely, that mitzvot do lead to middot when performed with the proper kavanah, the proper spirit. But if this is the case, why is this spirit so difficult to achieve, and how does one go about achieving it? Moreover, if mitzvot require more than just mechanical performance to bring us to ethical self-discipline, if they depend on kavanah —which is extrinsic to the mitzvot themselves—then does achieving the middot via some other route other than through mitzvot, similarly lack some intrinsic power?

These are questions asked by all contemporary Jews. If they are observant Jews, they must ask these questions in order to explain and justify their observance. If they are serious about claiming a Jewish identity without a commitment to observance, they must similarly ask them. And if they are struggling simultaneously with their relationship both to observance and to ethical living, they are most certainly struggling with these questions. These questions can only be ignored by those whose Jewish identity is fully articulated by allegiance to Torah and mitzvot without regard for the meaning of those commitments from outside of their insular communities (for example, pre-modern Haredim). Nor are they, strictly speaking, questions limited to the modern period: They are expressed in traditional ta'amei ha-mitzvot literature (which endeavors to explain the reasons for the commandments) as well as in Mussar literature, even extending back to the prophetic critique of sacrifices offered without any sense of ethical self-discipline. The pervasiveness of these questions suggests that these concerns are somehow implicit in the very nature of the mitzvah system and its inherent tendency for reification—by which we mean confusing instrumentality with its goal, which is in effect idolatry (avodah zarah).

To answer these questions, we must begin with theology. However, we must immediately acknowledge that theology for Jews can only be a religious anthropology. We can make no state­ments that purport to describe the inner workings of God. Rather, we can only describe the intellectual and emotional qualities that describe our experiences of ourselves as quintessentially human. We use these characteristics that describe the quintessence of our humanity as our basic faith statement to describe or reflect our experience of God. We accept, as a matter of faith, that we are created in the image and likeness of God. We stake everything on this assertion and all subsequent theological assertions flow fromit. With this in mind, and on the basis of our own experience as well as the record of our experience recorded in Scripture (which, our faith tells us, derives from God's perspective), we identify our choice between good and evil as the very structure of our con­sciousness of ourselves. We are aware that we are human because at every moment of our existence we are riveted by the need to choose between good and evil. No moment is free of this choice, except for moments when we willfully shrink fromthe impact of the knowledge that we are human.

The implications of our theology are myriad and complex. But the crucial point is: If the very definition of our consciousness is that we live in the choice between good and evil, then awareness of this choice and its consequences (both for ourselves and also for the world of which we are a part) places a terrible responsibility upon us, since we must not only choose but we must choose the good. Awareness of this terrible responsibility introduces us to our second theological axiom, fear of God—the terror we experience in the face of our obligation to choose between good and evil. This is traditionally called yirat hashem. We tremble at the conse­quences of this imperative to choose. However, in making the choice for good we experience a cessation of fear, actually a pleas­ure that we come to desire more of. In fact, the more we experi­ence this pleasure, the more we desire it. This desire is the obverse of yirat hashem; it is called ahavat hashem. Love is an infinite desire that requires an Infinite Beloved—a beloved whom we can never tire of desiring, hence the desire or love of God.

But we have skipped an essential step. Between either yirat hashem or ahavat hashem and the actual act of choosing between good and evil there lies another dimension that is not infinite, but rather operates very much on the finite—the human—plane. How do we, in fact, learn of the possibility of an infinite desire for an Infinite Beloved? This occurs only after we have exercised our humanity by choosing the good over evil vis-à-vis the other who is notinfinite but is close at hand, the other whose good gives us the pleasure that will ultimately excite in us an infinite desire for pleasure from an Infinite Beloved. Our first theological axiom was that we are created in the image and likeness of God, and must therefore choose between good and evil. Our second theological axiom was that this responsibility raises terror (yirah) within us, along with the possibility of pleasure (ahavah) we receive from choosing the good. Our third theological axiom, then, is that we must choose the good of our neighbor. This principle reaches us in the language of scriptural commandment: ve-ahavta le-rayakha kamokha, “Youshall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).

Our human consciousness derives from the tension between good (yetzer ha-tov) and evil (yetzer ha-rah) and precipitates in us both terror (yirah) and the possibility of love (ahavah). When we analyze the actions by which both yirah and ahavah are actualized in life, we discover the middot—that is, the qualities of character that determine our ability to act in the world in response to yirah and ahavah. These traits include: orderliness, patience, equanimity, humility, kindness, etc. However, the sphere in which our mastery of these traits is tested is that of our interactions with our neigh-bor. How our humility impacts us is of some interest, of course. But how it impacts our neighbor is the point at which a com­mand, or mitzvah, comes into being. It is in regard to our neighbor that we locate the interface between middot and mitzvot.

At this point of interface, we must continue to think theologi­cally a bit longer before returning to the practical discussion of the relationship between middot and mitzvot. The first question we must now attempt to answer is: Who is our neighbor, and how do we get from the finitude of our neighbor to the infinite desire that describes the love of God? The second question we must address is: How do we get from the central commandment of ve-ahavta le-rayakha kamokha to the detailed system of mitzvot that characterizes Judaism?

The answer to the first question is straightforward: Our neighbor is that person who, being created in the image and likeness of God, embodies that which we can experience of God in the finite dimension. My neighbor is not God, but serving my neighbor is as close as I can come to serving God in this world. My neighbor's closeness to me is not incidental. It is by virtue of this closeness that I am originally brought from mere material existence to human consciousness. That is, my first neighbor is the one who has cared for me, answered my cry in the night, and awakened in me the desire that will eventually move outward, to care for that neighbor and, ultimately, for others to whom I will be close. The neighbor may be my parents and ny teachers. And since my loving service for them will not satisfy my desire, I will expand my care to include another and another in that love—until it will indeed require an Infinite Beloved as the object of my love.

To answer the second question we will use the word wakefullness, which we treat as a theological term. We assert that our con­sciousness threatens to shut down when confronted by the terror (yirah)resulting from our obligation to choose the good of our neighbor as we would choose the good for ourselves—or even before ourselves or (in the ideal or messianic world) instead of ourselves. To put it simply, we go to sleep. The system of mitzvot articulated in the Torah and developed further by later Jewish tradition is intended to do two things. Mitzvot keep us awake to our previously understood obligations. Moreover, they allow us to invoke the community to share the burden that existentially would otherwise be all our own. It may seem impossible for me to meet all of my obligations to increasing numbers of neighbors to whom I am near. However, the community may be able, through just laws, to care for them appropriately.

It is clear from these considerations that middot are prerequisite to mitzvot and that mitvot are instrumental in actualizing middot. It should also be clear that middot can act as a critique of mitzvot and that mitvot, particularly in their communal application, can act as a critique of the individualism implicit in middot. Thus, the answers to our earlier questions are also clear, though not simple. Certainly there is a direct correspondence between doing mitzvot and inculcating middot, but it is a reciprocal and mutually reinforcing relationship. Each impacts the other; each is necessary for the full articulation of the other. The correspondence between middot and mitzvot reflects a deeper relationship between the two terms in a larger the­ological context. To examine this broader context, including a larger complex of theological terms, we will now turn to Psalm 19 to further explore the relationship between these two terms and others.

Psalm 19 divides the cosmos into three sections. At the top of the map are the heavens (verses 2-7). At the bottom of the map is chaos, the world bereft of either middot or mitzvot (verses 13-14, which speak of shegi'ot, zeidim, and pcsha—errors, sins, and transgres­sions). Between the two is the human world (verses 8-12). At the border between the world of chaos and the world of people we find, indeed, the first mention of a person in this psalm: ovdekha, "Your servant." This is indeed where we find ourselves: at the border between the world above and the world that results from our choice for evil. At this border we find the Torah of God (verse 8). Torah is above us on this map, between us (far down in verse 12) and the heavens (looking upward, beginning in verse 7). What is between this exalted Torah and us? In ascending order, from the point at which we find ourselves choosing to avoid the evil described below us on the map, we find: mishpetei Adonai (ordinances of Adonai), yirat Adonai (fear of Adonai), mitzvot Adonai (commandments of Adonai), pikkudei Adonai (judgments of Adonai), eidut Adonai (testimony of Adonai), and finally torat Adonai (the Torah of Adonai) fiat above us at the border of the heavens. Thus in the domain of the cosmos that we occupy, just above the chaos of sin, we find law In psalm 19 this probably does not refer to mitzvot per se, but rather to natural or common-sense law that—barely!—separates human society from utter chaos. And above that we find yitah. The consciousness of our obligation to a world of goodness begins above natural law but below mitzvot (which are themselves below judgments and testimony, which are ethical categories). Only then, after reaching yirah, do we ascend to Torah. Thus there is a correspondence between middot and mitzvot. Through this correspondence, they both together point to a level of spiritual power above either one. Ascending to this level of spiritual power should become the joint quest of our mitzvah-observant community and middah-conscious community, transform­ing them along the way into one community.

Copyright© 2007 Mussar Leadership Programs, Inc.
|  webmaster  |