Sublime

Einstein’s famous proof of the Eternal Return of the Jew and how it can be measured only in terms of the Eternal Exile of the Jew,

a mystical definition of nationhood. Jews do not form a nation, says Rabbi Shimon, in any conventional sense, for if that were once true, it is no longer. They are a nation because, in a mystical sense, they are joined in a profound bond of fellow feeling and responsibility. They are like a single body and a single soul.

Jews began to see themselves not as the people loved by God but rather as the people hated by gentiles.

In other words, rather than reaching towards the heavens, what if, instead, in the moment of revelation, adam — we humans — were rerooting into the adamah, earth? Perhaps there, held in the fertile darkness deep beneath the surface, we would have been less afraid, more able to hear the voice of God and receive the sustenance that is Torah.

One of the key questions the Torah addresses is: how do we create associations that honour both self and other, ‘I’ and ‘Thou’?

Saadia Gaon was correct in asserting that Israel is a people only by virtue of its Torah,74 that the only assurance for Israel’s peoplehood is the Torah. On the other hand, Rabbi Halevi reminds us, “If there were no Jews, there would be no Torah.”75