Eleventh-century Saadiah Gaon, in his classic HaEmunot ve'haDei'ot, offers a surprisingly postmodern-sounding interpretation of King David's "Ma Rabu Ma'asecha Hashem." The conventional rendition is "how great are your creations, O God," but Saadiah's version has it, "How complex are your works, O God."
Complexity is the hallmark of Creation, whether in the form of the incomprehensible makeup of the elegant universe, the depths of the human psyche, or the realities of interpersonal and political relationships. While we may gravitate toward the simple because of the comfort it affords us, rarely can simplicity give us an accurate picture of reality.
Complexity at its most basic level means simply many parts working in unison. But an often inevitable feature of complexity is that of ostensibly contradictory forces coming together to form something bigger. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis serve as the building blocks of our world.
Coming to terms with complexity can demand intellectual and emotional maturity; the mind needs to stretch itself to accommodate disparate and seemingly contradictory ideas. While the child thinks in black and white terms, the adult learns to deal with the nuance and gradations life and reality bring with them.
In Kabalistic literature, the primordial metaphysical process that set the stage for all of history and its telos and eschatology is known as "the shattering of the vessels." The Ari taught that the vessels shattered because they were too small to contain the lights. Later scholars interpreted this to mean that each vessel could contain only one form of light, or cosmic concept, but not that form that was the polar opposite of its inhabitant. Since the various forms of light need to balance each other, there was a need for opposing lights to occupy the same vessel. The vessel's "smallness," that is its inability to accommodate conflicting forces, caused it to shatter, setting in motion the processes that would comprise all of world history. And the reconstruction and rectification process that followed was specifically one of introducing the complexity bred of balancing various conflicting forces.
The message: Simplicity, certainly oversimplification, leads to rupture and fragmentation.
Sustainable and meaningful existence requires, at its very basis, the dialectical tension that leads to the maturity of complexity.
As I have mentioned in the previous post, it appears to me that we stand only to benefit, in a host of ways, from expanding our minds and hearts and recognizing the need to accommodate seemingly conflicting values in Torah life.
In the Complexity Essays, we will examine a number of areas where the complexity and dialectical tension of seemingly conflicting values give way to a deeper and more complete and mature understanding.
Complexity is the hallmark of Creation, whether in the form of the incomprehensible makeup of the elegant universe, the depths of the human psyche, or the realities of interpersonal and political relationships. While we may gravitate toward the simple because of the comfort it affords us, rarely can simplicity give us an accurate picture of reality.
Complexity at its most basic level means simply many parts working in unison. But an often inevitable feature of complexity is that of ostensibly contradictory forces coming together to form something bigger. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis serve as the building blocks of our world.
Coming to terms with complexity can demand intellectual and emotional maturity; the mind needs to stretch itself to accommodate disparate and seemingly contradictory ideas. While the child thinks in black and white terms, the adult learns to deal with the nuance and gradations life and reality bring with them.
In Kabalistic literature, the primordial metaphysical process that set the stage for all of history and its telos and eschatology is known as "the shattering of the vessels." The Ari taught that the vessels shattered because they were too small to contain the lights. Later scholars interpreted this to mean that each vessel could contain only one form of light, or cosmic concept, but not that form that was the polar opposite of its inhabitant. Since the various forms of light need to balance each other, there was a need for opposing lights to occupy the same vessel. The vessel's "smallness," that is its inability to accommodate conflicting forces, caused it to shatter, setting in motion the processes that would comprise all of world history. And the reconstruction and rectification process that followed was specifically one of introducing the complexity bred of balancing various conflicting forces.
The message: Simplicity, certainly oversimplification, leads to rupture and fragmentation.
Sustainable and meaningful existence requires, at its very basis, the dialectical tension that leads to the maturity of complexity.
As I have mentioned in the previous post, it appears to me that we stand only to benefit, in a host of ways, from expanding our minds and hearts and recognizing the need to accommodate seemingly conflicting values in Torah life.
In the Complexity Essays, we will examine a number of areas where the complexity and dialectical tension of seemingly conflicting values give way to a deeper and more complete and mature understanding.
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