Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M A SMID Ihc iL,terual JVLind of the h,ternal JreopU b) D.wtD W. Pi;tix;orsk.v Aristotle ' s assertion that all men desire to know enunciated a fundamental truth of human nature. And if Aristotle designated as men only the Greeks, it was because of his conviction that only those of Hellas could achieve knowledge. From time immemorial this desire to know has prodded man in his search for divine secrets, for the Open, Sesame that will reveal to man ' s view the vast vista of universal knowledge. In this never-ending quest, three approaches dominate the field of human thought, the Greek, the Roman, and the Jewish. These three great cultures, that were conceived in antiquity, have recorded their impress on human speculation in a manner that renders the influence of even the former two, a living and vital one in our own day. Each is characterized by a distinctiveness that makes it possible for us to speak of a mind, characteristically Greek, Roman, or Jewish. The nature of these respective genii and a proper un- derstanding of the peculiarly Jewish traits of mind may go far in explaining the immortality of the Jewish nation. The Greek and Roman cultures speak their message to the world, garbed in the raiment of more modern civilizations, or through the musty pages of tattered books. The Jewish mind persists and addresses itself to humanity through living exemplifiers of the practical value of its profound philosophical teachings. The Greek and Roman minds scintillated during their respective hey-days. Exhausted by their spurt into the glorious heights of supremacy, they fell by the wayside. Jewish thought continued its steady gait and marched through history even to the modern era. The Greeks brought to bear on the universe and its problems an approach essentially intel- lectual. Mind, they felt, was an ideal plumbing line with which to fathom the depths of the uni- verse. Everything could be explained in terms and categories of mind. Thus they initiated that all-inclusive search that extended not only to the realm of the purely physical sciences but to the study of hum an and social relationships as well. AH aspects of existence were to be approached from the perspective of mind. To abstract the general from the particular, the universal from the specific, was their major preoccupation. The Greek was then primarily a contemplator. The field of positive action did not represent the sphere of his activities. He shone as a thinker rather than as a doer. But the star of Greece waned and that of Rome rose to dazzle the horizon. Like the Eagle which symbolized its essence, the Roman genius gave to the world a philosophy of action. To conquer not in the domain of ideas but in the physical sense was the ambition of Rome — an ambition that it realized as its armies marched through country after country, taking possession of the soil in the name of the Empire. Philosophy and speculation were pursuits for the aged and the infirm. Able-bodied human beings must concern themselves with physical exploits. Politics and economics were the doors through which one could enter upon an understanding of the uni- verse. Abstract thought opened on a blind alley in which people wandered aimlessly and to no purpose. Progress can be realized only by energy .md forcefulness. Shining forth in the chaos of ideas like a beacon that was not dimmed by the flashes of radiance that momentarily outshone its glow, the Jewish mind directed life in different channels. Combining thought and action, theory and prac- tice, into a practical doctrine of life, its sobering influence was felt as both Christianity and Moham- medanism borrowed prolifically from it in spread- Thiily-tu ' o

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M A SM I D C-vurylliiiiL; lli.il lie had kl ' l htliiiiil. Ii iii.ulc liiiii sad and sick. Copious tears poured down lii cheeks, and he clenched his hands over Ins iIkm as though about to lacerate it, so veiicmendy hiiicr was the train of thoughts that entered his soid. At last, however, he submitted pliiloso|ihieally to the force of circumstances that had coinpelled him to take such a step. Love was indestructible; it acknowledged neither racial nor religious boundary lines. The confidence of his comrade was infectious. His heart warmed towards her; he straightened his back and inwardly resoUed to do her credit. She gave him one of those fas- cinating smiles of hers, when every one of her teeth shone like an oriental beryl. Fortified by it, he discarded the burden of his heart-searchings. It gave him just that pleasant sense of security of which he was in di re need: he gasped with relief. His emotional mood overwhelmed him, and he glorified in the idea of his supreme sacrifice for the kindred soul by his side, for Nathaniel had an instinct for getting the full flavour of an ex- perience. Once more he gazed in rapt wonder .ind ad- miration at the imposing beauty of her counte- nance ; once more he heard her exuberant voice and he was again obliged to pay attntion to her. He lost consciousness of everything but the girl along- side of him. She symbolized the quintessence of what his victory meant to him. With her. Life would be vested with new meaning, clothed with new m.ignihcence, and crowned with new majesty. At that moment he felt big; he utterly despised the whole world. Everything was behind, but the glorious future was in front. In aggrieved seclusion, David L rks sat as usual at the head of the table. His eyes gazed down upon the holy volume open before him, but today they could not continue their roving quest after the great truths of the Word. To-d.iy for the first time in his life, he could not con- centrate upon the text, for evervthing was blurred .Mid iiidisruiii 111 his eyes. The whole world seemed to revolve in a demoniac dance around him. His .soul was sour, hi.s heart bleak, his mind hitler, his eyes leaden. How he had a ed since the calamitous days of his son ' s desertion! His shoulders drooped, crushed beneath the burden of Ills sorrows. His crisp hair had lost it colour — .1 sure sign of worry. The blue, velvet skull-cap that crowned his head accentuated the distressing | deness of his complexion. The deadly white l.iee, haggard and seamed and lined, registered I he boundless .sorrow which he was undergoing. lie could not but think with affectionate regret tor the departed transg ressor. It was the greatest tragedy in his life; in losing his son he had lost everything near and dear to him and he felt as if he had left everything a great distance behind. The last link with the physical world had snapp ed like ,1 thin thread, and in vain he tried to dislocate his mind from terrestrial affairs, finally attempting to console his sen.se of failure and unhappiness by turning to that ideal companion of every Jew in every affliction — the con.soling Word of God. David felt his whole flesh burning within him; every fiber of his whole physical being quivered from the shock. For many long minutes he sat rigid and motionless as Death. With difficulty, he tried to reconstruct his life from those very remote beginnings: how abject, inglorious, and squalid seemed the closing chapter of his life. He wanted to pierce the air with his anguished cries, but suddenly a cold tremour ran through his veins: the stony stillness of the atmosphere seemed to take on some tangible shape like the furniture and walls of the room. It seemed to expand and t.ike the form of a hooded giant with clumsy ex- postulating arms. David felt the evil presence of this important, mysterious being and bowed his head in fear and shame. And as a M.ister governs his Slave with abso- lute sway, so did this Olympian-like Silence bind his cruel iron fetters around this humble, quiet man and claim him as his victim. Tbirli-

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M A S M I D ini; llicir iloi nines to millions ol |ic()|ilc. It es- tablished man not as a chance wamlcrlm in spate but as an essential part of the natural process. Iliim.iii iiiiii.ilive was restored as a factor deter- miiiiiiL; ilic- course of events. Morality was neither a set of rarefied abstractions nor petty trivialities that must be lightly regarded in the triumphant sweep to empire. Rather, it was the ajiplication of spiritual values to situations pre- vailing in every-day life. It brought the contem- plative Greek down from his ethereal throne and raised the cold, stolid Roman from the ground. Man was accorded a position in the universe in which he could find peace and happiness. Any approach to an understanding of life is of necessity colored by the doctrine of reality that underlies it. A philosopher must seek to under- stand the real and the actual before he can pre- sume to discuss the fundamental aspects of exis- tence. Is reality embodied in a system of universal concepts and ideals or is it to be found in cold, brute, inert matter. ' Is the actual to be sought in the realm of the mind, in those ideas which we perceive only in thought, or does it lie in the atomistic configurations we see and feel? Do our senses deceive us and record only an illusory world of non-realities, or is our mind a knave, concocting images and airy concepts that have but a fantastic existence. ' General or particular, matter or form, spirit or nature, — which is the myth and which the reality. ' The ever-recurring strain of this problem runs in an undercurrent through the entire history of philosophic speculation. Its manifold aspects find expression in every thinker of note. In early Greek thought, Heraclitus and Parmenides had already enunciated the problem in its most ele- mentary terms. To Parmenides, reality lay in the world of static entities. Being can be understood only in terms of universal ideas. Change, motion, development, are unreal and chimerical. In our daily life we cannot embrace the permanent and durable. Only the transient and the accidental lie within our grasp. For Heraclitus, on the other hand, a fluxing world of particular objects represented the actual. Change rather than per- manence, particular rather than general, express r aliiy in lis highest form. Since their time, the strc.un of philosophic thought has burrowed two parallel channels, following the original course of either Heraclitus or Parmenides. Others have tried .11 various times to bridge the gap between Inilli by an harmonization of these extreme posi- tions. Usually the extremists have been modified hy those of more temperate views. Plato, for example, though recognizing to a partial degree the Heraditean world of particulars, apotheosizes Parmenides ' realm of concepts. The World of Ideas becomes to him the ultimate reality. SpKrcific entities achieve significance only as they partake of the universal ideas. His disciple Aristotle at- tempts a fusion of the general and the particular. The blending of matter and form in the creation of the actual is the expression of his attempt to avoid an extremist view by a successful com- promise. Augustine, the Platonist, is followed in the development of Catholic doctrine by Aejuinas. the Aristotelian. Maimonides, the Naturalist, rebels against the Platonism of Philo and of Judah Halevi. Hegel, preaching the ab- solutism of Geist, induces by reaction Marx, in- sisting on the material basis of all moral and spiritual values. In general, we can distinguish two antithetically opposed view-points battling for supremacy. The Idealists, who could claim as their members such dignitaries as Plato and Augustine, Hegel and Kant, assert the reality of Ide.is, of Spirit, of Geist, of Mind. Particulariza- tions, matter, physical entities, have no inherent significance; only as they manifest the continuity of ideas do they acquire a meaning of their own. Everything must be explained in categories of mind, of concepts. Nature, per se. does not constitute reality. It must be viewed, instead, as spirit. In contradistinction to this strain of thought are the arguments of the Mechanical Materialists. Democritus and Hobbes, Holbach and Feuerbach, struggling valiantly for the cause, espouse the Tbirty-lhree