This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
I’m still ruminating about Gershom Sholem’s expose of Herrigel’s Nazi proclivities: “Herrigel’s case is an excellent illustration of what happened to many high-minded German intellectuals.”
Now transposed to include Elie Wiesel: “Wiesel’s case is an excellent illustration of what happened to many high-minded Jewish intellectuals.” Substitute almost every known Jewish intellectual on the scene today. To be “known” it seems you have to succumb to an ideology that characterizes you as “high-minded,” i.e., positive enablement or silence on what happened and is happening to the Palestinians.
Epitaph time, again transposing Scholem’s critique of Herrigel: “[Wiesel] was known to have stuck it out to the bitter end. This was not mentioned in some biographical notes on [Wiesel] published by his widow, who built up his image as one concerned with the higher spiritual sphere only.”
For Jews, the higher spiritual sphere – the memory of the Holocaust. Sticking it out to the bitter end meaning – silence on Palestinians.
Epitaph time, now applying Scholem’s critique of Herrigel to himself: “Scholem also stuck it out to the bitter end. This is not mentioned in some biographical notes on him published by his admirers, who built up his image as one concerned with the higher spiritual sphere only.”
Isaiah knows not to stick it out to the bitter end. But what is he to do, write his own prophetic letter?
Zen in the Art of Archery. The Nazi/German connection.
Zen and the Art of Star of David Helicopter Gunship Maintenance. The Jewish/Israel connection.
For the Miscellaneous file: A few days ago I heard a report on NPR that there would be no High Holiday services in Cairo’s synagogue this year. Haven’t seen further news on the subject. But I wonder, how can the few Egyptian Jews left start the new year without fetishizing the most hypocritical days of the Jewish calendar? Since we don’t confess our real sins regarding Israel, why bother?
On the “lucky-find” trail, I was about to order a book I wanted to read and, lo and behold, I found it at the public library when I returned from Austria. Author: Kay Larson. Title: Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists.
I’m not the only Jew who’s thought Zen is a way through the maze of Jewish life. Have you noticed that some of the best practitioner commentators on Zen in America are Jewish? In the post-Holocaust years, Zen replaced conversion to Christianity as the way out. The most chosen way out is simply disappearing from Jewish authority into secular Europe and America. The Jewish establishment has been complaining about this for years.
Yes, the prison that is Jewish. Which Jews want to escape. Also, the prophetic that is Jewish. Which Jews can’t escape. You can’t have the prophetic without the prison. Obviously worthwhile. Or the prison without the prophetic. A useless trap. It’s only normal to want to be free of the prison and the prophetic. At least, for a Zen interlude.
Is the New Diaspora a place where that freedom can be found? If the prison is shared or distributed so the weight of prison isn’t too heavy on any one community and the prophetic is shared or distributed so the weight of the prophetic isn’t too heavy on any one community, then we might have less prison and more of the prophetic. The added bonus would be a saner atmosphere for individuals and their diverse communities.
So back to my (un)diversion, Cage and Buddhism. The first chapters are vignettes on the major early figures of Zen in America – Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Allan Watts. The leading light was the already elderly Japanese Buddhist missionary, D. T. Suzuki.
Reading the early chapters, I am struck by the randomness of the growth and influence of Buddhism in America. This one stumbles upon a certain text or book, meets another one who stumbled upon a certain text or book and then together they stumble into experiences that define a generation. What didn’t make sense, does. Renewed and invigorated consciousness comes alive in a new and the creative way.
When we look back at is now defined as important, we don’t remember how seemingly random things are until they’re not. Like the Beats. Like the New York School of painting. Like John Cage and the revolution in music and dance he helped inspire.
There are lessons here for every movement under the sun, including the issues surrounding Israel/Palestine. Here are two lessons I glean from this:
1: What is taken for granted after, rarely begins as a focused intention. What begins with focused intention doesn’t always come to fruition. Things happen. Things don’t happen. What happens in one place and doesn’t become known may crystallize somewhere else. Why one understanding takes off and another doesn’t is rarely analyzable.
2: We rarely know if what we’re doing will move beyond ourselves. If it does, we rarely know if it will be credited to us or even if it will be used for good. What starts somewhere else may seem destined to fail. It may also succeed, for better or worse.
Conclusion: Start where we are. Try to think and act in the best way we can. If possible think and act with others. If it the time isn’t right, think and act on your own. Pay attention. Continue on. Let the historical chips fall where they may. Since the historical chips will fall anyway, no matter what we do and no matter our intentions.
History is an entangled affair. Our only protection is conscience. Obviously conscience isn’t equivalent to a stealth bomber or even an armored vehicle. If we take the French philosopher, Michel Foucault’s definition of power – that “truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power” and that “truth isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves” – at least we have a foundational level from which to begin on the protection front. Foucault continues: “Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it includes regular effects of power.” This may be the next level of evaluation. What can protect us and what can’t.
But, then, since we know that no power can’t protect us always and everywhere, vulnerability is the name of the power game no matter what side you’re on. Our Zen archer, Herrigel, and our Nazi philosopher, Heidegger, thought they had signed on to the latest and best thousand year Reich. They were protected and elevated – for a decade or so of the (un)thousand year cycle.
Herrigel/Heidegger. The historical chips fell their way for a while. Then they came crashing down on them. Both are still read. For the most part, without the questions they deserve.
The same for our faint of heart Jewish big-wigs who signed on to Israeli and American empire thousand year reign? Or will they be read with the questions they deserve?
This woud have made me realize that we belong to the same generation, hadn’t I known it before.
I wanted to write my MA thesis about the Beat Generation. The prof told me I wouldn’t be able to do so in Germany. And unfortunately he was very, very right. When I checked US libraries and compared to what was available to me in Germany’s library system at the time I was devastated. Of course that was before the time of internet. Over here was close to nothing at all. And of course I deeply loved Alan out of my own straight heart’s delight, but surely it wasn’t only him the sentences of many others remain prominently on my mind, e.g. Keruoucs
The prophetic, yes maybe. Maybe that really is, what it is all about. Do I understand correctly you named your son Isiah? How does he carry the burdon?
Concerning the New York School or the Abstract Expressionists, which I somehow prefer, can you imagine them without the emotional traces left by Hiroshima and Nagasaka? But let’s return to the German – Japanese Zen connection?
Maybe you make me reread Botho Strauß’ – Das Gleichgewicht, the balance. Maybe I finanally discover what “the left” has been trying trace over the last decades, and Botho Strauß is simply an inheritor of Herrigel and some kind of a Neo-Nazi. That’s what some “left careerists” in the German theatre world of the early eighties tried to teach me, usually they were accompanied by some intellectual helpers, to make their case. Maybe you can ask your son, once his German knowlege has advanced to translate the play for you, and one day tell me, what is your impression?
Here is “Der Spiegel”, who historically, was one of the central co-creators of the Botho Strauß the Neo-Nazi myth (ok, I won’t change that, in case Strauss doesn’t show correctly) if you ask me, about a play in which Zen or art of archery plays a certain role.
I am surprised, since Google translator usually is very, very bad on German, but it feels while it stylistically is not perfect it works in this case. Original article:
You commented: “I’m not the only Jew who’s thought Zen is a way through the maze of Jewish life. Have you noticed that some of the best practitioner commentators on Zen in America are Jewish? In the post-Holocaust years, Zen replaced conversion to Christianity as the way out.”
Well, conversion to Christianity was a way out before WWII, like you say, since apparently it meant disassociation by the Jewish community as one of its members. The idea in Israeli law is that someone who converts to another religion (but not atheism and agnosticism) is no longer Jewish, and it says this is based on the common viewpoint of Jewish people on this question. I remember this actually being portrayed in the movie Fiddler on the Roof, where marrying a poor person was OK, marrying a radical (perhaps atheist) dissident was sad, but after that was treated by the father as drawing the line.
Further, by “the” way out, you mean the primary, if not only way out. Well, the societies in which Jews predominantly lived were Christian or Christian-oriented (as opposed to oriented toward another religion) before WWII, so it makes sense that the predominant way out would be to convert to Christianity.
I think you are leading to a good point about conversion to Zen, because western society is more multicultural than before WWII and if someone converts from Judaism or Christianity there is a much higher chance they will go to Zen than to those other two religions than before. Nevertheless- and I could be wrong- my impression is that conversion to Christianity is still the predominant form of conversion, because my impression is that “assimilation” is occurring- and perhaps “still” occurring- at a meaningful rate particularly through intermarriage, and the natural or most obvious form of this would still involve conversion to the spouse’s religion, which is typically Christianity. I am just speaking in general terms though in comparison with Zen, so this isn’t necessarily a very strong rule.
Take care, Professor.