Obligation
Elana Stein Hain
Elana Stein Hain is Rosh Beit Midrash at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
Credit: Kurt Hoffman
It should not be controversial to say that cultural continuity is impossible without each generation having a sense of obligation to receive their culture from the previous generation and then to transmit it to the next generation. And yet, the very notion of obligation of any kind, not least of all specifically Jewish obligations, is beset by many contemporary challenges. The blessings of individualism and autonomy carry within them the seeds of a certain skepticism of authority and of heteronomy, of being required by someone or some thing other than myself to do something. And while individual autonomy is indeed a moral good, without the moral good of having obligations to something beyond oneself, important dimensions of life are lost.
In this essay I would like to offer two models of obligation that take into account the importance of individual autonomy while making a strong case for the necessity of being obligated. I recognize this essay is for a varied audience and that many readers are likely now asking: obligation to what or to whom? Obligation to do what and when and how often? While people may disagree on the answers to these questions, I believe that we can still work together to articulate a concept of obligation in the 21st century. Moreover, I do not presume that these models must or even should override other models—I suggest them only as additional tools for understanding the varied richness and facets of living a life of responsibility.
Both biblical and rabbinic literature have a lot to say about the power of recognizing both collectives and individuals, and both demands and choices. But there is an evolution within the Tanakh and then from the Tanakh to rabbinic thought and literature. While the book of Genesis (Bereishit) describes the lives of individuals, thereafter, much of both the Pentateuch (Chumash) and the prophets (Navi) centers on the sacred history of the Jewish collective. The overall message is that it is the collective people of Israel that are obligated to God. It is only as members of the people that individuals are obligated to God and then also to their people, insofar as each generation is beholden to pass down the legacy of Torah to future generations. Likewise, future generations are bound by the decisions and covenanting of earlier generations. In short, within the Torah, the individual’s obligations are fulfilled in service to the collective and to God.
Yet when we reach the Wisdom literature within the Writings (Ketuvim), we see some discomfort with the idea that the individual is insignificant. This comes across in particular through the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet), which laments the meaninglessness of a person's life, whether because of death, the way that the memories of an individual fade from the world, the inability to make a lasting difference or control what happens after one has left the earth or the general unfairness of life. It likewise comes across in Job’s (Iyov) laments over the unfairness of the tragedies that befall him. He seeks a God whose Providence rewards the individual for their goodness and does not punish them for no reason. The book of Proverbs (Mishlei) takes a different tack on the same theme, taking as its subject a child being in need of parental advice about how, as an individual, one can lead the good life. And so within the Bible itself, we see a questioning of whether the individual must be subsumed by the collective. Surely, these texts suggest, an individual life can and should be meaningful on its own terms.
The Rabbis of the Mishnah and Gemara live in a world where the Temple in Jerusalem no longer serves as a centripetal force pulling the Jewish collective together as a people in covenant with God. Thinking and writing in this context, they seem more ready to recognize the significance of the individual and the choices they make. Pirkei Avot, for example, offers a multiplicity of reasons why individuals should engage in a life of Judaism as promises of divine favor or life in the world to come compete with admonishments to be God-fearing. Moreover, within the very same tractate of Mishnah, the image of an individual choosing to study Torah wherever they may be takes on the importance that sacrificial service by the priests in Jerusalem on behalf of the collective people Israel once had. As Pirkei Avot 3:6 reads: “Rabbi Halafta of Kefar Hanania said: when ten sit together and occupy themselves with Torah, the Divine Presence abides among them…. How do we know that the same is true even of one? As it is said: ‘In every place where I cause my name to be mentioned, I will come unto you and bless you’ (Ex. 20:21).” Each is an expression of the covenant; I would argue that the biblical emphasis on living primarily through the history of the collective is less obvious or even possible after the destruction of the Temple. Nevertheless, rabbinic literature continues to ratify a collective covenant of the Jewish people with God that places obligation at the center. It is as though collective obligations are now fulfilled through actions that are more explicitly done by individuals.
This is only an impressionistic sketch, and it does not capture everything either the biblical or rabbinic texts have to say about obligation. It does, however, demonstrate that biblical and rabbinical literature supply ingredients we can use to describe the power of the individual in light of the significance of the collective, and in light of choice and responsibility. (I’ll also add some more specific texts below.) For this reason, although the thinkers I’ll discuss below are contemporary, I believe that their views have important antecedents in our sacred classical texts. They also do something that is harder for the ancients: they speak directly to our moment.
I am drawing my first model of obligation from Mara Benjamin’s The Obligated Self (2018). In this book, Benjamin argues that the obligation a parent feels for their child can serve as a useful model for obligation more broadly today, as it combines following and leading, and obligation and agency. The way that parents care for their children also models a combination of feeling simultaneously shackled by and being in love with the source of one’s obligation. When traditional Jewish literature uses the parent-child relationship as a metaphor, it is usually to describe God as parent and human beings as children. Benjamin’s inversion of this relationship is bold and thought provoking. She asks how natural it might feel to be obligated by someone other than ourselves if we take on the role of the parent. She asks what would happen I see myself as responsible for stewarding the relationship between God and the Jewish people in the world.
I think that Benjamin is onto something. Parenting may be one of the easiest types of obligation to enter with a sense of joy. Moreover, a parenting metaphor implies continuity. Further, while it might seem modern or even postmodern to subvert the parent-child metaphor between God and the Jewish people, it is actually quite ancient. The Sifra, a legal midrash on the book of Leviticus (Vayikra), describes the day of the inauguration of the Mishkan with this verse from Song of Songs (Shir HaShirim):
O maidens of Zion, go forth
And gaze upon King Solomon
Wearing the crown that his mother
Gave him on his wedding day,
On his day of bliss. (3:11)
Rather than reading this verse literally as a description of King Solomon and his mother, the midrash draws a different picture: the day of the inauguration of the Tabernacle is the day of the wedding between God and the people Israel. And on that day, God—understood here as King Solomon with wordplay connecting his name to Shalom, peace, a name of God—is the bridegroom, whose mother places a crown on his head in celebration. The crown—or perhaps wreath— is the Tabernacle itself. So if the wedding is the inauguration of the Tabernacle, the bridegroom is God; the bride, though unmentioned, is, presumably, the Jewish people; and we also have the crown (the Tabernacle). But who is the groom’s mother? Who is “God’s mother,” as it were? And while you might be thinking that this question does not even make sense from a Jewish perspective, in the next words of the midrash, the rabbis write that “the reference ‘his mother’ refers only to Israel, as is said, ‘And listen to Me, My nation (leumi)’ (Isa. 51:4).”
In the verse the rabbis cite from Isaiah, the word for “my nation,” leumi, is written without a letter vav, so that it can also be read as “to my mother,” le-emi, thus supporting the assertion that God’s nation is also “God’s mother,” as it were.
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This midrash has some degree of anti-Christian polemic, insofar as it leaves no space for anyone to suggest a literal and individual mother of God, as Christians likely would. But its positive content is equally important. When the midrash suggests that the inauguration of the Tabernacle is an act of the Jewish people taking on the role of a parent by crowning God, it places responsibility for ratifying the relationship between God and the collective on the people themselves. It seems to me that seeing the Jewish people as a mother here indicates taking on a sense of responsibility, of ensuring that the covenant is established in the world and has a future. Comparing the Jewish people to both God’s “mother” and God’s “bride” underscores the point that the covenant can be thought of both as God telling the Jews what they are to know and to do and as the Jews stepping into a role of mature stewardship on which the possibility of the relationship itself depends. It is akin to the rabbinic saying that regardless of a monarch’s apparent power, it is the people themselves who ultimately coronate the monarch (see Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 11). In other words, if the people do not ratify this union, it will not exist.
And therein lies a critical lesson for us 21st century people: while we do not always like to be told what to do, while we can experience being told what to do as disempowering, a sense that the existence of an institution, a tradition, or a legacy depends on our willingness to actualize is very empowering. If people believe that Judaism is worth preserving, then being the guardians of its preservation without whom it will not be preserved is actually quite meaningful. In other words, obligation is not only about the past but about the future as well; not only about receiving, but about nourishing, transmitting, and shaping. Much like conversations about climate change, discussions of obligation have to assume our desire to shape a brighter future. What do we want Jewish life to look like in coming generations, and how can we be the ones to shepherd it there? In a way, obligation here becomes synonymous with responsibility.
My second model of obligation comes from thinking about the very possibility of maintaining a relationship with God or with another human being or community. In his essay “Ritual, the Self and Sincerity,” the sociologist Adam Seligman suggests that we differentiate between what he calls the “sincere self” and the “ritual self.” The sincere self is what I subjectively think or feel at any given time: it is the self that is sometimes tired, sometimes happy, angry, in love, bored, etc. We can ask this self: how are you feeling about this? The ritual self, on the other hand, is found in what am I doing: I might be dancing or eating or reading or sleeping, etc.
Relationships, Seligman argues, even the most intimate relationships, cannot be maintained by the sincere self alone. They must also rely on the ritual self—the self that consistently performs acts of relationship. The separation between the two selves is key. Sometimes my feelings and my actions align, and I act lovingly while simultaneously feeling love. But other times, I act as though I am having the corresponding feeling even if I am not.
Thinking back to our first model, this time looking at it more literally, we can recognize that we experience this interplay of real and ritual selves all the time within parent-child relationships, whether we are the parent or the child. No matter how great my love for my children is, it will never be enough if I neglect to care for them: helping with homework, washing their clothes, picking them up from after school sessions, and doing all of the other prosaic things that go into raising a family. Some would question if I loved them at all, if I don’t do these things. And yet, when I do them, when I show up as a parent, it doesn’t actually matter whether I want to be there doing these things, if I am actively feeling love as I do them, or if I am feeling something like anger or frustration. These actions alone might be enough to maintain the relationship with no love at all.
Seligman uses the example of saying “I love you” to make his point:
We can in the end distinguish two forms of the words “I love you.” The emotionally wrought confession by the star-struck young man appeals to the sincere mode…and, having established this “as is” of his love, will never feel the need to say those words again, even through decades of marriage. He may also fail to say those words ever again because he is not sincerely experiencing the same kind of love as when he first “fell in love”…
On the other hand, we also have the ritual “I love you,” whose performative aspect is more important than its denotative function. This is why one can repeat it for years and years to the same person. In so doing, one is not adding any bit of hitherto unknown information, but instead acting out a ritual, rather in the manner of a prayer.[1]
According to Seligman, there is a sincere form of “I love you” that means “I am feeling love for you right now.” There is also a ritual “I love you” that is said as a means of maintaining relationship: “I am in this loving relationship with you.” It is tempting to value the former and to disregard the latter, but Seligman argues that the sincere self and the ritual self are both necessary forms of the self. Both are not only legitimate but needed when we want to be connected with others.
I believe that living in a state of obligation similarly puts demands on both our sincere selves and our ritual selves. Living in a state of obligation means showing up even when we might want to be elsewhere because that is how relationships are maintained. We know this in mundane ways: we show up to work every day, even when we do not feel like doing so, because it is crucial to maintaining one’s job. We call our grandmothers to check in even when our heart may not be in it because we value that relationship.
To be sure, there can be real problems if the sincere self and ritual self are out of alignment too often: if I think I’m in the wrong job, no amount of ritual self is going to keep me coming back. Likewise, if my grandmother hurts my feelings every time we speak on the phone, that relationship is not likely to last. Without a kernel of sincere desire to sustain a relationship, the desire to hold onto the ritual of the relationship fades away.
This approach to obligation likewise has an important classical antecedent. Strangely, in bTalmud Rosh HaShanah 28a-b, Rava suggests that performing mitzvot does not require intention. What he means by this is that so long as one is aware of their own actions, one can still fulfill the obligation of a mitzvah without intending the action to fulfill a mitzvah. While I would not recommend that people adopt this as their approach to religious life, it intrigues me to see an approach that recognizes that physical activity, even when one’s heart or full understanding is not present, may still be enough. To be honest, I find it inspiring, given how difficult it is for us to always align our sincere selves and our ritual selves. Sometimes, I am what I do more than I am or what I happen to be feeling.
Focusing on the performative can be a source of great strength for 21st century life, as it also allows different people to share the same rituals. An emphasis on action rather than intention places people's inner motives into the background, allowing them to share in collective actions even when they differ in intention. During that joint performance, we share something real, an “as if” experience that neither you or I need to define. Sometimes trying to define it would undermine our ability to share it. (Think about family gatherings that are beautiful moments of solidarity until someone decides to talk about their personal politics.)
In the pre-Covid era, I was once at a rally in support of Israel. I was surprised to see a particular friend of mine there, as I knew her politics were very different from the organizers of this rally, even though they all care about Israel and Zionism. I asked her, gently, what she was doing there. She answered something to the effect of: “I thought it was important to show up on behalf of Israel, but I'm standing far enough in the back so that I don't hear what is said from the microphone at the dais.” She had shown up to share a joint ritual in support of Israel with her fellow Jews while trying not to experience the dissonance between their respective sincerities. Refusing to hear them, and also not insisting that they hear her, she could join the organizers in waving symbols, such as an Israeli flag, because that was more important to her than their divisions. A sense of obligation to something bigger than oneself—here, perhaps, Jewish peoplehood—accustoms and allows us to be in relationship with those who are not exactly like us, to do things together without any of our subgroups or individual sincerities having to define what our joint action means more specifically to each of us. This is an anti-fundamentalist stance that has become increasingly rare, as people run from any guilt by association from those who hold different views.
I have tried here to articulate two dimensions of obligation that are helpful for me as I consider what this concept could mean in the 21st century. And again, I assume that readers will apply these models to their own understanding of who and what generates obligation and what obligation consists of. The first model involves empowering people to think of themselves not only as recipients of a past but as responsible for the future and to recognize themselves as the shapers of that future. That is a sense of responsibility that invites people to take ownership. The second model entails recognizing the significance of maintaining important relationships—not always prioritizing what I feel like doing right now, but prioritizing ongoing relationships—with God and/or with others—that place active expectations on me. Moreover, the emphasis on action will also allow people whose sincere selves differ to be in relationship with one another via their ritual selves. To be sure, these models are not everything: they are meant to complement other ways of speaking about obligation, whether veneration of the past, of Divine commandedness, or something else. Yet, these models offer additional emphases that can serve as a counterculture in a world that tends to view obligation as oppressive or even primitive. They recognize that just as autonomy and individuality can be of moral importance, so can obligation with its emphasis on relationship and responsibility.
Endnotes
[1]Adam B. Seligman, “Ritual, the Self, and Sincerity,” Social Research 76, no. 4 (2009): 1082–83.
