Letters to Malcom: Letter 5, Part 2

I would like to expand on our previous consideration of interpretation versus festooning via example. The first words of prayer traditionally said in the morning is, "I thank You, living and eternal King," as translated by the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. But, as with any translations this is also an interpretation. One could alternately interpret the same phrase as, "I acknowledge/admit before You..." or "I confess to You..." The ambiguity arising based on the multiple possible meanings of the Hebrew word (modeh)  מודה. 

And these different interpretations will affect the way one may approach this prayer. If I am thanking God and look around at all He has given me and I am overcome with gratitude. If I acknowledge before Him, I look around and see God's hand in all I have. I am admitting it is all due to God and is not due to my own strengths or talents. If I confess to God, I look around at all I have almost with concern. I know that I am not deserving of any of it and confess that He has given me way above and beyond any sort of rewards I might think of getting for any meager good I may do. These interpretations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and I might concentrate on one versus the other, or a synergy of them, depending on my mood or on the specific day. 

But, again, these are interpretations. 

Festooning would be my personal thoughts on my prayer. For example, I can thank God for my beautiful family. There is nothing in, or interpretation of, this particular prayer that suggests that it refers to my (or anyone else's) family, but I can festoon it onto the prayer. Others while reciting that same prayer may festoon it with their family, or with thanking God for their job, or their house. All of these are fine things to concentrate on when thanking God and, again, I do not have to keep the same festoon every day. Similarly, if I interpret the prayer as confess, I can confess to God that I do not deserve my wonderful wife and someone else may confess before Him that they do not deserve their wonderful car. Again, that choice is personal and not motivated by an interpretation and thus a festoon. 

Returning to Lewis's letter and the Lord's prayer, Lewis (correctly in my opinion), does not want to restrict the words, "Give us this day our daily bread," to only spiritual needs, though that seems not a terrible interpretation. Other interpretations might mean, actual bread, the meals I need for the day, my livelihood, and so on. I can also attach my personal festoons such as thinking about my job that I have, or a specific type of food I really like. 

In short, when we pray it is insufficient (or at least very sub-optimal) to mouth the words with no understanding. But once we understand, we must interpret the way we interpret a give prayer is not necessarily the same way someone else does. A layer on top of that are festoons that we all know is not the interpretation of the prayer but a personal application of example of what we are praying for. 

Poetry of Love (Part 1)

Lewis tells us his view of Song of Songs in the 12th chapter of Reflection on Psalms. He first insists that the author of this work was writing love poetry and had no idea that it would be transformed into a parable for the relationship between and individual and God (or Israel and God, or, for Christians, the Church and God). While Lewis appears to maintain this view, he argues that Song of Songs (or something like it) must be the primary parable of this individual-God relationship and the book was therefore canonized. 

Traditional Judaism disagrees and maintains that Song of Songs was written by King Solomon himself. He, as the wisest of men, knew that love poetry was the proper way to concretize into human terms the relationship between man and God. 

Lewis wrote his own love story, Till We Have Faces (TWHF). On its surface, TWHF is the novelized form of his work The Four Loves. All four types of loves discussed in the latter work, speak to Orual's failed loves of family/acquaintance, friend, eros, and the gods. However, as we've discussed, my contention is that the overarching goal of TWHF is to demonstrate how the the gods were made beautiful. Glome, transformed by Orual into a modern, Greek-like society, has a new, more beautiful, vision and understanding of the gods. Lewis' overarching goal in writing TWHF is then to teach readers our need to, and perhaps how, to make our religion beautiful. On the societal level it requires just laws, a working economy, and an open approach to God all of which is engineered by Orual. On the personal level it requires properly understand the natural loves and applying them (transpositioning) to godly love and the love of God (Lewis doesn't explicitly take this last step, that's my thesis here).

Lacking from Lewis' story is God Himself. There are hints and sightings, conversations about and physical descriptions of Ungit/Aphrodite and her son. But very little explicit description of God, His love, and how he relates to His people.  

But what Lewis adapts into a novel, Song of Songs transforms into a poetry of dreams. And what Lewis leaves out is front and center in the Song of Songs. The natural loves are already elevated as expressions of love between God and Israel: 

• Eros: "Give me of the kisses of your mouth..." (1:2)
• Family: "If only it could be as with a brother..." (8:1) 
• Friend: "O you who linger in the gardens, friend who hear my voice..." (8:13) 

This needs further thought but I'm going to post this unfinished since it's been way too long... 

Letters to Malcom: Letter 5, Part 1

In this letter Lewis shares the festoons that drapes over the words of "The Lord's Prayer". "Festooning" prayers is introduced in Letter 3. There Lewis discussed the concept of praying "with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven" (a concept that has its place in Jewish liturgy as well) and shared that his festoons this concept around the phrase "hollowed by thy name" from the Lord's Prayer.   

I've been thinking about whether I want to discuss The Lord's Prayer from my perspective and how it meshes (or not) with Jewish liturgy, as it's not really my place to say how another religion should regard its prayer service. 

But for now, I want to discuss the idea of what Lewis calls festooning. Lewis uses the term because they do not "obliterate" the plain sense of the text. Perhaps his festoon around "hallowed be thy name" actually meets that criterion. But I'm not sure I agree that festooning actually characterizes what Lewis does in at least some of this letter. For example, Lewis rewords the phrase, "Thy kingdom come" as meaning, "may your reign be realized here, as it is there." I think most people would agree that this rewording is the plain, straightforward meaning of the text. But then Lewis gives three options for "there" and three options for "here". This is not festooning, this is interpreting. The plain meaning of the text does not provide precise enough information to be understood except in a phenomenological sense, God's kingdom will grow. Questions of "where is God's kingdom now" and "where will it grow to" remain unanswered until Lewis gives an interpretation. 

The beauty of a carefully worded text or prayer is that it can sustain multiple interpretations throughout time and space all of which may be true. Lewis, for example, in one interpretation reads "here" as England. While no doubt a Christian living in the United States would interpret "here" as the United States.    

Similarly, with the phrase "Thy will be done," Lewis first interprets it as acceptance of God's judgment it is an acknowledgement that God is just even if I happen not to understand. Then Lewis interprets the phrase as a prayer, may I patiently suffer God's will, or may I fulfill God's will. 

The point for the moment is that these are hardly festoons that hang around the plain meaning of the text. They are interpretations in an attempt to determine a meaning of the text that speaks to you. 

The Jealousy of Venus: Renewal (Part 2)

He cannot ravish; He can only woo

(The Screwtape Letters, Letter 8)

By God's own rules He cannot reveal His true self to His humanity. Doing so would immediately thwart their free will forcing them to be robots and automatons, not the sons He wants us to become. Hence, Venus, goddess of love and beauty, and stand-in for God in Till We Have Faces, cannot ramp up her own beauty to outshine Psyche. She must woo Glome into loving her.

Accomplishing this task is the punishment of Psyche as well as Orual. But for Glome to truly recognize Ungit/Venus more beautifully than in their pagan ways, more than Venus has to change. Glome has to change as well. That change we've discussed earlier. Glome's governance, economy, and mode of worship are enlightened by Orual so that Glome can now accept a God more beautiful than that of the pagans. 

But that final step, ushering God into an enlightened world, needs to be done by someone who loves God. Someone who does not love God would simply enjoy the economic prosperity and order and reject that its purpose is to comprehend God more fully, not less. This is Psyche's final test. Bringing beauty from the underworld. However, the question remains why beauty from the underworld would make Venus more beautiful in the eyes of the people?

Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (the goddess of agriculture), was kidnapped by Hades and made queen of the underworld. In her distress over her daughter, Demeter causes a draught until Zeus is forced to allow Persephone to return home. However, because Persephone ate of the good of the underworld she must return there every year. When she does, during the winter, Demeter neglects to cultivate the earth until Spring when Persephone, the goddess of Spring, once again emerges from the underworld.   

In Till We Have Faces, Psyche becomes Persephone, as Orual hears the details from the old priest:

But, Stranger, the sacred story is about the sacred things — the things we do in the temple. In spring, and all summer, she is a goddess. Then when harvest comes, we bring a lamp into the temple in the night and the god flies away. Then we veil her. And all winter she is wandering and suffering; weeping, always weeping...

All winter Psyche suffers from having been abandoned by husband, but she emerges every Spring as the goddess of renewal.  

With this we can understand why Psyche must retrieve beauty from the queen of the underworld. It is there where Persephone is found and it is she that enables the renewal. Of course, Venus does not need renewal, but she needs the people to experience renewal, the reconnection with and rededication to the gods that is possible and present. 

Psyche, as an ardent follower of the gods herself becomes the tool for the renewal for Glome to return to Venus. 

With this we have seen two levels of the story. The Greek story of Psyche in which the jealousy of Venus is paramount, and Lewis' story of Psyche in which the people must renew their love for Venus. In our next post we must address the true story, the love between God and Israel as told in Song of Songs. 

On Affection without Familiarity (continued)

For C.S. Lewis Reading Day I posted that my daughter had gotten engaged and addressed the question of whether or how, using the language of The Four Loves, one can have affection without the usual cause of familiarity. Well, the wedding took place a little more than a month ago, and I am happy to report that the young couple is doing well, and that my wife and I grow in our affection towards my son-in-law. 

Unfortunately, with everything surrounding the wedding, I have fallen behind of this blog (and lots of other responsibilities). But things are settling down so hopefully I'll have the chance to do a couple of posts this week. We have a lot still to do, and I just finished reading The Weight of Glory (which includes an essay of the same name, Transposition, and some other great essays) which requires extensive commentary.

So, please come back soon!

A Hebraic Inkling: Election

I've been procrastinating on commenting on the next definition of Brazier as it clearly requires someone far more eloquent to properly outline a Jewish approach. Nevertheless, for the sake of finally moving onwards I'll write something.

In the next section of the Introduction, Brazier discusses several terms that he feels must be defined an qualified. The first such term is "Election". Brazier properly proposes the following three questions. Who elects? Who is elected? And to what is the elected, elected? 

God does the electing.

The Jews were elected by God through Abraham. 

The Jews were elected as a Chosen People to guide humanity.

Brazier then adds, the elected are elected to salvation, atonement, forgiveness, reconciliation with God after humanity's fall. Those not of the Chosen People can be enfolded into the elected through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Traditional Judaism will object to Brazier's addition in a number of ways:  

(1) Jewish theology of course rejects the importance of Jesus in the process of forgiveness and/or salvation. 

(2) While it is true that the mishna states, "All of the Jewish people have a share in the World-to-Come..." This seemingly universal statement is immediately followed by, "And these have no share in the World-to-Come..." Being a member of the Chosen People does not guarantee atonement or forgiveness. In fact, given the increased number of commands on the Chosen People, it might even be harder. 

(3) The Chosen People are chosen to guide humanity as a (Exodus 19:6), "Kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Just like not all priests deserve the ultimate reward, so too not all members of the Chosen People deserve such a reward. Furthermore, just as a goal of a priest is to guide his flock so that they can attain salvation, so too a goal of the Chosen People is to guide humanity so they can attain salvation. Finally, just like it is unnecessary to become a priest to achieve reward in the World to Come, so too it is unnecessary to join or be enfolded into the Chosen People to achieve reward in the World to Come. 

(4) With few exceptions, anyone can convert to become a full member of the Chosen People. But it's not necessary to achieve divine reward and it's not encouraged. 

So, already at this point we have an interesting twist that will follow us through Brazier's entire book. For Brazier, Lewis can be Hebraic if he sees gentiles enfolded into the election of the Jews. But for Jews, there is no need to enfold gentiles into Jews. Gentiles can stand on their own two feet and have a relationship with God without need for an intermediary. 

Letters to Malcom: Letter 4 Part 3

In the last part of this letter Lewis addresses the question of whether there is a threshold on the importance of a request in prayer, below which should not be included in one's prayers. I generally resonate with Lewis' approach to this, but a permanent liturgy of rabbinic Judaism does change the parameters. In the amidah prayer, the central prayer in all three daily services, the requests are already there.

The amidah prayer includes 13 blessings of requests, six are personal, six are communal, and one is a catchall. It is safe to assume that when our Sages established these blessings, they chose needs that were universally important for all people across time and space. Hence the six personal blessings are for wisdom, return (to God), forgiveness, redemption, healing, and prosperity. The order of the blessings is discussed in the Talmud (Megillah 17b) but the themes are presumably broad enough that they cover all important aspects of human need. In fact, specific requests can be made within each blessing for specific relevant requests. 

Nonetheless, I think our Sages are teaching us a lesson: there's not that much that we really need.