A Hebraic Inkling: Motivation

In Chapter 7 of, "The Great Divorce," Lewis meets the Hard-Bitten Ghost. A (now dead) man who beleived that the world was run by a cadre of Management, the World Combine. In his ravings to Lewis, he mentions, "or the same Firm, which is behind the Jews and the Vatican..." A friend of Brazier had apparently read this particular passage and assumed that this demonstrated Lewis was an anti-semite and (presumably) believed the canard of the Jews running the world. 

Of course, as Brazier quickly notes, such an association is the complete opposite of Lewis' intention. This man was in hell, and will always stay there, due to his beliefs that everything is just a set up. Everything is out of your control, you are powerless and since there is nothing you can do to build up, you are left with simply debunking everything else. Lewis addresses these people head on in Abolition of Man. These are people for whom truth is there own feelings, and one's feelings can never be wrong. Truth, wonder, and beauty are exactly the opposite. They demand the stirring of awe and reverence. They motivate man to do better, and they call on man to overcome his present problems because there is a bright future for those who walk in God's path. 

Brazier identifies the Hard-Bitten Ghost in the British Labor party of the early 2020s and, unfortunately, too many people today. People who, enamored with their own feelings, would rather find a scapegoat than address the very real problems facing them.    

Brazier contrasts this character with Sarah Smith of Golders Green in the same book who he identifies as Jewish (more on that later). She is a saintly figure who has achieved paradise but journeys down to continue helping others. Certainly Lewis, were he an anti-semite, would not suggest such a character could be a Jew! However, this mistaken characterization of Lewis is what motivated Brazier to explore further Lewis' views on "Judaims and the Jews, the ancient Hebrews and the Jewish Bible (the church's "Old Testament"), supersessionism, replacement theology, identity politics, and Israel, and therefore the status before humanity of God's chosen people..."

I would like to add, that throughout Brazier's treatment he demonstrates that Judaism directly repudiates the Hard-Bitten Ghost. Judaism forces the confrontation with the transcendent and divine and calls upon you to work to raise the level of the world. Judaism insists that you have the choice to be as righteous as Moses or as evil as Pharaoh. Most importantly, Judaism insists on truths in beliefs, in actions, and in an ultimate vision. God demands reverence, His Creation reflect His glory and call on you to feel awe and come to fear and love Him, and His seal is truth. 

With this motivation, Brazier goes on to Aims and Goals. We'll take a look at that next time. 

Letters to Malcom (Letter 3, Part 4)

Lewis returns to a few things towards the end of this letter that we have already discussed. So, the issue I would like to concentrate on here is the question of position during prayer. Lewis, rightfully in my opinion, places value on the position of the body during prayer since the body must pray as well. This the Jewish Sagesthroughout the ages (codified by Rama, Orach Chayyim 48:1) who invoke the psalmist (35:10), "All my bones shall say, God, who is like You?" to suggest that one should wave or shake one's body during the readong of the Torah and during prayer.

However, Lewis notes that there are more important aspects of prayer then kneeling such as concentration and that make sense. After all, the center of prayer is the heart and mind and while the body has a role it is clearly secondary. 

Not surprisingly, Judaism has a much more formalized approach to position during prayer which may take the form of sitting, standing, or leaning. Some prayers can be free form, others have preferneces or requirements (subject to capability). The need to stand might be due to honor or (as with the amidah service) an attempt to mimic angelic prayer. 

In summary, Lewis favors personal preference in time, position, liturgy, place and other aspects of prayer. The main goal is to have concentration on the prayers themselves. This leads to a very personal and (assuming the best of the person praying) meaningful prayer service. Judaism, though much of prayer was originally free-form, has formalized all of these aspects of prayer this has its own positive aspects as we've discussed in the past. Formalization also lends itself to being more apropos for communal prayer. I'll wait for a discussion of this to see if Lewis brings it up any point soon (I haven't read any further than I've written about so let's see where Lewis takes us next).   

RESPONSE: How Hebraic an Inkling?

Hi Everyone! Sorry that I've disappeared for so long - lots of travel over this past month, including a vacation in Israel to see our sons. Thank God, they are both doing well! Now I'm back and, as usual, we have lots to catch up with. 

Let me start by recalling that several months ago R'  Mark Gottlieb published a review article on P. H. Brazier's book A Hebraic Inkling: C.S. Lewis on Judaism and the Jews. At the time I mentioned that I thought a number of issues he raised required further comment. Well, those comments, my response to R' Gottlieb's article, have now been published on Tradition Online. 

I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts, not necessarily on Brazier's book (though I would love to hear those as well), but on what it does, or should, mean to be a Hebraic Christian or how far a Jew can push Chritian beliefs towards his own. 

In first noting R' Gottlieb's article, I said that perhaps it would motivate me to return to my comments on Brazier's book. Unfortunately, I have yet to do so, but hopefully I will soon (though I think I'll need to start again). Of course we are very slowly also trying to review Letters to Malcom so there's plenty to be done.

Finally, I wanted to make clear that I am a big fan of R' Gottlieb and already five years ago we had a discussion about C.S. Lewis which you can find here. Nothing written in my comments should in any way be taken as a lack of respect for him and the intellectual clarity he brings to all of his writings. 

Letter to Malcom: Letter 3 (Part 3)

Lewis goes on in Letter 3 to advocate against setting (or being stuck) one's chief prayer right before going to sleep. Of course, Lewis' argument is appropriate. One should pray when best able to concentrate. 

Of course, traditional Jewish prayer occurs thrice daily, as done by Daniel, morning, afternoon and evening. The Talmud forwards two ancient parallels to this: the daily sacrifices (morning, afternoon, and then finishing up all the sacrifices at night), and the prayer of our forefathers each of whom instituted one service. But even if one were not to follow this regiment, I'm at a loss as to why people in genearl, Lewis included, would not simply pray first thing in the morning. This would enable them to pray for their 'daily bread' right away before starting, and it would be the time where one is most refreshed. 

I really don't have much else to add here because to me this seems kind of obvious. Wake up a bit earlier and build prayer into your schedule right away.

Anyway, there's a bit more to this letter that relates to the position one adopts during prayer (and further discuss of the place of prayer). We'll talk about this, but I think underlying all of these issues (time, place, and position) there exists the question of communal prayer. We touched on this before, but it probably soon needs to be brough to bear on all of these issues.   

Saturn Under God

So I actually think the class went pretty well on Thursday. But I think at its core, what was making me a bit uncomfortable can be boiled down to this quote of Lewis from the Four Loves: 

Emerson has said, "When half-gods go, the gods arrive." That is a very doubtful maxim. Better say, "When God arrives (and only then) the half-gods can remain." Left to themselves they either vanish or become demons.

Let's not worry about whether Emerson meant to say what Lewis suggests he implies (I'm not quite sure he does). When speaking of the natural loves this statement of Lewis makes sense. We sacrifice for love, adore love, fight for love, all the things we might do for God. But without the true God the love will self-corrupt. My question arises not in the context of loves, but in the context of mythology and astrology. Lewis (as evidenced in Planet Narnia) is comfortable using the Greek/Roman gods as reflections of the true God. Hence, their qualities, strengths, even personalities, can be invoked and appreciated as reflections of God Himself. 

One of the ideas that emerged from the class is that the Sages, without mentioning the mythology, use the personalities and qualities to characterize astrologically the planets named after the gods. The worship of those planets would clearly be idolatrous but even the suggestion that these can be half-gods makes me uncomfortable.  

Saturn, Shabbos, and the Light of Eternity

It's been a while since I've been able to give a class on Christmas Day. A lot of the Jewish high-schools arrange for father-son learning that day, but with both of my sons out of high school I'm back to giving my usual American Holiday class. 

So, tomorrow's class will be on, "Saturn, Shabbos, and the Light of Eternity." It's somewhat different from my usual fair in that we'll get into Jewish astrology (though we discussed a little bit of Jewish astrology in our Jewish Narnia series) and tomorrow we'll concentrate of Saturn. If it turns out well maybe I'll expand in a different post. But in the meantime my source text will be from the Occident and American Jewish Advocate, Vol. 22, March 1865. You can find it here: ⁨⁨The Occident and American Jewish Advocate⁩⁩ | Newspapers | The National Library of Israel

And while I'm not really going to quote Lewis much I do think this source text is in line somewhat with the idea of the minor powers taking their place under God. I need to expand on that at some point and actually fit the astronomy in. I think this article in the Occident actually does that pretty well.   

Prometheus's Flood

For anyone who might be interested - 

My reading of the story of Noah: Prometheus’s Flood | The Lehrhaus