The Laws of Undulation (Part 1)

Humans are amphibians — half spirit and half animal... This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation — the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. (The Screwtape Letters, Letter 8)

Lewis' Law of Undulation attempts to explain the changing attitude towards and desire for that which is eternal and holy. Humans are amphibious. Hence, their spiritual half is continuously desirable of God and constantly reaches towards spiritual heights. However, their animal half pulls the other way, seeking the gratification and pleasure of the physical causing the dryness and numbness towards the spiritual. It is difficult (impossible?) for humans to ignore one of the other, or even come to a constant medium between the two. Rather, a given human's attitude towards the spiritual will oscillate in a series of troughs and peaks. 

Lewis (as Screwtape) goes on to explain that the troughs, when a human does not perceive or even particularly desire God, is not an unfortunate corollary of humans. Actually, they are key in God's plan. God wants humans act independently, and to love Him and cling to Him on their own volition, even when His presence seems to have disappeared. Again, quoting Screwtape:

Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

In Lewis' Law of Undulation the pendulum swings between perceiving God in our lives, experiencing His presence, on the one hand, and not seeing Him, feeling forsaken on the other.  

R' Soloveitchik also formulates a Law of Undulation but one that relies on differently formulated extremum. As explained by R' Goldmintz:

On the one hand man craves to be close to Him and so he approaches God "at a rapid pace, where all his being, beset by the torment of fiery longing, is tensed toward the encounter with his divine lover." But precisely at the moment when he is so close to unification with God, he stops, indeed retreats, for he is filled with a sense of awe so great that coming close seems inconceivable. "He runs toward God but also recoils from Him, He runs toward God, for how can man distance himself from God and live?" But he then retreats from God, for how can man attach himself to God and live? Man is hurled back and forth "by the two colossal forces of love and awe" and this pendulum-like movement, rather than resulting in frustration or defeat, "embodies the most magnificent worship of God." (The Rav of Tefillah)

The pendulum swings between love of God and fear of God. On one extreme God is right in front of man ready to embrace, on the other God is concealed in His Heavenly abode, for the transcendent distance between the Infinite and finite cannot be bridged. It is not the animalistic side of man that drags him away from God, but the closeness itself forces man to reckon with his own physicality and finitude. 

We will compare and contrast these two Laws of Undulation in a later post. 

The Abdication of Queen Susan (Part 3)

Quick note: I updated Part 2 on February 11 so you should read the updated version before reading this. 

Building off of our last post, we are trying to understand why Lewis is unhappy with Susan striving to reach, and then freeze at, the age of about 21. Most likely the reason is already found in Lewis' first words about Narnia, the dedication to his goddaughter.

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it, I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result, you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

Here, Lewis makes the point that people at a certain age are (hopefully, temporarily) not interested in fairytales. What the consequences are for not reading fairytales is not stated, but we have some further evidence elsewhere in his writings:

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

OK, so here Lewis hints at the maturation of people. Humans are born as babies and become children. While sometimes children may be difficult to deal with, they are generally blessed with certain very positive characteristics. As discussed here, Lewis includes in that list simplicity, single-mindedness, affection, and teachable. R' Soloveitchik recognized similar characteristics including: simplicity, fiery enthusiasm, ingenuousness, gracefulness, tremors of fear, and devotion to their vivid experiences.

As humans mature, they tend to look down on their previous lack of maturity. However, doing so may include a dismissal of some of these very positive traits in an effort to prove to themselves and others that they are really "grown up." It is only the truly grown up who can reclaim the positive aspects of childhood. This process is almost Hegelian, the thesis of childhood, the antithesis expressed by those wanting to feel and be thought of as grown up, and, finally, the synthesis of the truly mature. 

There are of course, the rare few, like Lucy, who can keep the positive characteristics of children through the maturation process. But the rest of us may spend quite some time acting childish in our fear of being seen as children. There are also humans (in our times perhaps too many humans) who relinquish all aspects of childhood and never recover its positive aspects. Even worse, some do not even see the point in trying to recover those traits. This is (at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia) the current lot of Susan.

One characteristic noted by R' Soloveitchik stands out: a child's vivid experiences and their devotion to them. This is exactly Susan's failure. She, with her siblings, went through the most vivid of experiences when they were young. They were teleported to another world, set on a great quest, were victorious through bravery, kindness, and faith and were rewarded by royal crowns. 

Lucy and her brothers remained devoted to those experiences even as growing older. 

Susan dismissed her childhood as playing games.   

The Abdication of Queen Susan (Part 2)

In our last post we saw that, at the end of the Chronicles, Queen Susan was no longer a friend of Narnia. A priori, this means she stopped believing that her Narnian experience was real, instead coming to the belief that the adventures were simply games played as a child. We noted that in fact the situation was much worse. It is not simply that Susan denies the "historical" occurrence of the children's time in Narnia, but she exclaims, "Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children." Even if the visits to Narnia were not true, Susan could think about them, learn from, be guided by, and be inspired by the "fairytales" of her childhood. But she does not. 

All of us on this blog think of Narnia a great deal. Yet, none of us, I presume, have been to Narnia (though if you have been please let me know). In fact, I would suppose none of us even believe that there is or ever was such a place as Narnia. And, yet WE are inspired by Narnia, while Susan who was actually part of the fairytales is not. 

This is Susan's greatest fault. Not denying the existence of Narnia, but not being inspired by Narnia, not letting herself see the truths of our world through her experiences in Narnia. Not finding Aslan "by another name" in our world. Or perhaps we can say, paraphrasing Lewis' dedication of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," Susan's chief fault is not growing old enough to read fairytales again."

This takes us to the end of the exchange about Susan, at which point the Lady Polly declares, "Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

What is the silliest time of one's life? Well, based on Polly's words (which we assume Lewis agreed with) it's clearly not childhood, because you have to get there. It must be somewhere around where Susan is in The Last Battle, which is about 21. Why that time? 

Interestingly, the Talmud (Kiddushin 30a) homes in on that same time period. As explained by (the second interpretation) of Rashi, the Talmud explores what is the time for parents to go full throttle on providing a child with ethical and moral teachings to include a system of reward and punishment. There are two opinions offered: from 16 - 22 or from 18 - 24. Rashi explains that younger than this a child is not ready to understand, and older the child may simply ignore, or even rebel against, the parents. Susan is right in the middle. 

I don't think Lewis is thinking along these lines. Nevertheless, I think the Talmud's perspective does weave its way into the story. Namely, I think we do see some failure in the Pevensie parents with respect to Susan. 

At the start of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Susan, though only 14 at the time, is described as, "Grown-ups thought her the pretty one of the family and she was no good at schoolwork (though otherwise very old for her age)..." That doesn't sound like a very good prognosis, and yet the Pevensie parents seem to think that's a good reason to take Susan to America. I don't quite understand that line of thinking. It seems to me she would be better off enrolled in tutoring over the summer.   

Still, I don't think that Lewis is looking at this age range from the Talmud's perspective. Rather, Lewis believes that Susan's age is lacking something fundamental that is found both in children and more mature adults. 

More on that in our next...  

The Abdication of Queen Susan (Part 1)

 "My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

Perhaps one of the saddest parts of the Chronicles is the loss of Queen Susan from the Narnian afterlife. Much has been written (some not very complimentary to Lewis) concerning what caused Susan the Gentle to abandon her youthful beliefs, whether a reader could we have predicted from earlier actions or events that she would not hold out her fidelity to Narnian, and whether she can or will come eventually be redeemed. 

For our initial discussion let's see what can be derived from the text itself.  

The first statement regarding the transformation of Susan arises after King Tirian enters the stable and formally meets the seven "friends of Narnia" (the name comes from Tirian's vision earlier in the story when he sees the seven). After King Peter introduces him to the seven, Tirian realizes that one of the four ancient kings and queens, Susan, is missing. Tirian's question is answered by the above statement of Peter. While the present seven are friends are Narnia, Susan is no longer a friend. 

Lewis could have stopped there. After all, earlier Lewis told us that one of the dwarfs who shot the Talking Horses was allowed into the Narnian nirvana, but Lewis (in the mouth of Eustace) told us that it was not our business to know how the dwarf merited this ultimate reward. Lewis could have similarly kept quiet about Susan, but he does not end the discussion there. Instead, we have the following from King Edmund. 

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, `What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

In other words, Susan does not deny that as children they all spoke about Narnia. She rather believes that they were simply playing games. Now as a grownup she realizes that those games were not real. From Susan's grownup point of view, Narnia is no different than the pretend friends and lively stuffed animals that populate the childhood of so many. Those were fine for children, but what value do they have once someone has (colloquially) matured?  

But let's reflect on this for a moment. We should ask ourselves the following question. Does it matter? What if Narnia was not real, if the whole of the Chronicles that were in the minds of the seven friends never actually took place. Should that matter? Does is matter that Hobbes is just a toy tiger in the eyes of Calvin's parents and teacher? Does is matter that Snuffleupagus could only be seen by Big Bird? 

On the one hand the answer is, of course! Truth matters! It matters that the Exodus happened, it matters that God revealed the Torah on Mount Sinai, so much of our religious life is based on these events how can one suggest that things of this sort don't matter? Well, that makes sense, but we've already seen Lewis express the opposite perspective when Puddleglum insisted he would live like a Narnian even without Narnia. 

And, in some ways, we're all like Puddleglum. If you're reading this, you probably value at least some aspect of Narnia. Maybe the Narnian Chronicles have taught you bravery, faith, and loyalty. Or maybe you were inspired to live your life closer to God. But Narnia is NOT real! There's nothing wrong with that. We can learn valuable lessons of morality and ethics from made up stories. We can think Narnia is important despite the fact that it was just the figment of the imagination of someone who lived decades ago in a country across an ocean (at least for me in the United States). We think Narnia is important even though it's not real. But not Susan... 

To Susan, Narnia should have been real. However, Susan's fault may be not that she stopped believing in the actuality of Narnia, but that she stopped believing the importance of Narnia. 

We will have to follow up on this in our next. 

A Hebraic Inkling: Chapter 1

In Chapter 1 of "A Hebraic Inkling" Brazier reviews Lewis' spiritual biography until the time of his conversion. Lewis biography is well known and I will not repeat it here. However, unlike other biographies of Lewis (of which there are many), Brazier tells Lewis' story in the context of the antisemitism Brazier asserts is inherent to the British Empire. Having conquered the world, the British had, in their mind, become the Chosen People, and thus Jews and Judaism had no place in Britain. Lewis himself, when a self-described atheist, was especially dismissive of the Jews calling them "class A primitives," and wondering aloud why one would waste their time reading the Hebrew Bible. 

However, God had other plans for Lewis. From the time he was a child Lewis had experienced sehnsucht, stabs of longing and beauty, what Lewis himself would later call Joy. Brazier states that these are times when the Holy Spirit (the divine presence) touch Lewis, though Lewis himself did not understand their cause. At the point Lewis came to understand, thanks to reading George MacDonald's Phantastes, that these experiences were not an end to themselves, but a mean reach their source, he found God. Lewis thus becomes a theist. 

This is not yet a full conversion to Brazier's Judeo-Christian God, that would wait until after his famed conversation with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. However, later in life, Lewis would be thankful he was "permitted for several months, perhaps a year, to know God and to attempt obedience without even raising that question [that of future life]. My training was like that of the Jews to whom He revealed Himself centuries before there was a whisper of anything better (or worse) beyond the grave than shadowy and featureless Sheol" (Surprised by Joy page 179). 

Traditional Jews may disagree as to when the concept of life after death entered Judaism, but what is important for us at the moment is that Lewis accepted theism before Christianity and claimed (at least in one respect) that his conversion process followed that of God's revelation to the Jews, His chosen people. 

Brazier will further expand on this theme in the next chapter. 

Stories as Teachers of Morality

In our previous posts we have explored the moral value of stories as complement to the law. While the law may tell you how to act in a given situation, a story will instruct what situation you should place yourself. Thus, for example, the law may not have required the Maccabees to rebel against the Seleucids. Rather, they could have just followed the laws prescribed when one is forced to violate the Torah's prohibitions: for which prohibitions one must give up their life rather than violate and for which ones not. However, the Maccabees did rebel, spurred on by stories of Abraham, for example, who rescued his kinsman from the four kings despite the law not requiring him to do so. 

Another lesson one may learn from stories is what to do when the law does not cover a given situation. Now, of course, there are plenty of situations where the law, ethics, and morality do not play a role. But there are also a myriad number of scenarios in which there is a moral or ethical stake but are not covered by the law. The Torah addresses this in two ways: using catch-all type laws and telling stories. 

The Torah has several catch-all laws such as, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18), and "You should do what is straight and good" (Deuteronomy 6:18). The challenge with these types of laws is that they are by definition not exact and instead teach ethics and values that undergird the law. What does one do when these values clash? 

And so we turn to stories. The biblical stories and accompanying aggadic works, the Narnian stories, and the host of fables, legends, myths, and fairytales employed by every culture teach the values of that culture. Of course, Jewish stories respect the law, but they go further and teach us the values to apply when the law does not. 

Let's look at an example we mentioned above. Abraham's nephew, Lot, was captured and held hostage by the armies of four kings from the east. Abraham has to make a choice, to fight for the release of his kinsman or to leave him be. If he chooses the first option, it is highly likely he will have to kill numerous enemies, and also sustain losses of his own people. If he chooses the second, Lot is likely to become a slave or perhaps he will be killed. It would have been easier to Abraham to just forget about his nephew and live in peace. After all, he and his nephew parted not on such great terms. However, Abraham places the moral value of protecting ones family even higher. He girds his men and is miraculously victorious. 

History repeats itself and such stories of great men and women continue to guide us to this day.   

Photo by Tom Hermans on Unsplash

Holiday Gifts: Tools Not Toys

These are your presents, and they are tools not toys

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

This Monday morning, millions of children and adults will wake up to presents given to them from relatives, friends, and, of course, Santa Claus. In the Jewish world, we've also adopted the custom of giving presents and have attached it to Chanukkah. I in no way am decrying this adaptation. Quite the opposite, I think this is one reason so many Jews continue to celebrate Chanukkah despite, perhaps, not always being engaged in religious practice. 

The topic for this post is on what is given as presents or what we want as presents. The media, of course, happily informs us what are the most popular toys and the "must haves" for the season. In "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," however, Lewis presents a nuanced and dual approach towards Christmas presents. 

Only in Narnia is one able to meet Father Christmas himself, and three Pevensie children were fortunate enough to receive presents directly from him. He warns them, however, that the presents are "tools, not toys," and the time to use them may be near at hand. In other words, Father Christmas, no doubt as a messenger of Aslan, provides the children what they need to face an uncertain and trying future. Peter is given the tool of war and eventually leads his troops into battle against the White Witch. Lucy is given the tool of medicine and provides healing to those wounded in the battle against evil. Susan is given the tool of prayer, calling out to Aslan, and uses it when attacked by the wolf. War, prayer, and the ability to heal are the tools needed to face difficult times in Narnia and in our world as well.  

And perhaps those are the types of presents we should hope for ourselves and to give to others. What do our children, our relatives, and our friends need in a world set against our morals and values? What tools can we give that will strengthen their stand for truth and their independence from the crowd dragging them down to the lowest common denominator? Those are presents worth giving! 

At least, those are one type of present worth giving. For Father Christmas presents something else to the children, "A large tray containing five cups and saucers, a bowl of lump sugar, a jug of cream, and a great big teapot all sizzling and piping hot." To some extent this present too helps them along their journey to greet Aslan. But mainly this present is so that they can enjoy the holiday, and that's also OK. 

In "Reflections on the Psalms," Lewis speaks of the role of chocolate eggs on Easter, noting that, "If he [the young boy who for the time has conflated the chocolate eggs with the spiritual aspects of the holiday] puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs. The command of Gods holiday comes first, but its holiness can spread to the mundane if recognized as such. 

Similarly here, the invitation to give presents is a means to teach our children, and even other relatives and friends, the importance of the holidays: that God rules the world, and that values such as kindness and charity flow from Him. But once those are established, the holiness of the holiday can extend to the presents that are toys as well.  

The sword, horn, and cordial given to the Pevensie children were indeed tools. But because they were given first, the spiritual celebration of Aslan's return extended to the tea as well.