G

BRSINHRI
TIH O M E

WORLD-MAKING:
OR SOMETHING
TO READ ON
ROSH HASHANAH
2020 /5781
By MICKI WEINBERG

“In every era the attempt must

be made anew to wrest tradition
away from a conformism that is
about to overpower it.”
Walter Benjamin,
Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940)
TRADITION
I like to start every discourse I lead with the above quotation as a sort
of intention, setting the tone and space for what we’re about to do.

Please take a moment to read through the quote and struggle with it,
if need be, before reading on.

Benjamin understands that all we can do in life is attempt—and that

each attempt, situated in the present time, is of course new. This
is clear and understandable—but what he says next seems at first
paradoxical. Some might think that tradition and conformity seem to
go hand in hand; Tradition being something that one conforms to—and
those unable or unwilling to conform are alienated and left out.
How can we break tradition away from conformism? Is it possible to
liberate tradition from conformism?

Indeed, this is the situation for many of us today, in our “tradition-less”

age. We might feel that we are all outsiders and imposters who have
not authentically received any tradition.
This sense of inadequacy is not limited to those raised “without tradition,”
it permeates even the most orthodox traditionalists across religions
and cultures, where there is a feeling that whatever one does today
is always inferior to what was done in the past. Neophytes and those
“born in the tradition” with this worldview see tradition as an object to
conform to. Can this conformist attitude kill the very tradition it seeks
to preserve?
 
In Hebrew, the word for tradition, “mesorah”, is related to the word
“to hand over/transmit/surrender”, just like the Latin “traditio/tradere” 
from which the English word “tradition” originates. When a tradition
is surrendered to the receiver of the tradition, the new “owner”,
inevitably reshapes and gives it new meaning. You will always “betray”
(which also comes from the same Latin root tradere) the tradition you
receive—as you are you and how you experience or perform a tradition,
will always be through you, in your full and ever changing uniqueness,
in time and place and body. By handing over the tradition, the previous
master “betrays” the very tradition that was preserved in their care.
The sense of betrayal is inherent in tradition. In fact, the 3rd century
Sage of the Talmud, Reish Lakish taught regarding the most important
tradition in Judaism (the Torah), “there are times that the nullification
of the Torah is its foundation.1 ” Might all this be the “wresting of
tradition from conformity” that Benjamin refers to?

As we go through the holidays during these unprecedented times, we

will experience the sense of betrayal inherent in tradition in a most
magnified and accentuated way. I excitedly anticipate what new and
unforeseen meanings will be generated in the coming weeks.

CONCEPTION

The sages of Talmud argued whether the world was created in the
month of Tishrey (in Autumn) or in Nissan (in Spring).2
The French scholar Rabbeinu Tam (1100-1171) attempted to reconcile
the conflicting views by suggesting that in Tishrey the idea of the
world was conceived, but it was not actually created in material form
until Nissan.3
Indeed, as the mystic R. Isaac Luria (the Arizal, 1534-1572) observed,
in the Rosh Hashanah service we say, “‘Today, the world was conceived
(‫ ’)הרת‬and not ‘the world was created (‫ ’)נברא‬because on Tishrey was
the conception (‫)הריון‬.” 4
What are the implications of this debate?

1. Talmud Bavli Menachot 99b

2. Talmud Bavli Rosh Hashana 11a
3. Tosafot on Talmud Bavli Rosh Hashana 27a
4. Pri Etz Chayim- Gate of the Shofar 5
Rosh Hashanah is associated with Teshuva or return. Might Rosh
Hashanah be a return to that pre-form state, before things were
messed up by becoming real? There is always a tension between
idea and form that is most acutely felt in the disappointments and
suffering we experience in life when things don’t turn out the way
we thought they would. Have you ever wished you could unsee or
unknow something? How wonderful it would be to simply return to that
heightened state before things are defined! According to this way of
looking at the world, Rosh Hashanah is the opportunity to return to
that awakening, creative moment that is alive yet not given form yet.

This state of No-Thingness (referred to by the Kabbalists as Ayin ‫)אין‬

—without form or definition, yet paradoxically, rich and divinely full—
according to the mystical tradition is the ultimate state strived for in
Jewish spiritual life. The greatest obstacle to No-Thingness is,
of course, form—and, of all the Jewish holy days, Rosh Hashanah is the
most Self-centered and focused on the variety of forms that the Self
has taken.
In Hebrew the word for “I” (‫ )אני‬and “No-Thingness” (‫ )אין‬are made up
of the same letters—and the Return/Teshuva of Rosh Hashana, can be
a reconfiguration where the “I” (‫ )אני‬returns to No-Thingness (‫)אין‬.

We might observe, that the most creative, revealing moments of

humanity are precisely when we are free from the more limiting,
individuated notions of Self. Teshuva is returning to this creative state.

Yet form is key to how we experience life—and Judaism is deeply

concerned with how we behave and relate within the forms of life that
we live. According to the “conception” line of thinking, Rosh Hashanah
is the time we return to the No-Thingness and make new ourselves—
conceiving a new sense of being and self that will be given form and
be created in social and material life (after all, conception leads to
birth, right?).

R. Menachem Nachum Twerski of Chernobyl (1730-1787) observed in his

book, Meor Einayim 5, that the language that the sages of the Talmud6
used to describe the creation was “On Tishrey the world was/is
created (‫ ”)נברא‬and not “On Tishrey God created (‫ )ברא‬the world.”
Why? “Because in truth, on each Rosh Hashanah the world is created!”

5. Meor Einayim- Likkutim, comment on Jeremiah 31:3

6. Talmud Bavli Rosh Hashanah 11a
This perspective frees Rosh Hashanah (and all of us) from being stuck
as an historical and commemorative holiday (i.e. the Birthday of the
World/Humanity), to one that is entirely present and creative—in
other words: Rosh Hashanah is not the time we commemorate a past
creation, but rather when we are proactively involved in creating a new
world. We are world makers.

According to the Meor Einayim, if we do not take on the task of world-

making the world will revert to chaos!7 This Kabbalistic idea is incredibly
intuitive in that it recognizes the meaningless of things without
context. If we don’t create a world of meaning, there will be no world
of meaning. And there is no history in the beginning (otherwise, it
wouldn’t be a beginning!), hence the beginning that we enact on Rosh
Hashanah is inherently ahistorical and feeds directly into life—into a
new life and new world.

WORLD MAKING & ROSH HASHANAH

If we take the “world-making” task—the next question would be: How?

Or more specifically—what role does the tradition, in this case, Rosh
Hashanah, in all its forms, play in world-making?

Whether it be the images of Instagram or the texts of the Sages, we

are constantly subject to influences and inputs that shape and give
meaning to our lives. As we saw above, it would be absurd to imagine
that meaning and truth are not situated in some context. The choice
is might be, as we emerge from the Rosh Hashanah experience—what
contexts and situatedness do we want to be subject to? Chaos?
Torah? No-Thingness? Something else?

7. Meor Einayim- Likkutim, comment on Jeremiah 31:3

The American Israeli theologian Tamar Ross sees the language and
practices of tradition as the tools of world-making that Judaism
offers 8:

“…adopted metaphors can literally create worlds and determine their

nature…On this view, religious truths that were first justified instrumentally
will eventually be confirmed by their ability to lead us to a level of
experience which is recognizably beyond that which we have previously
known not only on the existential and subjective level, but even in terms
of the infinite possibilities capable of being realized in our external reality.”

Freeing ourselves from preconceived meaning and forms allows us to

create new meaning and forms from the contents of life in ways that
we could not even imagine while we are stuck in a particular way of
thinking. Rosh Hashanah offers us the framework to enter a space of
transforming the “I” to “No-Thingness.” This is the process of creation
that constitutes Rosh Hashanah as the beginning of the world. As we
emerge from the disindividuated to individuated self 9—we draw upon the
contents of practice and language in a new way, creating a new world.
What contents do you want to draw upon? What world will you make?

8. The Cognitive Value of Religious Truth Statements, 524-525

9. For a secular, contemporary account of this concept, see Elizabeth Grosz’s discussion of Gilbert Simondon’s “individuation”, she says:
“Simondon posits that the individual who creates something new – whether a work of art, a piece of writing, a machine or an
invention, however humble – undertakes a process of disindividuation, a process of disinvesting their individuality, their personality
or personhood, in order to summon up a part of the preindividual necessary to create. This creation is not simply self-expression
because there is something profoundly impersonal, perhaps even immaterial, about the process of summoning up, creating or
inventing the new. It is something within an individual, something impersonal, that an individual may sometimes call upon to extend
themselves into the organization of this new creation. It is not ‘I’ who creates but something of the preindividual within the ‘I’.”
(Interview with Vikki Bell, March 2017, Theory, Culture & Society)