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repudiated a covenant but
, ier has not yet accepted
,» sees himself shipwrecked
a n uninhabited island, far
, , n centers of-life and move-
, it. He sadly concludes that
j i S a member of the world’s
] .best profession. He is
tern and advanced, but the
vi >round he brings to his
, ternity stands in the way
, • nis full integration into
( temporary life. He is liberal
,, i recognizes not only the
irritability but the desir-
:i .ijtv and value of change
■ [. v e n within the tradition
w inch he represents. He recog-
,,,/es an irrefutable truth in
pie words of Whitehead, “The
;u t of free society consists
first in the maintenance of the
symbolic code and secondly in
tin* fearlessness of revision. . .
Those societies which cannot
combine reverence to their
symbols with freedom of re
vision must ultimately decay.”
Yet he is restrained by the in
hibiting apprehension that the
stabilities needed to absorb the
changes (Whitehead’s “sym
bolic code”) are lacking in
Jewish life, and change that is
not made in a frame of refer
ence of the continuing becomes
dissolution rather than re
vision. He responds to a de
voutness to which he cannot
give full expression at the
services of which he is the
officiant. Compelled by the
convention of our times gov
erning the clergy to make
many public addresses, he
worries constantly whether the
fluency and felicity he has de
veloped are not the enemies of
his thought and reflection.
As a rabbi he has not in
herited a structured system of
doctrine and is therefore given
to a constant quest and re-ex
amination. Yet it is expected
by those who seek him out
that he dispense certitudes
and teach finalities. Himself of
intellectual inclinations, he is
looked down upon by the
academic intellectual fratern
ity as the upholder of the dis
credited, outlived and irration
al. Eager for dialogue, he en
gages for the most part in
monologues from pulpit and
platform. He censures himself
for sinking into the middle-
class ethos from which he is
striving to raise his people. He
is a teacher of ends and goals
at a time when techniques are
in the saddle and means are
supreme.
While religion is respected,
it is not invoked. Though he is
honored as a “man of God,” he
is not taken seriously. He has
becorhe a symbol on a par with
other symbols — the Ark,
Torah, menorah, altar—and
like them revered at a distance
but not profaned by involve
ment in daily life and crucial
decisions: (He wryly muses
that the traditional reference
to the enkindled lights of
Hanuka reflects, ironically,
the contemporary attitude,
“One is not permitted to make
use of them, but only to behold
them.”)
The rabbi recognizes that
what his generation needs,
perhaps above all else, is a
rationale, a reasoned exposi
tion of Judaism that would not
only serve as its intellectual
justification but would also
naturalize it in the larger uni
verse of discourse and thought
in which educated modern
Jews move. But he is too
fragmented, too diffused, to
attempt such a synthesis and
the age too greatly in flux to
permit such a structure. He is
perforce a dealer in fragments,
fugitive texts, disparate in
sights. The context to enclose
them seems to have dissolved.
Unity and wholeness are neith
er in him nor in his teaching.
The rabbi is not infrequently-
troubled by his own inade
quacies. He has not resisted
what should have been re
sisted. He has not devoted him
self to basic matters with the
inflexible s i n g 1 e-mindedness
they deserve. He has permitted
himself to walk for too long
on surfaces and has lived too
much with the peripheral and
incidental. He has not suffici
ently ignored the dais and the
limelight. He has failed his
tradition and his people. He
sometimes feels this most
keenly when he is being feted
or complimented.
In the rabbi are concentrat
ed the frustrations, ambival-
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