As a preamble to this entry, which continues to focus on the Jewish issue, I wish to clarify the reason for my seemingly endless preoccupation with res Judaica. In an earlier entry, I, hopefully, made it clear that, to my knowledge, there have been only three nations in human history who explicitly set themselves apart from the rest by formulating a national “manifest destiny.” They are Russia, America, and the Jews, not necessarily in this order. As a Russian living in America, my previously displayed preoccupation with Russia and America should not cause any similar surprise, but, for a certain reason, the Jewish third of that triad seems to need a good explanation, which is why this interjection is definitely in order. Once again, I must insist that all three members of the “manifest destiny” club deserve much more than an honorable mention, but a generous and comprehensive book-size treatment, which I am therefore affording all three of them.
Dedicating the present subsection to Jewish philosophy, I am making no attempt to write a systematic and thorough exposition of the history of Jewish thought. As always, I am going to do as I please, picking and choosing my topics of interest, and let somebody else do the schoolman’s chore.
Besides, this task may be virtually impossible, as an acceptable definition of the term “Jewish philosophy” does not even exist, as I have hinted already in the previous entry.
Wisdom and Intelligence, Chochma and Bina,-- the second and third Sefirot,-- emanating immediately from the incomprehensible Keter Elyon, the Supreme Crown. How are we to delineate where exactly philosophy parts ways with her sister theosophy, both presumably starting off at their common departure station in the City of Wisdom? Perhaps, we should put our foot down: no, what the Kabbalah was working on cannot be called philosophy! Love of wisdom, philosophia, exclusively belongs on that pre-constructed railroad track which runs through the traditional domains of ethics, ontology, epistemology, etc., and cannot be derailed by some unorthodox speculation, especially when such speculation already has a designated track built for it and has no reason to intrude on somebody else’s domain.
I am not trying to satirize the compartmentalization argument, however. One can always sincerely snicker at the suggestion that human thought ought to be catalogued, and deposited in some predetermined place on a certain library shelf, with a certain mile-long Dewey Decimal Index ascribed to it. But-- come to think of it-- there is nothing wrong in such conventionalization, as long as human thought itself is allowed the freedom to soar without restriction.
Thus, honoring the laws of conventional wisdom and common convenience, I shall not make waves about matters of little importance and shall not dispute the wisdom of keeping, say, theosophy and mysticism of other colors, in separate compartments from philosophy in the traditional sense, which, as a matter of fact, I have already been doing with some consistency.
But at least one general observations on this subject may still be in order. Namely, there must be a special quality to the Jewish philosophical preoccupation with theosophy, mysticism, and their historical tradition: after all, God, History, and everyday life, are inextricably linked in the Jewish national psyche, our Bible, in its Old Testament, bearing an unimpeachable witness to that.
For this unique reason, there has to be a special inherent, even congenital, propensity for philosophizing, which I may call the wisdom of the Chosen People, which constitutes a singular characteristic of the Jewish philosophy, that right away sends its train off the regular track, that breaks all “rules of engagement.”
This does not mean that we have to face an organizational hell here, as “rules” do not apply,--some of them still do, but the above-stated considerations should always be kept in mind, at least as an excuse, however lame, for the inconsistencies, incompletenesses, inadequacies, redundancies, and all other kinds of similar “technical difficulties” of the structure of our thematic exposition.
Dedicating the present subsection to Jewish philosophy, I am making no attempt to write a systematic and thorough exposition of the history of Jewish thought. As always, I am going to do as I please, picking and choosing my topics of interest, and let somebody else do the schoolman’s chore.
Besides, this task may be virtually impossible, as an acceptable definition of the term “Jewish philosophy” does not even exist, as I have hinted already in the previous entry.
Wisdom and Intelligence, Chochma and Bina,-- the second and third Sefirot,-- emanating immediately from the incomprehensible Keter Elyon, the Supreme Crown. How are we to delineate where exactly philosophy parts ways with her sister theosophy, both presumably starting off at their common departure station in the City of Wisdom? Perhaps, we should put our foot down: no, what the Kabbalah was working on cannot be called philosophy! Love of wisdom, philosophia, exclusively belongs on that pre-constructed railroad track which runs through the traditional domains of ethics, ontology, epistemology, etc., and cannot be derailed by some unorthodox speculation, especially when such speculation already has a designated track built for it and has no reason to intrude on somebody else’s domain.
I am not trying to satirize the compartmentalization argument, however. One can always sincerely snicker at the suggestion that human thought ought to be catalogued, and deposited in some predetermined place on a certain library shelf, with a certain mile-long Dewey Decimal Index ascribed to it. But-- come to think of it-- there is nothing wrong in such conventionalization, as long as human thought itself is allowed the freedom to soar without restriction.
Thus, honoring the laws of conventional wisdom and common convenience, I shall not make waves about matters of little importance and shall not dispute the wisdom of keeping, say, theosophy and mysticism of other colors, in separate compartments from philosophy in the traditional sense, which, as a matter of fact, I have already been doing with some consistency.
But at least one general observations on this subject may still be in order. Namely, there must be a special quality to the Jewish philosophical preoccupation with theosophy, mysticism, and their historical tradition: after all, God, History, and everyday life, are inextricably linked in the Jewish national psyche, our Bible, in its Old Testament, bearing an unimpeachable witness to that.
For this unique reason, there has to be a special inherent, even congenital, propensity for philosophizing, which I may call the wisdom of the Chosen People, which constitutes a singular characteristic of the Jewish philosophy, that right away sends its train off the regular track, that breaks all “rules of engagement.”
This does not mean that we have to face an organizational hell here, as “rules” do not apply,--some of them still do, but the above-stated considerations should always be kept in mind, at least as an excuse, however lame, for the inconsistencies, incompletenesses, inadequacies, redundancies, and all other kinds of similar “technical difficulties” of the structure of our thematic exposition.
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