The Polish Jewish writer and playwright I. L. Peretz (1852-1915, died at age 62), who wrote in Yiddish, is considered by many to have been one of the three great classical Yiddish writers with Mendele Mokher Seforim and Sholem Aleichem. I place him as number one because his short tales were well-crafted, enjoyable, dramatic, humorous, satiric, as well as thought-provoking. The name Peretz is Hebrew and means “breakthrough.” It is a perfect name for the man who breaches into and improves our thoughts.
I consider Peretz’s story “If Not Higher” the best of his tales. In it, the Hasidim of the town of Nemirov believe their rabbi is so holy that he ascends to heaven each year during the Penitential Prayers, which are recited in synagogues every Friday morning before the New Year holiday Rosh Hashanah. He approaches God and prays for his congregation. He disappears. He is nowhere to be seen. Jews need help. And their rabbi goes to heaven each year at this time to beg God’s help for fellow Jews.
A Litvak, the name given to anti-Hasidim, seeks to mock the Hasidim and show that their claim is pure nonsense. He schemes to uncover the truth. On Thursday night, he steals into the rabbi’s room, slides under the rabbi’s bed, and waits for morning to discover where the rabbi vanishes and what he does while his congregation is piously reciting the Penitential Prayers.
As the sun rises, he hears the rabbi getting up. He sees him go to his closet, take out peasant clothing, a long leather belt, and heavy rope, and follows him as he goes into his kitchen, takes an ax, puts it in his belt, and leaves his home. Trembling, the Litvak is hidden behind him as he enters the woods at the edge of the town.
The rabbi walks to a small tree, takes his ax from his belt, and strikes it. After many strikes, the tree falls. The rabbi chops the tree into logs and the logs into sticks places the sticks in a bundle that he ties with his rope and carries them as he returns to the town. He stops at a broken-down shack and knocks on the window.
A Jewish woman calls out in a frightened voice, “Who is there?”
The rabbi answers with a peasant accent, “I.”
“Who is I?” asks the woman.
The rabbi answers with the same accent, “Vassil.”
“Who is Vassil,” asks the frightened woman, “and what does he want?”
“I’ve come to sell wood very cheap,” the rabbi replies and enters the shack.
The Litvak steals in after him. He sees a room with broken, miserable furnishings and a sick elderly woman, wrapped in rags, lying in a bed. She complains bitterly, “How can I pay you? Where will a poor widow get money?”
“I’ll lend it to you,” answers the supposed Vassel. “It’s only six cents.”
“How will I ever pay you back?” the poor woman groans.
“Don’t be foolish,” the rabbi scolds her softly. “You are a Jew. I trust you with the wood. I am sure you will pay. You have a great and powerful God. Don’t you trust him for six cents?”
“Who will Light the fire,” the woman asks.
“I will, “the rabbi answers.
As he lit the fire, the rabbi groaned as he recited the first portion of the Penitential Prayers. He said the second part more joyously when the fire began to burn. When the fire was burning bright, he recited the third part and shut the stove.
The Litvak who saw all of this became a disciple of the rabbi. Ever after, when another disciple bragged how the rabbi of Nemirov ascends to heaven at the time of the Penitential Prayers, the Litvak does not mock, nor does he laugh. He only adds quietly, “If not higher.”
* * *
Many people are convinced that prayer is a means of gaining help from God. They call this help Divine Providence. Maimonides did not think this was the definition of Divine Providence and thought instead that it is humans’ responsibility to help themselves.
In his Guide for the Perplexed 1:1, Maimonides wrote that when the Bible states in Genesis 1:27 that humans were created in the image of God, it does not mean they looked like God. It tells us that God placed intelligence in humans. Later, in 3:17, he writes, “I hold that Divine Providence is related and closely connected with the intellect.” When humans use their intellect, they are using this divine gift. And humans with greater intellect, have greater Providence and greater success.
I agree with Maimonides the divine gift of reason is a gift from God. The more intelligent someone is, the more providence they have. Here are some further observations on the term Providence. ‘
For Spinoza, Divine Providence is nothing more than natural laws. George Washington understood the term similarly. In fact, Washington’s term for God was “Providence.” In Washington’s Providence, God did not violate the laws of nature but the laws of probability. For Washington, there were no parting rivers, no burning bushes, no visions or voices. Instead, bullets missed their targets or a fog naturally descended in an early morning covering for a tactical maneuver. God created nature so he works through nature. To Washington, if God were to do something he would do it through his creation; he would do it through nature.
Providence is often confused with the Christian understanding. Many people think that providence is God helping people. Kost people do not know that there are two kinds of providences. General Providence is God’s sustaining and government of the universe. Special Providence is an extraordinary intervention to protect certain people whom God favors. The Latin word providentia means foresight and foreknowledge. In other words, God displays his providence in the series of nature’s operations. Examples of providence are the tides, the seasons, and the motion of the heavens. Thus, in addition to Maimonides’ understanding of providence as human intelligence, I also like the concept of general providence existing in the universe.
“In his Guide for the Perplexed 1:1, Maimonides wrote that when the Bible states in Genesis 1:27 that humans were created in the image of God, it does not mean they looked like God. It tells us that God placed intelligence in humans.”
Guide of the Perplexed 1:1 – “the term image (ẓelem) is applied to the natural form . . . It is the true reality of the thing. . . . That which was meant in the scriptural dictum ‘let us make man in our image’ was the specific form, which is intellectual apprehension, not the shape and configuration” (Shlomo Pines translation).
Thomas Aquinas reached a simialr conclusion. He might have drawn some of this thinking from Maimonides. Aquinas wrote: “Man is said to be after the image of God, not as regards his body, but as regards that whereby he excels other animals. Hence, when it is said, “Let us make man to our image and likeness,” it is added, “And let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea” (Genesis 1:26). Now man excels all animals by his reason and intelligence; hence it is according to his intelligence and reason, which are incorporeal, that man is said to be according to the image of God.”
I cannot remember where I read it, but I remember that a scholar said that Thomas Aquinas took many of his ideas from Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed.
Full agreement, dear Rabbi Israel Drazin, by the interplay of chochmah, binah and daat, our guiding faculty to face reality. Best and thanks: stephen
Staying Litvak is ok, dear Rabbi Israel Drazin ! In the Guide of the Perplexed (Chicago University Press, 1963: p. 636/translated by Shlomo Pines), Maimonides concludes that the ultimate perfection of him ”is knowledge of Him, may He be exalted, which is true science”. Best: stephen
Yes, Stephen, as you understand very well, Maimonides stressed that we must “know” God. Unfortunately people accepted the passive idea that belief is enough. We need to know God by seeing and understanding what God created. We do so by learning the sciences, being all we can be, and treating all creation as we want to be treated. This is the message of Exodus 33:19-23.