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Chapter 10: Schools for Scandal
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10 Schools for Scandal A Response to Michael Purcell K E V I N L . H U G H E S Perhaps I can only begin where Michael Purcell does, with his presuppositions . He begins with the assertion that ‘‘Human life is meaningful . . . we are entered into a ‘world’ in which there is already meaning.’’ His second assertion is that this same life, the meaning of which we find ourselves already ‘‘in the middest,’’ can seem evacuated of meaning. What stands between the ‘‘world’’ of the first and the ‘‘appearance’’ of the second, I wonder? In other words, if to us the world from time to time ‘‘seems evacuated,’’ then is the problem one of perception (what it seems) or what it is? Is the ‘‘world in which we find ourselves’’ evacuated of meaning? Levinas seems to say (I find it difficult to escape the unseemliness of the ‘‘seem’’ in this case) yes—at least, for a time. Levinas invokes the kabbalistic notion of tsimtsum, of the divine contraction, which makes space outside of divine presence for creation to inhabit—a space still scattered with divine fragments, but without divine presence per se. For the great kabbalist Isaac Luria, and for the kabbalist and Hasidic thought that is rooted in him, the work of redemption, tikkun, is in human beings, especially in Jews, in the observance of the Law, which reunites these fragments with the divine presence. As Gershom Scholem notes, this makes the figure of the Messiah symbolic only, for it is ‘‘not the act of the Messiah as executor of tikkun, as a person entrusted with the specific function of redemption , that brings Redemption, but your action and mine.’’1 Here, in a 130 mystical nutshell, is the shape of Levinas’s thought: God withdraws, hides, veils his face, and space is made for human responsibility, the keeping of the Law, to close the gap. Michael Purcell suggests in his paper that ‘‘this fidelity to the demands of the Law opens the way to God’s return,’’ and he quotes Levinas to this effect: ‘‘The connection between God and man is not a sentimental communion with the love of a God made flesh, but a relation of minds mediated by instruction, through the Torah.’’ But if the basic lines of Levinas’s thought are correct, then what we see here is not the way open for God’s return to us, but rather the way open for our return to God. We close the gap between God and humanity through our ethical action, through our keeping of the Law. Ethical responsibility is possible only in the midst of the withdrawal of God. But the doctrine of Incarnation in the Christian faith seems to suggest precisely the opposite: As we stand on the edge of the Christian season of Advent, we recall that Jesus, Yeshua, is Emmanuel, ‘‘God saves’’ is ‘‘God with us.’’ Incarnation is the sign of a God who comes to meet us, not the other way around. ‘‘Though he was in the form of God he did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. . . . And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross’’ (Phil. 2:6–8). Kenosis suggests that the motion of redemption is not fundamentally the ethical action of the human reuniting the divine, but rather the self-emptying love of God meeting humanity in its brokenness. So I wonder if the notion of ‘‘God’s purposeful withdrawal’’ is in the end compatible with or helpful in expressing Christian faith, in which not only is the figure of the Messiah central, but the stakes are raised—the Messiah is the ‘‘image of the invisible God’’ (Col. 1:15), God Incarnate.2 From this Christian theological perspective, Michael ’s announced presuppositions are dead on—the problem is in fact one of perception: God does not withdraw; God pours God’s self out, God gives himself as gift. Eucharist, ecclesia, these two ‘‘bodies of Christ’’ are pledges of ‘‘real presence,’’ re-presentations of the sacramentality of a creation deemed good and never failing in that. But this fundamental difference by no means solves the problem of suffering ; in fact, it may make it more difficult. For what it may force one to say is that the coincidence of opposites—God’s presence and...