The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Eastern and Western Thought

Chapter 3 The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Jewish Thought

Chapter 3 The Perfectibility of Human Nature in Jewish Thought Jews see humans as having been created in the image of God. Unlike classical Greek philosophy and its dualistic view of human nature as composed of body and soul, in the biblical view persons are seen as a psychosomatic unity composed of many parts. Overall, the biblical Hebrews “conceived of man as an animated body, not as an incarnated soul. . . . There is, in man, no immortal part which can survive death on its own account.”1 Later Jewish thinkers, such as Maimonides, were significantly influenced by Greek thought—especially that of Plato and Aristotle. Being created in God’s image and being called to be like God means, in the Jewish view, to be God’s partner in carrying forward God’s work of making just order in the world. Humans can descend to great depths but are not by nature irretrievably sinful. Their task is to hallow life, to raise the workaday world in which one eats, labors, and loves, to its highest level so that our every act and thought reflects the divine unity of all being.2 In Jewish thought there is no single answer to the question as to how perfectible we are as human beings. The different strands within Judaism offer different approaches to the question: for the priests it is through holiness that perfection can be best understood and practiced; for the prophets, it is through righteousness; for the rabbis it comes via observance of the commandments and study of the Torah; for the philosophers it is by knowledge of God; and for the kabbalists it is through the restoration of harmony among the sefirot (divine emanations ). In this chapter we will briefly survey these views. Underlying all of these approaches is a basic confidence that humans are capable of considerable progress toward perfection “through the life of the Torah, the ongoing possibility of repentance, and a lot of assistance from a merciful God.”3 We will begin by examining biblical thought and then 29 30 The Perfectibility of Human Nature proceed to look at the thought of the rabbis, philosophers, and the kabbalists or mystics. BIBLICAL THOUGHT The biblical period in Hebrew thought runs from the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and God’s establishing of a covenant with Moses in 1447 BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.4 In biblical thought scholars identify four basic notions about human nature.5 First, a person is regarded as a living body with various qualities, but with no sharp distinction between body and soul. The Hebrew word meaning “flesh” is often used for humankind in general or human nature in particular. For example, in Genesis the idea of all humankind as a collective is expressed by “all flesh” and by the word adam (man). Second, consciousness was not centralized in the brain, as it is in modern thought. For the Hebrews, human consciousness, with its ethical qualities, was thought to be diffused through the whole body, so that the flesh and bones, as well as the mouth, eye, ear, hand, and so on, had a quasiconsciousness of their own. Third, these “separate consciousnesses” are thought of as being easily accessible to all kinds of outside influences, from possession by demons (as in the case of a toothache) to invasion and control by God’s Spirit (as in the case of the prophets). Fourth, there is also the idea of a ghost or double (not necessarily to be identified with the soul)—a faint and shadowy replica of the self, such as the ghost of Samuel described by the “witch of Endor” (1 Sam. 28:14) as “an old man,” wrapped in the ghostly counterpart of the familiar cloak of life. This fainter self or “shade,” as the Hebrews called it, can be detached even from the living and is seen by others in their dreams, while after death it passes to the cave of Sheol under the earth. In addition to these four basic notions, biblical Hebrew uses certain key terms to describe human nature. The Hebrew word nephesh is usually translated into English as “soul” but this is inadequate and misleading. Literary analysis of the usage of nephesh in the Hebrew Bible shows three distinct meanings. First, nephesh is commonly the principle of life, with breath as the underlying meaning—for example, in 2 Kings...