The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion

IV. God as the Power that Makes for the Regeneration of Human Nature

IV GOD AS THE POWER THAT MAKES FOR THE REGENERATION OF HUMAN NATURE THE theme of the Day of Atonement, as the name implies, revolves about the conception of sin and repentance. As sin alienates us from God, we are urged on this day to seek reconciliation,1 through religious exercises that are to effect a change of heart. The influence of the day is intended to make man beriah ha-dashah,* a new creature, a regenerate personality. The term "sin" is a word that for most people has been emptied of meaning. People speak of vices and crimes, of faults and failings of human nature, but not of sin. The very validity of the concept of sin is often called into question . It is considered an invention of theologians, like Satan or the Evil Yezer. It need then be no more reckoned with than any superstitious relic of an outworn theology. If sin has no meaning, there is no need for repentance, and the whole observance of the Day of Atonement becomes much ado about nothing. The fact, however, that a word loses favor does not necessarily signify that it is without meaning. The fortunes of words are frequently determined by how pleasant or unpleasant is the context in which they are used. If the word has been associated with certain ideas that have become offensive 1 That repentance renders man at one with God is stated clearly in the midrashic interpretation (Lev. R. Ill, 3) of vi-yerahamehu (and He will have compassion upon him) (Is. 55:7). a Cf. Jer. Rosh ha-Shanah III, 8 (59c) and Lev. R. XXIX, 12. 149 150 THE MEANING OF GOD to us, it tends to fall into disrepute, even though the particular connotations that have given it its bad name by no means exhaust its meaning, and even though no other word exists in the language which can express as well the concept for which it stands. Indeed, when a word has been fraught with meaning for generations and even for ages, it is absurd to abandon it as meaningless for our day, without at least analyzing those human experiences that gave it meaning in the past. Let us then see what our fathers meant when they spoke of certain forms of behavior or attitudes of mind as sinful, why they felt a need for atonement, and why they sought atonement in the particular manner that has become traditional . We shall then be in a better position to ask whether subsequent experience has so transformed human nature or the world that concepts of sin and repentance have necessarily become inoperative. I The evolution of the sense of sin In earliest times sin and repentance undoubtedly had a sacramental significance. They were part of the thought pattern in which holiness was conceived as the experience of a presence which called forth awe, terror, fascination, wonder and devotion. The imagination of men endowed impressive phenomena of nature, or objects that were of tremendous importance to their life, with a personality similar to their own. If helpful, these objects might be worshiped as deities; if harmful, propitiated as evil spirits. More often the same object might at times be helpful and at times harmful. A stream that supplied water for irrigation and was thus a source of life might become a flood that destroyed the life it had seemingly created. The fire, which was man's protection alike from the cold and from preying beasts, might turn on REGENERATION OF HUMAN NATURE 151 man in an angry conflagration. Such objects that at once inspired hope and fear, admiration and terror, were conceived as holy. They were either regarded as being superior to man who held profound sway over his destiny, or else they were conceived as the haunts of such beings and as the instruments by which they manifested their will to men. To keep these superior powers friendly was the chief preoccupation of the spiritual life of primitive man. They could be approached only in certain ways, and to approach them in other ways was fraught with danger. From generation to generation there grew by continual accretion a mass of law and precept defining which behavior was permissible and which prohibited in the presence of the holy object. To violate these laws and precepts was to offend the deity that was regarded as having enjoined them. That constituted sin. Such...