Coming off of Yom Kippur, I find myself in a confessing mood. So here goes. I watch a lot of television - sometimes on an actual TV set, mostly on my computer. Do I watch too much TV? Well, compared to what? I watch less than those who watch more than me-but they are all lazy, shiftless, unambitious boors-and more than those who watch less than me-but they all have an ascetic streak and want you to be vegetarian and do yoga. In any event it seems that I am not alone in this vice. Google found a Nielsen study for me that says that the average American watches more than four hours of TV each day. (Wait, maybe I don't watch a lot of TV. I might have some catching up to do...) Being an academic, while watching TV I spend some time thinking about why so many people watch TV shows. I have, of course, a theory (which now justifies my continued "research" in television watching.) My theory is that we are addicted to narrative. We are succored by (and therefore suckered into watching) the fifty minute story which has an obvious beginning, middle and end. The very good ones have a beginning, middle and end and then another beginning which will be resolved next week.
This addiction to narrative is not new. As the philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) noted, narrative is our way of ordering and therefore controlling time. We are born "in the middle of things" (in media res for you Latin fans). From the perspective of the universe (if such a perspective exists) our lives do not necessarily have a narrative-except in the merest biological sense. Much of our lives are spent making sense of our lives-not interpreting them but imposing order upon them. Calamities, catastrophes and even colds and stubbed toes get in the way of these interpretations. Therefore, the ability to escape for an hour to a universe in which one knows that events actually fit together in a way that will ultimately make sense is very enticing. It is not, necessarily a bad thing.
There are many ways in which we attempt to order our lives. One of the truisms about the Bible is that it "invented history" in the sense that the stories that are told are all narratives which seem to be leading to a single conclusion-from the Garden of Eden to the Promised Land. There are all manner of pitfalls, detours, byways and setbacks but eventually everything turns out all right. This seems to also be the message of the three pilgrimage festivals: On Passover we celebrate our liberation from slavery in Ancient Egypt; on Shavuot we celebrate receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai; and finally, on Sukkot we celebrate the sojourn through the desert that leads to the Promised Land.
The German Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) tied this up into a neat package, understanding the moments of Judaism, the Jewish year, the prayer service and most everything else Jewish as Creation, Revelation and Redemption. (To be fair, Rosenzweig's package wasn't this simplistically neat, but his popular reception has been.) There is a grand narrative in which we all play a small part. However, this part makes sense when looked at from the point of view of the narrative as a whole. The endpoint justifies or makes sense of the narrative.
Everything up till now is fine except for what any of this has to do with Shmini Atzeret, the latest and last in the seemingly endless series of holidays in this holiday season.
Okay, I lied, that is not the only thing that is not fine.
There is a downside to narrative. If I understand my life is a narrative then I am the hero of my narrative, then you are a bit player, perhaps even an extra in my narrative. You are one of the masses that gets killed in the first disastrous scene, or you are the new guy on the Star Trek away team who will not come back to the Enterprise. If I understand my life as a narrative then you are only important insofar as you further my story. That cannot be right. When I meet you, to understand you as a person, I must first of all realize that I don't know you-that I can never completely know you. This is perhaps the central insight that Emmanuel Levinas has taught us. I can never completely grasp you (conceptually) and therefore I can never grasp you (literally) like a shovel or book. I can only understand that you are beyond my ability to completely understand. In Levinas' terminology, you are an infinity. My narrative, my closed perception of the world in which all the pieces fit together and the story is tied up at the end, is a totality. When I meet you, you break through that neat package and I am confronted by the fact that you are not part of my narrative, that I cannot fit you into my already organized categories for understanding the world. If I do fit you into those categories, I am not understanding you-I am understanding me, and using you as a character in my drama. The basic fact that I can know about you is that I cannot know you, and therefore cannot use you or control you-I can only respond to you.
This then is actually what the Torah's story cycle is about. At every moment when we might have thought that the story is being tied up in a neat package-that neatness and order is frustrated. The Torah does not end in the Land of Israel; it ends on the other side of the Jordan with Moses dying and God telling Moses that he will never see the Land. The Torah doesn't invent history; if anything it invents longing. The holiday cycle too, never ends up in the Land of Israel. Mimicking and celebrating the events recalled in Torah, the holiday cycle stops with Sukkot, still sojourning in the desert.
Which brings us to Shmini Atzeret-a holiday in and of itself, beyond Sukkot. The Talmud teaches us that there are seventy sacrifices brought on Sukkot for the seventy nations of the world. At that point all the work is done. Israel has come to the Temple and sacrificed for itself and for all the nations. There is a nice narrative package here. Shmini Atzeret, the midrash tells us, is God's way of saying: "Wait a minute. Don't leave yet." It is an opening onto that which is beyond the totality. There is no real ritual for Shmini Atzeret. On Sukkot there is a very detailed set of rituals both personal-living in Sukkot and taking the four species-and sacrificial or communal-different sacrifices for each day, read from the Torah nowadays. On Shmini Atzeret there is just a holiday. No more booths, no more etrog or lulav. It is a day that only points beyond. It is a day which seems to say: there is more here that you do not grasp, that you cannot grasp. Today is the day that you come "face to face" as it were with God and Torah in joyous realization that you cannot ultimately know God or even completely know Torah. Perhaps this is the instinct which generated the very late medieval celebration of Simchat Torah. On Simchat Torah (which is actually Shmini Atzeret in Israel, and the second day of Shmini Atzeret in the Diaspora) we dance with the Torah closed. We are not even attempting to study, to grasp Torah. We are rejoicing in the ungraspability of Torah and, of course, of God.
We leave the holiday season open onto the infiniteness of God, and the infinity of another person-able therefore to live each moment in its own powerful purposefulness, without waiting for an endpoint of history to give it meaning.