Growing-Up Blues

There's an Alanis Morrisette song that expresses well what I've been thinking about. It's called Precious Illusions. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=d8ak0MyE76M)

you'll rescue me right? in the exact same way they never did..
I'll be happy right? when your healing powers kick in
you'll complete me right? then my life can finally begin
I'll be worthy right? only when you realize the gem I am?

but this won't work now the way it once did
and I won't keep it up even though I would love to
once I know who I'm not then I'll know who I am
but I know I won't keep on playing the victim

these precious illusions in my head
did not let me down when I was defenseless
and parting with them is like parting with invisible best friends

this ring will me yet as will you knight in shining armor
this pill will help me yet as will these boys gone through like water

but this won't work as well as the way it once did
cuz I want to decide between survival and bliss
and though I know who I'm not I still don't know who I am
but I know I won't keep on playing the victim

these precious illusions in my head
did not let me down when I was a kid
and parting with them is like parting with a childhood best friend

I've spent so long firmly looking outside me
I've spent so much time living in survival mode

These lyrics are from http://www.lyrics007.com/

Today I was sitting in a graduate school class about Rashi. For background on Rashi, see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/rashi.html
As many people who grew up studying in Yeshiva day schools, high schools and seminaries, I have the conception that Rashi is an important and fundamental exegete. In the coming year I will be teaching many Rashis, and I hope to show my students a greatness to the commentary that Rashi brings us. I also feel a special affinity to Rashi becasue Nechama Leibowitz, who has always been a hero of mine, spent much of her life teaching Rashi's wisdom and insight into the text.

With that background, I was sitting in class today, and the Professor was demonstrating that Rashi will sometimes bring different, contradictory midrashim (homiletical exegesis of the bible) in different parts of the Chumash, and think nothing of it. For instance, Rashi will mention in one place that Yitro (Jethro), Moshe's father in law, has seven different names. rashi did not make this up, it is found in a midrash. He does, however, mention elsewhere that Yitro has only two names. This too, appears in a midrash. In the different midrashim, this is not a problem, because the Rabbis who authored the midrashim sometimes differed from one another. However, Rashi was one man, and so one would expect that he would string a consistent position on such matters throughout the Five Books of Moses.

Many have spent lifetimes explaining and getting to the bottom of what was Rashi's intention in leaving such contradictions in his commentary. Nechama Leibowitz, as I mentioned earlier, was one such scholar. She followed in the footsteps of hundreds of illustrious thinkers who authored many super-commentaries on Rashi's work. The common feature in all these people was the regard they gave to Rashi, based on the assumption that Rashi was sensitive to the language of the text and cognizant of his own words as well. The commentaries on Rashi will attribute deep meaning while resolving a difficulty from Rashi's words.

The brilliant deduction made by my professor today was the following: Rashi tends to quote midrashim that were written for a given book in that book.

What a let down. To me, such mundane answers make the questions not worth asking. I suppose this is all part of my own romantic sentiments about Rashi, but I'm not ashamed of those feelings. I don't see any good reason to study something as intensely as scholars do if all I will walk away with is an answer like "in Shemot, Rashi brings down from the Mechilta (a midrash on Shemot), and in Bamidbar, he brings down the midrash from Sifrei (a midrash on Bamidbar and Devarim)." I've learned nothing in the exchange, and would have spent my time doing something more productive.

The disappointment that I experience here captures a theme that's been repeating itself in various parts of my life. I've found that growing up is full of disappointments to the Romantic. I wrote in one of my first blog entries about the historical development from the Romantic to the Modern eras in music, and I accepted the process in that context. However, I feel a nostalgia now, trying to recapture the transcendental energy that Rashi's ingenuity inspires. When Dr. Haym Soloveitchik taught his History of Halakha class in Stern, he spent 40 minutes praising Rashi as art. That sense of Rashi as intentional and meaningful is not at all a part of the picture in much of today's scholarship.

I'm not saying one is true and one is more fun. I'm also not saying that ideas need to be meaningful to be true. However, I do not personally want to invest in something with so much time and energy as someone like Rashi demands, unless there is something enormous to be gained from it. I suppose some academics will study anything, no matter what. I am not one of those people. I crave enthusiasm that comes from impassioned exaltation.

But the world is a big place, and I haven't given up hope yet. As a matter of fact, I think that writing this post has brought me to a place where I can move forward. I was going to ask the readers to please send me words of comfort, but I feel comforted by my own words. Feel free to comment, don't get me wrong. But I have confidence in the artists of the world, and in the romantics. And also, I think that there is a place for people who don't care for romance.