Over the last couple of years, there has been a repeated critique of how self-obsessed nature of America’s embrace of spirituality. While there is a greater openness to religious exploration among all faiths, several influential social critics have suggested that it is narcissism, under the guise of religion, which has become predominant faith in American life. The preoccupation with personal fulfillment and the individual’s search for meaning is indicative of ways in which the traditional motivations for religious observance have fallen by the wayside. Prior to modernity, an individual’s behavior was regulated by society, religious texts and religious authorities. Even in modern times, family and community weighed in strongly and influenced how we behave, what we do, and what is expected of us.
Today, for almost all Americans, and certainly for the majority of American Jews, religious life is framed more and more exclusively though the lens of the self. As Robert Bella wrote two decades ago in Habit of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Americans "...believe in the dignity, indeed the sacredness of the individual. Anything that would violate our right to think for ourselves, judge for ourselves, make our decisions, live our own lives as we see fit, is not only morally wrong, it is sacrilegious.”
While Bella’s comments are descriptive, such a climate produces a religious way of life that fails to challenge us sufficiently, minimizes a sense of duty and obligation,
and does not inspire us to grow and change. When religious life is focused on the individual, on the self, it lacks discipline. It wears away at our sense of community.
When discussing and delineating the laws of Hanukkah, the ancient Rabbis experienced the tension between a place of significance for the individual and the realization that religious life has to take us beyond the self.
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 21b
Our Rabbis taught: The precept of Hanukkah is one light for a man and his household; those who enhance this mitzvah kindle a light for each member of the household; and those who further enhance the mitzvah — Beit Shammai maintains: On the first day eight lights are lit and thereafter they are gradually reduced; but Beit Hillel says: On the first day one is lit and thereafter they are progressively increased.
The Talmud (above) explains that there are three levels of performing this commandment. The most basic obligation (level 1) is that every household should light one candle each of the eight nights of Hanukkah. That is, one candle the first night, one the second night, and so on. No one follows this manner nowadays, despite the fact that it fulfills one’s obligation. The next highest level of performing the mitzvah (level 2) is for each household to light a fixed number of candles each night corresponding to the number of people in that home. In other words, a family of five would like five candles the first night, five the second night and so on. The most enhanced way to perform this mitzvah (level 3) is to indicate through the number of lights which night of Hanukkah it is. While there was a disagreement about whether the specific way to do this was by increasing or decreasing the number of candles, both methods underscore the specific day among the eight nights of Hanukkah.
A confusing aspect of “level 3” has been whether this builds upon the idea expressed in “level 1” that candles are lit by one person on behalf of the entire household, or whether “level 3” is an extension of “level 2” in that each individual in the home lights their own candles.
Read how Tosafot and Maimonides interpret “level 3” differently.
Tosafot on “Ner Ish u’Veito” – “one light for a person and his household”
It seems to Rabbi Yitzhaq: Both Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel stand only on the basis of ner ish u’veito (one light for a man and his household), because there is more enhancement when there is recognition through increase of decrease of lights (according to the corresponding day of Hanukkah). But if one light is lit for each person in the house, even if it is increased each day of the holiday, there will not be a recognition of which day of Hanukkah it is. Rather, one would need to figure out how many people are in the house.
For Tosafot, in other words, the reason that “level 3” is an enhancement is because one is able to easily recognize which night of Hanukkah is being celebrated. There can be only one hanukiya (Hanukah menorah) for each household, because if everyone had their own candles, it would be difficult to immediately see which night of Hanukkah was being observed. The very reason behind the custom would be obliterated by having everyone light their own candles.
One the other hand, Maimonides argues that “level 3” must build on “level 2,” that is, take into account the notion that “level 2” provided a way in which each individual in the home is counted in lighting the candles.
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Chanukah 4:1
How many lights does one light on Hanukkah? Its mitzvah is for each and every household to kindle one light, whether there are many people or just one. Those who enhance this mitzvah light a number of lights corresponding to the number of people in the household, one candle for each person whether men or woman. Those who further enhance this and perform the mitzvah in the choicest way kindle one light for each person in the house on the first night, and increase each night by one candle (per person).
The disagreement between Tosafot and Maimonides about what constitutes hamehadrin min hamedadrin (level 3) is, in many ways, about how much the individual matters.
Is the most enhanced way of observing the mitzvah about the day or about the individual?
We find ourselves in a time when the self is over-emphasized. But none of us is prepared to fictitiously return to a way of life that failed to acknowledge or make accommodations for the self. This is dilemma of our time. As Professor Paul Mendes-Flohr writes: “We this face a profound impasse. Modern individualism seems to be producing a way of life that is neither individually nor socially viable, yet a return to traditional forms would be to return to intolerable religious determinism and oppression. The question, then, is whether the old civic and biblical traditions have the capacity to reformulate themselves while simultaneously remaining faithful to their own deepest insights.” (Divided Passions: Jewish Intellectuals and the Experience of Modernity, 1991)
It is as if we are struggling between the Maimonides and Tosafot about whether the most enhanced forms of religious expression need to be framed in terms of the self, or whether the most enhanced religious life is one that places the needs of the community above those of the individual.
The Sefat Emet provides us with an insight of negotiating between these two positions.
“The mitzvah of Hanukkah is one light for a man and his household.” It is a difficulty how this mitzvah differs from other mitzvot, and what the connection is between this mitzvah and the home. The Sabbath lights are different because they are kindled for shalom bayit. Also, in the case of the Sabbath, the mitzvah is only that the light be burning. But here, the lighting itself is the mitzvah... There are those who say that in gathering together all the strength of a person and the members of his household it is possible to fulfill this mitzvah with greater wholeness (shleimut yoteir).
The promise of wholeness (sheleimut) is an illustration of how we need to balance these two positions. The self is enhanced by moving beyond the self. Without denying our autonomy, we voluntarily relinquish some of our autonomy. We allow our sense of self to take a back seat not just because the community needs us to, but also because we ourselves will be enhanced as a result.
It is this approach that we need to use in the way we speak about the growing narcissism in American life and in Jewish life. We cannot deny the central role that the individual or the self plays in contemporary society. But we must use the self as a starting place for a religious life that moves us beyond the self.
Happy Hanukkah.
