Emotion and Intellect

I had an interesting discussion in shul on this Yom Kippur. Asked if I had recently been to Israel, I responded that I hadn’t been there in years. I should go, I was urged. “Why?” I asked. Because, he said, my attachment to Judaism was too intellectual and lacked an emotional component.


I still don’t know what my friend meant, and though this might have been the appropriate place to discuss the issue, this wasn’t the proper occasion. However, I responded that I didn’t feel that way at all, and that indeed, my Judaism was essential to the very substance of my daily life. I tried I tried to live my Judaism as a system of ethics and daily relationships. He responded, “That’s what I meant, too intellectual. You need an emotional connection.”


Really we were talking about two different things, I think. He was talking about Israel and I was talking about Judaism. Coincidentally, I am reading Ruth Wisse’s book, Jews and Power (who am I kidding—there is no coincidence here!), and thinking about the Diaspora. I told my friend that the focus on Israel turns the rest of us Jews into second class citizens—that our strong attachments to everything outside Israel excludes us from participating with an essential Judaism. I reminded my friend that the Jews have lived mostly in diaspora, and that some argue that it is that condition which has fostered the creativity and survival of the Jewish people. Some might argue that the diaspora—exile—is the Ur condition of the human race. Being forced out of the Garden of Eden where all is given us forces us to actually confront the world and its hardships and evil. Out here is where life exists. Out here we can repair the world.


Anyway, I don’t know at all what is meant by his accusation that I lack an emotional connection. I have always lived in diaspora. I’m happy here. I love being Jewish. I love acting Jewish. I love Jewish thought and ethics.