Return to the Promised Land.. Jacek Surzyn
Judaism, the spheres of the sacred and the profane overlap, and first of all, are not in permanent conflict but harmoniously coexist. God gives meaning to moral laws and morality itself and from this perspective, also to human life and activity. Humanity as an organism and all its members (nations) always have the moral aspect, and the awareness of moral activity refers to the covenant between man and God, resulting in the emergence of the chosen nation with its mission concerning whole mankind. Jews with their religion – the religion of “moral” covenant – perfectly fit the concept of a fatalist understanding of social life, that is, the socialist understanding of humanity.80 Still, despite implementing ←53 | 54→the moral message of humanity, religion – especially the Jewish one – is not the only candidate to morally justify human existence. Analyzing history, the author points out that religion has developed in constant confrontation with philosophy and science, which have also aspired to the role of moral guide of humanity. It has often been the case that the paths of philosophy and religion clearly parted and were in permanent conflict, which was evident even in the ancient times and in the Middle Ages. Theoretical disputes concerning, among others, human morality, were based on divisions and particular interests of races and social classes making the “organic” structure of the society. In other words, the development of humanity was uneven, with the excessive growth of certain “organs,” as Hess stated in the quotation above. Misunderstandings between religion and philosophy caused misunderstandings with reference to concepts such as “freedom” and “progress,” which we are still using unreflectively and mechanically. So, Hess first specifies how to understand the terms of freedom and progress.
The belief in reasonableness, and hence the recognizable (cognizable) divine law, which was proposed to mankind through science and history, the belief in divine providence and a plan of creation, is by no means blind belief in obscure coincidence, although it is hard to deny the existence of self-will and lawlessness. According to the author, the materialistic vision of the world makes the fundamental mistake. Yet, the mistake does not involve linking the spiritual, metal world of human with the mechanically approached nature of the universe. Actually, man is related to the world around him, and these relationships cannot be broken. But Hess disagrees with the direction of this relationship, i.e. with materialists assuming its definite unilaterality; matter affects the spirit and shapes and determines it, whereas the existence of the spiritual sphere – and thus, the social and cultural sphere and products of the human spirit (mentality and soul) built on the material, physical basis. So, in this relationship, it is the material, natural world that influences the spiritual world, and naturally, mechanical work determines the world of nature, and human and spiritual world. Hess, however, approaches this issue differently, as he writes: “I do not assert, with the materialists, that the organic and spiritual world is subjected, like the inorganic world, to the same laws as an external mechanism. On the contrary, I affirm that cosmic mechanical phenomena have the same plan, the same purposiveness, and spring out of the same sacred life as organic and spiritual phenomena. Nature and humanity are subordinated to the same divine law. The difference is, that Nature follows this law blindly, while man, when perfectly developed, obeys ←54 | 55→it consciously and voluntarily.”81 So the author may see the relationship between nature and spirit not in the fact that nature determines the spirit but that both spheres are linked by general, transcendent laws given by God, and the difference between them is that humans obey those laws consciously and nature does so unconsciously. Being a sapient creature, man is able to observe divine laws, because he understands that it is necessary and good for his nature, and if so, he prefers to act in accordance with divine laws, which activates his will and desire to fulfil them.
This is one aspect of revealing of freedom and progress. Another aspect of the approach to freedom and progress is associated by Hess with a much more important difference between man (spirit) and nature. In his opinion, failure to perceive this difference has led to erroneous interpretations of both freedom and progress. “Another important difference, the non-observance of which gives rise to a misunderstanding of the concepts of “Freedom” and “Progress,” lies in this that while the natural sphere of life of the organic and cosmic world, which is the basis of our social, human sphere of life, has already accomplished its own development, humanity is still in the midst of its life-creating process. As long as human society is still occupied in the production of its own organism, man, in his creative capacity, considers himself as an irresponsible and unfettered being, although he, like Nature, in subordinated, in his very creation, to the eternal divine laws.”82 So according to the author, the erroneous understanding ←55 | 56→of freedom (or rejecting it completely) results from the fact that mankind has not yet achieved its full development, which means that remaining in the state of development, human community was not able to achieve the full awareness of their freedom, and thus they could not fully use their will. According to Hess, that incomplete state of social (spiritual) development leads to a false understanding of freedom treated as self-will determining human actions. Freedom cannot be self-will, because a self-willed man is one that lacks the awareness of his limitations, i.e. being subject to higher, transcendent laws, and the lack of such awareness results in attempts to do things beyond the natural capabilities of humans. Ignoring higher laws and principles determining human nature is only superficial, actually being impossible. The impossibility to carry out one’s (self) will makes man frustrated with the state of their own nature (essence), which promotes various negative tendencies reflected in human attitudes, both to themselves and to others and the surrounding world.
Freedom separated from the general divine laws which humans and the communitas are subject to leads to the imagination of one’s autonomy, which actually proves to be slavery, the absolute negation of freedom. According to the author, human freedom is inseparably connected with the general development of the society, and only if the organism achieves its natural, full state, i.e. “the mature age,” freedom will be fully revealed: the awareness of freedom will be achieved. At the same time, Hess does not think that until “coming of age,” or full development, man is confined to incomplete freedom. It does not have to be so, because the character of dependence of all the spheres of life, both biological and spiritual, on laws and principles given by God ensures the possibility to experience freedom: it is faith, the sphere of religious experience based on the relationship between humans and their creator (God). In this way, human experiences freedom in the content of the act of faith, content disclosed by God, which occurs in the “theoretical” field. Freedom can be “thought” (in the sense of “awareness”) before it is experienced by man empirically/practically. The possibility of experiencing freedom before the achievement of the state of full development opens human to total religious experience, in which Hess can see the greatness of Jewish faith.83
Jewish covenant with God, before whom Jews represent the whole mankind as the chosen nation, is a great act showing to humans the nature of their freedom. Thus, Judaism discloses the goal of any progress and development of humanity, that is, the coming of the Messianic era. In this sense, Jews face the historic task ←56 | 57→of “ushering” mankind to the Messianic worldly era, which will end the entire development of human organism. All its parts or members (peoples, races, nations) will achieve the fullness of their nature, the organism will be fully mature, and this will ensure humankind full achievement of their natural freedom, this time understood as the full awareness of their nature and essence. In accordance with this vision, the history will end, and humankind will reach the state of happiness. Those who are supposed to lead mankind to the Messianic era are Jews: that is their worldly mission.
The belief in the coming of the Messianic era has always been present in Jewish history. Hess emphasizes that the Messianic belief is symbolically expressed in Shabbat.84 For Jews, Shabbat is an expression of interpenetration of the created world and the transcendence of divinity. The celebration of Shabbat symbolically reflects the time of the Messiah: the time of eternal happiness. In addition, Shabbat is the discovery of the secret of the act of creation, because it was part of the creation of the world: God worked for six days, and after finishing the work and seeing that all he had done was very good (complete), he rested. Shabbat is the expression of the completeness of the act of creation, so it reflects the ultimate