72 Friday, December 11, 1981
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Potok, Kushner Books Shed Light on Meaning of L
By BETTE ROTH
In Chaim Potok's newest
masterpiece, "The Book of
Lights" (Knopf), he ven-
tures into areas as yet
barely touched in American
Jewish literature, namely,
the Jewish involvement in
the production of the atom
bombs that destoyed
Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
and the experiences of indi-
vidual Jews in Southeast
Asia, immediately follow-
ing the Korean War.
The two central charac-
ters of the novel, Gershon
Loran,a. New York born and
bred Orthodox Jew, and Ar-
thur Leiden, the Boston
bred son of one Charles
Leiden, a member of the
Manhattan Project, are sent
to Korea by their yeshiva to
serve as chaplains to the
Jewish soldiers stationed
there.
"Lights," symbols of
energy, are the unifying
focus of this book, be they
CHAIM POTOK
the mystical kabalistic
lights to which Gershon
seems to be inexplicably
drawn, the brutal, catas-
trophic lights produced by
the explosions of the bombs
over Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the harsh, frigid
sunlight of a Korean winter,
or the always-too-bright
lights in any room in which
Arthur Leiden finds him-
self.
Both Gershon and Ar-
thur are young men who
cannot come to terms
with the pain and de-
struction they have
found in the "real world."
Arthur is tormented with
the fact of his father's in-
volvement in the creation
of the Bomb, and Ger-
shon becomes more and
more troubled with the
reality he finds in Korea.
Neither he nor Arthur
can reconcile themselves
to the evil they find in a
world created by God.
How they struggle with
this profound teleological
problem becomes the narra-
tive of this very thoughtful
novel.
But Potok makes it clear
that this struggle is not only
confined to two young men
trying to mature in a world
they fail to understand. For
he uses Charles Leiden's
voice to articulate his own
concern:
" 'Fermi,' says Charles,
`probably attends
synagogue.'
" 'Albert (Einstein) be-
lieved in Spinoza's God and
helped raise money for Is-
rael. Teller may end up
teaching in a Jewish paroc-
hial school. Szilard has the
soul of a Jewish prophet.
And we tinker with light
and atom bombs, with the
energy of the universe.
" 'Do you wonder that
the world doesn't know
what to make of its Jews?
No one is on more famil-
iar terms with the heart
of the insanity of the uni-
verse than is the Jew, and
no one is more frenetic
and untidy in the search
for an answer.
" 'We are always in a de-
sperate rush. We offer
apocalypses in a pushcart,
messiahs in tobacco-stained
caftans . . . Kosher dishes
hardly constitute a solution
to the problem of our species
71 7
Rabbi Kushner, the laws of
physics enabling man to
make such transformations
are cause for celebration
and awe.
"The River of Light,"
Kushner's most scholarly
work to date, brings to-
gether the Zohar, Talmud,
psychology and physics to
explain to the reader the
inner world of the body and
the mind, the almost un-
fathomable world of the
cosmos, and the place of God
in both remarkable realms.
It is the author's thesis
that we all have within us a
genetic memory of eternity,
erased by the fall of Adam.
Somehow, all matter and
energy are expressions of
one unity so that the past
and the future are only con-
structs of the human mind.
Rabbi Kushner leads
us through five stories in
the Bible, providing his
own unique interpreta-
tion: the Creation, Adam
in the Garden, Abraham
at Machpelah, and Moses
at Sinai and the Red Sea.
In the most engaging
BETTE ROTH
way, these stories are
teleological answers, only told in the context of
more probing questions for physics, molecular biol-
the reader, prodded into ogy and psychotherapy,
deepest reflection by the au- all within the greater
thor's most provocative context of a grand tele-
ological design: Creation,
words.
* * *
death and rebirth.
Teleology is the central
And for this unabashedly
concern of yet another mystical author, God's hand
new book this fall, Rabbi is everywhere. As he says at
Larry Kushner's brilliant' the beginning of the story:
monograph, "The River
"A consciousness glistens
of Light" (Harper and within each creature and
Row). Both Kushner and each creature's creation,
Potok turn to the Zohar, even as it guided the hand of
both deal with the as- the One who spoke and the
tonishing acceleration of world came into being.
man's knowledge of and Rabbi Oshaya, at the be-
ability to use energy, but ginning of 'Genesis Rabba,'
with two opposing points reminds us that when even
of view.
a king builds a castle, he
For Potok, man's ability uses a blueprint.
to change matter into
"So the Creator too, re-
energy has only been a turns again and again to
means for accelerated de- that underlying pattern of
struction of the species; for being. Arrangements of mo-
.
.
"The problem of our
species," how to "cure" the
insanity of the universe, is
then, Potok's latest and
largest theme. The atom
bomb was created, accord-
ing to Potok, as a response
to Hitler and was used then,
not against the Germans
but against the Japanese,
an ironic twist for Potok.
For in trying to prevent in-
sanity, the Jews seems to
create only more insanity.
This novel produces no
tion that organize and ani-
mate all being. This is reali-
ty's dream. Organizing
motif beneath the apparent
surface The plan the
Creator used reappears
everywhere: from the most
erudite contemporary cos-
mological theory to the
opening sentences of
Genesis, it is the same."
Each page of this little
monograph is so filled
with facts, psychological
and physical, celestial
and cellular, that the
reader feels almost into-
xicated with so many
charming new thoughts.
RABBI KUSHNER
For example, Rabbi how once it, too, was part
Kushner tells us, "We all of a great unity that had
issue from One Being. One no parts . . ."
undifferentiated Being. The
Consciousness, for Rabbi
soul of all souls. YEHIDO
SHEL OLAM, 'the Only Kushner, is defined as tele-
ological memory, a "river of
One of the Universe.'
"The memory of this light," a genetic memory of
primordial unity is recorded paradise or eternity. Each of
in the chromosomes that us has the ability to glimpse
shape our bodies. It is that eternity for ourselves.
transmitted unconsciously But he warns us that any
and genetically, and for this "spirituality that claims to
reason it is observable forever - transcend, escape,
everywhere throughout the or otherwise transgress this
everyday world is a fraud."
universe.
"Thus it is only natural He takes us through a jour-
for the legend to tell of how, ney to eternity but he tells
when we die, we shall catch us that "if the searcher
a glimpse of this primordial chooses to remain with
Adam and how it was possi- eternity the searcher loses
ble for Adam to behold all eternity! If the searcher
the generations. Just as chooses the finite world, the
each tiny thing carries searcher is rewarded with
within it the potential de- eternity. This is expressed
scription of the whole of in a slightly different way
which it is a part. The iris of by saying that the pious are
the eye. Handwritten not in paradise, paradise is
words. Our descriptions of in the pious . . ."
an ink blot . . . Or any ran-
Chaim Potok's characters
dom dream's fragment. renounce the "real world" to
Each tiny piece to the eyes bury themselves . in the
and ears of one well-trained study of Kabala. Rabbi
tells all about the whole.
Kushner continues to study
"Everything is organi- and urges us to do so as well
cally connected to every-
but while "The Book of
thing else in such a way Lights" is an expression of
that nothing is irretriev- despair, "The River of
ably and only a thing. Ev-
Light" is a joyous affirma-
erything is part of a tion of the "real world," the
single organism. And universe into which we
each part 'remembers' were born.
Ability to Relate to Arabs Set Dayan Apart from Other Statesmen
By SIMON GRIVER
World Zionist Press Service
JERUSALEM — It was
Moshe Dayan's military
prowess that captured the
world's imagination and
hoisted him to the forefront
both of Israeli politics and of
international fame. But it
was in his less publicized
ability to relate to the Arabs
that he made a vital con-
tribution towards paving
the way for peace with
Egypt and the signing of the
Camp David accords.
Among the mourners as
Dayan was laid to rest this
fall at Nahalal were not
only an Egyptian delega-
tion headed by Foreign
Minister Butros Ghali, but
representatives of the local
El-Mazeib Bedouin tribe.
Before Dayan was six he
knew how to use a gun if
attacked, but he also be-
friended those Arabs Who
wanted to coexist with the
Jewish settlers and as a
child - his first deep friend-
ship was with a local Be-
douin boy.
Dayan, along with
Yigal 4,111on, was one of
few Sabras who achieved
power in the first genera-
tion of Israel's indepen-
dence. Born in 1915 on
Degania, the first kibutz,
he moved with his pa-
rents to Nahalal, the first
moshav (agricultural
smallholders' coopera-
five village) when he was
six-. Almost every eulogy
depicted Dayan as the tunistic world of party
symbol of the new, unin- politicians, where the con-
hibited, brave and de- tradictions of Dayan's
voted Israeli. However, policies sometimes seemed
such a portrayal under- too deep to be bridged.
plays the man's unique
When Prime Minister
individualism.
Levi Eshkol died in office in
It
was
Dayan's 1969, Dayan, still bathing
"maverick" behavior that in the glory of the Six-Day
probably deprived him of War, could not win the full
the chance to be prime confidence of the Labor
minister and left him at his movement and Golda Meir
death in the political wil- stepped in.
derness. His strength was
Dayan was among the
his weakness. In 1951 he leading Laborists who fol-
drew a cartoon representing lowed Ben - Gurion in 1965
himself as a fox, the animal into the Rafi Party. If this
he most admired — the lone split was recognized as a
hunter. These fox-like qual- legitimate political re-
ities served him well in bat- alignment, his second defec-
tle but always left him tion after Menahem Begin's
somewhat mistrusted as a electoral victory in 1977
politician even in the oppor- when he accepted the
Foreign Ministry in a
Likud government was
considered as treacherous.
Former President
Jimmy Carter recalled
that when negotiations
stalled at Camp David it
was Dayan who
suggested new pos-
sibilities. It was Dayan
who is said to have had
MOSHE DAYAN
secret talks with Egyp-
tians to set up Sadat's os-
tensibly spontaneous de-
cision to come s to
Jerusalem. And if Dayan,
the military mastermind,
had recommended that
the Camp David agree-
ment was too great a sec-
urity risk for Israel, then
Begin would probably
not have signed.
But inevitably it is Day-
an's military triumphs that
will be closest associated
with his name. Imprisoned
by the British for his ac-
tivities against Arab insur-
gents, he fought for them in
World War II, losing an eye
but gaining the patch that
gave him the image of a
swashbuckling pirate. In
the eccentric British Gen-
eral Orde Wingate, who fer-
vently backed the Jewish
cause in the late 1930s,
Dayan found an ingenious
mentor.
It was from Wingate that
Dayan learned the maxim
that "attack is the best form
of defense." As Chief of Staff
during the Sinai campaign
of 1956 and as Minister of
Defense in 1967, Dayan
used the tactic to deva -
ing effect.
That
record
NA,
blemished by the Yom Kip-
pur War. However, the Ag-
ranat Commission, the de-
tails of which have never
been published, did not
blame Dayan for the unpre-
paredness of Israel's forces
when the Egyptians at-
tacked in 1973. Indeed one
of its leading members,
Yigael Yadin, favors publi-
cation in order to set the re-
cord straight, possibly im-
plying that Dayan's name
would be cleared in this
way.