Cheddar Mortadelle Cosmos, 2005, by Philippe Mayaux
My last post on the Biblical and philosophical concept of “kenosis” ended with a reference to Emmanuel Levinas, whose essay, “Judaism and Kenosis,” though unread at the time seemed to promise an altogether different approach that that found in contemporary and poststructuralist philosophies, which remain in large part derived from the Christian tradition. From Luther to Hegel to Derrida and Cixous, kenosis refers to the achievement of empathy, immersion, and other forms of ‘embodiment’ and ‘externalization’. For Levinas and the tradition he captures, kenosis suggests the opposite, an impasse between existences.
Levinas’ essay, for its part, radically departs from this, Christian tradition and sketches out, in my opinion, the more enlightening, the more philosophically authentic position. Where the Christian model stresses a seamless movement between, or transcendence of, ontological orders, the Judaic perspective stresses unbridgeable, unresolvable differences; which, I think, describes our world more closely than does the secular philosophical legacy of incarnation, identification. A fundamental schism in philosophy is thus revealed in the posing of this question, which is itself already a Christian one. Indeed, as one would expect, Levinas quickly reminds us that, “There is probably no need, here, to remind ourselves that the idea of divine incarnation is foreign to Jewish spirituality.” (Levinas Kenosis 114)
That being said, Levinas goes on to point out, in schematic terms, comparable sensibilities in the Judaic tradition and isolates key Talmudic passages where God descends and inhabits human misery, and precisely through that descent is found to be all the more exalted.
But the fact that kenosis, of the humility of a God who is willing to come down to the level of the servile conditions of the human (of which St Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians [2:6–8] speaks), or an ontological modality quite close to the one this Greek word evokes in the Christian mind – the fact that kenosis also has its full meaning in the religious sensibility of Judaism is demonstrated in the first instance by biblical texts themselves. Terms evoking Divine Majesty and loftiness are often followed or preceded by those describing a God bending down to look at human misery or inhabiting that misery. The structure of the text underlines that ambivalence or that enigma of humility in the biblical God. Thus, in verse 3 of Psalm 147, ‘He who healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds’ is the same one who, in the following verse, ‘counteth the number of the stars, [page] and giveth them all their names.’ Psalm 113 sings of ‘the elevation above all nations and the glory above the heavens’ of ‘our God that is enthroned on high’; but He ‘looketh down low upon heaven and upon the earth.’ The psalm ends with God’s care for the barren woman, whose despair is deeper than that of the poor person whom God ’causes to rise up out of the dunghill.’ As if to say that exaltation were at its height in these very acts of humbling! The importance of these verses for Judaism is emphasized by the fact that they have become part of Judaic liturgy.
But what is significant for Jewish ‘theology’ as such is the express Talmudic attestation of that importance: there is an inseparable bond between God’s descent and his elevation. (Emmanuel Levinas, “Judaism and Kenosis,” in In the Time of the Nations. Translated by Michael B. Smith. London: The Athlone Press, 1994: 114–115)
That much is shared with the Christian tradition. In each, God’s love for humanity involves inhabiting, or adopting, human feelings and thus in some way the human form. But beyond these generalities, there is little in common between the two.
Levinas’ reading of Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi’s parable “The Moon that makes itself Little”, from his treatise Hulin, expresses this distinction succinctly. “This parable,” he writes, ”approaches the theme without hiding the ontological or logical ‘upsets’ latent in the kenosis.” (Levinas Kenosis 116) Whereas Christian kenosis not only hides the logical upsets, but revels in them, ben Pazi’s parable isolates the upset, lingers on it, and ultimately fails to find satisfaction or resolution.
As a metaphor for God’s authorial power, and so for the structure of the universe itself (with God at the top and lesser entities below), the parable describes, through a dialogue between God and the Moon, a “dissatisfied silence” that cuts across all of creation, potentially undermining the ineffable order into which God has shuffled his subjects.
“The parable, cast in the form of a dialogue between Eternal God and the Moon, is supposedly motivated by a contradiction brought out in Genesis 1:16, which announces the creation of ‘two great lights,’ but right afterward refers to ‘the greater light’ and ‘the lesser light,’ as if, between the first and second half of the same verse, one of the great lights had diminished. The contradiction is set in relation to Numbers 28:15, which specifies the sacrifices to be performed for the new moon.” (Levinas Kenosis 116)
The problem concerns the status of the lesser light relative the greater one. By what law or reasoning, the Moon wants to know, are distinctions formed, and powers and orders assigned? It is as if, for reasons entirely external to the subjects affected, decisions are made concerning their fate, their status, and their hierarchical value. Justice itself seems to vanish in the moment an order of justice is created.
Immediately after the creation of the two great lights, one of them, the Moon, said to the Creator: ‘Sovereign of the world, can two kings wear the same crown?’ And God answered: ‘Go, therefore, and make yourself smaller!’
Was the moon unable, out of pride or vanity, to share the greatness she had received with the Sun? And was not the order she was given, ‘to make herself smaller,’ the just punishment for such pretentiousness? Or was the Moon, troubled by a precocious philosophical concern, affirming the necessity of a hierarchical order in being? Did she already intuit the ‘negativity’ between equals and discern that greatness cannot be shared – that the sharing of greatness is war? Rather than commanding a punishment unjustly imposed, perhaps what the voice of God proposed was the greatness of smallness – of humility, of the abnegation of night. The nobility of the best ones: smallness equal to greatness, and compatible with it. (Levinas Kenosis 116–117)
“Perhaps” is the key word here. Theories are offered; excuses are made; possible reasonings flushed out, but each, in its turn, is proved insufficient. The greatness of smallness, though an attractive idea in its own right, is ultimately a plain contradiction. That one only “plays the part” of the small, and one the part of the big, with each being equal by virtue of their equally but playing a part, is no consolation. The apparent difference cannot be whisked away through so much reasoning. God, it seems, cannot explain himself, and the Moon is not buying it:
‘I just expressed a sensible idea: is that any reason to make me smaller?’ says the Moon in answer to the Master of the World. Hierarchy is necessary, but I already see that it is necessarily unjust. The ontology of the creature is contradictory. It is dangerous to utter truths! As for the greatness of smallness, I do not at the outset see it as being as great as greatness. Is not the ‘glorious lowering’ a scandal to reason? The Moon’s argument is then taken into account. ‘Thou shalt reign day and night,’ says the Lord, ‘while the reign of the Sun will be limited to the day.’ A discreetness in light – is this already a decline? There are lights without brilliance whose lustre the Sun cannot dim: there are insights of the intuitive mind that systematic reasoning, in its glorious clarity, cannot refute. The wisdom of the night remains visible during the day.
‘What would be the advantage of shedding light in full daylight?’ says the Moon. The role of second brilliance cannot heal the wounded ego. And the civilization of triumphant science will one day invalidate all instinctive knowledge and all truths without proof. This is an antimony on the essence of the intellect, between God and the Moon! (Levinas Kenosis 117)
Concessions are made. Space and time are divvyed up to conceal this inaugural injustice. The organization of the universe itself starts to seem like one big compromise, as if the real creation, not the nominal one, took place through negotiations with, of all things, the created. The dialogue continues with a “discussion of the lunar calendar, of days and nights, versus the solar calendar, of years and history. The Sun and Moon are not just lights, but movement, time – history. To the solar calendar of the nations is added Israel’s lunar calendar: universal history, and individual history.” (Levinas Kenosis 117)
The argument, remarkably enough, is never settled. The greatness of humility can never be the greatness of greatness.
“Perhaps it is true that neither the light of thought nor the glory of history can tolerate the alleged greatness of humility. Perhaps its majesty has meaning only in the holiness of the person, where, as exaltation of renunciation in the justice of the just, it is the humanity of man and the image of God! Hence the Creator’s last attempt to console the Moon, offended by her title of ‘lesser light.’ ‘The names of the just evoke your title: Jacob, called littled in Amos 7:2, Samule the Little (a holy rabbi of the Talmudic period), King David, called Little David in I Samuel 17:14.’
Like any tedious argument or negotiation, this one can only peter out, without closure or sure resolution. There’s no final entreaty, no last evening-out. A fundamental inequity is seen to pervade, and possibly constitute, the very structure of the world. There will be no appeasing the Moon, and the Moon sees no point in pressing it further.
‘The Moon has since then remained without any arguments. But Eternal God sees that she is not satisfied.’ A dissatisfaction without arguments, a dissatisfied silence! This is perhaps the residual ambiguity that surrounds the greatness of the saintly and humble who risk being taken for failures! The residue of the stubborn contention of a nature persevering in its being, imperturbably affirming itself. To this there is no response, but for this, precisely, Holiness takes on the responsibility. Here is the humility of God assuming responsibility for this ambiguity. The greatness of humility is also in the humiliation of greatness. It is the sublime kenosis of a God who accepts the questioning of his holiness in a world incapable of restricting itself to the light of his Revelation.‘ (Levinas Kenosis 118)
The parable of the Moon is not, of course, just about the Moon and Creation. Taken more generally, it’s about the humble, good life that, confined to its own unrecognized corner of the world, risks being mistaken for a failure. In being lesser, or in being recognized as lesser, while in some other sense being greater, the saintly, the humble are doomed to inherit, according to Levinas, a “residual ambiguity” with which they must struggle endlessly.
Taking a philosophical turn, Levinas finally defines this inner struggle or dissatisfaction as the ”stubborn contention of a nature persevering in its being, imperturbably affirming itself”, and in this respect, the Moon is an unmistakable figuration of the self, the subject. At once aware of itself and its place in the greater order, the Moon questions both without the possibility of satisfaction. This profound impasse, it would seem, is what most distinguishes the Judaic from the Christian conception of kenosis.
