In prison today, (1) Camus and (2) Wiesel come up:
1.
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest— whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect. (--The Myth of Sisyphus, A N A B S U R D R E A S O N I N G, Absurdity and Suicide)
2.
"When will you understand that a beautiful answer is nothing? Nothing more than illusion! Man defines himself by what disturbs him and not by what reassures him.
When will you understand that you are living and searching in error, because God means movement and not explanation."
[The Wandering Jew. Elie Wiesel. Legends of Our Time pg.126] cf.https://www.alexisrael.org/vayeshev-tranquility-and-turbulence#:~:text=%22When%20will%20you%20understand%20that,opening%20lines%20of%20the%20Parsha:
It was the end of our meetingbrook conversation time. Final circle for the six of us was over. One of the men grew up Jewish but was now Muslim, as were the three other men. We did not have the time to retrieve the below. Perhaps another week. We’d been wondering about meaning, religious influences, our journeys forward.
...
Addendum: The place from whence the Wiesel quote is cited is a piece titled Parashat Vayeshev, Tranquility and Turbulence, from Thinking Torah, by Rav Alex Israel – www.alexisrael.org
It includes this:
THE MOUNTAIN FOOTWAY
It would seem to me that the centrality of a sense of non-complacency, and the absence of serenity in the religious experience, is powerfully expressed in the following celebrated passage by Rav Soloveitchik. There he writes of the faulty ideology:
“…that is prevalent nowadays in religious circles … that the religious experience is of a very simple nature -- that is, devoid of the spiritual tortuousness present in the secular cultural consciousness, of psychic upheavals, and of pangs and torments that are inextricably connected with the development and refinement of man’s spiritual personality. This popular ideology contends that the religious experience is tranquil and neatly ordered, tender and delicate; it is an enchanted stream for bitter souls and still waters for troubled spirits.
…this ideology is intrinsically false and deceptive. That religious consciousness in man’s experience which is most profound and elevated, which penetrates to the very depths and ascends to the very heights, is not that simple or comfortable. On the contrary, it is exceptionally complex, rigorous and tortuous. Where you find complexity, there you find its greatness. The religious experience, from beginning to end, is antinomic and antithetic. … It is a condition of spiritual crisis, of psychic ascent and descent, of contradiction arising from affirmation and negation, self-abnegation and self-appreciation….
Religion is not, at the outset, a refuge of grace and mercy for the despondent and desperate, an enchanted stream for crushed spirits, but a raging, clamorous torrent of man’s consciousness with all its crises, pangs and torments. Yes, it is true that during the third Sabbath meal at dusk, as the day of rest declines and man’s soul yearns for its Creator and is afraid to depart the realm of holiness whose name is Sabbath into the dark and frightening, secular workaday week, we sing the psalm ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside still waters.’(Ps. 23) etc., etc., and we believe with our entire hearts in the words of the psalmist. However, this psalm only describes the ultimate destination of the homo religiousus, not the path leading to that destination. For the path that eventually will lead to the “green pastures” is not the royal road, but a narrow, twisting footway that threads its course along the steep mountain slope, as the terrible abyss yawns at the traveller’s feet.” (Halakhic Man. JPS. Translation-Lawrence Kaplan. Footnote no.4)
IN CONCLUSION
This philosophy is a troubling one. Maybe that is why I am attracted to it. This philosophy demands that a person be constantly moving, constantly growing. Stagnation is the enemy.
I believe that this is an extremely difficult level to be at. Especially in our 21st Century world that values harmony and comfort as essential commodities, the notion of a war against complacency and an ideology of incessant personal striving is certainly unusual. This is difficult emotionally as well. We all want to feel that we have reached our goal, that we have found our destination and now we can rest. But, I do believe that the truly religious soul is the restless soul; always striving, groping, reaching higher and higher, searching for new avenues of expression, nourishment and good deeds.
https://www.alexisrael.org/_files/ugd/215840_64958fe5b5b7f94536a45b1bd5d6f1be.pdf
...
This rare environment, so replicative and concentrative of the outside world of international, interreligious, and internecine activity -- masks itself as a maximum security prison in the most northeastern corner state in the United States.
We are anthropologists and archeologists, monastics and wandering nomads, listeners and cosmotheandric conversants in ever-fresh unscripted and unprogrammed gatherings every Friday and Monday mornings in non-compulsory drop-in conversations -- now for over thirty years.
The invisible and the delightful surprise of whatever arises never ceases to amaze.
The movement of it!
