Job - a Biblical hero and great story

One of the Biblical stories  that have always impressed me is that of Job. Lots and lots has been written about Job but if I put it into the proverbial nutshell this is what I get:

1. The guy isn't even Jewish! 
2. God is a cynic - betting on the faithfulness of his believers with Satan no less.
3. God is unfaithful - he sold out his most faithful follower.
4. Job is not about patience but more about enduring the incomprehension of God's ways.
5. Job shuts God up for eternity - in the Old Testament it is the last time we hear God speak (in the Christian versions Job appears earlier).

I still find it interesting, even fascinating that Job was not Jewish and yet he was included in the Old Testament as one of the books of Wisdom. There is much to wonder about here but it is a testimony to the power of the story.

Job mocked by his wife

Another interesting aspect is Job's wife. His first wife. She has no name in the story and she is the only character that we do not know what happens to. All of his first children are killed, all of his animals are stolen or killed, all of his houses are burned and/or pillaged. But she takes care of him apparently, chides him about his "issues" and then just disappears from the story. Not a very feminist writing style, apparently she did not merit mention, or some say it was the author's way of avenging her chiding of Job. Georges de la Tour, a renowned French painter from the 17th century put this part of the story into oil and medium - even if it was mistaken for another painting with another title for only a few hundred years... (oops!). Actually I found the picture (painted in the 1630s) so I can show you rather than tell you about it/her...

Interesting to note that Job is mentioned in the Old and New Testaments as well as in the Coran. And while the Coran does not mention Job that often, I found it interesting that during the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s it was often written on walls around Beirut "sabrak ya Ayoub" - meaning something like "Be patient Job".

For those who have not read the book, basically the form is a bit post modern alternating poetry and prose in the three parts. Three different friends come and give Job "advice" as he suffers many different maladies until God comes to address Job directly. The ensuing "dialogs" are fascinating as  basically it seems like Job has the moral upper hand and God resorts to the "because I said so" of many parents and then disappears for eternity with the equivalent of a "humph!"

I am now reading a fascinating "biography" of Job, Job's unknown author/s and the story of Job throughout history. It is called "Vies de Job" (Lives of Job) and is written by the very erudite Pierre Assouline.

The book is fascinating on a lot of levels but one of the most incredible is that on page 84 he made a comment which made me think of a book written by my grandfather, Yossel Rakover speaks to God. A Job-like story which is incredibly powerful in a short format. Imagine my surprise when 5 pages later he goes on to tell the story of Yossel and my grandfather Zvi Kolitz over 10 pages!

In this book, I also learned how many people identify with Job! It turns out that he is the poster boy of the rich as he was both the richest in the land and the most righteous, so this proves that the two can go together. Also, many (tortured?) artists and authors completely identified themselves with Job. Voltaire, that strange (and contestable) literary figure, for example, mentions Job or identifies himself with Job nearly 1800 (!) times in his letters and correspondences. Can you say "obsession"?

And as an added bonus, Pierre Assouline mentions in his book Francis of Assisi, another personality from posterity I am particularly interested in, even if it would probably have been Brother Leo (his faithful sidekick) who was more Job-like, but side-kicks never do get the merit they deserve across the ages. Mutatis mutandi and all that jazz.

The man and his word...

Emmanuel Levinas wrote a famous essay, I love the Torah more than God, after reading a short story written by my grandfather, Yosl Rakover Talks to God by Zvi Kolitz. (Note to self: write a blog entry on Yosl and his story.) The essence of this story, if I remember correctly (it has been a while since I have read it) was that Levinas admitted that he could not comprehend God and his actions (or lack of action) because he could not understand how God as we understand the notion could allow something like the Holocaust to happen.

This is kind of a lead in to what I wanted to write about today - can we admire the work of someone (writer, thinker, author, philosopher, guru, ...) for whom we have no admiration as a person? When you read the writings of spiritual 'leaders' like Osho or Gurdjieff (to name but two) and see wisdom, profundity, inspiring words and ideas, thinking that you recognize as 'right' for you... it is very difficult, for me, to reconcile their spiritual wisdom with their life stupidity. When you read accounts of how they treated people, how they abused their power, their (often) material crassness, etc. then what is one to think of their words? Do you throw out the bath water because the baby is dirty? Or do you do as Levinas has done with God, admitting that he cannot understand the creator while confessing his admiration for the creation?

One person who has taken a good stab at framing this question of 'how is it possible to be so developed and enlightened on one level and a total idiot on other levels?' is Ken Wilber. He has developed a philosophical / developmental framework he originally named after himself but later renamed AQAL (all quadrants all levels). The idea being, in a nutshell, that there are four axes of development we all follow and you can be advanced on one axe and not very far along another - concurrently! Thus it is quite logical that someone can be both spiritually wise and a social idiot, or something to that effect.

The framework looks something like the diagram above which I believe he has revised a bit since, but hopefully the idea is clear: four axes - social, cultural, behavioral and intentional - on which we can develop. In some areas we advance faster and in others slower.

I should mention my take on Wilber. I think he is brilliant but I don't think he is enlightened and I think he would rather be enlightened than brilliant. He is a master synthesist (he now, rightfully, calls his work 'Integral') and he is probably one of the more thoughtful and knowledgeable writers-thinkers-philosophers-psychologists of our times. However, I feel that if he would just stop trying to impress everyone with his spirituality (as he has always impressed everyone with his intellect - apparently that was not enough), his writing would be even more fantastic than it already is. He is also a major contributor to EnlightenNext magazine in which he is the Pandit to Andrew Cohen's Guru (Cohen who suffers from the opposite of Wilber - he is probably enlightened but would like to be brilliant - which makes their partnership even more interesting...).

So what do you think, what takes precedence the creator or the creation? Can one shine without the other? Or do only those that walk the talk, like Thich Nhat Hahn, merit our consideration?