Why?

Ontological Emptying

We’re now at the parenting stage where every moment and encounter in life is met with a big ol’ ‘why.’ You always hear about this stage or see it represented in cute pop culture moments but when you’re in it, it can be a bit maddening. The cuteness can veer very quickly into the overstimulation that so many parents feel acutely. No, I do not know why our dog barks at imagined figures he sees in our alley. Is he seeing things in a parallel dimension? We’ll never know!

But I learned from the dog question so that when Cal asked another animal specific question-I was ready: Why do bunnies enjoy eating carrots? So when I responded, ‘i’m not sure,’ he retorted, after a few seconds lull, ‘maybe carrots help them hop?’ That answer encapsulated something powerful to me. When there actually is a question that I know the answer to, and I offer said answer, the conversation tends to end rapidly. Whereas, when I explicitly say ‘I don’t know,’ it creates a space in that conversation and signals something to Cal.

That signal is essential and it reverberates through time and space. It has a name in the Jewish tradition, and it shows up in an unexpected place. The S’fat Emet writing in 1874 offers the following in conversation about the giving of the Torah, a moment we celebrate at Shavuot which begins tonight:

…The Torah represents the wholeness [shleimut] of created beings and to the degree that they are lacking in their own eyes, they will yearn for that wholeness. They will merit Torah. It is very hard for human beings to see themselves as deficient, as we must...But one who makes him/herself like a desert [gains this insight], as it says in the midrash, one cannot merit Torah without first becoming hefker-ownerless like the desert. This was the preparation of the children of Israel before they received the Torah: that they arrived at this attribute of “desert-ness”; that it became clear to them that they needed to yearn for wholeness and to clarify this need for others.

The normative reading of the make yourself hefker-ownerless stops at the personal: empty yourself, become ownerless, and then you can receive whatever it is for which you’re readying. It’s a preparation narrative to clear the vessel. But the Sfat Emet adds this second move that makes things multidirectional. The clarifying-for-others is a part of the preparation too. Expressing our lack is an implicit gift we’re offering to others. When we achieve that recognition, in the process, we become the kind of people who can name our own incompleteness publicly, and that is what qualifies us to stand at the mountain.

I had always understood this hefker-ness as a moment of individual refinement. By sloughing off all of our extra stuff, we can make more room for receiving Torah. But the Sfat Emet adds something generative here and it’s that last part that is essential and is inherently building on the communal nature of revelation.

It’s hard to recognize our lacking. Yet, when we can reach for that state, we actually come to a different form of completeness. The space that was just created by my moment of I-don’t-know is now for you too.

Which brings me back to Cal and this growing awareness of the power of I don’t know. Maybe carrots really do help rabbits hop. I’ll consult with my local zoologist to find out more. But more importantly, I hope Cal walks away recognizing something within himself when I shrug my shoulders in response to a question.

Chag Sameach, Shabbat Shalom, and Happy Weekend, y’all!