Negative Space

There are times when sitting down to examine a page of Talmud or other text is about as close to bliss as I’ve ever been privileged to experience.  It’s a moment to escape from the fractured realities of the world around and feel that I’m doing
something of timeless value and infinite beauty.

I’ve dreamed about having all the time in the world to spend hours at a time in an environment of learning and being able to cover much more of this
“ocean of learning” than presently I’m able.

Of course I did say at the beginning of this column “there are times!”  Bliss doesn’t always happen.  The fact is, that so often the experience is a matter of sheer discipline and habit.  It’s not so much a matter of the positive experience,
rather the fact that if I don’t find time to study every day, I feel emotionally empty.
It’s not just a matter of “wanting” to study text, I “have” to study text.

How often I find myself at a loss for concentration; having to review an argument or going back to pick up a detail I know I’ve ignored. 
Worse yet, there are times I can feel my mind slipping and
my brain turning off, overwhelmed
by the sheer amount of detail being brought to bear in complex argument. 

At times like this I have no choice but to set the book aside and try to engage in something less taxing on the brain: to let my brain go into “free-fall”, take out the clarinet and practice some music or see if there’s anything worth watching on the tube.

There are times when I wonder why we’re created in this way.  Why couldn’t I just be drawn into my studies and keep studying away in the time I have at my disposal?
Interestingly the answer may well be suggested by Rashi’s comments on the opening passages of Leviticus.  There are passages in the Torah which quote God’s words teaching Moses the laws that Moses will deliver to the Jewish People.  If you examine a Torah scroll you will see sprinkled throughout these passages two types of paragraphs: “Open and Closed”.  The Open ones look like the paragraphing we’re familiar with in english. 
The Closed have a space between the opening words
on the line and the words at the end of the line like this!

XXXXX XXXX XX XXXX XXX                 XXX XXXX XXXX  (Closed Paragraph)
XXXXXX  X XX XX XXXX X XXXXXX XXX XXXX X XX XX
XXXX XXX XX XXXX XX XXXX XXX XXX XXXX
                     XXX XXXX XXX XX XXXXX XXXX XXXX XXX  (Open Paragraph)
XXX XXXX XXXXXX XX XXX XXX XXXX XXX XXX XXXX

The question is “Why?”
The answer Rashi supplies us is: God wanted Moses to pause between those moments of direct communication so that he could reflect on what he had heard God tell him.   Even the great Moses with his powerful intellect needed to pause in between his moments of learning and even as he learned from the Teacher beyond all teachers.

In art there’s the concept of “negative space”.  I believe it was the modern sculptor Henry Moore who introduced it.  What he meant by it was the part of the composition that isn’t comprised of the metal or wood or clay or concrete.  For example the hole in a doughnut!  Moore was trying to point out that the hole is also part of the composition:
it can also be seen to “have shape”!

In some ways it’s similar to Shabbat compared to the rest of the week, (‘though I hasten to add that our tradition certainly wouldn’t consider Shabbat “negative”).  Here we’re talking about “negative” in the way a photographer would.  Something that represents a “contrasting opposite”; something that allows the positive to show: to even exist.

In his poem “On his blindness”, John Milton concludes his sonnet with the line: “They serve too, those who only stand and wait.”  I believe Milton was reflecting on the passive role blindness causes and yet, if seen in a deeper way,
that very passivity provides its own unique opportunity to serve God.

I would love to be able to fill every free moment at my disposal actively learning texts, but I have to “learn with joy” that the “down time” has its own place in the learning process!

Wishing you a Happy Shavuot - the festival that celebrates Divine Teaching!

                                                Mordecai Miller

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