What if the past isn't prelude?

Zen, motorcycles, ancient Greece, the Jews... and Maisie

I love this book. So do lots of other people. Since it was first published in 1974, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has sold more than five million copies in 25 languages to become the best-selling philosophy book of all time.

I’ve read it four times and always discover something new.

Last month, in the Afterword, I found the following:

This book has a lot to say about Ancient Greek perspectives and their meaning but there is one perspective it misses. That is their view of time. They saw the future as something that came upon them from behind their backs with the past receding away before their eyes.

When you think about it, that’s a more accurate metaphor than our present one. Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?

I imagine the millions of people who have read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, reflecting upon this Afterword and nodding in silent agreement. Yeah, exactly right! Who really can face the future? What else can we really know beyond what has already happened?

Well… consider this:

In the land of Israel, “the Jews begin to live morally — as the Japanese have done literally — in a house of paper: the Bible....

Here, probably long before the Greeks, they achieved the intellectual feat of composing a connected narrative of history — their own and that of the world — enmeshed in the five books of Moses. Here, a national identity was defined, perhaps for the first time, by articulating a philosophy of history.

And here, the idea of progress was first broached. In its time it was an absolutely sensational idea. Thucydides still thought it was worth writing the history of the Peloponnesian war because its events inevitably would be repeated. The scribes and prophets of Jerusalem challenged the prevailing notion that history necessarily moved in circles, repeating itself again and again. They invented utopia, the possibility of a better world. They enunciated hope on a grand scale. They postulated the possibility of a linear progression toward a better, more worthwhile life.”

How might we create a “better, more worthwhile life”? What is the ultimate source of this “hope on a grand scale”? On what basis should we believe that human history is not simply “one damn thing after another”? When Shakespeare’s Macbeth says, “Life… is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” why is he wrong?

Enter Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik:

CHAPTER VII: DESTINY, NOT CAUSALITY, GOVERNS JEWISH HISTORY

The Patriarchic Covenant introduced a new concept into history. While universal (non-Jewish) history is governed by causality, by what preceded, covenantal (Jewish) history is shaped by destiny, by a goal set in the future.

Universal history is of an etiological nature; every event is brought about by a preceding cause. Event A occurs and B follows, or, colloquially speaking, A begets B. Such history develops almost mechanically, origins determine events; the present is precipitated by the past. Most historians are guided by this principle, namely, that causality (or high probability) dictates unfolding events. When secular scholars try to interpret Jewish history in this manner, they inevitably arrive at bizarre conclusions and distortions.

Covenantal Jewish history, by contrast, is teleological, not etiological. This means that it is propelled by a purpose. What happens to Jews emanates from a Divine promise foretold about the future, rather than by events impelling from the past. Jewish history is pulled, as by a magnet, towards a glorious destiny; it is not pushed by antecedent causes. This is the meaning of the Patriarchic Covenant; it is a goal projected, a purpose pursued, a destination to be reached.

Dog spelled backward…

If words like “etiological” and “teleological” make your eyes glaze over, then simply remember the wisdom of my sidekick Maisie, who always keeps her eyes on the prize: an endless awareness of (and boundless gratitude for) life’s many blessings.

“This bed of grass and clover is so soft and cool… just perfect. The weather right now — simply gorgeous! That baseball — would you please throw it again? And what’s that I smell in your pocket? Do you have… BACON-FLAVORED TREATS??!! Mmmmm…”