In post-modern culture, the human mind seems particularly homeless. The traditional shelters no longer offer any shelter. Religion often seems discredited. Its language and authority structures seem to speak in the idiom of the distant past and seem powerless to converse with our modern hunger. Politics seems devoid of vision and is becoming ever more synonymous with economics. Consumerist culture worships accumulation and power; it establishes its own gaudy hierarchies. In admiring the achievement and velocity of these tiger economies, we refuse to notice the paw marks of its ravages and the unglamorous remains of its prey. All these factors contribute to the dissolution of real presence. The homeless mind is haunted by a sense of absence that it can neither understand nor transfigure. Indeed, in its desperation, it endeavours to fill every moment with some kind of forced presence. Our poor times suffer from unprecedented visual aggression and cacophony.
There is a great story about the loss of belonging in Gershom Scholem’s book Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. In the eighteenth century, there arose in Eastern Europe a remarkable mystical movement called Hassidism. Its founder was known as the Baal Shem Tov, and he was a religious genius and pioneer. One day, a calamity threatened the community in which he lived, and so he called his chief disciple and said, “Come, let us go out into the woods.”
And they went to a certain very special spot that the master seemed to know about, and he built a very special kind of fire, and then he offered a special prayer. He said, “Oh, God, Thy people are in dire need. Please help us in this moment of distress, etc.” Then to his disciple, he said, “It is all right now. Everything will be all right.”
They went back and found that, indeed, the calamity that had been impending somehow had been averted. The master died, and in the next generation, this disciple became the leader of the same group. And in his day, likewise, another major disaster threatened to wipe out the community.
Now, he took his chief disciple and they set out for the woods, but he had forgotten just where the exact place was, though he did remember how to light the fire. So he said, “Oh, God, I don’t know where the place is, but you are everywhere, so let me light the fire here. Your people need you, calamity threatens. Please, help.” And then after the prayer he turned to his disciple and said, “It is all right now.”
And when they returned to the town, they were greeted with the joyful news that the threat had been removed. Well, then, that disciple became the master in the next generation, and once again, a catastrophe was imminent.
This time he went out with his disciple. He no longer knew the place, and he had forgotten how to make the fire, but he still knew the prayer and he said, “God, I don’t know this place very well, but you are everywhere. I don’t know how to make the fire, but all the elements are in your hands. Your people need you. We ask your help.” Then he turned to his disciple and said, “Now it is all right. We may go back.”
They went back and everything indeed was all right. The story concludes by stating that today, we don’t know the place; we no longer know how to make the fire; we don’t even know how to pray. So all we can do is to tell the story, and to hope that somehow, the telling of the story itself will help us in this hour of need.