Can a Jew be Wabi Sabi?
Leonard Cohen, the composer, musician and poet, once penned these words:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There’s a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
___Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
Leonard Cohen, a Jew, was once-upon-a-time a Buddhist Monk. A “Jew-Bu”. Perhaps that answers the question - assuming that we understand Wabi Sabi...
This, it seems, is the latest “hot topic” and I come across it in many places. I, personally, have been a ‘practitioner’ of Wabi Sabi for many years - but I have come to it without it’s name and without it’s current Western direction. Let me explain.
As early as 1959~1962, the years that I lived “on the economy” in Japan, [meaning that I lived “off post”] I came to understand that the Japanese ceramists, in particular, would spend long hours laboring to make the most beautiful, symmetric, perfect, and pleasing pot and then intentionally ‘deface’ it in some manner. The thinking was that man was man and man was imperfect. G-d alone was perfect and therefore capable of creating something perfect. Thus the ceramists felt that they could not have the chutzpah (a good Japanese word) to create anything that was perfect.
Further they found beauty in the world around them {aha! the world itself, they found was imperfect!} in things that were both large and small. Here they found beauty and something to contemplate upon for years. The could learn something from nature. The Japanese would take a long time to choose, for example, a particular piece of wood to perform the lowly function of supporting the roof of their home. That piece of wood then became a focal point in the house. A place of beauty and and place of contemplation. A place where man could come to understand something of the nature of the world in which we live.
These “things” - man-made and natural alike - would age, gather a patina, and become more beautiful in old age. So they came to honor and seek the beauty and the knowledge of the “old”... the ‘senior citizen’ with wrinkles and a twisted body. From this thinking comes what we now see blossoming in the West (in America).
But before we go back to my first question, let me discuss Wabi Sabi from its current point-of-view; which, to my mind, is almost 180 degrees out of sync.
One of the discussions begins with the Tea Ceremony of the 16th Century CE and states that it was in this ceremony that the Japanese found a harmony with nature and respect for age, including themselves personally. To be content with what they had without ever striving for more... more... more. The current idea seems to be that the aesthetic to create something flawed came from the calm reflection generated by the Tea Ceremony. From that beginning the aesthetic for asymmetry, asperity, simplicity, modesty (?), intimacy (?) and the suggestion of natural processes [as opposed to ‘manufactured’] progressed. This seems the cart being placed squarely before the horse - or donkey - or yak...
In any case Wabi Sabi, it is said, nurtures all that is authentic (rather like the Arts & Crafts movement of the late 19th~early 20th century begat by William Morris) by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. Given that, we can see that the meaning of “Wabi” - which is near impossible to translate from the Japanese - is akin to loneliness of living in nature [existentialism?] and remote from society; and “Sabi” means chill, lean, or withered. [aside from the fact that these concepts came into the Japanese society in the 14th (!) Century, well before the Tea Ceremony time mentioned earlier...] Wabi now refers to rustic simplicity, freshness and/or quietness and can refer to both natural and man-made objects; while Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age (also: rust) - when the life of an object (person_) and its impermanence are evidences in it’s patina and wear or in visible repairs (face lifts?).
So now I think we can consider the question: can a Jew be Wabi Sabi? What about our concern for Tikkun Olam? Does that violate the precepts of Wabi Sabi? Is ‘repairing the world’ a correct translation or is ‘compleating the world a better way to think of it? It this the only problem that we would have as Jews in being/becoming Wabi Sabi?
This, it seems, is the latest “hot topic” and I come across it in many places. I, personally, have been a ‘practitioner’ of Wabi Sabi for many years - but I have come to it without it’s name and without it’s current Western direction. Let me explain.
As early as 1959~1962, the years that I lived “on the economy” in Japan, [meaning that I lived “off post”] I came to understand that the Japanese ceramists, in particular, would spend long hours laboring to make the most beautiful, symmetric, perfect, and pleasing pot and then intentionally ‘deface’ it in some manner. The thinking was that man was man and man was imperfect. G-d alone was perfect and therefore capable of creating something perfect. Thus the ceramists felt that they could not have the chutzpah (a good Japanese word) to create anything that was perfect.
Further they found beauty in the world around them {aha! the world itself, they found was imperfect!} in things that were both large and small. Here they found beauty and something to contemplate upon for years. The could learn something from nature. The Japanese would take a long time to choose, for example, a particular piece of wood to perform the lowly function of supporting the roof of their home. That piece of wood then became a focal point in the house. A place of beauty and and place of contemplation. A place where man could come to understand something of the nature of the world in which we live.
These “things” - man-made and natural alike - would age, gather a patina, and become more beautiful in old age. So they came to honor and seek the beauty and the knowledge of the “old”... the ‘senior citizen’ with wrinkles and a twisted body. From this thinking comes what we now see blossoming in the West (in America).
But before we go back to my first question, let me discuss Wabi Sabi from its current point-of-view; which, to my mind, is almost 180 degrees out of sync.
One of the discussions begins with the Tea Ceremony of the 16th Century CE and states that it was in this ceremony that the Japanese found a harmony with nature and respect for age, including themselves personally. To be content with what they had without ever striving for more... more... more. The current idea seems to be that the aesthetic to create something flawed came from the calm reflection generated by the Tea Ceremony. From that beginning the aesthetic for asymmetry, asperity, simplicity, modesty (?), intimacy (?) and the suggestion of natural processes [as opposed to ‘manufactured’] progressed. This seems the cart being placed squarely before the horse - or donkey - or yak...
In any case Wabi Sabi, it is said, nurtures all that is authentic (rather like the Arts & Crafts movement of the late 19th~early 20th century begat by William Morris) by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. Given that, we can see that the meaning of “Wabi” - which is near impossible to translate from the Japanese - is akin to loneliness of living in nature [existentialism?] and remote from society; and “Sabi” means chill, lean, or withered. [aside from the fact that these concepts came into the Japanese society in the 14th (!) Century, well before the Tea Ceremony time mentioned earlier...] Wabi now refers to rustic simplicity, freshness and/or quietness and can refer to both natural and man-made objects; while Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age (also: rust) - when the life of an object (person_) and its impermanence are evidences in it’s patina and wear or in visible repairs (face lifts?).
So now I think we can consider the question: can a Jew be Wabi Sabi? What about our concern for Tikkun Olam? Does that violate the precepts of Wabi Sabi? Is ‘repairing the world’ a correct translation or is ‘compleating the world a better way to think of it? It this the only problem that we would have as Jews in being/becoming Wabi Sabi?
And let’s consider what Leonard Cohen says in his poem:
Ring the bells that still can ring - Liberty ??
Forget your perfect offering - The “Perfect” offering at the Temple??
There’s a crack in everything - The need for Tikkun Olam??
That’s how the light gets in. - The universal metaphor for knowledge??
And now... can you understand how Wabi Sabi just might help a Jew become a better person?
How many more questions will beset you now?
Shabbat Shalom
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