Bosmat Niron

Manifesto

PASTORAL PROJECT / Sublime Nature – Bosmat Niron

The affinity to God passes through the proximity to nature

“When God created Adam, God led him around all of the trees in the Garden of Eden, God told him”, See how beautiful and praiseworthy all of my works are. Everything I have created for your sake. Think of this and do not corrupt the world; for if you corrupt it, there will be no one to set it right after you”1).

This Midrash presents the personal responsibility of every human being for the fate of the creation. The good will and morality could set right the world we live in, the repair (Tikun) is in our hands. “World, in a dual meaning: the world of the family of man (including its races, members and friends, as well as its tribes) and the cosmos. The value-oriented concept “Tikun” (“repair”) is found here implicitly, in a form of the verb Letaken (t. k. n.), whereby setting the world right and uplifting it is the task and destination of man”2). Also the opposite of this, namely destruction, exploitation or the ruin of the world is in our hands as well.

Ethics seeks to contain knowledge, and Kant presents an a priori connection to the values of beauty and esthetics, hence to nature and ethics. “He who shall be able to see well the things as they are – shall see the sign of unity in all 3). The beautiful is the symbol of the ethical good (4. Spinoza too believes that the same divine element in man’s spirit, namely the mind, is the only one capable of guiding man to lead a moral life according to virtue. “It would be in fact impossible to envisage a feeling about the sublime in nature without intertwining it with a state of mind resembling the ethical sentiment” 5)

In the “ethical world”, “all people were happy” 6). Consequently, we are to hope that the rules of morality shall operate and make a hope come true in this world of ours. Take action so that your deeds may be in accord with the realm of possible purposes. This realm of purposes is the highest-level ultimate goal. The realm of purposes should be equated with the idea of “the ethical world” 7 ). _________________________________________________ 1. Ecclesiastes Rabbah, 7, 13. 2. Anselm Kiefer, Tel Aviv Museum; Mordechai Omer, 2001, p. 14. 3. (In Hebrew): Dialogue with God, Union Mystique in the Philosophy of Shlomo Ibn Gevirol and Johannes Scotus Erigena, by Idit Shaked, Resling Publishing Company, page 262. 4. (In Hebrew): Critique of Judgment, pg. 165. 5. (In Hebrew): Ethics, Spinoza and Nietzsche, by Shay Sprugel, Carmel Publishing Company, pp. 214-217. 6. (In Hebrew): The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, by Shmuel Hugo Bergman, Magnes Press, the year 5763 (2003), p. 84. 7. (In Hebrew): The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, by Shmuel Hugo Bergman, Magnes Press, the year 5763 (2003), p. 93.