Wasting Away

Patner, Myra Mensh

Wasting Away Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage by Robert Coles Addison-Wesley, 1987.224 pp, $1726 Reviewed by Myra Mensh Patner What are we to make of the seemingly endless fascination that the...

...Weil herself, ever full of conflicts and contradictions, refused to be baptized, though she wrote a letter suggesting baptism for her niece...
...When she died, largely unknown, in 1943 at the age of 34, willfully refusing to eat so that she would waste away from tuberculosis, she had never published any books...
...He chooses, instead, to view her in the tradition of a long line of saintly mystics, like one of the ' 'desert fathers who were so relentlessly self-critical...
...The Joy of Shahbat, Tht Joy of Klezmrr Muiit...
...Weil was the daughter of a successful A Seder Primer The Joy of Passover: How to Create One Passover Seder You'll Never Forget in&titule Iv Cttltrvc J«wi*ft M«*J 1967 30 minute WS 95 flfeL/feifted Gy ftfen Epstein The alliance of technology and tradition moves another step forward with Thr Joy of Poisot^ a 3Q-minutc videotape on how to conduct a seder...
...They point out that each family also has its own traditions, which may van somcw hat from those portrayed...
...In his concluding chapter, Coles suggests that "hers was a modern pilgrimage . . . her journey is ours...
...We see them on a beach, dressed in "Egyptian" garb, re-enacting the Exodus...
...Maryland...
...He refuses almost entirely to describe her in psychological terms...
...Maybe we need a Christian sense of sin and penitence, of self-abnegation and suffering, to feel anything near Coles's appreciation for this sad, and from a Jewish point of view, very sick young woman...
...all suggest saintly ascetics from the Christian tradition...
...The narrator explains how to make a roasted egg, telling the viewer to pierce the ends of the hard-boiled egg with a sewing needle before roasting it< Charms is described in detail, as are all the other symbols: Elijah's cup...
...and a co-auinor of Recoid and Remember Tracing Your Roots Through Oral History and The Bar Bar Mitivth PlttttmtH To «d»f thi* video and the books renewed here, see p 58...
...Coles gives only a cursory outline of her life, but examines her moral and political writings in depth...
...they don't do justice to the mind's lively, ever-fluctuating rhythms...
...Her thrusts at Jewry demean her and have made many of us who admire her cringe," admits Coles...
...Also lacking is a traditional definition of t/iamrlz Neither the tape nor the booklet explains what rhamttz means, except [u -i.iic that 11 is "leavened bread," Viewers may conclude that only bread and cake fall into the category oUhanvlz, and never realize that many other substances contain thamttz...
...Coles places Weil "in the tradition of Rousseau and Plato . . . [individuals] of ideas who take on politics through writing...
...At several points* the children act out part uf the story...
...The story is told through pictures, words, music and pi ay-acting...
...and Tht Joy of Tztdnkah...
...Within a decade of her death, word of her provocative political thinking and her life of mystical experience had spread across Europe to the United States, and her writings were published, first in French and later in translation...
...It's as though she prefigured the 1960s marches on Washington, D.C., the War on Poverty and the civil rights movement—some of his own important interests, as documented in his many books...
...She "made any number of utterly foolish or unrealistic proposals, both radical and conservative...
...Myra Mensh Patner is a freelance feature writer in Washington, D.C...
...And if he could not alter his attraction to her, at least he might finally understand it...
...He also had the good fortune to be close enough to Anna Freud to discuss Weil with her on numerous occasions...
...For her, the Crucifixion was the critical point of all history," writes Coles...
...In explaining why he held back from such words as masochism and aggression, for instance, he says, "Psychological explanations have a way of being all too static...
...Her family escaped from the Nazis to New York City in 1942, but she insisted on returning to England to work for the French Resistance...
...The Joy oj Foiwivr is a. superb tool for learning about Passover and making a seder for the first time...
...Her strange, even bizarre life, with its almost medieval, self-flagellating quality, her asceticism, her sympathy »W the oppressed, her rejection of the world most of us love and thrive on, her spiritual search and eventual embrace of Jesus, all seem to have exerted as strong a pull on Coles as her political thought...
...Yet although he is a psychoanalyst as well as a writer, Coles resists the easy labels for Weil that naturally come to mind...
...Unable to explain his "continuing personal entanglement with this perplexing figure," Coles pondered and wrote about her from time to time...
...He finds that her essays contain penetrating and prescient observations on ' 'classes, castes, and cultures, of nations and empires as they have exerted themselves on the stage of history...
...If all of these videos arc as well done as Tfu Joy •I'-.- , 1. they will educate and spark the interest ofa certain group of Jews who might then continue their studies and increase their observances...
...She had a Utopian vision in which "the nation's various social and economic constituencies would live side by side in a spirit of camaraderie and cooperative effort...
...to produce programs that+ 'will awaken in people .in HpjH-n MiirjTi trhr theii histurii al origins and the cultural traditions that have evolved over the general ions,'* The Weinsteins say the best way to sensitize people to their own traditions is through an educational process that is as enjoyable as it is instructional The Weinsteins and their children and Cantors Don and Faith Gurney are the stars of the video seder...
...the roasted shankbone, the bitter herbs, the parsley, the three matiiohs, the four cup* or wine, the afikorntn...
...The YYeinateim and the ICJM slate that they "have attempted to remain as "traditional' as passible in [their] descriptions and demonstrations/' Yes and no...
...It's as though we might dismiss her as a screwball rather than see her as a holy woman...
...Here is what she said: "Repression could be exercised against the press, radio broadcasts, or anything else of a similar kind, not only for offenses against moral principles publicly recognized, but also for baseness of tone and thought, bad taste, vulgarity, or a subtly corrupting moral atmosphere...
...L'nfortunately, the video fails to convey the sense (hat at a real srdcr, blessings and haggadah readings are interspersed with impromptu discussions...
...He seems to fear that by giving in to a desire to view Weil's sad, tortured life psychologically (Coles calls her life "haunting and unnerving") her saintly attributes and life of sympathy for the downtrodden might be negated...
...he asks...
...Jewish Paris physician and his wife...
...Coles must have recognized that the only way he was going to come to terms with his attraction to this troubled, idiosyncratic woman was to face all parts of her as unflinchingly as one must face all parts of oneself in any successful psychoanalysis...
...At the same time, Weil's glaring intellectual contradictions and her intense Jewish self-hatred added a disturbing, uncomfortable quality to her appeal...
...A female cantor wearing akippah is inconsistent with traditional practices...
...She lost several teaching jobs because she demonstrated in the streets for unemployed workers and marched with miners' unions...
...Her dreams of martyrdom (such as her wish to be parachuted behind German lines to fight the Nazis...
...Passover is among the most com-manly celebrated Jewish holidays...
...Coles terms her "a nun of sorts . . . who was anxious to meet [God], maybe become one of his saints...
...Such extremist statements—and Coles examines many—make Weil seem a peculiar choice for reverence among intellectuals...
...The Weinsteins and the ICJM arc currently working on Tht Joy of Chanukah, Thr Joy of Punm...
...For example, in the video, the children hide the afikomtn and hold it for ransom until they are promised a priste, while in our family, an adult hides it and the children must lind it...
...Yet as Coles analyzes her political and moral ideas, he notices time and again how flawed they are...
...and even an empty chair representing our Soviet brethren who cannot have a seder...
...This substitution is never noted, either in the video or the accompanying booklet...
...Christ himself came down and took possession of me," she wrote to a Catholic priest...
...This is what my family and 1 enjoy most at our seders...
...For the Jewish reader less taken with the inherent value of self-denial and asceticism, for whom choosing life is a higher value than death and suffering, whose spine shudders at Jewish self-hatred, it may be hard to appreciate Weil...
...It is no accident that Coles's first exposure to Weil was in a course called "Classics of the Christian Tradition," nor is it by chance that she is often grouped with such Christian thinkers as Pascal and Kierkegaard...
...But the majority of the half-hour shows a mock seder in its entirety, with clear oral explanations and with transliterated Hebrew words katpai, Frierh, ofiko-rrurn+ etc) presented visually on the screen...
...her self-effacement and renunciation of worldly sensations...
...Her hunger was for God," writes Coles, "not for a slim waistline...
...She took menial factory jobs, and though her health was fragile, she operated stamping presses and milling machines, all the while intensifying her compassion for the underclass...
...They may also be puzzled by Weil's hold on such brilliant thinkers as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Robert Coles, though a Jewish woman more saintly than many Christian martyrs may be an irony to appreciate...
...Ron and Marlynn Block Weinstein of West Simsbury, Connecticut, have founded the Institute for Creative Jewish Media (ICJM...
...Her friend Gustave Thibon, a priest, has told of the many times Weil spoke of the Jewish roots of anti-Semitism...
...It is a strp-by-step guide fur those families who wish to have a seder but don't krum where to begin...
...Tht Joy of Haaoitr helps to bring about that understanding...
...As the ICJM booklet Mates...
...An understanding of the history and signiii-cancc of traditions is a major component or Judaism...
...Ellen Epstein is director of The Center tor Orel Hist Dry Chevy Chase...
...It is tempting to see obvious parallels between Weil's life and Coles's interests: Weil broke away from her bourgeois background by immersing herself in the life of the French working class, the downtrodden, the poor...
...Weil "somehow neglects to spell out the mechanisms which would control her Utopian policies and programs," he finds...
...The writers have substituted Adttihtm 'the Namej Tor Adonoi [Lord/ and Eloktynu lor Eto-htynu, since according to tradition, one does not mention God's name if one is only practicing or demonstrating a blessing...
...She showed how "throughout history, workers became the property of a handful of men...
...And what is he to make of her intense Jewish self-hatred...
...A shudder arises when we contemplate the life of Simone Weil," writes Coles...
...On on,e of these, Freud suggested that Coles write a book about Weil...
...Wasting Away Simone Weil: A Modern Pilgrimage by Robert Coles Addison-Wesley, 1987.224 pp, $1726 Reviewed by Myra Mensh Patner What are we to make of the seemingly endless fascination that the Jewish writer and mystic Simone Weil holds not only for Robert Coles, who has been studying, musing and writing about her since his student days in the early 1950s, but for numerous other intellectuals as well...
...Those who wish 10 enrich their family seders, but already know the seder's basic stories, songs, food and tone should look to other sources for help...
...The Joy of Passoifr is definitely a beginner-level course in seder-making...
...On the other hand, someone trying to learn the blessings directly from this tape would learn them incorrectly...
...It will be useful Ibr Jews who never had a seder and wish to return to some type of Jewish tradition* for intermarried couples, for schools wanting to teach non-Jewish students the story of Passover, and for participants in adult interfaith programs anxious to understand a major Jewish holiday...
...Yet she was an early skeptic about leftist ideology and was critical of the Soviet state when it was fashionable 'for the Left to be admiring...
...Coles seems full of admiration for Weil's efforts to ally herself with the workers, the disenfranchised, the have' nots...
...her excessive self-denial (she had a long history of self-imposed eating restrictions, little sleep, refusal to be physically touched by anyone...
...Coles is equally fascinated with Weil's religious "pilgrimage": he describes her mystical experiences, in which she felt God summoning her to such a degree that ultimately she became "a slave to Jesus...
...But the Jewish reader may not feel at one with her journey...
...For example, Weil blithely embraced repression of the mass media...
...She concluded that the Hebraic tradition had negated the divine inspiration of Christianity...
...Weil wrote of facilitating the disappearance of the Jewish minority through intermarriage and Christian upbringing for future Jewish generations...
...Jews who were saddened by the recent beatification of Edith Stein ("Watching Tante Edith Become Teresa, Blessed Martyr of the Church," September 1987) as well as puzzled, even troubled, by her "pilgrimage" to sainthood may be equally puzzled by Simone Weil's spiritual journey...
...This is that book, an extension of his fascination and perhaps an attempt, if not to get Weil out of his system, at least to come to terms with his attraction to her by exploring major facets of her life and thinking...
...Without this understanding, Judaism becomes empty and devoid of meaning...
...And she was writing: journals, essays, letters...
...Robert Coles was attracted to Weil as soon as he learned of her through his teachers—Perry Miller, and later Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich...
...She had published some scholarly academic essays in obscure French magazines, kept journals and left a body of letter-essays sent to people she found sympathetic...
...Coles points out how "dogmatic and arbitrary" Weil could be, how "dangerous if not ridiculously abstract she could become...
...How can she be so blind, so willfully obtuse...
...Weil saw "the modern state as the single most influential presence in the lives of rootless people...

Vol. 13 • April 1988 • No. 2


 
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