What Planet Are You From?

By jonathan barker, Student

Analysis of essays by Jonathan Boyarin, David Abram, and Alexander Stille

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Jonathan Barker
English 101
Rutgers College

What Planet Are You From?

In Jonathan Boyarin’s Essay, “Waiting For A Jew,” he describes his experiences in searching for his Jewish identity. Boyarin grew up in a Jewish community in which he was amerced in Jewish traditions and culture. As Boyarin grew older, he began to stray from the Jewish identity that was part of his childhood. He begins to search for this part of his identity once again by seeking the communities that are similar to the ones he once was a part of. The communities that Boyarin feels a part of are marginal communities, meaning they are on the outskirts of mass society. David Abram also correlates the role of marginality with the identity of the community. Abram and Boyarin identify some sort of wholeness in the community that that can relate to themselves. In his essay, Alexander Stille views the Indian community as marginal, but fails to make any type of connection that would lead us to believe that he finds a wholeness throughout the community. Abram and Boyarin both draw out of the communities’ cultural traditions and landscape a strong connection of common identifying aspects in which they can place themselves in the community.
Stille diverges from this perspective that identity is preserved in the cultural tradition and landscape. In his essay, Mishra’s technique of “trying to incorporate what is best from the West in order to preserve the Hindu traditions that he loves” would not make sense in the context of Abram’s and Boyarin’s communal sense of identities. Both Boyarin and Abram make it clear that it is because of their community’s marginality that it is able to preserve such a strong sense of identity within its members. On the other hand, Mishra is attempting to lose India’s marginality and replace it with a community that is highly adaptable, allowing its own deep traditions to change by becoming incorporated into mass society.
Abram and Boyarin tap into a closer sense of their own identity by becoming more intune with their community, which they view as whole and connected. They both experience this closeness within themselves and the community for a time. For Boyarin, it was as a child growing up in the Farmingdale community. For Abram, it was becoming part of the Balinese community. After the authors diverge from these worlds, they spend their time trying to find the sense of identity they experienced while they were part of these communities. What they find, however, is that they cannot replicate that sense of wholeness in another time of place. This leads us to the question, which part of the whole are they looking at when they discover a deeper knowledge of their identity? They might find a reflection of the absolute whole in a given time and place, but this is only an illusion. This is not the big picture, only a small reflection of it.
Boyarin tries to connect himself to his community by following certain traditions of the Jewish community. In doing this, he able to fulfill a stronger sense of identity within himself. He says, “Internally, I begin to understand that an identifiably Jewish head covering places its own claims on the one who wears it…[P]eople want to know who he is as a Jew. And if he does not know, the desire for peace of mind will spur further his effort to shape an identity” (158). By following traditions, such as the wearing of the yarmulke, Boyarin is brought more tightly together with the people of his own faith. In being closer together with other Jewish people that contain Jewish identities similar to his own, Boyarin’s own sense of Jewish identity is strengthened.
However, it was not Boyarin’s intention to attract other Jews by wearing the Yarmulke. Although, when he is in Paris, it does attract other Jews initially to him, but then he finds that his connection with these Jews is not a matter of externalities. He finds that his connection to his fellow Jews runs very deep as a matter of common history. They recognize each other as brothers, coming from the same roots. One of Boyarin’s experiences in Paris illustrates this sense of brotherhood that runs deep throughout the Jewish people. He writes, “I am spotted wearing my yarmulke by a young North African Jew who makes me understand, in broken English, that he studies at the Lubavitch yeshiva in Paris. He buys me a Paris guidebook and sets me on my way in the Metro” (157). The young North African Jew spotted Boyarin as a fellow Jew who looked lost and was happy to do a mitzvah by helping him out.
However, as Boyarin discovers, this Jewish sense of common identity is not consistent. He discovers after meeting an old Polish Jew that there is some animosity between different sects of Jews. This is where Boyarin’s internal struggle for his own identity as a Jew comes into play. Boyarin seeks out to discover what being a Jew means to him. Is the Jewish faith divided among its followers, or is there a commonality that runs through all Jewish blood?
In Abram’s essay, “The Ecology of Magic,” he experiences as similar internal struggle. Abram finds himself in the Balinese community that he views as whole, just as Boyarin viewed his childhood Jewish community as whole. Abram learns in this community about his own identity in relation to the rest of the natural world in a similar way that Boyarin learned about his own identity in relation to the rest of the Jewish community. However, when Abram relocates back to the west, he discovers he begins to lose his identity in relation to the natural landscape. He began to “lose [his] sense of the animals’ own awareness” that shaped his identity while he was in Bali. (17). Abram was able to preserve this sense of identity in Bali because this community was on the boundary of mass society. Therefore, its cultural traditions, such as the shaman’s role as an intermediary between the human community and the natural landscape, could be preserved just as the Jewish traditions have been preserved for thousands of years, forging a strong tie to its roots. However, the question could also be asked; if Abram was capable of forging a connection between his life and the natural world in Bali, what stopped him from forging this connection in the west? Was it because the natural landscape was incapable of having such a connection, or was it that Abrams perspective of the landscape in the west was different than that from Bali?
This leads to the question, what shapes one’s beliefs, and with that, one’s identity? Is it the culture that one is born into, or the frame of reference that one takes? Mishra is born into the Indian culture, for example, but his sense of identity is shaped by the frame of reference he chooses to adopt. Unlike most Indians, Mishra perceives life through a scientific and religious perspective. In doing this, Mishra’s identity is shaped by the medium through which he views the world. The same is true with Boyarin and Abram’s formation of identity. Both of these authors were able to take a specific frame of reference in the marginal societies in which they lived. Once they moved out of these communities, for example, the Farmingdale community for Boyarin and the Balinese community for Abram, their frame of reference changed, and with that their identity also slightly changed.
It was easier for Abram and Boyarin to hold on to their specific frames of reference in their respective communities because of these communities marginality. Both Abram and Boyarin point out that a community’s dependency on each other serves in the preservation of a common identity. Because marginal communities are small in relation to mass society, its members become dependent on one another to keep it from diverging from it’s own traditions; exactly what Mishra is perpetuating. Boyarin uses a Parable as an example to explain this sense of dependency and common identity among the Jewish community. He writes, “It was almost ten o’clock, and there was no minyan. Since everyone seemed content to wait patiently, I assumed that someone else had promised to come, and asked, ‘Who are we waiting for?’…Eventually a Jew came along” (167). In Stille’s essay, an adaptble culture takes the place of this dependency on one another throughout the community. Instead, the people rely more and more on technology instead of each other. For example, instead of relying on people in the community to make a traditional funeral when a family member dies, now all one has to do is throw them in one of the incinerators.
Both Abram and Boyarin understand the importance of tradition in persevering identity. This identity comes from within, so that, even if people differ in many other terms, the inner drive to preserve their identity that comes from their common beliefs keeps the traditions alive. To illustrate this relationship between tradition and common identity, Boyarin gives the example of “two men who were unwilling to abandon the synagogue because their fathers had both been presidents of it at one time.” “If they had been able to agree on anything besides continuing to come to the shul, the shul might not have survived this long” (159). Similarly, in the Balinese community Abram becomes a part of the common tradition lies in living in harmony with nature. It is through this tradition that Abram has discovered his identity as a “[body] formed…in delicate reciprocity with the manifold textures, sounds, and shapes of an animate earth…” (15).
Stille, Abram, and Boyarin all seek an image of wholeness within their own identity and within their community. This wholeness that Boyarin remembers as a child growing up in Farmingdale comes not from externalities, but from an internal connection. Following traditions is what keeps the people of the community in touch with this common internal connection. Abram recognized the connection in relation to the ancient traditions of the shaman. Abram found strength in his identity after experiencing the role of the shaman as an intermediary “between the human community and the natural landscape.” Abram also mentions “Western industrial society, of course, with its massive scale and hugely centralized economy, can hardly be seen in relation to any particular landscape or ecosystem…” (15). This image of wholeness is lost to the transient mass society. It is only from the outskirts of society that Abram has the perspective of an image of wholeness. However, this does not mean there is not wholeness in the mass of society; maybe it just cannot be viewed when one is in the center of it.
Mishra seeks wholeness in the balance between his religious life and his scientific life. However, in doing so, he might not be placing enough emphasis on the preservation of his traditions in place of a widening culture circle. Mishra does not recognize what Boyarin has stated; it is because of his culture’s marginality that it draws enough strength to preserve these traditions and retain its identity.
Boyarin discovers that when looking to closely at his culture he finds different ‘frame of reference[s]’ among the people, such as the Polish Jew who found no place to go among the North African Jews. The question is, where does one look to find the ultimate connection; the ultimate sense of wholeness? For myself and other Jews, together with people of other religions, it is found in God. Abram found his connection within himself and to nature in what Boyarin and other Jews would consider a small part of God, namely, what He has created. It is all a matter of what ‘frame of reference’ one chooses to look from. The part of one’s identity that remains up to them is where they choose to take this frame of reference. Similarity in one’s belief systems causes a common sense of identity. For example, Abram identified with the people of Bali because they believed in a connection throughout nature. Boyarin could identify with other Jews because they had the same fundamental belief system rooted it the Jewish religion. Stillle identified with the Indian people on some aspects because of his religious upbringing and with western society on some aspects because of his scientific training. All three authors take small frames of reference of the big picture. Therefore, their identities are shaped in different ways. Their different frames of reference are what shape their identities. This raises the question; is it possible to put together all frames of reference in order to see the entire picture, so to speak? In examining the authors’ different perspectives, it is apparent that there is wholeness within wholeness.