Then comes a more difficult stage: What is my sin? Which of my actions testifies to the fact that I am avoiding my moral responsibility to someone or something? Where am I taking upon myself more than required, responsibility that isn’t mine at all – which is also a sin. And for the sin I have committed, what is my punishment?
Because the basis of Caspi’s concept is that all of us – secular, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox – worship idols of some sort, the student must identify his idol and what he sacrifices to this false god.
A test: What difficulties or suffering am I required to endure here? What is my complaint to God? Revelation: What new and surprising insight have I received? How did I know God in this exercise? Vision: What is a true vision that should guide me? What is a false vision? What is my mitzva? What am I obligated to do, what am I commanded to do out of all this? And what will my reward be? What is my prayer to God? That’s the format. That’s the language. And that’s the method of work.
The subjects can be extremely important, or very prosaic and mundane, which especially in the begninning is prefereable. In fact, Caspi prefers the second type. That, he says, is the way of Judaism. To take the time to work on the small things. That is the language of the sources. A comma and another and another. To do something small, not big. Not pretentious. The world according to Yair Caspi is not divided between the Orthodox and the secular, but between those who have true gods and those who do not. Between those who recognize that they are idol worshipers and make an effort to part from their idols, and those who do not. The goal should be to find God in the details of life.
In effect, all of us are idol worshipers to some degree, and each of us has many idols to serve. Caspi speaks of those who worship the god of conformity, who have to be like everyone else; those who worship the god of family, who are convinced that the unity of the family is the only secret of happiness; those who worship children, who believe that only their offspring will bring them their desired happiness; those who worship the god of parents, of the nation, the land; those who worship Jewish law and are willing to sacrifice the present in order to preserve the past. The most common type of worshiper is one who worships happiness, excellence, love, youth, beauty. There are worshipers of the god of spirituality, who want to keep all the other gods for themselves – those who worship career, shopping, happiness or love, but one day a week want to acquire some spirituality for themselves, which will create the illusion that they are beyond the worship of all the other things. “If you are going to worship a god in any case,” says Caspi, “why go for poor imitations?”
When the world fell apart
What causes a secular person, a psychologist, an average Jerusalem yuppie, to write such a book, to establish such a program and in general, to start searching for God? Caspi doesn’t like to talk about his personal life, yet as he mentions in the book that when he was younger his world fell apart: his parents divorced and he suffered abuse and neglect. Yet, that suffering led him to a search for himself. After years of therapy, during which he became a therapist himself, and after endless experiences of self-revelation, he felt he was returning to the starting point: Lost. Confused. Not satisfied with himself. Not happy.
