Bindings

[Ref: David Brooks, New York Times, April 14, 2014:: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/15/opinion/a-long-obedience.html?ref=davidbrooks&_r=0]

In this piece, David Brooks takes a new look at Moses and the story of Exodus, a story of heroic liberation and “unbinding” from oppression.  In fact, the struggle for unbinding liberation from oppression permeates the history of the entire world.  Some uprisings are successful and some not; viz., the “Arab Spring” nations, Beijing, Tehran, Kiev, and countless others.  The key question is why the difference in outcome?  Why do some uprisings succeed and some fail? 

As Brooks points out, the Exodus story does not end with liberation – with the escape from unjust laws and unjust persecution.  Successful and sustainable unbinding uprisings are accompanied by a rebinding of the citizenry to new and higher-order and more just laws.  As Brooks puts it: “Liberating to freedom is the easy part.  RE-binding with just order and accepted compulsion is the hard part.”   

Whoa!  “Accepted compulsion”?  Alternative terms might be voluntarily yoked, submissive/ subjected subservience.  But the view here is of an enlightened, engaged, participatory, communally anchored and endorsed compulsion aimed toward higher purpose, principles and possibilities.    

Of course, the legal “bindings” Moses laid out for the Israelites were anything but “voluntary” or “participatory”, except in terms of acquiescence or “accepted compulsion”.   

Extremely important, Brooks points out, “ … the first people who need to be bound down [to the law] are the leaders themselves.”  Such a view stands in stark contrast to the innate tendency of leaders to think of themselves as essentially “makers of the law” or “caretakers and enforcers of the law”, and, thus, separate from the law or “above the law”. 

 

However, with sanctionable leadership appropriately bound, “ … Exodus is a reminder that … good laws can nurture better people.  … the general vision is that the laws serve many practical … purposes. For example, they provide a comforting [guiding] structure for daily life ...

The laws tame the ego and create habits of deference by reminding you of your subordination to something permanent [and unassailable] … The laws build community by anchoring belief in common practices … The laws moderate the pleasures; they create guardrails that are meant to restrain people from going off to ... extremes.

The 20th-century philosopher Eliyahu Dessler wrote, “the ultimate aim of all our service is to graduate from freedom to compulsion.” Exodus provides a vision of movement that is different from mere escape and liberation. The Israelites are simultaneously moving away and being bound upward.”

Point to Ponder

Our “bindings” most graphically define us.  Bindings to family, culture, job/career, habits, fraternities/sororities, religious affiliations, political persuasions, dreams, goals, principles, etc., determine, in largest part, who we are – and where we are BOUND.  Bindings contain both visioning and vectoring attributes, which, together, drive onward and upward progression.  

Paradoxically, without higher order bindings, we are not more liberated but are even more constrained … “saddled” by lower order “default” bindings (appetites, vices and “victimhood”) that are patently impermanent, non-constructive and unsustainable. 

On the “flip” side, a person is never so free to fly as when he has hitched his wagon to a star.  And a kite can’t rise unless or until it is appropriately anchored.  Moreover one can soar higher with more “Unbridled Spirit” when bound to a Dream.  The difference is a difference between aimless wandering and targeted vectoring – also akin to the difference between pursuit of a golden egg and a chase after the next jelly bean. 

Other Points to Ponder

Habits reflect and reinforce our bindings – either upward or downward. 

Discipline in the execution of principles and practicalities associated with our “bindings”

largely determines the direction and distance we will go.

Final Thought: The “Greatest Good” may, in fact, be the act of binding oneself with “accepted compulsion” to a Dream or Destiny or Ideal or Mission or Purpose or Passion that is not only worth living for but worth dying for.  Quartermaster