Lorenza Colzato and her colleagues at the Cognitive Psychology Department & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC) collaborated with researchers from the University of Bologna (Italy) and Ben-Gurion University (Israel). They investigated a group of diverse subjects as to whether they look at details or at the bigger picture. They tested various different religious people including orthodox Jews.
The findings? What do you expect? I asked several people what they expected. Before I disclose the interesting results of this project, let’s first discuss what potential advantages and disadvantages there are to both sides of the debate.
Interestingly, everybody I asked said they thought that orthodox Jews would be particularly in to the detail. Why? Because most of the actions we do are governed by details. When we wake up there are details how do to so. When we daven, eat etc there are more details. Every mitzvah is saturated with different details and nuances.
Detail is very important too. My son Akiva is a stickler for detail. Often when I want to compliment him on his attention to every detail I say to him, “its good to be into the detail – Hashem is in the detail” (not my line). We know that this is Divine Providence – Hashem cares about everything in this world down to the minutest things.
Famously there is a story of a Jewish anti-Semite, who stood up in the Polish Government maybe 100 years ago and was mocking the Jewish religion that has laws even about which order to cut your fingernails. A Catholic Pole who was present retorted back to him, “How special is a religion that can find meaning even in cutting ones nails!” Within every bit of detail lies meaning.
However there is a grave danger with the detail; a danger that is emerging particularly nowadays. We can sometimes lose the sight of the forest for the trees! We can become so overly detail oriented that we lose sight of the more general picture.
Scrupulous mitzvah observance is in our generation like never before. While earlier generations were saturated with meaning and innate awareness of the job of a Jew, nowadays we often see a saturation of meticulous observance but without the deep underlying fabric that made a Jew – say fifty years ago.
I heard this very idea expressed at the eulogy by R’ Avigdor Brazil on his father. He bemoaned the fact that his father and his father’s generation were a generation of “klal” (general) and we unfortunately have become a generation of the “p’rat” (detail). Allow me to explain.
At the Eulogy of the Chofetz Chaim, Reb Elchonon Wasserman said, “look what Hashem said when he eulogised Moshe. The sum total of Moshe’s life was a mere two words, “Eved Hashem” – “Servant of G-d”. That was all Hashem said about him! One could have written a long list of all the great achievements of Moshe but what is even greater is to combine all these into an all encompassing mission statement”.
To be a “klal” (general) person means to have an underlying central mission statement around which all the details in your life fit. In every action, every mitzvah rather than get lost in the nitty gritty detail – we need to remember the mission statement of Moshe – “Servant of G-d”.
A simple parable will bring out the point. When I was in school I used to go for football training. One of the most gruelling exercises the manager put us through was to play ‘passing football’. Rather than there being goals to score, the idea of the game was just to string passes together. The reason it was so gruelling was because since there were no goals, direction of play was everywhere! You had to do a tremendous amount of running to be successful.
To be running only after detail, without any ultimate goal, can be extremely detrimental to our quest of becoming a “Servant of G-d”. We get stuck in the trap where we just pass the ball around, but lose sight of where and what our goals are.
This concept is borne out by R’ M Miller. In this week’s Parshah we are told about the managing directors for the building of the tabernacle. “And Betzalel the son of Uri, the son of Chur, of the tribe of Yehuda, carried out all that Hashem had commanded Moshe. And with him; O’holiov the son of Achisomach of the tribe of Dan, a craftsman and skilled weaver, and an embroiderer in blue, purple and scarlet, and in linen”.
A stark contrast between the description of Betzalel and that of O’holiov is presented here. O’holiov’s talents are multifaceted; we are told explicitly in which areas he excels. Betzalel however is awarded no such detail. We are told simply that he “obeyed the word of Hashem”.
We know that Betzalel who was all of thirteen was quite a talented Bar Mitzvah boy! He had knowledge of every type of work, he was an expert craftsman with every type of material, he was also already on the level of direct Divine Inspiration and knew how to combine certain names of Hashem with which the world was created and was needed in order to build the Tabernacle. However in this week’s Parshah there seems to be a deliberate omission of these qualities. Why?
R’ Miller beautifully explains: All of Betzalel’s achievements could be summed up by one unifying factor – he obeyed the word of Hashem. This was a much higher level then breaking down his achievements to individual points.
R’ Miller compares this to the two prophecies of Yeshaya (Isaiah) and Yecheskal (Ezekiel) – who both merited a mystical vision of the Throne of Glory, and the Heavenly chariot, and both recorded the awesome experience. Yechezkal’s description is long and detailed, whereas Yeshaya’s account consists of a mere three verses. The Gemora points out that both of them saw the exact same thing! R’ Miller draws form here a parallel to Betzalel and O’holiov. The lack of detail with Yeshaya teaches us that he managed to unify what he saw, to condense it down to its very essence.
And now for the result of the survey! Orthodox Jewry scored high in the ‘bigger picture outlook’! While detail is of utmost importance as we explained [think – cutting fingernails] we should stay focused on the goal of everything. The total is often more than just the sum of all the parts! May we merit to see not just the trees but the forest, and to score many goals!
Good Shabbos, Yaakov