Forman Opines on Tzimtzum

David Streeter — January 7, 2010 – 12:57 pm | Obama Comments (0) Add a comment

Ira N. Forman, NJDC CEO and research director of the nonprofit Solomon Project, published a new article in this month’s issue of Sh’ma, a journal of contemporary Jewish issues, discussing the concept of tzimtzum in the context of presidential leadership. Tzimtzum is defined as “the contraction or withdrawal of infinite, divine light to allow for a space for human free will” and Forman characterizes it as “a model for the divine creativity that allowed for the existence of a material universe.” Forman then uses the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy along with their major milestones—slavery and civil rights, respectively— to show that refraining from direct leadership until the right time (when there is a consensus) can be more effective for enacting historical change than an activist approach. Forman wrote of President Barack Obama’s current health care reform initiative:

... the outcome of President Barack Obama’s proposal for health care reform is unknown. However, the drive for legislative reform of the national health care system has made more progress than ever before in American history. Taking a lesson from President Clinton’s failure to enact health reform legislation with a top-down legislative approach in 1993-1994, Obama has held back and withdrawn from trying to dictate the specifics of health care reform. Rather, Obama’s strategy has been to articulate broad principles for reform, let congressional leadership take the lead on drafting legislation, and only intervene at critical moments in the legislative process. When historians assess presidential greatness, it is usually activist presidents who receive the highest grades. But in the three examples of presidential leadership above, presidents held back from exercising direct leadership until the right moment - until a public or legislative consensus emerged.

Forman continued and concluded:

Similarly, in Jewish tradition, there are both active and passive models of divine leadership. In the Tanakh, God intervenes time and time again to direct human history. The trauma of exile and God’s apparent unwillingness to intervene directly again was the historical context for Isaac Luria’s model of tzimtzum, or divine withdrawal. Coupled with that withdrawal is the requirement that members of the scattered Jewish nation exercise free will and collect the fragments of divine light in order to repair the world. Although divine power is unlimited, it relies on human free will to complete history. Activist political leadership, which is severely limited, is also clearly not sufficient and requires emerging consensus (the will of the people) to succeed.

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