Everybody wants to proudly be aware and declare who they really are. We readily identify people by certain realities in their lives: male or female, lefty or righty, Red Sox fans (good) or Yankee fans (bad). Let’s make believe for the moment that we’re only dealing with binary possibilities. So, we try to pigeon hole ourselves into these categories, but then we encounter someone who suggests that we get in touch with our ‘feminine side’ or we notice that we throw with our left hand but bat from the ‘right side’ (like me and Ricky Henderson). It can get complicated.

This complexity is also noted within Jewish tradition; this reality is clearly built into the fabric of our religion and lifestyle. Rav Soloveitchik famously pointed out the reality of duality in his analysis of Adam 1 and Adam 2 from the differences in the Creation accounts from chapters 1 and 2 of Breishit. That was in The Lonely Man of Faith. However, he also wrote Halchic Man.

In Halachic Man (Hebrew 1944, English 1980), he posits that there are two categories of humans trying to understand or interact with reality: Homo Cognititivas (cognitive or intelligent person) and Homo Religiosis (religious or spiritual person). The HC individual attempts to understand reality through scientific observation and inquiry. The HR personality, on the other hand, is driven by the religious and mystical impulse to transcend physical reality and strive for an esoteric spiritual existence.

Then the Rav describes the........

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