When Hanukkah Stops Trembling |
There is a question that is rarely asked with real honesty:
What is truly lost when a tradition is absorbed by a total system?
Not what is distorted. Not what is betrayed. Not what is forbidden.
But what stops pulsing.
Absorption rarely begins with violence. It begins with translation. When everything can be explained, classified, and justified, nothing seems lost. Practices continue. Texts are preserved. Words are repeated.
Yet something more subtle disappears: the pulse.
That pulse is neither an idea nor a doctrine. It is the living oscillation that precedes all form: appearance and withdrawal, tension and rest, ignition and shadow. It is not transmissible content; it is rhythm. And every system that seeks completion must, sooner or later, neutralize rhythm.........