Complexity In Forteen Lines Poem by gershon hepner

Though some look with perplexity
at nuances, complexity
is beautiful and irredu-
cible, all points view
made far more meaningful when syn-
thesis reveals the truth within
the many parts that make the whole
which nobody should pigeonhole
without remembering that pigeons
are as diverse as all religions
that fools to feeble faith reduce
because they can’t make proper use
of those complexities that rule
what faith must never ridicule.

Inspired by Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks’s use, in his contribution to the new Koren-Sacks siddur, of the ideas of the atheistic philosopher Sir Bernard Williams (1929–2003) , an analytic philosopher with the soul of a humanist who according to Sacks tells had “the most brilliant mind in Britain” and is generally regarded as the most important moral philosopher of his time. My attention to this was drawn by my friend Martin I. Lockshin, professor of humanities and Jewish studies at York University in Toronto. Ironically, Professor Lockshin, a rabbi like Sir Jonathan Sacks, was drawn to Sacks’s use of Sir Bernard Williams despite the fact that Williams’s attraction to complexity parallels that of Rashi whose complex interpretations were systematically disparaged by his grandson Rashbam in pursuit of a mirage that he called peshat.

5/8/09