Only
a God can Save Us
What is god? Before reflecting on
the Sunday school rhetoric, let us explore its significance upon the human
world. A being that does neither reside nor influence the Real world is
world-less (Weltlosigkeit), therefore meaningless. Even if there is a god, and
it influences us, it must be something real, something that resides with us,
maybe in the literal sense as well. Heidegger seems to agree to this notion.
Heidegger requires the divine being to be an individual being functioning as a
catalyst of the community. In short, Heidegger’s god is a previously human,
currently god being who summons inevitable change in essence of its world. In
this essay, I will link Heidegger’s notion of manly god to the significance
that the protagonist of The Conversion of
the Jews Ozzie holds.
Heidegger’s god is not divine from
birth. Prior or concurring to the violence that the creator pounds on the
common, there must be a self-destruction made by the god. Before or along with the
transformation in essence of the community, he who creates must deny himself as
a banal human being and accept the newly born self. Such allusion can be easily
found in other sources such as the film Fight
Club, where the protagonist goes through an-inner fight with himself and
then starts to destruct the social structure. In Sophocles’ play, Antigone, Antigone had to kill herself
to accentuate Creon’s tyranny and put impact on the polis.
The same allusion is found in The Conversion of the Jews with a
tone-down description. Ozzie deliberately ducks Rabbi Binder’s hand, causing “the
palm caught him squarely on the nose.” Then Ozzie cries “You bastard, You
bastard” at Rabbi Binder. Three facts are observable from this very short
sequence of events. First is that it was actually Ozzie who initiated the
bodily harm, the blow on his nose was unnecessary and unintended. Second, there
was a significant trace of the bodily harm, which is the blood from the nose.
Third is that Ozzie practically denies his former position as a student within
the rule and the discourse of the synagogue. He blatantly rejects the authority
of teacher, religious leader and adult all at once. This denial is extremely significant,
for the very part of the story shows Ozzie having trouble in accepting the new
self—whatever it maybe, not a normal student, obedient juvenile—by saying “Can
this be me?......Is it me? Is it me Me ME ME ME! It has to be me—but is it?” This
is a very typical reaction from a human who is turning from a common to a
divine or heroic.
But even before such rite of
passage, Ozzie already shows signs of an outlier. His name bears a special meaning,
which has an origin as “divine power.” Not only that, he fits the description
of the violent, the divine by Heidegger in Introduction
to Metaphysics. In the Introduction
of Metaphysics, the violent creator is described as one who shouts out loud
in the silenced sphere with creative insight. Ozzie is the one in the story who
raises uncomfortable questions and threatens the set authority. His friends
indicate him as “a real one” for opening his “mouth in the first place.” Immaculate
Conception and status of Christ in Jewish theology are both disturbing topics
to discuss, especially when it is from an innocent child. Ozzie is the only one
in class who raises such questions and demands for an answer.
The decisive trait of Ozzie that
qualifies him as a divine being of his community is what he does at the end of
the short story. According to Contributions
to Philosophy, a god is a divine catalyst who initiates a culturally
transformational phenomenon and forces others to perceive its divine state. In
the very beginning part of the story, A Jewish student identifies the Jewish by
stating “They believe in Jesus Christ, that he’s God.” The essence, or the
endowed meaning of the Jewish is the trait of not believing in Jesus Christ,
and that he was not born by Immaculate Conception. Then at the end of the
story, Ozzie forces everyone to admit that God “can make a child without
intercourse” and make them say that “they believed in Jesus Christ.” This is
clearly destruction in the essence of a community, qualifying Ozzie as a cultural
catalyst.
Not only that, Ozzie shows a
significant influence over the action of the mass. Everyone obeys when he
commands: “Everybody kneel” This alludes to “My sheep listen to my voice; I
know them, and they follow me.” (NIV, John 10:27) Ozzie’s mother call Ozzie “A
martyr I have”, for he is no longer student Ozzie, but a representation of a
large enough entity of students, who are “his people”. This is shown by Rabbi
Binder’s transe-like statement “He’s doing it for them. He won’t listen to me.
It’s them.” It is not very ambiguous of what “It” in the statement is signifying;
it cannot be the students, and it must be Ozzie. Ozzie is the incarnation of
the group, not an individual, when he stood high. Ozzie proves himself as a divine
being, and leads his people to approve it.
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