Survival Skills
For Buckminster Fuller, the uniqueness of the Jewish people in the universe is “their contribution to mankind’s welfaring and environmental conquest, being the preservation of those arts and proclivities which may be kept alive only through, economics of intermittent emergency mobilization.” (Nine Chains to the Moon, page 122). These arts and proclivities are survival skills, developed through historical necessity.
If the concept of entropy, by which we understand that systems, physical or social, tend to wear down, is operative in the universe, and man is seen as being antientropy by function, then it would seem that this is also the historic function of the Jewish people. Fuller notes the historical coincidence of the casting out of the Jews from their homes and the impending decline and fall of the society which cast them out. (Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, page 43
Fuller points out that paradoxically it is the survival skills which caused the Jews to be viewed as disruptive elements in societies which wish to remain static. As will developed within the context of this book, it is a hallmark of Jewish teachings to search for God and God’s operative principles in the universe rather than accepting the apparent-status quo and ideology of subservience to the temporal rulers.
The comments about the Jewish contribution to mankind being that of survival skills lead to speculation about the recent turn of events in Jewish history. Within the context of Fuller’s God of orderly meaning, would it not be possible to say that it was/is the unique Jewish role in the universe to test out the limits of human survival? Is it too demonic to fathom a Job-like experiment using the Jewish people in the laboratory of Jewish history?
Is such an understanding of Jewish history unfathomable when set against the story of the Akedah – the binding of Isaac? In scripture. Abraham is ‘tested’* by God (Genesis 22:1-21) and passes the test of loyalty. In historical terms, the Jewish people have been put to almost every conceivable test of human endurance and have survived, not even the wholesale technological slaughter of six million Jews was able to kill off completely the Jewish people.
If Fuller’s general approach makes sense, then it would also follow in that perspective that it would be in our time that our people would be reestablished in the Jewish homeland. The very survival skills which threatened previous societies are now very much in demand at a point when human survival on this planet is questionable.
Rooted in traditions with Selective Adoption from, and Contribution to Sciences and Humanities.
Although the Jewish people from the kingdom of Judea were dispersed across the globe for nearly two millennia, they survived assimilation by remaining rooted in their tradition while they selectively adopted aspects of the cultures of nations among whom they lived. Their roots grew deeper and enriched Jewish thought and experience while their branches reached out to global culture and enriched it through significant contributions to the sciences and humanities.” Alexenberg, Mel. The Future of Art in a Digital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (p. 16). Intellect Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.