How many times have you been asked when going through passport control in a foreign country if the purpose of your stay if business or pleasure? These alternatives, while once more clearly demarcated, now have become riddled with ambiguity. For many who are on the forefront of the digital revolution, the notion of work confined to the traditional 9 to 5 model has been jettisoned by the wayside. Increasingly work spills over into evening and weekends. The emails and texts never seem to stop. After acclimating to this invasion of work into all personal and private times and spaces we also feel comfortable bringing non-work into our office. From the old school corporate lunch and golf game, to the Skype meeting in pajamas with pancakes to the Facebook marathons and Twitter breaks, we are all around deformalizing and deterritorializing our relationship with work. Of course no blurring of boundaries could be more pronounced than in the increasingly popular ‘home office.’

When it comes to the role of labor on a macrocosmic level, we know by experience that we have inherited a world with some assembly required. On the one hand, we need to piece together an understanding of the diverse elements of our world, while on the other hand, we must figure out how to employ this knowledge to harness nature–to take all of the naturally provided raw materials and combine them in order to build a better world. Thus there are two types of assembly. One is a theoretical model while the other is an applied science in order to make repairs and advancements. Both seek some kind of unified picture.

In the Torah, these pursuits are embodied in the portable sanctuary or Tabernacle (Mishkan) whose architectural details were intended to encode all of the design details of the cosmos. This structure was a multi-dimensional map replete with clues to the hidden mysteries of Creation that even fascinated the likes of Isaac Newton who felt that if he could delve deeply enough into its description in the original Hebrew he could derive insight into the laws of the natural sciences. When its construction was complete it was said to function as a model of all of the worlds from the spiritual to the physical. The esoteric tradition even professes that if it is studied properly one might come to acquire the essential information required for deriving a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) of the universe. Furthermore, as with science progressing into technology, once we have the theoretical grasp, it can be translated into a multitude of practical applications.

For those familiar with the notion of prohibited work on the Jewish Sabbath, the question arises in the Talmud as to what constitutes work. Without reproducing the details of the argument, we will simply consider the Talmud’s conclusion which maintains that prohibited work on the Sabbath is limited to the context of 39 types of creative activities all related to the Tabernacle. Once completed, its continued function was permitted to keep running all by itself even on the Sabbath. In the mystical tradition this speaks to the ‘work’ of history itself. All of the events since the beginning of time have been unpacking and assembling more and more complex realities. At a certain point, these realities converge and unify. When all of the pieces of Creation properly ‘fit’ together, then the resultant unity removes the ‘work’ factor. With the difficulties all lying in the assembly process, once we get our ‘act’ together the ‘rest’ is relatively easy.

To reframe this in a contemporary context, we spend so much time doing things that we don’t want to do in order to have time to do the things that we really want to do. Clearing  some time to pursue that which we love usually comes at the price of plowing through all kinds of ‘busy work’–the things we have to do but would desperately like to get out of doing. After putting in enough time with the ‘hard’ tasks we may reach a place where we no longer have to be concerned with exerting ourselves in that manner any more. For instance, plowing a field may have once put the farmer on the same level as a horse but then gave way to elevating the farmer above the horse whilst riding on the back of a vehicle of human invention. With greater sophistication, the wagon and plow become a motorized tractor which now lets the horse ‘rest’ as well. Finally, recent developments have demonstrated that it’s possible to have the entire operation become robotized as we are starting to see autonomous farming vehicles which plow, plant, irrigate and harvest the field and then plug themselves in at the end of the day.

This form of automation shows the path to ‘hands’ free production in virtually every industry. Yet, it only became possible once enough knowledge was ‘assembled’ and sufficient effort and resources were committed to realize such a project. Hence, the work involved was principally to reach the ‘end’ of work. This follows the idea of working to transcend work in the Zohar (I 115a) which is called “higher [level] action (asiyah ila’ah).” Here, the two planes of action are distinguished by the introduction of the intellect. Unskilled and uneducated work ‘forces’ are all about brute strength. To act upon the world as an excise in power is connected with the dimension of malchut or ‘kingdom.’ This is action pure and simple. It gets the job done and thus demonstrates ‘sovereignty’ over some domain of reality. By contrast, action becomes elevated when it’s throughly understood. Bringing scientific knowledge and technological skill to bear upon an activity has the potential to mitigate the hardship of our labor. Thus, ‘higher action’ entails malchut (kingdom) ascending to binah (understanding) in the phraseology of Kabbalah. We are then moving beyond affecting external reality with the limited abilities of our hands and feet towards a situation where we can get things done with the power of thought. The entire technological push follows this path. The more thinking takes over doing, the less work seems like work.

Once the technology is in place, once it has been assembled and constructed (like the assembly of the Tabernacle), then it can enter into a Sabbath state. One of the symbolic qualities of the ‘Sabbath’ (beyond a mere cessation of work) is that of automation. The Talmud (Shabbat 117b) reflects upon this by asserting that technology/automation derives from “wisdom [higher level innovative intelligence] and [therefore] is not considered as work [prohibited on the Sabbath].” If we simply replace the word ‘Sabbath’ with the idea of ‘rest,’ then there is a type of work which does not disrupt my rest.

Even more importantly, the rest of the Sabbath is associated with pleasure (oneg Shabbat) which means that I can experience a type of work which is not work in that it does not alienate me within myself but rather comes naturally. I enjoy doing it. The inner serenity and pleasure of doing something because it is me (it brings me closer to a state of self actualization and puts me at peace with myself) and not because it is a ‘foreign’ service thrust upon me be the exigencies of a harsh world, removes it from the category of prohibited work. Moreover, prohibitions or issurim in Hebrew relate to the work assur which means to be ‘chained’ or ‘imprisoned.’ Consequently, the mundane form of work (work as work) is experienced as confining and limiting whereas the elevated type of work (work as restful play and enjoyment) actually makes me feel liberated and spiritually expansive.

From the two contrasted states of work and rest, we will move on to explore four interincluded levels (work-rest-rest-work) in Part Three.

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/the-spirit-of-automation-part-3/

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/the-spirit-of-automation-part-1/

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