Time and Evil in the Confessions of Augustine and the Talmud

Abstract

To solve the aporia of suffering and evil, the framers of Bavli Berakhot as well as Augustine combined the idea of love for God with the notion of making the moment linger. According to Augustine, evil prevents man from praising God. Evil derives from perverted human will and poisons a soul. Instead of being distended between the past and the future, a soul should forget the past, concentrate on the present, and extend the present as much as possible. By concentration, the present can be extended to approximate eternity, which is the messianic future. The idea of making a moment linger is salient in Bavli Berkahot as well. The close correlation between redemption and ritual presumes the lingering of time, achieved by prolonging the recitation, concentrating on the text, and merging the blessings. Prolonging halakhic time at any cost hastens the coming of the ultimate meta-historical event. Thus Aqiba’s protracting of the word ehad brings him into a meta-historical context, into the future world. The moment of reading the word ehad lingers amidst torture, spasm, and ecstasy. That ecstasy is the consummation of love with God.