Leonard Cohen and Philosophy (33 page)

Order of the Unified Heart

In spite of—even because of—the hazards, in praising and enacting divine love the prophet’s labors achieve their fullest beauty and goodness. Here he sings both to and for God, and his words become a vehicle of universal charity. Human apprehension and imitation of God will no doubt always be tied up, ambivalently, with sexual desire and fear of death. Venus and self-love have their proper place, and Cohen sometimes pits them against “enlightenment.” Nonetheless, not by skirt-chasing, not by navel-gazing, but by being an instrument of God’s grace to others, does one enter what Cohen calls “The Order of the Unified Heart.” His original emblem of that
order is two hearts—one facing up, the other down, but intertwined—symbolizing the unity of opposites:

The image is reminiscent of the Star of David:

Over time, the two-hearts emblem has evolved, by Cohen’s hand, into a figure known as The Blessing to End Disunity:

The two hands of priestly blessing hold together, from the heart below, the broken heart above (hear “Come Healing”). At the center of it all is the Jewish term
Shin
, a name for G-d.

The Question of Islam, Israel, and Terrorism

So far, I’ve written primarily of Leonard Cohen’s affiliation with Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism. Where does this leave Islam, the third religion of the Book? And where does it leave the questions surrounding Islam’s relations with Israel and the West?

Cohen volunteered to serve in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 but ended up in an entertainment unit singing to the troops. Contemporary Israelis love him, and his performances for them often include Hebrew prayers. One might imagine, therefore, that Cohen’s Judeo-Christian accents throw down a gauntlet toward Palestine and Muslims in general. This is far from the truth, however. Cohen said some romantic, even downright silly, things after the Yom Kippur War: “War is wonderful. They’ll never stamp it out. It’s one of the few times people can act their best. It’s so economical in terms of gesture and motion, every single gesture is precise, every effort is at its maximum. Nobody goofs off. Everybody is responsible for his brother” (Pike). The camaraderie and self-sacrifice of some soldiers is real and admirable, but this is hardly the whole story of war. Brutality and death of the innocent are at least as common. Cohen knows that if everybody were truly responsible for his brother, this, in itself, would mean the end of lethal combat. For one’s brother is the neighbor, anyone and everyone, not just one’s friend or co-religionist. The remarks quoted above are balanced by “Lover Lover Lover” and the last lines of “Story of Isaac.”

Much more pointedly, in
Book of Mercy
Cohen offers a scathing critique of Israel and all arrogant nationalisms: “Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation—none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy” (psalm 27). America, France, Russia, and Poland are also mentioned by name, making it manifest that “these lands” that are not possessed are not merely belated territorial expansions, gained at the expense of local populations (for example, the Gaza Palestinians or the North American Indians).
No nation
deserves
any
land as such; it’s given “on condition,” based on a divine “Covenant,” Cohen reminds us. And because the Covenant has been “broken,” “the righteous enemy” “has overturned the vehicle of nationhood.” I presume “the righteous enemy” here is God, who punishes “the lawless” of all countries.

Recently, Cohen put his money where his mouth was and billed his 2009 performance in Tel Aviv “A Concert for Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Peace.” As reported by Ethan Bronner in the
New York Times
, he gave the profits of $1.5 to 2 million to a charity run by a board of both Israelis and Palestinians, to distribute to groups focused on coexistence in Israel. If Cohen’s lyrics suggest how Judaism and Christianity might be healed, after all the hatred and violence that has passed from the latter to the former, then surely it’s possible for concerted thought and action to defuse the post-9/11 world. At least one must try to curb the violent fascists of all ethnicities.

Whatever one might think about the acquisition of territory by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, whatever one might think about the PLO or Hamas, whatever one might think about a two-state Israel-Palestine solution, it’s possible to recall a time when Muslims were the protectors of Jews hounded by Christians—as during the Crusades and, to a lesser extent, the Nazi Holocaust. It’s possible to move beyond vendetta at least to acceptance. The internal struggle within both Judaism and Islam for the hearts and minds of believers cannot take as long as the Christian Crusaders took to transcend anti-Semitism and genocide. The weapons of modern terror and anti-terror are too destructive. Cohen may be a voice crying in the wilderness to both Jews and Muslims, but he’s not alone.

Cohen’s attitude of calm and practical helpfulness in the midst of strife is also evident in his response to 9/11. He counts himself among the “we” who were attacked, but he refuses to indulge in a tirade of offense (or self-recrimination), as theoretically justified as that might be. Instead, he “just holds the fort” and asks simply whether you “went crazy” or “reported.” Did you succumb to rancor and the desire for revenge, or did you lend a hand to those saving lives and preserving order? Are you part of the problem, or part of the solution?

A Personal Trial and Forgiveness

On a more personal level are the financial and emotional tribulations Cohen went through in the 1990s and 2000s. His
friend and business manager, Kelley Lynch, embezzled the bulk of his estate while he was on extended retreat at Mount Baldy. The “thirty pieces of silver” in this case amounted to about $5 million, and the betrayal led to bankruptcy rather than the cross, but the hurt must have been acute. The theft was compounded, moreover, by months of harassing emails and threatening voice messages from Lynch. Even so, Cohen maintained remarkable equanimity. At the trial, he announced:

It gives me no pleasure to see my one-time friend shackled to a chair in a court of law, her considerable gifts bent to the service of darkness, deceit and revenge. . . . I want to thank the defendant Ms. Kelley Lynch for insisting on a jury trial, thus exposing to the light of day her massive depletion of my retirement savings and yearly earnings, and allowing the court to observe her profoundly unwholesome, obscene and relentless strategies to escape the consequences of her wrongdoing.

It is my prayer that Ms. Lynch will take refuge in the wisdom of her religion. That a spirit of understanding will convert her heart from hatred to remorse, from anger to kindness, from the deadly intoxication of revenge to the lowly practices of self-reform. (reported by Sean Michaels in the
Guardian
)

Although pointed, these words carry the very spirit of understanding they invoke. Forgiveness isn’t explicitly mentioned, but resentment seems largely overcome with mercy. His response to his “lynching” is a good example of a refusal of animosity that still cares about justice. An oft-remarked irony of the Lynch affair is that Cohen was moved in 2008 to embark on a multi-city tour to recoup his losses, so again the world was treated to his live music and his own heart was “warmed” (Jon Pareles in the
New York Times
). Thus can good come out of evil.

Being Grateful

A prophet foretells what is yet to be, but she also retells what has already been. Like Dickens’s Ghost of Christmas Past,
she may even do the former by doing the latter. To read or listen to Leonard Cohen is to see this done in our own day, to be gratified that sacred scripture can still be written. Only chameleons close their cannons and disappear into other people’s foliage. We should thank Cohen for keeping the Biblical shop open and serving as a mouthpiece of the divine, even amid his own “convivial disbelief” (
Book of Longing
, p. 24). Now, as “Going Home” makes clear, Cohen is preparing to retire, even to die.

The only question still outstanding is the final form of God’s love. Is there personal immortality or nothingness after death? Judaism thrived for centuries without belief in an afterlife, the doctrine first being formulated in the Book of Daniel. Many contemporary Jews and most orthodox Christians affirm resurrection of the dead, but Cohen’s position on the matter is unclear. He has narrated
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
, but I know of no place where he directly endorses life after death. In
Book of Longing
, he says “to a young nun”: “Your turn to die for love. My turn to resurrect” (p. 14). But the latter seems a this-worldly reanimation. Elsewhere in
Longing
, he says: “I have no interest in the afterlife” (p. 138).

In two places, Cohen appears to deny the eternity of God’s own
’hesed
, steadfast love. In the song “Love Itself,” Cohen echoes the Buddhist notion that Love eventually reaches “an open door” and is “gone.” This idea aligns well with Cohen’s Dharma name Jikan, which means “silence” or “the silent one,” but it’s hard to square with Jewish conceptions of the never-ending grace and creativity of YHWH. If human life and love are finite, does Divine Compassion Itself finally come to no-word and no-thing? In
Book of Mercy
, the prophet speaks of the time when the Lord “suspends his light and withdraws into himself, and there is no world, and there is no soul anywhere” (psalm 29). This too seems to admit a limit to God’s love. In the end, does the Lord collapse into narcissism? This is a humbling thought for any creature, but it seems oddly un-Jewish.

Cohen speaks regularly of “heaven” as the abode of God and angels, but it cannot be accidental that he’s mostly mum
on the question of human immortality. My hunch is that he would be neither Pharisee and insist on life after death, nor Sadducee and disallow it. And “who dares expound the interior life of god?” asks
Book of Mercy
(psalm 10). Mr. Cohen is a prophet for the living and doesn’t dwell on such eschatological matters. He has communicated his vision and, to take a phrase from O’Neill’s
Beyond the Horizon
, has earned “the right of release,” whatever this might mean. “
Nunc dimittis
. . . . Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word” (Luke 2:29). We can only be grateful. Cohen is.

19

Clouds of Unknowing

B
ERNARD
W
ILLS

L
eonard Cohen has been nothing over the years if not a celebrant of the wonders of the flesh. It may be a cause of wonder then that his later years have been marked by a deep engagement with the concepts of emptiness and detachment explored by Zen Buddhism and (we should remind ourselves) by Christian mystics and Jewish Kabbalists as well. This longing for a kind of nothingness or non-entity has been a persistent undercurrent in Cohen’s work for quite some time.