Integrating Cognition and Emotion: Yirat Shamayim and the Taxonomies

Abstract

Following Bennett Solomon's suggestion of the “integrating individual”—one who possesses the skill and interest to incorporate new knowledge into a larger and unified life-picture—this article explores how recognizing the coupling of the affective and cognitive can influence Jewish education. Emotions help construct our daily perceptions and our moral and spiritual awareness. Jewish sources acknowledge the tandem nature of cognition and emotion in spiritual life by placing yirat shamayim (fear or awe of Heaven) as a paramount goal that is tightly bound to Torah learning. Education can nurture complex spiritual qualities by working with simpler emotions and qualities within the context of rigorous cognitive learning.

Notes

¹Although Bloom and his committee recognized the existence of a third “manipulative or motor-skill” domain, they did not attempt to produce a third handbook (Bloom, 1956, pp. 7–8). Subsequently, others have published versions of a “psychomotor” domain.

²An example is the otherwise excellent Notes on the Heart: Affective Issues in the Writing Classroom, by Susan H. McLeod (1997), which sets out to discuss the role of affect and emotion in teaching writing, but largely devotes itself to motivation, the social construction of beliefs and the contributions of psychology to our understanding of cognition. All the more so, more typical texts that scarcely acknowledge the role of emotion in learning.

³The role of affect (as well as cognition) is much in evidence in the lively debate over socialization and education in informal education that was initiated in these pages by Joseph Reimer (2007; and Chazan, 2007). Informal and formal education ideally should go hand in hand, the latter being much in need of what the former offers by way of both technique and program. My attention in this article, however, is to the emergence of the affective domain into the regular classroom.

⁴In the discussion of Job, the underlying assumption is that love is superior. As Sherwin (1991, pp. 51–62) has documented, Jewish sources from biblical through medieval literature vacillate between a preference for love or fear of God. Although a case could be made for love of God as an integrating element, yirah may be a less daunting educational goal. Maimonides (1963), who most famously places the love of God as the highest goal, asserts that it is the product of a supreme intellectual apprehension of God achieved by sustained, disciplined striving to direct all one's physical and mental activity toward that singular objective (pp. 619–623). Maimonides makes clear that very few can attain this level, just short of prophecy (Shmoneh Prakim: 5:7). Fox (1990) points out that in establishing this goal, Maimonides deviates from the rule of the mean that he invokes as the rule for everyday life (p. 121). Hartman (1976, p. 208) quotes Maimonides' Guide to show that in it yirah is used to describe the philosophical Jew's understanding of the halacha prescribed for all Jews whether or not they are philosophers: “The end of the actions prescribed by the whole Law, is to bring about the passion of which it is correct that it be brought about… . I refer to the fear of Him, may He be exalted, and the awe before His command” (Maimonides, 1963, p. 630). Perhaps the best summation is that of Sifrei D'varim “Love is not found in a place of fear, nor fear in a place of love, except as a quality of the Place alone” (Sifrei D'varim 35:5).

⁵Or is God the treasure, with Torah only being another door? This may be too literal a reading, but it has its own attractions.

⁶Most versions of Pinchas ben Yair's statement support this order (Y. Shabbat 3:3; Y. Shekalim 47:3; Sotah 9:16) but for variant readings that reverse the two see Encyclopedia Talmudit, “Yirat Hashem,” footnote 109.)

⁷See, e.g., Yalkut Shimoni 247:261, clearly based on Nedarim 20a, but bolstering the case for shame.

⁸Most significant is the statement in Kiddushin 32:2, regarding certain deceptive or manipulative practices: “Regarding any action that is given over (masur) to the heart [because the intent is known only to the person performing the deed] the Torah says, ‘And you shall fear your God.’”

⁹I adapt Landsman's, 1993, notion of “anticipatory regret.”

¹⁰Remarkable is the absence of Torah from this version of the list, unless one interprets “holy spirit” to mean Torah, an interpretation that could be argued on the basis of the proof text that follows. If this is so, it serves as another source placing Torah above yirat shamayim.