When was the last time you saw or felt something beautiful? What is beauty, anyways?
When we say a person is beautiful, it’s probably because we know them well, they have been vulnerable in front of us, we see their human follies, and because of all that, they are beautiful.
In Torah, there is a concept called Hiddur Mitzvah, i.e. beautifying the mitzvah. It comes up a few times. One of the most famous examples is lighting the Channukah candles. The Gemara on Shabbat 21b describes three ways to fulfill the commandment. The basic requirement is “ner ish u-beiso,” one candle per house, per night. The mehadrin (beautiful) option is for every family member to light one candle each night. And finally, most optimally—mehadrin min ha-mehadrin (beautiful of the beautiful)—is to light the number of candles corresponding to the night of the holiday, in either ascending or descending order. The more light, the more beauty.
It is a standard trope in Jewish education that Judaism is not Buddhism—i.e. that we act not as celibate monks but engage in the world’s physical and spiritual pleasures within certain frameworks. Such frameworks endow our actions with meaning, and elevate them, in a sense, to a higher metaphysical plane.
Jordan Peterson says that beauty is the proper dwelling place for an enlightened consciousness. Practically, economically, he says, there is nothing more valuable than beauty. The value of art and music and literature is not abstract or fleeting, but essential and real.
One of Yeshivat Har Etzion’s directors in its early years—Moshe Moscovics (“Moshko”)—insisted on architectural elegance in designing the institution’s beit midrash. Now the Yeshiva’s crown jewel, the design was the subject of serious disagreement. When a visitor touring the grounds asked Moshko why the yeshiva needed a sanctuary as large as a theater, he abruptly responded: “Listen to your own words! People rarely visit the theater, but it warrants a beautiful building. In this yeshiva, people will be studying 24 hours a day, does it not deserve the same?”
Moshko, and Rav Amital, believed that the building’s structure should reflect the subliminal nature of the texts being studied inside. Others disagreed—given the Mishna in Ethics of the Fathers—that the path of Torah is to eat bread with salt and sleep on the floor.
Jordan Peterson says that the study of humanities used to be a sacred endeavor. As our respect for the pursuit of knowledge declines, he says, our architecture, especially on campuses, worsens in quality.
That is to say, there is an intimate relationship between spiritual and physical beauty.
If you can make one thing beautiful in your life, you’ve established a relationship with beauty, says Peterson, and such a relationship is an invitation to the Divine.
I think making your bed is a kind of beauty, or a cool piece of artwork on the wall. It doesn’t have to be complicated.
When you make a decision to create something in your life which is beautiful, you are stumbling towards the kingdom of God, he says. Beauty is the pathway to the divine.
After all, man does not live by bread alone.