Sadly, this
is a posthumous publication of Aron Katsenelinboigen’s great
work on the indeterministic, developing God in the Old
Testament, the concept that became a turning point of our
long-term relationship. At the end of April 1990, my fourth
month in the United States, where I emigrated with my family
from Odessa(Ukraine), I met one of the most interesting,
innovative and provocative thinkers of our time --
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School Professor Aron
Katsenelinboigen. One can read more about this particular
meeting and its relation to Aron’s current book at
http://www.charitonproductions.com/about_angels_and_aron
What is
this book about and what kind of reader is it aimed at?
The title
of the book may suggest two things: (a) the book is dealing
with the Torah and (b) is aimed at a
religious/theological/theosophical audience. This
conclusion, however, would be only
partially
right. Although the book discusses God and Man’s
interactions as represented in the Old Testament, it is far
from being limited to the theological scope. First and
foremost, this book is an
interdisciplinary
work
that invites an
unorthodox
audience interested in
decision-making
and
systems thinking
to broaden its view of indeterministic systems and
enrich its knowledge about styles and methods applied to
managing uncertainty. Aron writes:
In particular, an
analysis of holy books could foster the development of new
ideas in decision-making processes. In turn, achievements in
decision-making theory could be helpful in resolving some
theological problems. And so, the reciprocal relationship
between decision-making theory and theology could be
fruitful for both fields. In view of a large number of holy
books, each of considerable size, I have chosen to examine
only one such book – the Old Testament and its core section
the Torah (Pentateuch). I use the term "Torah" in the narrow
sense to mean the Five Books by Moses that are the basics of
Judaism. (…)
I bring new
philosophical ideas like a degree of indeterminism and its
core – the category of a predisposition - to the
interpretation of the old text (…)
The
cornerstone of the book does not lie in the expanded
theological interpretations of the Old Testament's various
parts, but rather an
original concept of indeterminism
that Aron had developed for years and published step
by step in his various books on systems thinking (Wiki).
This concept is part of his Predispositioning Theory, which
we had co-taught at UPENN for years and I still continue to
teach just to make more young people familiar with this
fresh, innovative, unusual and above all, highly practical
theory. All my lectures are dedicated to Aron’s memory. By
referring to the Old Testament as a
literary, not religious, collection of myths,
stories, etc., this book offers another way of learning
about Predispositiong Theory.
Only from this point of view
may one attempt to fully comprehend all the examples
and speculations presented in the book. For those who are
able to grasp the essentials, this work will definitely
become a fount of wisdom and innovative thinking.
The decision
to publish this book online was made after its failure to be
published by PublishAmerica, a publishing company that
signed a contract with Aron years ago, but never published
the book. After confirming the book's publication in the
below email sent to Aron's son Alex, PublishAmerica found
some strange excuses to avoid publishing and disappeared
without responding to any of my emails. This also serves as
a warning to other authors who decide to deal with the
publishing company in question. (read the email from
PublishAmerica
here)
The second
reason why I decided to put this marvelous book on my
website was that despite his age, Aron embraced progress and
innovation, as illustrated by the fact that when the
Internet was still in toddlerhood, he was already excited by
the prospect of online books. Aron was convinced that
electronic publishing was the publishing of the future. Now
I remember with a smile my rather orthodox objections to his
praise of e-libraries. To me, the Book was not only a
material object containing text, but a house, a temple that
one could enter by opening the cover and smelling the Tree
of Life whose branches served as pages of the Book. Aron
didn’t argue with me. He listened to my passionate speech in
defense of books with his usual kind smile and only
commented that horses are still available for those who are
nostalgic for that type of transportation. “But we can’t
stop the progress,” he said. “You may always have books on
your shelf, but you’d have to pay a bigger price in the
future because the reading market will move to the cyber
space – more efficient, quickly accessible and more
convenient for users. With your laptop in hands you may read
any book you’d like, being faraway from you home library.”
He was right,
as usual. Soon I became a big admirer of e-publishing. Like
the vast majority of readers, I read mostly on the Internet.
The third
reason for publishing this book on the Internet was that no
scholarly work is a source of profiting for the author. Nor
is it for the publisher. The same is with poetry. We, the
authors, never see any money from our scholarly books and
never write for money. We write for the ideas – to give them
life, to share them with those who are interested, and to
have a vivid exchange of thoughts. Scholarly writing is a
non-paid pool of intellectual thought and access to it
should be free of charge as well. I know that Aron would
agree with one hundred percent of that statement.
I am
including some artwork in this publication
since Aron highly appreciated a combination of artistic and
scholarly views, of which our co-teaching of courses on the
Art of Decision-Making serves as the best proof. He
especially liked to combine his scholarly statements with my
poetry and Irene Frenkel’s paintings and drawings, most of
all appreciating the associative, indirect linkages between
his philosophy and art. My decision to include some of Irene’s
works is dictated by that.
Thus, each chapter contains Irene's paintings and drawings
which Aron admired greatly. Also, in the beginning of each
chapter, I am including my own artistic photographs which Aron,
unfortunately, had not the
chance to see: I began to photograph skies right after his
death when I visited my dear friend, a prominent Austrian poet and
writer, Kirstin Breitenfellner, in Vienna. Like me, Kirstin
was fascinated by Aron’s Predispositioning Theory and
translated into German my essay,
Journey,
in which I make an introduction to Aron’s concept. While making these
photos, I was thinking about Aron's concept of an
indeterministic God therefore their inclusion in the book is my
other artistic
contribution to his ever-developing theory.
Last but not
least, I would like to express my gratitude to Vadim Zubarev
owing to whom this book has appeared in its electronic
format. I also thank Boris Layvant and Michael Zubarev –
Aron’s youngest students in the past – who offered their
generous help in editing some parts of the final version.
V. Ulea (Vera Zubarev)