Beginning Again: Toward a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts

Beginning/Again

Beginning/Again Toward a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts

edited by

Aryeh Cohen University of Judaism and

Shaul Magid Jewish Theological Seminary

Seven Bridges Press 135 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010–7101 Copyright © 2002 by Seven Bridges Press, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. Publisher: Ted Bolen Managing Editor: Katharine Miller Composition: Rachel Hegarty Cover design: Stefan Killen Design Printing and Binding: CSS Publishing LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA [CIP data here] Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Shachar Ayala and Oryah Menachem Yitchak .µlw[ hnwb dsj lk—hnby dsj µlw[ ytrma yk For Chisda who knows the secret of how to begin in the middle

Contents Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Beginning, False Beginning, and the Desire for Innovation

ix xi xvii

MICHAEL CARASIK

1

Three Biblical Beginnings

2

Expulsion as Initiation: Displacement, Divine Presence, and Divine Exile in the Torah

1

BENJAMIN D. SOMMER

23

CHARLOTTE FONROBERT

3

The Beginnings of Rabbinic Textuality: Women’s Bodies and Paternal Knowledge

49

ARYEH COHEN

4

Beginning Gittin/Mapping Exile

5

Burying the Dead

6

Before ‘Alef/Where Beginnings End

7

Origin and Overcoming the Beginning: Zimzum as a Trope of Reading in Post-Lurianic Kabbala

69

MIRIAM PESKOWITZ

113

ELLIOT R. WOLFSON

135

SHAUL MAGID

163

ZACHARY BRAITERMAN

8

Cyclical Motions and the Force of Repetition in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig

215

Acknowledgments This project has taken many years from formulation to fruition. The idea received its first public hearing at a panel at the Association for Jewish Studies Conference in Boston in December 1995. The editors conceived the idea of a panel on Beginnings, and invited Elliot Wolfson to join them in presenting papers on the topic. Elliot graciously agreed and we saw, in retrospect, that the papers shared many themes though their specific texts and topics were different. At that point the idea for the book was born. We are very thankful to Elliot both for his contribution to that session, for introducing our project to Seven Bridges Press, and for his wise counsel and friendship through the whole process. The second public hearing was at the Textualities conference at Drew University in July of 1997. We are grateful to Peter Ochs for inviting us (i.e., Aryeh Cohen, Shaul Magid and Charlotte Fonrobert) to present our research as a work in progress at that conference. This is but one example of Peter’s intellectual and personal generosity and encouragement of scholarship and scholars. We are grateful to each of the contributors for their commitment to the project. We also thank them for their patience as we kept assuring them that this work would actually see the light of day. We could not have found a better home for this book than Seven Bridges Press. We are especially grateful to Ted Bolen for his care and commitment, and for inaugurating the Jewish Studies Series with this volume. Aryeh would like to thank Andrea Hodos for the space we have created together, Charlotte Fonrobert, Pinhas Giller and Maeera Schreiber, for their friendship, intellectual support and scholarly critique. I am especially grateful to Shaul Magid for this collaboration and our ongoing friendship. Shaul would like to thank Nancy Levene for simply being there, David Roskies, for carefully reading and correcting my Introduction, the hevraya at Yeshivat Ha-Hayyim ve Ha-Shalom in Jerusalem, especially Rabbi Mordecai Attia, with whom I first studied Lurianic Kabbala, and to my students at the

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Jewish Theological Seminary, who struggled through the dense labyrinth that is the Lurianic system believing me that somehow, someday, it may actually make sense. Finally to Aryeh, who knows, as I do, about beginning again, and who inspires those who begin again and again.

Preface What is the relation of beginnings to Beginning in Jewish textual tradition? That is, what is the relation of any specific beginning—of a text, a book, an argument, a narrative—to the originary moment of Jewish textual tradition— Beginning with a capital B: in the Beginning? One might argue that the tradition exists under the sign of the Beginning, a problematic sign whose inherent and constructed ambiguity has generated centuries of commentary. This commentary might be called a literature of Beginning. It is a literature whose central trope is the Beginning of Genesis 1:1 in all its ambiguity. Still and all, with all its attendant uncertainty and ambiguity, this Beginning (of Genesis 1) marks a difference vis à vis Ancient Near Eastern texts and myth, as an icon of monotheism and Judaism both as understood and misunderstood. This is Beginning as origin, Beginning as metaphysical etiology. Genesis 1 and its problematic narrative of the move from tohu and bohu to world (from primal chaos to Divine order) authorizes (generates, allows, and legitimates) the Jewish textual tradition. And yet, each specific beginning as a literary and/or mythical and/or philosophical moment in time challenges the primacy of the Beginning, even as it might still claim its authority or exist under its influence. While Beginning directs events toward linear continuity, beginnings are discontinuous, subversive. While each new specific beginning (of a text, a collection, a book . . . )—often explicitly,1 if not, then by implication2 and at times only after the fact3—claims its legitimacy through the textual tradition, and ultimately through the Beginning, at the same time each beginning, as in a serial novel, changes direction, states the inadequacy of the up-till-now, and claims its own authority as a new beginning. The work that resulted in this book proceeds from at least two propositions. First, there is knowledge to be gained by making the transparent visible. The first conceptual step in formulating the groundwork proposal for this book, informed by Edward Said’s work on Beginnings, was to attend to the

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quotidian and obvious notion that any textual work claims a beginning, or is at least framed such as to have a beginning. Focusing on the beginning of texts disrupts the smoothness of a textual tradition and calls attention to disjunction and disruption. Calling attention to beginnings—the beginning of texts as as well as beginnings as discussed in texts—will, hopefully, bring in its wake a reconsideration of the work and meaning of those texts. The second proposition is the Foucaultian one, that there is a connection between rhetorical and cultural moves. That is, the assumption that when a book is written (or edited) this is embedded in and is, to an extent, reflective of a cultural beginning, a new move in an ongoing cultural negotiation. Texts are not produced apart from or as mirrors of a culture but are of the essence of that culture. Therefore we may read texts as cultural productions and hence read cultural moves in rhetorical moves. When a textual beginning signals a disjunction with a previous text, we may look there for cultural tear, a move in the ongoing negotiation over specific cultural issues (e.g., exile). This, then, leads to the following two questions. When scholars in different (sub)fields of Jewish studies use a similar hermeneutic frame when analyzing the texts of their choosing, will they encounter (or produce) similar issues? Will a Biblicist draw from his text what a modernist will draw from hers, given the similar hermeneutic frame? This leads to the second question. Might this be a groping toward a hermeneutic of Jewish texts? Is this a way that we can then describe a Jewish textual tradition that gives itself over to this type of hermeneutic rather than another? If, by addressing similar concerns in different layers of the Jewish textual tradition, overlapping results are arrived at by different authors, might that not point to some mutable continuity in that tradition? The contributions to this volume do intersect and overlap at interesting and important junctures. While the chapters are presented chronologically (Bible to Modern Jewish Thought), the issues transcend the order and, at times, blur the boundary between one period and the next. So, for example, Ben Sommer’s essay, “Expulsion as Initiation: Displacement, Divine Presence, and Divine Exile in the Torah,” ends at the place that Shaul Magid’s chapter, “Origin and Overcoming the Beginning,” starts. Sommer’s analysis of beginnings focuses on the problematic and tragic dedication of the Tabernacle in Leviticus 10. Reading this text through the lens of the JE creation texts, Sommer argues that beginning is inextricably tied up with exile. This is a result of the tension between a locomotive and locative view of the deity. The unresolvable tension between these two conceptions of the Divine results in the attempt to locate God in a space, and that attempt being undermined by a divine eruption, a divine refusal to be located

preface X I I I

in space. “Thus,” Sommer concludes, “the troubled rhetoric of beginnings in the Torah is a rhetoric of displacement, . . . Home is displaced, or supplemented by exile. Divine presence itself is displaced [and this] effects a radical displacement of the priesthood and of the orderly universe to which they aspire.” Beginning itself is problematic—an idea that will recur throughout the volume—since exile is primary and home secondary. The originary exile is the exile of God from God in the act of creation, “for insofar as the deity comes into contact with creation (indeed, insofar as the deity creates, which is to say, begins), the divinity expels itself from the divine realm” (p. 37, this volume) Shaul Magid’s chapter also explores this notion of the alienation of God. Magid, analyzing Lurianic hermeneutics and the concept of zimzum pushes the alienation of God back one step further, before the actual creation. “[T]hese Kabbalists understood the biblical text as already part of creation and thus alienated from the infinite God.” Magid argues that “zimzum presents us with a theory of creation that is simultaneously a poetics of exile and a prescription for redemption.” Since Scripture is the result of zimzum, sacred study is a reenactment of zimzum, “reversing the beginning in search of origin.” Michael Carasik looks at the way beginnings are used to shape the Biblical narrative. The Beginning of Genesis 1 operates as a sign that differentiates the biblical narrative from other ancient near eastern narratives. The problematics of ultimate origins; and the authorization of Beginning is resolved by the biblical author by beginning in media res and letting Beginning stand as its own claim for authority. Carasik then looks at the beginning of Israelite monarchy in I Samuel 1 and the beginning that is the end of Tanakh: the last verses of Chronicles. This last beginning—the return—is a fitting ending for Tanakh since it is the moment before the “going up,” it is the last moment of the Exilic story—a fitting ending to a story that begins in Exile with God’s command to Abraham: “Get thee up.” While Sommer and Magid stress the problematics of beginning, Carasik points to the impossiblity of beginning, and the neccesity for any beginning to be actually after something else. This is also at the heart of Eliot Wolfson’s reflection on Beginnings, “Before ’Alef/Where Beginnings End.” Using Sefer Bahir as a base text and Heidegger as a prism, Wolfson reflects on the paradox of the beginning: “How does the beginning begin without having already begun? However, if the beginning cannot begin without having already begun, in what sense is it a beginning?” Ultimately the central question that is engaged in Wolfson’s philosophical reflection is one that, in a sense, has accompanied the history of philosophy—how can one describe or account for the move from eternality to temporality? This move involves desire, the play between eros and noesis, and the yearning for wholeness.

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Wolfson and Magid also stress the distinction between beginnings and origin, reishit and tefillah. For both there is a beginning before Beginning. In the chapter, “Beginning Gittin/Mapping Exile,” Aryeh Cohen employs a similar distinction between reishit and tefillah to claim that “the ultimate Beginning of beginning, the bereishit of the beginning, is the deeper significance that the disjunction of beginning a tractate carries. A Tractate begins, therefore, at its moment of disjunction with its Mishnah.” Cohen’s essay, on the initial sugyot of Tractate Gittin, locates this Beginning in the problematics of Exile, which are also entwined with the problematics of gender. Charlotte Fonrobert’s essay, “The Beginnings of Rabbinic Textuality: Women’s Bodies and Paternal Knowledge,” focuses on the problematics of gender at the Beginning of rabbinic textuality. Fonrobert argues that “the Mishnah projects continuity between the rabbinic movement and Temple Judaism by concealing the destruction of the Temple, in order to conceal its own beginning, its own innovativeness, and thus to deflate questions as to the discontinuity between biblical and rabbinic law, and ultimately the authoritative basis of rabbinic law. The purity system forms a crucial nexus of this strategy, and menstrual impurity arguably forms its center. For the rabbis women’s bodies turn into a major, if not their central, tool for conceptualizing time and space, and the relationship between the two.” Again it is the nexus of Exile and Beginnings, beginnings that follow effaced endings, which is central to this discussion. The overlapping concerns of the classical textual tradition, or the fact that these different scholars uncovered intersecting concerns within a textual tradition that saw itself as—to some extent—one, is important though perhaps not surprising. It is significant then that Zachary Braiterman’s chapter, “Cyclical Motions and the Force of Repetition in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig,” also gravitates to the issue of the impossibility of beginning. More to the point, Braiterman argues that “repetition” is the defining force of Rosenzweig’s Star—calendrical and existential repetition—and that the long-assumed linear narrative from creation to redemption is rather a cyclical move from death to death. Out of death to death (different death) the beginning has already begun. Miriam Peskowitz’s “Burying the Dead” is a feminist critique of the very desire for beginnings, for a history that we might use, for a sense of continuity with any people of the Roman period. Peskowitz clearly articulates both the epistemological problematics of telling history and the real danger of constructing a narrative of the rabbis that allows easy (or any) identification between them and contemporary Jews. In the context of the chapters in this volume, Peskowitz’s chapter reverberates with the seemingly essential problematic

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of Beginning, and the location of thought in Exile—Exile as the “natural” state. Peskowitz challenges us to “stop fantasizing the past as a home to return to.” In this short overview I have stressed those things that are common to these chapters. At the same time the chapters are very different in methodology, texts, and conception. This is not surprising since the contributors represent a cross-section of the younger generation of scholars in Jewish studies. The interesting (and perhaps surprising) thing is that with only the force of a similar hermeneutic frame, the contributions have intersected to the extent that they have. We start the book, then, with a beginning that came out of depths of Exile—Shaul Magid’s translation and interpretation of a hasidic reflection on Beginning from the Derekh Ha-Melekh, whose author, Rabbi Kalonymous Kalman Shapira, was murdered in the Trawniki labor camp. Notes 1. e.g., commentary 2. e.g., legal codes 3. e.g., some of the parts of the canonized Bible: Kohelet. Cf. Edward Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975); “To identify a point as a beginning is to classify it after the fact.” (29)

Introduction Beginning, False Beginning, and the Desire for Innovation (A Hasidic Master’s reflection on beginnings: translation and commentary)

Author’s note: In my view it is fitting to introduce a book of Jewish reflections on beginnings with a tribute to those whose “beginnings” were cut short by the tragedy of war and baseless hatred. The Talmud teaches, “All beginnings are hard.” Although there is no reason to believe this was not meant as a universal claim, it is particularly true of a people whose “beginnings” were often threatened by the prospect of misfortune. What follows is a text by one who deeply knew the frailty of beginnings as he witnessed firsthand the slow destruction of European Jewry. He too would soon be consumed by its flame. What remains are only ashes— words that echo from the dark abyss of the human capacity for evil. Yet I think I resonate his thoughts when I say that from those ashes, from those fractured letters, new beginnings will sprout.

R. Kolonymous Kalman Shapiro of Piasczeno (1889–1943) was the leader of a hasidic court in central Poland during the first part of the twentieth century. In 1913 he became the chief rabbi of Piaseczno, instituting a yeshiva (seminary) called “Da’at Moshe” (the Wisdom of Moses) in 1923. Following the internal migration of hasidic Jews in Poland from small towns to large urban centers immediately preceding the second World War, he migrated from Piasczeno, a small suburb outside Warsaw, to the heart of Warsaw. He subsequently became a leading hasidic figure in the Warsaw ghetto, founding a rab-

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binical seminary (yeshiva) that catered specifically to orphaned children.1 He survived the Great Deportation of the ghetto in the summer of 1942 and, due to the kindness of Abraham Hendel, a Jewish entrepreneur now working for the German industrialist Fritz Schultz, was given work in a shoe factory in the ghetto. Along with the other remaining Jews in the ghetto, R. Kolonymous Kalman was deported in the summer of 1943 to the Trawniki labor camp. On November 3, 1943, Himmler, responding to camp uprisings in Treblinka (August, 1943) and Sobibor (October, 1943) ordered all inmates of Trawniki to be taken out of the camp and shot. This order, carried out in November 1943, ended the life and spiritual journey of R. Kolonymous Kalman Shapira. 2 R. Kolonymous Kalman became known outside the circle of Hasidim for a collection of sermons he delivered in the Warsaw ghetto, that were discovered by a Polish child in the rubble after liberation and subsequently published under the title “The Holy Fire.” He also wrote numerous monographs on pedagogy and the moral training of hasidic youth that has recently gained recognition in English speaking Jewish circles.3 His most difficult and least known work is entitled Derekh Ha-Melekh. It contains sermons delivered in Piasceno in the 1920’s and early 1930’s before his move to Warsaw. Presented in the classical homiletic style of hasidic discourse, these sermons exhibit a modern sensibility and philosophical sophistication uncommon in hasidic literature, even at this late stage in its development.4 His “modernity” derives, in part, from the way he responds to the Jewish Enlightenment, which forced him to grapple with modern concepts and constructs5 while remaining uncompromisingly dedicated to the anti-modern sentiments of his immediate predecessors.6 In this, R. Kolonymous Kalman was a unique and outstanding example of late Hasidism and its role in the formation of modern Judaism. The following sermon is included in the two-volume collection of sermons that comprises Derekh Ha-Melekh.7 Delivered on the festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles) 1930, it is based on the biblical verse (Leviticus 23:40) commanding Israel to take the citron fruit (etrog) and wave it with three other species (palm, myrtle, and willow branches) on the first day of the festival of Tabernacles, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Tishri. The verse in question specifies that the etrog be taken “on the first day [of the festival],” leading the rabbinic midrash to compare the etrog to other instances in the Bible where the phrase “the first” (rishon) appears.8 R. Kolonymous Kalman’s creative reading of this midrash gives rise to more general reflections on the nature of beginnings and reflects on the potential contribution of Hasidism to the dilemma of traditional Judaism facing the relentless tide of modernity.9

introduction

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A Note on the Translation and Commentary In the spirit of hasidic discourse, which only reluctantly submits speech to writing, this essay will consist of a translation of the entire sermon interspersed with interpretive comments that are directed toward a specific reading—reading for beginnings. The interspersion of the commentary is an attempt to draw readers into the text by directing them toward a particular reading, i.e., my own. To better facilitate this “invested” endeavor, I have taken considerable license in places, translating the text toward its interpretation rather than offering a more literal translation and then using that as the basis of my reading. Therefore the translation is itself an interpretation, which is expanded in my comments. My goal is neither to disguise the text nor manipulate the reader (readers of Hebrew should indeed consult the text and take issue with my interpretive translation). Rather, this is an experiment in reader-directed-translating, i.e., using translation as a hermeneutic tool to enable the reader to stay within the text’s circle of discourse while drawing the text outside that circle. I have tried to keep this as honest as possible either (1) by reproducing the Hebrew (in transliteration) in the body of the text when the words I chose are quite distinct from the Hebrew, or (2) by discussing my translation of particular phrases in the footnotes, both justifying and equivocating my choice.10 Derekh Ha-Melekh, 252–254 The Festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot)—1930, Piasceno, Poland Text

[Rabbi Kolonymous Kalman Shapiro of Piasceno said:] It is stated in the midrash, parshat Emor,11 “R. Berakhia said in the name of R. Levi, ‘Through the merit of the verse And you should take for yourselves on the first day (yom ha-rishon (Leviticus 23:40)) I will reveal to you first (rishon) and will punish you from the first (rishon). A transgressor will arise, who is called first (rishon) [as it says], The first one went out red (Genesis 28:25). I will rebuild the Temple, which is called first (rishon). I will bring you the Messiah, who is called first (rishon). . .

Every beginning contains some dimension of renewal/innovation (hithadshut), without which is not called [a true] beginning.12 However, each beginning [in this world] is only in reference to a particular thing, as it says, the first one (Esau) went out red (Genesis 28:25). Even though many individuals were

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born before Esau, he was called “first” in reference to this particular birth. This means that the label “first” for Esau is really only in reference to Jacob. Regarding Adam, who is called Adam Ha-Rishon (Adam the First) the same holds true. Even though many things were created before Adam, he was the first human being and is therefore called “the first.” This is not true with reference to God, who is the first of all existence (rishon l’kol davar).13 Thus, if He did not create the world He would have remained only “devoid of beginning” (bli reshit).14 However, the attribute of God as the Beginning (Ha-Rishon)15 of everything is like all other divine attributes—it does not refer to God Himself, because His essence can never be contained in any attribute and can never be apprehended in any physical manner. “I [God] am only called according to My actions.” [Therefore] God is called rishon (first/beginning) only in relation to the world that is the consequence of His emanation.16 The One who renews (m’hadash) the world is the Beginning of all beginnings. This refers to God, who is the [absolute] Beginning [of creation and the One who sustains it]. Therefore all [true] beginnings and renewal are a “trace” (nizoz)17 from God, who is the ultimate Beginning. However, there is an important distinction to be made here. In reference to all beginnings in the world, there are beginnings that contain an element of renewal/innovation and “beginnings that are not beginnings” [or false beginnings].18 These [false] beginnings contain no element of renewal/innovation and therefore only appear to be true beginnings. Therefore, [from our limited perspective] we call them “beginnings.” For example, let us say that one who brings forth some innovative insight in the Torah (m’hadash davar b’Torah) is the beginning (rishon) of this insight because he brought it into this world (hidsha). In truth, however, he is not the absolute beginning [of this]. He is the beginning only to the extent that he brought this insight to light. Nevertheless, for this particular thing we may call him rishon and innovator. All we can say about him is that that he contains a trace (nizoz) of the true Beginning of beginnings [Absolute Firstness, ha-rishon l’rishonim], the true innovator who created All. This is not the case with Esau, who went out first [and is thus called rishon]. His birth contained no innovative component. His status as “beginning” was solely chronological in that he went out [of Rebecca’s womb] before Jacob.19 Therefore, people called him “rishon.” Even if Esau and Jacob would have been born of different mothers, the designation “rishon” would have been appropriate. However, if they had born at exactly the same time he would not have been called rishon.20

introduction

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Comment

To begin, R. Kalonymous Kalman implied, is to continue. But continuity can never be mere reproduction, it must contain an element of innovation that challenges what was and, in doing so, preserves it. The midrash cited at the beginning of this homily lists four objects that embody beginnings: (1) God (2) Esau (3) The Temple and (4) Messiah. According to this list, Esau is the exception that proves the rule that beginnings are precarious and deceptive yet essential. Embodying exile, Esau is the necessary precursor to the Temple and Messiah (he stands between God, the Temple, and Messiah in our midrash’s list) in that he creates the context for repentance. It is significant that this homily was given on Sukkot (Tabernacles), which is the culmination of the days of repentance and atonement of Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Hakippurim (Day of Atonement). More importantly, according to our midrash, Sukkot (as yom rishon—the first day) represents the beginning of the “counting of sins” for the coming year.21 Esau serves as the necessary false beginning that enables Israel (through repentance) to construct the bridge from revelation (I am God, the first [Isaiah 41:4]) to redemption (The first of Zion, behold here they are [Isaiah 41:27]). However, Israel’s ability to accomplish this goal necessitates recognition of the distinction between authentic and false beginnings. In our text, R. Kolonymous Kalman describes two types of beginnings— true and false. False beginnings threaten continuity by disguising themselves as authentic innovation when, in truth, they either reproduce or efface the past. They can be false for one of two reasons; either by merely reproducing the past (false continuity) or by offering radical innovations not rooted in the Absolute beginning [i.e., God] (heretical discontinuity). The former category illustrates the danger of tradition or traditionalism, answering the threat of the new by reproducing (and thus disabling) the old. The latter category includes any beginning that is not an extension of the Absolute beginning or, any beginning that claims Absolute uniqueness. For our author, this latter category is embodied in the ancient notion of idolatry and constitutes the heretical underpinnings of modernity.22 In either case, the deception of false beginnings is their apparent authenticity. The first case may be called dead traditionalism, the latter case idolatry or heresy. False beginnings that make no innovative claim are dead; those that make the claim of absolute uniqueness are blasphemous.23 Following standard hasidic practice, R. Kolonymous Kalman developed his ideas on beginnings through the prism of human devotion, focusing on the human soul as the locus of the transcendent God.24 The human being is

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commanded to emulate God (imatatio dei) and given the tools to do so by being created in His image (zelem elohim). True devotion begins with the volitional turn toward God by turning toward the divine self (the human soul). However, devotion as an act of divine emulation must always include the precautionary measure that the divine self is never more than a divine image. The propensity to strive toward human deification is often seen by Jewish writers as rooted in the sin of Adam and Eve which becomes manifest in idolatry.25 Like beginnings (creativity), the human striving for perfection (imitatio dei) contains the seeds of its own demise. The image of God in the individual is realized by human behavior and is not merely part of the human condition. The biblical notion of zelem elohim is therefore not a statement about human nature but a declaration of human potential, actualized through creativity.26 The actualization or dormancy of this potential, however, is not either/or but liminal; it is always in transition and never fully realized. Its realization would result in absolute autonomy, the divinization of the human being. To be fully human, according to this model, would be to act like God but never to be like Him. Esau as the Biblical Archetype of False Beginnings Text From this we see that Esau did not constitute a true beginning, as he did not bring forth anything new that would later be embodied or reflected in Jacob. The entire status of Esau as a true beginning and any apparent innovations that may stem from him are mistaken and false, as the Zohar 2.103a teaches, “Any other god (‘el aher) is barren and does not bear fruit.”27 These “other gods” do not yield any true innovation and only steal their innovative components from Torah, disguising them and deceiving people to think they contain true beginnings.28 Even those innovations in the material world, such as automation, do not constitute authentic [innovative] beginnings as they are just produced by composites of existing forces. For example, we take existing parts and make a [new] machine by fashioning iron [in a certain way]. This is even more true in spiritual matters. All of their words and ideas are only to deceive others to believe that they are innovators when in truth they are not. 29 This is not the case with Torah, which is also called reshit, because Torah contains the true element of beginning and innovation in the world.30 Therefore, Israel, who is bound to the Torah, is also called reshit since it is drawn from the true Beginning and Innovator, who is present in it [Israel].

introduction

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Comment

It is significant that R. Kolonymous Kalman used the symbol of Esau in his description of false beginnings. Esau was often utilized in medieval and early modern Jewish literature as a polemical depiction of Christendom.31 Christianity, or at least the unlearned and simplistic way many traditional Jews in his time understood it, erased the line between the human and divine, extending the “divine image” paradigm in Genesis to a heretical (and, in their minds, idolatrous) extreme.32 Our author claimed that Esau was false because he did not bring anything new into the world while claiming to be truly “first.” If we take the liberty to extend his discussion on Esau, the depiction of Jesus in Christianity would be rendered false because the innovation of Jesus as divine was viewed by these thinkers as having effaced the uniqueness of God, either by reproducing or replicating Him in the body of Christ. Moreover, Jesus’ messianic claim was solidly based on prophetic teaching, offering nothing new. His (false) claim of authenticity resulted in the heretical claim of autonomy from God, even though it did not begin as such. According to this model, modernity, as radical autonomy, is an extension of the Christian claim of Jesus’ uniqueness taken to its logical conclusion. Whereas in classical Christianity Jesus is independent of God because he is God, in modernity the individual is independent of God because he no longer sees God as directing his fate. In our author’s mind, Esau and Christianity (the latter mythically descending from the former) represent two poles of false beginning. The threat of false beginnings is not exclusive to the outside (i.e., Gentile/ Christian) world—it is also deeply embedded in the Jewish imagination. According to Hasidic tradition, the human being inherits a “divine soul” and is therefore unique among God’s creatures. Yet, as a result of the sin, h/she is also cursed with the power of deception (shrewdness). In the midrashic tradition, this results from Adam and Eve’s encounter with the serpent in the garden. In certain Lurianic texts, for example, which often reconstructs the midrash though its own mythic imagination, the result of Adam and Eve’s encounter with the serpent, whose central characteristic was shrewdness (Genesis 3:1), is that the serpent’s deceptive nature becomes a part of the human condition through (sexual) intercourse (between the serpent and Eve and then subsequently between Eve and Adam). Outside the garden, the human being continues to deceive themselves through empty creativity. In R. Kolonymous Kalman’s view, false beginnings that arise through this empty creativity, claiming human independence from God, sever the individual from the Absolute source of authenticity. Alternatively, false beginnings that contain no innovative spirit result in the dead state of reproduction and rep-

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etition. The former dimension of false beginnings is embodied in the serpent; the latter dimension in Esau. The Bible contains numerous examples of deceptive individuals, characters who challenge the viability of the divine human image. Two are relevant to our case. The first is the serpent, who seduces Adam and Eve into believing they can overreach their human limitations and become “like God” (Genesis 3:5); that is, that the barrier separating the image of God and God can be traversed.33 The second is Jacob’s twin brother Esau, who poses a greater threat than the serpent because Esau’s deception is almost impalpable. In fact, in the biblical narrative it is absent, only attaining prominence in the midrash. As the midrash cited in our sermon relates, even God calls Esau rishon, an appellation that, as in the other three instances cited, is unique to God or to those who reflect His will and thus embody true beginnings (God, the Temple, and Messiah). Esau looked like Israel (Jacob), shared his mother’s womb, his family, history, and fate.34 His deviance is subtle, unlike the unabashed audacity of the serpent. In our hasidic text, Esau is depicted as merely reproducing that which preceded him while proudly claiming to be truly innovative. He is presented here as little more than human counterfeit. His designation as “first” is merely chronological and not substantive. His claim to authentic (innovative) beginning is thus deceptive.35 This exhibition of deception is deemed demonic by our author because it falsifies true creativity. Therefore, R. Kolonymous Kalman likens Esau to “other gods” (Zohar 2.103a), depicting him as a human being without sacred desire (ta’avah).36 Desire is understood here as a will for renewal drawn from Absolute beginning. This desire exhibits an independence and sovereignty that, to the kabbalistic imagination, is absent in the demonic realm. The Zohar claims that the demonic, or the kelippot (extraneous matter), has no life force of its own and sustains itself solely through interaction with the holy (hence the serpent needed a relationship with Adam and Eve to survive).37 Implied in our text is an important distinction between sovereignty and autonomy. The former embodies the biblical notion of freedom, enabling the individual to act directly under the auspices of the Absolute. The latter severs ties to the Absolute and is called heresy or idolatry. The irony is that the demonic realm holds the promise of autonomy but can only offer radical dependency. In our text, Esau becomes the human embodiment of these kelippot, depicted as idolatry and illusion couched in the claim of innovation.38 He is thus the prototype of false beginnings which live dormant in the consciousness of the nation of Israel. R. Kolonymous Kalman uses this midrashic/kabbalistic observation about Esau to make a point about the relationship between devotion and be-

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ginnings. Even as the human being is created in the “image of God,” that image only shines through devotion (imitatio dei/human creativity).39 Authentic devotion is always an expression of creativity whereby the devotee preserves the past by changing it, introducing some new component or perspective. This notion resembles what Harold Bloom calls “originality” or “strong poetry,” the space between repetition, which he calls canonical reading, and heresy.40 In Bloom’s assessment, the strong poet saves the past by reading against it while not effacing it. In our text, innovation in the context of continuity is the hallmark of true beginnings that propels the Absolute beginning (God) into the future by acting against the present. This last point may illustrate the impact of our author’s historical context on his exegetical program. As mentioned in the introduction to the translation, our author lived in the early decades of 20th century Poland, a curious nexus between tradition and modernity, largely determined by the Versailles Treaty and its aftermath in post World War I Eastern Europe. Coming in contact with the Jewish Enlightenment through urbanization and civil alliances, many Jewish traditionalists in Poland and Hungary battled against the ideological underpinnings of modernity by arguing that innovation was itself heretical.41 The supporters of the Enlightenment chose to subject tradition to modern critique, scrutinizing tradition’s historical claims and foundational ideologies. In this text, R. Kolonymous Kalman represents those who suggested a third way, one that expresses what he considered the hasidic impulse, reminiscent of Bloom’s depiction of the strong poet.42 The Experiential Component of True Beginnings: Deciphering the Sacred Text

The Talmud teaches that Bereshit “ In the beginning” (Genesis 1:1) is also a divine utterance. God created the world with Ten Utterances (Mishna Avot 5:1). Since the Torah proclaims “Bereshit” (“In the beginning”), there is no beginning anyone can achieve that is not rooted in this True Beginning [of divine speech]. Beginning is the element with which God renews the world and also one of the ten divine utterances out of which the world was initially created. Therefore, when one brings forth a novel insight in the study of Torah, one must know whether this is only an apparent innovation (a false beginning) or a true innovative insight (hidush). If it is a true innovation it will yield “a new light” (‘or hadash).43 If this insight embodies a “new light,” its arbiter and all those who hear the insight will feel it. They will internally experience the added sanctity embedded in this insight.44

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Everyone who studies a section of the Talmud or any sacred book should also feel this sense of the sacred, even if the contents contain a discussion of an “ox who gores a cow.”45 However if one gazes in a book or hears [torah] from a spiritually devolved individual, even if the message contains ethical import and has an inspirational quality about it, one will not ultimately feel purified by it if it does not contain a “true beginning” and thus does not constitute an additional dimension of sanctity in the world.46 The ability to facilitate innovation (true beginnings) is not limited to one who can draw insights from the Torah. It is also true of any Israelite who has successfully corrected a character flaw or who has elevated a particular behavioral trait [to a place of sanctity], be it in reference to love or to awe [of God]. When such an individual elevates this trait so that it is saturated with divine love and awe, he has already achieved true innovation and becomes its beginning. This is true even if that particular corrective has already been mentioned in sacred literature. Let us take the example of an individual who constructs a building in a new and beautiful manner. His friend comes along and duplicates his structure with no changes. In relation to the form of the structure itself (zura l’azma), the friend did not add any innovative component that was not already instituted by the first builder. However, in relation to the material and the house itself (ha-bayit b’azma) the friend was indeed an innovator since he brought into existence something that did not previously exist. This is also the case with sacred literature that contains all kinds of directives for correcting human behavior authored and developed by righteous individuals. Nevertheless when an individual applies these directives to his own behavior he utilizes new material (homer hadash). Even though the form (zura) of these correctives is not new, since they were already instituted by these righteous authors, the implementation of these forms comes to perfect [and innovate] a particular dimension of the forms they suggested. Beginning, Innovation, and Sovereignty

This is also true of [political?] sovereignty in that Israel must be sovereign and not absorbed in and ruled by the opinions and desires of the world around her. An individual who internally brings forth an innovation is called “the first.” His innovation is embodied in the verse [and its rabbinic interpretation], These are the generations of Noah (Genesis 5:1), “Noah gave birth to himself.”47 Therefore, he was sovereign. This is not the case of one who has no internal innovation and has not corrected any dimension of his personal-

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ity. He is not called “first,” “innovator,” and “sovereign,” and it is difficult for such an individual to achieve sovereignty. Looking deeply into the Torah can help such an individual. Everyone knows in his soul that sometimes it is difficult to understand something deeply while other times such understanding seems to come easily. This difficulty is [often] not the result of a tired mind but the fact that the individual did not adequately push his intellect. This [internal] act of compulsion will push him toward deep understanding. This can be likened to one who wields a large hammer to destroy a wall. His success will depend upon the force he uses to strike the wall. If he strikes the wall in a feeble manner the wall will not fall [even if the hammer is large]. So too one must be sovereign over one’s intellect, compelling it to achieve deep knowledge. One who is not sovereign because he has not achieved any innovation in himself will not understand deeply, even if he is wise. This relates to all human endeavors. One who is sovereign can control all extraneous thought. And, if such foreign thinking does enter his consciousness, he can quickly remove it. As a result he can be the recipient of the supernal spirit from above. One who is not sovereign is susceptible to everything around him. How can the supernal spirit dwell in such an individual? This is the meaning of the midrash on the verse “And you should take for yourselves on the first day (yom ha-rishon) (Leviticus 23:40). The first for the counting of sins.”48 This is not only that they will be counted from above. It also applies to human beings. The mishna states that one should “consider the loss of a mitzvah. . . and the consequence of transgression against that loss.” Why don’t we live according to that simple equation? It is because we are not sovereign and do not have control over our thoughts. We desire to live according to this precept and then get distracted by other worthless thoughts. However Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is a time when we repent, correct our behavior and make ourselves a “true sovereign beginning” (rishon l’azmo). At that moment, we achieve a “first (rishon) in the counting of sins” and begin to think about the consequence of transgressions. Why are able to do this now? Because we have achieved a true beginning through sovereignty. Take for yourselves on the first day (yom rishon). God says, “I will reveal to you rishon (first). . . ”49 This means, I will draw down to you the first of true beginnings in order for you to be innovators.50 And I will punish you from Esau “the carrier of false beginnings” (Esau Ha-Rishon).51 The beginning that Esau carries is a mistaken beginning in order to deceive humankind.52 The true beginning is embodied in “I will build for you the Temple and bring Messiah to you” as Messiah is truly the beginning, he should come quickly in our time.

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Comment

The implication in the remainder of this text is that innovation is not a modern idea but a fundamental part of authentic tradition. This does not mean simply that tradition must incorporate change. The innovation R. Kolonymous Kalman had in mind was perspectival and not ideological or behavioral. True innovation was an accretion to the already existing system, deepening and not altering the ways it was lived. R. Kolonymous Kalman was committed to the devotional world of ultra-traditional Judaism where ritual and codified halakha (law) served as the sole foundation of authentic spirituality. Yet, he also witnessed the innovative challenge of modern values and, unlike many of his contemporaries, was unwilling to elude its challenges simply by demonizing the modern project. At the same time, he did not support the modern impetus to sever or even loosen its moorings to the tradition through overt critique. He wanted to promote originality, depicted here as “true beginnings,” yet he also wanted his reader to become sensitized to the deceptive and illusory nature of false creativity. In some sense, he framed modernity as a contemporary manifestation of the biblical description of false prophecy (Deuteronomy 13:1–12). For the Lord is testing you to see whether you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, (Deut 12:4). The premise of false prophecy is true (i.e., God does choose those to prophesy). The perennial message of Deuteronomy 13 is that Israel is always in danger of being deceived by anyone who makes a claim of authenticity. According to our author, modernity is precarious not because it is false but because it is based on the true principle of innovation, built on the deceptive foundation of radical autonomy. In his mind, the only way to be authentic was to be innovative and skeptical of innovation simultaneously. Modernity, like false prophecy, was a false demonstration of a true principle. True creativity and innovation, R. Kolonymous Kalman maintained, can only arise only out of a deep devotion to the past and a belief in the constant presence of the Absolute beginning from which everything authentic emerges. To accomplish this, he implicitly drew our attention to the distinctions between three categories: spontaneity, repetition, and reproduction.53 The first is the way he understood modernity’s answer to the question of beginnings, originality fostered by challenging and finally overcoming the past. This is the heretical beginning which is false because it has no point of origin outside of itself—its autonomy disconnects it from any sense of the Absolute, an I without a Thou (which, as both Hermann Cohen and Martin Buber maintain, is only the illusion of an “I”). The second is his critique of traditionalism that seeks to deny the viability of creativity by protecting the past at the expense of the present. Fi-

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nally, reproduction is the most dangerous of the three because it is disguised as true creativity in that it carries the designation of “first” in our midrashic text. It is embodied in Esau, here a euphemism for both Christianity and modern scientific inventiveness. It is often merely the combination of existing forces that yields new results but does not constitute authentic creativity (that is, creativity consciously connected to the Absolute source). The crux of our text rests on understanding the distinction between mere inventiveness and true innovation, or repetition and creativity, a distinction we must now explore. In our text, true devotion is an expression of human creativity that perpetuates and renews creation, while false devotion, like “other gods,” depreciates the spiritual progression of the world, desacralizing the sacred by merely reproducing it. This last point brings us to the most problematic section of our text—the subjective component that is the barometer which authenticates or falsifies true beginnings. Our author is a firm believer in the possibility of authentic religious experience. He argues that such experience is established as a response to some new element (“new light”) brought into the world represented as authentic beginning. Once something becomes part of the realm of human experience through knowledge, however sacred or lofty, it can no longer serve as a source for an authentic religious inspiration, because it becomes too much a part of human experience. Inspiration is solely the result of innovation, never reproduction or repetition. What follows from this in our text is that the sanctity of Torah study is more the result of the interpreter (teacher) than the text being studied. Torah novella (hidushei torah/authentic beginnings) facilitate inspiration by revealing some dimension or perspective of the text that has never been realized.54 According to R. Kolonymous Kalman, the sacredness of Torah and devotion, its “new light,” subsists solely through innovation (hidush). This innovation results in the inspiration (ta’avah—desire for the holy) that enables Israel to continue on the path toward redemption. Repetition (dead traditionalism) annuls the sacred by disabling the text’s ability to be inspirational. Radical innovation effaces the sacred by severing it from its Absolute source. Any inspiration that follows is inauthentic (i.e., any reading that does not submit to the text as a divine document), because it is viewed as being derived from an already de-sacralized text. Finally, R. Kolonymous Kalman argues that the ability to maintain renewal or to perpetuate authentic beginnings requires ideological, spiritual (and perhaps even political) sovereignty. This last point recasts and stipulates his earlier affirmation of the modern project. While the Jew must innovate in order to foster progression he must do so solely within the ideological and intellectual framework of Torah. Inside that framework, the individual must remain sovereign and not submit to the ideas or positions of others without ap-

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propriate scrutiny.55 This challenge against authority is very likely an extension of our author’s understanding of the Baal Shem Tov and early Hasidism’s rejection of the rabbinic culture of its time. To embody authentic beginnings one must exhibit the audacity and rebellious spirit needed to foster self-awareness. It should be no surprise that the biblical example brought to bolster this claim is Noah (“Noah gave birth to himself ”). Noah is depicted here as a selfmade man who rejected society’s interpretation of historical events. However, his sovereignty included, or was founded on, the recognition and devotion to the Absolute beginning (God), knowing that God could destroy the world as easily as He created it. He was simultaneously a pietist and a radical individualist (our author’s description of a true Hasid), resulting in his being chosen to father a new generation of humanity. Underlying this discussion on beginnings, R. Kolonymous Kalman offered his curious rendering of Hasidism as the model for authentic innovation and the progression of Judaism.56 While such a depiction had already been presented by Martin Buber decades earlier, R. Kolonymnous Kalman stood inside the tradition he was representing, presenting modernity the false prophet of innovation and Hasidism its corrective. Buber, who stood on the other side of the great divide between the modern west and Hasidism, knew far more than our author about modernity and far less about Hasidism. Even as R. Kolonymous Kalman’s model shares a great deal with the modern project, it is independent of its ideological apparatus. Pure innovation (and beginning) is internal, an outgrowth of spiritual evolution, independent thinking, and dedication to the notion of the infinite reservoir of Torah’s potential. The pitfalls are many. Internally, they are embodied in the human capacity for self deception. Externally, they are the seduction of Esau, our textual referent for both Christianity and modern culture. Raw traditionalism makes a claim for authentic continuity of the covenant at the expense of innovation. Unadulterated modernity champions innovation at the expense of the Absolute. In light of this brief textual analysis, the midrashic idiom “all beginnings are difficult” becomes even more nuanced: (1) authentic innovation requires submission to tradition. (2) the innovative spirit often leads to an effacement of the Absolute; and (3) submission often subverts innovation. All three are called “rishon.” As to which, if any, bring redemption, each sovereign reader will have to decide. Shaul Magid Erev Sukkot, 5760

introduction

Notes 1. He established his yeshiva in Piascenzo in 1909, immigrating to Warsaw after World War I. His yeshiva in Warsaw, Da’at Moshe, was established in 1923 and lasted until the liquidation of the ghetto. The most comprehensive study of Kolonymous Kalman is Nehemia Polin’s The Holy Fire (New Jersey, 1994). Cf. the important discussion in Mendel Piekarz, Ideological Trends of Hasidism in Poland During the Interwar Period and the Holocaust [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1990), pp. 373–411. 2. For a more detailed account see Polin, The Holy Fire, pp. 147–156. 3. Two of these monographs have been translated into English. See, The Obligation of the Student, trans. Michael Oppenheimer (New Jersey, 1996) and Conscious Community, trans. Andrea Cohen-Keiner (New Jersey, 1997). 4. Piekarz does not consider him an important and independent hasidic thinker. See Ideological Trends, p. 373. He views his homilies as larger re-formulations of earlier teachings by other masters. However, I find that his pedagogical works and his homilies exhibit a modern sensibility uncommon in hasidic masters of his day. 5. Most scholarly work on R. Kolonymous Kalman (Polin, Piekarz) concentrates on his hasidic reflections in the ghetto in Esh Kodesh. 6. Warsaw in the early 20th century was a cross-roads for modern Jews and their hasidic contemporaries. See, Arthur Green, “Three Warsaw Mystics,” in Mekharei Yerushalayim b’Makhshevet Yisrael 13 (1996): 1–58. 7. Derekh Ha-Melekh (Jerusalem, 1991). This collection contains two volumes of sermons. The first volume contains sermons delivered during Shabbat, the second volume contains sermons delivered during festivals. The 1991 edition also contains various letters, numerous essays on pedagogy and an introduction to R. Kolonymous Kalman’s glosses on the Zohar, which was destroyed during the Second World War. 8. The intertextual approach to reading Scripture is indicative of the larger rabbinic enterprise of midrash. See in Michael Fishbane, Garments of Torah, (Bloomington, Ind., 1989), pp. 3–18, 118–120. 9. For clarity I divided the sermon into sections, each beginning with a subtitle. The subtitles are my own and reflect what I determined was the general thrust of the section they represent. 10. Arthur Green has developed some interesting stratagems in translating hasidic texts. See, Green, “On Translating Hasidic Texts,” Prooftexts 3 (1983): 63–72. 11. Leviticus Raba, 30:17, Mordecai Margolis ed. (New York, 1993), p. 713. R. Kolonymous Kalman only offers us an excerpt. The full midrash reads as follows: “. . . I will reveal to you “first.” I will punish you from “the first,” I will build for you “first” and I will bring you “first.” I will reveal to them first, as it says I am God, the first (Isaiah 41:4). I will punish you from the first; this is Esau, the evil one, as it says, The first one went out red (Genesis 28:25). I will build you the first, this is the Temple, as it says, The Heavenly Throne from the heights, from the first (Jeremiah 17:12). I will bring to you first, this is the King

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Messiah, as it says, The first of Zion, behold here they are (Isaiah 41:27). Cf. a parallel text in Genesis Raba 63: 8. 12. The term hithadshut is usually translated as renewal. However, within the context of the Jewish mystical tradition, all innovations are aspects of renewal. Therefore, R. Kolonymous Kalman used the term to refer to both renewal and innovation. In the kabbalistic imagination, no innovation is truly new. At best it is only an unprecedented revelation of divinity, which is the source of all newness. Therefore, renewal and innovation are related. The former refers to a dimension of divinity that was concealed, and is now in a state of being revealed. The latter refers to an element of divinity never before disclosed that is now revealed for the first time. Redemption, which plays an important role in this homily stemming from the end of the midrash cited, occurs when all is renewed, making way for true innovation, the disclosure of that which has never been revealed. 13. This reflects Maimonides’ 13 Principles of faith and its formulation in the poem Yigdal, “Rishon l’kol davar.” Yigdal was composed in Italy, around the beginning of the 14th century. The probable author was R. Daniel ben Yehuda of Rome. It very quickly became a standard part of the traditional liturgy and a true representation of Maimonides’ 13 Principles, even as it contains some substantive differences with Maimonides’ formulation in the “Commentary to Perek Helek” (Chapter 10 of Mishna Sanhedrin). R. Kolonymous Kalman refers to the better known liturgical formulation of Maimonides idea of God as both beginning and without beginning. 14. God is often referred to as “bli reshit—bli takhlit” (eternal, without beginning and without end). Apparently what R. Kolonymous Kalman means is that creation makes God the beginning of everything (rishon l’kol davar). God only becomes the beginning at the moment of creation. Or, the genesis of the notion of beginning is only possible in creation. God’s paradoxical nature is that He is simultaneously void of beginning (bli reshit) and the absolute beginning (rishon). 15. I have rendered rishon (lit. first) as beginning, drawing from the phrase rishon l’kol davar as an appellation of God as Creator, the One Who Begins. The uniqueness of God described here is that He is simultaneously rishon and bli reshit (devoid of beginning). Our author then uses this paradox to claim that the adjective rishon, when it refers to God only refers to His action (peu’lot) and not His essence. 16. This is because His essence is “without beginning” (bli reshit). God is the beginning only in reference to creation. “God is beginning,” therefore, is a divine attribute, while bli reshit is a comment about divine essence. 17. The literal meaning of nizoz is spark. Here the term, common in theosophic Kabbala and Beshtean Hasidism, is used to describe the source of all beginning/renewal and its relationship to all manifestations of that phenomenon. The term nizoz points to a fleeting remnant of the source as it becomes manifest in the world. In this light, the term “trace,” used by Emanuel Levinas and popularized by Jacques Derrida, seems most appropriate.

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18. I am using the term “false beginnings” to refer to that which externally appears as a beginning but lacks the necessary innovative component to be an authentic beginning which reflects the divine. These beginnings are deceptive, the characteristic that, at least according to rabbinic interpretation, exemplifies the biblical character of Esau. 19. In classic midrashic style, R. Kolonymous Kalman takes us back to the midrash cited at the outset and begins to implement his distinction between true and false beginnings. Both are called rishon. Both are only called such in reference to something else, for only God is the source of all beginning. In the full midrashic passage cited in note 11 above, four things are called beginning; God, Esau, the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Messiah. God is called “the first,” the Temple is defined as “from the first,” Messiah is “the first.” Only in the case of Esau is first-ness solely chronological (“he went out first”). R. Kolonymous Kalman explains that this is the sign of his inauthenticity in that there is no connection to “the first [God].” 20. There is a distinction to be made between relative and chronological beginnings to which R. Kolonymous Kalman alludes but never develops. I will discuss this in my commentary. 21. See Leviticus Raba 30:7, pp. 704–706. 22. See, for example, in R. Kolonymous Kalman Shapiro, Mevo Ha-Shearim, reprinted in Hakhsharat Averkhim ve Mevo Ha-Shearim (Jerusalem, 1962), p. 41f. 23. On this see Harold Bloom, Ruin the Sacred Truths (Cambridge, MA, 1987), pp. 1–13. 24. See, for example, in Rachel Elior, “Hasidism—Historical Continuity and Spiritual Change,” in Peter Schefer ed. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism: 50 Years After, (Tubingen, 1996), pp. 318 and 319. 25. For example, see Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism (Atlanta, GA., 1995), pp. 338, 339, “Polytheism, on the contrary, with the exception of Platonic philosophy, assumes immortality to mean only deification. Man desires to become God. This is the longing of classical man. Christianity, like the classical world, also took over this idea of deification. Monotheism, on the contrary, maintains the separation between God and man in all its concepts.” 26. See R. Joseph Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, L. Kaplan trans. (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. 99–137. 27. The Zohar 2.103a reads, “Come and see, it is written, a river goes out from Eden to water the garden. (Genesis 2:10). This river never stops flowing and constantly bears fruit. Any other god has no desire, never flows forth and never bears fruit.” See R. Hayyim Vital’s gloss that reads, “It is also written that the Tree of Life has desire. We learn from this that the kelippah (extraneous matter) has no desire, as it is written, the desire of the wicked shall be destroyed.” R. Kolonymous Kalman likens the “other gods” to the kelippot (following the Zohar), which, as R. Hayyim Vital states, “has no desire (ta’avah).” The use of the term desire is positive, implying that desire is yearning for renewal.

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28. This is an obvious reference to the nations of the world. According to certain strains of kabbalistic doctrine, all Gentile wisdom originates in the theophany at Sinai. R. Kolonymous Kalman adopts this position and mentions it in numerous places. For example, see “Derekh Ha-Iyyun Ha-M’Yuhad,” the only remnant from the monograph Hovat Ha-Avrekhim, printed in Derekh HaMelekh, p. 393. This observation will serve as the foundation of the latter part of this sermon where he speaks about the necessity of Jewish sovereignty in all matters, political as well as religious. 29. The purpose of R. Kolonymous Kalman’s polemic is not clear. He appears to be tying Western civilization, with all its material progress, to Esau, drawing from medieval Jewish sources that suggest such a lineage. He may also be challenging Christianity’s use of Torah as the basis for what it claims as its innovative and progressive nature. Just as Esau tried to deceive Isaac, so too (according to R. Kolonymous Kalman’s logic) Christianity is trying to deceive the world of its authenticity. On the use of Esau as a symbol for Rome and Christianity in Jewish literature, see Gershon D. Cohen, “Esau as a Symbol,” in A. Altmann ed. Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, (Cambridge, MA., 1967), pp. 20–48. R. Kolonymous Kalman often spoke of the ways in which Israel (particularly in its youth) was seduced by the ways of the Gentile world. See, for example, Hovot Ha-Talmidim, (Warsaw, 1932), p 8ff. and 59a. Cf. Piekarz, Ideological Trends, p. 23. 30. This appears to be based on the principle that Torah is the blueprint of creation, which appears in the midrash and then becomes the foundation of Sefer Yezeriah, a foundational text in Jewish Late Antiquity. 31. See above, note 29. 32. It is important to note that our author lived in a world which, in my view, seriously misunderstood Christianity, both in theology and in practice. He inherited an already well-oiled polemic against the viability of Christianity and its idolatrous roots. In this essay I am merely attempting to expound on his ideas. I do not share his presuppositions nor his conclusions about Christianity or modernity. 33. See Aviva Zorenberg, Genesis—The Beginning of Desire (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 27–33. Hermann Cohen argues that the desire to be God lies at the root of idolatry and the plastic arts. See his Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism (Atlanta, GA., 1995), pp. 50–58. 34. R. Menahem Mendel of Kotzk notices the similarity between Jacob and Esau in passing when he quipped, “Esau also wore a streimel (fur hat worn by hasidic Jews)!” R. Menahem Mendel’s disciple R. Mordecai Joseph of Izbica extended this correlation much further. See Mei Ha-Shiloah, (Brooklyn, 1984) Vol. 1, 10b, “In the beginning both Jacob and Esau were equal, they were both great men. . . ” 35. This is depicted in the midrashic tradition in Esau’s relationship to his father Isaac. See Genesis Raba 63:10. 36. The prophecy of Balaam stems also from the realm of “false gods” in Zohar 3.193b. His prophecy is described as follows, “This evil one praised Israel in a concealed manner. He spoke words of truth and deceived his audience [in

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thinking it came from a true place, ed.]. That is, from a vision of Shadai (God). Those that heard him thought that he saw what no other had even seen.” For an interesting reading of this passage which is founded on the notion of Balaam as deceiver, see R. Isaiah Horowitz, Shnei Lukhot Ha-Brit (Jerusalem, 1993), Vol. 5, p. 62–67. 37. On this, see Isaiah Tishby, Torat Ha-Ra ve Ha-Kelippah, (Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 69–80. 38. See Genesis 33:1–16. Interestingly Esau reunites with Jacob and wants to continue to travel together. Jacob deceives him by agreeing to follow and then continues in a different direction. The rabbinic tradition understands Esau’s motives as malevolent. According to the Kabbala, which depicts Esau as demonic like the serpent, his desire to reunite is construed as his need to re-engage with the holy is order to sustain himself and his family. 39. See David Shapiro, “The Doctrine of the Image of God and Imitatio Dei” Judaism 12-1 (1963): 57–77. 40. See Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence, (New York, 1973), p. 20 and Susan Handelman, Slayers Of Moses, (Albany, NY, 1982), pp. 191–197. 41. On this see Michael Silber, “The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: The Invention of a Tradition” in Jack Wertheimer ed. The Uses of Tradition (New York, 1992), pp. 23–84. Cf. my “Modernity as Heresy: The Introvertive Piety of Faith in R. Areleh Roth’s Shomer Emunim,” Jewish Studies Quarterly, 3–4 (1997): 74–104. The most comprehensive study of the relationship between Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment is Raphael Mahler’s Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment (Philadelphia, 1985), although he concentrates on the early and mid 19th century. For a case of Hasidism and modernity in late 19th century Poland see my “ ‘A Thread of Blue’: Rabbi Gershon Henoch of Radzyn and his Search for Continuity in Response to Modernity,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry 11 (1998): 31–52. 42. Bloom uses his notion of the anxiety of influence as a hermeneutic for the Kabbala of R. Moses Cordovero and R. Isaac Luria. See his Kabbala and Criticism, (New York, 1993). Although Bloom never treats Hasidism, I would argue that his notion of strong reading works there as well. 43. The notion of a new light is multivalent in the Jewish tradition. It has a redemptive resonance from the liturgical phrase “A new light will shine from Zion.” In the Kabbala it often refers to a new dimension of revelation revealed for the first. 44. The implication here is that something that is authentically new is felt. The problematic of determining authenticity subjectively is never resolved in this text but is a basic principle in hasidic literature. See Nehemia Polin, The Holy Fire, pp. 27–30. 45. This refers to the discussion in Tractate Baba Kama, which deals with civil and property law. It is often cited as a seemingly mundane dimension of Torah study yet holds as much sanctity as the loftiest discussions about God and the human soul.

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46. Here the notion of authentic beginning is transmitted through the teacher of the text as much more than the text itself. I will speak about this in my commentary below. 47. I have been unable to locate the source for this statement, although in the text it appears to be cited from a rabbinic text. 48. This refers to the festival of Sukkot as the beginning of calculating sins for the coming year. See Leviticus Raba 30:7, p. 704–706, “On the eve of Rosh HaShana, the great ones of the generation fast and God forgives one third of their sins. From Rosh Ha-Shana to Yom Ha- Kippurim (the Day of Atonement) certain elite individuals fast and God forgives another third of their sins. On Yom Ha-Kippurim all fast, men, women and children, and God says to Israel, “Whatever happened, happened!” From that point on, a new calculation begins. R. Aha disagrees. . . From Yom Ha-Kippurim until the Festival [of Sukkot] Israel is busy with mitzvot. This one is preparing his Sukkah, this one his Lulav. On the first day of the Festival, all Israel stand before God, waving their Lulav and Etrog, praising God’s name. Then God says, “Whatever happened, happened!” From that point on a new calculation begins. Therefore, Moses warned Israel, And you should take for yourseves on the first day.” 49. In true proemic style, R. Kolonymous Kalman returns to the initial midrash, now reading it through his discussion of true and false beginning. 50. This refers to God’s revelation at Sinai and its prophetic interpretation in the verse I am God, the first (Isaiah 41:4). 51. I have taken considerable license here in the translation. R. Kolonymous Kalman merely states “Esau Ha-Rishon” which appears to a play on Adam HaRishon, who is the carrier of a true beginning. Because Esau did not do the necessary work to correct himself and to repent for his sins, he did not achieve any internal innovation (he did not change himself ). Therefore, his beginning is deceptive in that it is wholly external and does not indicate any authentic force, nor embody any “new light.” 52. R. Kolonymous Kalman’s comment seems to point both to the danger of Israel becoming absorbed in the world, the remnant of Esau, as well as to false prophecy, which the Torah explicitly states exists to “test Israel.” See Deuteronomy 13: 2–13. 53. Our text does not mention these categories. I have constructed them to attempt to understand the theoretical underpinnings of this hasidic homily. 54. On this see Nehemia Polin, The Holy Fire, pp. 26, 27. 55. This resembles R. Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman, the Gaon of Vilna’s position on individuality. The Gaon was adamant about the necessity for each individual to be a sovereign thinker in his/her scrutiny of Torah. On this, see Hillel Ben Sasson, “The Personality of the GRA and his Historical Influence” [Hebrew], Zion (1966): 55, 56. 56. See Hovot Ha-Talmidim, p. 8, 9, “The manner in which to train our generation is the way of Hasidism, authentic (emitit), heartfelt (levavit), and inspirational (nafshit).”

chapter 1

Three Biblical Beginnings Michael Carasik

History, like life, is “just one damned thing after another.”1 To begin telling a story with any particular damned thing is, by the very choice, inevitably to mark that thing as a starting point, just as an event can be marked ritually as an inauguration. “Finally, the beginning is an apparently arbitrary point: that place in the seamless web of events where the author chooses to begin his narrative.”2 Arbitrary as this choice may be, however, it is not just a selection, but a shaping. “Really, universally, relations stop nowhere, and the exquisite problem of the artist is eternally to draw, by a geometry of his own, the circle in which they shall happily appear to do so.”3 The purpose of this paper is to highlight the process of literary shaping as it took place in the Bible, by a discussion of three biblical beginnings—a beginning at the beginning, a beginning in the middle, and a beginning at the end. Genesis I Let us turn first to the famous beginning that is at the beginning—that is, “In the beginning.” It might seem that the most obvious method for telling a story is to follow the immortal advice the King of Hearts gave to the White Rabbit: “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” Given this guideline, to begin the Bible with the creation of the universe would seem the most apropos of all beginnings. As Aristotle explained, A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something else naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the

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contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by causal necessity or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. Plots that are well planned, therefore, are such as do not begin or end at haphazard, but conform to the types just described.4

Such a beginning is the necessary starting point for the complete story of our world; but most stories are of more limited scope than this. Consider the absurdity of following Aristotle’s advice in the following situation: A: How did you come to be at the scene of the accident? B: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. . . .

True, every story that does not begin with this kind of ultimate beginning is in some sense an incomplete story, a mere episode. Thus films, plays, and novels have a “back story,” an untold story that explains the existence of the situation and the circumstances at the beginning of the story that is actually told. Yet to begin most stories with the creation of the world would be to introduce an element of absurdity into the tale. Washington Irving exploited exactly this effect, for comic purposes, in his A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. After a chapter-long description of the earth as “a huge . . . mass, floating in the vast ethereal ocean of infinite space,” he begins the second chapter of his history this way: Having thus briefly introduced my reader to the world, and given him some idea of its form and situation, he will naturally be curious to know from whence it came, and how it was created. And, indeed, the clearing up of these points is absolutely essential to my history, inasmuch as if this world had not been formed, it is more than probable that this renowned island, on which is situated the city of New York, would never have had an existence. The regular course of my history, therefore, requires that I should proceed to notice the cosmogony or formation of this our globe.5

That the Bible should begin ab ovo, then, rather than accepting Horace’s advice to plunge in medias res, is (as noted long ago by Jewish exegetes) not to be taken for granted. Yet even Gen 1:1, correctly understood, may not begin completely ab ovo (a distinction that belongs, almost literally, only to Tristram Shandy). It is curious that the most famous beginning in world literature is one whose meaning is not entirely certain. The grammatical obscurity of the phrase bereshit bara leaves open the question of whether, as is accepted by many modern

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commentators, the traditional English rendering of the King James Version, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth,” is not to be supplanted by an in medias res beginning: “When God began to create heaven and earth—”6 Naturally, the philosophical and theological ramifications of this distinction are immense. Yet from a literary point of view the difference between the two is fairly subtle. The ab ovo opening begins with the ultimate beginning of the universe, but at least the in medias res opening begins with the first thing that can be said to have actually happened. Even this distinction looms larger, however, through the lens of literary and cultural history. Mimicking the debate over whether human beings are qualitatively or merely quantitatively different from other animals, the understanding of bereshit bara places an interpreter on one side or the other of the debate about whether Israel’s contribution to the world represents a development of the ancient Near Eastern civilization in which it arose, or a radical break with that tradition. From this perspective, the translation that sounds contemporary to the ears of an English reader, “When God began to create,” is the “old” kind of beginning, like that found in the famous Babylonian epic of creation called (from its first words) the Enuma Elish. The traditional English of the King James Bible, “In the beginning,” would actually mark a radically new kind of cosmological beginning in the ancient Near Eastern context.7 In a larger sense, of course, even “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” is an in medias res opening, for beginning always implies the existence of something before. A closed curve, like a circle, has no beginning; but a line, like anything else that starts, has to start somewhere. As the woman who believed that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle explained when asked what the turtle was standing on, “It’s turtles all the way down.” The mere fact that a narrative must begin puts it at odds with the infinite regression that seems to be built into the nature of time. Even the storyteller who wants to begin ab ovo can do no better than pick a particularly solid-looking turtle to start with. From this perspective—if it is not lèsemajesté to continue the metaphor for one more moment—the author of Gen 1:1 made a conscious decision to begin with the top turtle in the stack. The sages anticipated this conclusion in Gen. R. 1:10, when they interpreted the three-sided shape of the bet that begins the Bible as a barrier blocking access to anything that happened “before” the beginning—a barrier, it must be said, which they themselves sometimes successfully evaded. The comparative material shows us clearly that placing the barrier at that particular point in the story was arbitrary, and therefore a deliberate choice to give the narrative a particular shape. The Enuma Elish picks up the thread somewhat earlier in the story:

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When skies above were not yet named Nor earth below pronounced by name, Apsu, the first one, their begetter And maker Tiamat, who bore them all, Had mixed their waters together, But had not formed pastures, nor discovered reed-beds; When yet no gods were manifest, Nor names pronounced, nor destinies decreed, Then gods were born within them. Enuma Elish i 1–98

Here, as in Genesis, the story opens on a scene of watery chaos, the hyle of the philosophers. Yet the first thing that happens is not the creation of heaven and earth—that will have to wait five hundred lines or so—but that of the gods themselves. Interestingly, the first mention of creation here (line 9) is in the passive mood. Unlike Genesis 1, where the story is one of active creation by a God who is on stage when the curtain goes up, the Enuma Elish begins not with the first action of the gods, but with their generation. They arise naturally, as it were, out of the original conditions of chaos, like onecelled life in the primordial oceans of Precambrian Earth. The Egyptian creation story known as the Memphite Theology takes an even bolder step. Ptah, who (according to this text) created the Nine Gods of the Memphite pantheon, is described as “self-begotten.”9 In this telling, the creator-god wills himself into existence and then creates the rest of the universe. The mention of these alternate cosmologies reminds us that it is not merely where one begins the story that is important, but which story it is that one begins. This point goes somewhat beyond what I wish to emphasize in this section—the effect of the very first words of the story—and it has been frequently discussed. Nonetheless, two aspects of the choice of story are worth highlighting here. First is the nature of the story told in Genesis 1. Unlike the bloody battle that forms the plot of the Enuma Elish, no hint of struggle enters into the creation story of Genesis 1.10 The creation with which the Hebrew Bible begins, by contrast with the battle royal between Tiamat and Marduk, is almost business-like. This is the more remarkable because we know that the Israelites, too, had their stories of creation as the aftermath of battle. The discovery at Ras Shamra of the Ugaritic epics about the battle of Baal and Yamm (“Sea”) has only made it easier to see the remnants of a similar myth that existed all along in the Hebrew Bible. In the NJPS translation of Isa 51:9, when the prophet apostrophizes God’s arm,

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It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces, That pierced the Dragon

the Dragon is tannin, the same as the great sea monsters (tanninim) created by God, incidentally with all other kinds of marine life, in Gen 1:21. Again, Ps 74:13 has God splitting the sea by force as in the Baal epic, not calmly decreeing the separation as in Gen 1:9. The God we meet in Genesis 1 is very different from the God we might have met had the Bible begun with battle, not (as in Gen 1:28) with blessing.11 So much for the road not taken; but, in Genesis 2, the Bible generously provides us with a road also taken. That is, the story of creation is told over again starting in Gen 2:4—not for the sake of those who missed it the first time, but in a totally different voice that simultaneously fleshes out and subtly alters the original story. In context, the motifs of the first story are transfered in the second story, like the themes of a symphony, to instruments of a different timbre. It is interesting, for example, to see how the cherubs and the flaming, ever-turning sword that block the expelled Adam and Eve from the garden mimic the temporal frame of Gen 1:1 (or, with Genesis Rabba, the bet of bereshit) that blocks us from any access to what came before. Again, this is a standard topic of biblical exegesis, and not our major concern here. Rather, it is the untold stories that are silenced by Genesis 1 that claim our attention. We have spoken of Gen 1:1 as a verse behind which the mystery of God’s own existence is hidden, but there is someone else hidden behind the frame of this verse as well: its author. “When God began to create the heavens and the earth . . .” As the vaudeville comedians used to say, in words similar to if more colloquial than those God addresses to Job in Job 38:4, Vas you dere, Cholly? On what authority do we have this description of events at which, by definition, no human being could have been present? To be sure, the scene could have been shown to a human being through prophecy, but in this case we would expect some introductory words to serve as a form of authentication: The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he envisioned about Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. (Isa 1:1) The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests of Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, who had the word of the LORD in the days of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. (Jer 1:1f.)

In this respect, the introduction to the Memphite Theology is quite interesting:

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. . . This writing was copied out anew by his majesty in the House of his father Ptah-South-of-his-Wall, for his majesty found it to be a work of the ancestors which was worm-eaten, so that it could not be understood from beginning to end. His majesty copied it anew so that it became better than it had been before, in order that his name might endure and his monument last. . . .12

One source of authority for this story is given, and a second is implied. First, the story has been passed down from the ancients, a tradition so old (and, thus, accepted for so long) that the physical manuscript that preserves it has seriously deteriorated. Second, the text is restored/recreated by the King of Egypt, who, as Horus, is himself a manifestation of Ptah, the “selfbegotten.”13 My point is not that this is so convincing that we, too, must accept the truth of the Memphite Theology, but that the author of this text began it in a way calculated to lend the necessary authority to it.14 Genesis 1 has no such introduction. We may cite one more example, where the very same story that begins the Bible is retold, but not before the following lines of introduction: Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing heavenly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of chaos; or if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song. . . Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 1–13

Moses (“that shepherd who first taught the chosen seed”) was inspired by the Muse! Regina Schwartz observes of Milton’s work in Paradise Lost, [H]e is not certain that beginnings are accessible, and, if they are, he is not sure that they can be expressed guiltlessly. His creation stories are always

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mediated—by accounts and accounts of accounts—by Raphael, by Uriel, by angelic hymns, by the reconstructions of memory, and by a theory that casts doubt on the ability of language to convey origins at all.15

That comes through very strikingly here in the first few lines of the poem, where it is not clear whether the Muse’s aid came to Moses from Sinai or from “Oreb” (Horeb, not Sinai, is the name of the site of revelation in Deuteronomy), and whether it will come to Milton from there or from Mount Zion in Jerusalem and “Siloa’s brook that flowed / Fast by the oracle of God.” This is not the only confusion that attends the beginning of the poem, for in line 17 Milton invokes a voice which may or may not be that of the Muse of line 7: And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples th’ upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss And mad’st it pregnant. . . .

This is very far from the “natural” beginning of the Bible’s Genesis. As if to emphasize the point, Moses’ “In the beginning” does not find its way into Paradise Lost until line 10, and the “action” of Milton’s own telling does not start until line 34, when, after being asked in line 28 to “say first what cause” moved Adam and Eve to disobey God, the Muse or Spirit at last begins to speak: “Th’ infernal Serpent.” We have already seen biblical attribution of one’s words to a heavenly source, in the introductions to prophecy; but a beginning like this one, which invokes self-conscious reference to the writer’s own words, is equally biblical: Give ear, O heavens, let me speak; Let the earth hear the words I utter! May my discourse come down as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, Like showers on young growth, Like droplets on the grass.

(Deut 32:1–2)

My heart is astir with gracious words; I speak my poem to a king; my tongue is the pen of an expert scribe.

(Psalm 45:2)16

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Gen 1:1, by contrast, is extremely spare. It may be that the lack of an invocation or other introduction was simply meant to forestall a question about authority, which had no good answer. Ultimately, to ask how someone dared write the words bereshit bara touches upon the questions of the invention of creative writing and the role of the imagination in religion, both questions too vast to be explored here. We may still ask, however, why our author began his story where he did, with the creation of the universe. Washington Irving’s reason, at least, played no role. There is comedy in the Bible, but not here. Yet some of the other authors of Irving’s era, to whom he was perhaps responding, may provide some clue. Terence Martin’s Parables of Possibility describes the fascination with beginnings expressed by American writers in the early years of the country’s independence. Thus Jeremy Belknap, in his History of New-Hampshire (1784), writes that Americans are fortunate in being able to fix precisely “the beginning of this great American empire”; the beginnings of other countries are “disguised by fiction and romance” or cloaked in “impenetrable obscurity.” John Daly Burk, in The History of Virginia, from Its First Settlement to the Present Day (1804), “speculates at some length on the universal desire to know one’s ‘origins’ and to believe them ‘illustrious, or at least respectable’.” Even the notion that God was involved in the nation’s beginning finds its place in the title of Benjamin Trumbull’s A General History of the United States of America: Sketches of the Divine Agency, in their Settlement, Growth, and Protection (1810).17 The Israelites’ consciousness of their people as a new creation may have inspired them, too, to look deeper into the past for their origins. In the end, the last word on the understanding of why the Bible begins as it does may belong to Rashi’s R. Isaac,18 after all: Why did he begin with bereshit? “He told his people the power of his deeds, to give them the nations’ inheritance” (Ps 111:6). For if the nations of the world should say to Israel, “You are thieves, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations,” they would reply to them, “The whole world belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He created it and gave it to whomever He thought best. According to His will He gave it to them and according to His will He took it from them and gave it to us.”

If, as Goitein remarked, the Bible is the story of how the people of Israel won the land of Israel,19 then the notion of a lone creator God who would turn out to be the God of the people of Israel would be a very powerful one. Indeed, if an American historian could conceive of American history as being under the control of divine agency, why could an Israelite writer not do the

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same? We know that such a view was held by the Deuteronomistic historian, of whom we are about to speak; it is not too much to assume the existence of an author who wished to trace Israel’s history back into the pre-Israelite past—first ten generations from Abraham to Noah, and then ten more antediluvian generations from Noah to the first human pair (Gen 1:27). Here, as in Psalm 114, the schema of history links up to the schema of creation. For such an author, in all innocence, bereshit bara may have been a “natural” beginning after all. 1 Samuel The second of our three beginnings—the beginning in the middle—is the beginning of the book of 1 Samuel, a choice that requires a bit of explanation. The physical center of a bound, one-volume Hebrew Bible is more likely to be close to the beginning of the book of Isaiah, not that of 1 Samuel. In one sense, Isaiah also lies in the conceptual center of the Bible, equidistant from the Torah and the Writings, and marking, and in the person of the prophet himself, even straddling, the boundary between the Former and the Latter Prophets. (The meaning of the acronym notwithstanding, the Tanakh is really composed of four, not three, equal-sized and conceptually distinct parts.) Moreover, the beginning of Isaiah has long been the subject of discussion. The fact that Isaiah’s call to prophecy comes not in chapter one of the book but in chapter six is unique to the prophetic books.20 Indeed, where in the hands of another author delaying the apparent beginning of the book might be a matter of careful structural design, there is no apparent narrative structure in the book of Isaiah. There are first, middle, and last words, but no beginning, middle, and end—none of the literary scaffolding that might have given the book the shape of a story. The fact that, like so many prophetic works, the book begins with condemnation and ends with consolation has implications for the history of the redaction of the book and of the Bible as a whole, but this is not really enough to provide a sense of plot. The beginning of the words of Second Isaiah, the anonymous prophet of the return from exile in Babylonia, is not even marked by an incipit; rather, in the first verse of chapter 40, a new voice simply begins to speak, again preceding the actual summons to prophecy in 40:6. Perhaps most significant for the present discussion is the lack of prominence given to Isaiah’s role in the failure of the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 B.C.E. (Isaiah 36–37). This event—arguably the most important in Jewish history other than the destructions of the two Temples— might have given shape to the book of Isaiah just as Wallace Stevens’ jar upon

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a hill in Tennessee “made the slovenly wilderness surround that hill.” Instead, it is told in what is essentially an appendix to the book of First Isaiah, taken from 2 Kings 18–19.21 Second Isaiah, to be sure, locates Israelite history in between the two parallel events of the exodus from Egypt and the return from exile in Babylonia. But the details of history—the story line connecting these two events—are of no concern to him. It is quite otherwise with the book of 1 Samuel, for with Samuel, of course, we enter the realm of the Deuteronomistic History. In extent, this corpus makes up the section of the Bible called the Former Prophets, the books of Joshua through Kings.22 Some of the ways in which this work structures the facts of Israelite history into a story are evident to even the most casual reader of the Bible: the frequent periodization of the era of the judges into chunks of twenty (e.g., Jud 4:3), forty (e.g., Jud 3:11), or eighty (Jud 3:30) years; or the formulaic recitation of the basic facts and Deuteronomistic evaluation of each reign in the contrapuntal chronology of the books of Kings (e.g., 2 Kgs 18:1–3, “In the third year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, Hezekiah son of King Ahaz of Judah became king. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years; his mother’s name was Abi daughter of Zechariah. He did what was pleasing to the LORD, just as his father David had done.”). Yet the Deuteronomistic historian has shaped the narrative of the Israelite past in larger ways as well. In the Deuteronomistic schema, the books of Samuel, and especially 1 Samuel, describe the transition between the period of the judges and that of the kings. When the book of Kings begins, David is on the throne and ready, for the first time in Israelite history, to pass the crown dynastically down to his son after him. By contrast, Judges ends with a clear statement of anarchy: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did as he pleased” (Jud 21:25).23 Samuel, then, is the Deuteronomistic narrative of the transition from the condition of there being no king to the condition of there being a king. Gen 36:31, “These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites,” shows that kingship was widely regarded as an innovation in Israel’s history.24 It is frequently remarked that the material of Judges is arranged to show Israel gradually descending further and further into the chaos that made kingship necessary (or at least inevitable). It is less often remarked, though, that the very periodization of Israelite history into eras of judges and kings—a periodization still followed in political histories of ancient Israel—is a construct of the narrative of the Deuteronomistic History, and not the only possible way of looking at the Israelite past. It was, after all, not David or Saul who was the first king of Israel, but Gideon’s by-blow, Abimelech. He was proclaimed king

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at Shechem (Jud 9:6), just as Solomon’s son Rehoboam would later attempt to be (1 Kgs 12:1). That Abimelech’s rule was on a national, not just a local, scale is indicated by Jud 9:22, “Abimelech ruled over Israel for three years.”25 There are even indications that Abimelech’s rule was the result of a dynastic struggle, like Solomon’s. In Jud 9:2 he asks the citizens of Shechem, “Which do you think better—that 70 men should rule26 you, all the sons of Jerubbaal, or that a single man should rule you?” Jud 8:18 further hints that even Gideon/Jerubbaal was already recognized as a king.27 It is probable that, like the rulers of Canaanite city-states in Genesis 14 and in the Amarna letters, other petty rulers in the groups that would one day comprise Israel also called themselves by the name “king.” But the Deuteronomistic History was determined to present kingship as a new thing in Israel. Yet Saul’s kingship, shortly to be taken from him and transfered permanently to David and his descendants, was not merely a new beginning in Israelite political history. In its biblical literary context, coming as it does halfway through the Deuteronomistic History, it is very much what we have called it, a beginning in the middle. We have already seen that the book of Judges was literarily arranged (and chronologically rearranged when necessary) to paint Israelite history as a descent into anarchy, summed up in the book’s final verse by the words “In those days there was no king in Israel”—a statement that, in context, cries out for a sequel. The sequel, of course, is provided by 1 Samuel. Paradoxically, the continuity of 1 Samuel 1 with the period of the Judges that preceded it is emphasized by a break in the literary pattern. Deuteronomy ends with the death of Moses, and the immediately following book of Joshua begins with the words va-yehi acharei mot moshe. Joshua ends with Joshua’s death and the immediately following book of Judges begins with the words va-yehi acharei mot yehoshua. 1 Samuel ends with the death of Saul, and 2 Samuel begins with the words va-yehi acharei mot sha’ul. Admittedly the division of Samuel into two books was not part of its composition. Nonetheless, the comparison with Josh 1:1 and Jud 1:1 shows 2 Sam 1:1 to be an original structuring device of the Deuteronomistic History, a device deliberately not used in 1 Sam 1:1. For 1 Sam 1:1 (“There once was a man . . . ”) does not sound like the beginning of a book; it sounds like the beginning of a story. This again becomes clear by comparison with other texts within the Deuteronomistic History. The parallel to the beginning of the story of Samson in Judges 13 is particularly clear. Both stories begin with the words “There once was a certain man from . . . whose name was . . . ” (1 Sam 1:1, Jud 13:228). The plots of both stories begin with a barren woman who is promised

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a child. Moreover, in both cases the promised son is not to be of the ordinary run of men, but dedicated in some fashion to God—Samson as a nazir from birth, avoiding alcohol and impure foods; Samuel, at his mother Hannah’s initiative, to be given to the LORD for life (once weaned). Of both it is said—in Samson’s case by an angel’s command, in Samuel’s by his mother’s promise— “No razor shall touch his head” (Jud 13:5, 1 Sam 1:11).29 Most significantly, both of these holy children will grow up to be the leader of Israel (Jud 16:31, 1 Sam 12:2). Yet here the similarities end. Samson’s story is just that: an episode in the book of Judges. Samuel’s puts him in place to play a key role in the transition to monarchy. There is another story in the material that concerns us that begins with a similar phrase: “There once was a man from Benjamin whose name was Kish” (1 Sam 9:1).30 Again, the comparison is more than stylistic. It is Saul who, in this reading of Israelite history, will become the first king. Yet he makes a relatively late and inglorious entry into a story that might logically have begun with him—as, in another telling, it no doubt once did. This earlier telling still leaves its trace in the declaration of Saul’s superior qualities (NJV, “He was an excellent young man [bachur va-tov]; no one among the Israelites was handsomer than he”) and his kingly stature (“taller from the shoulders up than all the rest of the people”; both 1 Sam 9:2). Yet despite this praise, the story that now introduces him to the page of history frames him as small, lost, and buffeted by the winds of chance. When we first meet him, he is sent looking for his father’s lost asses, a humble enough task. They are ultimately found, but not by Saul, presaging the lack of success and inability to complete a task which—in the eyes of the Deuteronomistic historian—will characterize Saul’s life. It is Saul’s servant, not he, who has some plan (1 Sam 9:6) and even has control of their money (v. 8); and of course it is Samuel who, already the day before, has been not only warned by the LORD of Saul’s arrival, but instructed to anoint him as ruler of Israel. This is all the more curious because the actual beginning of 1 Samuel, the beginning of the story of Samuel himself, has Saul’s name written all over it. I mean this, of course, in the most literal possible way. The root sˇ’l, “ask” (in a variety of senses), appears too frequently in this story to be coincidental. It is found nine times, all in connection with the child whose birth is the focus of the chapter. In 1 Sam 1:17, after realizing that Hannah was not drunk but praying from the depths of her heart for a child, Eli the priest tells her, “Go in peace. May the God of Israel grant the request [shelatekh31] that you have made [asher sha’alt] of him.” Eli’s statement is recalled when, in v. 27, Hannah brings the child to Shiloh, “This is the boy I prayed for, and the LORD granted the request [she’elati] which I made [asher sha’alti] of him,” and again

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in 2:20 when Eli blesses Elkanah and Hannah, wishing her children of her own, saying to Elkanah, “May the LORD grant you offspring from this woman in place of the loan [ha-she’elah] which she made [asher sha’al32] to the LORD.” The child’s very naming (in 1:20) highlights the discrepancy: “She named him Samuel, for ‘I requested him [she’iltiv] from the LORD’.” NJPS33 explains this name as connected with “sha’ul me’el ‘asked of God’,” but the use of “LORD” rather than “God” in the etymology seems, in context, to deliberately emphasize the inappropriateness of the link with Samuel and, as a consequence, the true connection with Saul.34 Finally, as if this were not enough, the chapter ends by Hannah’s telling Eli about her son, “I hereby lend him [hish’iltihu] to the LORD.. . . He is lent [hu sha’ul] to the LORD” (1:28). It is impossible not to read the words hu sha’ul as also meaning what they say in plain Hebrew: “He is Saul.” Two points emerge from this echoing of Saul’s name throughout the birth narrative of Samuel. The first is that, in an earlier version of the story than the one we have, it was most likely Saul, not Samuel, who was compared to Samson. We have already noted that Saul, too, is introduced into the story with a notice about his father (1 Sam 9:1) like those given to the fathers of Samuel (1 Sam 1:1) and Samson (Jud 13:2). It is Saul, not Samuel (a mere bystander in 1 Samuel 13), who leads Israel against the Philistines, Samson’s enemies. Moreover, it is Saul of whom we read three times “the spirit of God rushed upon him” (1 Sam 10:10, 11:6, and, slightly variant and to different effect, 18:10), just as we do of Samson (Jud 14:6, 14:19, and 15:14). The only similar phrase anywhere else in the Bible is used, in our book, of David when he is anointed by Samuel (1 Sam 16:13). It is worth noting that the notion of Saul-as-Samson has been completely reintegrated into the larger story. In 1 Sam 11:6, the “spirit” that possesses Saul turns him into a berserker, as Samson’s did to him, but elsewhere it refers to something less like the rage of a fighter and more like mental illness. Note, too, that everywhere else the phrase is used, even in 1 Sam 10:6, where Samuel tells Saul what will happen to him, it is “the spirit of the LORD.” But when this spirit actually comes upon Saul it is always “a divine spirit” [ruach-elohim], not specifically that of the Lord. The barrier between Saul and the Lord, in contrast to the Lord’s closeness to David, is very apparent.35 The fact that an apparently original story likening Saul to Samson has not been eliminated, but rather reworked into a larger literary scheme, brings us to our second point about the reverberation of Saul’s name in the birth narrative of Samuel. Again, this is not the work of a haphazard redactor who did not understand the point of the repetition of the root sˇ’l; if anything, we must suspect our redactor of laying it on even thicker than the original story had done.

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The deliberate overlay of Samuel and Saul achieves a number of different purposes.36 First, it lets the reader know that this is, indeed, the part of the history in which Saul’s story will be told, but it eliminates the possibility of framing that history in such a way that Saul himself will be, as he might well have been, the hero of it. Long before he appears on the scene in 1 Samuel 9, Saul already has been given the same now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t quality that belongs to his kingship as seen by the Deuteronomistic historian of the Israelite monarchy. The usurpation of the story of Saul’s miraculous birth by Samuel foreshadows the usurpation of his throne by David. Second, Samuel too, from his very birth, is haunted by the ghostly presence of Saul. True, despite the promise of an eternal dynasty to Eli (1 Sam 2:30), Samuel will supplant his sons in the Israelite leadership. But Samuel’s own sons will prove no more wholesome than Eli’s (compare 1 Sam 2:12–17 with 8:1–3, Samuel’s attempt to make his sons judges, immediately followed by the people’s demand for a king who will turn out to be Saul). Saul’s son Jonathan will in turn be displaced, not, to be sure, because of his own unworthiness, but because the promise of an eternal dynasty will at last devolve upon David. It is the establishment of David’s descendants on his throne in perpetuity that is the raison d’être of the Deuteronomistic History. Finally, the beginning of 1 Samuel is not merely the beginning of the story of Samuel himself. It is the start of the story that tells of the beginning of the Israelite monarchy. The literary positioning of Samuel in uneasy balance between Samson and Saul matches the historiographer’s positioning of him in uneasy balance between the era of the judges and that of the kings. In the view of Deuteronomy, from which the Deuteronomistic History drew its inspiration, the ideal leader of Israel is Moses—a prophet and a judge, not a king. Yet when the Deuteronomistic historian wrote, the kingship of which Deuteronomy and Samuel were so suspicious (Deuteronomy 17, 1 Samuel 8, 10, 12) was an established fact. What is more, David was both the founder of the dynasty and possessor of a divine promise that his descendants would sit on the throne forever. How to bridge this gap between the real and the ideal was the essential problem of the Deuteronomistic History. 1 Samuel 1 represents a key point in the solution to that problem. Monarchy was indeed, according to this ideology, a new thing in Israel, but it was not an utterly new beginning. Rather, like the story of Samuel, it was a beginning in the middle. 2 Chronicles 36 We come at last to the beginning that is at the end; that is, to 2 Chr 36:22–23, the last two verses in the Hebrew Bible. I emphasize “Hebrew”

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Bible here because these verses are in the middle of the Christian Old Testament, not at its end. Indeed, even within the Masoretic tradition, Chronicles was sometimes placed at the beginning, not the end, of the Writings. Nonetheless, in the dominant tradition of the Hebrew Bible, these verses constitute its ending, and that is how we will discuss them.37 It may seem strange to call an ending a beginning (though biblical scholars have made stranger claims), but in this case, it is strictly accurate: The end of the book of Chronicles is the same as the beginning of the book of Ezra. 22And

in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by38 the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia and he had heralded throughout his kingdom, and in writing too, as follows: 23Thus said Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD God of Heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has instructed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, Judea. Whoever there be of you from all his people, the LORD39 his God be with him, and let him go up.

Curtis in his ICC commentary to Chronicles of 1910 says of these verses: They are not the proper close of a history, but the introduction; hence their true place is in Ezr. 11–3a. 1 and 2 Chronicles originally formed with Ezra one work, and in the separation this paragraph was allowed to remain in each either by chance, or as an evidence that the two writings were originally one, or with less probability, it may have been appended to 2 Chronicles to give a more hopeful close to the book (even as 2 Kings closes with a notice of the release of Jehoiachin).40

The assumption that these verses are indeed a beginning and not a conclusion, though Curtis does not say so, is no doubt based on the fact that the phrase “In the nth year . . . ” (usually of a king) is not merely used for dating purposes, but serves some fifty or sixty times as the beginning of a biblical passage. This can be so even when, as in our passage (both in Chronicles and in Ezra), the word begins with a conjunction: “And in the first year. . . ”.41 Hence one cannot rest too great an interpretive burden on this and; it is the overlap of words, not the conjunction, that seems to emphasize the historical continuity between Chronicles and Ezra. The assumption that Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah form a single historical work is still current, but it is no longer (as it was in Curtis’ day) the scholarly consensus.42 It would seem, then, that this was not an original link that was subsequently broken, but that the Chronicler (or someone later) de-

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liberately copied these phrases from Ezra 1. A second, somewhat different, Aramaic version of this decree is found in Ezra 5:13–15 and 6:3–5, which might have been used instead; so it is clear that the link with Ezra 1 was deliberately forged. There is another somewhat unusual beginning to be remarked on in these verses. That is the identification of the decree as having been promulgated “in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia.” But Cyrus had been king of Persia for twenty years before he conquered Babylon and with it the power to issue a decree concerning the Judeans exiled there. Yet all four of the biblical sources for the decree, including the Aramaic versions of it in Ezra 5:13–15 and 6:3–5, the latter purporting to be a copy of an official Persian government document, all date it to the first year of King Cyrus. To be sure, the citation in Ezra 5:13 gives the clue to the idea underlying the dating of the decree to Cyrus’ first year, for it calls him “Cyrus king of Babylon.” The years before Cyrus stepped onto the stage of biblical history, before he became King of Babylon, are unimportant. This would be a simple enough solution to the problem if all four texts called him King of Babylon, but they do not. It seems likely that there is something else going on here. Rather, the deliberate combination in 2 Chr 36:22 and Ezra 1:1 of the “first year” with Cyrus’ identification as King of Persia suggests that the decree was understood to mark the beginning of a new historical era, the one we now call the Persian period of Jewish history. From the perspective of its author, however, this period must have looked somewhat different. If the Chronicler himself added these words to conclude his book, then it was almost certainly done during the period of Persian rule. If a later author added them, however, this would most likely not have happened until the Persian period was over. Indeed, though the latest texts in the Bible were written almost two centuries after Alexander conquered the province of “Beyond the River” from the Persians, there is, surprisingly, no mention of this fact, or of Alexander, in the biblical text. The biblical perspective, then, was that the historical period inaugurated in “the first year of Cyrus king of Persia” was considered to be ongoing—the contemporary period, if you will. Simply put, it was the era of the Return to Zion. I say the Return to Zion, not the Second Temple period, even though the explicit purpose of the decree is the achievement of what Cyrus owed to “the God of Heaven” for giving him “all the kingdoms of the earth”: “He charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, Judea.” (The addition of “Judea” here is a nice touch. Perhaps it was intended to lend authenticity to the decree, as if there were as many Jerusalems in Persia as there are Springfields in the United States, and Cyrus had trouble keeping track of them all.) Indeed, the

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context of the Aramaic reference to the decree is a challenge (in Ezra 5:3) by Tattenai, the provincial governor, and his colleagues to the legality of the rebuilding. The memorandum retrieved from the government files at Ecbatana (Ezra 6:2) goes into specific detail: “Let the house be rebuilt, a place for offering sacrifices, with a base built up high. Let it be sixty cubits high and sixty cubits wide, with a course of unused timber for each three courses of hewn stone. The expenses shall be paid by the palace” (Ezra 6:3 f., NJV translation). Nonetheless, the placement of this “beginning” at the end of Chronicles has something other than the rebuilding of the Temple in mind. One is not immediately aware of it when reading the passage in Chronicles, but comparison with Ezra 1:1–4 shows instantly that the Chronicles citation of the decree is truncated. Not that it is merely an abbreviated version of the Ezra passage, it is literally cut off in the middle of a sentence. Picking up near the end of the overlap, the Ezra text reads, “Whoever there be of you from all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, Judea, and let him build the house of Yahweh, God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:3). It continues with instructions for the support of the returnees. But the Chronicles text breaks off abruptly after the word wYyG’al: “Whoever of you from all his people, the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up—” The book of Chronicles, and hence the entire Hebrew Bible, ends in the middle of a sentence. It is not that the Chronicles text wanted to omit any mention of the Temple. As we have already pointed out, the building of the Temple is referred to in 2 Chr 36:23, before the truncation, as the purpose of the decree from Cyrus’ viewpoint. Indeed, this may well have been so. The famous Cyrus Cylinder makes clear that it was very much part of Cyrus’ policy—and, for all we know, of his sincere personal belief—to attribute his success to whoever was worshipped as chief god by the various groups under his rule, and to reconstruct their temples.43 But by eliminating Jerusalem as the indirect object of the verb, the Chronicler (if indeed it was he) focuses attention purely on the process of “going up.” Clines interprets the phrase “go up to Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:3), found in the fuller version of the decree, not in the typical sense of going up to Jerusalem as an elevated place, but (following a suggestion of G. R. Driver with reference to occurrences of the verb in four narrative passages) to mean “go up country,” that is, north, “following the Euphrates route northward before striking out to the west.”44 Apart from the difficulties in Driver’s original suggestion—it is difficult to see why “up” should mean “north” in a geographical conception where east is in front and south to the right—this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what voice is speaking in at least this version of

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the decree. It is not Cyrus the head of the Persian empire telling the exiles, “Go north, young man!”; the Aramaic versions of the decree make no explicit reference to the return. Rather, the speaker of the decree is Cyrus to whom Yahweh gave “all the kingdoms of the earth” (2 Chr 36:23), that is, Cyrus who is the LORD’s “anointed” (Isa 45:1). Thus, the religious-metaphorical use of alah is completely appropriate and was certainly intended. It is the same as is found in Ezra 2:1 (= Neh 7:6), 2:59 (= Neh 7:61), and Neh 7:5, a further indication that Ezra is the original source of the passage. The truncation of the beginning of Ezra at the end of Chronicles, then, points to the return from exile as the focus of this passage. Like the wedding that precedes the “happily-ever-after” ending of a fairy tale, the return to Zion is a culmination that implies a new beginning. Like the marriage that follows the fairy-tale wedding, what will happen after the return is a different kind of event, not part of the “story.” I do not mean to suggest that the selection of such an ending is entirely arbitrary, only to point out that the composition of a frame changes how we look at what is inside the frame and what is outside.45 A moment’s consideration of Second Isaiah makes clear why the beginning of the return to Zion makes such a good frame for a story. One of the things we look for in a frame is symmetry. If the exiles had thought of themselves as people who had been uprooted from a land where they had lived since time immemorial, the most satisfying conclusion would have been the first sight of the recovered homeland, or the first footfall on its soil. But their story was that of a people whose identity was forged on the foreign soil of Egypt and tempered in the heat of a desert journey to a land promised to their immigrant ancestors. Second Isaiah explicitly frames the return from Babylonia as a second exodus. Thus it is appropriate for Chronicles to end as the story of the original exodus does, with the Israelites not home, but on the point of going there.46 The Torah ends with Moses’ death. If anything is appropriate as a narrative conclusion, certainly the end of a human life is. Yet the circumstances of Moses’ death demand a sequel, a new beginning. This we find in the book of Joshua, where the Deuteronomistic History describes the Israelite conquest of the land and allocation of it to the various tribes. Just as with the deterioration into anarchy during the period of the Judges, this was a structure artificially imposed on a real history that was considerably more chaotic. In the case of Chronicles, we do not know at what point the concluding words were added or, indeed, when Chronicles itself was written. Certainly the Temple had already been rebuilt,47 and yet that renewal—a different and in some ways more obvious point of new beginning—was not made the conclusion of Chronicles. It seems likely, then, that this ending was a response to literature,

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not history. The return from Babylonian exile is the end of the long story that began with the command “Get thee up” to Abraham (Gen 12:1)—or perhaps, indeed, with the command “Let there be light,” which, according to Gen 1:3, inaugurated the world under the control of the one who would ultimately be God of Israel. With the end of that story, the “contemporary” period could begin. One final beginning (if that is not an oxymoron) must occupy our attention before this survey is over. It is indicated by the reference to Jeremiah in 2 Chr 36:22, indicating a rereading of earlier literature as a guide to history. This is certainly not the earliest reuse of a biblical text; inner-biblical allusion had gone on even before the exile. Yet its use here nicely synchronizes the return to Zion and the end of the Bible (as a piece of literature) with the beginning of the tendency that has characterized Judaism ever since as a religion of the book, of the rereading of earlier texts for contemporary inspiration. The same beginning, that is, that marked the end of the “biblical” period from the standpoint of Second Temple historiography also marks the inception—if as yet only in embryo—of the rabbinic period. In this final sense too, then, the ending of the Bible—like every ending that shapes a story—marks a beginning as well.

Notes 1. It is not clear who is responsible for this witticism; the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (3rd ed., 365:5) cites an attribution to the American writer Frank Ward O’Malley but reports another to Elbert Hubbard. 2. Francis M. Dunn, “Introduction: Beginning at Colonus,” in Beginnings in Classical Literature, edited by Francis M. Dunn and Thomas Cole, Yale Classical Studies 29 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 11 f. 3. Henry James’ preface to Roderick Hudson, cited by Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 176. 4. Aristotle, Poetics, vii, 1450b, trans. C. S. Baldwin, Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic, 148 f., cited in Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 184. 5. Chapter Three of the book goes on to explain, in the same vein, that Noah allotted Africa, Asia, and Europe to his three sons; the fourth quarter of the globe, the Americas, would not have escaped discovery so long if only Noah had had a fourth son to give it to. For further discussion of this aspect of Irving’s book, see Terence Martin, Parables of Possibility: The American Need for Beginnings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 18 f.

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6. Tanakh: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985). NEB and NRSV combine both readings: “In the beginning, when. . . .” The Jewish translators were less bound to the traditional English translation, and they had traditional support of their own for the “new” translation in Rashi’s commentary. For the argument that the implicit understanding of the text in this fashion long preceded Rashi, see P. Schäfer, “Ber[åkt bGrG’ ’[lo¯hkm: zur Interpretation von Genesis 1,1 in der rabbinischen Literatur,” JSJ 2 (1971): 161–66. 7. For a recent defense of the “In the beginning” translation and its radical uniqueness, see Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11, translated by John J. Scullion (Augsburg: Minneapolis, 1984), 93–98. He associates Gen 1:2 with the old kind of beginning with a temporal clause; unfortunately for his argument, the only word in the Hebrew text that could actually serve this function is tyçadb which of course comes at the beginning of v. 1, not v. 2. 8. This translation is from Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 233. 9. For this text, see Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973–80), 1:51–57. 10. The Memphite Theology may also suggest that creation began with a struggle; see Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 1:52, ll. 7–8. 11. For a fuller discussion, see Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). Gen. R. 1:10, too, notes that the story begins with blessing, in its observation that the first letter of the text is the b] of hkdb, not the a of hdyda (“cursing”). 12. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 1:52, ll. 1–2. 13. Ibid., 56 n. 2. 14. This statement of authority was so successful that Egyptologists, too, were convinced by it; Lichtheim herself (ibid., 3:5, citing F. Junge, Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 29 [1973]: 195–204) has now been persuaded that the Memphite Theology is actually pseudepigraphic and to be dated to the New Kingdom. 15. Regina M. Schwartz, Remembering and Repeating: Biblical Creation in Paradise Lost (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1. 16. Both translations are those of the NJPS. Ps 45:1 is a title or technical note; thus v. 2 is the actual beginning of the poem. 17. Martin, Parables of Possibility, “Fixing a Beginning,” 3–43. 18. See similarly Tanhuma Ber. (Buber) 11. The subject is addressed somewhat differently in Cant. R. 1:28. 19. S. D. Goitein, Studies in Scripture (Tel Aviv: Yavneh Press, 1957), 18 (Hebrew). 20. Amos alludes to his call in Amos 7:15, but this is an aside to Amaziah, not a structural element of the book. 21. Even on the view of Christopher R. Seitz, Zion’s Final Destiny: The Development of the Book of Isaiah: A Reassessment of Isaiah 36–39 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), esp. 47–118, who sees these chapters as original to Isaiah and “the pivot

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22.

23. 24. 25.

26. 27.

28.

29.

30.

31. 32.

on which the entire tradition process turns” (208), the events of 701 give the book viewed synchronically as literature only the most rudimentary structure. Noth’s original proposal includes Deuteronomy as part of the Deuteronomistic History, and many still follow this definition. In practice, however, the term is often used as a scholarly-sounding substitute for the Hebrew µynwçar µyaybn. In any case, it would seem that the framing of Deuteronomy as Moses’ farewell address sufficiently distinguishes it from the other books as to suggest that the name “Deuteronomistic History” be reserved for Joshua-Kings only. Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 153 n. 18, points out the remarkable fact that the job of matching Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic editorial strata remains to be accomplished. See also Jud 17:6, as well as 18:1 and 19:1. The fact that one of the Edomite kings is named Saul (Gen 36:37 f.) is probably a coincidence, not significant for an evaluation of 1 Samuel. Modern scholars find this verse in conflict with implications elsewhere in the story that Abimelech’s rule was geographically quite limited. Many attribute the verse to the Deuteronomistic historian. This, of course, would mean that the latter (whether correctly or not) recognized Abimelech’s kingship over Israel but denied it. The verb used in 9:22 is rçyw (NJV “held sway”), not ˚lmyw (“reigned”). On the deliberate avoidance of the latter word, see Robert H. O’Connell, The Rhetoric of the Book of Judges, VTSup 63 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 269 f. n. 3, and references there. The verb used is lçm, not ˚lm, “reign.” See further G. Henton Davies, “Judges VIII 22–23,” VT 13 (1963): 151–57, for the suggestion that Gideon, in those verses, accepts rather than rejects the kingship. Jud 13:1 is one of the “round-number” statements that chronologically structure the book of Judges: “The Israelites continued to do what the LORD considered evil; and the LORD gave them into the power of the Philistines for 40 years.” Jud 13:2 then begins a new Masoretic paragraph. Jud 17:1 follows a similar pattern, but without the word dja, translated above as “certain.” The Septuagint and perhaps 4QSama suggest that the parallel may have originally been even closer at this point. See P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel, AB 8 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 53 f. McCarter, 1 Samuel, 303, suggests that, before being integrated into the story of Samuel and Saul, 1 Sam 17:12 once introduced David in the same way: “There once was a man from Bethlehem of Judah whose name was Jesse.” The a has been dropped from this spelling, a not uncommon phenomenon. See GKC 23f. The MT has laç dça which is impossible if the following l of / hl is correct. The preferable reading is hlyaçh, following what was most likely that of 4QSama; see BHS ad loc. and McCarter, 1 Samuel, 80. In any case, the repetition of the root laç is clear.

21

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33. Ad loc. n. g. 34. Against this, see McCarter, I Samuel, 62. 35. Some manuscript and versional evidence has “Lord” rather than “God” with Saul too, in 10:10 and 11:6; but this is more likely to be a deliberate correction to the phrase as used in Judges. 36. See Robert Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989), 24–26. 37. For the place of Chronicles in the Bible, see Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, OTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 2. 38. Ezra 1:1, “from.” 39. Ezra 1:3 has yhy instead of the Tetragrammaton, “May his God be with him.” 40. Edward Lewis Curtis, Chronicles, ICC (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 525. 41. E.g., 1 Kgs 15:1 and 9, 2 Kgs 8:16, and Dan 2:1. 42. See especially Sara Japhet, “The Relationship between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah,” in Congress Volume: Leuven 1989, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 43 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 298–313. 43. For an argument that this policy was in fact limited to Babylon, see Amelie Kuhrt, “The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid Imperial Policy,” JSOT 25 (1983): 83–97. 44. D. J. A. Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, NCB (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), 38. 45. Jack Sasson remarks about the creation story, “we may imagine ourselves in a photographic exhibit where we can only see what the camera can frame.” See Sasson, “Time . . . to Begin,” in “Sha’arei Talmon,” ed. Michael Fishbane and Emanuel Tov (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 189. 46. Marc Brettler of Brandeis University points out to me that Genesis, too, ends with a comparable reference, Joseph’s request that the Israelites “bring up [µtlxhw]” his bones out of Egypt (personal communication). Thanks to him also for a number of other helpful comments. 47. For an argument against this, see Mark A. Throntveit, When Kings Speak: Royal Speech and Royal Prayer in Chronicles, SBLDS 93 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 97–107.

chapter 2

Expulsion as Initiation Displacement, Divine Presence, and Divine Exile in the Torah Benjamin D. Sommer

Nah ist / und schwer zu fassen der Gott Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst / Das Rettende auch . . . . . . gehäuft sind rings / Die Gipfel der Zeit Und die Liebsten nahe wohnen ermattend auf / Getrenntesten Bergen (—Friedrich Hölderlin, “Patmos”)

. . . wtwa hawrhw ≈yxmhw wb lktsmh wtwa µyprwç µhw wtwa ˜yfhlm µhw / ça ydypl µyayxwmw ça ˜yfylpm wyny[ ylglg wtwa tprwç ayhw wtwa tfhlm ayh lktsmh µda tam taxwyh ça yk ... ˜wtyqk ˚ptçn dym wypwyb ≈yxmhw [rqn dym wb lktsmh . . . rjml wtwa µytrçm ˜ya bwç µwyh wtwa µytrçmh ˜ymyl µydmw[w µyrzwj lamçl µydmw[h / lamçl µydmw[w µyrzwj ˜ymyl µydmw[h . . . µynpl µydmw[w µyrzwj rwjal µydmw[h / rwjal µydmw[w µyrzwj µynpl µydmw[h µklm hzç µytrçm yrça wytrçm wlyaç ˚lmh yrça hzh alpwm rwab tlktsmhw tnwzynh ˜y[ yrça

—Hekhalot Rabbati

The comment of a midrash to Exodus, kol tefillot qashot, (“All beginnings are hard”)1 is apt, because pentateuchal texts that narrate beginnings repeatedly

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describe them as fraught with difficulties. In the Pentateuch, to initiate is to expatriate, to lose one’s place, and even to die. The recurrent association of beginnings with exile and disaster calls out for explanation. This nexus should not be labeled a reaction to a specific historical exile. Rather, it reflects contending religious mentalities that the Pentateuch insists on juxtaposing. These narratives of difficult beginnings at once present and undermine an ideology of the center, according to which God and Israel belong in a particular sacred space. The Pentateuch’s emphasis on exile at moments of foundation discloses not only a suspicion of beginnings but also a tension between two constructions of divine presence. Because these constructions supplement each other (that is, each complements and contradicts the other), the Pentateuch unceasingly defers any resolution to the tension. The anxieties reflected in these narratives play an important role in the traditions that appropriate the Pentateuch as scripture, but my discussion in this study focuses primarily on the biblical texts that constitute the prologue to these later traditions. *

*

*

For the priestly authors whose writings are preserved in the Pentateuch, the dedication of the tabernacle and the initiation of the sacrificial cult there (described in Exodus 40-Leviticus 10) represent the highpoint in the history of Israel and, moreover, of the world.2 For the P writers, no other episode carries such weight or demands similar respect. The Exodus, after all, was merely a step toward the worship at the altar. God did not say to Pharaoh, “Let My people go, because freedom is a good thing,” but “Let My people go, so that they may serve Me” (Exod 7.16, et al.), and “serve” refers to sacrificial service, as Exod 5.1 and 8.25 make clear.3 Redemption from slavery bore little value on its own to the priests, who did not find the notion of Israel’s slavery inherently bothersome. They were, however, concerned with the question: whom do the slaves serve, and how? “It is to Me that the children of Israel are slaves; they are My slaves, those people whom I led out of Egypt” (Lev 25.55); and that exalted slavery consummates itself in the cult at the tabernacle.4 Even the revelation at Sinai was not, for P, the central milestone of Israel’s history (and in this respect P differs from the other Pentateuchal sources).5 According to P, God alighted on Mount Sinai only in order to demonstrate that Moses was his prophet and to vouchsafe Moses a vision detailing the design of the tabernacle. After briefly doing so, God waited atop the mountain for ten months until the tabernacle was built, entered it, and only then began the revelation of the law.6 From Mount Sinai P’s God neither spoke nor thundered. The mountain was merely a station for the divine presence on its way to its destination beyond the altar at the holy of holies, and

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thus the event that transpired at Mount Sinai in the third month after the Exodus held no intrinsic significance. Far more consequential transactions took place at the brand-new tabernacle during the first eight days of the people’s second year in the wilderness: God dictated the laws to Moses, Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons as priests, and the priests burned the first offerings. These eight days of dedication, described in Exodus 40-Leviticus 10, represent Israel’s true beginning. For P, the Israelites became a nation, truly deserved the name Israel, only when God arrived in their midst and they responded accordingly— that is, when the tabernacle was complete and they initiated their worship. From P’s first mention of Abraham in Genesis 11 through the Sinai event at Exodus 19 and following, P conceives of Israel as a nation in latent form, but with the dedication Israel moves from promise to reality.7 We can go one step further: the events at the beginning of the first month of the second year represent the culmination of creation, for until now the world had been incomplete. P’s narrative in Genesis 1.1–2.4a is in many respects a classic ancient Near Eastern creation account, sharing with its Mesopotamian counterparts several features of plot and style.8 But the apogee of creation in several ancient Near Eastern creation myths was the construction of the high god’s temple, and this is notably lacking in Genesis 1. That absence is remedied in Exodus 39–40 with the dedication of the tabernacle. (Significantly, Gen 1.1–2.4a and Exodus 39–40 are linked by extensive verbal parallels, as several scholars have pointed out.)9 Thus the complex of ceremonies in which the tabernacle was first put to use constitutes the true beginning of the world,10 or at least of the world as a place worth noting, since only then did the divine glory settle on earth, and only then could man respond fully to God’s presence.11 It is all the more surprising, then, that this profoundly central occasion,12 for which Israel had prepared intensively over a period of ten months, and for whose purpose God had created the world, culminated in disaster. The ceremonies began as momentously as one would expect. The divine presence entered the tabernacle (Exod 40.17–35) and spoke to Moses, imparting the rules of sacrifice (Leviticus 1–7). Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons as priests in a week-long rite (Leviticus 8). Then, finally, the goal of the lawgiving, of the Exodus, and of creation itself, could be realized. With an ordained priesthood working according to revealed instructions at a properly erected and duly consecrated tabernacle, the sacrificial services began. On the eighth day, Aaron presented the first offerings, whereupon YHWH’s fiery Glory appeared and consumed them (Leviticus 9). When Aaron’s eldest sons stepped forward to offer an additional sacrifice, again a divine fire came forth. But it incinerated not the offerings but the two young priests themselves (Leviticus 10).

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This was not merely a case of a bad first day on the job. Nor was it just a severe disappointment for the family of Moses and Aaron. It was an event of cosmic scope, for such a surprising tragedy on the most auspicious day of Israel’s (and the world’s) history cast a giant shadow on the generations of service that were to follow. Furthermore, these first sacrifices were incomplete. The priests themselves were supposed to eat parts of them, but they never did so. Nadab and Abihu died before they could eat their share, and the remaining priests seemed to have felt it would have been inappropriate to partake of the sacrifices after their brethren’s death (10.16–20). Thus the beginning of sacrificial worship was flawed from a legal point of view (and for P, such a flaw is formidable). Moses, and presumably God, acquiesce to this flaw in 10.20, but the irony of the first service’s cultic defect remains noteworthy.13 If the Hebrew Bible has anything resembling a notion of Original Sin, or at least Original Catastrophe, it is located at the debut of YHWH’s worship.14 Why did the ultimate Good Thing begin so badly? Ancient, medieval, and modern commentators have proffered a host of explanations for the death of Aaron’s sons. These contradictory readings are equally convincing (and thus at some level unpersuasive) because of the severely enigmatic nature of Leviticus 10, whose terse sentences and litany of unmotivated actions have baffled readers for millennia.15 I would like to approach this question from a different angle, by recognizing that the death of Nadab and Abihu is an account of origins. It will be useful to examine other stories of origins in the Pentateuch before returning to Leviticus 10, and so to the JE narratives of Israel’s and the world’s beginnings we now turn. *

*

*

JE texts that describe origins exhibit a striking pattern: all beginnings entail exile. This pattern presents itself in the JE texts dealing with the origins of humanity (Genesis 2–4), with the introduction of Israel’s first ancestor (Genesis 12), and with the early life of Israel’s liberator and lawgiver (Exodus 2). Note how often, for example, the words geirash (expel) and shillaf (send away) appear in these three, very brief, texts (Gen 3.23, 3.24, 4.14, 12.20, Exod 2.17, and cf. the name Gershom in 2.22). Moreover, while the theme of exile is unambiguously present in all three of these narratives, the identification of the nature and location of exile in each is indeterminate. The exile into which characters move is always in some way a nonexile, and the home from which they come is always less than a home. Exile is most obvious, and most obscure, in the story of Adam and Eve. YHWH creates two human beings, whom He places in paradise, but they sin

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by eating fruit forbidden to them, and therefore they and their descendants are forced to leave paradise for the fallen world we know. The world itself, then, is a form of exile. Or is it? As various scholars have noted, one can question whether this text really describes sin, punishment, and fall.16 The Hebrew language has many words for “sin” and “disobedience,” and biblical narrators are ordinarily quick to use them. But none of these words appears in Genesis 3.17 Indeed, one can argue that Adam and Eve could not truly sin, and thus incur punishment, while they were in the Garden. At that point, they could not distinguish between right and wrong, since they had not yet eaten from the “tree of knowledge of good and evil” mentioned in 2.15.18 Concerns such as these suggest that the penalty described in Gen 3.14–24 may not be deserved, or may not be a penalty at all. In this case, one may wonder whether the banishment is really a banishment. Several factors suggest that Adam and Eve always belonged outside Eden, which was in fact a place of exile, or at least limbo, for them. Although God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to work it and guard it (2.15), He had created Adam for a different purpose: “to work the soil [or earth] (la‘avod ’et ha’adamah)” (2.5). This goal is not met until he is expelled: “YHWH Elohim sent him away from the Garden of Eden to work the soil (la‘avod ’et ha’adamah) from which he had been taken” (3.23). Thus the expulsion was in fact a homecoming, as well as the fulfillment of the original divine plan. By the end of chapter 3 Adam is located on the soil where he always was intended to be. His tenure at Eden was a detour from which he had to find his way back. Similarly, Eve receives her name—which is to say, in the idiom of ancient Near Eastern creation narratives, becomes a fully existent being19—only after she has eaten the fruit and God has announced His response: “Then the Adam named his wife Eve (Life, fawwah), for she was the mother of all life (fay)” (3.20).20 The wording of this verse returns us to the pre-Eden situation of 2.7, where humanity was first created: “YHWH Elohim used dust from the soil to create the Adam, and He blew the breath of life (fayyim) into his nostrils, and he became a living (fayyah) being.” Both 2.7 and 3.20 locate life outside Eden. Adam became a living being before he was placed there, and Eve, only after they left. These considerations force a reevaluation of how we understand the narrative structure of Genesis 2–3. While these chapters are often understood to move from creation to fall, David Jobling argues that a competing narrative pattern also appears in our text.21 This alternative involves not banishment (which involves the creation of a deficiency) but return or recovery (which involves the alleviation of a deficiency). Gen 2.4b–6 describe a lack: there is no human to work the soil. In 2.7, the human is created on the soil, but in 2.8

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he is spirited away to Eden. Aided by the serpent and his wife, he finally reaches the non-Edenic soil again, and the original lack is finally filled. The narrative as Jobling understands it is a classic folktale, describing a journey and a homecoming. Such folktales have been analyzed by V. Propp and A. J. Greimas, who find they are built from specific narrative elements and character-types, or “functions.”22 In Genesis 2–3 these functions are manipulated in surprising ways: the Helpers (and thus the true heroes of the story) are the serpent and Eve; the Object is Adam; the Receiver is the soil. The Sender and the Opponent are the same character, YHWH.23 (The merging of these contradictory functions is highly unusual for a folktale, but not for the Bible.24) As is typical for this sort of tale, the homecoming at the end of chapter 3 is followed by the consummation of the marriage in 4.1.25 Thus, Jobling shows, there are two competing narrative structures in Genesis 2–3. A mythical pattern moves from a positive “before” (Eden) to a negative “after” (the fallen world); this might be described as the familiar “creation and fall” pattern of the Eden story. However, as a folktale the story moves from order (pre-Edenic creation: man is in the proper place) through disorder (Eden: man is in the wrong place) to a reestablished order;26 this might be described as the “homecoming” pattern. While Jobling views the former pattern as dominant, the latter exposes the former’s incoherence, since so many elements of “after” appear in the world of “before” (for example: the serpent, the woman, and the tree of knowledge itself belong to the logic of “after” but are already present in Eden).27 Some critics might agree that the two patterns are in juxtaposition without seeing one as dominant and the second as subversive; such a reader will simply acknowledge a tension between positive and negative evaluations of the world, knowledge, sexuality, and work.28 Other readers go further than Jobling, denying that the mythic notion of fall occurs at all.29 Even if one wishes to deny that a fall occurs, one cannot avoid the language of expulsion in 3.23–24.30 The serpent, who is main instigator of the movement out of paradise, is cursed (3.14), and Adam and Eve are subjected to harsh language if not an explicit malediction (3.16–20). All this reinforces the conclusion that Eden was humanity’s original home while the non-Edenic earth is an exile. But the text repeatedly undermines this conclusion with its suggestions that Eden was merely the place through which humanity had to journey on its way home. We have seen that humanity is connected with the word “life” only outside Eden. Only in 3.23, as he leaves Eden, does Adam truly become Adam, a being of the earth (’adamah) which he was created to work; only in 3.23 does Eve (fawwah) reach the pre-Edenic level of living being (fayyah). Within Eden Adam and Eve are only potentially viable and

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not their true selves. A rigid structuralist would argue that in Eden they are dead.31 Paradise is a womb or a tomb, but it is not a place to live. This ambivalent narrative entangles notions of exile and home. Genesis 2–3 sets up a dichotomy even as it frustrates our ability to decide which polarity is which. The story of humanity’s origins is a story of movement, but it is difficult to establish whether this movement goes from the center to the periphery or the other way around, or both.32 Polarities beset by complications also appear in Genesis 12, which is another story of origins (this time, of the Israelite people). YHWH suddenly and inexplicably appears to someone named Abram and tells him to leave his land, his birthplace, his father’s house to go to a place that YHWH will reveal; in short, YHWH orders Abram into exile (12.1). When he arrives in Canaan—a land that, the text reminds us, already had its own population (12.6)—YHWH announces that this land will belong to Abram’s descendants, whereupon Abram builds an altar (12.7). Abram’s exile, then, turns out not to be an exile at all, since he is in his own land, or at least his progeny’s land. Yet the pendulum continues to swing. Upon informing us that Abram is in his divinely appointed land, the text immediately records his transience: he does not settle down but roves further and further south (12.8–9). Ultimately (and in terms of textual time, almost immediately after his arrival), he leaves for Egypt due to a famine (12.10). The wording emphasizes that this, too, is not Abram’s home, for he goes to Egypt merely “to dwell there temporarily” (Heb., lagur sham).33 Nonetheless, he is received there with honor by the land’s ruler, and thus for the first time Abram seems more or less firmly connected to a place. But this sense does not last long, for Pharaoh realizes he is being cursed on Abram’s account, and he expels him from Egypt (12.20). In short: God compels Abram to leave a homeland that in retrospect turns out to have been an exile; he arrives in an exile and learns that this place is to be his homeland; forthwith he goes into exile from that new homeland, only to be exiled back to his new homeland/exile. All this from the first text that describes the relationship between the nation Israel and its land. Here again, our JE narrative confronts us with the theme of home and exile while aggressively challenging our ability to figure out which is which. The multiple layers of exile, exile from exile, and home that is not home, are even more tangled in the story of Moses’ origins—which, by extension, are another story of Israel’s beginnings, for under Moses (in JE as in P) Israel becomes a nation. Moses is born in exile as an Israelite in Egypt. Further, the slavery into which he is born can itself be understood as a form of exile, as can the death sentence Pharaoh promulgated against him as an Israelite male. He is immediately sent away from his exilic home to float on the Nile in a basket

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in Exod 2.3. This verse recalls the Noah story, for the term used for the basket there actually means “ark” (teivah), and it is sealed with “pitch” (zafet, which recalls the similar material, gofer, used by Noah to seal the ark in Gen 6.14; note the semantic parallel between these terms in Isa 34.9). Consequently, the Nile is linked with the primordial waters of the Noah story. To leave exile, then, does not necessarily mean to return home: the newborn Moses moves from exile to chaos, from a place that is not here to a place that is neither here nor there. In the Hebrew Bible, primordial waters, like the desert, are neither exile nor homeland but constitute a third category. Desert and ocean (and, via allusion, the Nile in our passage) are places of creative chaos, of becoming rather than belonging.34 As we have seen, Eden functions in quite the same way in Genesis 2–3: it is a place through which Adam and Eve had to travel on their way to their home in precisely the same way that Israel must travel through the desert to arrive in its homeland. Moses’ journeys are far from over. Pharaoh’s daughter draws him out of the Nile and brings him to her father’s house. He finally has a home,35 but this home is also an exile. Displaced from his own family, Moses is now banished not only geographically but also culturally. Moreover, Moses’ new double homelessness entails a vicious irony, which complicates this complicated schema even more. For Moses’ new home away from home away from home is the palace of his family’s oppressor. The sense that Moses lacks any topos of his own becomes even more pronounced in Exod 2.11–15, the first verses in which he appears as an actor rather than as a passive object. After coming to the aid of one of his Israelite (crypto-)brethren against one of his Egyptian (pseudo-)brethren, he is rejected by both Israelites and Egyptians. He flees from Egypt to the desert (once again, he moves from exile to chaos). His first experience there is remarkably fitting in light of his peculiar nature: he witnesses several shepherds expelling (Hebrew root: g-r-sh) young women from a well (2.17). The refugee from Egypt marries one of those women, further associating himself with a trope of expulsion. They have a son, and, although mothers usually name their children in the Hebrew Bible (or in Moses’ case, a stepmother, in 2.10), it is Moses who gives his son the pregnant designation “Gershom” in 2.22. The name echoes the root g-r-sh and thus points to the dominant motif associated with this man, who was cast away from his own family as an infant and from his adopted family as a young man, and who married a nomadic woman who was cast away from a well.36 Our text, however, does not explicitly relate the name to the root g-r-sh but understands it to consist of two other elements, the words geir (stranger) and sham (there). Moses explains his choice by saying, “I was a stranger (geir) in a foreign land.” We should pause to won-

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der: where is “there”—that is, what is the foreign land to which Moses refers? Most readers understand “there” as a reference to his new location, since Moses is not a native of Midian.37 But the name could just as well refer to Moses’ experiences in Egypt.38 The perfective verb, hayiti—“I was”—hints that Moses has the past in mind as much as the present. There too he was a stranger among foreigners—when he was born, when he grew up in Pharaoh’s house, and when he made his abortive salvo back into Israelite society. The short chapter that introduces Israel’s prototypical leader presents him as a utopian figure, in the original sense of the word: he has no place. One might have expected that the liberator who guides Israel toward its land would be associated with tropes of location and of center. Instead, he is aligned with exile (even more intensely than all the other Israelites, for they experienced only a single, simple exile) and with places that are not places at all (the waters of the Nile, and the desert). Significantly, the founder of Israel will establish the nation’s religion by receiving the law in the desert, and he will never set foot in the promised land. Why do JE texts describing origins focus on exile and homecoming in such a consistently tangled manner? The facile historicist answer would be to posit an exilic setting for the composition of these stories or to recall that the Torah was redacted in the exilic or postexilic period.39 But this answer is not satisfying even from within a historicist framework. While it is impossible to date the JE narratives’ composition (the oft-cited Solomonic origin of J is based on notoriously flimsy reasoning), the complete absence of late Biblical Hebrew in both J and E rules out the possibility that they stem from the exilic or postexilic period.40 (Even the Book of Ezekiel, most of which was composed at the very beginning of the exile, already shows features of Late Biblical Hebrew.41) Nor can one point to the work of late redactors; if anything, the prominence of the theme of exile has been softened by the redactors’ decision to place the priestly creation account before the story of Adam and Eve. To be sure, anxieties regarding the possibility of exile had been present in ancient Israel even before 586. Israelite thinkers had long warned that God might punish the nation for covenant infraction by taking back the land He had given them. This worry became acute when the Assyrian empire initiated a policy of deporting conquered peoples in the eighth century.42 Thus one might still endeavor to detect a historical rationale in JE’s foregrounding of exile, at least if one is reasonably sure that these texts were composed after the rise of Assyria. But this reduction of the narratives’ concerns hardly does justice to their complexity. The proposal that these texts present a response to specific geopolitical events fails to account for their intricate—one is tempted to say, recursive—conception of exile. Further, biblical texts that respond to

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the looming threat or recent reality of deportation consistently emphasize punishment and speak of armies sent from afar: one thinks of the covenant curses in Leviticus (e.g., 26.32) and Deuteronomy (28.25–26) as well as prophetic texts as early as Hosea (e.g., 8.13, 9.3, 11.9)43 or as late as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Deutero-Isaiah (e.g., Isa 63.18). The theme of displacement in our JE texts is of a different sort altogether. Genesis 12 and Exodus 2 do not link exile with punishment. In Genesis 3, we can question whether the expulsion from Eden is to be evaluated negatively and whether Adam and Eve had knowingly committed a crime. None of these stories hint at the role of foreign invaders. The concern these texts display is not to be accounted for on a strictly historical or political plane. Rather, we should seek an explanation for these strange narratives in JE’s attitudes toward time and place. J. Z. Smith, in a revision of Mircea Eliade’s grand theory of archaic and postarchaic religions, describes two types of culture.44 A locative or centripetal45 view of the universe underscores and celebrates that which is primeval and central. All times and places have value or even reality only insofar as they relate to, borrow from, recreate, imitate, or acknowledge the moment of creation or the axis that connects heaven and earth, which may be a temple or a sacred mountain and is likely to be both. Such a mentality expresses an ideology of immanence, for it is based on the conviction that the divine irrupts into space and time—more precisely, into specific places and at specific times. Classic examples of a locative map of the universe come from ancient Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and Egypt.46 This religious sensibility was prevalent in Israel as well, most prominently in the ideology of divine presence in the Jerusalem Temple (one thinks especially of texts such as Psalm 48 and Isaiah 6).47 On the other hand, what Smith terms a utopian view of the universe emphasizes not the center but the periphery, not immanence but transcendence (for no place fully comprehends the divine); it recognizes the reality, the unavoidability, and even the value of reversal, liminality, and chaos. It does not privilege the primeval or moments of origins. The locative view is known within J itself (see Genesis 28.10–22, esp. 28.17),48 but the JE texts that we have examined call to mind the utopian outlook. They challenge the notion of a sacred center not so much by valorizing the periphery as by confusing our understanding of where the center is located to begin with. In a locative worldview, one would expect that Eden, a site of creation, might have been consecrated. In other words, one would expect Eden to be identified, at least mythopoeically, with Jerusalem. (The various places from which land spread forth to form the earth in illo tempore in Egyptian mythology, for example, become temples in historical time.49) Similarly, one would expect Abram, upon arriving in Canaan, to hurry to the fu-

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ture site of the temple. But in JE such linkages are absent or at best implied.50 For these JE texts of origins, the axis mundi becomes a “wobbling pivot”:51 Exile may be home, home may be exile, and even from a place that is undisputedly exilic one can descend into a more distant exile or, in any event, what appears to be a more distant exile. JE evinces an ambivalent attitude toward the notions of sacred center and sacred land52 precisely where we first encounter them. This is not to say JE rejects these notions. After all, YHWH does not tell Abram to wander eternally or to live in a permanent exile; rather, He directs him to a specific country. Moses’ job is to lead the Israelites to that same land. Eden is described in what at least appear to be glowing terms of plenty and ease. In short, these texts at once valorize and undermine the notion of central place. The same ambivalence is evident in P’s main narrative of beginnings, to which we can now return. *

*

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The eight-day dedication of the tabernacle should have been an outstanding celebration of a locative ideology. After all, the centrality of P’s tabernacle appears indisputable. Located in the exact middle of the Israelite camp (as the elaborate map in Numbers 2 makes clear), it housed the ark and its cover, which served as God’s footstool and throne respectively.53 Thus the tabernacle was the site of a permanent, and permanently accessible, theophany, which took place unceasingly behind the curtains of the holy of holies.54 Further, it served as the single legitimate structure for regular worship; not only does God approach Israel there, but Israel approaches God as well. The P tabernacle presents a classic example of Smith’s locative model, with a particular emphasis on divine immanence.55 Yet the tabernacle described in P was in some resects not locative at all, for it was not confined to a single place. Fittingly for a nomadic tent, it wandered with the Israelites through the desert. In contrast to locative texts that mention Jerusalem explicitly (Zion psalms; Isaiah; Deutero-Isaiah; Ezekiel) or allude to it (Deuteronomy), the priestly document does not legislate any singular sacred spot, whether for the period of wandering through the desert or for the subsequent period of conquest and settlement in Canaan. P never mentions the possibility that a Temple will one day be built, and, in contrast to D, P never even suggests that the divine presence or some representative thereof will be located exclusively in one place.56 As R. E. Clements points out, P associates the divine presence not with a special location but with a cultic community: The Priestly Writing has no mention of a particular place, except that YHWH speaks with Israel from above the cover of the ark, from between

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the two cherubim. The ark . . . is not a place, however, but a piece of cultfurniture, which, like the tabernacle in which it is set, is portable and moves about with the people.57

Further, the tabernacle, like the law itself, has its origins outside the Land of Israel; according to P (and the other Pentateuchal sources) the most important manifestation of YHWH occurred within the Israelite community but not within their land. The Priestly document, then, attenuates its own ideology of center by describing the tabernacle as locomotive rather than locative.58 The notion of a divine presence that wanders discloses P’s anxiety regarding a theology of immanence. This anxiety comes to the fore in the narrative of the tabernacle’s dedication. The death of Nadab and Abihu may be explained most readily as expressing P’s suspicion of origins and centrality—that is, P’s suspicions of its own locative stance. It will be worthwhile, then, to address the mystery of Leviticus 10 in light of our reading of JE texts that describe beginnings. The debates among ancients and moderns alike regarding the young priests’ death have raged so furiously precisely because the text appears to leave it unmotivated. One senses that they must have sinned to have been so severely punished; but Leviticus 10 (like Genesis 3) contains no words for sin or for punishment.59 Indeed, as evidence from some early interpreters attests, it is not impossible to view Nadab and Abihu as the heroes of the story.60 In light of P’s ambivalent attitude toward sacred space and J’s interrogations of the notion of home (especially in narratives of origin), the attack on the priests who officiated at the inauguration of God’s earthly residence becomes contextualized, if not understandable. I would suggest that although they are priests, Aaron’s sons do not really belong where they are, just as Adam and Eve, Abram, and Moses did not belong in the place(s) intended for them in texts describing their beginnings. The dead center of the priests’ encampment, which was the focus of their attention and being, is not really for them. In this sense the fire they offered was “strange” (zarah) (Lev 10.1). In P, zar simply means that which does not belong, a person who is in a place not intended for him or her.61 By offering a sacrifice that “God had not commanded them,” Aaron’s sons (regardless of their intentions) uncovered the severely narrow bounds of divine-human contact. Even at the very heart of the sacred enclosure, a “near-coming” (which more accurately translates the Hebrew term used there for offering) is strange, which is to say, out of place. The strangeness of the fire conveys (or, perhaps, covers up) the strangeness of the meeting between these two sides at the tent. By priestly mediation, Israelites could attempt to approach God—but only temporarily, according to complex rules, and at the risk of their lives.62

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The peril involved in approaching the unapproachable is conveyed in Moses’ statement immediately after the disaster (Lev 10.3): “Moses said to Aaron, This is what YHWH says: Among those close to Me (biqrovai) I manifest holiness (’eqqadeish), and in the sight of the whole people I manifest presence (’ekkaveid).” In another context (and Moses seems to be quoting a line he knew from another context) this line would seem exuberant. The priests, to whom the words “those close to me” refer, are honored to enjoy direct access to YHWH without any intermediary,63 while the whole nation is privileged to witness the manifestation of God. Happy is the nation whose lot is thus; happy, the nation who may dwell at God’s house. But in this setting, the line takes on another timbre. To God’s greatness there is no limit, and thus the manifestation of God’s holiness and kavod can take any form. In this case the manifestation takes the form of incineration. This cryptic verse points toward the chaotic side of the holy. The erection of the tabernacle is an attempt at domesticating the Ottonian tremendum (albeit a divinely sanctioned one). Precisely at the moment in which the domestication of the kavod climaxes and specifically among those who have direct access to that divine presence, it becomes brutally clear that holiness cannot be contained. The laws and narratives of P represent an attempt to mask the inherent incongruity of the tabernacle. By prescribing the proper way to create a home for God, the laws tame YHWH’s uncontainability; by describing the kavod ’s entrance into the tent, the narrative assures us of God’s presence. But the chaos that is that presence intrudes through the camouflage. The cloak of order in which P glories is removed by the desert location of the tabernacle (and here we recall that the desert in the Hebrew Bible is not a place of exile but a place of creative chaos, a place that is “sacred in the wrong way”64), by its peripatetic nature, and most of all by the disaster that its inauguration became. Moreover, it is not only the priests who are in the wrong place. The God of creation in Genesis 1 stands outside of that creation, and hence the deity’s attachment to a particular location is dangerously inappropriate. Any irruption may incorporate an eruption.65 Any attempt to localize this irruption is ultimately doomed, and God in P’s narrative dwells in an itinerant tent. In this respect, P’s God resembles JE’s Adam, Eve, and Abram, for all of them are at once strongly connected to a particular place and perpetually wandering. P’s God, like JE’s Moses, is utopian, even though they both direct the nation toward holy ground. Further, P’s tabernacle recalls J’s Eden: each place appears central,66 but each is also utopian, a mythic location outside normal human bounds. Each is a spot of divinely ordained order in which one cannot tarry. Each contains a cherub, and what lies beyond the cherub is off limits. Humans can achieve the honor of coming close to these spots, but humans cannot abide there, lest they perish.

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*

*

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P and JE both regard beginnings with deep suspicion.67 And both connect this suspicion to a complicated stance toward privileged place. By no means can we assert that these texts reject the notion of sacred space, but both confound its facticity: JE, by entangling exile and home, and P, by entangling the sacred center’s stability with the sort of chaos or disaster that ought to belong to the periphery. In both, what one would expect to be the epitome of equilibrium teeters. The unpredictability of the sacred center in P is already implied by the creation account in Genesis 1, since the divinely ordained Temple that should be the pinnacle of creation is held in abeyance until Exodus 40, and even then the axis does not belong to a single spot. The temporal dislocations described in these narratives of baffling or disastrous beginnings serve as figures for spatial displacement, but always of a limited sort. The utopian or locomotive models are constantly intertwined with an emphatically locative worldview. Home is not simply the opposite of exile but its supplement, in the dual, Derridian, usage of the word: Home is appended to exile, for Abraham, Moses, the tent, and Adam originate in exile (and thus exile, rather than home, turns out to be original, fundamental, or basic). Because home is appended or attached to exile, it follows that the notions of home and exile coexist. Indeed, one cannot exist without the other. But home also attempts to supplant and hence negate exile, even as exile incorporates, or takes the place of (which is to say, becomes), home. Thus the troubled rhetoric of beginnings in the Torah is a rhetoric of displacement, in several senses. These texts describe the displacement of (the notion of ) sacred space and those who belong in it: Home is displaced, or supplemented by, exile. Divine presence itself is displaced into a ambulatory tent located in a desert, and its arrival at that tent effects a radical displacement of the priesthood and of the orderly universe to which they aspire. At the same time, these texts involve displacement in another sense: The temporal trope of beginnings is displaced onto a spatial axis; troubled beginnings serve as a figure for geographic confusion. It follows, then, that beginnings in the Torah recall divine presence, for the texts we have examined subject each to the same turn. Beginnings and divine presence alike are constantly deferred, constantly subject to a process of espacement. The texts we have examined are texts of ongoing deferral (or differentiation) in a third sense as well. They disclose a polarity between conflicting structures of divine presence, and as soon as they force us to examine one side of this polarity, they send us to the other, without achieving any synthesis. One of the structures in question presents God as locatable, knowable, and

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usable (i.e., since God can be approached, God can be placated or even influenced through proper ritual). The other reckons the divine to be uncanny, unheimlich, in every sense of the word: unknowable, un-homely (i.e., unattachable to any home), dangerous. The former structure is the realm of Hölderlin’s Nah ist, of das Rettende and die Liebsten; the latter, of schwer zu fassen, of Gefahr and the faithful who are ermattend auf Getrenntesten Bergen.68 The former is the realm of the Heichalot hymn’s ’ashrei ‘ayin hannizonet wehammistakkelet, that latter of miyyad nishtappakh and ha‘omedim layyamin fozerim we‘omedim lassemo’l.69 One polarity recalls Exodus 33.18’s har’eini na’ ’et kevodekha, the other, Exod 33.20’s lo’ yir’ani ha’adam wefay. The texts we have examined express a theology of divine presence, an ideology of sacred space, even as they deconstruct it. These texts foreground the notion of expulsion, intimating that it precedes the notion of home against which it is set; indeed, they seem to suggest that expulsion (whether in the form of geographic removal or death) is somehow deeply original, perhaps normal, while arrival at the right place must constantly be put off.70 The locomotive nature of the tent and the disaster at its dedication suggest that the God who belongs in the tabernacle does not really belong there at all, that His presence is in fact a form of exile. Here again the dedication of the tabernacle sends us back to Genesis 1, for insofar as the deity comes into contact with creation (indeed, insofar as the deity creates, which is to say, begins), the divinity expels itself from the divine realm. The trope we have examined here, then, represents a prologue, for these themes will unfold more fully in two postbiblical traditions. One, summarized most pithily in John 1.1,14, relates God’s expatriation from heaven to become Jesus: “In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word dwelt with God, and the Word was God . . . But the Word became flesh and encamped among us, and we saw his glory, the glory of the only-begotten son of the father, full of grace and truth.” The expatriation or self-exile these verses describe voids the need for Pentateuchal law even as it reverses the original disaster of Adam’s exile: for by becoming a human, God (in the body of a dying Messiah) atoned for all human sin and thus made law unnecessary. The other postbiblical tradition to which I refer reaches its pinnacle in Lurianic kabbalah, which describes the self-estrangement of God at the moment of creation. According to this tradition, parts of the Godhead were trapped in the physical world when the physical world came into being. This tradition confers theurgic powers to Pentateuchal law, because it asserts that the observance of Pentateuchal law can undo the primordial calamity of God’s exile in matter, returning God to God’s self. These two conceptions represent appropriations of a single motif from a shared document of origins, because they

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apprehend beginnings as moments of displacement for both God and human (in the former case, a displacement that annuls Adam’s sin and ultimately will authorize a return to Eden, and in the latter, a displacement that foreshadows Adam’s sin and necessitates the giving of the law). I will finish this chapter, then, with an unresolved beginning. Do these postbiblical traditions preserve the constructive tension (or rather, deconstructive aporia) that the Torah insists on maintaining, or do they resolve it?

Notes This essay was written during a sabbatical made possible by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Yad Hanadiv Foundation, and Northwestern University. I am grateful for the insightful comments of H. Jeffrey Hodges, Jonathan Judaken, and Yair Zakovitch on earlier drafts of this essay. 1. Mekhilta D’Rabbi Yishma‘el, Parashat B’fodesh §2; the phrase also appears in Tanna D’vei Eliyahu Rabbah 2§20. 2. My analysis of P’s narrative in Exodus 19-Leviticus 10 here depends on the conclusion that it can be read on its own as a coherent whole independent of the other Pentateuchal sources. This thesis is defended in detail by Baruch Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael Fox et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–34. For a clear discussion of the question whether P is a source that can be read independently or is a redactional layer that supplements other sources, see also David Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 43–47. Carr’s conclusion differs slightly from Schwartz’s, but he too emphasizes that P can be read as a discrete document. On the delineation of the P source in the Sinai narratives in Exodus 19-Leviticus 10, see Baruch Schwartz, “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai? Four Biblical Answers to One Question,” Bible Review (October, 1997), 20–46. A note on terminology: I use the words “P” and “priestly” broadly, to include both holiness and older priestly material. When I refer specifically to one or the other component of priestly literature in the Pentateuch, I use the sigla HS (Holiness School) and PT (Priestly Torah), suggested by Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), whose meticulous source critical analysis I follow. When summarizing priestly texts that speak of God, I use gender-neutral language, because priestly literature appears to regard God as neither masculine nor feminine (or perhaps both); see Gen 1.27 and 5.1–2. Because other biblical texts largely regard God as masculine, I do not use gender-neutral language when summarizing them. 3. These verses in fact stem from J, not P, but they express a view of the goal of the Exodus which P strongly endorses.

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4. Similarly, Erhard Blum points out that according to P at Exod 29.46, the goal of the liberation from slavery was none other than God’s arrival to dwell among Israel, which is to say, the completion of the tabernacle. See Blum’s Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1990), 297. 5. My summary of the priestly view of Sinai and its significant divergence from the J, E, and D accounts follows Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” esp. 122–130. Schwartz demonstrates that “in the Priestly version Mount Sinai is not the place of lawgiving. It is merely the place where the kavod of God rested before the lawgiving commenced. The laws were given in the tabernacle” (Schwartz, 123). Jacob Milgrom similarly points out the superiority of the tabernacle dedication to Sinai in P and the equivalence of JE’s Sinai narrative to P’s tabernacle narrative; see Leviticus 1–16 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 574. Cf. the perceptive remarks of Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (New York: Meridan, 1957 [1885]), 353, and Aryeh Toeg, Lawgiving at Sinai [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977], 153–57 [Heb.]. 6. The legal pericopes in Exodus 21–24 and 34 belong to JE, not P. 7. See R. E. Clements, God and Temple: The Idea of Divine Presence in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), 115–116, and Claus Koch, “’o¯hel,” Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, eds. G. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1974), 1:129. Cf. the similar statement in Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965), 1.241. 8. E.A. Speiser points out that Genesis 1.1–3, the J creation account in Gen 2.4b–7, and Enumah Elish (the Babylonian Epic of Marduk the Creator), begin with the following syntactical structure: temporal clause (Enumah Elish lines 1–2 / Genesis 1.1 / Gen 2.4b), parenthetic clause (lines 3–8 / 1.2 / 2.5–6), main clause (line 9 / 1.3 / 2.7); see Speiser, Genesis (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 12, 19, and cf. Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 43 and 93. This structure, we may add, is also evident in the opening lines of Atrahasis (a Babylonian primeval history; lines 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, or following a different understanding of the opening lines: lines 1, 2, 3). For a convincing defense of the understanding of this syntax of Gen 1.1–3 (against, e.g., Westermann, 94–97), see John Skinner, Genesis (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1930), 12n–15n, as well as Rashi to v. 1. 9. See M. D. (Umberto) Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1944), 333–34, 38 (Heb.); Martin Buber, “People Today and the Jewish Bible,” in Scripture and Translation, ed. Lawrence Rosenwald with Everett Fox (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 18–19; in the same volume, Franz Rosenzweig, “Scripture and Luther,” 62; Blum, Studien zur Komposition, 306–11; and especially Moshe Weinfeld, “Sabbath, Temple Building, and the Enthronement of the Lord” Beth Mikra 69 (1977), 188–93 (Heb.). Weinfeld also cites midrashim that point out these parallels (188–90, n. 4), and he emphasizes the ancient Near Eastern background to this connection between creation and sanctuary. Cf. also A. J. Heschel, The Sabbath (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Young, 1951), 9–10, 96.

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The allusion to the sabbath appears in Exodus 39–40, which stem from HS (see Knohl, Sanctuary, 16). Thus HS makes explicit what PT in Genesis 1.1–2.4a implies: the tabernacle parallels the sabbath and hence culminates creation. By patterning the narrative of the tabernacle’s completion on PT’s description of the sabbath, HS extends the logic of the older PT source out of which it grows. 10. Cf. Pesiq. Rab. Kah., §1.4 (ed. B. Mandelbaum [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1987], 9), on which see the discussion in Peter Schäfer, “Tempel und Schöpfung: Zur Interpretation einiger Heiligtumstraditionen in der rabbinischen Literatur,” in his Studien zur Geschichte und Theologie des rabbinischen Judentums (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 131–33. 11. Similarly, the pre-Mosaic era is a time of inferior knowledge of God in PT. See Knohl, Sanctuary, 137–38. 12. Toeg points out that it is central in a textual sense as well as in narrative and ideological senses: the half-way point of the Torah is Lev 8.7–8 (counting by verses) or Lev 10.15 (counting by words). See Lawgiving, 158 n. 131. 13. On the importance of the eating of the offering, see Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 635. 14. Interestingly enough, the only other text that might be analogous to the postHebrew Bible notion of Original Sin is also located in the aftermath of the Sinai event and also involves Aaronic worship gone awry: the JE narrative of the golden calf in Exodus 32. 15. On the unreadability of this narrative, see especially Edward Greenstein, “Deconstruction and Biblical Narrative,” in Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age, ed. Steven Kepnes (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 36–46. On various rabbinic attempts to read the story, see Avigdor Shinan, “The Sin of Nadab and Abihu in Rabbinic Literature,” Tarbiz 48 (1979), 201–14 (Heb.). Incidentally, the attempts at offering interpretations of this odd text occur already within the Bible itself. HS added 10.6–11 to the narrative (on the secondary nature of these verses, see Knohl, Sanctuary, 51–52, and Julius Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs unter der historischen Bücher des alten Testaments [3d ed.; Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1899], 140, 147). Verses 8–11 contain a law prohibiting priests from drinking alcohol when serving at the tabernacle. By adding this law specifically here, HS suggests (through what the rabbis call semukhin parshayot) that Nadab and Abihu attracted divine wrath by drinking before approaching the altar. Thus the rabbis who accused Aaron’s sons of drunkenness (see references in Shinan, 208) read the text as edited by HS correctly, though the original PT text remains enigmatic. A similar attempt to clarify the story in chapter 10 appears in PT itself, in Lev 16.1–2, which implies that Aaron’s sons improperly entered the holy of holies rather than standing outside it. This reading (which is not merely a case of inner-biblical interpretation but inner-priestly interpretation) was picked up by the rabbis (see Shinan, 206), though Milgrom demonstrates its improbability (Leviticus 1–16, 634). 16. See especially David Jobling, “Myth and Its Limits in Genesis 2.4b–3.24,” in The Sense of Biblical Narrative: Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible II (JSOT-

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Supp; Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1986), 20–24, and James Barr, The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 4–14. Even the death sentence the expulsion precipitates may be seen as a moral gift rather than a punishment; see Moshe Greenberg, “The Meaning of the Garden of Eden Narrative,” in his collection, On the Bible and Judaism, ed. Avraham Shapira (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1983), 218–20 (Heb.). 17. So far as I know, the first person to note the importance of this absence was Eric Fromm, You Shall Be as Gods (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966), 23. See further Bruce Naidoff, “A Man to Work the Soil: A New Interpretation of Genesis 2–3,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 5 (1978), 2–3; Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 87–88. A somewhat more nuanced view of sin in this story is presented by Phyllis Bird, “Genesis 3 in Modern Biblical Scholarship,” in her collection, Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 191–93. 18. Cf. Michael Fishbane, Text and Texture (New York: Schocken, 1979), 18. 19. Cf. Enumah Elish, the Babylonian epic of Marduk the Creator, Tablet 1 lines 1–2, 7–8: “When on high no name was given to heaven / Nor below was the netherworld called by name . . . When no gods at all had been brought forth, / None called by names, none destinies ordained” (trans. Benjamin Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature [2 vols.; Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1993], 1.354). On the connection between having a name and being existent in ancient Near Eastern literature generally, see S. D. McBride, “Deuteronomic Name Theology” (Ph. D. diss,. Harvard University, 1969), 70. 20. Adam’s statement in Gen 2.23 is not a full-fledged naming; see Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 99–102. 21. See Jobling, “Myth,” 24–26. Similarly, Herbert Haag, “Die Themata der Sündenfall-Geschichte,” in his collection, Das Buch des Bundes (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1980), 87, sees a dominant “Sündenfallthema” combined with a subsidiary “Garten/Lebensbaumthema.” 22. See the discussion and references in Jobling, “Myth,” 24–27. On formalist readings of biblical narrative, see especially John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 114–19. 23. Interestingly, many aspects of Jobling’s formalist/structuralist reading of Genesis 2–3 also appear in Gnostic literature. For some Gnostics, the serpent or Eve is the hero of the Eden narrative, and Eden is a place of imprisonment masquerading as paradise. The divided YHWH of Jobling’s reading (who is both Sender and Opponent) is paralleled by the two gods of gnostic readings, one of whom is an evil and ignorant creator, and the other, the true God of gnosis. See Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity (2d ed.; Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), 92–94, and Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Random House, 1988), 68–69, 77. 24. See Jobling, “Myth,” 135 n. 6. Roland Barthes came to the same conclusion in his study of Jacob’s wrestling, Structural Analysis and Biblical Exegesis (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1974), 31.

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25. One can argue that the marriage was consummated already in Eden; so Rashi to 4.1. However, the opposite interpretation is also possible; see ibn Ezra and Radak to 4.1. The latter reading is grammatically superior; compare §§106e and 106f in E. Kautzsch and A. E. Cowley, Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (2d ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1910), and cf. Sarah Kamin, Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization in Respect to the Distinction between Peshat and Derash (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 229 n. 40 (Heb.). Even if one insists on adopting Rashi’s reading, the textual placement of 4.1 immediately after the homecoming remains significant in light of the Proppian schema. The debate between Rashi on the one hand and ibn Ezra and Radak on the other continues an old tradition; on the specifically interpretive nature of this debate in midrashic and patristic exegesis, see Gary Anderson, “Celibacy or Consummation in the Garden of Eden? Reflections on Early Jewish and Christian Interpretations of the Garden of Eden,” Harvard Theological Review 82 (1989), 121–48. 26. Jobling, “Myth,” 27–28. 27. Jobling, “Myth,” 32–40. 28. On an unresolved tension between two voices or structures in Genesis 2–3, see M. Casalis, “The Dry and the Wet: A Semiological Analysis of Creation and Flood Myths,” Semiotica 17 (1976), 43–49. 29. For example, Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 275–76; J. M. Evans, Paradise Lost and the Genesis Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 19–20. See also Barr, Garden, 11, who points out the absence of any atmosphere of guilt, tragedy, or catastrophe in Genesis 3. As Aryeh Cohen points out to me, Maimonides suggests, but firmly rejects, a similar argument in The Guide of the Perplexed, I.2 (in the translation of Shlomo Pines [Chicago: University of Chicago, 1963], 23–26). There the objector to whom Maimonides responds maintains that as “punishment” for eating the fruit Adam and Eve receive humanity’s noblest characteristic, namely, intellect. For a discussion of the relevant passage, see Marvin Fox, Interpreting Maimonides: Studies in Methodology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990), 173–98, and Lawrence Berman, “Maimonides on the Fall of Man,” AJS Review 5 (1980):1–15, esp. 6, where Berman proposes an affinity between this reading and Gnosticism; cf. my n. 23 above. 30. Similarly, even though sin does not appear to be a concern of the story itself, it is not wholly inappropriate to sense that the text hints at it. As Bird points out, this first J narrative introduces “the crime-and-punishment scheme used to structure each of the major episodes of the Primeval History (4:1–6; 6:1–4; 11:1–10)” (“Genesis 3,” 179). 31. The assertion of the identity of Eden and death, incidentally, is stated explicitly by the character God in Aharon Meged’s play, Bereshit (n.p.: Or Am, 1989 [1962]), 120 (Heb.). 32. The connection of beginnings to exile continues throughout J’s primeval history. See 4.12,14 in the story of Cain and Abel (the first naturally born humans), and 9.9 in the story of the tower of Babel. But these stories do not display as complex a notion of exile as we find in Genesis 2–3.

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33. On the importance of this wording, see the comments of Radak, Ralbag, and Cassuto (A Commentary on the Book of Genesis [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1953], 236 [Heb.]). Cf. Carr, Reading the Fractures, who notes that Abram does not settle down until 13.12. 34. Cf. J. Z. Smith, “Earth and the Gods,” in Map Is Not Territory (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 109, and “The Influence of Symbols on Social Change,” in Map, 135. On the desert as a preparatory and transitional location, see also Shemaryahu Talmon, “The ‘Desert Motif ’ in the Bible and Qumran Literature,” in Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 37; on desert as a mythical realm of chaos and death in ancient Semitic religions generally, see Talmon’s remarks on 43–44. 35. Appropriately so, since he has passed though a place of chaos. In the Hebrew Bible, one often moves through a place of chaos, a place that is neither here nor there, on the way from exile to home. The Israelites spend forty years in the wilderness before arriving in their land; Deutero-Isaiah stresses repeatedly that the exiles will not return from Babylonia on the normal route along the fertile crescent but will traverse the desert (see especially Isaiah 35), since a return that does not pass through the desert is not really a return at all. 36. In fact, this old Semitic name is probably to be derived etymologically from this root; so Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus (New York: Behrman House, 1969), 49; Cassuto, Exodus, 14–15 (who also notes that the name echoes the root g-r-sh from verse 17). 37. So, e.g., Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, 49; Seforno ad loc. See also Abarbanel ad loc. (answer to third question), who sees the name as referring either to his status as stranger in Midian or to Moses’ period of wandering after leaving Egypt (“his homeland,” as Abarbanel calls it) and before arriving in Midian. 38. This possibility is also recognized by Nahum Sarna, Exodus (NJPSTC; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 12–13, who rejects the standard explanation; and by Benno Jacob, The Second Book of the Bible: Exodus (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1992), 42, who recognizes the significance of both possibilities. 39. Joseph Blenkinsopp does in fact suggest that the Eden narrative may present a metaphorical recapitulation of Israelite history viewed from the perspective of exile. See The Pentateuch: An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible (Doubleday: New York, 1992), 66. 40. See now Richard Wright, “Linguistic Evidence for the Pre-Exilic Date of the Yahwist Source of the Pentateuch,” (Ph.D. diss,. Cornell University, 1998). Wright examines forty features of J’s language which can be compared to late Biblical Hebrew, and in each one J employs the linguistic features characteristic of preexilic Hebrew rather than exilic or postexilic Hebrew. It is worth comparigng Wright’s linguistic method with Blenkinsopp’s (Pentatuech, 65). Blenkinsopp attempts to link the Eden narrative’s vocabulary with late Biblical Hebrew, but his argumentation depends entirely on an argument from silence. Wright, on the other hand, carefully utilizes linguistic oppositions between the vocabulary of J and that of LBH in order to demonstrate the priority of the former. On the unreliability of Blenkinsopp’s method for the dating of Hebrew as early

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or late, see the decisive remarks of Avi Hurvitz, “Once Again: The Linguistic Profile of the Priestly Material in the Pentateuch and its Historical Age,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 112(2000) 180–91. Although Hurvitz discusses Blenkinsopp’s attempt to analyze P’s language, his remarks are equally valid in regard to Blenkinsopp’s attempt to analyze that of J. 41. On the dating of Ezekiel’s language, see Avi Hurvitz, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel (CahRB; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982), 149–55, and Mark Rooker, Biblical Hebrew in Transition: The Language of the Book of Ezekiel (JSOTSupp; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 65–186, esp. 177–86. 42. See further Morton Smith, “On the Differences Between the Culture of Israel and the Major Cultures of the Ancient Near East,” Journal of the Ancient Near East Society 5 (1973), 391. 43. These verses must have been written prior to 722 and are not late interpolations. A post–722 hand would not have added references to exile in Egypt, since as it turned out northern Israelites were not sent into exile there, contrary to Hosea’s prediction. 44. See especially Smith’s essays collected in Map Is Not Territory; the following summary relies especially on his comments in “The Wobbling Pivot,” 101–2, and “Map is Not Territory,” 292–93, 308. Smith’s category of the locative is nearly identical with Eliade’s archaic ideology of center, but Smith emphasizes that these two viewpoints are not simply early and late, ancient and modern. Rather, each may be available even within a single culture (see especially p. 101). 45. Smith describes the locative viewpoint as “centrifugal” in “Wobbling,” 101, but, so far as I can tell, he meant centripetal when he wrote centrifugal and vice versa. 46. See the frequent reference to ancient Near Eastern conceptions of sacred space in Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 6–9, 14–17, and in Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York: World Publishing Company, Meridian, 1963), 375–79. On sacred mountains and the meeting of heaven and earth, see also Theodore Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East (2d ed.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1961), 181–83; on temples as a microcosm and as pivot, see Harold Nelson, “The Egyptian Temple,” in The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, 1, ed. G. Ernest Wright and David Noel Freedman (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1961), 152–54, and the sources collected in Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings (JSOTSupp; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 335–37. Note also Nebuchadrezzar’s statement that he made Marduk’s temple “glimmer like the center of heaven” (kkma qirib åamGmi unammir), in S. Langdon, Neubabylonische Königinschriften (Leipzig, 1911), 142.1.21. On sacred center and sacred mountain in Mesopotamia and Canaan, see especially the careful presentation of sources in Richard Clifford, The Sacred Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 1–97 and 190–92.

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The religions of the ancient Near East also display the attitude toward time that typifies the locative or archaic model; see the examples in Eliade, Myth . . . Cosmos, 51–92; Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), esp. 313–33; Gaster, passim. On the neo-Babylonian Akitu festival as exemplifying a locative ideology, see my article, “The Babylonian Akitu Festival: Rectifying the King or Renewing the Cosmos?” The Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 27 (2000), 81–95. There I argue against Smith’s own reading of the festival in “A Pearl of Great Price and a Cargo of Yams,” in Imagining Religion From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1982), 90–101, 156–62. 47. For a description of a Jerusalemite theology which can profitably be compared with Eliade’s notions of sacred center, see Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies (ConBib, OT; Lund, CWK Gleerup, 1982), 19–37. See also Jon Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 111–37, and Brevard Childs, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament (SBT; London: SCM Press, 1962), 83–94 (note especially his reservations, 93–94). On sacred mountains in the Hebrew Bible, see also the collection of texts in Clifford, 98–101. On what may be referred to as archetypal thinking in the Bible generally, see Michael Fishbane, “The Sacred Center: The Symbolic Structure of the Bible,” in Texts and Responses: Studies Presented to Nahum N. Glatzer, ed. Michael Fishbane and Paul Flohr (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 6–27. 48. Appropriately enough, this passage is cited in Eliade, Patterns, 228–29 and 437. 49. Frankfort, Kingship, 151–54; Nelson, “Egyptian Temple,” 153; Clifford, Sacred Mountain, 25–29. On this theme, see also the references to Eliade in n. 45 above. 50. The river that flows out of Eden breaks into four branches, one of which is called “Gihon” (Gen 3.13), which is also the name of the spring that provides water in Jerusalem (2 Chr 32.20). But the Gihon in Genesis 3 is said to flow around Cush, not Judah. Levenson (Sinai, 130–31) is probably right that J uses the term Gihon to link Eden with Jerusalem, but the tentative and exceedingly subtle nature of this link should not be overlooked. Abraham does eventually visit a place called Moriah in Genesis 22, though the identification of this place with Jerusalem is not made clear by JE. In Genesis 14 Abraham is aligned with the king of Shalem, which is assumed to be identical with Jerusalem, but this is not a JE text. Later texts do make these associations. Ezekiel 28 connects Eden and Zion; see the discussion in Levenson, Sinai, 128–35, and Childs, Myth, 87–93. The simile in Isa 51.3 creates the same link. Later Jewish and Christian literatures amplify this nexus. Eden serves as prototype of the Temple in Jub 4.23–26 and in the writings of Ephrem; see Anderson, “Celibacy or Consummation,” 129, 142–45. 1 Enoch implies that the Temple Mount will be equated with Eden at the eschaton, while Ben Sira hints that the Second Temple itself is Edenic; see Martha Himmelfarb, “The Temple and the Garden of Eden in Ezekiel, the Book of the Watchers, and the Wisdom of ben Sira,” in Sacred

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Places and Profane Spaces: Essays in the Geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Housley (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), 66–75. Eden is linked with Zion and Zaphon in rabbinic literature; see M. M. Kasher, Torah Shelemah (48 vols.; Jerusalem: Beit Torah Shelemah, 1927–1995), 2.217 §170 (in Hebrew). Further, some midrashim maintain that the world was created from Zion, thus echoing the motif known from Egyptian literature mentioned in th previous note; see the discussion in Schäfer, “Tempel und Schöpfung,” 123–24. Similarly, late biblical and rabbinic texts explicitly connect Abram with Jerusalem. In 2 Chr 3.1 Mount Moriah is identified with Jerusalem. This identification is repeated in Josephus, Ant. 1.226–27 (I.xiii.2) and in rabbinic texts; see the texts cited in Kasher, 3.875–76. The hinted linkage between Abraham and Jerusalem in Genesis 14 is drawn out clearly in rabbinic texts. See Kasher, 3.613 §102–103 and Targums Onkelos and Jonathan to Gen 14.18. 51. To borrow a term from Smith, in Map, 88–104. 52. One might argue that the Hebrew Bible knows no notion of sacred land, per se, but only notions of sacred city and promised land. But just as the city in which the temple mount is found shares some of its sacrality, so too the land as a whole may be regarded as an extension of the sacred mountain. Cf. the parallelism in Ugaritic between a god’s throne (= temple), city, and land in the texts cited by Clements, God and Temple, 53. Thus in Exod 15.17, “the mountain of Your inheritance” where God plants his people and which is parallel to God’s own dwelling place and temple is likely to be the whole Land of Israel; so according to H. L. Ginsberg, “A Strand in the Cord of Hebraic Hymnody,” Eretz Israel 9 (Albright Volume; 1969), 45 n. 4. This parallel is explicit in Isa 57.15. See further Levenson, Sinai, 136. 53. See Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 236–53. 54. So Clements, God and Temple, 118; Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 574; Baruch Levine, “On the Presence of God in Biblical Religion,” in Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, ed. J. Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 76. 55. On the compatibility of the priestly tabernacle with an Eliadean ideology of sacred center, see Israel Knohl, “Two Aspects of the ‘Tent of Meeting,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. M. Cogan, B. Eichler, and J. Tigay (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 75. P’s tabernacle epitomizes an ideology of immanence, in contrast to the more transcendent model of Deuteronomy, in which God dwells in heaven and His name represents Him in the Jerusalem Temple. See Mettinger, Dethronement, 48–77; Clements, God and Temple, 91–95; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 191–209. 56. As Haran points out (Temples, 196), “P appears to be completely unaware of any other house of God which might be built at any other time, under other conditions.” On traces of antitemple ideology in P, see Haran, 197 n. 14 and

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references there. See also Yehezkel Kaufmann, Toledot ha-Emunah ha-Yisraelit (Tel Aviv: Mosad Bialik and Devir, 1937–56), 1:116 (Heb.). 57. Clements, God and Temple, 120. 58. For further discussion of the tabernacle as embodying a friction among locative, utopian, and locomotive models of presence, see my essay, “Conflicting Constructions of Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle,” Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches 9 (2001), 41–63. 59. Cf. Greenstein, who rightly notes, “The presupposition that there is a reason [for their death] not only motivates the search . . . ; it necessarily posits, or superimposes, the structure of sin and punishment on the story . . . If, for argument’s sake, the narrative of Nadav and Avihu meant to challenge or subvert the absolute rationality of the Torah, the scrutability of divine retribution, we could never find such a meaning were we to posit the pervasiveness of the sin-andpunishment pattern” (“Deconstruction,” 43). It is significant that this whole comment can apply perfectly well to Genesis 3. 60. As Milgrom points out, in Philo, “Nadab and Abihu are singled out for praise! . . . The fire of v 2 was a sign of divine favor, as in the contiguous passage, 9:24. The fire that consumed them was . . . ‘alien to creation, but akin to God’” (Leviticus 1–16, 634–35). Similarly, some rabbinic texts also view Aaron’s sons not as perpetrators but as martyrs who expressed their love of God through their death; see texts cited in Milgrom, 635; Shinan, “Sin of Nadab and Abihu,” 202; and cf. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Torah min Ha-shamayim (3 vols.; London: Soncino, 1965 and New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1990), 2:66 n. 16. 61. See Jacob Milgrom, Studies in Levitical Terminology (Berkeley: University of California, 1970), 5. 62. Cf. Greenstein: “Notwithstanding the cultic regulations, all of which posit that reward and punishment follow directly from obedience to or violation of divine prescriptions, God has not in fact explained everything. The system contains terrible dark secrets, YHWH may strike without warning. The system of the cult rationalizes, sets things in order . . . Lest God become altogether manipulable by the cult, the episode of Nadav and Avihu . . . subverts the orderly ritual’s implication of orderliness by asserting YHWH’s unpredictability and autonomy, YHWH’s sheer transcendence” (“Deconstruction,” 45). 63. The term comes from the royal court, referring to high-ranking officials who have the right to approach the king. So Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 600–01, and Baruch Levine, Leviticus (NJPSTC; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 59. 64. Smith, “Wobbling,” 97. 65. This is the case also in narratives regarding the construction of the Temple. When David brings the ark to reside Jerusalem, God’s presence in the ark strikes Uzzah dead though he is at no fault (2 Samuel 6.6–8). The construction narrative in Chronicles begins only following the plague in 1 Chronicles 21; see below, note 64. It may be precisely for this reason that E locates the tent outside the camp: the people must be protected from the divine presence. See Shmuel

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Afituv, “The Countenance of YHWH,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. M. Cogan, B. Eichler, and J. Tigay (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 4. 66. On Eden as an axis mundi, see Fishbane, “Sacred Center,” 9, and on the connection between Eden and the tabernacle, 18 n. 29. 67. This biblical suspicion is not limited to the Pentateuch. Other texts in the Hebrew Bible also intimate that beginnings incorporate disaster or exile. The narrative in 1 Samuel concerning the beginning of kingship, for example, narrates a tragic false start (Saul) followed by a promising success that turns dangerously sorrowful (David). (In later Jewish thought, the redemption will follow a similar pattern, since a failed northern Messiah will precede the Davidic king.) The Book of Ruth begins with exile that leads to death. There, too, the narrative complicates the notion of exile: Naomi’s return home entails Ruth’s exile, which, like Abram’s, is ultimately not an exile at all. Most significantly for our concerns, the Temple narrative in Chronicles begins with sin and plague: the site of the Temple is determined when the angel of destruction who punishes Israel for David’s census stops his work at what became the Temple Mount (1 Chr 21.14–22.1). The link between this story and the building of the Temple is enhanced by the fire that comes down from heaven when David offers sacrifices at the beginning of Chronicles’ Temple narrative (1 Chr 21.26). This event is echoed at the end of Chronicles’ Temple narrative, when Solomon offers the first sacrifice (2 Chr 7.1–2, which borrow from the P description of the tabernacle’s inauguration in Exod 40.35 and Lev 10.24). My thinking about tefillot qashot in the Bible generally owes much to enlightening discussions with Professor Yair Zakovitch. 68. For the German text (quoted at the outset of this article), see Hölderlin: Sämtliche Werke, vol. 2, ed. Friedrich Beissner (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1965), 173. For a translation, see Friedrich Hölderlin, Selected Poems, tr. David Constantine (Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 1990), 39. 69. For the relevant texts (quoted at the outset of this article), see Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur, ed. Peter Schäfer (TSAJ; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1981) §§102, 159–160 (48, 70). English translations are available in Peter Schäfer, The Hidden and Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany: SUNY, 1992), 16–20, and The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, ed. T. Carmi (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), 196–97, 199. 70. One recalls here Jacques Derrida’s assertion that the present is generally not original but reconstituted (Writing and Difference [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978], 212), and his discussion of the endless deferral of immediate presence or originary perception. “Immediacy is derived. Everything begins with the intermediary” (Of Grammatology [Baltimore; John Hopkins, 1976], 157).

chapter 3

The Beginnings of Rabbinic Textuality Women’s Bodies and Paternal Knowledge Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert

˜t[ç ˜yyd µyçnh lk rmwa yamç hbrh µymyl wlypaw hdyqpl hdyqpm rmwa llh hz yrbdk alw hz yrbdk al µyrmwa µymkhw hdyqpl hdyqpm dy l[ tf[mm t[l t[m ala t[l t[m dy l[ tf[mm hdyqpl hdyqpmw

Shammai says: as to all women, their hour is sufficient for them. Hillel says: from one examination to the next, even for many days. And the sages say: not according to the words of this one or that, rather a twenty-four hour period reduces the time-period between two examinations, and the time-period between two examinations reduces a twenty-four hour period. [mNid 1:1/mEd 1:1]1 The first mishnah2 of Tractate Niddah reveals, as it hides, the rabbinic struggle with beginnings, or perhaps, the attempt to blur the beginning of rabbinic textual and literary culture. Like no other opening of a mishnaic tractate, this passage presents a brilliant convergence of various kinds of beginnings, of textual, historical, and biological-physiological beginnings. In this convergence we

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can trace the tremendous effort invested by the editors3 of the Mishnah as the first “text”4 of the rabbinic movement, to establish authority of its legal discursive practices and to engender such practices. For this chapter, my interest lies in tracing the mishnaic discursive strategies, “from manipulation and control of discourse to the representation of truth and ‘the Other,’” as Edward Said describes the task of a social history of intellectual practices.5 In his “Meditation on Beginnings” Said reflects on the nature of authority of the writer and critic and suggests that “the necessary creation of authority for a beginning is also reflected in the act of achieving discontinuity and transfer: while in this act a clear break with the past is discernible, it must also connect the new direction not so much with a wholly unique venture but with the established authority of a parallel venture” (33). Thus, each beginning lives in the tension between discontinuity and rupture and between the necessary reference point to what preceded and what is adjacent. What Said claims for beginnings in modern literature is perhaps all the more true for texts of a legal nature, such as the Mishnah, which rely on tradition but also redefine tradition in order to justify new structures of authority. However, Said’s insight can only with difficulty be tested on the Mishnah. It is true that the Mishnah is, indeed, the first rabbinic text and is at least partially the product of the catastrophic destruction brought upon the Palestinian Jewish community by the Romans, a product, that is, of this fundamental rupture to Jewish self-definition in the Roman Empire. At the same time, the Mishnah is marked by a variety of strategies to defer and disguise beginnings. Or, perhaps, it has a number of simultaneous beginnings. Any one determination of mishnaic beginnings is primarily the product of constructive interventions by the historian of rabbinic culture. The following hypothesis forms the basis of this essay: the deferral of historical beginnings in the Mishnah and its obscuring of the new beginning that the rabbinic movement and its literature represents in Jewish cultural history have to be understood as constructive strategies rather than as mere reflections or representation of historical facts.6 Such strategies benefit the projection of cultural continuity rather than rupture and new beginning. Thus, one of the perhaps most programmatic statements of beginning in the Mishnah, the chain of transmission of the oral Torah anchored in Sinai (mAvot 1:1), does exactly that. It presents a self-conscious retrojection of rabbinic beginnings by the mishnaic editors into the mythical past.7 Such a deferral of beginnings contributes to the notion that the rabbis, the new authors of legal interpretation of tradition (= Torah), have always already existed. To illustrate this briefly, we may think here of the elaborate description of the high priest’s preparation for the Temple service of the Day of Atonement in Mishnah Yoma, in which the

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“sages” are represented as being in full control.8 Such constructive strategies serve the aim of consolidating the authority of the Mishnah. Finally, by way of introduction, we may surmise that masking a beginning as cultural continuity may have a particular poignancy in a cultural context in which rival interpreters emphasize rupture and discontinuity, not only in the contemporary context of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nassi and his circle. This controversy will repeat itself in different forms in later Jewish cultural history, when Rav Sherira Gaon emphasizes the antiquity of the oral Torah possibly against the Karaites,9 and contemporary scholarship remains entangled in similar issues. As far as the rabbis in the second century C.E. were concerned, they were confronted with a wide variety of Christian groups benefiting precisely from the destruction of the Temple as a historical proof for the end of an era and the beginning of a new.10 Beginnings of the Mishnah While our epigraphic mishnah is in and by itself not the opening paragraph and does not represent the introduction to the Mishnah as a whole, I am foregrounding it as a beginning of rabbinic textual culture. This is certainly justifiable on grounds laid out in the Mishnah (and Tosefta) itself, which consider Hillel and Shammai to be a beginning, as we shall see. Thus, the act of foregrounding this mishnah as a beginning of the Mishnah and of rabbinic literature can be justifiably grounded in the text itself and is not merely an act of reconstructing the text. Certainly, it cannot be denied that choosing one text rather than another as a beginning is obviously an act of reconstruction of textual tradition in order to adjust our perspective on the text. I do make this particular choice a critical intervention in the study of mishnaic and rabbinic literature in order to move the study of gender in rabbinic culture, or the gendering of rabbinic knowledge, from the margins to the center.11 Seen in this light, we may claim that the reflection on the nature of women’s bodies is at the beginning of rabbinic literary culture. However, as an interpretive act this critical choice of mNid 1:1 as the beginning of Mishnah is suspended between the world of the text and its interpretation, as we shall see momentarily. It is meant to aid in identifying the critical choices the mishnaic editors make and in determining what cultural factors constitute the Mishnah as a text. The difficulty of finding an entry to the Mishnah as a whole is commonplace in rabbinic scholarship and pedagogy.12 There is no hmdqh, the editors did not provide any structural, historical, or general thematic introduction to the Mishnah. The first mishnah and chapter of Tractate Berakhot, textually now the first tractate of the Mishnah, is the thematic introduction to nothing

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more than itself, even though one could argue the mBer 1:1 contains certain adumbrations of mishnaic thinking. As Said writes: “We see that the beginning is the first point (in time, space, or action) of an accomplishment or process that has duration and meaning. The beginning, then, is the first step in the intentional production of meaning” (Beginnings, 5; his emphasis). If what he says is correct, this may apply to each individual mishnaic tractate, but it does not apply to the Mishnah as a whole. The refusal of an introduction or preface to the Mishnah itself may be considered to present a strategy in a whole set of strategies to gloss over beginnings, the aim of which needs to be explored more. There are multiple entry-ways, whether one chooses Tractate Berakhot, because it is the first tractate of the Mishnah; or Tractate Avot, because it provides a theological reflection on the origin of Torah; or Tractate Eduyot, because it provides a collection of rabbinic disagreement in chronological, sequential order. Each choice, each designation of a beginning “involves the designation of a consequent intention” (Beginning, 5) of the commentator, rather than merely presenting a reflection of the Mishnah’s intentions. The important insight to be gained here, I think, is that the Mishnah strategically refuses to construct a single point of entry. The metaphor of the dwmlth µy, the sea of the Talmud, usually applied to the Gemara, applies to the Mishnah as well. In its very designation Mishnah is embedded a deferral of beginnings.13 Early Christian polemics turn this into a critique of secondariness.14 At the same time the Babylonian Talmud, significantly, can talk only about the end of Mishnah, but not its beginning: “Rabbi and Rabbi Natan mark the end of the Mishnah” (bBM 86a).15 In fact, in rabbinic tradition, the Mishnah as a text has no beginning. As oral Torah, it has an origin only, in the revelation on Mt. Sinai.16 Edward Said distinguishes between beginning and origin, by defining the latter as “divine, mythical and privileged,” whereas the former is “secular, humanly produced, and ceaselessly re-examined” (Beginnings, xiii).17 A humanly produced beginning is, of course, vulnerable as to its authoritativeness because it can be questioned, interrogated and ceaselessly reexamined as to its adequacy and legitimacy, whereas a divine origin is rhetorically secured once accepted by the reader. The disentanglement of origins and beginning is at stake when historians of rabbinic culture construct its beginnings. Textually, our epigraphic mishnah is a double beginning, the beginning of Tractate Niddah that thematically deals with the impurity of menstruation, as well as the beginning of the Tractate Eduyot which, differently from the rest of the Mishnah, organizes its material chronologically according to names of rabbis and their halakhic opinions. Hence, the first mishnah of Tractate Niddah presents a second(ary) attempt,18 an almost singular repetition of mish-

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naic textual material, an editorial suture, therefore a rare moment that allows us a view into the rabbinic considerations about textual beginnings, the choices that are made and the roads that are not taken. It is perhaps ironic, albeit fitting, that this struggle coincides with the discussion of the nature of women’s physiology, their cycles of bleeding and the beginnings of their bleeding. Women as subjects (rather than as object of discussion) are absent from the Mishnah in general, but according to the Mishnah the nature of their menstrual cycles may be the basis for one of the earliest rabbinic discusssions and disagreements. The Mishnah here opens its elaborate attempt to classify and categorize women—”all women”—and to channel women’s blood-flows into its halakhic language and structure. One way to understand that which is encoded in our mishnah is to read a clash between two different “temporal” modalities, a circular and a linear modality, a clash that will have to be explored in greater detail. That is, the system of ritual im/purity is based on the basic distinction between a status of ritual impurity and purity. A status of impurity has to have a beginning, however problematically so, and an end, to be achieved by various procedures of purification. Purification represents a new beginning.19 This system needs to obey a linear temporal economy. The disagreement between Hillel and Shammai revolves around the question of how to determine the beginning of women’s cycles. Does a cycle indeed have a beginning? Thus, the textual and historical question of rabbinic beginnings are mirrored in the rabbinic-mishniac “problem” with women’s cycles. As the rabbis discuss the beginning of the menstrual cycle, they construct their own textual culture as a circular one with only hidden beginnings and obscured endings. It is these confluences and mirrorings, the gendering that is involved in the production of rabbinic knowledge and cultural self-consciousness, that are the subject of the following discussion. The larger question that drives this discussion is about the rhetoric and discursive strategies the mishnaic editors make use of in order to establish their text corpus as the authoritative text corpus that it, indeed, rapidly became. The Convergence of Rabbinic Beginnings What, then, is the convergence of beginnings in mNid 1:1? The first kind of beginning seems the most obvious, the thematic opening or first mishnah of the discussion itself, the tractate. This is the textual beginning. However, the double appearance as an opening mishnah to two different tractates, Mishnah Niddah and Mishnah Eduyot, makes this less self-evident. One appearance does not replace the other. Instead, the textual doubling remains in place, is not smoothed over by the mishnaic editors. Was the mahlo-

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qet (“disagreement”) between Hillel and Shammai originally an independent, self-contained unit? Was it originally an integral part of Tractate Eduyot or of Tractate Niddah? Is Tractate Eduyot, indeed, the earlier tractate?20 The second kind of beginning is implied by the names themselves, Hillel and Shammai. We could speak of historic beginnings. It is not only contemporary historiographical scholarship that constructs Hillel and Shammai as the progenitors of the rabbinic movement in its earliest form.21 The Tosefta in its expansion of the opening of Tractate Eduyot remarks the following: After having gathered in the vineyard of Yavneh, the sages said: “The time will come when a person searches for a matter from the words of Torah and he will not find it, from the words of the Scribes, and he will not find it, for it is written: ‘Behold, days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it’ (Amos 8:11–12). ‘The word of the Lord’—this is prophecy. ‘The word of the Lord’—this it the time of redemption. ‘The word of the Lord’—that not a single word of Torah resembles the next” [wrybjl hmwd hrwt yrbdm rbd ahy alç] They said: “Let us begin from [lyjtn] Hillel and Shammai.” (tEd 1:1; my emphasis)

The mythical gathering of Yavneh22 decides to collect in order to preserve, to gather in what might be lost or forgotten,23 what presumably was and is still known. For fear of the end of Torah, the sages begin to (re)create it. Running to and fro and not being able to find Torah, the ultimate chaos is the product of a Torah in which no word resembles the next. This mythical beginning of gathering rabbinic knowledge, the new Torah (lyjtn), which at the same time has always been known, could perhaps illustrate what Edward Said has suggested to be the driving force of the construction of beginnings: “Formally, the mind wants to conceive a point in either time or space that marks the beginning of all things (or at least of a limited set of central things) . . . Underlying this formal quest is an imaginative and emotional need for unity, a need to apprehend an otherwise dispersed number of circumstances and to put them in some sort of telling order, sequential, moral, or logical” (Beginnings, 41). However, Said’s claim for “an imaginative and emotional need for unity,” as a quasi human condition, will have to be questioned further on as to universalizing and hence naturalizing what is merely a cultural construct. In our case, the Toseftan text does seem to lay claim to the need for unity. The words of Torah need to form coherence to produce meaning rather

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than confusion. There needs to be an order that has a beginning. But this claim does have a rhetorical function. The juxtaposition of potential confusion and chaos with the new order has a legitimizing function: Hillel and Shammai are the beginning. In the beginning there were Hillel and Shammai. At the same time, Hillel and Shammai’s Torah is the Torah that the biblical prophet Amos had already pronounced to be lost. Significantly, the Mishnah itself, as well as the Tosefta, designate Hillel and Shammai as the “fathers,” not even specifically of the rabbinic movement but of the world—µlw[h twba (mEd 1:4, tEd 1:3). Halakhic-mishnaic knowledge is constructed as paternal knowledge: In the beginning there were the fathers. Burton Visotzky’s recent study of rabbinic and patristic literature and culture highlights this construction and makes ample use of the metaphor, perhaps not espousing sufficient critical distance to the constructive process of gendering rabbinic knowledge. The introductory paragraph deserves to be cited in full because it espouses a powerful mixture of gender metaphors in the construction of rabbinic (and early Christian) “culture”: They were the fathers of the world. In their successive generations they begat rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. They fathered the transition from Temple and sacrifice to synagogue and study. They fathered the New Testament, churches, ecclesiastical order and ultimately, empire. Separately and together they fathered the transition from a pagan western world to a monotheistic (if not monolithic) Judeo-Christian culture. From the late first through the fifth centuries, these two groups of men reshaped the hellenistic culture bequeathed to them by Alexander the Great, his tutor Aristotle and their political and philosophical successors. A new world was begat by these fathers, a unique hybrid of biblical religion and Hellenism, Temple cult and academy. Two great religions were birthed by these fathers of our world. (1; my emphasis)24

Just as Athena emerges from Zeus’ head, these fathers beget and birth a new world, new religions, Torah and theology, and even empire. In Visotzky’s insistence on the birthing metaphor in its various forms one hears the faint echo of Apollo’s proof in his famous speech in defense of Orestes in front of the city of Athens and Athena herself as the judge: “There can be a father without any mother. There she stands, the living witness, daughter of Olympian Zeus, she who was never fostered in the dark of the womb yet such a child as no godess could bring to birth.” (Oresteia, 158). Indeed, Aeschylus’ use of the myth in the last play of his trilogy, is instructive for our reflection about the beginnings of Mishnah and the literary culture of rabbinic Judaism. Froma Zeitlin points out that in the play Aeschylus’ use of embryology, drawing on the scientific theory

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of his day that denies the mother’s role in procreation and myth, acts in symphony with the moment of creating the city’s law court: “In this context of a founding act, a new creation, the content of the argument is concerned with beginning again, expressed biologically as embryology, mythically as theogeny. The rebirth of Orestes into innocence and the birth of the law court and civic justice are confirmed by resort to the archetypical paradigm of beginnings.”25 Zeitlin argues that in this dynamic the mother is first denied a role in procreation, then mythologically denied altogether. The usurpation of the mother’s procreative function, or in Hesiod’s Theogony of Earth’s parthenogenetic capacity by the Olympian order, “is consummated in the reversal from female as begetter of male to male as begetter of female” (108–109). By calling on the metaphor of the “fathers of the world” the Mishnah constructs the rabbinic Torah, like Athena, as the progeny of the fathers, who did not need a mother to conceive her. In her study of Clement’s use of the kinship metaphors, Denise Kimber Buell has called particularly the construction of the Law of the Father a “naturalizing rhetorics,” employed toward the goal of creating an “authentic lineage,” which allows Clement “to bound his version of Christian identity” (Making Christians, 181). According to Kimber Buell, this strategy masks the actual “organizational, behavioral, and doctrinal diversity among Christians” (181), and, in our context we may perhaps say, Jewish behavioral and hermeneutic diversity in the mishnaic case. The point of the kinship metaphor is to construct proper lineage of knowledge and behavior. However, Kimber Buell reminds us that we should not in turn mistake the kinship metaphor to reflect such a lineage rather than constructing it. Another related case in point is the following mishnah in Tractate Niddah: The daughters of the Sadducees, as long as they are accustomed to walk in the ways of their fathers [with respect to establishing their menstrual calendars], are regarded just like Samaritan women [twytwk, who are considered like menstrual women from the cradle on, mNid 4:1]. If they separate [themselves from those ways] to walk in the ways of Israel, they are regarded as “Israel” [larcyk].26 Rabbi Yossi disagrees: They are always considered to be “Israel” unless they separate [themselves] to walk in their fathers’ ways. [mNid 4:2, my emphasis]

This mishnah clearly attempts to draw community boundaries and to determine proper identity. “Correct” practice determines belonging to “Israel,” the term here functioning as the signifier of the normative community, the Verus Israel that a variety of groups and authors contemporary to the mishnaic

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rabbis lay claim to.27 Women’s identity depends on their conformity with their fathers’ practice. The fathers in this mishnah are primarily the biological fathers, but they simultaneously function as the metaphorical fathers who draw the symbolic boundaries. Whereas the fathers simply have an identity, the daughters—women—can make a choice. The fathers are the reference point, the origin and originators of religious practice, or in Froma Zeitlin’s words: “The father-daughter relationship is the purest paradigm of female dependence” (“The Dynamics of Misogyny,” 113). Further, the mishnaic phrase has, of course, a resonance in the biblical twba, the “patriarchs,” which strengthens the rhetorical appeal to authority of the Mishnah. Already Ben Sira includes a hymn to the µlw[ twba (Sirach 44:1) with reference to a line of great biblical men, from Enoch via Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to Moses and further. Here Abraham is “the great father of a multitude of nations” (Sirach 44:19). Rabbinic literature and liturgy later focuses biblical memory on the three patriarchs, as prominently expressed in the first blessing of the Shmoneh Ezreh: “You are blessed, our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.”28 The mishnaic µlw[h twba are “new” fathers, whose memory is superimposed on the biblical twba. Why do we remember Hillel and Shammai? “To teach future generations that a person should not insist on his opinion, for behold, the fathers of the world did not insist on their opinion” (mEd 1:4). The implication here is that fathers do not need to humble themselves. They have the father’s force of authority, and yet, these fathers reneged on their innate authority. Thus, as ethical role models they “father” future generations of Torah students by teaching.29 We may add that the opening mahloqet of Tractate Niddah and Eduyot is one of the very few in the Mishnah attributed to Hillel and Shammai themselves.30 Mahloqet, a carefully constructed and circumscribed disagreement between two or more rabbinic sages, is what will define rabbinic discourse and halakhic knowledge, particularly in the Mishnah and elaborated upon much more in the talmudic discussions of the Mishnah. Here the editors attribute the “origin” of this practice to the fathers, Hillel and Shammai themselves. Curiously, the first three mahloqot in Mishnah Eduyot (mEd 1:1–3), attributed to Hillel and Shammai, revolve around issues concerning women: niddah, challah, and miqvah. In those “first” three rabbinic disagreements women and women’s issues are constituted as the object of the fathers’ knowledge. Finally, the third kind of beginning—physiological beginnings in the cycle of life—emerges from the topic of the tractate itself: menstruation and menstrual impurity. The question that underlies the opening of our tractate is how the temporal beginning of a woman’s menstrual period is to be understood. Temporal terms dominate in the opening mishnah: hour, many days, twenty-

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four hour time-period. The three opinions in the mishnah attempt to specify how long a woman has been in what I will call a menstrual status once she discovers or “sees” blood. Beginnings here are deferred, retrojected. Shammai suggests that all women are in a menstrual status only from that point in time when she discovers blood externally. To fill in the gaps of the mishnaic language cited at the beginning: “[With respect to] all women—their hour [of the actual external blood-flow] is sufficient for them [to be considered as the beginning of their period of impurity].” Hillel, on the other hand, holds that her menstrual status reaches back, retroactively, as far as the last visual evidence of blood, however many days, potentially to the preceding menstrual flow: “From [the current] examination [at which she found evidence of blood, retroactively] to [her last] examination [without any evidence of blood], and even for many days [should the beginning of her menstrual period be considered].” Reformulated and retranslated the two juxtaposed opinions claim the following: Shammai postulates: A menstrual period begins really only with the external evidence of blood. Preceding that, there is no blood and a woman’s status is not that of a niddah, unless actual evidence of blood proves otherwise. Hillel postulates: The blood-flow begins much earlier than it appears by external evidence. Preceding that, there is already blood and a woman’s status is that of a niddah, unless the lack of visual evidence proves otherwise.

In Shammai’s view, women would be regularly in a nonmenstrual status, unless proven otherwise by visual evidence. Hillel presents a view in which women are regularly in a menstrual status, unless proven otherwise by explicit lack of visual evidence. The dialectics here is familiar in Greek science in which Aristotelian physicians hold theories opposite to Hippocratic theories. Whereas in Aristotelian theory menstrual blood is stored throughout the month in the uterus, in Hippocratic texts the blood is stored in a women’s uterus only to descend all at once at the end of the month.31 The mediating opinion of the anonymous majority community of sages fixes an arbitrary time-period, twenty-four hours, which is primarily designed to limit Hillel’s excessively counterintuitive prolongation of her menstrual status. According to the sages then, she can be retroactively in a status of menstrual impurity at most for twenty-four hours or less, if she had checked herself subsequently without finding blood. Blurring Biblical Endings and Rabbinic Beginnings Having reflected on the various kinds of rabbinic beginnings that converge in the first mishnah of Tractate Niddah, let us focus on the radical ending that

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is disguised and hidden in the mishnah, that is, the destruction of the Temple. Hiding this ending in the legal rhetoric of the mishnah simultaneously blurs the recognition of rabbinic Judaism as a new beginning. Whereas early Christian texts profited tremendously from the rupture that the destruction of the Temple represented, and often made use of the destruction as a rhetorical tool to legitimate the new beginning in Jesus, the Mishnah here, as elsewhere,32 wants us to remain oblivious to the fact that the Temple is no more. It constructs law as if the Temple were still in existence.33 The mahloqet between Shammai, Hillel, and the sages seems to be constructed as a general reflection on the nature of menstruation and its beginning, as a question about when a woman’s ritual status is affected by her menstrual flow. However, the specific relevance of this disagreement about retroactivity is illustrated subsequently in the following mishnah which comments on the first mishnah: How [are we to understand that] “her time is sufficient for her”?34 If [a woman] sat on her bed and handled Temple-related food (or items), and she got up and saw [blood], she [herself ] is [now] in a status of impurity, but they [the Temple-related items]35 are all [still] in a status of purity [and can still be used for priestly purposes]. (mNid 1:2)

This mishnah illustrates that the mahloqet about the beginning of the menstrual period has relevance primarily for the Temple and for maintaining a status of purity with respect to the Temple. The reference-point of the impurity-purity system is, of course, the Temple, the priests, and items or food related to the Temple and the priests, such as sacrificial food and contributions to the priests.36 Thus Maimonides emphasizes in his code: Everything that is written in the Torah and later tradition about the laws of impurities and purities, has reference only for the Temple and its sacrifices, for the heave-offering and the second tithe. Because it warned those who are impure from entering the Temple or to eat sacrificial food, or the heaveoffering or the second tithe. But with respect to profane food there is no prohibition at all.37

Therefore, Tractate Niddah is in fact part of the mishnaic Order of Purities and not part of the Order of Women.38 The disagreement between Shammai and Hillel then is about the concept of “retroactive impurity.” According to Shammai this principle does not apply to menstruation. The visual, external evidence provides the starting point. Hillel, on the other hand, does apply the principle to menstruation. According to him, anything Temple-related

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that the woman touched during the days prior to her discovery of the blood, till her last examination, has become invalidated for Temple-use. Menstruation is, therefore, treated in the framework of the purity and impurity laws, which by and large lose their applicability after the destruction of the Temple. Various commentators remark on the potential confusion between the beginning of the woman’s status of impurity and the other halakhic aspect of menstruation, such as the prohibition of sex once she has her menstruation, which is not contingent on the existence of the Temple. The Meiri writes in his introduction to his commentary on Tractate Niddah: “We want to clarify in this tractate which of the matters [in Niddah], their details and general principles, are relevant for the issue of purities, and which for the matter of prohibited sex” (Beit ha-Behirah, 2). Already the Talmud itself suggests that the reason for Shammai’s opinion and its astonishing lack of adherence to the rabbinic principle of building a protective fence around biblical laws is that men might confuse the two different legal discourses. They might think that they unknowingly transgress if their wives, unbeknownst to them, are already in a status of impurity before their blood becomes visible (bNid 3b). Husbands might therefore espouse an unnecessary reluctance for sex and endanger the observance of the commandment of procreation. The two halakhic discourses, however, of which one, as to its applicability, is dependent on the existence of the Temple whereas the other is not are very difficult to keep separate even conceptually. I would suggest that the Mishnah deliberately obfuscates the destruction of the Temple as one of its strategies to hide the systemic break that the destruction of the Temple might have represented for biblical law, specifically those sections that are related to it, prominently the sacrificial order and the system of purity and impurity. Whether it does so because its editor(s) expect the Temple to be rebuilt in the nearer future or in the distant future, this strategy creates a system in which the ultimate halakhic reality remains centered around the Temple, thereby ignoring historic reality. Not only does this strategy circumvent the question of continuity, but it also creates a cognitive difference between actual historical reality and the way reality should be from the divine perspective, a cognitive difference that animates Jewish religious culture to this day. The positivist historian of rabbinic Judaism may argue that the opening mahloqet between Hillel and Shammai is, in fact, chronologically located in Second Temple times and, therefore, does indeed have its origin in a chronological context in which the disagreement had practical consequences for women and their relationship to the Temple, as well as to others who came in contact with them. Further, there is evidence that the practical consequences may have his-

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torically reached beyond the destruction of the Temple. One of the prominent objects for which priestly wives would have been required to be meticulous about impurity-purity is the terumah, the heave-offering or the priestly portion from the harvest, which had to be handled in a status of purity or else would be rendered unusable. The Babylonian Talmud in its discussion of the practical relevance of the mishnaic discussions of menstrual impurity mentions that “terumah was in existence in the days of Rabbi [Yehudah ha-Nassi]”39 (bNid 6b), over a hundred years after the destruction of the Temple. Further, the Talmud mentions groups that were particularly meticulous with respect to the application of purity rules to items that would have played a role in the Temple. Thus, “Ulla [a third generation Babylonian ‘amora] stated: The ‘associates’ in Galilee keep levitical purity” (bNid 6b).40 However, these statements are made either by the late editorial layer of the Talmud, as is true for the first case, or by postmishnaic rabbis. The first betrays a historicizing consciousness: “In the days of Rabbi,” but not anymore. The second, on the other hand, attributes the application of purity practices to an exceptional group of Jews, clearly not reflecting that which the Talmud considers normative. However, as the mahloqet between Hillel and Shammai becomes part of the Mishnah, edited at the end of the second century and providing the basis for further developments of Jewish law as a post-Temple text, it loses its immediate historical context as much as it is retaining it. On the one hand, as their mahloqet is integrated into the textual whole of the Mishnah it has lost a context in which it makes a difference as to actual practice. Whether the food that the priestly wife touched just before she discovers blood has now been invalidated for Temple use (Hillel) or not (Shammai), is irrelevant in the absense of the Temple. On the other hand, the Mishnah itself makes no distinction between pre- and post-Temple halakhic reality. There is no systemic break, and therefore it does not historicize the disagreement between Hillel and Shammai. As a halakhic disagreement it retains a discursive life down to this day. Conclusion Reading our epigraphic mishnah closely, then, I have spun two strands of analysis. On the one hand, this mishnah can be constructed as a beginning of mishnaic discourse, and hence a beginning of rabbinic literary culture, since a number of beginnings converge in the mahloqet between Hillel and Shammai. Such a construction requires some reading against the grain, since the Mishnah betrays a tendency to obscure beginnings. This we have seen particularly in the second strand of our analysis in which I argued that mNid 1:1 is part of the general tendency or strategy of the Mishnah to build halakhic dis-

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course around the Temple in a post-Temple historical reality, as if the Temple were still in existence. We have read this strategy as a self-conscious blurring of rabbinic beginnings and biblical endings. This argument can be strengthened now if we recall that in the first part of our analysis it was the Tosefta that provided the powerful introduction to Tractate Eduyot and its philosophy of the beginnings of rabbinic Torah. The contrast between the Mishnah’s opening mahloqet in mEd 1:1 and mNid 1:1 and between the Tosefta’s long midrashic explanation why Tractate Eduyot (and therefore Tractate Niddah) starts with Hillel and Shammai, only highlights the Mishnah’s tendency to mask beginnings. Further, the two strands of our analysis converge perhaps in the following way. Particularly in the halakhic discourse about menstruation the boundaries between practical, applicable and “theoretical” (for lack of a better term) halakhah become blurred. I would argue, then, that the Mishnah projects continuity between the rabbinic movement and Temple Judaism by concealing the destruction of the Temple, in order to conceal its own beginning, its own innovativeness, and thus to deflate questions as to the discontinuity between biblical and rabbinic law, and ultimately the authoritative basis of rabbinic law. The purity system forms a crucial nexus of this strategy, and menstrual impurity arguably forms its center. This may be implied in the well-known mishnaic categorization of laws in Tractate Hagigah: “The [rules governing the] release from vows are flying through space with no place to rest. The laws governing Shabbat, the festival sacrifices and sacrilege, these are like mountains hanging on a hair, because they have little Scripture and many halakhot. Criminal and civil law, the Temple service, the sacrifices, the purities and impurities and prohibited sexual relations, they are the essense of Torah” (mHag 1:8). This is echoed in mAvot 3:18: “Rabbi Elazar ben Hisma says: Bird offerings and the ‘gates of Niddah,’ these are the essential halakhot. Astronomy and geometry are the auxiliaries to wisdom.” If in Tractate Hagigah the essence of Torah includes impurities and purities, and Temple-related and independent legal discourses are mixed, Rabbi Elazar ben Hisma narrows down the essence to the “gates” of Niddah.41 For the rabbis, women’s bodies turn into a major, if not their central, tool for conceptualizing sacred time and sacred space, and the relationship between the two. The discourse of Niddah provides a bridge between halakhah that is Temple-bound and halakhah that is not contingent on historical reality. It provides a basis for a continuation of the discourse of purity and impurity, even when its reference-point has been destroyed, and allows it to turn into a powerful basis for Jewish spirituality, in which the importance of the Temple as the reference-point for the purity-system recedes into the back-

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ground. Thus Maimonides finishes the section of his codification that deals with the impurities of food with what at first seems to be a historical reference and then turns into a theological statement: Even though it is permitted to eat impure foods and drink impure drinks, the first hasidim used to eat profane food in the status of ritual purity and kept away from any impurities all their days. And they are called perushim. This is a matter of additional holiness and the way of piety, that a person should separate himself from the rest of the people and not touch them and not drink and eat with them, because withdrawal (perishut) leads to the purity of the body from evil deeds, and the purity of the body leads to the sanctification of the soul from evil thoughts, and the sanctification of the soul leads to similitude with the Shekhinah.42

The construction of rabbinic knowledge as paternal, of Torah as paternal knowledge, is only the mirror of turning women’s bodies into tools to think with.

Notes I would like to thank my friend Willis Johnson for a careful reading of the manuscript of this essay. 1. All translations are my own. For the Hebrew text Iam using Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, ed. Chanoch Albeck (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1988 [repr.]) as my base text. Significant manuscript changes will be noted. 2. Throughout this chapter I will capitalize Mishnah when I refer to the corpus as a whole. An individual unit will be referred to in lower case—mishnah. 3. I am using the plural, rather than going by the traditional assumption that Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nassi is the editor of the Mishnah. Even D. Zlotnick, who discusses the editorship of Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nassi in some detail, assumes at the very least an editorial group: “Our designation of Rabbi as editor does not exclude the likelihood that he worked in conjunction with his bet din” (The Iron Pillar Mishnah, 33 fn. 1). 4. S. Lieberman’s argument has now widely been accepted. In his famous essay on “The Publication of the Mishnah” [in Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1994) 83–100] he argues that “[s]ince in the entire Talmudic literature we do not find that a book of the Mishnah was ever consulted in case of controversies or doubt concerning a particular reading we may safely conclude that the compilation was not published in writing, that a written ε’´κδοσισ of the Mishnah did not exist” (85). Instead, “when the Mishnah was committed to memory and the Tannaim recited it in the college it was thereby published and possessed all the traits and features of a written

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5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

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ε’´κδοσισ” (88). However, “this oral publication possessed all the traits and features of the written publications of that time” (97). Beginnings, “Preface to the Morningside Edition,” xiii. For a similar approach in a different context see Abraham Goldberg, “Die Zerstörung von Kontext als Voraussetzung für die Kanonisierung religiöser Texte im rabbinischen Judentum” in Kanon und Zensur, ed. Aleida and Jan Assmann (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1987), 201–11. What I call “obscuring of the new beginning,” Goldberg calls “destruction of context.” At least as far as Mishnah Avot is concerned, I find my assumption of editorial intent supported by Moshe Kline’s careful analysis of that tractate (“The Art of Writing the Oral Tradition: Leo Strauss, the Maharal of Prague, and Rabbi Judah the Prince,” Jerusalem 1998; cited from the translation on www.israel.net/Torah/Articles/TheArt-H.HTM). Kline concludes that “[I]t is clear that we are dealing with an extraordinarily complex composition. In light of the clear rules of organization which we have seen so far, it is impossible to view our text as a chance collection or historical accretion. Someone put a great deal of effort into constructing this literary document.” See especially mYoma 1:3, where the elders of the beit din instruct the high priest in sacrifices, mYoma 1:5 in where the elders of the priesthood identify themselves as the shluhei beit din, and in mYoma 1:6 where the talmidei hakhamim recite to him and interpret if the high priest himself is not a hakham. The beit din is, of course, a rabbinic institution, and talmidei hakhamim a rabbinic self-designation. See The Iggeres of Rav Sherira Gaon, trans. Rabbi Nosson Dovid Rabinowich (Jerusalem: Ahavath Torah Institute 1988), 4–5. See also Margarete Schlüter, Auf welche Weise wurde die Mischna geschrieben?: Das Autwortschreiben des Rav Sherira Gaon, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1993. See her introduction for a discussion of the various models of explaining the Sitz im Leben of the Iggeret. The assumption of a Karaite context has been challenged, but still seems to be promoted by most scholars. See especially the Epistle of Barnabas 16, as discussed by Stephen G. Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70–170 c.e. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995) 131–43. For a parallel approach, see Page duBois, Sappho is Burning, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 25. duBois moves Sappho to the center of our narrative of the origins of Western civilization: “The figure of Sappho, the verse of Sappho, disrupt various paradigms of Western civilization. Hers is a troubling place at its purported origins. She is a woman but also an aristocrat, a Greek, but one turned toward Asia, a poet who writes as a philosopher before philosophy . . . She disorients, troubles, undoes many conventional notions of the history of poetry, the history of philosophy, the history of sexuality.” See also A Goldberg who writes: “. . . das Werk weist sich in keiner Weise aus. Wie all Schriften der rabbinischen Traditionsliteratur (und ein Teil der Bibel) beginnt sie einfach mit dem Text,” ibid., 205. “. . . the work (Mishnah) does

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13.

14.

15.

16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

not explain itself. Like any text of rabbinic traditional literature (and partially the Bible) it simply starts with the text” (my translation). For the etymology of Mishnah, tying it to hnç as either (a) to teach, or (b) to repeat, hence hrwt hnçm, the second Torah, see D. Zlotnick, Iron Pillar Mishnah, 13–14 and Stemberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrash, 114. See Marcel Simon, Versus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (AD135–425) (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization 1996) 89ff, on the term deuterosis and its use in Patristic literature. This remark is one of the classic proof-texts for the generally accepted assumption that Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nassi edited the Mishnah. See D. Zlotnick, Iron Pillar, 15 and 19–23 for the reference in bYev 64b: “Now then, who arranged the Mishnah? Rabbi!” mAv 1:1 and the famous anecdote about Hillel and Shammai and the two Torot AdRN B 29 and bShab 31a, among many other references. In his Introduction to the Mishnah, Maimonides begins with what Y. Shilat considers to be a historical account (Y. Shilat, Haqdamot Ha-Rambam La-Mishnah, Jerusalem: Maaleh Adumim 1996, Hebr.). Maimonides opens: “Know that each commandment which God gave to Moses our teacher—was given to him with its explanation. God would tell him the Scriptural commandment, and afterwards its explanation” (Y. Shilat, Haqdamot, 27). Shilat comments that “the external framework of [Maimonides’] discussion as a whole is a historical description of the chain of oral Torah, from the days of Moses our teacher till the composition of the Mishnah” (65). On the prohibition to put the oral Torah in writing and the subsequent transgression of this prohibition see Ouaknin, The Burnt Book, 24, and Stemberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch, 41–42. A. Goldberg suggests, interestingly, that “das Dogma von der mündlichen Tora machte also eine radikale Zensur möglich und war vielleicht auch die Legitimierung für den Aussschluss aller Literatur, sofern diese nicht rabbinisch war,” ibid., 202. “the dogma of the oral Torah makes a radical censoring possible and perhaps became the legitimizing strategy for excluding literature that was not rabbinic” (my translation). See Shaul Magid’s discussion of this distinction in his introduction and Aryeh Cohen’s distinction between Beginning and beginning in the next chapter. See below, n. 20. See Rachel Adler’s theological reflection in her essay, “Tumah and Taharah: Ends and Beginnings,” in The Jewish Woman, ed. Elizabeth Koltum (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 63–71. Chanoch Albeck suggested that Tractate Eduyot is in fact the first mishnaic tractate to be edited at all. He follows the Tosefta in attributing the edition of this tractate to the generation of Yavneh (Einführung in die Mischnah, 122ff ). Albeck’s thesis has, however, been rejected by J. Epstein (Introduction to Tannaitic Literature [Hebr.]), 428, and Stemberger (Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch), 136.

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21. See Isaiah Gafni, “The Historical Background,” in The Literature of the Sages, ed. Shmuel Safrai (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 1–35, who, however, retrojects the beginnings of rabbinic Judaism even further back into the Second Temple period to Ezra. Nonetheless, he suggests that “Hillel’s advent may signify something of an ideological revolution” (11). 22. See D. Boyarin’s recent discussion of Yavneh as a founding-myth, patterned after the councils of the Church: “. . . where traditional scholarly historiography refers to Yavneh as a founding council that ‘restored’ Judaism and established the rabbinic form as hegemonic following the disaster of the destruction of the Temple, I am more inclined to see it as a narrative whose purpose is to shore up the attempt at predominance on the part of the rabbis (and the Patriarchate) in the wake of the greater debacle following the Fall of Betar in 138,” “A Tale of Two Synods: Nicea, Yavneh, and Rabbinic Ecclesiology” (Exemplaria 12, 2000), 24. 23. See the parallel version of this text in bShab 138b that has: “The time will come when Torah will be forgotten by Israel . . . ” (cf. Zlotnick, Iron Pillar Mishnah, 182). 24. Burton Visotzky, Fathers of the World: Essays in Rabbinic and Patristic Literatures (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]), 1995. 25. Froma Zeitlin, “The Dynamics of Misogyny” in Playing the Other (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) 108. 26. It is interesting to note the careful rhetorical choices for the designation of ethnic identity here. Grammatically the term for Samaritan women is an adjective (kutiot) whereas Israel is a noun. The Mishnah here appropriates the biblical term and turns it into the signifier for the ideal Israel, away from its geoethnic significance. For a more detailed discussion of this mishnah see my article “When Women Walk in the Way of Their Fathers: On Gendering the Rabbinic Claim for Authority” ( JHS 10:314, 2001, forthcoming). 27. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho in the Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, vol I, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds. (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmanns, 1978–81), 123. For a discussion of this phenomenon see Marcel Simon, Versus Israel, 169–173. 28. See bBer 16b, where the Babylonian Talmud cites a baraita, according to which “we only call three [men] the fathers, and four [women] the mothers.” 29. For the superimposition of father and teacher see especially bKid 29b ff. 30. The beginning of Tractate Eduyot lists only three disagreements, whereas there are numerous disagreements between the schools of Shammai and Hillel. See Sherira Gaon in his Iggeret, who quotes bShab 14b: “And when Shammai and Hillel came, they, too, only argued on three points, as we say: ‘Rav Huna said: Shammai and Hillel were in disagreement on three issues.’” (The Iggeres of Rav Sherira Gaon 1988, 5). 31. This has been discussed in detail by L. Dean-Jones in her Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science (60–65). See also my Menstrual Purity: Rabbinic and Christian Reconstruction of Biblical Gender (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 125–130.

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32. E.g., mBer 1:1: “From when on does one recite the Shema’ in the evening? From the time that the priests enter to eat their Terumah,” the heave offering. 33. See also Arnold Goldberg, ibid., who remarks that “more than hundred years after the destruction of the sanctuary the text imparts for example norms for the sacrificial service, priestly contributions and purity rules as if it still stood— the fact that one cannot fulfill the norm does in the end not take away from its binding force” (my translation), 205. There are exceptions, if only rare ones. In mR.H. 4:1 the Mishnah lists several takkanot (ordinances) instituted by Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai whichaddress a post-Temple situation: “In a case when Rosh ha-Shanah falls on Shabbat, they used to blow the Shofar in the Temple but not outside of it. After the Temple was destroyed, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai instituted that . . . ” 34. The reference here is the second part of the first mishnah not cited in the epigraph in which the sages further determine that Shammai’s rejection of the principle of retroactive impurity does apply to a woman with a regular cycle, i.e., one who knows the time of her menstrual period. 35. It should be noted that whether the bed is included in the pronoun or not has been subject to some debate, even though this issue is not of our concern herre. In his commentary on the Mishnah Maimonides holds that the bed would in fact be in a status of impurity even when the taharot are declared to still be in a status of purity. Most commentaries seem to hold, however, that the bed would be excluded from the mishnaic ruling. 36. I have discussed the conceptual difficulties resulting from the theoretical nature of the mishnaic discussions at greater length in the first chapter of my book Menstrual Purity. Urbach claims that “the prevailing view in the Halakhah is apparently that all the laws of purity and impurity—followed also by the Rabbinical rules of impurity—really affected only priests and Nazirites, and they concerned the Israelites as a whole only when they came into contact with Temple matters and hallowed objects,” The Sages, 583. 37. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Tumat ‘Okhlin, 16:8. 38. However, the Meiri remarks in the introduction to his commentary on Tractate Niddah that since the other tractates of this order do not have a gemara (talmudic discussion), “the Geonim considered to move it from its place and to put it amongst the orders that are studied regularly (Moed, Nashim, Neziqin) and they considered to attach it to this order, i.e., the Order of Women, its subject matter being more fitting for this order, since essentially it provides an explanation of the impurity of women, both with respect to the touchings of Temple related foods and items, and with respect to sex.” (Beit ha-Behirah, “Massekhet Niddah,” 1). 39. ybr ymyb hmwrt yawhd. The text continues to ask about the existence of sacrificial meat in Rabbi’s days that equally had to be handled in a status of purity. Rashi comments on this question: µynç hmk—yawh ym ybr ymyb çdq .µyanth πwsb ˜brwjh rja These statements appear in the stammaitic layer of the gemara and clearly already have a historizing perspective. That is, even if the terumah still existed in the days of the Rabbi, it no longer does “now,” in the days of the composition of the gemara.

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40. alylZb ˜krm ayrbj alw[ rmad. Rashi comments on the ayrbj that µhymyb q´´mhb hnby amç ´wjnml ˜nmçw µyksnl µnyy µyrhfm lylZbç µyrbj— ”the associates in the Galilee purify their wine for libation offerings and their oil for meal-offerings because perhaps the Temple might be rebuilt in their days.” On the identity of the µyrbj as a specific group of people and the later amoraic understanding of the term as applying to µymkj ydymlt in general, see Urbach’s The Sages, 582–87. 41. The metaphor remains ambiguous. It refers to the actual beginning of a woman’s status of menstrual impurity (see mArakhin 2:1), as well as to the laws concerning Niddah in general (see Albeck’s commentary in his edition of the Mishnah, Shishah Sidrei Mishnah). 42. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Tumat ‘Okhlin, 16:12. For a discussion of the ethical categories provided by the Mishnah Torah to enhance the halakhic system, see Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah), (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980), 356–515, in particular his section on “Concern with ethical perfection,” 430–43.

chapter 4

Beginning Gittin/ Mapping Exile Aryeh Cohen

I Ben Bag Bag said: Examine it [Torah] again and again for all is in it. —Pirkei Abot 5:22

BEN BAG BAG’S motto asserts the timelessness of Torah study. It has no beginning and no end. Each time one studies Torah it is like the first time.1 One can only pick up the Torah as one picks up a diamond to see the way the light is refracted through all of its endless facets. Or, perhaps, one needs to inquire after it endlessly in a necessarily futile attempt to understand what it is. Each new vantage point provides a new world of Torah that just yesterday was hidden from view. Each new vantage point brings closer the definition of what it is and at the same time pushes it farther away. There is no beginning, there is no end. The graphic layout of the printed page of the Vilna edition of the Talmud2 similarly argues that the question of beginnings is, at best, irrelevant. Every time Rashi—writing in the twelfth century but being (re)presented/read in the eternal present—comments on the Mishnah with his common begemara mefaresh (“it is explained in the Gemara”) or the equally common lekaman mefaresh (“it is explained further on”), he elides the possibility of distance that is suggested by the phoneme GM’ (signifying Gemara) at the point of separation between third-century Mishnah and sixth- and seventh-century Talmud (in Hebrew) or Gemara (in Aramaic). It is this distance that raises the possibility of silence. That is, the choices and the directions a sugya takes are naturalized

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by its assumption into the Mishnah by Rashi. It is by reclaiming this distance that the question of beginnings might be spoken. Acknowledgment of this distance allows one to ask questions about the texts authorization and assumption of authority.3 For this discussion of Talmudic beginnings I would like to make use of a distinction between “starting” (tefilah) and beginning or Beginning (bereishit) that was first proffered by an early theorist of the study and interpretation of Talmud. In the first chapter of his work on Talmudic interpretation, Darkhei Hatalmud, the Gaon of Castille, R. Yitzhak Canpanton (1360–1463), enumerates several prerequisites to the proper study of Talmud. “At the start of your iyyun (logical and linguistic analysis of Talmud4) accept as a given that each of the speakers [in the sugya] both the questioner and the respondent, are intelligent. . . .”5 (22); “At the start of your iyyun of the words of the commentators you must see of which phrase of the text [the commentator] is speaking. . . .” (23); “At the start of your iyyun you must review the whole sugya and know its intention and encompass it in a general way. . . .” (24)6 Then, just before the end of the first chapter comes the following admonition: “In the beginning (bereishit) read the language with heartfelt joy two or three times out loud and then return to study intently (le’ayyen) that language. . . .” (26). This last step in the process of beginning one’s study is a process of constructing the studied text, the sugya. Reading the text two or three times out loud with joy is not for the sake of intellectual comprehension, but for the sake of a certain intimate familiarity with the words, the way the phrases sound as they are read.7 This step in the process also establishes the text in the reader’s mind as a unified object of study—a text rather than a series of sentences. Canpanton calls this step p’shat. While there is much controversy over what p’shat exactly is—opinions range from literal to contextual meaning—there is a general agreement that p’shat signifies a certain type of interpretation or understanding. For Canpanton it seems that p’shat is prior to any interpretation. More interesting, however, is the rhetorical strategy of acknowledging the theological importance of constructing the text as object of study by the shift to the word bereishit.8 This is striking since a similar charge to scan the whole sugya (though not to recite it joyously two or three times) was presented on the previous page with the introductory term tefilah (start). Following this disctinction then, the ultimate Beginning of beginning, the bereishit of the beginning, is the deeper significance that the disjunction of beginning a tractate carries. A Tractate begins, therefore, at its moment of disjunction with its Mishnah. The moment when the specific Talmudic tractate comes into view as a separate entity that is no longer present in the Mish-

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nah is its beginning. This moment carries with it both legal and religious difference. The tractate does not necessarily start with its beginning. As I will argue in the case of Bavli Gittin, the first folios are an introduction, but the beginning of the tractate is on folio 6a. II In this chapter I will first analyze the introduction to Bavli Gittin (2a–5b). These sugyot are a first read-through of the Mishnah, or a first line by line engagement with Mishnah Gittin 1:1. In my reading I point out both the literary structure of the text, and the way in which that structure highlights its own artificiality as linear dialogue. This section ends with the anonymous voice of the Bavli (the stam) undermining the basis on which the discussion had taken place. This leads to the Beginning of the Tractate on 6a. I then closely read the sugya 6a–7b, employing a sugyaetic analysis. A sugyaetic analysis is a reading practice that consists of three types of analyses.9 First, reading the sugya against its grain, asking what the various rhetorical moves do, rather than acquiescing to their own claims as questions and answers. Second, analyzing the sugya structurally to identify the recurrent forms, tropes, and images in the sugya. Third, an intertextual analysis to situate the sugya within its literary and cultural universe. III An introduction, as opposed to a beginning, makes a less originary claim. An introduction is a framing of a certain text; a clearing of a certain discursive space. The introduction’s own claim for “beginning” is usually put forward as false, or artificial. An introduction constitutes a statement of direction, and a choice of one of the many—if not infinite—ways in which a work can proceed.10 The claim of an introduction—as the argument for an introduction— is a claim for some narrative order in the chaos,11 albeit in a rather limited way. There are two issues at stake in this reading of the beginning of Tractate Gittin of the Babylonian Talmud.12 First is the claim that the cultural negotiation of living in Exile is an integral part of the legal discourse that produced the Talmud. The second issue, is that the violence that is inherent in all legal systems, and especially in those parts of patriarchal legal systems that deal with marriage and divorce, is brought to the fore in these discussions. Divorce is represented in these texts as a site of violence, both physical and psychological. It is the same sugyot that inscribe the Land of Israel onto Babylonia in an attempt to efface Exile (or subvert the Exile-Land of Israel opposition),

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which also highlight the violence that is represented as a prime characteristic of diasporic existence. IV The violence that is an aspect of law has been addressed by the legal theorist Robert Cover. He argues succinctly for one major and overriding difference between legal and literary interpretation. “Legal interpretation takes place in a field of pain and death.”13 Yet, the violence inflicted by law and by legal interpretation is far removed from the scene of the interpretation or adjudication. The violence is therefore either hidden or transparent.14 The institutions of law often go to great lengths to ensure that this is so. The violence of incarceration, impoverishment, loss of one’s children, loss of one’s life, are choreographed in such a way that the objects of that violence are seen as willing actors in the legal drama. However, the violence is always just beneath the surface. When an outraged defendant refuses to participate in the “civilized” choreography that leads to her freedom being lost; when a judge breaks through the visage of impartiality in the face of a particularly vicious criminal—the curtain is torn and the actual stakes of the game are apparent. One of the unique elements of the introduction to Bavli Gittin is rhetorical acknowledgment of the violence that is an integral part of the discourse of divorce. If the communicative and legal situation that is divorce misfires (to borrow a phrase from J. L. Austin), the woman might be anchored, she is liable to be put to death for having sex with another man, her children from any other union might be mamzerim—”nonpersons” in the societal context. The power that the exercise of divorce grants to the man neccesarily leads to an adversarial situation. This situation is, in general, domesticated, or naturalized in the rhetoric of legal determinism.15 That it bubbles to the surface with the force and clarity that it does in the beginning of Bavli Gittin is surprising. The violence of the discourse of divorce operates on two levels—as does the discourse itself. For the discourse of divorce, as I will show in this essay, is also and equally the discourse of exile—and partakes of the violence of that discourse too. V The initial sugyot, or talmudic discussions, in Bavli Gittin are generated by pressing on the first line in the first Mishnah. Exploiting both ambiguities

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and anomalies, the stam, the anonymous editorial voice of the Talmud, opens a space for a theoretical legal debate. The Mishnah begins as follows: One who brings a writ [of divorce] (a get) from abroad [lit. the province of the sea] must attest: “Before me it was written and before me signed.”

This line raises a number of legal problems. First, what is the status of the agent who brings the get and makes the declaration? Is he a witness? If so this would deviate from the legal norm that requires two witnesses. If he is not a witness, what is the status of his declaration? Second, why do we require a secondary declaration concerning a legal document that had already been duly written and signed? Is this a reflection of the status of the courts outside of the Land of Israel? From another angle, is the stress to be placed on the fact of the writ being brought or that it was brought from abroad? It is questioning along these lines that is the impetus for the opening move of the anonymous editorial voice of the Talmud. The discussion opens by presenting two opposing views as possible explanations for the law of the Mishnah. Rabbah says, for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.16 And Raba says, For witnesses are not [to be found] to substantiate it.

The sugya continues in a highly formalized manner based on triplets.17 Initially, three scenarios are listed in which there would be a difference in ruling18 between Rabbah and Raba.19 Subsequently, in two symmetrical, triplet (overlapping) sections each side is interrogated as to why this case (in which one messenger suffices) is not similar to other cases that require two witnesses. Both sides aver that, de jure, two witnesses would be required. However, Rabbinic ordinance provides for the one witness, as a leniency, so as to guard against the possibility that the woman becomes an anchored woman, (agunah) one who can neither get divorced nor remarry. That is, if two witnesses were required to deliver the get it would be that much harder for the woman to receive her divorce. Both sections then raise the possibility that this might not actually be a leniency that favors the woman. If the husband appears and challenges the writ (which was approved on the basis of one witness) once the woman has remarried, she would be forced to leave her (new) husband and her children would be mamzerim. This fear is allayed by reference to a discussion which is

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found further on in this opening section.20 There is a dispute over whether the messenger needs hand over the writ of divorce in front of two or three witnesses. Regardless of the reasons for either number, the stam asserts that once the husband knows that there is public record of the delivery of the get, he will not endeavor to challenge it, or subvert it. The next (third) section of triplets questions why Raba does not agree with Rabbah, and vice versa. In perfectly symmetrical parts, first Raba then Rabbah set forth the reasons they do not hold the opposite view. In the third part of the section, both sides rebut the other’s previous objections. The fourth section of the opening moves away from the strict symmetrical construction of the earlier sections. Though a triplet, it is only concerned with the Tannaitic ground on which Rabbahs opinion rests and does not mention Raba. The stam firsts attempts to tie Rabbah to R. Meir as the author of the opinion that the writing and signing of the get needs to be performed specifically for this one woman. Then R. Eliezer is offered as a more appropriate source for this opinion. Both these are rejected and R. Ashi finally presents R. Yehudah as the author of the opinion upon whose shoulders Rabbah stands. We now look back to ask what this first part of the opening has accomplished. The strict symmetrical construction has not given either side an advantage as far as whether Rabbah or Raba is right. The arguments of each side were drawn out in full to the point that the debate was left at a draw. While this is a striking example of this type of scholastic debate, in fact most sugyot do not end in a legal decision. So, again, we are left to ask what did the sugya do? That is, what was accomplished by the sugya rhetorically. If we do not follow the demands of the sugya’s own rhetoric, we can see the following. The stylized debate enabled the introduction of a number of important concepts, concepts that reverberate throughout the beginning of Gittin and in many sugyot in the rest of the tractate. We are left with a sharp distinction between the Land of Israel and the rest of the world. At this point Babylonia is still part of the rest of the world. The question of whether the difference between Israel and the world is geographical (Raba) or substantive (Rabbah) has purposely not been resolved. It will ultimately be collapsed into one inclusive differentiation.21 Additionally, the divorce proceeding is portrayed as one of confrontation and subterfuge with serious consequences. The husband might want to challenge the divorce, even on spurious grounds; the woman might be left anchored, or might be considered as a married woman who has married another—an offense punishable by death—whose children are mamzerim.

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VI The next sugyot are constructed as a running commentary on the rest of the Mishnah. The Mishnah is divided into five statements and there are five Talmudic sections—the fifth one is, again, a triplet. Within this overall picture, the first and second sections are parallel in their formal construction, as are the third and fourth. Each of the first four sections interrogates the proposition that the debate between Raba and Rabbah is the necessary backdrop for understanding the Mishnah. In the first two of these sections the difference between the attributed opinions and the opening anonymous opinion of the Mishnah, quoted above, is interpreted through the lenses of both Raba and Rabbah. To wit: 1 We taught [in a Mishnah]: Rabban Gamliel says, Even the one who brings [a get] from the Rekem and from the Heger. 2 Rabbi Eliezer says, Even from Kfar Ludim to Lydda. 3 And Abbayye says, We are dealing with cities that adjoin the Land of Israel and are enveloped within the boundary of the Land of Israel. 4 And Rabbah bar bar Hannah says, As for myself, I saw that site and it was as [the distance] from Bei Kuby to Pum Beditha. 5 And the first teacher [in the Mishnah Gittin 1:1] held that [from] these it was not necessary [to state “Before me . . . ”]. 6 Is it not that they dispute about this: One holds “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her,” and these, [those who reside in these named cities,] are learned. 7 And one holds “for witnesses are not [to be found] to substantiate it,” and these are also not to be found. 8 Raba answers according to his understanding, and Rabbah answers according to his understanding. 9 Rabbah answers according to his understanding, for everyone [holds] “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her,” 10 and the first authority [in the Mishnah] reasons: these [cities], since they are adjoining, are learned. 11 Rabban Gamliel comes to say, Enveloped [cities] are learned, adjoining cities are not learned. 12 Rabbi Eliezer comes to say, Enveloped [cities] also not, so as not to differentiate within ”provinces of the sea.” 13 And Raba answers according to his understanding, for everyone [holds] “for witnesses are not [to be found] to substantiate it;” 14 And the first teacher holds, These since they are adjoining [the witnesses] are indeed to be found. 15 Rabban Gamliel comes to say, [In] enveloped [cities the witnesses] are to be found, [in] adjoining [cities the witnesses] are not to be found.

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16 Rabbi Eliezer comes to say, Enveloped [cities] also not, so as not to differentiate within ”provinces of the sea.” [i.e., foreign lands]

Lines 1 and 2 are quoted from our Mishnah.22 Lines 3 and 4 are Amoraic statements interpreting the Mishnah. Line 4 interprets into the Babylonian context, a move that will become much more important further on. Line 5 is a statement of the stam, or anonymous voice of the Talmud, making the dispute between the attributed statements of lines 1 and 2 and the opening line of the Mishnah explicit. This move is not simply explanatory. The explicit debate is needed for the continuation of the discussion—to see whether or not it can be explained as foreshadowing (and thereby making irrelevant) the dispute between Raba and Rabbah (lines 6 and 7). The rest of the discussion (lines 8 to 16) demonstrate that actually both Raba and Rabbah can explain both sides of the Mishnahs dispute. In other words, their dispute is not already found in the Mishnah. The next part of this section continues in the same vein: a quote from the Mishnah is followed by an explanation of the dispute by the stam; the question is then raised whether this dispute foreshadows the Raba versus Rabbah dispute; this question is resolved through the demonstration that both Raba and Rabbah can account for both sides of the dispute. In the next part of the sugya, the continuation of the Mishnah is quoted: “One who brings a get from province to province in a ‘province of the sea,’ needs to state ‘Before me it was written and before me it was signed.’ ” The stam’s comment here explains this statement as a challenge to Rabbah. The anonymous voice reads the statement strongly, as negating its implied opposite: One who brings the get from province to province needs to attest. However, if it is brought in the same province there is no need. If the reason that one who brings the get from abroad has to attest to its writing and signing is because those in foreign lands are not expert in those laws, why should it make a difference if it is carried between two provinces or if it stays in the same province? While this challenge is parried, the stam construes the next part of the Mishnah in a similar vein as a challenge to Rabbah. In response to this challenge the stam asserts that: “Rabbah also takes Raba’s opinion into account.” The dispute between Raba and Rabbah is seriously mitigated since Rabbah agrees that Raba’s concern for the presence of the witnesses is a legitimate concern—in addition to the concern that those who reside abroad are ignorant of the subtlety of divorce law. One of their two concerns, therefore, is now considered a universal concern—everyone demands the accessibility of the witnesses that can affirm the writ. The concern that is only held by Rab-

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bah is that those residing abroad are ignorant of the law that a writ of divorce needs to be written specifically for one woman. This conclusion, that Rabbah also takes Raba’s opinion into account, is proferred three more times in the course of the discussion in this section. The section then concludes on a significant note. 99 This is as the dispute between R. Yohanan and R. Joshua b. Levi. 100 One says “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.” 101 And one says “for witnesses are not [to be found] to substantiate it.” 102 Specify that it is R. Joshua b. Levi who says “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.” 103 For R. Simeon b. Abba brought a get before R. Joshua b. Levi and said to him, 104 “Need I say ‘before me it was written and before me it was signed,’ or not?” 105 He said to him, “You need not. 106 They did not say it except in the earlier generations when they were not experts, but in the later generations in which they are expert, no.” 107 Specify it.

There are two important moments in this short text. The first is the opening line (99). The stam avers that the dispute between Raba and Rabbah is actually the same as the dispute between R. Yohanan and R. Joshua b. Levi. The significance of this is twofold. It moves the dispute to the time of the Palestinian Sages. Hence, the dispute has a pedigree. Therefore, other opinions of these two Amoraim can be contrasted with this opinion. Second, and more important, from the manner in which it is deduced that it is actually R. Joshua b. Levi who holds that those residing abroad are not experts, it emerges that the concern about expertise itself is anachronistic: “They did not say it except in the earlier generations when they were not experts . . . ”. It follows then that there really is no difference between Babylon and the Land of Israel in terms of either expertise in providing writs of divorce, or the necessity for attesting that the writ was written and signed for one specific woman. This, then, is the end of the introduction to Gittin. It is an artful rehearsal of some of the dominant ideas of the Tractate—ideas that will come back again and again in various sugyot. It is a good example of that type of introduction that was noted first by R. Sherira Gaon and expanded upon more recently by Avraham Weiss23—an introduction that might have served as a lecture summarizing the year’s study. The introduction was probably composed after most of the tractate. Its style is predominantly anonymous and “midrashic” in the manner in which it comments on the Mishnah in a “verse by verse” manner.24 It is not however the Beginning of the Tractate in the way

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that I am using that word here, in the way that Canpanton differentiates between starting (tefillah) and Beginning (bereishit). The Beginning of the Tractate, the moment at which the tectonic shift generates enough seismic activity to break the topography,25 the point at which the Bavli authors and authorizes its own disjunctive Beginning, occurs on the next folio with the statement (and sentiment) attributed to Rab: “Babylonia is like the Land of Israel in reference to writs [of divorce].” The ramifications of this remapping of the territory of Exile is played out over the next two folios. It is this unfolding of the tension between two modes of Exilic being—on the one hand effacement of the Exile by inscribing the Land of Israel onto the Babylonian diaspora, and thereby claiming a nonexilic existence and authority discontinuous with the Land of Israel; on the other hand invoking the existential (and material) reality of Exile as the primary location of the legal discourse which often occupies and almost always underlays the discussions of Tractate Gittin. VII The Beginning of Bavli Gittin engages Exile by mapping of the Land of Israel onto Babylonia. This necessarily failed attempt to efface Exile is one prong of the discursive engagement with Exile. The other prong is the representation of the essential violence of the Exilic situation. Mapping, in general, is an articulation of a distinct territory. Mapping both reflects and establishes the boundaries of that territory. The map also, for the most part, aims for transparency. That is, it claims to represent an actual state of affairs—often a seemingly “natural” or “objective” state of affairs. The articulation of a territorial identity is, however, anything but obvious or natural. It is an act of reading, of interpretation—often through a frame of religious or political power or ideology.26 The mosaic map uncovered at the site of the ancient church of Madaba is a useful example as a counterpart to the mapping of the beginning of Bavli Gittin.27 The map was created in the sixth century C.E.28 to cover the floor of the whole transept29 of the Ancient Church at Madaba. Jerusalem is the central showpiece of the map.30 The map was constructed in such a way that Jerusalem is almost at the exact center of the map—and therefore in the center of the forward, or eastern end, of the church. This placement accords with a tradition (both Jewish and Christian) that places Jerusalem at the center of the Holy Land—and often at the center of the world. More significantly though, the site that is given preeminence in the mosaic’s representation of Jerusalem is the church of the Holy Sepulchre—while the Temple Mount is depicted as an empty space. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (or Anastasis)

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is in the almost exact center of the depiction of Jerusalem, and is the largest and most ornately drawn building in the city, while the Temple mount is comparatively small, and almost totally obscured by the colonnade of the north-south street that runs by it.31 In this same vein, the map as a whole is heavily weighted toward depicting New Testament places over places mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.32 This supercessionist mapping of the Holy Land—which seems to fulfill Jesus’ prophecy that “there will not be left here [in the Temple] one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down,” (Matthew 24:2)33—was the nightmare of the Madaba mosaicists contemporaries, the Sages who created the Babylonian Talmud. The mapping that we encounter in Bavli Gittin is legal in its topography—its nominal end is the establishment of a territory whose boundaries are those of legal competence. It is, however, also creating the cultural entity that it seems only to represent. This new entity is proffering itself as substitute for the territorial map whose center is empty—the Land of Israel after the destruction of the Temple and the Exile. VIII The most dramatic part of the opening sugyot of Bavli Gittin, the sugya that is the Beginning of Bavli Gittin—6a–7b—is generated by a dispute between Rab and Samuel over whether Babylonia should be granted the legal status of the Land of Israel in the area of divorce law. Rab equates Babylonia with the Land of Israel and Shmuel refuses to do so. The sugya may be divided into five parts. (I:1–20; II:22–49; III:50–77; IV:78–109; V:110–141)34 The first three parts of the sugya are all structurally similar. An Amoraic statement is cited. This is followed by a stammaitic discussion in which there is an attempt to implicate this statement in the dispute between Rabbah and Raba mentioned above. This is dismissed by stating that Rabbah agrees with Raba. This generates further stammaitic or anonymous discussion. The last two parts of the sugya are generated by Amoraic statements that link them to the previous parts. This debate, whether Babylonia should be granted the legal status of the Land of Israel in the area of divorce law, changes the whole landscape as it had previously been set out in the Mishnah. The borders drawn in the Mishnah were those between Israel and foreign countries (medinot hayam). The idea that any place would be an exception to that is foreign to the Mishnah.35 1 It has been stated: Babylonia, Rab said, [It is] like Land of Israel in respect of writs of divorce, 2 And Samuel said, [It is] as outside the land.

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3 Let us say that they differ on this, that one of them reasoned for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her, and these [the Babylonians,] are learned, [and in the same category with the Palestinians and are not required to make the declaration], 4 And the other reasoned that witnesses are not [to be found] to substantiate it, and the same difficulty is found [in Babylonia]. 5 Can you reason this, seeing that Rabbah also takes Rabas opinion into account? 6 Rather, All [i.e., Rab and Samuel agree that] [the ability of witnesses] to confirm is required. 7 Rab reasoned that since there are Academies [in Babylonia witnesses are] always to be found, 8 Samuel reasoned that the Academies are taken up with their studies. 9 It has also been stated that R. Abba said in the name of R. Huna in the name of Rab: “We established Babylonia as the same as the Land of Israel in respect of writs of divorce from the time when Rab came to Babylonia.” 10 R. Jeremiah returned [a challenge]: 11 R. Judah says, [foreign lands extend] from Rekem eastward, Rekem considered as east; 12 from Askelon southward, Askelon considered as south: 13 from Acco northward, Acco considered as north. 14 Now Babylonia is located north of the Land of Israel, as it is written, “And the Lord said to me, Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.” (Jer. 1:14) 15 And the Mishnah teaches: R. Meir says, Acco is like the Land of Israel in respect of writs of divorce; 16 but even R. Meir only said this in the case of Acco, which is close [to the Land of Israel], but Babylonia, which is distant, not. 17 He asked the question and he himself answered [by saying that] “With the exception of Babylonia.”

The stammaitic discussion (II. 3–8) of the dispute between Rab and Samuel accomplishes two things. It links this sugya with the previous sugyot by presenting the reasoning of Raba and Rabbah (3–4) that is the thread running through the first six pages. The possibility that the dispute between Rab and Samuel is encompassed within the Raba-Rabbah dispute is dismissed with the already familiar reprieve (line 5): Rabbah also takes Rabas opinion into account. That is, since Rabbah actually (according to the stam) agreed that having witnesses present was a concern, and his own concern for the expertise of the Babylonians was an additional concern—the dispute between Rabbah and Raba could not then be the basis for the Rab and Samuel dispute here. Then the stam introduces an idea (7–8) that serves as a frame for the statement attributed to R. Abba in the name of R. Huna. Rab equates Babylonia with the Land of Israel since there are academies in Babylonia. Samuel

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acknowledges the existence of academies, but dismisses their relevance (according to the stam) since the members of the academies are involved with their studies—seemingly to the exclusion of involvement in legal or business affairs.36 This idea of Babylonia being equated with the Land of Israel by dint of its academies is then reinforced with a statement attributed to R. Abba in the name of R. Huna (9): “We established Babylonia as the same as the Land of Israel in respect of writs of divorce from the time when Rab came to Babylonia.” This is a rephrasing of Rabs original statement, but here the equivalence with the Land of Israel is dated to the time of Rab. Following on the introduction of academies in the previous lines, we read this to mean that Babylonia is equivalent to the Land of Israel, in the matter of divorces, because of the academies that are there.37 The sugya continues with a question attributed to R. Yirmiyah, which brings the full audacity of Rab’s statement into bright relief. This exchange does two things. First, Rab’s equation of Babylonia and the Land of Israel is naturalized. R. Yirmiyah challenges this equivalence, his challenge is refuted (10–17), and the stam continues in the assumption that Babylonia is like the Land of Israel. R. Yirmiyahs question is so straightforward or “obvious” that the reader must read the answer (“With the exception of Babylonia.”) as being equally obvious. This is what makes Rab’s statement fit. Part of this statement’s background is that Rab (and Samuel) are credited with founding the first academies in Babylonia. They are the beginning of (Jewish) Babylonia. So we might read this statement as follows: “From the founding of Babylonian Jewry (i.e., from the time of the establishment of the academies in Babylonia), we equate Babylonia with the Land of Israel.” Second, the verse that is quoted as a “prooftext” for the assertion that Babylonia is actually north of the Land of Israel is, to say the least, striking. The verse quoted is part of a prophecy to Jeremiah in which God promises to inflict punishment on Israel for their iniquities. The instruments of that punishment will be the nations coming from the north. There are many ungrammaticalities—that is, syntactic and logical difficulties—in this citation. First is the surprising neccessity to “prove’ that Babylonia is north of Israel. Second, Babylon is not mentioned in this verse.38 In the verse, it is the enemies of Israel who are coming “from the North” to sack Jerusalem. Third, the injection of the violent image of Jerusalem besieged is arresting. The injection of violence by way of prooftexts recurs throughout this sugya. Implicating the Jewish community of Babylonia in this verse that warns of danger from Babylon, the enemy of Israel, situates the Jewish community of Babylonia on the

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wrong end of the binary opposition between home and diaspora, safety and danger. Babylonia39 here is an exilic space. Situating the Babylonian reality within an exilic space is echoed and reinforced in the dispute between R. Papa and R. Yosef (18–20). 18 How far does Babylonia extend? 19 R. Papa says: The same difference of opinion that there is in respect of writs of divorce, there is in respect of family descent. 20 R. Joseph says: There is a difference of opinion only in respect of family descent, but in respect of writs of divorce all parties are agreed that Babylonia extends to the second boat of the [floating] bridge.

The origin of the purity myth of Babylonian Jewry is the return from exile in the time of Ezra.40 The borders of Babylonia are the borders of the ethnic purity of the returnees. These are now the borders of the exilic community. The contradictory ways in which the Rabbinic presence, or the presence of Academies, in Babylonia is implicated in the narrative of Exile is echoed throughout this sugya. On the one hand, Babylonia and the Land of Israel are equalized in respect to divorce law (by dint of the presence of Rabbis and the Academies), while Babylonia is privileged with respect to ethnic purity. On the other hand, the violence that is associated with the original scene of Exile, is thematized in the violence of Rabbinic—domestic and institutional— power in various ways in the sugya. The next part of the sugya maps Babylonia as the Land of Israel in a more explicit manner. 21 R. Hisda required [the declaration to be made by the bearer of a Get] from Ctesiphon to Ve-Ardashir, but [if one brought it] from Ve-Ardashir to Ctesiphon, he did not require [the declaration]. 22 Let us say that he reasoned “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.” and these [the Jews of Ve-Ardashir,] are learned. 23 Can you reason this, seeing that Rabbah also takes Rabas opinion into account? 24 Rather, All [agree that] [the ability of witnesses] to confirm is required. 25 and since these [people of Ve-Ardashir] go there [to Ctesifon] to market, the [inhabitants of the latter] are familiar with their signatures; 26 but these [inhabitants of Ve-Ardashir], are not familiar with [the signatures] of these [people of Ctesiphon] because they] are busy with their marketing.

The statement attributed to R. eisda (21) parallels the statement of the Mishnah attributed to R. Eliezer. R. Eliezer demands that even when an agent is delivering a get from Kfar Luddim—the suburbs of Lydda—to Lydda he

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must state that the divorce that he is delivering was written and signed in his presence. R. eisda demands that an agent state that the get that he is delivering was written and signed in his presence, when he comes from Ve-Ardashir to Ctesiphon.41 Ve-Ardashir is to Ctesiphon as Kfar Luddim is to Lydda—except for one important fact. Neither Ve-Ardashir nor Ctesiphon are in the Land of Israel. R. eisda’s statement would not make any sense for the legal topography of the Mishnah. R. eisda’s statement generates a discussion that firmly plants the ongoing discussion of borders within Babylonia.42 In the next section of part II (32–49), bringing a writ of divorce from Sura to Nehardea in Babylonia (or the other way around) is equated to bringing a writ of divorce from Kfar Sisai to any other place in Israel. 32 R. Hanin related the following: 33 R. Kahana brought a Get either from Sura to Nehardea or from Nehardea to Sura, I do not know which. 34 He went in front of Rab. 35 He said to him, Am I required to declare, In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed, or not? 36 Rab said to him: You are not required, but if you have done so, so much the better. 37 What [was meant by] if you have done so, so much the better? That if the husband came and contested [the Get], they would pay no attention to him; 38 as it has been taught43: An event concerning a man who brought a get before R. Ishmael. 39 He said to him: Rabbi, am I required to declare, In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed, or am I not required? 40 He [R. Ishmael] said to him: My son, from where are you? 41 He said to him: From Kefar Sisai. 42 He said to him: My son it is necessary for you to declare In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed, so that the woman should not require witnesses [in case the husband raises objections]. 43 After the man left, R. Ila’i came before him [to R. Ishmael]. 44 He said to him: “My teacher, is not Kefar Sisai within the ambit of the border-line of the Land of Israel, and is it not nearer to Sepphoris than Acco is? 45 And we learn in the Mishnah: R. Meir said, Acco counts as the Land of Israel in matters of writs of divorce. 46 And even the Rabbis who differ from R. Meir only differ in regard to Acco, which is some distance away, but not in regard to Kefar Sisai which is near!” 47 R. Ishmael said to him: “Be silent, my son, be silent; since the thing has been declared, it was permitted to be declared.” 48 [Why should R. Ila’i have thought otherwise], seeing that [R. Ishmael] also said: ‘that the woman should not require witnesses?’ 49 [R. Ila’i] had not been told of these concluding words.

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In this exchange, the territorial specificity of the Land of Israel (“nearer to Sepphoris than Acco . . . ”) is seamlessly overlayed onto Babylonia. Two other themes or subtexts are activated in this section (32–49). First, the theme of the writ as a contested site—the fear that the husband will attempt to undermine the writ of divorce by contesting its legitimacy—is triggered again. This is another of the threads that runs through these texts. The second theme that is new, but that characterizes this sugya is “not hearing” or not receiving a tradition. This theme of not hearing first appears here in line 49, with the implication that R. Ilai did not hear the end of the tradition. It then reappears in line 62, in an effort to impune Eviathar’s authority. This is followed by a short excursus attributed to Abbaye about the difference between “gemara” and that which might be learned through deduction (sevara). Finally, the trope occurs in line 86 where R. Ashi follows the teaching of Rabbah bar bar Hannah even though he did not hear it. The next part of the sugya (III: 50–77) starts in the same way as the first sections. 50 R. Abiathar sent to R. Hisda [the following instruction:] [Concerning] writs of divorce that come from there [Babylonia] to here [the Land of Israel], [the bearers of the writs] are not required to declare, “In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed.” 51 Let us say that he reasoned “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.” and these [the Jews of Babylonia,] are learned. 52 Can you reason this, seeing that Rabbah also takes Rabas opinion into account? 53 Rather, All [agree that] [the ability of witnesses] to confirm is required. 54 and in this case, as there are Rabbis going up to [the Land of Israel] and down [to Babylonia], [witnesses] can easily be found. 55 Said R. Joseph: Who tells us that R. Eviathar is a man of authority? 56 Was it not he who sent [the statement] to Rab Judah: 57 ”People who come from there [Babylonia] to here [the Land of Israel] fulfil in their own persons the words of the Scripture: ‘And they bartered a boy for a whore, and sold a girl for wine, which they drank’ (Joel 4:3).” 58 And he wrote the words [from Scripture] without ruling lines [under them]. 59 And R. Isaac said, “Two words [from Scripture] may be written [without ruling lines] but not three.” 60 In a Baraitha it was taught, Three may be written [without ruling lines] but not four. 61 Said Abayye to him: Is anyone who did not receive this rule of R. Isaac not to be counted a great scholar? 62 If it were a rule established by logical deduction, we might think so. But it is a tradition, and it is a tradition which [R. Eviathar] had not received.

An amoraic statement is quoted (50), attributed to R. Eviathar. This is followed by an attempt to align the statement with the reasoning of the de-

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bate that runs through the whole introduction—that the Jews outside of Israel are not “experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her” (lishmah). This attempt is dismissed since Rabbah’s reasoning has been acknowledged to include Raba’s (as in 3–5 and 22–24 above), and a different reason is introduced. As in the first section (lines 7–8), this new reason (54) has to do with the Rabbinic presence in Babylonia. (There: the presence of academies; here: the presence of Rabbis.44) This statement (54), that the presence of Rabbis who go up to Israel and back to Babylonia, obviates the fear that the witnesses will not be available; the similar statement above (7), that the presence of academies accomplishes the same thing, rereads and recasts an earlier statement in a previous sugya in the introduction. On 4b, the Mishnaic statement (M Gittin 1:1) that one who brings a get from one province to another in a foreign country must state that the document was written and signed before him generates the following stammaitic discussion: The Mishnah should [then] teach “One who brings from province to province” with no further elaboration! In fact, from province to province in the Land of Israel he also does not need [to state “before me . . . ”], since there are pilgrims, [witnesses] are indeed to be found. This is well in the time that the Temple existed, in the time that the Temple does not exist what is there to say? Since there exist established courts, [witnesses] are indeed to be found.

This discussion, first, assumes a strong distinction between the Land of Israel and foreign territories. Second, the idea of the presence of pilgrims and, subsequently, established courts,45 is an idea that is attributed only to Israel. Our statements on 6a (line 7) and 6b (line 54) place the Rabbinic presence in Babylonia. This is part of the general mapping of Israel onto Babylonia that is accomplished in this sugya. Returning to 6a–7b, the statement attributed to R. Eviathar reinforces the equality of Babylonia and Israel stated in the first section. R. Eviathar’s authority is then challenged on this exact point. This part (III) also parallels part I in that the presence of the Rabbis is followed by a striking “prooftext,” which dramatically performs “exile.” A statement attributed to R. Yosef challenges R. Eviathars authority (55). The challenge is based on the fact that, seemingly, R, Eviathar did not uphold a teaching of R. Isaac. This is based on an event in which R. Eviathar had sent an edict warning people not to come from Babylonia to Israel. The edict was

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based on a midrashic reading of a verse. R. Eviathar had neglected to score the parchment before writing the verse. By doing so he opened himself up to the charge of not being a “great man,” since he did not know this teaching of R. Isaac. Abbaye comes to R. Eviathar’s defense by distinguishing between someone who has not received a tradition (la shmi’a), and one who does not know a tradition that is arrived at by deduction (sevara). The prooftext at issue is Joel 4:3 (line 59): And they bartered a boy for a whore, and sold a girl for wine, which they drank.46

In context, this is part of a prophecy in which God promises vengeance upon the enemies of Israel who considered the lives of boys and girls so worthless that they would trade them for wine or whoring. In our sugya a Palestinian Amora, R. Eviathar, reads this verse as referring to Babylonian sages who come to Palestine, and by so doing either neglect the commandment of procreation,47 or force their families into penury, even unto prostitution.48 Again, as above, the Jewish community of Babylonia is implicated in a verse describing the violent acts of the enemies of Israel. Here, the identification is even greater as R. Eviathar states that the violence is perpetrated by Babylonian Rabbis who come to Palestine. Abbaye supports R. Eviathar’s authority in another way by claiming that even God recognized R. Eviathar as the able exegete of the story of the Concubine of Gibea. The story (Judges 19ff ), in short, is that the concubine of a man from Levi runs away from him and back to her family. The man follows her to take her back. On the way home they stay overnight in Gibea and are given lodging by another nonresident. During the night the townspeople demand that the man is handed over to them. The host instead offers the townspeople his virgin daughter and the concubine. The townspeople rape and kill the concubine. The man from Levi finds his dead concubine in the morning, throws her on his donkey and goes home. He subsequently cuts her into twelve pieces and sends a piece to each tribe. This leads to a bloody civil war. Elijah himself had informed Eviathar that God quoted his exegesis of Judges 19:2 (along R. Jonathan’s) approvingly (63–77). As has been pointed out by Yair Zakovitch49 the opening verses of the story of the concubine (Judges 19:2–3) share language with Jeremiah 3:1— the prophetic use of the Deuteronomic divorce laws to represent the relationship between God and Israel. This intertext firmly places this story within an exilic narrative.

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. . . If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him and marries another man, can he ever go back to her? Would not such a land be defiled? Now you have whored (ve’at zanit) with many lovers: can you return to me?—says the Lord.50

The prooftext quoted at the end of the next section of the sugya reinforces this reading. As basis for the ruling that song is forbidden at parties, Mar Uqba quotes Hosea 9:1: Rejoice not, O Israel, unto exultation like the peoples, for thou hast gone astray (ki zanita) from thy God.51

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Moreover, R. Abiathar is one whose view was confirmed by his Master. For it is written, “And his concubine played the harlot against him (Judges 19:2).” R. Eviathar said “He found a fly with her,” and R. Jonathan said, “He found a hair on her.” R. Eviathar came across Elijah. He said to him: “What is the Holy One of blessing doing?” He [Elijah] said to him, “He is involved with [the issue of ] the concubine in Gibea.” ”What does He say?” ”[God says], My son Eviathar says So-and-so, and my son Jonathan says So-and-so,” He [R. Abiathar] said to him: “Can there possibly be uncertainty in the mind of the Heavenly One?” 73 He said to him: Both [answers] are the word of the living God.

This section of the sugya does two important things. First, it reinforces the theme of violence that was also a part of the other two prooftexts. Second, the reading of the verse from Judges, situates the Concubine of Gibea story firmly in the center of the discourse of divorce. The verse that R. Eviathar and R. Jonathan comment on is a problematic one. The locution translated here as “played the harlot” (zanah ‘al) is unique to this verse. There is a long history of interpretation that tries to make sense out of it.52 The problem—at least for the Rabbis—with a “literal” translation is that if the concubine had actually had sexual relations with another man, the first man would not have been able to take her back.53 Reading the verse with the comments of either R. Eviathar or R. Jonathan (and God seems to approve of both) frames the story explicitly as one of “marital discord” that leads to violence.54 The Rabbinic intertext for this reading is, of course, the discussion in M Gittin 9:10. In that Mishnah, Bet Shammai

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states that a man might only divorce his wife if she has committed some sexual misdeed. Bet Hillel and R. Akiva, in their footsteps, say that he might divorce her for, basically, any reason whatsoever. This explanation for why he divorced her, tidies up the problems that are inherent, for the Rabbis, in saying that she divorced him—as it seems in the verses. That is, she left and he ran after her to try to mollify her and bring her home. In fact, the scene wherein the Levite attempts to patch things up with his concubine is left on the Talmud’s cutting room floor. The sugya moves from why he divorced her, immediately to the fact that many thousands were killed—at the beginning of the next part (IV). This latter is arrived at via a statement attributed to R. Hisda, (78–79) that men should not terrorize their households excessively. 78 R. Hisda said: A man should not cast excessive terror over his household. 79 For the concubine of Gibea—her husband terrorized her excessively and many thousands were slaughtered in Israel. 80 Rab Judah said: If a man terrorizes his household, he will eventually commit three sins: 81 unchastity, blood-shedding, and desecration of the Sabbath. 82 Said Rabba b. Bar Hanah: This is that which our Rabbis taught: 83 A man has to say three things to his household on the eve of Sabbath with darkness, 84 “Have you set aside the tithe? Have you placed the ‘Erub? Light the lamp,” 85 He needs to say it gently, so that they should accept it from him. 86 R. Ashi said: I never received that rule of Rabba b. Bar Hanah, but I observed it because of [my own] reasoning.

This move—passing over the rape and murder scene—also accomplishes something else. It reinscribes the silence and disappearance of the Concubine. In the story in Judges, the unnamed woman55 does not have a single spoken line. After she is given over (by the Levite) to be raped, and dies from her torture, the Levite cuts her up and literally erases her. In the retelling of this story by R. Hisda, it was the fact that he had terrorized her, which caused thousands of Israel to die. While this puts the blame for the deaths on the Levite’s shoulders,56 those deaths do not include the rape and murder of the Concubine. The crime was intimidating the Concubine, and the punishment was that thousands of men of Israel died. Hence, the statements attributed to R. Yehuda, Rabbah b. Bar Hannnah, and R. Ashi (80–88) reinforce this discourse of marriage as controlled aggression toward a utilitarian end. That is, a husband should not be overly intimidating since it will be bad for him in the end. Following immediately on this warning against the possibility of violence resulting from intimidation and abuse, the next section continues the inter-

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weaving of the themes of violence and marriage and exile. The section begins with an account of a written exchange between Mar ‘Uqba, who was apparently facing some opposition, and R. Eleazar. Both of R. Eleazar’s answers are midrashic readings of verses that he has inscribed on parchment in the proper way—by first scoring lines and then writing. 92 Mar ‘Ukba sent to R. Eleazar: Certain men are opposing me, and I am able to turn them over to the government; What is [the law]? 93 He scored lines and wrote [quoting], “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue, I will keep a curb upon my mouth while the wicked is before me (lenegdi).” (Psalms 39:2) 94 Although the wicked is opposing me (lenegdi), I will keep a curb on my mouth.

R. Eleazar, in his answer, reads the polysemic word lenegdi to mean opposing me in order to understand the verse from Psalms as a statement of almost stoic forbearance in the face of evil opposition. In his next missive, Mar ‘Uqba seems to be losing his patience. 95 He [Mar ‘Ukba] sent to him: They are troubling me very much, and I am unable to stand it. 96 He sent to him, “Resign thyself unto the Lord, and wait patiently [hitfolel] for him.” (Psalms 37:7)—be silent for the Lord, and He will cast them down as corpses [falalim] before thee. 97 Go to the Beth-Hamidrash early morning and evening and they will desist of themselves. 98 The words left R. Eleazar’s mouth, and Geniba was placed in chains [for execution].

R. Eleazar’s answer is again a midrashic reading of a verse from Psalms. Actually, it is only a phrase from a verse. The rest of the verse seems to have been the impetus for the rereading. The verse in whole is: “Resign thyself unto the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.” The midrashic reading assumes that the context of the waiting patiently for God is one of political strife—“the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.” This generates a complex midrashic reading. The four word phrase is read as if it were three clauses. Dom, contextually meaning “resign thyself ” is read as “be silent.”57 “Unto the Lord” is read to mean “let God take care of it.” The verb form hitfolel, which contextually means “wait patiently,” is read through its root falal—corpse—as a neologism that means to become a corpse.

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Subsequently the intertext from Psalms 65:2 “Praise waiteth (dumiyah) for Thee,” suggests prayer and the setting of the Beth-Hamidrash, the study hall. This yields “Go to the Beth-Hamidrash early morning and evening and they will desist of themselves.” R. Eleazar’s prescient advice seems to have reestablished Mar ‘Uqba’s authority as the next question is addressed to him. 99 They sent to Mar ‘Ukba: What is the source that it is forbidden [in these times] for us to sing [at parties]? 100 He scored lines and wrote [quoting]: “Rejoice not, O Israel, unto exultation like the peoples, for thou hast gone astray from thy God.” (Hosea 9:1) 101 Should he not rather have sent the following: “They shall not drink wine with music, strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it?” (Isaiah 24:9) 102 From this verse I should conclude that only music [played on] instruments is forbidden, but music [that is] sung is alright; this I learn [from the other verse].

It is worth noting that the story of Mar ‘Uqba and Geniba is the only story in the Talmud where Sages hand over a fellow Sage to the authorities for execution.58 The only place, other than this sugya, where this story is alluded to is also in Bavli Gittin.59 Another noteworthy element of this part is the way in which it echoes and reinforces the discourse of divorce. The Sages must practice controlled aggression. That is, the choices presented are either God killing the men who oppose the Sage or the Sage himself handing them over to be killed. It is significant within the exilic frame that when the choice presented is between God avenging, and the “powers” avenging—it is the power of flesh and blood who is turned to for vengeance/justice. The connection with the discourse of divorce, and the discourse of exile that is interwoven with divorce, is strengthened by the second half of this part. In response to the question: “Where does Scripture tell us that it is forbidden [in these times] to sing [at parties]?” (101). Mar ‘Uqba quotes the verse from Hosea 9:1, that we mentioned above: Rejoice not, O Israel, unto exultation like the peoples, for thou hast gone astray (ki zanit) from thy God.60

This prooftext connects the question of singing with marriage (and divorce), and with exile. It is connected to the previous prooftexts by the word zn-h, which appears here and in Judges 19 and in Jeremiah 3—quoted above.61 The final section of the sugya (110–141) forcefully overlays marriage and divorce onto exilic space.

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110 The Exilarch said to R. Huna: On what ground is based the prohibition of garlands? 111 He said to him: It is from the Rabbis. 112 For we have learnt in a Mishnah: At [the time of ] the battle of Vespasian they prohibited the wearing of garlands by bridegrooms and the [ringing of ] bells62 [at weddings]. 113 At this point R. Huna got up to leave the room. 114 R. Hisda said to him [the Exilarch]: [It is an explicitly] written verse: “Thus saith the Lord God, remove the turban and take off the crown, 115 this shall be no more the same [this not this]; that which is low shall be exalted and that which is high abased.” (Ezekiel 21:31) 116 What has the turban to do with the crown? 117 It is to teach that when the turban is worn by the High priest, ordinary persons can wear the crown, 118 but when the turban has been removed from the head of the High priest, the crown must be removed from the head of ordinary persons.

In this striking exchange, the wedding scene is explicitly connected with Exile and Redemption. An equivalence is drawn between the turban of the high priest—upon which was the plate of gold inscribed “sanctified to God”63 (Exodus 28:35ff )—and the garland of the bridegroom. In response to the question of the Exilarch, R. eisda—whose response is ultimately approved of by his teacher R. Huna—states that the reason that wedding garlands are forbidden is that there is no longer a high priest as the Temple is destroyed. It follows then that when there is no symbol of the marriage between God and Israel, there is no symbol of the marriage between man and woman. This latter is reinforced by the second part of this section (124–130). 124 What is [the meaning of the words in this passage], “This not this” (taz al taz)? 125 R. ‘Awira gave the following exposition, sometimes in the name of R. Ammi and sometimes in the name of R. Assi: 126 When the Holy One of Blessing said to Israel, “Remove the turban and take off the crown,” 127 the ministering angels said before the Holy One of Blessing, Sovereign of the Universe, 128 is “this” for Israel who at Mount Sinai said “we will do” before “we will hear”? 129 He said to them, “No. 130 This” be for Israel, who have made low that which should be exalted and exalted that which should be low, and placed an image in the sanctuary.

The difficult phrase in Ezekiel 21:31—“This not this”—is read in this midrash as an exchange between God and the ministering angels. As God said to Israel, “Remove the turban and take off the crown,” that is, when God sent Israel into exile, the ministering angels challenged God: Is “this” for Israel who at Mount Sinai said “we will do” before “we will hear”? God responded,

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“No. This” be for Israel, who have made low that which should be exalted and exalted that which should be low, and placed an image in the sanctuary. The whole verse is read as a narrative of exile—which is played out as divorce. God says “remove the turban” of high priests, for I am exiling you and destroying the Temple. “And take off the crown,” Israel, since your wedding can no longer symbolize the relationship between you and God. The angels object: “This” is what you are doing to Israel whom you married on Sinai? God answers: “No, this” is what I am doing to Israel who have left me for another: the image they placed in the sanctuary. The relationship between God and Israel is, to say the least, shaky. The last lines of the sugya (131–141) transvalue a cryptic verse from Nahum.64 Thus saith the Lord, though they be in full strength and likewise many, even so shall they be sheared off and he shall cross, etc.? (Nahum 1:12)

In MT the verse has something to do with God wreaking vengeance on Israel’s enemies (possibly Nineveh) and promising not to oppress Israel any longer. In another midrash attributed to R. ‘Avirah in the name of either R. Ami or R. Asi, the verse is read as referring to the obligation to give charity. Moreover one is urged to give charity even if one is poor. Further the promise in the verse not to oppress Israel further, is read as a promise that if one is poor and still gives charity then one will no longer be poor—or at least show signs of being poor. The connection with the rest of the sugya is in the fact that these verses are read out of the realm of God—where they were in their original context— and into the human realm. This latter is possibly the result of the “divorce” or separation from God in the previous part. Conclusion This sugya that begins Bavli Gittin—that is, it dramatically marks the disjunction of the Talmud’s discourse with the assumptions of the Mishnah— thematizes violence in Exile while attempting to efface Exile through legal cartography. The even darker underside of the angry husband annoying his wife by contesting a get is the violence of the concubine of Gibeah, which, in the telling, is only concerned with the violence to the men of Israel—not to the concubine. The violence of the exilic institutions is further underscored by the story of Genibah’s ill-fated opposition to Mar ‘Uqbah that ends in Genibah’s death. By the end of the sugya, divorce is constructed as a contested

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site within which the stakes are life and death for all concerned—men, women, and Sages. At issue for men is the danger of women to them and the system (“a man shouldn’t excessively terrorize . . . ”). At issue for women is life and death. At issue for Sages is the legitimacy of their authority, and their relation to God. Mapping the land of Israel onto Babylonia is part of a conflicted attempt to negotiate diaspora. Articulating an identity independent of the Land of Israel is a complicated gesture. It is a claim for the legitimacy—and possibly the superiority—of the authority of the Rabbinic class in Babylonia. No less a reader of (and propagandist for) the Babylonian tradition than R. Sherira Gaon characterizes the relationship between Babylonia and the Land of Israel in just this way. Invoking a midrash from Tractate Sanhedrin (5a) he states: “We see, then, that these [leaders] of Babylonia are greater.”65 And yet, Babylonia exists under the sign and the shadow of the Exile. The violence that permeates this sugya is itself a reminder of the necessary failure of any strategy to efface Exile. Further, Rabbinic authority, Rabbinic assertion of power, and also the failure of that assertion of power and authority to grant the Rabbis the control they desire, are all gendered. Rabbinic fantasies of violence are inscribed on the bodies of women (real, imagined, and invisible). The Concubine of Gibea memorializes one end of a continuum of violence that results from the unequal distribution of power in marriage. This end of the spectrum is roundly condemned by the Rabbis. Yet, the desired, legally constructed relationship between husband and wife is still one of inequitable distribution of power, wherein the husband need only learn how to modulate his yielding of that potentially violent power. At the same time the Rabbis (as Israel) assume the feminine role in relation to God, as God takes the symbol of marriage—the turban of the high priest upon which was the plate of gold inscribed “sanctified/betrothed (kodesh) to God”—away from His bride Israel. This too is memorialized. In this gendered construction, the Rabbinic class attempts to assert its power (consistenly marked as masculine) through the institutionalized violence of the law (and the deployment of that violence at the expense of women and non-Rabbinic men), yet it is constantly feminized by Exile (divorced, victimized). The nightmare of the Rabbis is that instead of deferring Exile by mapping it as the Land of Israel, and assuming control through political rule, they will, rather, end up as the divorced woman or, worse, as the raped and mutilated Concubine of Gibea. The evil then will truly have come from the North.

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Appendix: B Gittin 6a–7b 1 It has been stated: Babylonia—Rab said, [It is] like Land of Israel in respect of writs of divorce, 2 And Samuel said, [It is] as outside the land. 3 Let us say that they differ on this, that one of them reasoned for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her. and these [the Babylonians,] are learned, [and in the same category with the Palestinians and are not required to make the declaration], 4 And the other reasoned that witnesses are not [to be found] to substantiate it, and the same difficulty is found [in Babylonia]. 5 Can you reason this, seeing that Rabbah also takes Raba’s opinion into account? 6 Rather, All [i.e. Rab and Samuel agree that] [the ability of witnesses] to confirm is required. 7 Rab reasoned that since there are Academies [in Babylonia witnesses are] always to be found, 8 Samuel reasoned that the Academies are taken up with their studies. 9 It has also been stated that R. Abba said in the name of R. Huna in the name of Rab: ‘We established Babylonia as the same as the Land of Israel in respect of writs of divorce from the time when Rab came to Babylonia.’ 10 R. Jeremiah returned [a challenge]: 11 R. Judah says, [foreign lands extend] from Rekem eastwards, Rekem considered as east; 12 from Askelon southward, Askelon considered as south: 13 from Acco northwards, Acco considered as north. 14 Now Babylonia is located north of the Land of Israel, as it is written, “And the Lord said to me, Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.” (Jer. 1:14) 15 And the Mishnah teaches: R. Meir says, Acco is like the Land of Israel in respect of writs of divorce; 16 but even R. Meir only said this in the case of Acco, which is close [to the Land of Israel], but Babylonia, which is distant, not. 17 He asked the question and he himself answered [by saying that] ‘With the exception of Babylonia.’ 18 How far does Babylonia extend? 19 R. Papa says: The same difference of opinion that there is in respect of writs of divorce, there is in respect of family descent. 20 R. Joseph says: There is a difference of opinion only in respect of family descent, but in respect of writs of divorce all parties are agreed that Babylonia extends to the second boat of the [floating] bridge.

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b´´[ z-a´´[ w ˜yfyg ylbb rmtya Șyfygl larçy ≈rak rma br lbb

1

.≈ral hxwjk rma lawmçw Èyrymg ynhw hmçl ˜yyqb ˜yaç ypl rbs rmd Èyglpym aq ahb amyl

2 3

.yjykç al ymn ynhw wmyyql ˜yywxm µyd[ ˜yaç ypl rbs rmw

4

.abrd hyl tya hbr ahw Èhrbsytw .wmyyql ˜ny[b aml[ ylwkd Èala

5 6

Èyjykç jkçym atbytm akyad ˜wyk rbs brw

7

.ydyrf whyysrygb atbytm rbs lawmçw ata ykm ˜yfygl larçy ≈rak lbb wnyç[ Èbr rma anwh br rma aba ybr rma Èymn rmtya .lbbl br

8 9

Èhymry br bytm Èjrzmk µqrw jrzml µqrm rmwa hdwhy ybr

10 11

ȵwrdk ˜wlqçaw µwrdl ˜wlqçam .˜wpxk wk[w ˜wpxl wk[m lk l[ h[rh jtpt ˜wpxm yla /h rmayw 3Èbytkd .amyyq larçy ≈rad 2hnwpxl lbb ahw (dy.a whymry) ´´.≈rah ybçwy

12 13 14

.˜yfygl larçy ≈rak wk[ rmwa ryam ybr ˜ntw

15

.al aqjrmd lbb lba Èabrqmd wk[b ala rmaq al ryam ybr wlypaw

16

.lbbm rbl-hl qrpm awhw Èhl bytwm awh

17

?lbb ayh ˜kyh d[ .˜yfygl tqwljm ˚k ˜ysjwyl tqwljmk Èapp br rma

18 19

.arçygd anyynt hbra d[ lkh yrbd ˜yfygl lba Șysjwyl tqwljm Èrma πswy 4brw

20

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II 21 R. eisda required [the declaration to be made by the bearer of a Get] from Ktesifon to Ve-Ardashir, but [if one brought it] from Ve-Ardashir to Ktesifon, he did not require [the declaration]. 22 Let us say that he reasoned “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.” and these [the Jews of Ve-Ardashir,] are learned. 23 Can you reason this, seeing that Rabbah also takes Raba’s opinion into account? 24 Rather, All [agree that] [the ability of witnesses] to confirm is required. 25 and since these [people of Ve-Ardashir] go there [to Ktesifon] to market, the [inhabitants of the latter] are familiar with their signatures; 26 but these [inhabitants of Ve-Ardashir], are not familiar with [the signatures] of these [people of Ktesiphon] because they are busy with their marketing. 27 Rabba b. Abbuha required [the declaration to be made if the Get was brought] from one side of the street to the other; 28 R. Shesheth if it was brought from one block [of buildings] to another; 29 Raba [from one house to another] within the same block. 30 But was it not Raba who said [that the reason was] “Because witnesses are not [to be found] to substantiate it.” 31 The people of Mahozah are different, because they are always on the move. 32 R. Hanin related the following: 33 R. Kahana brought a Get either from Sura to Nehardea or from Nehardea to Sura, I do not know which, 34 He went in front of Rab. 35 He said to him, “Am I required to declare, ‘In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed,’ or not?” 36 Rab said to him: “You are not required, but if you have done so, so much the better.” 37 What [was meant by] ‘if you have done so, so much the better?’ That if the husband came and contested [the Get], they would pay no attention to him; 38 As it has been taught66: An event concerning a man who brought a get before R. Ishmael. 39 He said to him: “Rabbi, am I required to declare, ‘In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed,’ or am I not required?” 40 He [R. Ishmael] said to him: “My son, from where are you?” 41 He said to him: “From Kefar Sisai.” 42 He said to him: “My son it is necessary for you to declare ‘In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed,’ so that the woman should not require witnesses [in case the husband raises objections]. 43 After the man left, R. Ila’i came before him [to R. Ishmael]. 44 He said to him: “My teacher, is not Kefar Sisai within the ambit of the border-line of the Land of Israel, and is it not nearer to Sepphoris than Acco is? 45 And we learn in the Mishnah: R. Meir said, Acco counts as the Land of Israel in matters of writs of divorce.” 46 and even the Rabbis who differ from R. Meir only differ in regard to Acco, which is some distance away, but not in regard to Kefar Sisai which is near!”

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II .˚yrxm al ˜wpsyfql ryçdra ybmw Èryçdra ybl ˜wpsyfqm ˚yrxm adsj br

21

.yrymg ynhw Èhmçl ˜yyqb ˜yaç ypl rbsq amyl

22

!abrd hyl tya hbr ahw Èarbstw .wmyyql 5˜ny[b aml[ ylwkd ala .ynhd ady twmytjb y[dy ˚nh ȵthl aqwçl ylzad ˜wyk ynhw

23 24 25

.ydyrf whyyqwçb ?am[f yam .y[dy al ˚nhdb ynhw

26

.asr[l asr[m ˚yrxm hwba rb hbr

27

.hnwkçl hnwkçm ˚yrxm tçç br .hnwkç htwab 6abr ?wmyyql ˜yywxm µyd[ ˜yaç ypl rmad awh abr ahw

28 29 30

.ydyynd azwjm ynb ynaç

31

Èy[tçym ˜ynj br .arwsl a[drjnm ya Èa[drhnl arwsm ya an[dy alw afyg ytyya anhk br

32 33

.brd hymql ata “?ankyrx al wa µtjn ynpbw btkn ynpb rmyml ankyrx” Èhyl rma

34 35

“.tynha tdb[ yaw |Ètkyrx al” Èhyl rma .hyl ˜nyjgçm al r[r[mw l[b yta yad ?7tyynha tdb[ ya yam

36 37

.la[mçy ybr ynpl fg aybhç dja µdab hç[m È8ayntdk

38

“?˚yrx ynya wa ȵtjn ynpbw btkn ynpb rmwl yna ˚yrx ’r” Èwl rma

39

“?hta ˜kyhm 9ynb” Èwl rma “.10yasys rpkm” Èwl rma 11 “.µyd[l qqzyt alç ydk ȵtjn ynpbw btkn ynpb rmwl hta ˚yrx ynb” Èwl rma

40 41 42

.ya[la ybr 12wynpl snkn Èaxyç rjal “?wk[m rtwy yrwpyxl hbwrqw Èlarçy ≈ra µwjtb t[lbwm yasys rpk alhw 13ybr” Èwl rma

43 44

.˜yfygl larçy ≈rak wk[ rmwa ryam ybr ˜ntw

45

.al abrqmd yasys rpk lba Èaqjrmd wk[b ala ygylp al 14hyl[ ygylpd ˜nbr wlypaw

46

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47 R. Ishmael said to him: “Be silent, my son, be silent; since thing has been declared, it was permitted to be declared.” 48 [Why should R. Ila’i have thought otherwise], seeing that [R. Ishmael] also said: ‘that the woman should not require witnesses?’ 49 [R. Ila’i] had not been told of these concluding words.

III 50 R. Abiathar sent to R. Hisda [the following instruction:] [Concerning] writs of divorce that come from there [Babylonia] to here [the Land of Israel], [the bearers of the writs] are not required to declare, ‘In my presence it was written and in my presence it was signed.’ 51 Let us say that he reasoned “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.” and these [the Jews of Babylonia,] are learned. 52 Can you reason this, seeing that Rabbah also takes Rabas opinion into account? 53 Rather, All [agree that] [the ability of witnesses] to confirm is required. 54 and in this case, as there are Rabbis going up to [the Land of Israel] and down [to Babylonia], [witnesses] can easily be found. 55 Said R. Joseph: Who tells us that R. Eviathar is a man of authority? 56 Was it not he who sent [the statement] to Rab Judah: 57 “People who come from there [Babylonia] to here [the Land of Israel] fulfil in their own persons the words of the Scripture: ‘And they bartered a boy for a whore, and sold a girl for wine, which they drank’ (Joel 4:3).” 58 And he wrote the words [from Scripture] without ruling lines [under them]. 59 And R. Isaac said, “Two words [from Scripture] may be written [without ruling lines] but not three.” 60 In a Baraitha it was taught, Three may be written [without ruling lines] but not four. 61 Said Abayye to him: Is anyone who did not receive this rule of R. Isaac not to be counted a great scholar? 62 If it were a rule established by logical deduction, we might think so. But it is a tradition, and it is a tradition which [R. Eviathar] had not received. 63 Moreover, R. Abiathar is one whose view was confirmed by his Master. 64 For it is written, “And his concubine played the harlot against him,” (Judges 19:2) 65 R. Eviathar said “He found a fly with her,” 66 and R. Jonathan said, “He found a hair on her.” 67 R. Eviathar came across Elijah. 68 He said to him: “What is the Holy One of blessing doing?” 69 He [Elijah] said to him, “He is involved with [the issue of ] the concubine in Gibea.” 70 “What does He say?” 71 “[God says], My son Eviathar says So-and-so, and my son Jonathan says So-and-so,” 72 He [R. Abiathar] said to him : “Can there possibly be uncertainty in the mind of the Heavenly One?” 73 He said to him: Both [answers] are the word of the living God. 74 He [the Levite] found a fly and did not take umbrage, he found a hair and took umbrage. 75 Said Rab Judah said Rab: A fly in his plate and a hair in that place;

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“.axy rtyhb È15rbdh axyw lyawh .qwtç Èynb qwtç” Èwl rma

47

!hyl rmaq µyd[l qqzyt alç ymn 17whya 16ahw

48

.hytwjylçl hymq hwmyys al

49

III btkn ynpb 18wrmayç ˜ykyrx ˜ya ˜akl µçm µyabh ˜yfyg Èadsj brl rtyba ybr hyl jlç .µtjn ynpbw

50

.yrymg ynhw Èhmçl ˜yayqb ˜yaç ypl rbsq amyl

51

.abrd hyl tya hbr ahw Èhrbsytw Èwmyyql 19˜ny[b aml[ ylwkd ala .yjykç jkçym ytjnw yqlsd 20˜nbr akyad ˜wykw

52 53 54

?awh 21akmsd arbg rtyba ybrd ˜l amyl ˜am Èπswy br rma Èhdwhy brl hyl jlçd whya ahw ˜yyb wrkm 22hdlyh taw Èhnwzb dlyh ta wntyw” Șmx[b wmyyq µh ˜akl µçm ˜ylw[h µda ynb “.wtçyw

55 56 57

.fwfryç alb hyl btkw .˜ybtwk ˜ya çlç ˜ybtwk µytç Èqjxy ybr rmaw

58 59

.˜ybtwk ˜ya [bra ˜ybtwk çlç ant atyntmb .awh hbr arbg wal qjxy ybrd ah 23hyl [ymç ald lk wfa yyba hyl rma

60 61

.hyl [ymç al armgw 24ayh armg ah Èyyjl arbsb ayltd atlym amlçb

62

.hydy l[ hyrm µyksad 25rtyba ybr ah Èdw[w (b.fy µyfpwç) “Èwçglyp wyl[ hnztw” Èbytkd .hl axm bwbz Èrma rtyba ybr .hl axm amyn Èrma ˜tnwy 26ybrw .whylal rtyba ybr hyjkçaw ?awh ˚wrb çwdqh dyb[ aq yam Èhyl rma .h[bgb çglypb qys[ Èhyl rma ?rmaq yamw .rmwa awh ˚k ynb ˜tnwy Èrmwa awh ˚k ynb rtyba27 ?aymç ymq aqyps akya ymw .µwlçw sj Èhyl rma

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

.˜h µyyj µyhla yrbd wlaw wla Èhyl rma .dypqhw axm amyn Èdypqh alw axm bwbz .µwqm wtwab amyn hr[qb bwbz È28br rma hdwhy br rma

73 74 75

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76 the fly was merely disgusting, but the hair was dangerous. 77 Some say, he found both in his food; the fly was accidental, the hair was negligent.

IV 78 R. Hisda said: A man should not cast excessive terror over his household. 79 For the concubine of Gibea—her husband terrorised her excessively and many thousands were slaughtered in Israel. 80 Rab Judah said: If a man terrorises his household, he will eventually commit three sins: 81 unchastity, blood-shedding and desecration of the Sabbath. 82 Said Rabba b. Bar Hanah: This is that which our Rabbis taught: 83 A man has to say three things to his household on the eve of Sabbath with darkness, 84 ‘Have you set aside the tithe? Have you placed the ‘Erub? Light the lamp,’ 85 He needs to say it gently, so that they should accept it from him. 86 R. Ashi said: I never received that rule of Rabba b. Bar Hanah, but I observed it because of [my own] reasoning. 87 R. Abbahu said: A man should not cast excessive terror over his household. 88 For there was a certain great man who terrorised his household, and [in consequence] they fed him with a thing to eat which is a great sin. Who was he? R. eanina b. Gamaliel. 89 Would it occur to you that they actually fed him with it? 90 Why, even the beasts of the righteous are not allowed by the Holy One of Blessing, to offend; how then shall the righteous themselves be allowed so to sin? 91 Say, they wanted to feed him. And what was it they set before him? A piece of flesh cut from an animal still living. 92 Mar ‘Ukba sent to R. Eleazar: Certain men are opposing me, and I am able to turn them over to the government; What is [the law]? 93 He scored lines and wrote [quoting], “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue, I will keep a curb upon my mouth while the wicked is before me.” (Psalms 39:2) 94 Although the wicked is before me, I will keep a curb on my mouth. 95 He [Mar ‘Ukba] sent to him: They are troubling me very much, and I am unable to stand it. 96 He sent to him , “Resign thyself unto the Lord, and wait patiently [hitfolel] for him.” (Psalms 37:7)—be silent for the Lord, and He will cast them down as corpses [falalim] before thee. 97 Go to the Beth-Hamidrash early morning and evening and they will desist of themselves. 98 The words left R. Eleazar’s mouth, and Geniba was placed in chains [for execution]. 99 They sent to Mar ‘Ukba: What is the source that it is forbidden [in these times] for us to sing [at parties]? 100 He scored lines and wrote [quoting]: “Rejoice not, O Israel, unto exultation like the peoples, for thou hast gone astray from thy God.” (Hosea 9:1) 101 Should he not rather have sent the following: “They shall not drink wine with music, strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it?” (Isaiah 24:9)

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.atnks amyn Èatwsyam bwbz .atw[yçp amyn asnwa bwbz Èhr[qb ydyaw ydya Èyrmad akyaw

76 77

IV Èwtyb ˚wtb hryty hmya µda lyfy la µlw[l Èadsj br rma .larçym twbbr hmk 29wlpnw hryty hmya hl[b hyl[ lyfh h[bgb çglyp yrhç .twryb[ çlç ydyl 31ab πws wtyb ˚wtb hryty hmya lyfmh lk È30hdwhy br rma .tbç lwlyjw ȵymd twkypçw Ètwyr[ ywlyg Șnbr yrmad ah Èhnj rb rb hbr rma .hkyçj µ[ tbç br[ wtyb ˚wtb rmwl µda ˚yrx µyrbd hçlç” “.rnh ta wqyldh ?µtbr[ ?µtrç[ .hynym wlbqyld ykyh yk Èatwjynb whnyrmyl |˚yrx .arbsm hytmyyqw hnj rb rb hbrd ah 32a[ymç al Èyça br rma Èwtyb ˚wtb hryty hmya µda lyfy la µlw[l Èwhba ybr rma ˜b anynj ybr ?wnmw .lwdg rbd whwlykahw wtyb ˚wtb hryty hmya lyfh lwdg µda yrhç .laylmg ?˚t[d aqls whwlykah lk al ˜mx[ µyqydx µdy l[ hlqt aybm awh ˚wrb çwdqh ˜ya µyqydx lç ˜tmhb 33hmw !˜kç .yjh ˜m rba ?whyn yamw .lwdg rbd wlykahl wçqb ala

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

89 90 91

?whm twklml µrsml ydybw yl[ µydmw[h µda ynb Èrz[la ybrl abqw[ rm hyl jlç

92

[çr dw[b µwsjm ypl hrmça Èynwçlb awfjm yk'r…d à hrmça ytrma” Èhyl btkw ffrç (b.fl µylyht) “.ydgnl

93

.µwsjm ypl hrmça Èydgnl [çrç yp l[ πa .whb µwqyad anyxm alw abwf yl yr[xm aq Èhyl jlç

94 95

.µyllj µyllj ˚l µlypy awhw ‘hl µwd (z.zl µylyht) “Èwl llwjthw ‘hl µwd” Èhyl jlç

96

.˜hylyam ˜ylk ˜hw çrdmh tybl ˜hyl[ br[hw µkçh

97

.rlwqb abyngl whwntnw a"r ypm axy rbdh .rysad ˜l anm armz Èabqw[ rml hyl wjlç

98 99

(a.f [çwh) 34“.µym[b lyg la larçy jmçt la” Èwhl btkw ffrç (f.dk hy[çy) “.[wytwçl rkç rm'y´] Șyy wtçy al ryçb” Èakhm whl jlçylw

100 101

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102 From this verse I should conclude that only music [played on] instruments is forbidden, but music [that is] sung is alright; this I learn [from the other verse]. 103 R. Huna b. Nathan said to R. Ashi: What is the reason for the verse, “Kinah and Dimonah and Adadah?” (Joshua 15:22) 104 He said to him: [The text] is enumerating towns in the Land of Israel. 105 He said to him: Do I not know that the text is enumerating towns in the Land of Israel? 106 But R. Gebihah from Argiza extrapolated [from these names]: ‘Whoever has cause for indignation [kinah] against his neighbour and yet holds his peace [domem], the One that abides for all eternity [’ade ‘ad] shall espouse his cause. 107 He said to him: What then of the verse “Ziklag and Madmanah and Sansanah?” (Joshua 15:31) 108 Here too he said to him: If R. Gebihah from Be Argiza were here, he would extrapolate from it. 109 R. Afa from Be eoza’ah expounded [it as follows]: ‘If a man has just cause of complaint against his neighbour for taking away his livelihood [za’akath legima] and yet holds his peace [domem], the One that abides in the bush [shokni sneh] will cause justice for him.

V 110 The Exilarch said to R. Huna: On what ground is based the prohibition of garlands? 111 He said to him: It is from the Rabbis. 112 For we have learnt in a Mishnah: At [the time of ] the battle of Vespasian they prohibited the wearing of garlands by bridegrooms and the [ringing of ] bells67 [at weddings]. 113 At this point R. Huna got up to leave the room. 114 R. eisda said to him [the Exilarch]: [It is an explicitly] written verse: “Thus saith the Lord God, remove the turban and take off the crown, 115 this shall be no more the same [this not this]; that which is low shall be exalted and that which is high abased.” (Ezekiel 21:31) 116 What has the turban to do with the crown? 117 It is to teach that when the turban is worn by the High priest, ordinary persons can wear the crown, 118 but when the turban has been removed from the head of the High priest, the crown must be removed from the head of ordinary persons. 119 At this point R. Huna returned, and found them still discussing the matter. 120 He said: I swear to you that [the prohibition] is from the Rabbis, but as your name is eisda [favour], so do your words find favour. 121 Rabina found Mar son of R. Ashi weaving a garland for his daughter. 122 He said to him: Sir, do you not hold [with the interpretation given above of ] ‘Remove the turban and take off the crown’? 123 He replied: The men [have to follow] the example of the High Priest, but not the women. 124 What is [the meaning of the words in this passage], ‘This not this’ (taz al taz)? 125 R. ‘Awira gave the following exposition, sometimes in the name of R. Ammi and sometimes in the name of R. Assi:

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103

.˜l [mçm aq Èywç amwpd 35armz lba-anmd armz ylym ynh a"h Èawhhm ya

102

(bk.wf [çwhy) “.hd[d[w hnwmydw hnyq” bytkd yam Èyça brl ˜tn rb anwh br hyl rma

103

.byçjq larçy ≈rad 36atbytm Èhyl rma .byçh aq larçy ≈rad atwwtmd an[dy al ana wfa Èhyl rma wl hçw[ d[ ˜kwç µmwdw wrybj l[ hanq wl çyç lk Èam[f hb rma azygram ahybg br ala .˜yd

104 105 106

(al.µç.µç) “.hnsnsw hnmdmw glqx” ht[m ala Èhyl rma

107

.am[f hb rma hwh akh azygra ybm ahybg br hwh ya Èhyl rma ymn ykh

108

hnsb ˜kwç ȵmwdw wrybj l[ amygl tq[x wl çyç ym lk Èykh hb rma hazwj ybm aja br .˜yd wl hçw[

109

?rwsad ˜l anm alylk Èanwh brl atwlg çyr hyl rma .˜nbrdm Èhyl rma .swryah l[w µyntj twrf[ l[ wrzg swnyyspsa lç swmlwpb Șntd

110 111 112

.yywnpal anwh br µq ykhda Èhrf[h µrhw tpnxmh rsh µyhla 'h rma hk" bytk arq Èadsj br hyl rma

113 114

(al.ak laqzjy) “.lypçh hwbghw hbgh hl;p;ç;h taz al taz

115

?hrf[ lxa tpnxm ˜yn[ hm ykw .µda lk çarb hrf[ Èlwdg ˜hk çarb tpnxmç ˜mzb ˚l rmwl ala

116 117

.µda lk çarm hrf[ hqltsn Èlwdg ˜hk çarm tpnxm hqltsn

118

.ybty ywhd whnyjkça Èanwh br ata 37ykjw ykhda .˚lym ˜yadsjw ˚mç adsj ala-˜nbrdm µyhlah Èhyl rma

119 120

.hytrbl alylk lydg hwhd yça br rb rml hyjkça anybr “?hrf[h µrhw tpnxmh rsh” rm hl rbs al Èhyl rma

121 122

.al yçnb lba Èyrbgb lwdg ˜hkd aymwd Èhyl rma

123

?“taz al taz” yam Èysa ybrd hymçm hyl rma ˜ynmyzw yma brd hymçm hyl rma ˜ynmyz Èaryw[ ybr çrd

124 125

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126 When the Holy One of Blessing said to Israel, ‘Remove the turban and take off the crown,’ 127 the ministering angels said before the Holy One of Blessing , Sovereign of the Universe, 128 is ‘this’ for Israel who at Mount Sinai said ‘we will do’ before ‘we will hear’? 129 He said to them, ‘No. 130 This’ be for Israel, who have made low that which should be exalted and exalted that which should be low, and placed an image in the sanctuary. 131 R. ‘Awira also gave the following exposition, sometimes in the name of R. Ammi and sometimes in the name of R. Assi. 132 What is the meaning of the verse, Thus saith the Lord, though they be in full strength and likewise many, even so shall they be sheared off and he shall cross etc.? (Nahum 1:12) 133 If a man sees that his livelihood is barely sufficient for him, he should give charity from it, and all the more so if it is plentiful. 134 [What is the meaning of the words] ‘Even so they shall be sheared and he shall cross’? 135 In the school of R. Ishmael it was taught: Whoever shears off part of his possessions and dispenses it in charity is delivered from the punishment of Gehenna. 136 It is compared to two sheep crossing a river, one shorn and the other not shorn; 137 the shorn one gets across, the unshorn one does not. 138 ”And though I have afflicted thee:” 139 Mar Zutra said: Even a poor man who himself subsists on charity should give charity. 140 ”I will afflict thee no more.” 141 R. Joseph learnt: [If he does that, Heaven] will not again inflict poverty upon him.

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105

‘Èhrf[h µrhw tpnxmh rsh’ larçyl awh ˚wrb çwdqh rmaç h[çb

126

ȵlw[ lç wnwbr Èawh ˚wrb çwdqh ynpl trçh ykalm wrma ?[mçnl hç[n ynysb ˚ynpl wmydqhç larçyl ˜hl taz Èal ˜hl rma .lkyhb µlx wdym[hw lpçh ta whybghw hwbgh ta wlypçhç larçyl ˜hl taz

127 128 129 130

Èysa ybrd hymçm hl rma ˜ynmyzw yma ybrd hymçm hyl rma ˜ynmyz Èaryw[ br çrd

131

?(by.a µwjn) “‘wgw rb[w wzwgn ˜kw µybr ˜kw µymilç ´ “ µa 'h rma hk" bytkd yam

132

.˜ybwrm ˜hçk ˜kç lkw Èhqdx ˜hm hç[y ˜ymxmwxm wytwnwzmç µda hawr µa

133

?“rb[w wzwgn ˜kw”38 .µnhyg lç hnydm lxyn-hqdx ˜hm hçw[w wysknm zzwgh lk Èla[mçy ybr ybd ant

134 135

.hzwzg hnya tjaw hzwzg tja ȵymb twrbw[ wyhç twlyjr ytçl lçm |.hrb[ al hzwzg hnyaçw hrb[ hzwzg .“˚ytyn[w” .hqdx hç[y hqdxh ˜m snrptmh yn[ wlypa Èarfwz rm rma .“dw[ ˚nE[a ' ' ] al” .twyn[ ynmys wl ˜yarm ˜ya bwç πswy br ynt

136 137 138 139 140 141

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Notes 1. Bavli Eruvin, 54b. Cf. Ari Elon, From Jerusalem to the Edge of Heaven: Meditations on the Soul of Israel, trans. Tikva Frymer-Kensky (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996). 2. This is the most commonly used edition in which the Mishnah and the Talmud that is generated by that Mishnah is centered on the page, and is framed by the Medieval commentaries Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo of Troyes, eleventh century) and the Tosafot (a school of Franco-German commentators whose central figures are literally of the generation of the grandchildren of Rashi). 3. My reflection on the question of beginnings in general was prompted and is influenced by Edward Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), esp. 5–29. 4. For a discussion of the Iyyun school of Talmudists and their method, which is influenced by Aristotelean logic, see Daniel Boyarin, Sephardi Speculation: A Study in Methods of Talmudic Interpretation, (Heb.) (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1989). 5. That is, do not relate to one side of a dispute as a straw man. 6. To this point, Canpanton might be compared with practitioners of New Criticism such as I. A. Richards, How to Read a Page (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1942). 7. This practice of reading or reciting text is reminiscent of the mystical practice of Canpanton’s nephew Joseph Karo. Karo would recite Mishnah texts in order to receive a revelation from his supernatural guide or contact, his magid. The mantic implications of this connection with Karo are not totally out of place as this is one way of understanding the coming-into-view of a “text” from out of a collection of lines of words. See Solomon Alkabetz’s description of this practice by Karo and his circle in the introduction to Joseph Karo Magid Mesharm, translated in Louis Jacobs, The Schocken Book of Jewish Mystical Testimonies (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 123–30. 8. This is, of course, the first word of the Torah, Genesis 1:1. 9. Aryeh Cohen, Rereading Talmud: Gender, Law and the Poetics of Sugyot (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998), 131–151. 10. “The authority of beginnings is also a limiting authority. In the ‘discursive space’ created by Freud (or Aristotle) there are certain things that one can’t say.” Beginnings: Intention and Method, 35–36. 11. See note 2 above. 12. Hereafter Bavli Gittin. 13. Robert Cover, “Violence and the Word,” in Narrative, Violence, and thw Law: The Essays of Robert Cover, ed. Martha Minow, Michael Ryan, and Austin Sarat (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1992), 203. 14. Cf. “The violence of judges and officials of a posited constitutional order is generally understood to be implicit in the practice of law and government. Violence is so intrinsic to this activity, so taken for granted, that it need not be mentioned. For instance, read the Constitution. Nowhere does it state, as a

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general principle, the obvious—that the government thereby ordained and established has the power to practice violence over its people. That, as a general proposition, need not be stated for it is understood in the very idea of government.” (214 n. 22) 15. By “legal determinism” here, I mean the understanding that we scholars are only dealing with legal outcomes that are dictated by situations, rather than with the underlying ideologies that construct those situations. 16. Translating this line is complicated. The Hebrew is h ' mçl ˜yayqb ˜yaç ypl. A literal translation would be “for they are not experts for her sake.” This obviously does not address the meaning. (The Soncino translation has “experts in special intention,” that might either be borrowing from a wider usage of the term hmçl, or attempting to reflect the ambiguity of the original statement.) The “parallel” statement in the Palestinian Talmud is ˜yaç ypl ˜yfyg yqwdqdb ˜yayqb, that is, “for they are not experts in the subtleties (or finer points) of writs [of divorce].” Using this reading as a guide we might translate, as we did in the body of the article, “for they are not experts [knowing that it must be written specifically] for her.” That is, there are certain laws of divorce that they have not fully mastered. This translation is favored by Rashi who appends a unique and apparently original reason: “For the inhabitants of the foreign lands are not people of Torah [hrwt ynb].” The Tosafists and other commentators challenge this understanding by posing the question: If this is so, that the people of foreign lands are ignorant of Torah, why make the claim that it is one specific subset of laws that they have not mastered? Rabbenu Tam [Rabbi Isaac, Rashi’s grandson] interprets the phrase to mean that there was a specific difference in interpreting the laws of divorce, and the scholars of foreign lands did not accept the Palestinian reading that necessitated that the get be written specifically for this woman in this place (hmçl-hl ˜tnw). Both sides of this dispute are equally problematic and compelling, and there is no real way to decide between them. I have translated with Rashi narrowly, and note that this unresolved and unresolvable site of conflicting interpretation highlights the fact that this sugya is not necessarily about understanding the “true” reason for the Mishnah’s law, but rather, is successful at opening space for the issues (of territory and otherness) that these reasons bring in their wake. 17. Sh. Friedman has pointed out that the tripartite structure (and the seven-part structure) is a dominant pattern in Halakhic sugyot in Talmud, as it is in folk genres. See his “Literary Structure in Sugyot in the Babylonian Talmud” (heb.), Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies, vol. 3, 389–402, (Jerusalem, 1977), esp. 391–392. he makes further use of these findings in his “A Critical Study of Yevamot X with a Methodological Introduction” (Heb.), in H. Z. Dimitrovski, ed., Texts and Studies: Analecta Judaica, vol. 1 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978): 277–441. 18. (1) By two agents. (No problem of finding witnesses as they themselves can be witnesses.) (2) When the get was brought from country [medinah] to country within the Land of Israel. (No problem of hmçl.) (3) When the get was

107

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brought in the same country [medinah] in the “land of the sea.” (No problem of finding witnesses.) 19. This opening sugya is obviously a formal construction and therefore my use of Raba and Rabbah are not presumed to be referring to the words of the Amoraim themselves. The original attributions themselves are put into doubt both by the fact that the Palestinian Talmud attributes these statements to two other Sages (the Bavli also does this further on in these opening sugyot), and the debate is referred to later on in Bavli Gittin 16b. This is all said without entering into the essential argument concerning the reliability of attributions in general or the dating of the stam in general. 20. That the “earlier” discussion refers to the “later” discussion is another index of the lateness and art of these opening sugyot. 21. abrd hyl tya hbr, “Rabbah also holds Raba’s opinion [in addition to his own].” (4b) 22. It is somewhat unusual for a direct quote from the Mishnah that is generating a specific sugya to be introduced by the introductory formula, “We taught [in a Mishnah].” Usually the Mishnaic phrase would be either assumed or quoted and set off by punctuation. This latter depends on the manuscripts but it varies from a space in the line, to a colon, to a colon after it and the word aqsyp preceding it. 23. The Literary Activities of the Saboraim, (heb.) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1953), 10. 24. Cf. the opening sugya of the fourth chapter of Gittin, or the first sugya of Tractate Kiddushin—Sherira’s example. 25. Interestingly, the plate boundaries that, when they shift, usually cause earthquakes are called “transforms.” See “plate tectonics,” Encyclopædia Britannica Online, . 26. As Richard Helgerson has argued about mapmaking in Elizabethan England: “Saxton, Camden, Norden, Speed, Drayton, and the many county chorographers, however faithfully they may have gathered and repeated ‘facts’ of England’s history and geography, had an inescapable part in creating the cultural entity they pretended only to represent. And in creating that entity, they also brought in to being, . . . the authority that underwrote their own discourse. They thus made themselves.” Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 147. Richard Sennet has similarly argued that the Romans built cities all over the Empire in the same square style with which Roman cities were built. This insured the continuation of the ordered world that they wished and “conquered” the barbaric territories. In essence, this building of cities founded the barbaric territories as Roman colonies. It was the mapmakers, with their setting out of the city, that insured that the city be in harmony with Roman world. See Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1994), 107. 27. The map is extensively described and interpreted in the definitive study by Michael Avi-Yonah, The Madaba Mosaic Map (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1954).

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28. Avi-Yonah dates the Madaba Map to “probably between 560 and 565,” The Madaba Mosaic Map, 18. The exact dating is relatively insignificant to the purposes of the essay. 29. The Madaba Mosaic Map, 15. 30. The Madaba Mosaic Map, 10. 31. Identified generally as today’s Via Dolorosa. See The Madaba Mosaic Map, 53. By the same token, the general prespective of the mosaic is broken to depict the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. See The Madaba Mosaic Map, 50 and plate 7. 32. “In fact all relevant Gospel names seem to have been included in the map, whereas the corresponding set in the Old Testament has been rigorously seeded,” (emphasis in original) The Madaba Mosaic Map, 28. 33 Rehav Rubin, Jerusalem Through Maps and Views: From the Byzantine Period to the Nineteenth Century [Heb.] (Tel Aviv: Nahar Publishing and Kinneret Publishing, 1987), 15. 34. The complete sugya in both original and translation is in the appendix to the paper. The line numbering is the same in both. The relevant portions of the sugya will be quoted as necessary. The translation is mine, though I consulted the Soncino translation. The Hebrew text uses the Leningrad-Firkowitz manuscript as a starting point, significant changes from L-F are noted in the apparatus and explained in the chapter. The major resource for the apparatus is Meyer S. Feldblum, ˜yfyg tksm .µyrpws yqwdqd (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1966) (Feldblum does not cite L-F.). The following are the most common abbreviations: m—Munich 95; a—Arras 969; 1a—Oxford 368, MS Opp. 248; w—Vatican 140; 1w—Vatican 130; 2w—Vatican 127. For a description of the manuscripts see Feldblum, 9–13. The arrangement of the statements or lines of the sugya graphically borrows freely from Shamma Friedman’s criteria, without accepting his historicist assumptions. I work in from the margin. That is, “Tannaitic” material is at the margin, “Amoraic” material is one tab in, and “Stammaitic” material two tabs in. This is done so as to be able to easily pick out recurrent phrases, structures, etc. Cf. Shamma Friedman, “A Critical Study of Yevamot X with a Methodological Introduction,” in Texts and Studies: Analecta Judaica, vol. 1, ed., H. Z. Dimitrovski (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978): 313–19. 35. The statement is also found in the Yerushalmi. (y Gittin 1:2) .˜yfygl larçy ≈rak wnymx[ wnyç[ rma br .hnwkçl hnwkçm wlypa rma lawmçw There are several interesting variants there. First, Rab’s statement is closer to the phrasing that is attributed to R. Abba in the name of R. Huna. Second, the context of the debate, as is obvious from Samuel’s remark (and the rest of the sugya there) is simply of distance—not of territory. Third, Rab, in the immediate continuation of the sugya in the Yerushalmi, recants, and the continuation of the sugya there is about what the ramification of the recantation are. 36. Rashi s.v. ˜ydyrf whyysrgb says that they wouldn’t recognize signatures.

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37. Rashi s.v. lbbl br ata ybm cf. David Halivni, Sources and Traditions: A Source Critical Commentary on Seder Nashim (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1968), 488–489. 38. As opposed to Jeremiah 25:9, or Ezekiel 26:7. 39. I use Babylonia to refer to the Jewish community that is implicated in the Babylonian Talmud. This stands intentionally at some distinction from the historical community of Sassanian Persia, which this text might be constructing. 40. See M Kid. 4:1 and b Kid. 69b–71a. 41. Ctesiphon and Ve-Ardashir were on two sides of the Tigris opposite each other. Ve-Ardashir was once know as Seleucid. Ctesiphon was the capital of Sassanian Persia while Ve-Ardashir was where the palace was located. See Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia: II. The Early Sassanian Period (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966), 4. There are those who claim that they were under the same jurisdiction. See Abraham Schalit, “Ctesiphon,” Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), 5:1146. The Bavli (b Yoma 10a) identifies Ctesiphon with the Biblical Resen in Nimrod’s kingdom, which is said to be near Nineveh (Gen. 10:12). 42. On the question of what a hnwkç was, see Ben Zion Rosenfeld, tydwhyh ry[b hnwkçh´´ Èhmwrqh larçy ≈rab hmdaw µda ˚wtb ´Èdwmlthw hnçmh tpwqtb larçy ≈rab .frwppr layrwa Èrçk hyra Èrmyhnpwa ˜rha tkyr[b 43. T. Gittin 1:3 (Lieberman, 246) with some changes. 44. Reading yqlsd ˜nbr akyad with the MSS. See the apparatus to the text. 45. The exilic setting of the discussion is also first brought in here. 46. .wtçyw ˜yyb wrkm hdlyh taw Èhnwzb dlyh ta wntyw 47. Rashi, s.v. dlyh ta wntyw. 48. Tosafot s.v. hnwzb dlyh ta wntyw. 49. “The Woman’s Rights in the Biblical Law of Divorce,” 39. 50. The italicized phrases are those that this verse from Jer. 3:1 has in common with the verse from Judges 19. dw[ hyla bwçyh rja çyal htyhw wtam hklhw wtça ta çya jlçy ˜h rmal !?‘h µan yla bwçw µybr µy[r tynz taw ayhh ≈rah πnjt πwnj awlh 51. lk l[ ˜nta tbha ˚yhla l[m tynz yk µym[k lyg la larçy jmçt la .˜gd twnrg 52. For citations to the major ancient and medieval figures and their translations, see George Foot Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923), 409–410. For a contemporary discussion of the Concubine of Gibea story in the context of Biblical divorce law see Yair Zakovich, “The Woman’s Rights in the Biblical Law of Divorce,” Jewish Law Annual, IV:38–40. 53. The LXX.a translates orgisthei—she got angry with him. LXX.b translates eporeutho—she left him. This seems to be the sense of hnz that Rashi also sees in his commentary on Judges. Targum Jonathan has yhwl[ trsb—she insulted him. While LXX.a might be a variant textual reading, the rest are readings of the MT (jnztw) that frame the story as a “marital dispute.” 54. On this reading, Judges 19:3 is more logical. The Levite, recognizing that he had acted too harshly, goes after his concubine to pacify her.

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55. Mieke Bal has named her Beth—a variant on tyb—as her story is one of house and place. See Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 90–92. Her notion of the politics of coherence is strengthened in the present countercoherence that our sugya imposes on the story. 56. Though, in the Vilna edition and the Munich MS the line reads: hmk hlyphw twbbr 57. As in Psalms 39:3 hymwd ytmlan: I was dumb with silence (dumiyah). 58. There have been many attempts to extract the “historical truth” of this story. See Moshe Herr, “abqw[ rmb abyng lç wbyr,” Tarbiz, 31:3, April, 1962:281–286, and Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, vol. III (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), 75–81. Neither author notes the fact that the story of the execution is only mentioned in b Gittin. 59. 65b. On 31b and 62b, Genibah is referred to as haglp—one who causes arguments, or one who is divisive. These are the only places where anything bad is said about Genibah. 60. lk l[ ˜nta tbha ˚yhla l[m tynz yk µym[k lyg la larçy jmçt la .˜gd twnrg 61. Page 29. 62. Following Albeck in his commentary on M Sotah 9:14, and S. Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie, Band III (Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1912), 93. The Soncino translation has “[banging of ] drums.” Cf. b Sotah 49a. 63. 'hl çdq—suggestively similar to marriage formula. See Mishnah Kiddushin 1:1. 64. .dw[ ˚n[a al ˚ytyn[w rb[w wzwgn ˜kw µybr ˜kw µymlç µa 'h rma hk 65. Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, ed. B. M. Levin (Jerusalem: Makor, 1972), 82. This sentence appears in both Spanish and French rescensions of the Iggeret. 66. T Gittin 1:3 (Lieberman, 246) with some changes. 67. Following Albeck in his commentary on M Sotah 9:14, and S. Krauss, Talmudische Archäologie, Band III, (Leipzig: Gustav Fock, 1912): 93. The Soncino translation has “[banging of ] drums.” Cf. b Sotah 49a.

Notes in Hebrew text w atyl [atbytm 1 swpd hnwpxl È2w1wwm [hnwpxld 2 swpd ˜wpxm yla /h rmayw bytkd È1wwm [˜wpxm bytkd 3 ;1wwm br ;p-l [brw 4 1w

˜yywxm... 5

d ˚yrxm abrw ;1ww ˚yrxm abr ;m 'ypa 'a abr ;2wp-l [abr 6 m atyl [tynha tdb[ ya yam 7 .µyywnyçb (246 'byl) 3.a ˜yfyg atpswt 8 ;1ww atyl ;dp-l [ynb 9 swpd yna yasys rpkm ybr ;1wwm [yasys rpkm 10 swpd atyl [ydk 11

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1ww

atyl [wynpl 12

1ww atyl [ybr 13

swpd ryam ybrd hyl[ ygylp al ˜nbr wlypaw ;p-l 14 1w

atyl[rbdh 15

swpd ah ;2w1wwm [ahw 16 p-l yhya [whya 17 swpd rmwl ˚yrx w; m wrmayç ˚yrx ;2w1w[wrmayç ˜ykyrx 18 wm ˜yywxm... 19 swpd ˜ybr ;2w1wwm [˜nbr 20 swpd akms rb 21 swpd hdlyh ... dlyh (ta) ;2w hdlyh ... dlyh ;1w [hdlyh taw ... dlyh ta 22 .wtçyw ˜yyb wrkm hdlyhw hnwzb dlyh wntyw lrwg wdy ym[ law .g.d lawy swpd [dy ;2w1wwm [hyl [ymç 23 2w awh yrmg qjxy yr yah ;m ayh armg ah ala [ayh armg ah 24

swpd awh rtyba ;2w1wwm [dtyba 25 swpd ybr ;1wm [ybrw 26 swpd hyl rma 27 swpd atyl ;1wm [br rma 28 swpd hlyphw ;m hyl[ wlpnw ;1w [wlpnw 29 swpd br rma hdwhy br ;1wm [hdwhy br 30 swpd ab awh πws ;2w1wwm [ab πws 31 swpd yl a[ymç al ana ;1w [a[ymç al 32 swpd atçh ;1ww [hmw 33 .˜gd twnrg lk l[ ˜nta tbha ˚yhla l[m tynz yk µym[k lyg la larçy jmçt la 34 swpd atyl ;1wwm [armz 35 swpd atwwtm ;1ww [atbytm 36 swpd atyl ;1wm [ykhw 37 swpd yam ;2w1ww 38

chapter 5

Burying the Dead Miriam Peskowitz

THINKING AGAIN ABOUT BEGINNINGS: about the content of the stories we tell about certain beginnings, and about the very desire to privilege certain moments as “beginnings” in the first place . . . If the first of these is the general trade of revisionist historians, the second contains the seeds of another way to rethink modern conceptions of time. But situated among these two moves is still another: as a category, our idea of the past as history contains assumptions of nationalism, peoplehood, and the notion that modern peoples are connected by essence to an older, more ancient group. This connection is part of what one needs to be alive and whole in the world. This concept of past time and place and story as familial and national, as legacy and inheritance, is part of what is now up for question. Jewish interpretation has loved to tell and retell stories about itself through stories of individual rabbis, and by retelling versions of the story of the rabbis. Contemporary, popular vignettes abound of a sturdy and studious group of men, whose rise to power was slow, secure, and pacific, and who provided continuity for Jews after the fiery turmoil of Jerusalem’s destruction. As someone critical of the content of this narrative about the rabbis, I question the results of its repetition as an originary moment in Jewish history. I am caught between the desire to bury the dead and cease the repetition of these stories of Jewish origins, and the recognition that many will continue to retell them despite my preferences. If these tales must be repeated, I offer some palliatives: to start, a new

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feminist critique; and then, an account of the second and third centuries in Roman Palestine that takes gender into account, that does not privilege rabbis above other Jews, and that does not assume the nationalist position that the history of Roman Palestine is only about Jews and their differences from others. The following is a revised version of the epilogue to my book Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender and History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). I present it here with a sober sensibility that so long as tales of the early rabbis will be repeated, there must be feminist and other critical versions circulating alongside. What follows is an inkling of what stories of the birth of classical Judaism might look like on the way to the future. To make antiquity familiar, minute traces and random fragments are forged into images, emotions, and stories. Looking for words to describe the desire to turn fragments into something coherent and whole, I reach for the dictionary, and find nostalgia: “A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.” In tracing an antiquity of its own, the English language dictionary derives nostalgia from the Greek nostos, “to return home,” combined with algia, “pain.” Antiquity is often imagined as if it were some kind of long-lost home. In this dream, its religions are part of our origins, its men are our fathers, and its women our mothers. When antiquity is the source for a classical culture, it is imagined to hold an essence—a fundamental continuity—that is transmitted from them to us. Imagined as such, ancient history is about nostalgia. It yields reunions with ancestors and returns us to homes we never knew. But what happens when these assumptions about our relations to antiquity are challenged? What happens when the starting point for thinking about antiquity is not the ability to reconstruct it and make it live again, but its very demise. Antiquity is gone. There are no homes awaiting our return. There is no former time to resurrect. If these are our starting points, what other options for thinking about antiquity become imaginable? Continuing down the dictionary page, I find a word I had not previously known: nostomania. Defined as “intense homesickness,” nostomania is “an irresistible compulsion to return home.” The dictionary entry ends with a caution. Nostomania is “a desire that can never be met.” I compare this with nostalgia’s certainty that home exists. As a relation to a past time and place, nostomania carries a very different kind of emotion. It provokes alternate questions. What does it mean to create antiquity as a home, to craft a time

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into a place for which one could be homesick? After all, homes change, as do our relationships with them. Sometimes homes are places of safety and love. Other times they are sites of confinement and danger, locations to leave, places where decisions are made about who may be present, and under what terms.1 Nostalgia builds identity—for oneself, for one’s group—on a deeply felt relation to faraway times, places, and people. As a critical concept, nostomania provides an alternate angle from which to think about this process. It suggests new ways to think about whether the compulsion to identify with times and places that no longer exist is in fact (ir)resistible. Nostomania forces us to consider nostalgia as a compulsion, and it raises questions about whether and how this compulsion can be resisted. Nostalgia yearns for home, for things that belong to us, and for women and men to whom we are related. Nostomania recognizes the impossibility of this venture. When fragments of antiquity are made into whole stories, they are released from the burdens of ambiguity and uncertainty. Between the nostalgic romance of an accessible and unmediated past, and its nostomanic impossibilities, what complexities are flattened out? Writing as a professional historian and religionist, I am concerned with what happens when the “irresistible compulsion” that can never be fulfilled is combined (usually in unacknowledged ways) with notions of history and identity that uneasily tolerate difference and complexity and ambiguity. I wish to pressure the dream of return. I want to think about some of the ways we make the past meaningful. And I want to consider what this has meant for Jews and Jewish feminists. In doing so, I imagine there must be alternatives for how to write about rabbis, gender, and Judaism from a feminist ethos that does not assume any of these things to be essential or stable categories. To do this I offer a reading of a text plus a look at a cultural practice from the same time. Both are from the Roman (or Rabbinic) period; both offer different perspectives on gender, everyday life, continuity, and change in Roman Palestine. The text is the apocalyptic tract II Baruch, which dates from the decades following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. The cultural practice is the placing of spindles as grave goods in burials throughout Roman-period Palestine. This said, my reading cannot ever begin with these fragments of evidence from antiquity. Instead, it starts where most of us tend to start, really, with the many ways that we already know about Jews and Judaism in Roman Palestine and the ways we putatively know them. Because on the way to II Baruch and objects placed in graves stand all sorts of conscious and less-than-conscious modes for knowing about Jews, Judaism, women, men, and history. Roman Palestine is claimed as an ancestral home for Jews and honored as the birth-

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place of Jesus, Christianity, and the earliest Christian communities. Its antiquities are both vacation spots for American and European tourists and sites of political and religious turbulence. The most popular and well-known images of rabbinic Judaism are of its men. Histories written about the people and their traditions come wrapped in the terms of European modernity. And as Israel, the modern nation-state that now exists on the province over which the Roman Empire once held sway, the remains of Roman Palestine are the focus of nationalist and Zionist attention. These and more are part of how we know this time and place, these traditions and people. This knowledge is where we start, even when we do not articulate it is such. Birthplaces In Jewish religious history, Roman Palestine is often announced as the birthplace of the classic rabbinic tradition. The term is gendered and the women are absent. The mothers of this tradition—and their progeny—are all men. As a birthplace of something important, Roman Palestine is conventionally narrated in grandiose ways. The second century becomes a time in between two major formulations of Judaism. Preceding it was the Jerusalem Temple, with its majestic architecture, its political intrigue, its extensive priesthood, its sacrifices of animals and offerings of meal and incense, and its tents of pilgrims. The century after the temple’s destruction flows into rabbinic Judaism, with its synagogues and study houses, its esteem for formal prayer and scriptural readings, its circles of rabbis, its focus on relations between persons, and its articulation of halakah for ordinary and everyday events. The narration is elegant in its simplicity and in its seamlessness. This period of time is made intelligible to us through a reassuring pattern: destruction and devastation followed by gestation and rebirth. But this narrative and its variations are possible only when we tell Jewish religious history as if we stood with elite Jewish men—whether rabbis, priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, or other male leaders—and used their eyes and their values. Continuing these sympathies and identifications, we risk always looking as (we imagine) they looked. In other words, if we forget where we have positioned ourselves, then theirs become the invisible but powerful eyes we use to look at other people’s bodies, even when we consider women’s lives, and even if we are women.2 Current versions of Jewish religious history are based almost entirely upon the experiences and texts of Jewish men. The relative elegance of these stories about Roman Palestine and the early rabbis is built both upon absences

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and upon the inclusion of stereotyped figures that are by now all too obvious. The Temple was designed and built by men. It brought glory to male leaders. Spatially, it organized gender so that Jewish women were kept to the outer precincts, while Jewish men were allowed closer to the Holy of Holies. The priesthood was all male, although to be sure it depended upon the labors of women. Sacrifices could be offered by both men and women, but only men could venture near the places in the Temple where sacrifices happened, and husbands would make sacrifices on behalf of their wives and family. The rabbinate was an all-male group. The rituals of prayer and Torah reading were obligations incurred only by men, and only men were rewarded for these disciplines. The highly prized acts of legal commentary and metalegal analysis, as well as the midrashic reading of biblical texts, entirely excluded women. Despite the evidence that some women were leaders in synagogue congregations and Jewish communities (in areas other than Palestine), more generally, men held these influential roles. Eventually, although several centuries later, women who participated in synagogue services were moved to separate rooms or to upper galleries. Without an active critical engagement, we can never do anything other than repeat these gendered patterns as we write and read about them. In addition to these patterns, Jewish religious history has been a peculiarly modern task. With the Enlightenment’s development of new ideas about religion and history and with the emancipations that began in the late eighteenth century, Jewish traditions were reformulated as “religion” and as “history.” History was one way to make past time make sense. Tales of Jews and Judaism were made to fit the conceptual forms peculiar to European modernity. After all, history is not natural, but a specifically Western European conception of the relation of time and events. Since emancipation, histories about Jews and Judaism emulated the categories offered by the West. In the nineteenth century, the male intellectuals of the Wissenschaft des Judentums invested the “historyless” Jews with a history of their own. Their adoption of this category meant forming a past for Jews in historical terms. Using these terms, Jewish intellectuals crafted new stories about Jews and Judaism that would fit the standards of respectability proffered by the academy and Western intellectual life. These histories had very real consequences. Narrating a Jewish history helped to form Jews and Judaism into a “people.” In Western European culture, a history was part of what a people had. A people’s history linked them to their “nation” as much as it formed that nation. History demonstrated a people’s essence. It explained their uniqueness, and it marked what separated them from others. After emancipation, one goal of Jewish history was to

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demonstrate that despite apparent changes and despite superficial developments, the “Jewish people” too had an unchanging essence. Writing histories about Jews became one way that Jewish intellectuals demonstrated their humanness. History was one of many ways they refashioned themselves as citizens and showed non-Jewish Europeans that Jews, too, were a people and a nation. Jewish history was to show that modern Jews shared a continuous essence with ancestors in distant pasts and places. In this way, a notion of identity—one that presupposes a shared essence between modern people and people of past times—is built right into the writing of history. These highly personal and nationalist quests for histories about past times were simultaneously stories for, from, and about the present. But the crux is this: the intellectuals of the Wissenschaft des Judentums—and those who have inherited their terms—invoked the authority of academic method to claim that these stories were not about them but were about “real Jews” in ancient times. Increasingly, the historian’s desires were imagined to influence only negligibly the history told. This resulted in a paradox. The ideological demands of objectivity stressed the difference between the present historian and the past being written about. But intrinsically, the definition of history contained the unspoken demand for connection. As this demand becomes less visible and more veiled, and as the demand for the performance of scholarly objectivity becomes more prominent, the fantasy of a scholar’s detachment became persuasive. In much of Western culture, history became a naturalized part of what human beings have. The past as a construction of the present was forgotten. Except, when you look closely enough at the stories about Roman-period Judaism (and Rome, more generally) that arise from this paradox, they start to look exceedingly similar to a whole array of modern utopias and dystopias. With the creation of a Jewish state, Jewish history was put to new uses. It was used to craft a physical sense of belonging to the land that some Jews now occupied. Furthermore, Jewish history was used to promote, in most instances, a sense that Jews exclusively belonged in that land. Geographers mapped the region, linked Hebrew names to places, and associated them with past Jewish occupancy. Historians wrote about Jews who lived in the region throughout the centuries. Archaeologists excavated sites, and in doing so, used the newly excavated landscape as an authority to make vivid a Jewish history in this region, one that emphasized the region’s Jewish occupants.3 By and large, the historical accounts that have excluded women have excluded other occupants as well. As Nadia Abu El-Haj writes, the history of this region has been constructed as “one’s relation not to the past of the territory itself but rather to that of particular groups who resided and ruled

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therein” (215). Although Abu El-Haj was not speaking about women and the rulership of men, her point is well applied. The exclusion of women takes place when we position ourselves with, and as, those who “ruled therein.” But to limit Abu El-Haj’s insight to how it highlights the process of excluding women would do unutterable violence to the other exclusions that these tales of Roman Palestine and Jewish history effect. Narrating the history of Roman Palestine as the history solely of Jews contributes to a political ethos in which it has become natural for many people to think that only Jews belong in the region of Israel and Palestine. It is not easy to think about both of these exclusions simultaneously. Indeed, the process and effects of these exclusions have been different. They must not be flattened out, as if all exclusions were somehow the same. These histories of exclusion were products from and for certain political climates. Realizing the effects of political realities on the production of written histories, and with changing notions of where a historian’s sympathies might lay, our stories about this place must be revised.4 Some of us will wish to continue writing and telling Jewish religious history within these conventions and with these political loyalties. But others will wish to look from elsewhere, with other assumptions and expanded sympathies, to consider what the past looks like without the certainties that have been rendered highly uncertain. The truth of these claims to significant absences and patterns render the ways that many of us repeat the history of Judaism highly problematic. This problem becomes the new challenge: How can we study antiquity, Palestine, and Judaism through a practice that is critical of the inherited intellectual traditions that have provided us with authority and credibility and a place to stand, and simultaneously, have limited what we can do with this authority and these stances?5 To begin an answer, I offer some tentative thoughts about Roman-period Judaism and the quest for home, from amid the messiness of modernity’s legacy and antiquity’s fragments. Alternate Undertakings In some ways and not others, Jewish life in Roman Palestine was begun anew in the second century. The region became part of a Roman province. Some of its rites, leaders, and sensibilities changed. It all depends on which texts we read, how many texts we read together, how we read, and with whom we imagine ourselves in sympathy. One text—II Baruch—makes a major and dramatic break with the past and demands the cessation of the ordinary. This tract is about exile, desecration, and hibernation. It expresses the searing pain

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felt at the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the military loss to Rome. The text is an apocalypse, a genre concerned with the end of a time. Written in the early years of the second century, II Baruch is one of the few remaining Jewish nonrabbinic writings from that time. Most likely written originally in Hebrew, it was translated into Greek and from Greek, into Syriac, the only language in which it is currently available. The Syriac translation was copied and transmitted for centuries by Christian scribes. To communicate the pathos of the newly destroyed Second Temple, the tract uses Baruch, a figure from the biblical accounts of the destruction of the First Temple, roughly six hundred years before. Like many other apocalypses, this one is pseudonymous. Its author or authors hide in Baruch’s name, which they invoke as their own voice (although for the sake of convenience I will refer to both the text and the author as “Baruch”). As this apocalypse begins, the Jerusalem Temple is under siege. Baruch watches an angel descend into the Temple’s most sacred spot, the Holy of Holies. The angel is on a mission of rescue. From the Temple the angel retrieves a number of items: the woven veil that separated the Holy of Holies from other temple precincts, the holy ephod worn by the High Priest, the mercy seat, the tables for showbread, the priestly clothing, and the incense altar. The angel buries these deep in the earth, to be guarded until the Temple is restored. Once the holy objects are secured, the angel instructs other angels to destroy Jerusalem’s walls and to overthrow its foundations.6 When Jerusalem is destroyed, a voice announces that God has left and will no longer guard the Temple. People start to leave. But Baruch hears God’s voice telling him to stay in Jerusalem, and so he does. He sits in front of the Temple’s doors and raises a lament at the torture of destruction (II Baruch 10.6–19). Baruch’s lament blesses the unborn and the dead who do not have to bear the pain he feels at these afflictions. He calls on the sirens, the lilin, the demons and dragons, on all human and extra human beings to mourn with him. To show sympathy with the desecration of the extraordinary and sacred Temple, ordinary life must now stop. Farmers should not sow. Fruit trees should not offer harvest. Grapevines should not yield wine. Nature should cease giving, the heavens should hold back their rain and dew. The sun must retract its rays and the moon withdraw its reflected light. All fertility must stop. The land’s ecology must mirror the military destruction of the Temple and city. Home has been destroyed. Human life should not reproduce. There should be no more marriages, no more children, no more families. There must be no more sexuality and no more pleasure. Then Baruch’s attention turns to the Temple priests. For them, Baruch has no sympathy. As caretakers who have been careless, they are the villains of

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his lament. The priests must cast the Sanctuary keys to the heavens, giving them back to God. “Guard your house yourself,” Baruch has the priests announce to God, “Because we have been found to be false stewards.” While the Temple stood, the priests had offered atonement and purification for Jews. But now the male priests have sinned. They have disgraced themselves and forfeited the Temple for all Jews. Baruch looks elsewhere for sources of purity and renewal. With the priesthood in disgrace and the Temple destroyed, Baruch turns to the margins of the Temple economy. There, in the female bodies of virgin spinners, Baruch finds an image of redemption for Jews. In the lament’s final verse, Baruch uses the virgin spinners to express his hopes for purity, possibility, and the future. The spinners emulate the priests, in a way. Just as the Temple guardians had tossed their keys heavenward, the spinners throw their tools to the fire: “And you, virgins who spin linen, and silk with the gold of Ophir: make haste and take all things and cast them into the fire so that it may carry them to him who made them.” Virgins do not reproduce life. They represent the opposite of sexual pleasure, reproduction, and human continuity. Virgins are the type of sexual—that is, nonsexual—being whose presence is appropriate in Baruch’s vision of the postdestruction world. In the lament, the virgins are spinning luxury thread. Metaphorically, gold from Ophir is the highest quality gold, procured by Solomon for the Temple and worn as luxury ornaments by women in the royal court.7 But now the production of these precious things must cease, even when these luxuries are produced by women who do not (re)produce human life. As the priests tossed away their keys, and as the angel buried the Temple’s sacred objects deep in the ground, the virgins must toss the linen and silk and gold threads into the fire. They too must return their tools to God for safekeeping. The lament concludes: “And the flame sends them to him who created them, so that the enemies do not take possession of them.” The fire that destroys also protects. Casting the fine-spun thread into the fire, the virgins continue the work of the angel who had saved the Temple veil and other sacred goods and placed them into safekeeping for the distant future. The virgins’ spun progeny is arrested by fire, held in abeyance, and maintained until an unknown future time. Baruch’s lament expresses an ethos of destruction writ large, a destruction whose effects must be felt everywhere, and by all. The Temple’s destruction means that everything must cease. God’s home has been destroyed, and human homes must follow suit by ceasing fertility. Both the present and the near future are characterized by hibernation and denial of life. All production is deferred. The sun withdraws, the rain ceases, and the spindle’s twirl stops. The people have been exiled and what remains is the singular male voice re-

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lating the tale. In II Baruch, the suspension (but not death) of humanity is marked when male priests release the power they have held and misused. Baruch displaces female reproduction onto the bodies of men. Men—not women—are directed to cease reproduction. Women’s bodies are imaged as the infertile and nonsexual bodies of female virgins, who are not involved in the reproduction of human life, and now must cease their other kinds of production. The tract II Baruch portrays a temporary near-death experience for Jews. The result is isolation, enforced desolation, and mourning through radical change. Baruch’s world is suspended somewhere between life and death. Life at the Temple ended in a moment of drama, the everyday ends by slow withdrawal and attrition. In contrast, consider another account of life, death, and gender. The apocalyptic tract II Baruch features an angel who buries objects underground. The following evidence, from roughly the same period, features a similar act in a more mundane and ordinary context. As part of the rites and practices that ceremonially mark the end of life, grave goods were buried with the dead. Before, after, and during the second century, loved ones and professional buriers placed objects into the graves. Among these goods, the spindle appears once again.8 People filled graves with all sorts of objects. In a Jerusalem tomb someone placed bracelets, a metal vessel, three clay lamps, four vases, a dark-gray spindle whorl, and a bronze mirror. One group burial at Meiron contained glass bottles and vessels, a bronze spoon, two spindle whorls, and a ceramic inkwell. Family members were buried in a tomb at Philadelphia (Amman) with bone needles, pottery jugs, bowls and flasks, lamps, gold earrings, amulet cases, silver rings, bells, bracelets of bronze, iron, and glass, a key, knife fragments, pendants, coins, beads, and glass vases. A tomb near Nablus contained four lamps, a glass bottle, three small glass beads, a spindle whorl, an ivory pin, and a ring. And at Naff, the dead were buried with bone hairpins, two bone needles, two spindle whorls, bronze bracelets, an iron knife and an iron spearhead, gold earrings, bronze coins, and lamps. In other graves people had placed clay pots, bronze mirrors, kohl sticks, incense burners, a silver cosmetic spatula, along with coins from cities both nearby and far.9 Graves in which the deceased were buried with spindles and spindle whorls have been excavated at Jerusalem and in the catacombs at Beth Shearim, at sites such as Akko, Nahariya, and Ascalon near the Mediterranean’s shores, and inland at places such as Meiron, Silet edh Dahr, and Beth Shean. Far from being only about the dead, funerary practices are performed by living people for themselves and others. Grave goods were placed in the graves of women, men, children, and in group burials.10 Materials from homes were gathered by those who survived the dead. This ritual act forged connections between a lived life and its bodily end. These burial goods emphasize the continuity of the ordinary.

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I had learned about the habit of placing spindles and spindle whorls with the dead during my search for material culture related to women’s lives. These artifacts are usually ignored. Categorized as “small objects” or “minor objects,” upon excavation they are usually recorded and stored away without raising much interest. Often they are deemed unworthy of the time of the excavator and team and not published fully in the initial, interim, or final reports of excavated archaeological sites.11 This lack of interest has been exacerbated in excavations undertaken since 1947 and the beginning of the state of Israel. Grave goods and buried spindle whorls are enmeshed in cultures of gender, in which certain classes of artifacts are deemed masculine and favored while others are devalued as feminine. They are also enmeshed in archaeological nationalism. As archaeology became increasingly part of Israeli/Jewish nationalist discourse, the favored archaeology was big, monumental, and fit into an emerging narrative of Jewish prosperity and importance. Interest in the archaeology of households waned, as did the earlier antiquarian practice of cataloguing small objects. Spindles were made by placing a circular whorl (an object with a hole pierced through the center) onto a rod.12 The whorl provided weight and momentum when the spindle was dropped from chest height to the ground as it twirled fiber into yarn. Made mostly of wood, the rods have disintegrated, leaving behind whorls of clay, glass, and stone. Spindles and whorls were not expensive items. The closest information we have is Diocletian’s Price Edict, a fourth-century document that lists a boxwood spindle with a whorl at 12 denarii, and spindle and whorl sets from other woods at 15 denarii. The price of spindles can be compared to the stabilized prices for, say, second-quality needles at 2 denarii apiece, an Italian pint of wine from the Tiburtine region at 30 denarii, four eggs for 4 denarii, ten large pomegranates for 8 denarii, 50 denarii for one day’s work as a stonemason (with maintenance), and 20 denarii in wages for a weaver who could produce one pound of second-quality textiles, either linen or wool.13 Some of the buried spindle whorls are more decorative and valuable than others, with incised concentric circles or punchhole designs on ivory, bone, or glass. But most of the whorls are of nondescript gray stone, or serpentine, or local basalt. Many are chipped and scratched from wear. Since spindles remain barely and poorly published, research took me to Israel’s archaeological storerooms. I sat in the dusty archives, day after day, weighing spindle whorls, measuring the lengths of their holes, carefully recording and rechecking and revising the notes of those who excavated and catalogued them. In the tedium of all this, I considered various ways to write about what I was finding, or not finding. I had begun the project hoping to “find women,” and the spindle—that stereotypical feminine symbol— had

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seemed like a good place to start. But stories about women and gender overlap with others, and these grave goods tell multiple tales. Placing personal goods in graves was not a practice looked upon highly by spokesmen for elite culture. The rabbinic Jewish tractate on mourning, Semahot, barely mentions the practice. The Roman jurist Ulpian locates the practice in a class other than his own: “Ornaments should not be buried with corpses, nor anything else of the kind, as happens among the simpler folk.”14 About these oncesilent artifacts it turns out there is much to say. They display an ordinary piety at odds with more elite pronouncements and they show that where some saw death as the alienation of human life, others understood it as an extension of the quotidian and ordinary. There is more. Burying spindles with the dead was not limited to Palestine but done throughout Europe, and closer by in Amman and Pella, Vasa in Cyprus, and Meroe in Egypt.15 The practice was not new to Roman Palestine nor unique to its Jews. Nothing in this one ritual of burial emphasizes regional or ethnic or religious distinctions as significant things to announce at the end of a person’s life. This offers another sensibility of the period, one that knows little of the discontinuity of the Temple’s destruction, the effects of military campaigns throughout the region, the end of the active priesthood, religious conflict, and the changes in the political organization of the region. Although some of these events may have affected those who lived during this time, such things seem not to have disturbed or interrupted or affected the practices of burying things with the dead (although changes can be seen in other rites of burial). Typically, Roman Palestine and its environs are studied in terms of religious, ethnic, and national differences that are important markers now. Current national boundaries tend to be used as the boundaries for studying past times, so that most Israelis, Europeans and Americans do not consider Jerusalem/Aelia Capitolina on a social continuum with Amman/Philadelphia. But these tombs and their contents are part of new stories to be told about Roman Palestine. In them regional identity is largely invisible. The practice of burying grave goods does not allow for the distinction of Christians, Jews, or people with other religious and philosophical loyalties. Many of the graves that contain these goods cannot be identified with any specific religious practice, although at least three of these sites can be identified with a high degree of certainty as the burial sites of Jews (at Meiron, Jerusalem, and Beth Shearim), and several burials can be linked with self-identifying Christians. Placing grave goods with the dead may not have been a habit for the majority of Jews (but given the politics of excavating graves that are located in what is now Israel and the past practices of excavating and recording the contents

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of graves, it will be relatively impossible to know) nor for a majority of Christians, Jewish-Christians, or pagans. But these rites of burial were something shared by people associated with Palestine’s various religious and ethnic commitments. The grave goods are a way to see similarities between people who lived in this region. Graves were places where certain kinds of differences did not matter, or were not expressed as such. Taking this into consideration should alter the scholarly and public traditions that take modern categories of peoplehood and religion and use them to locate distinct peoples and religions in Roman Palestine. These grave goods show the region to be one whose women and men did not use every available opportunity to imagine and to enact these kinds of differences.16 Promises to Bury For those of us who identify with—or are identified as—women who suffered and survived centuries of erasure and other oppressions, it is tempting to wish to find something solid, and to hold onto it tightly. At burial, the spindle took a human woman and memorialized her into an ideal vision of femininity. The buried spindles and spindle whorls have some written correlates, and these provide a way to link them with specific notions about women. Inscriptions throughout the Roman-influenced world used the image of the spindle to signify the women who were idealized upon their deaths. From the turn of the second century comes this epitaph: “She was strong, good, resolute, honest, a most reliable guardian, neat at home and neat enough abroad, well known to everybody, and the only person who could rise to all occasions. . . . Her yarn was never out of her hands with good reason.”17 From slightly earlier we read about Claudia, who was charming in conversation, her conduct always appropriate, who kept house and made wool.18 And Amymone: the best and the loveliest, wool working, pious, modest, frugal, chaste, domestic.19 Funerary monuments commissioned for the wealthy contained bas-reliefs of women holding spindles or distaffs.20 The tools of spinning and wool work commemorated women’s lives, including the lives of Jewish women. A monument at Akmonia marks the place that two women, Makaria and Alexandria, were buried by Aurelios Phrougianos and his wife Aurelia Juliana. The right side of the monument depicts a distaff and spindle as well as a comb, mirror, and basket.21 Another burial monument, also from a Jewish family and dated to 255/256, depicts a spindle and distaff.22 The inscriptions and relief work use the vocabulary of spindles and wool baskets to compliment women whose wealthy families could purchase such expensive carved-

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stone memorials. Spindles appear in all sorts of burials, from the catacombs of the elite, to well-carved and extensive family graves, to unmarked burials in caves, to secondary burials in ossuaries. The buried spindles and spindle whorls were—at least sometimes—a nonwritten parallel to these more easily deciphered meanings of written epitaphs and artistic reliefs. The spindle is seductive. Finding this popular icon of womanhood, I had hoped that I was finding something “really” about women’s lives. It is easy to reach for the spindle, a tool used by some women, and a metaphor for all women for so many centuries and in so many places, and to confuse it as “women’s own.” Perhaps the problem is not the tool nor even the metaphor, but the desire to find something from history to own. Our modern habits for making history are built on the promise of essential links between human beings from different times. These claims about essence make it seem almost natural to cling to various versions of people and past time and, despite apparent differences, to conflate “them” with “us.” This conflation offers a sense of ancestry. When history-writing is infused this way, it offers a pleasing solution to a widely shared “sentimental yearning for a former home or homeland.” It produces family, imagined ancestors: fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, grandparents, and cousins. But to satisfy this yearning, which of life’s complexities are flattened and erased? These spindles were tools used by women. But they should never be seen as benign souvenirs, mementos of our visits to women in antiquity. Spindles were also used by men. And they were also metaphors that powerfully restricted the imagination of what women could be, shaping them instead into a confining notion of femininity. Along with other mechanisms, the spindle narrowed a broad range of women’s acts and experiences into a more singular and manipulable icon. It reified gender and its divisions, and crafted “women’s” character into something distinct from “men’s.” Metaphorically, the spindle was to eliminate the confusion caused by activities and identities that women and men might share. Spindle and loom symbolized the essence of womanhood—even if its demands could not be met by most women. In one sense, this metaphor from masculinist culture is “really” about women. Women’s lives are shaped by the cultures in which we live. If there is no human subject before the law, there is also no woman before the patriarchy, no inner essence waiting to emerge. One goal of women’s history has been to find examples of women whose lives were relatively unscathed by various patriarchies, to locate an essence of “woman” that remains continuous and unaffected through the apparent power of masculinism. This dream is part of what makes it tempting to reach for the spindle as a positive image of femininity, women’s acts, and feminist religiosity. The desire to find the spin-

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dle and cling to it tightly is based in the assumption that individuals and groups have continuous essences, and the conviction that this is a good thing. But to one feminist claim that the spindle is an image to salvage for women, that it indicates women’s resistance within patriarchy, or that it represents a shared experience between women, comes another, also feminist, critique of essentialism in all its forms. If spindles and looms are meaningful images for some women and feminists, it may be because many of us have inherited a world in which these icons are still familiar and powerful, and despite our best intentions, we often replicate its patterns and terms. So, what’s a feminist intellectual with a critique of essentialism to do with the spindle? For starters, she can break the habit of repeating automatically the link between spinning and women. She can refuse the certainty of this association and instead find its complexity. Or she can see it as a trace of a process, evidence of an attempt to construct women and gender on certain terms and not others. For instance, at least some of the time, these spindles buried with the dead can be said to represent ancient women and/or to represent familiar figures used to represent ancient women. But there’s more. Buried spindles were not just about the dead. These goods were placed with the dead by those still living, by those who perhaps gathered things from the deceased’s home or collected them from neighbors and relatives. In the sight of the living, the site of death was another place to display the ideals and tensions of womanhood. People saw these things being put into the grave, and perhaps registered them or commented upon them. Buried spindles and other kinds of grave goods are about what living people found to be important. Or perhaps not? Spindles were only one item among many. Grave goods were only one rite and one sight in burial rituals that could be quite ornate, with their processions and musicians and performances of mourning and grief. Amid the wailers, the flutists, the chatter of relatives and friends, would these two-centimeter-wide round objects have even been noticed? As we keep looking at spindles, their meanings shift and expand. They seem less stable. Sometimes the spindle is an overdetermined way to refer to women. Sometimes it refers to men’s places in a culture of gender.23 And sometimes the spindle’s relation to gender was nonexistent. Or ambiguous: in a secondary burial at Meiron were placed a ceramic inkwell, glass bottles and vessels, two spindle whorls, a bronze spoon, and more. Seven people were buried. Analysis of the bones reveals that there were three humans of unidentified sex who died before age twelve. The fourth was a girl in her teens who died between thirteen and eighteen. The fifth was a man who lived to age forty. And the age and sex of the sixth and seventh humans buried here remain unidentified. In a case like this, what do the spindle whorls mean? “Whose” are they, and can they be linked to any one member of this group explicitly?24

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Sometimes the spindle was not evidence of human women and men but of a masculinist culture that powerfully set the terms for the lives of women and men, albeit in different ways and with different effects. The spindle was used to commemorate and compliment women. It also constrained them. Locating traces of women and the construction of gender in antiquity can always be celebrated. But any celebration of the spindle’s woman is always entangled with an acceptance of masculinism’s web. What is actually found leaves much less reason to celebrate. Refusing to celebrate patriarchy’s women does not make ancient women disappear into a morass of theoretical distinction-making. It does record the possibility of a nonessentializing feminist practice for writing about antiquity’s women, gender, rabbis, Jews, Romans, and everything else. In light of a history in which women were present and a historiography in which women have been absent, I can understand the hesitation to let go of the spindle’s woman. Letting go might seem ludicrous when history has left so few remains of women. But why be bound to history’s leftovers? The nostalgic desire to find oneself in history—and to find friends among history’s women—can be challenged. We need not rely on inherited, masculinist, and constricting notions of what women are. Look at the spindle’s appearance in a recent rabbinic responsa that addresses the question of whether women can study Torah (by which it means Talmud, or Oral Law). The rabbinic writer notes that in his Jewish society in Israel, large parts of women’s lives take place outside their homes. He contrasts this with the situation of Jews in the time of the rabbis, when “the woman never left the house and did not participate in the affairs of the world; all her concern and wisdom was limited to running the household and raising the children.” This ancient utopia draws on a myth of antiquity as simpler and more primitive, with clearer roles for women and men, a vision not entirely different from the elite Roman conception of their past. This rabbinic writer ignores the fact that his claims were largely untrue for ancient Jewish women. Instead, this narration depends upon the nostalgic ideal in which the premodern world is related to the modern world as its opposite and its redemption. Instead, he continues, women today own businesses, they teach at universities, and work in offices. Women have access to all sorts of education. Women should be taught Talmud, this responsa argues, because this will serve as a counterweight to “secular knowledge” and the temptations of leisure. Talmud study will take up time that women would otherwise spend in trivial pursuits, such as traveling, swimming, or going to the movies. Women who study Talmud will more conscientiously protect the purities of “the family, the table, and the kitchen.” To back up his proposal, the paraphrased words of mishnah Ketubot 5.5, and of Rabbi Eliezer, reemerge: a husband must force his wife to work wool

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for otherwise she will succumb to the temptations of leisure. Only now, the position is so naturalized and familiar that the responsa does not even find it necessary to cite its talmudic source, writing only: “Were I to know that if we banned women from studying and teaching Torah, they would stay home to use the spindle, I would agree, but to give her the opportunity to be idle from study and deal, God forbid, in trivialities, is not judicious.”25 The words of the ancient rabbis, repeated through the centuries, have become common knowledge. They are now habit. The spindle reappears in a familiar form, as an antidote to the temptations that leisure might hold for Jewish women. But as usual, the spindle is complicated. After all, the responsa wishes to expand women’s rights and the possibilities for their lives. The rabbi who penned this responsa does wish to change centuries of Jewish practice and to reward women for their study of Torah and Talmud. Yet, the argument to expand women’s options is built on the still powerful idea that what women should really do is symbolized by the spindle. This is not a feminist utopia, but a concession that leaves nostalgic visions of whole and wholesome worlds in place. Despite the “fallenness” of modernity, in this vision proper ancient homes still await a possible return. In this vision the imagined, essential link between spindles, wool work, and femininity has a powerful place. When the male writer of this responsa argues to expand women’s access to rights and rewards in order to accommodate the conditions of a fallen world, the nostalgic emblem of a woman’s feminine essence reappears, still helpful after all these years. Our modern ways of making the past make meaning offer no salvation and little redemption. Relations with the past are never innocent. They are always gendered, and often with ill effects. Europe’s appropriation of the past as “history” was a way to colonize and own that past. It crafted fragments of a Greek and Roman and, increasingly, Aryan antiquity into fictions about peoplehood and national origins. History and archaeology as an Israeli and Jewish nationalist discourse crafted a certain region of the world into an almost exclusively Jewish place, with ramifications and limited terms for other people who have lived there and who live there now. All these efforts are consistent and coeval with a masculinist intellectual ethos that in its many versions has produced stories that erase and efface women or that include women in ways ranging from the hideous to the benign. What might it mean to replace the romance of nostalgia (with its pretense that “you can be there”) with the terror of nostomania, the desire that can never be met? It could mean releasing antiquity and its women from functioning as simplified expressions of our identity. If we insist on narrating the

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past, we could at least do so in ways that do not efface complexity. Identification with people and times and places need not rely on constrictive notions of essence. It can allow ambiguity, contradiction, and it need not organize relations into sets of oppositional two’s. This does not mean ceasing to know things that happened. Nor does it mean desisting from wanting to explain them. Instead it means a tentative commitment to know these things differently and to restrain from making them work for us in quite the ways that they have. Undoing these kinds of identifications and ceasing the repetition of certain tales, we can let the past be different. We can stop forcing it to be a reflection of “us” (whether we admit this practice or not). We can stop fantasizing the past as a home to return to. We can cease forging ancient people into our ancestors, from claiming them in the various guises of allies, heroes, enemies, villains, or friends. Starting here, and looking from elsewhere for something different, we can study in ways that need not repeat their habits for our futures. Notes 1. On “home,” see Laura Levitt, Jews and Feminism: The Ambivalent Search for Home (New York: Routledge, 1997). 2. The distinction between looking with and looking at comes from Caroline Walker Bynum, “Women’s Stories, Women’s Symbols” in Fragmentation and Redemption (New York: Zone Books, 1992) (33). 3. Nadia Abu El-Haj, Excavating the Land, Creating the Homeland: Archaeology, the State, and the Making of History in Modern Jewish Nationalism (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1995), and Albert Glock, “Archaeology as Cultural Survival: The Future of the Palestinian Past,” Journal of Palestine Studies 23 (1994): 70–84. 4. See Laurence Silberstein, “Toward a Postzionist Discourse,” in Peskowitz and Levitt, Judaism Since Gender (New York: Routledge, 1997); Jonathan Boyarin, Storm from Paradise: The Politics of Jewish Memory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992); and David Myers, Re-inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 5. Here and at every stage of this book, my gratitude goes to Laura Levitt and our ongoing conversations. For this argument I am particularly indebted to her essay, “(The Problem with) Embraces” in Judaism since Gender. There she articulates what it might mean to engage Jewish Studies and Jewish texts as a feminist practice, by resisting the role of the normative male reader. 6. Pierre Bogaert, Apocalypse de Baruch: introduction, traduction du Syriaque et commentaire (Paris: Cerf, 1969), 1:222–41. A. F. J. Klijn argues in “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of ) Baruch,” in James Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,

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(New York: Doubleday, 1983): 615–52, for close links between II Baruch and rabbinic literature, based on the theological and metaphoric parallels discussed by Louis Ginzberg in s.v. “Baruch, Apocalypse of (Syriac),” Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1902), 2.551–56. 7. On virgins spinning in the Temple, see also Protoevangelium of James, in New Testament Apocrypha, ed., W. Schneemelcher, (Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1963), 1:370–88, in which as a young girl, Mary, mother of Jesus, is chosen for this Temple service. On gold from Ophir, see I Kings 9.28, 10.11, 22.48; I Chronicles 29.4; II Chronicles 8.18; Job 22.24; Psalms 45.9; and Isaiah 13.12 (“I will make men more scarce than fine gold, more rare than gold of Ophir”). 8. For references, see Miriam Peskowitz, “The Work of Her Hands” (Ph.D. diss, Duke University, 1993), 252- 57. 9. Because this volume is concerned with conceptual and theoretical issues, I will direct readers interested in the archaeological support for this argument to Peskowitz, Spinning Fantasies: Rabbis, Gender and History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 210–11. 10. Contra Rachel Hachlili. Grave goods have been feminized through modern discourse. See my argument in “The Burial of Gender and the Gendering of Burial,” Jewish Quarterly Review 4 (1997): 1–20. 11. On minor objects, see the critique of M. J. Chavane, Salamine de Chypre (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1975), 6: 1–2. 12. The rods were often made of perishable wood and in most burial contexts only the whorls survive, since they were made of more durable materials. The whorls measure roughly 25 centimeters in diameter, are 1 to 2 centimeters high, and weigh usually between 11 and 22 grams. 13. See Diokletian’s Preisedikt, ed. Siegfried Lauffer, (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971). English translation in E. R. Graser, ed., “The Edict of Diocletian on Maximum Prices,” in Tenney Frank, Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1940), vol. 5. On spindles and whorls, see 13.5–6; needles, 16.9; wine, 2.2; eggs, 6.43; pomegranates, 6.71; stonemason, 7.2; weaver, 21.1–6. 14. Digest I I.7.14.5. 15. Europe: J. P. Wild, Textile Manufacture in the Northern Roman Provinces (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Amman: G. Lankester Harding, “A Roman Tomb in Amman,” Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine 14 (1950): 30–32; 2 steatite whorls, one from loculus C18, one from tomb floor J46. Pella: R. H. Smith, Pella of the Decapolis (Wooster, Ohio: College of Wooster, 1973), 1:187; 2 whorls, dated second to fourth centuries C.E. Whorl 78:316 was the only remnant of grave goods found in grave 3. Whorl 78:318 was found in grave I, with a lamp. Cyprus: J. du Plat Taylor, “Roman Tombs at ‘Kambi,’ Vasa,” in Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 1940–1948, 1950 (Nicosia: Department of Antiquities, 1950); glass spindle whorls were excavated amid large quantities of grave goods, dated third to

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fourth centuries C.E. Meroe: John Garstang, Meroe: The City of the Ethiopians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), 47; the dating of the tombs includes a large span of centuries. See John W. Crowfoot, “Christian Nubia,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 13 (1927), 150; black clay whorls were found, both baked and unbaked. The whorls are decorated, but the excavator does not describe the decorations. 16. See Sandra Joshel, Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992). 17. Rome, dated to the Flavian period. 18. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) 1.2.1211. 19. CIL 6.11602. Trans. Natalie Kampen, Image and Status: Roman Working Women in Ostia (Berlin: Mann, 1981), 122 –123. 20. F. Noack, “Dorylaion. ll. Grabreliefs,” Mittheilungen des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts 19 (1894):315–334, esp. 322–323 and figs. 4–5. See Michael Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957 [1937]), pl. 46.2. In Hellenica 10:249, L. Roberts lists similar decoration found on steles in the eastern parts of Lydia, in Phrygia, and in Bithynie, as also reported by Paul Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 61. See A. Joubin, “Stèles funéraires de Phrygie,” Revue Archéologique, 3d ser., 24 (1894): 169–91. 21. L. Roberts, Hellenica (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’orient, 1955), 10: 249, pl. 33. Also, W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder, eds., Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1939), 6:116, no. 335a, and Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 61, n.14. 22. Buckler and Calder, Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, 6: 113–114, no. 325. The inscription is identified as “Jewish” through language that seems biblically influenced, but the stone does not contain conventionally “Christian” designations; this identification could be easily challenged. See Bulletin de Correspondence Hellenique 17 (1893): 273, no. 63 and W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895–1897), 615, no. 526. 23. A burial from sixth-century Beth Shean may provide evidence of spindles being buried with men. However, the conditions of excavation and reporting render it difficult to interpret. One spindle whorl was found in a tomb along with other grave goods. The tomb is enclosed by edifice K. On the outside of the south wall of edifice K is an inscription that contains a prayer for the exprefect John, who, according to the tomb’s excavator, “may be supposed to have built the monument as a burial-place for himself.” If this is the grave of John, then we are presented with an example of a whorl being buried with a male skeleton. However, the grave contained bones and two skulls, one set above the other. The excavator posits the second burial (denoted by the second skull) to have been placed in the tomb at a much later date than the seventhcentury burial of John (if John were indeed buried in this tomb). The report does not detail the precise burial with which the various grave goods were associated. Nor have the bones been analyzed to determine the biological sex of the

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skeletons in question. These ambiguities make the evidence of Beth Shean such that one can neither challenge nor confirm the association of whorls exclusively with the burial of women and girls. On Beth Shean see G. M. Fitzgerald, A Sixth-century Monastery at Beth-Shan (Scythopolis) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylania Press, 1939), 4, II, 14. Because of the patterns and politics of excavation, there are, in fact, no examples of single burials that include both spindles/spindle whorls and skeletal bones positively identified as female. 24. Eric Meyers, J. F. Strange, and Carol L. Meyers, Excavations at Ancient Meiron, Upper Galilee, Israel, 1971–72, 1974–75, 1977 (Cambridge, MA: American Shools of Oriental Research, 1981). 25. Moshe Malka, responsa of 7 Shvat 5733 to Azriel Licht. I thank Susan Shapiro for bringing this responsa to my attention.

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chapter 6

Before Alef/ Where Beginnings End Elliot R. Wolfson

the middle of nothing is everything, the middle of everything nothing but the beginning that ends the ending that begins the ending that begins all suffering in suffering the suffering of suffering, returning to the place it has never been

Before ’alef comes beit—in a nutshell, the wisdom of kabbalah. The parabolic utterance finds expression in what is presumably an older mythologoumenon preserved in Sefer ha-Bahir, long thought to be one of the earliest sources that contains, albeit in rudimentary fashion, the panoply of theosophic symbols expounded by kabbalists through the generations.1 First, I will provide a translation of the passage that has served as the basis for my reflections and, then, I will analyze its content philosophically, linking the salient images employed therein to other statements in the bahiric anthology. The intent is to elucidate the hermeneutical dilemma of the beginning: How does the beginning begin without having already begun? However, if the beginning cannot begin without having already begun, in what sense is it a beginning? The mythic saying of the Bahir, which may well tell us something originary about kabbalistic epistemology, relates in the first instance to this ontological problem.

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R. Refumai said and expounded: “Why is ’alef at the head? For it2 preceded everything, even Torah. And why is beit next to it? Because it was first.3 And why does it have a tail? To show the place whence it was, and there are some who say that from there the world is sustained. Why is gimmel third? For it is third and to indicate that it bestows kindness (gomelet fesed).”4 But did R. Aqiva not say, “Why is gimmel third? Because it bestows (gomelet), grows (megaddelet), and sustains (meqayyemet), as it says ‘The child grew up and was weaned’ (wa-yigddal ha-yeled wa-yiggamal) (Gen. 21:8).” He said to him, “This is [the intent of ] my very words, for [the gimmel] grew and bestowed kindness (gamal fesed), its dwelling was with him, and it was a ‘confidant with him’ (Prov. 8:30).” Why is there a tail at the bottom of gimmel? He said to them, “The gimmel has a head on top and it resembles a pipe. Just as the pipe draws from what is above and discharges to what is below, so gimmel draws by way of the head and discharges by way of the tail, and that is gimmel.”5

Preserved in this text is what I presume to be an ancient mythologoumenon according to which the array of divine powers can be represented by the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet.6 ’Alef is the foundation, “at the head,” ba-ro’sh,7 but not the beginning, tefillah, for the beginning is beit, which is second. And what of gimmel? It is third, exemplifying a threefold character, bestowing, growing, and sustaining. At last, we come to a letter that coincides with its numerical value, for ’alef is first but not the beginning, and beit the beginning that is second.8 Does the first not begin? how is the beginning not first? Addressing the history of Western thought in an essay published in 1954, Heidegger contrasted “beginning” (Beginn) and “origin” (Anfang): The beginning is, rather, the veil that conceals the origin—indeed an unavoidable veil. If that is the situation, then oblivion shows itself in a different light. The origin keeps itself concealed in the beginning.9

It lies beyond the scope of this study to conduct a systematic investigation of the terms Beginn and Anfang (to which one would also have to add Ursprung) in Heidegger’s thought.10 Suffice it for our purposes to focus on the difference between beginning, on one hand, and origin and inception, on the

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other. Before continuing with this analysis let me acknowledge that I am extracting Heidegger’s terminology from its original context, which concerned the history of Western philosophy. This is a legitimate move, however, since Heidegger himself plainly and repeatedly affirmed a parallelism between the history of being and the history of thought.11 How, then, can we formulate the difference between beginning and origin? Beginning is the advent of something that begins at a discrete juncture in the past and that will be brought to a conclusion at some time in the future. A pattern of causal sequentiality is presumed and grafted unto the aggregate of experiences believed to take shape within the plane of horizontal temporality. What occurs at the onset, however, becomes increasingly less significant in the unraveling of the event to be appropriated as temporally significant. As Heidegger puts it in another context, “being a beginning (Beginn) involves being left behind in the course of the process. The beginning is there just to be abandoned and passed over. The beginning is always surpassed and left behind in the haste of going further.”12 Origin, by contrast, is not an occurrence that commences and terminates at a specific time and place; it is the ground “from which something arises or springs forth.”13 It is the point of departure “from and by which something is what it is and as it is. What something is, as it is, we call its essence or nature. The origin (Ursprung) of something is the source of its nature.”14 Essence and nature must not be understood in a static sense (logocentrically, one might say). On the contrary, the origin comes to be in the course of the event and it is thus fully clear only at the end. Reflecting on the Greek word arche, in which one should hear the resonance of origin (Ursprung) and incipience (Anfang), Heidegger notes that it is “that from which something emerges, but that from which something emerges retains, in what emerges and its emerging, the determination of motion and the determination of that toward which emergence is such.”15 The origin, therefore, “is a way-making (Bahnung) for the mode and compass of emergence. Way-making goes before and yet, as the incipient (Anfängliche), remains behind by itself. . . . In this we perceive that from whence there is emergence is the same as that back toward which evasion returns.”16 On the way there are perspectives, but solely in the end is the indeterminacy determined, and only then can we speak of destiny, of having been sent-forth in historical resoluteness to chart the circular extension of primordial temporality, that is, time in its originary sense as the expectation of what is recollected in the recollection of what is expected.17 Beginning and origin, therefore, have diametrically opposite trajectories: beginning is what stands behind us; origin what stands before us. The origin invades the future by awaiting us in the past, advancing beyond all that is to

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come by returning to where it has been.18 To see what lies ahead one must be mindful of what is at the head. Beginning is a veil that shrouds what has come before, and thus origin keeps itself concealed in the beginning. Suprisingly, in the words of Heidegger, I have found a key to unlock the bahiric symbolism. The beginning, we can say, is beit, ’alef the origin. Beit, accordingly, is a veil that conceals ’alef, but can what is hidden be veiled?19 How does the (un)veiling of the veiled take place? Through the agency of the third, gimmel, the conduit that draws from ’alef and disseminates to beit.20 For the moment, we must concentrate on origin and beginning, and thus return to ’alef and beit, laying gimmel aside. If we are to maintain the distinction between “origin” and “beginning,” the origin cannot begin nor can the beginning originate. To render this in the bahiric idiom, what is “at the head,” ba-ro’sh, is not the “beginning,” tefillah, even though there is no way to the head but through the beginning. To know ’alef, we start with beit, for before ’alef there is nothing but beit. That is why Torah begins with beit and not ’alef, the beginning that is before the origin that precedes it.21 The beginning is second and thus points to that which comes before. Thus, we are told, the function of the scribal tail on the backside of the beit is “to show the place whence it was, and there are some that say that from there the world is sustained.”22 The beit—a trace of what was before it was after23—reverts back to ’alef, the source that sustains the world through bestowing, a quality that is attributed to gimmel on account of its etymological link to gomel.24 The secret open of ’alef is manifest in the open secret of gimmel.25 To begin, then, we start with beit, the beginning that is second. Ironically, the first discourse about beit that appears in the redacted form of Bahir begins somewhere in the middle of a conversation that has already begun, we know not when: And why does it26 begin (matfil) with beit? Just as [the word] berakhah begins. How do we know the Torah is called berakhah? As it says, “And the sea27 is full of the Lord’s blessing” (u-male’ birkat yhwh yam) (Deut. 33:23), and the [word] yam is nothing other than Torah, as it says “and broader than the sea” (u-refavah minni-yam) (Job 11:9). What is [the meaning of ] “full of the Lord’s blessing” (male’ birkat yhwh)? In every place, beit is blessing (berakhah),28 as it is said “In the beginning” (bere’shit), and the [word] “beginning” (re’shit) is nothing other than wisdom (fokhmah), and wisdom is nothing other than blessing, as

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it is said “And God blessed Solomon,”29 “And the Lord gave wisdom to Solomon” (1 Kings 5:26). To what may this be compared? To a king who married his daughter to his son, and he gave her to him as a gift, and said to him, “Do with her as you please!” What can we heed (mai mashma’)? That berakhah is from the word berekh, as it says, “to me every knee shall bend” (ki li tikhra‘ kol berekh) (Isa. 45:23), the place to which every knee bows down. To what may these be compared? To ones who seek to see the face of the king but they do not know the whereabouts of the king. They ask about the house of the king initially (sho’alim beito shel melekh tefillah), and afterward they ask about the king. Therefore, “to me every knee shall bend,” even the supernal ones, “every tongue shall pledge loyalty” (ibid.).30

Torah begins with beit, for the word for “blessing,” berakhah, begins with beit, and Torah is blessing, for blessing is associated with yam, the “sea,” and the sea is symbolic of Torah, for Torah is the fullness of divine blessing, male’ birkat yhwh, that is, the fullness (male’) that is the blessing of the Lord (birkat yhwh), the beginning (re’shit) that is the wisdom (fokhmah) given to Solomon. The bestowal of wisdom is compared parabolically to the gifting of the daughter as a conjugal offering to the son by their mutual father.31 From this parable the reader is encouraged to heed the connection between berakhah, “blessing,” and berekh, “knee.” How so? The “blessing” is the “place to which every knee bows down.” But what is this place? To understand we need another parable: Before one asks about the king, one must first ask about the dwelling of the king, sho’alim beito shel melekh tefillah. The house about which one initially inquires (sho’alim tefillah) is the beginning (tefillah) that shelters but also exposes the king.32 To this house prayers are directed in bending the knee and pledging the tongue. The blessing is the dwelling, the sheltering-exposing; the question of its whereabouts marks the beginning of the path. Here philological attunement is most expedient: The word tefillah stems from the root fll, to perforate, to make a hole, to be an opening. At the beginning, in the beginning, is the opening. What can we say of this opening? That it opens and as a consequence—or is it cause—it is opened. But what is (en)closed in the opening that can be further opened? An opening, no doubt, but how might an opening be opened if it is already opened? To open the open, the open must be enclosed, for the opening of opening is enclosure, the circumference that encir-

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cles the center, the limit from without that delimits the limit within. Beginning, the beit with which Torah begins (matfil), is the opening that encloses the enclosing that opens, the questioning utterance that silences the silence of ’alef by exposing the shelter of the sheltered exposure. Why is beit closed on every side and open in front?33 To teach you that it is the house of the world (beit ‘olam). Thus, the Holy One, blessed be he, is the place of the world but the world is not his place.34 Do not read beit but bayit, as it is written “Through wisdom a house is built” (Prov. 24:3).35

The shape of beit—closed on three sides and open in front—attests that wisdom/Torah is beit ‘olam, that is, the enframing opening of the world.36 Borrowing another insight of Heidegger, nature may be viewed as the clearing that allows beings to appear.37 More profoundly, Heidegger notes that phusis, “nature,” signifies the juncture (Fügung) of openness and self-concealment. “The occurring of openness allows for self-concealing to occur within its own occurring of openness; self-concealment can only occur, however, if it allows the occurring of openness to ‘be’ this openness.” To understand this coincidence of opposites one must be able to elucidate what the “enigma of the essential ambivalence of phusis conceals,” and this would be tantamount to naming the “essence of the beginning.”38 To think the essence of the beginning in bahiric terms is to ruminate over beit, enclosed opening of opened enclosure. The author of the aforecited text considered the question from the perspective of the shape of the letter. Beit is enclosed on three sides but open in front, signifying that it is beit ‘olam, the dwelling within which temporal beings come to be in passing-away and pass away in coming-to-be. The measure of this dwelling in the stream of comingto-be and passing-away is determined by and from wisdom, gnostically conceived as a potency of God, but its way is open, for in front there is empty space and new possibilities abound. From the kabbalistic perspective this is the intent of the rabbinic dictum that God is the place of the world but the world is not his place. That is, all things in time-space are God even if God is not all things in time-space.39 The notion of world implicit in the hoary myth is dependent on the paradox of determinate indeterminacy,40 that is, a structure that is at once closed and open, formed and formless.41 This is the esoteric significance of the orthography of beit, the mark that inscribes the beginning that is second. The inscription, however, is concomitantly an erasure, for the beit that begins Torah veils the ’alef whence it originates. The role of

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Torah as preserving the concealment of that which must be concealed is alluded to in the following bahiric text: R. Bun said, “Why is it written ‘From eternity (me-‘olam) I was fashioned, out of the origin (me-ro’sh), before the earth’ (Prov. 8:23). What is ‘from eternity’ (me-‘olam)? The matter that must be hidden (lehe‘alem) from the entire world, as it is written ‘he also puts the world in their hearts’ (Eccles. 3:11), do not read ‘the world’ (ha-‘olam) but ‘concealment’ (he‘elem).42 The Torah said, ‘I was first (qiddamti) in order to be the origin of the world (ro’sh le-‘olam), as it says ‘From eternity I was fashioned, out of the origin.’”43

Based on a play of words upheld in an older midrashic reading of the word le-‘olam, “everlastingly,” in Exodus 3:15 as le‘alem, “to conceal,”44 the author of the above passage connects ha-‘olam and he‘elem. Insofar as ‘olam connotes both temporal perpetuity and spatial extension, an intrinsic link is forged between three ostensibly disparate concepts, worldhood, eternity, and concealment. The rallying point of the three concepts is Torah, which is identified with the wisdom that is the subject of the verse “From eternity I was fashioned, out of the origin, before the earth” (Prov. 8:23). The expressions me-‘olam, “from eternity,” and “by means of the origin,” me-ro’sh, are synonymous. The intent of the verse, therefore, is to affirm that Torah derives from the origin (ro’sh, which is the ’alef) that precedes the beginning (beit). Only if we appreciate this will we be in a position to comprehend the significance of the assertion that me-‘olam should be interpreted as lehe‘alem, “to be hidden.” In proclaiming its primordiality, Torah is asserting, albeit cryptically, that it conceals the “matter that must be hidden from the entire world,” which is the head, illimitable origin, whence it springs forth. This, too, is the esoteric sense of the statement attributed to Torah, “I was first in order to be the origin of the world.” The phrase that I translated as “origin of the world” is ro’sh le‘olam. I opted for a more literal rendering, but this obscures the intended meaning. The word le-‘olam must be vocalized as le‘alem, “to conceal.” Once that is understood then the expression assumes an altogether different valence. Ro’sh le-‘olam should be read as ro’sh le‘alem, that is, “the origin that one must conceal.” Torah, which declares itself as the first (qiddamti) of all entities,45 hides the origin before its beginning. Here we recall the comment of Heidegger cited above, “The origin keeps itself concealed in the beginning.” More of this beginning is disclosed in another unit that I consider expressive of the older layer of tradition:

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R. Amora sat and expounded, “Why is it written ‘And the sea is full of the Lord’s blessing, take possession on the west and south’ (Deut. 33:23)? In every place beit is blessed, for it is the fullness (ha-male’), as it says ‘And the sea is full of the Lord’s blessing’ (u-male’ birkat yhwh). From there he gives drink to the needy and from the fullness he took counsel at the beginning (tefillah).” To what may this be compared? To a king who wanted to build his palace with hard granite. He cut out rocks and carved stones, and there emerged for him a well of abundant living water. The king said, “Since I have flowing water, I will plant a garden and I will delight in it (’eshta‘ashe‘a bo), the whole world and I, as it is written ‘I was with him as a confidant, a source of delight (sha‘ashu‘im) every day’ (Prov. 8:30).” The Torah said, “For two thousand years I was delighting in his lap (be-heiqo sha‘ashu‘im), as it says, ‘every day’ (yom yom), and his day (yomo) is one thousand years, as it says ‘For in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday’ (Ps. 90:4).”46 From here forward it is temporarily (le-‘ittim), as it says “in every time” (Prov. 8:30), but the remainder (ha-she’ar) everlastingly (le-‘olam), as it says “my glory I will hold in for you” (Isa. 48:9). What is “my glory” (tehillati)? As it is written, “a praise (tehillah) of David, I will extol you” (Ps. 145:1). What is the praise? For “I will extol you” (’aromimkha). And what is exaltation (romemut)? For “I will bless your name forever and ever” (ibid.). And what is the blessing? To what may this be compared? To a king who planted trees in his garden, even though rain has fallen, the [garden] draws constantly and the ground is moist, he must irrigate [the trees] from the spring, as it says “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, a sound understanding for all who practice it” (ibid., 111:10). If you say she will be lacking something, thus it says “Praise of him (tehillato) is everlasting” (ibid.).47

The beit is the fullness with which God took counsel at the beginning, an obvious allusion to Torah, which is depicted in similar terms in rabbinic tradition based on the image of wisdom in Proverbs 8:30, the playmate with which God is enrapt two thousand years prior to creation. Note, again, that the word for beginning is tefillah, the word used in conjunction with the question of the whereabouts of the bayit that shelters and exposes the king, the beit that begins Torah, beginning of opening that is opening of beginning.48 The author of the bahiric passage renders the aggadic motif of the God of Israel bemusing and amusing himself49 with Torah by the parable of a king who happens upon an abundant spring as he cuts through the quarry

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of stone he is using to build his palace. The palace, we are to suppose, will be surrounded by a garden, but only if there is a flow of living water can the king plant the garden in which he and the inhabitants of the world will delight.50 The fullness of wisdom encompasses both the source of irrigation and the garden that is irrigated. The poetic images convey in imagistic terms the two principles that depict the basic dialectic within the divine nature, according to kabbalistic theosophy,51 the outpouring power of mercy and the constraining force of judgment.52 Although not stated explicitly, one may infer that the spring (ma‘ayan) and garden (gan) respectively betray masculine and feminine characteristics.53 Wisdom is beit, for it is both the (phallic) spring that overflows and the (vaginal) garden that is watered, projecting-in and opening-out, exposed enclosure of enclosed exposure. Doubling of self to be other stands at the beginning of the way. But what words can begin the account of the beginning, ma‘aseh bere’shit? God delights with his fullness.54 What kind of delight is intended? At this juncture, attentiveness to language is most warranted. The frolic of God with Torah/wisdom is designated sha‘ashu‘a, an archaic locution attested in at least two critical chapters in Hebrew scripture, Proverbs 8:30–31 and Psalms 119:24, 70, 77, 92, 143, 174. The term connotes delight connected to wisdom or Torah on the part of God and on the part of the human.55 This connotation is implied in the bahiric text, but what novel interpretation of the ancient word is put forth in the medieval collection? What new thought repeated, what new teaching reiterated? We must listen more carefully to sha‘ashu‘a. Apparently, it stems from the root she‘a‘, which means to divide, to separate. To apprehend the nature of sha‘ashu‘a, therefore, it is necessary to think through the alliance of delectation and division. What jouissance is there in dividing and parting? The jouissance of beginning, for beginning entails the rapture of irruption and cohesion of separation. Sha‘ashu‘a must be thought from the vantage point of the nexus of beginning and division. To appreciate the fuller implications of this belonging together, one would do well to consider another bahiric text. Interestingly, in the pertinent passage, disclosure of the kabbalistic secret is the task of students expounding before their master, R. Berechiah: They began and said, “Originarily—one (bere’shit ’efad). ‘Spirit before me is faint, I am the one to create souls’ (Isa. 57:16). ‘The channel of God is full of water’ (Ps. 65:10). What is the ‘channel of God’ (peleg ’elohim)? Thus our master taught us that the Holy One, blessed be he, took the waters of creation and divided them. He placed half of them in heaven and

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half of them in the ocean, as it is written ‘God divided the fullness of water.’ By means of them a man studies Torah, as it is said, ‘Through the merit of acts of kindness (gemilut fasadim) a man studies Torah, as it says ‘All who are thirsty come for water, even if you have no money’ (Isa. 55:10), go to him and he will act with kindness towards you, and ‘you will stock up on food and eat’ (ibid.).”56

The secret here—as elsewhere in the bahiric anthology—is expressed through mytho-theosophic exegesis, that is, reading Hebrew scripture as a narrative about the inner nature of God. More specifically, the exegesis placed in the mouth of R. Berechiah’s students, which includes a teaching received directly from the master, is meant to explain the ontic transition from impartial oneness prior to creation to a division within the one, God’s becomingother, which logically entails three modes of relatedness, for the other, with the other, in the other. The first word of Torah, bere’shit, alludes to the unity before the threefold othering of the one, a unity that technically is before there is one, for in being one there would be two and consequently one to divide. Thus, bere’shit is interpreted by the gloss ’efad, that is, ’efad is opposite to bere’shit, bere’shit ’efad, “originarily—one.” Division, on the other hand, is tied exegetically to Isaiah 57:16, ki ruaf mi-lefanay ya‘at.of u-neshamot ’ani ‘asiti, “for spirit before me is faint, I am the one to create souls,” and to Psalms 65:10, peleg ’elohim male’ mayim, which I will leave untranslated for the moment. The bahiric homily engages the meaning of the latter verse but is completely silent about the former. The silence notwithstanding, it is appropriate to begin with a brief comment about this verse. A distinct meaning was evidently assumed by the exegete whose words (at least in part and in some form) have been preserved in the written recensions of Bahir and we must try to recover something of it by listening. Ki ruaf mi-lefanay ya‘at.of u-neshamot ’ani ‘asiti, “for spirit before me is faint, I am the one to create souls.” I assume this verse should also be read mytho-theosophically. To comprehend this we must first ascertain who is speaking. The answer is offered in the poetic-liturgic utterance of the prophetic text itself: ram we-nissa’ shokhen ‘ad we-qadosh shemo, “high and exalted, everlastingly dwelling, holy is his name” (Isa. 57:15). The intent of the verse, when read kabbalistically, is to emphasize that souls are created by this high and exalted one whose name is holy and not by the spirit (ruaf) that falters before him.57 The creation of souls evinces the movement from one beyond one to one that is many, a one that signals division in the one.58 This transition marks the beginning and hence is symbolized by beit, the second that is first. Further support may be adduced from the verse peleg ’elohim male’ mayim. The plain sense calls forth the translation “the channel of God is full of water.”

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The esoteric exegete, however, read (in the double sense of interpreted and vocalized) the word peleg as palag, “to divide,” thereby changing the syntax of the verse. The proper noun, peleg ’elohim, “channel of God,” is turned into predicate and subject, palag ’elohim, “God divided.” Moreover, the expression male’ mayim is not the predicate nominative “is full of water,” but the nominative “fullness of water.” The overall meaning of the verse, therefore, is that God divided the fullness of water. To what does this refer? To the primordial division of waters, an ancient theme in Israelite cosmogonic myth. In the bahiric text, what else do we hear about the separation of upper and lower waters? We are told that by means of these waters one studies Torah. This is equated with a maxim, which is presented anonymously in some manuscript recensions and attributed to a specific rabbi in other recensions,59 that one merits studying Torah through acts of kindness, gemilut fesed. I have not succeeded in locating a source or even precise parallel to the maxim as it is cited in Bahir, but it is easy enough to list a number of rabbinic dicta wherein a tight connection is drawn between Torah and charitable, compassionate behavior.60 On balance, it seems to me, the bahiric text offers an interpretation of a maxim that circulated independently in either oral or written form. If, for the sake of argument, we assume this to be case, then the critical question is how did the author of the bahiric text understand the maxim? By the merit of the water that was divided at the beginning—indeed the division that is the beginning—one studies Torah. First, we recall, that the fullness of water, male’ mayim, refers technically to the effluence of divine wisdom, the sea that is Torah,61 the daughter beloved to her father and given as a matrimonial gift to her brother. It thus makes perfectly good sense to associate the division of waters and study of Torah. Moreover, the latter is connected to acts of kindness. This connection is interpreted in the following way: He who wishes to study must go to the source of the water, the beit-bayit that is the beginning, the plentitude of wisdom/Torah, and from there a flood of mercy will issue forth.62 The overflow of wisdom is expressed as the generosity of spirit that bestows deeds of kindness in the world, gemilut fasadim. We encountered this force before in the description of the gimmel at the beginning of the path, but we abruptly laid it aside. Now, however, it is time to take hold of the matter, to grasp the symbolic intent of this letter. What is gimmel? It bestows (gomel) like a spring that erupts and waters the garden with the light/seed of wisdom that is hidden in the head (ba-ro’sh),63 the origin that is before there is one to begin because there is no second. Through the bestowal of the seed the distance separating ’alef and beit is bridged. Hence, gimmel may be viewed as the division that is unifying in that it unifies that which is divided by dividing that which is unified. The possibility of gimmel is there from before ’alef, for without positing the third term,

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which is the link, one cannot conceive the division that is the beginning, the beit-bayit that exposes by sheltering ’alef. Before we go further down this path, it might be protested that no mention of the letters is made in the bahiric account of waters parting at the beginning. How, then, can I introduce them into the mythologoumenon? This is a legitimate concern, one for which I have no decisive answer. I conjecture, however, that the myth of the division of the waters can be semiotically encoded and thereby linked to the passage that preserves and transmits the tradition regarding ’alef, beit, and gimmel. The one that is first before the beginning is signified by ’alef; the division of waters at the beginning by beit; the channel connecting upper and lower in the beginning by gimmel. This is the significance of the reference to gemilut fasadim in this context. What sustains the earth is the overflow from heaven, the beneficence that comes by way of the conduit that bestows wisdom.64 The same activity facilitates study of Torah. The full intent of this image can only be conveyed if one considers the implicit gender characteristics at work behind the letter symbolism. Although not stated explicitly, one can well assume that the author/transmitter of this passage had in mind the depiction of the upper waters as masculine and the lower as feminine, a cosmological theme attested in classical rabbinic literature. The relevant references in the older texts make it unambiguously clear that the gender imagery has a decidedly sexual nuance. Thus, in the dictum of R. Levi, “the supernal waters are masculine and the lower feminine,” the earth that opens to receive the heavenly overflow, which is linked exegetically to Isaiah 45:8, is depicted as “woman opening for the male.”65 If the upper is male and the lower female, it is fair to conclude that the link connecting the two is the phallus. This surmise would go well with the phallic image of the spring to which I have already referred, the spring of wisdom that emerges spontaneously from the rocks and waters the garden in which the king and his world delight. In terms of an alternative mythic formulation, gimmel is the son that bridges the distance between ’alef and beit, father and daughter.66 I note, moreover, that gimmel occupies a central role in the erotic play of sha‘ashu‘a. Indeed, the impetus for the division of the fullness that is the beginning arises from the springing-forth of gimmel, the will to bestow that stems from gemilut fesed, love as the incessant overflowing, projecting-open opening into the opening of the open-projection.67 Prior to that point, which is no point at all since for one to conceive of a point one must conceive of a line and conceiving of a line is not possible without conceiving two points, there is nothing but the oneness that transcends number. In the beginning is the splitting of the waters, a rupture in the beginning. Thus the beginning is beit, signifying the duplicity brought about through division of one before all

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division. Where do we see this divide most wholly? In time, in the beginning, at the beginning, for to begin the beginning must have begun otherwise it is no beginning. What begins, therefore, can only be what has already been. The kabbalistic import of the myth places sha‘ashu‘a at the beginning— following the rabbinic identification of wisdom as Torah—the first stirring that is the trace of what came before, the beit that begins Torah, time of beginning in beginning of time. The correlation of beginning and sha‘ashu‘a underscores the temporal comportment of the primal ecstasy, which, quite literally in the kabbalistic symbolism, is an ek-stasis, standing out, an elongation of the line to be encompassed in the circle.68 The connection between time and sha‘ashu‘a is already conveyed by the verse from Proverbs wherein wisdom describes herself as being the delight before God “every day,” sha‘ashu‘im yom yom, and playing before him “in every moment,” mesafeqet lefanav be-khol ‘et. Insofar as wisdom was frolicking before God from the beginning—indeed, beginning is nothing but this frolic—sha‘ashu‘a bears the footprint of temporality in the cyclical linearity of linear circularity. From the beginning we can deduce some general characteristics about time: To begin with, as we have already remarked, beginning cannot begin. That which cannot begin cannot end. To be always beginning, then, is to be never ending, but to be never ending is to be always of the moment. To be always of the moment is to always be of the moment, that is, to begin in the beginning that cannot begin because it has already begun. Temporality is measured by the moment that belongs to this beginning that cannot begin and to the end that cannot end. What will be in time is the same as what was in time in virtue of being different than what is in time, different in virtue of being the same. Here, again, Heidegger is helpful: Time and the temporal mean what is perishable, what passes away in the course of time. Our language says with greater precision: what passes away with time. For time passes away. But by passing away constantly, time remains as time . . . Time is not a thing, this nothing which is, and yet it remains constant in its passing away without being something temporal like the beings in time.69

As Heidegger poetically captured the paradox of time, we can say of sha‘ashu‘a that it persists in its passing, it is most evidently when it is no more. The bliss at the beginning cannot be the beginning of bliss, for the beginning does not begin and remain beginning. Sha‘ashu‘a is thus always of the moment—momentary elation, present in its absence, enduring in its recurrence, eternal in its transience. The joy at the beginning—the ecstasy of beginning—

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never was for it never will not be. Yet, we must consider a distinction made in the bahiric text itself: There is a difference between two thousand years before creation and the span of time that follows creation. In the former, sha‘ashu‘a is everlasting, le-‘olam, in the latter, mesafeqet lefanav, toying before him, from time to time, le-‘ittim. The transition from perpetual musing to intermittent play requires holding-back and setting of boundary. The notion of withdrawal, which is not stated overtly, is a secret exegetically derived from the verse lema‘an shemi ’a’arikh ’appi u-tehillati ’efet. am lakh le-vilti hakhritekha, “For the sake of my name I will postpone my wrath and my glory I will hold in for you so that I will not destroy you” (Isa. 48:9).70 The plain sense of the prophetic dictum relates to divine mercy, which is expressed as God’s long-suffering, the capacity to restrain his rage. The expression tehillati ’efet. am, literally “my glory I will hold in,” is parallel to ’a’arikh ’appi,71 “I will postpone my wrath.” One may surmise at some point in ancient Israel the notion of a vengeful god yielded its opposite, the compassionate god who holds in his fury. In the bahiric text, only the second part of the verse is cited because the focal point is the constriction of tehillah, which has been rendered above as the divine glory. But what resonance did the author of the bahiric passage hear in the scriptural verse? The self-limitation, expressed as inhaling the breath and holding in the glory, makes possible the periodic moments of joy that God experiences with Torah/wisdom. Prior to the withholding the father’s musing of the daughter had no temporal bounds; consequent to the withholding it is temporally bound. The contraction of divine glory through the holding in of spirit/breath facilitates the movement from le-‘olam, everlastingly, to le-‘ittim, ephemerally. Time, which begins with the beginning that cannot begin, arises as a consequence of the constriction. The reader is told, moreover, that the glory that is held in for Israel, utehillati ’efet. am lakh (Isa. 48:9), is the “praise of David,” tehillah le-dawid (Ps. 145:1),72 the praise that is exaltation (romemut), the blessing of the name. These are different ways of referring symbolically to the glory, for the latter is comprised of the blessings of Israel and it is the praise that is uplifted to be placed again as a crown on the head.73 The blessing is said to be “forever and ever,” le-‘olam wa-‘ed, eternally, but it must always be of the moment, be-khol ‘et, in every moment, from time to time, le-‘ittim. The rhythms of prayer are set by the seemingly primordial turning of time, fading of night into day, day into night, return of same as different.74 This is the mystery of song, the secret of prayer. In every moment, there is a beginning, and hence each moment is the same but different, nay, the same because different. To what may this be compared? To the king who waters his garden from the spring even though

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the ground is sufficiently wet from previous rainfall. The image casts a shadow through which we may glean something about the beginning of time in the time of beginning. Time must always begin, but to begin it cannot have begun. The beginning, then, must never end, but only that which ends everlastingly never ends. In bahiric imagery, the fount of wisdom—phallic aspect of God, which is symbolized by gimmel, the force that bestows (gomel) goodness— ceaselessly overflows from ’alef to beit, but it is never depleted. Each time implies every time, from time to time, timelessly beginning, eternally returning. Sha‘ashu‘a, the father’s be/musement for the daughter, the king’s contemplation of wisdom, stands at the beginning; indeed, it is the beginning for it cannot begin. In this musing/amusing is the primordial divide, what-is becoming self and other, the springing into being of what has been, the fullness that is depleted, trace of ’alef in beit that comes before it. The musing discloses something fundamental about the composition of time: Each moment is because it incessantly becomes other than what it is. This is the way of sha‘ashu‘a, projecting out to hold in. In the bahiric parable, I have found support for Heidegger’s contention that the “ontological condition for the understanding of being is temporality itself.”75 For kabbalists this condition is related to the contemplative musing of which I spoke above, a musing that presupposes a division of the one, the doubling of beit, the beginning that is second. I would add that in bahiric fragments and subsequent kabbalistic literature based thereon the correspondence of sha‘ashu‘a and temporality underscores the erotic dimension of temporal comportment. It is significant to note that the bahiric text highlights, perhaps intensifies, the erotic quality of sha‘ashu‘a, which may have been at play from the beginning. The imagery of irrigation, which has come up already, should be interpreted in light of this erotic/contemplative delight. The argument is bolstered by other fragments in the bahiric anthology wherein the image of water spreading over the garden more clearly alludes to sexual union—through phallic discharge—between male and female.76 Here we also have to consider the accounts of the father’s desire for and cohabitation with the daughter scattered throughout the textual landscape of Bahir. I have discussed this motif in an earlier study.77 I will not reproduce all the relevant texts again, but let me simply emphasize that the father’s amusing himself through the daughter is inseparable from—indeed identical to—the father’s musing over the daughter. Two points that follow from this are worthy of consideration. First, the basic myth that explains the movement from the first that is not a beginning to the beginning that is second, from eternality to temporality, involves the splintering of wisdom into three, father, daughter, son, and the consequent yearning to restore a sense of integration and whole-

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ness. That desire is expressed either in terms of the father and daughter or in terms of the son and daughter, but both representations relate to the drive to reinstate the elemental unity of wisdom. Eros from this perspective may be viewed as the longing to retrieve a detached aspect of self. The impulse for the other, which underlies the sha‘ashu‘a that God has for Torah, the father-king for the daughter-princess, is an expression of this narcissism.78 The second point of note is that the correlation between eros and noeisis suggested by the poetic image of sha‘ashu‘a in the bahiric fragment has persisted among kabbalists through generations. In a number of previous studies, I have posited that the epistemological matrix that informed the lived experience of medieval kabbalists allows us to speak concomitantly of the noetic quality of eros and the erotic quality of noesis. In the beginning, God contemplates his wisdom, the father delights with his daughter. Contemplative eros ensues from and results in the projecting-open, springing forward to receive. Logically, one can imagine projection without reception, but, ideally, kabbalistic metaphysics demonstrates a dialectical orientation that embraces both concurrently. This dialectic marks the beginning, beit of Torah, stuttering to be heard in the beginning of the way, setting out to break open the open that is broken. In the beginning that cannot begin, time comes to be in its having been. We can thus speak of an inexorable link between time, being, and eros in kabbalistic ontology. This, I suggest, is the philosophic intonation of the mythic saying regarding ’alef, beit, and gimmel. To this saying we have tried to listen, but what can one hear of the sound made before ’alef, where beginnings end? Notes 1. For the most comprehensive bibliography to date on scholarship relevant to the study of Sefer ha-Bahir, see Daniel Abrams, The Book Bahir: An Edition Based on the Earliest Manuscripts (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 1994), 293–336. 2. The Hebrew pronoun is actually in the feminine case, but I have opted not to translate this word as “she” in order not to confuse readers by leading them to believe that the letter symbolizes a female potency. Letters do assume gender characteristics in the Bahir, but in this context the use of the feminine gender must be taken simply as a grammatical point without theosophic or mythic implications. 3. The bahiric symbolism is related thematically and exegetically to several rabbinic passages centered on the question of why the world was created with beit, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is the first letter of Torah, presumed by the authors of the relevant texts to be the instrument and matrix of creation. See, for instance, Genesis Rabbah, edited by J. Theodor and C. Albeck (Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1965), 10:1, 8–9; Palestinian Talmud, eagigah

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5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

2:1, 77c; Pesiqta’ Rabbati, edited by M. Friedmann (Vienna, 1880), ch. 21, 108b. In other midrashic passages, where the exegetical focus is on ’anokhi, the first word of the Decalogue (Exod. 20:2), it is emphasized that Torah begins with ’alef. See Genesis Rabbah 1:10, 9; Pesiqta’ Rabbati, ch. 21, 109b–110a. Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 104a. In the teaching on the ’aleph-beit attributed to the “infants” (darddaqei), gimmel and dalet are interpreted as gemol dallim, to bestow charity on the poor. See also Midrash ’Otiyyot de-Rabbi ‘Aqiva’ in Solomon Wertheimer, Battei Midrashot, edited by Aaron Wertheimer, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Ketav wa-Sefer, 1980), 2:345: “If there is no gimmel, there is no dalet; if there is no dalet, there is no gimmel. If there is no charity (gemilut fasadim), there would be no poor (dallim); if there are no poor in the world, there would be no charity.” On the link between dalet and dal, see The Book Bahir, §19, 129. The Book Bahir, §13, 123–125. For discussion of this presumably older mythical structure in the bahiric anthology, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Myth, Symbolism, and Hermeneutics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 73–75. In that context, I also explore the alternative expression of this mythologoumenon, which relates the totality of divine potencies to the three letters of the word ’ish, “man.” The prooftext cited as biblical support for the anthropomorphic portrayal of God is “The Lord is a man of war” (Exod. 15:3). See The Book Bahir, § 18, p. 127, and the later reworking of this passage in §84, 171. The letter ’alef is connected to ro’sh as well in The Book Bahir, §18, 127 (see previous note). In the enumeration of the ten utterances (ma’amarot) in The Book Bahir, §96, 181, the second, which is identified as fokhmah, is also given the name re’shit, the beginning (linked to Ps. 111:10). Martin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?, translated with an introduction by J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968), 152 (original German in Martin Heidegger, Was Heisst Denken? [Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1971], 98). See idem, Basic Concepts, translated by Gary E. Aylesworth (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), 92: “The incipience (Anfänglichkeit) of being resists duration. But this very incipience withholds itself from what has been commenced (Angefangenen).” For the original German, see Martin Heidegger, Grundbegriffe (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1981), 107. For a lucid explication of these technical terms, see Reiner Schürmann, Heidegger On Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy, translated by ChrtistineMarie Gros (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 120–151. Many texts could be cited in support of this claim, but I will offer here only one striking illustration, See Martin Heidegger, Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected “Problems” of “Logic,” translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), 133: “For thinking means here to let beings emerge in the decisveness of their Being and to let them stand out before oneself, to perceive them as such and thereby to name them in their beingness for the first time.”

151

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beginning/again

12. Basic Concepts, 93 (Grundbegriffe, 108). 13. From Heidegger’s 1934/35 lecture on Hölderin as cited in William McNeill, The Glance of the Eye: Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Ends of Theory (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), xviii. 14. Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, translations and introduction by Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971), 17 (original German in Martin Heidegger, Holzwege [Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977], 1). 15. Basic Concepts, 93. 16. Ibid. (Grundbegriffe, 108). 17. It seems to me that the Heideggerian distinction between originary temporality and the ordinary conception of time may be relevant to articulate the temporal difference between origin and inception, on one hand, and beginning, on the other. See Françoise Dastur, “The Ekstatico-horizonal Constitution of Temporality,” in Critical Heidegger, edited by Christopher Macann (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 158–170; William D. Blattner, Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 89–229; Karin de Boer, Thinking in the Light of Time: Heidegger’s Encounter with Hegel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 61–77. 18. My formulation is based on Heidegger’s own description of Anfang in the Rectoral Address of 1933. See Martin Heidegger, “The Self-Assertion of the German University and The Rectorate 1933/34: Facts and Thoughts,” translated with an introduction by Karsten Harries, The Review of Metaphysics 38 (1985): 473. 19. See The Book Bahir, §33, 137: “It has been taught ‘the glory of God is to conceal the word’ (Prov. 25:2). What is the ‘word’? ‘The beginning of your word is truth’ (Ps. 119:160).” In this passage, a connection is thus made between the beginning and concealment of the word, which is truth, that is appropriate to the divine glory. For a different interpretation of the notion of the beginning of God’s word, which is related to the same verse, see The Book Bahir, §40, 141, and §50, 147. On the connection between truth and the head, see ibid., §26, 131. 20. In The Book Bahir, §56, 151, the spinal column (fut. ha-shidrah) is depicted in terms similar to the gimmel, for it draws from the brain and disperses to the rest of the body. See §104, 187, where the seventh of the ten sayings is identified as the east of the world whence the seed comes to Israel, “for the spinal column draws from the brain and comes to the penis and from there is the seed, as it is written ‘from the east I will bring my seed’ (Isa. 43:5).” On the spinal column (linked to the palm branch, lulav, which is part of the four species of Sukkot), see also §67, 159. 21. In what is apparently a passage that reflects the contemplative mysticism of contemporary Provençal kabbalists responsible for the redaction of the bahiric text (The Book Bahir, §48, 145), ’alef is compared to the ear and the brain. The ’alef, therefore, is symbolic of the uppermost gradation of the divine, thought that ex-

before alef

22.

23.

24.

25.

tends infinitely. In that context, moreover, ’alef is identified as the “holy palace,” heikhal ha-qodesh, and it is also associated with the Tetragrammaton (based exegetically on the expression, wa-yhwh be-ro’sham, “the Lord is at their head” in Micah 2:13). On the identification of ’alef as the holy palace, see ibid., §84, 171. See also §103, 187, cited below in n. 40. In later kabbalistic literature, the identification of ’alef and YHWH is explained by decomposing the ’alef into a yod on top and a yod on the bottom connected by a waw in the middle. The numerical value of the three parts of the ’alef equal twenty-six (10 + 10 + 6), which is the numerology of YHWH (10 + 5 + 6 + 5). I am not certain if this is tacitly assumed by the author of the bahiric passage. In The Book Bahir, §53, 149, the connection is again made between ’alef, the ear, and the limitless thought of God. In that context, moreover, ’alef is identified as the “essence of the ten words,” a reference to the fact that the first word of the Decalogue, ’anokhi, begins with an ’alef. In §87, 173, the ten sefirot through which heaven and earth were sealed correspond to the ten commandments. On the connection between the ear and the “great wisdom,” fokhmah gedolah, that has no limit, see §55, 151. The matter of the tail of beit is repeated in what appears to be a somewhat garbled text in The Book Bahir, §11, 123: “To what may beit be compared? To a man who is created through wisdom, for he is closed on every side and opened in front. The ’alef is open from behind. He said, The tail of beit is open from behind it, for if it were not so man could not exist. Similarly, if not for the beit in its tail, the world would not exist.” In The Book Bahir, §17, 127, reference is made to the light hidden by God until the suitable time. This aspect of the primordial light is deduced from the fact that the verse proclaims “Let there be light,” wa-yehi ’or, rather than “and there was light,” we-hayah ’or. The description of the light as “already having been,” she-kevar hayah, parallels the account of the beit as pointing with its tail to its source, ’alef. See above, n. 4. In The Book Bahir, §92, 177, the attribute of love, middat fesed, is attributed to Abraham who was said to bestow kindness upon the world, gamal fesed ba-‘olam. This passage reflects the theosophic interpretation of the fourth, fifth, and sixth of the ten sefirot that was current amongst kabbalists at the time of the redaction of Bahir. The three attributes of the divine, love (fesed), fear (pafad), and truth (’emet) are correlated respectively with the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. See also §§129, 131–132. It is possible that the identification of ’alef and gimmel, in the sense that gimmel is the realization of ’alef, is the intent of the enigmatic remark in The Book Bahir, §20, 129, regarding the relationship of gimmel, dalet, and he’. According to that passage, which appears to have been transmitted in a somewhat corrupt form, he’ is formed by taking the top part of gimmel and the bottom part of dalet. The letter he’, it seems, represents the fullness of divine wisdom, which may be the intent of the comment that there is an upper he’ and a lower he’, an idea expressed elsewhere in the bahiric anthology in terms of an upper and lower Shekhinah (see below, n. 63).

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26. That is, the Torah, which begins with bere’shit, the first letter of which is beit. 27. In the verse, the word yam does not connote the “sea,” but rather the westerly direction. I have rendered the biblical language, however, in light of the parabolic exegesis of the author of the bahiric text. 28. The connection between beit and blessing is made in earlier rabbinic sources. According to one especially noteworthy exegetical tradition, God created the world with beit and not ’alef since the former is the first letter of the word berakhah, “blessing,” whereas the latter is the first letter of ’arirah, “curse.” See Palestinian Talmud, eagigah 2:1, 77c; Genesis Rabbah, 1:10, 9; Pesiqta’ Rabbati, ch. 21, 109a. 29. There is no extant verse in Hebrew scripture to which this refers as noted by Gershom Scholem, Das Buch Bahir (Damstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970), §3, 6 n. 2. 30. The Book Bahir, §3, 119. 31. For discussion of this and other bahiric passages with special focus on the nexus between secrecy and the gift, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Hebraic and Hellenic Conceptions of Wisdom in Sefer ha-Bahir,” Poetics Today 19 (1998):156–67. 32. The same theme is expressed in slightly different terms in The Book Bahir, §43, 141. According to the parabolic image employed in that context, the one who wants to enter within the chambers of the king must first look at or contemplate (yistakkel) the daughter in whom the king has placed all thirty-two paths of wisdom. On the application of the symbol of the house, bayit, to Shekhinah, which is also identified as sukkot, the temporary booths that commemorate the dwellings inhabited by the Israelites in their sojourn through the desert (Lev. 23:43), see The Book Bahir, §74, 163. See also §104, 189, where Shekhinah, associated with the west (ma‘arav) since all the seed that comes forth from the east is mixed (mit‘arev) within it, is referred to as the “house of the father.” 33. The bahiric reflection on the orthography of beit being closed on three of four sides is based on a similar line of inquiry found in several rabbinic sources (attributed to R. Levi whose teaching was transmitted by R. Yonah), but in those contexts the shape of the letter is interpreted as an admonition that one should not engage in speculation regarding what is above, below, before, or after creation. See Palestinian Talmud, eagigah 2:1, 77c; Genesis Rabbah, 1:10, 8; Pesiqta’ Rabbati, ch. 21, 108b. 34. Genesis Rabbah, 68:9, 777–778; Midrash Tehillim, edited by Solomon Buber (Vilna: Rom, 1891), 90:10, 390–391. 35. The Book Bahir, §11, 123. 36. On the depiction of the feminine as a matrix for creation, see The Book Bahir, §117, 204: “The female is taken from Adam for the upper and lower worlds could not exist without a female.” 37. For reference to and discussion of some of the relevant sources, see de Boer, Thinking in the Light of Time, 157. 38. Based on passages partially translated in de Boer, Thinking in the Light of Time, 349–350 n. 28. On presencing as the site of concealment in relationship to

before alef

39.

40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

techne as bringing forth (Hervorbringen) and phusis as the emerging of things of their own accord, see McNeill, Glance of the Eye, 298–299. Here my language reflects the technical term Zeit-Raum of Heideggerian thought, the time-space, the abgrund, belonging to the essential sway of truth as the sheltering-enclosure. See especially Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning), translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), 259–71. The notion of determinate indeterminacy is embraced explicitly in The Book Bahir, §103, 187. The context wherein this appears is an enumeration of the seventh of the ten sayings (ma’amarot) that help one articulate the nature of being (see §96, 181; see also §32, 135). I will translate the relevant passage: “The seventh? There are only six. Rather, this teaches that here is the holy palace (heikhal ha-qodesh), it bears all of them, it is considered as two, and it is the seventh. What is it? Just as thought has no end or limit, so this place has no end or limit.” The seventh, which is apparently in the position of the phallic potency according to a symbolic system attested in this section of the Bahir, the east whence the seed disseminates to Shekhinah who resides in the west (see Gershom Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah, translated by Joachim Neugroschel, edited and revised by Jonathan Chipman [New York: Schocken, 1991], 93–94) is here characterized in terms that parallel thought, which is the first of the emanations. The latter identification helps us date the material as it would belong to the stratum of the text reflecting the theosophic symbolism regarding the infinite thought of the divine current in Provence and northern Spain in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This thought is without end or limit (see above, n. 21) and, analogously, the place of the seventh is without end or limit. Here, then, is a utilization of the principle of determinate indeterminacy, albeit with a different symbolic valence. My formulation is indebted to William Desmond, Desire, Dialectic, and Otherness: An Essay on Origins (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987), 184–185. The ontological theme expressed by the shape of beit may also be expressed in terms of the convergence of freedom and necessity, that is, the concurrence of the open and closed aspects suggests that within the Godhead there is no reason to dichotomize these two elements. God’s absolute freedom stems from the necessity of the divine nature and, conversely, the necessity of divine nature is determined by God’s absolute freedom. For an attempt to collapse the distinction between freedom and necessity in God in a manner that is consonant with kabbalistic ontology, see Friedrich W. J. Schelling, The Ages of the World, translated by Jason M. Wirth (Albany, 2000), 5. See below, n. 52. According to the masoretic text, ha-‘olam is written defectively, i.e., without a waw, and thus it can be vocalized as he‘elem. The Book Bahir, §8, 121. Babylonian Talmud, Pesafim 50a, Qiddushin 71a. There are some who think the word ‘olam may in fact be connected etymologically to ‘alam, that which is hidden. Through their midrashic playfulness the rabbinic exegetes may have retrieved something of the original intent of the notion of world in ancient Israel.

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45. At the conclusion of the bahiric passage (see n. 43 for reference), the first three words of Torah are cited and explicated: “As it said ‘In the beginning God created’ (Gen. 1:1). And what is ‘created?’ The needs of all (.s orkhei ha-kol), and afterward God (’elohim). And what is written after it? ‘Heaven and earth.’” The point of ending with this exegesis is to underscore that Torah, which is alluded to in the word bere’shit, was the first of all things fashioned. For an interpretation of this passage, see Wolfson, Along the Path, 72–73. I have modified my translation here in light of a new insight regarding the meaning of the text. See also The Book Bahir, §74, 163: “Why is Pentecost [‘as. eret, which is the rabbinic name for the holiday; see Mishnah, Rosh ha-Shanah 1:2; eagigah 2:4] one [day]? For on it the Torah was given to Israel, and when the Torah was created initially (re’shit), the Holy One, blessed be he, ruled in his world alone with it, as it is written ‘The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord’ (Ps. 111:10). He said, ‘This being so your holiness should be for you alone.’” 46. Genesis Rabbah 1:1, 1–2, 8:2, 57; Exodus Rabbah 30:9; Leviticus Rabbah, edited by Mordecai Margulies (Jerusalem and New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993), 19:1, 412–413; Song of Songs Rabbah, edited by Shimshon Dunasky (Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1980) 5:7, 131. 47. The Book Bahir, §4, 119–121. 48. The imagery is repeated in The Book Bahir, §37, 139, but in the context it is also given an eschatological valence: “What is the beit at the end [of the word zahav]? As it is written ‘Through wisdom the house will be built’ (Prov. 24:3). It does not say ‘was built,’ but rather ‘will be built.’ In the future, the Holy One, blessed be he, will build her and adorn her two thousand times more than what she was, as it is said ‘Why is the beginning of the Torah with a beit?’ As it is written ‘I was with him as a confidant, a source of delight every day’ (Prov. 8:30), two thousand years, for the day of the Holy One, blessed be he, is one thousand years. Therefore, the Torah begins with beit. The beit [of the word bere’shit] signifies two thousand and afterward is re’shit, as it is said ‘two thousand years belong to him,’ for he is the beginning (re’shit).” 49. My rendering of sha‘ashu‘a is indebted to Hartley Lachter, who is currently working on his dissertation under my supervision. He suggested these translations in the seminar on Bahir held in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University, spring semester, 2000. 50. According to the parable in The Book Bahir, §14, 125, God plants the tree that is called kol, “all,” so that the “entire world will take pleasure in it” (lehishta‘ashe‘a bo kol ha-‘olam). The end of that passage alludes to the “secret” that involves the hieros gamos, here depicted as God planting and rooting the tree in the ground. For discussion of this passage, see Wolfson, Along the Path, 71–72. 51. In this matter, kabbalistic symbolism is consonant with rabbinic theological speculation on the two primary attributes of God, mercy and judgment, a point I made briefly in one of my earliest published studies. See Elliot R. Wolfson, “Mystical-Theurgical Dimensions of Prayer in Sefer ha-Rimmon,” in Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times, vol. 3, edited by David R. Blumenthal (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 63–64.

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52. A philosophical presentation of the kabbalistic dialectic is offered by Schelling, Ages of the World, 6: “Therefore, two principles are already in what is necessary of God: the outpouring, outstretching, self-giving being, and an equivalently eternal force of selfhood, of retreat into itself, of Being in itself. That being and this force are both already God itself, without God’s assistance.” This is precisely what I have found to be the case in my study of kabbalistic documents. The dialectic of mercy and judgment, overflowing and containing, is the balance of life and the measure of eros even unto death. Interestingly, Schelling uses the language of “retreat” to characterize the force of selfhood, of being in itself as opposed to the self-giving being. The kabbalistic doctrine of s. ims. um, which apparently is quite old, likewise understands the withdrawal of divine light, the holding in of the breath, as an expression of limitation, demarcation, and the setting of boundary, qualities that are associated with the traditional attribute of judgment. I have dealt with the matter extensively in “Divine Suffering and the Hermeneutics of Reading: Philosophical Reflections on Lurianic Mythology,” to be published in a volume on suffering in Jewish and Christian religious thought, to be edited by Robert Gibbs and myself. A number of scholars have noted Schelling’s indebtedness to kabbalah, whether transmitted directly or through an intermediary. Particularly relevant is the study by Christophe Schulte, “Z. imz.um in the Works of Schelling,” Iyyun 41 (1992): 21–40. 53. Compare The Book Bahir, §15, 125–127. In the parable preserved in this passage, reference is made to the spring, the garden, and the fruit-bearing tree planted in the garden and sustained by the “spring overflowing with living water” (ma‘ayan nove‘a mayim fayyim). See ibid., §82, 169, where the spring is described as possessing twelve pipes, which correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel. On the twelve springs, see also §111, 197. In §105, 189, the king is said to have seven gardens and in the middle garden there is a “beautiful spring that flows from the source of living water” (ma‘ayan na’eh nove‘a mi-maqor mayim fayyim). See also §121, 205, where the “pipe” is linked exegetically with the verse, “You are a garden spring, a well of living waters that flows from Lebanon” (Song 4:15). 54. In The Book Bahir, §90, 175, the mythical conception of sha‘ashu‘a is depicted in the image of the troops of the king who bemuse themselves (mishta‘ashe‘im) with the matrona secluded in his chamber. 55. See Elliot R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany, 1995), 124–125 n. 6 and 190 n. 175. 56. The Book Bahir, §34, 137. 57. Here it is of interest to note the following exegetical comment preserved in Palestinian Talmud, Berakhot 9:2, 12c–d: “R. Joshua ben Hananiah said, ‘When the spirit (ruaf) went out into the world, the Holy One, blessed be he, broke it against the mountains and weakened it in the valleys, and he said to it, “Be mindful not to harm my creatures. For what reason? ‘For spirit before me is faint’ (Isa. 57:16).’ He weakened it as it is said ‘my spirit failed within me’ (Ps. 143:4). Why to such length? R. Huna said in the name of R. Aha, “I am

157

158

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

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the one to create souls’ (Isa. 57:16), on account of the souls that I have made.’” It seems to me that implicit in this remark is a presumption regarding a potential conflict between God and spirit; accordingly, the latter is admonished not to harm the souls created by the former. It is curious that a gnostic reading of this verse also seems to be attested in the bahiric fragment. The matter requires more research. In The Book Bahir, §96, 181, the first of the ten sayings, the supernal crown (keter ‘elyon) is described as the “one of ones unified in all his names,” ’efad ha’afadim ha-meyufad be-khol shemotav. Although this belongs to a later stratum of the bahiric anthology, it expresses in more technical philosophic terms of the one that is many an older mythical notion. The anonymous reading is preserved in MS Munich 209, which was used as the basis for the German translation of Scholem and the critical edition of Abrams. In MS Vatican, Or. Barb. 110 (as noted by Abrams in the critical apparatus ad locum), the statement is attributed to R. eiyya. In the editio princeps (Amsterdam, 1651), which is reproduced in The Book Bahir, 269, the statement is attributed to R. eama. Mishnah, Pe’ah 1:1, ’Avot 1:2; Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 8b; Sukkah 49b; Makkot 24a. See Midrash Zut. a ’ le-famesh Megillot, edited by Solomon Buber (Vilna, 1885), Ecclesiastes 7:2. According to the dictum reported there in the name of R. Levi, study of Torah leads to acts of kindness. In The Book Bahir, §65, 159, the expression “sea of wisdom,” yam hafokhmah, is used to name the attribute that is also referred to as the “earth” or “precious stone” and corresponding to it is the blue that is used in the fringe garment, a blue that is reminiscent of the sea, the heaven, and the throne of glory (based on the teaching attributed to R. Meir in Babylonian Talmud, Menafot 43b). This passage seems to reflect the doctrine of ten potencies. Accordingly, the attribute designated by these terms is Shekhinah, the tenth of the sefirot. The older myth, in my opinion, identified the second of the three potencies as the sea that is Torah, the fullness of divine wisdom. In light of this tradition, it is of interest to consider the comment, which apparently is from the period of redaction, in §111, 197: “The Holy One, blessed be he, at first gave them wellsprings of water and afterward he gave them stones. . . . What is the reason? For at first the Torah in the world was compared to water and afterward it was fixed in a set place, which is the not the way of water, for today it is here and tomorrow it moves on.” See, however, The Book Bahir, §128, 211. Interpreting the rabbinic dictum (Mishnah ’Avot 2:5) that an ignoramus (‘am ha-’ares. ) cannot be a saintly person (fasid), the author of the bahiric text writes: “How can one do kindness with his master? Through study of Torah, for he who studies Torah bestows kindness upon his master, as it is written ‘riding the heavens through your assistance’ (Deut. 33:26). That is to say, when you study Torah for its own sake, then you assist me and I ride the heavens, and consequently ‘through the skies in his majesty’ (ibid.). What are the skies (shefaqim)? I would say the chamber of chambers (fadrei fadarim).” In contrast to §34, where the nexus between

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63.

64.

65.

66. 67. 68.

Torah study and gemilut fasadim was explained in terms of the human being drawing benefit from the divine attribute of mercy, in §128, it is God who benefits from the human act, which bestows kindness. More specifically, in the latter passage, the theurgical principle is embraced whereby the activity of the human being facilitates the union of the divine, which is portrayed in the scriptural language of God’s riding the heavens in his majesty, ga’awah. I suggest that this term is employed here as a euphemism for the phallus and the expression fadrei fadarim, which is the meaning offered for shefaqim, refers to the female genitals. See The Book Bahir, §85, 171. On the term ga’awah in earlier Jewish mysticism and its resonance in German Pietistic literature, see Wolfson, Along the Path, 13–14, 57, and reference to other scholarly works given on 125 n. 88. In that study, I was hesitant to offer a phallic interpretation of ga’awah, but it appears to me that such an explanation would have been warranted, especially in the passages from the Rhineland Jewish pietists. On the theurgical role accorded Torah study as a means to unite the masculine and feminine potencies of the divine, see The Book Bahir, §137, 221, and analysis in Wolfson, Circle in the Square, 10–13. The characterization of wisdom as light (either explicitly or implicitly) occurs in a number of passages in the bahiric anthology. See The Book Bahir, §§10 and 12, 123 and 17, 127; and especially 116, 201: “He sat and expounded to them, ‘There is Shekhinah below just as there is Shekhinah above.’ What is this Shekhinah? I would say that it is the light that emanated from the first light, which is wisdom. It, too, surrounds everything as it says ‘the earth was filled with his glory’ (Isa. 6:3).” On the description of Shekhinah as the light taken from the “first light,” which is identified as the “fear of the Lord,” and hidden away for the righteous, see §131, 215. See also §133, 219. In The Book Bahir, §71, 161, the pillar that connects heaven and earth and sustains the world is identified as the righteous one (s. addiq). See also §85, 171, where the souls of the righteous are described as issuing from the “spring” (ma‘ayan) to the “great pipe” (s. innor ha-gadol) whence they cleave to the tree. The righteous ones of Israel below serve as a catalyst to incite this process. In §105, 189, the eighth of the ten sayings is identified as the righteous one that is the foundation of the world. The activities of sustaining the world and making it prosper associated with this attribute resemble the description of gimmel in §13, 125. Palestinian Talmud, Berakhot 9:2, 13a; Genesis Rabbah 13:13, 122. Also relevant for an appreciation of the medieval kabbalistic symbolism is the fact that the gender attribution of the upper and lower waters is expressed together with the notion that the water that falls from heaven is masculine and the earth that is irrigated thereby is feminine. See Pirqei Rabbi ’Eli‘ezer (Warsaw, 1852), ch. 5, 13a. For discussion of this mythical structure and the conjecture regarding its archaic provenance, see Wolfson, Along the Path, 73–74. Here my language reflects Heidegger. See, in particular, Contributions, 137. A source for this geometric symbolism that became so crucial in the evolution of kabbalistic thought is found in The Book Bahir, §83, 169.

159

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69. Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, translated by Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972), 3. 70. A number of scholars have reconsidered the origins and evolution of the pivotal kabbalistic doctrine of s. ims. um, withdrawal and/or contraction. To date, the most comprehensive study is Moshe Idel, “On the Concept Z. imz. um in Kabbalah and its Research,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 10 (1992):59–112 (Heb.). Idel, op. cit., 71, suggests that the image of cutting through the rocks found in the Bahir, §4, which is found as well in a number of thirteenth-century kabbalistic texts, may allude to a doctrine of s. ims. um. In his argument, Idel did not mention the exegesis of Isaiah 48:9 in the same bahiric passage. My interpretation corroborates Idel’s suggestion. 71. It is of interest to wonder if the reference to this verse does not imply a technical application of the term ’a’arikh appayim, or the nominative form to which it is undoubtedly related ’erekh ’appayim (Exod. 34:7), to the aspect of God that is also referred to as the name (shem) and as the glory (tehillah). According to the interpretation I have accepted, these terms denote the feminine potency of the divine, which is also symbolized as wisdom or Torah. Here it must recalled that in kabbalistic texts from the zoharic period the highest aspect of God is designated by the term ’arikh ’anpin and the lower aspect by ze‘eir ’anpin. According to some sources, the latter term is applied to Shekhinah, which is the feminine persona. See Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), 119 and 135, and Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, translated by Arnold Schwartz, Stephane Nakache, and Penina Peli (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 110–14. 72. On the distinction between tehillah, “praise,” and tefillah, “prayer,” see The Book Bahir, §46, 143. 73. Vestiges of what I assume is a much older myth that has had a profound impact on the formation and evolution of kabbalistic symbolism can be found in the bahiric anthology. See The Book Bahir, §§12, 123 (in that passage, the parabolic image of the king preparing a crown to rest on the head of his son prior to creating his son is employed to explain the notion that light preceded the world); 61, 153–155; and 72, 161–163. In my scholarly writings, I have returned to this theme repeatedly, interpreting it as a mythic portrayal of the gender transformation of the fallen female through her restoration to the head of the male. See, for instance, Elliot R. Wolfson, “Coronation of the Sabbath Bride: Kabbalistic Myth and the Ritual of Androgynisation,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997):301–343. For discussion of some of the applicable bahiric passages, see Arthur Green, Keter: The Crown of God in Early Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 134–50. 74. In The Book Bahir, §49, 145–147, time is depicted in terms of the polarity of night and day with the latter being contained in the former. I have analyzed this passage in Circle in the Square, 86–87. 75. Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, translation, introduction, and lexicon by Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 228.

before alef

76. The Book Bahir, §90, 175–177. For translation and analysis, see Wolfson, “Hebraic and Hellenic Conceptions,” 164–165. 77. See Wolfson, op. cit., 157–62. 78. I have touched on the implicit narcissism in the kabbalistic understanding of eros as it relates both to the intradivine process and the human-divine relationship. When I have spoken of either autoeroticism or homoeroticism, I have had in mind this narcissistic impulse. See Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 369–72; idem, Circle in the Square, 60–74, 107–10; idem, “Eunuchs Who Keep the Sabbath: Becoming Male and the Ascetic Ideal in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Mysticism,” in Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997), 164–174. I have explored the matter in more expansive form in “Eros, Poiesis, and the Margin of the Periphery,” the third chapter in a monograph I am currently completing titled Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination.

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Origin and Overcoming the Beginning Zimzum as a Trope of Reading in Post-Lurianic Kabbala1 Shaul Magid

“What we call the beginning is often the end, And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. . . Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, Every poem an epitaph.” —T.S. Elliot “Little Gidding” “And this Last is not Last, but an ever Nigh, the Highest; not the Last, in short, but the First. How difficult is such a First. . . Thou knowest it not?” —Franz Rosenzweig The Star of Redemption “Creation is not ex-nihilo but a theophany. As such, it is Imagination” —Henry Corbin The question of creation ex nihilo has dominated the Jewish discussion of creation from Philo until the present.2 While most kabbalistic theories of creation presume creation ex nihilo as a principle, they differ widely about how the

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transformation from infinitude to finitude takes place.3 Throughout the high Middle Ages and early modern period, Jewish mystics devoted a great deal of effort to solving this perennial theological/cosmological problem.4 Unlike the medieval Jewish philosophical tradition from Sa’adia through Albo, Kabbalists, especially those influenced by the Lurianic system, generally did not approach the issue either philosophically or polemically.5 That is, they did not seriously entertain the possibility of the eternity of the world generated by Aristotle,6 nor did they seek to defend creation ex nihilo against its philosophical opponents.7 While the mystically oriented antiphilosopher Judah Ha-Levi and the philosophically minded Kabbalist Moses Nahmanides, for example, ardently defended creation ex nihilo against eternity,8 the polemical tone in both is virtually absent in kabbalistic literature from the Zohar (circa 1295) onward.9 Yet as cosmologists, later Kabbalists were still challenged by the same conceptual difficulty as their philosophical counterparts, which they framed in the neoplatonic question of how the One becomes many.10 Perhaps influenced by Maimonides’ provocative observation in Guide II:25 that even a literal reading of Genesis 1:1 is not sufficient proof for creation ex nihilo, most Kabbalists did not develop their creation theories exegetically but speculatively.11 That is, the discussion of creation in kabbalistic literature is not primarily focused on an interpretation of Genesis 1 or later rabbinic readings of the biblical account of creation.12 In fact, both the emanationist and zimzum theories of creation, the two dominant models of kabbalistic reflection on the matter, deal specifically with divine activity that precedes the opening of the biblical narrative “In the beginning.” The kabbalistic/cosmological reflection about creation is more accurately a discussion of protocreativity—the transformation of God from undifferentiated Infinitude (eyn sof ) to cosmos—which creates the necessary condition for creation to unfold. Whereas Genesis 1 may teach its reader about the beginning of the world and God’s relationship to this “other,” kabbalistic creation myths teach about the origins of existence, a phenomenon that takes place solely in the inner-life of God before any “other” emerges.13 In this chapter I will focus on the concept of zimzum, one component of an influential kabbalistic myth that became central in sixteenth-century Kabbala.14 Although it played a minor role in medieval Kabbala, zimzum was developed and expanded by the well-known Kabbalist R. Isaac Luria (15341572) who, during his very brief stay in Safed, revolutionized kabbalistic discourse and doctrine.15 The larger impact and influence of Luria is beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to say, he was arguably the most important and influential Kabbalist since the author(s) of the Zohar in thirteenth-century Spain.16

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In this chapter I will make two basic claims. First, I will argue that zimzum, which is often mistakenly seen as a creation myth, in actuality constitutes a myth about divine origins or, alternatively, the origin of the God who creates.17 This distinction between origin and beginning is important in that it will illustrate how these Kabbalists understood the biblical text as a component of creation and thus alienated from the infinite God. Given that the interface between God and the Jew is mediated through Scripture, the isolation of origin (as distinct from beginning) will serve to locate the Kabbalists’ belief in the human retrieval of origin (overcoming beginning and the biblical text) as a necessary part of the redemptive drama. Following this trajectory, I will argue that the myth of zimzum was not limited to cosmological speculation but played a prominent role in the ways Kabbalists constructed models of human behavior (imitatio dei), specifically regarding the act of talmud torah (Torah study) as redemptive reading. The emulation of divine zimzum through study became the foundation of reading as a vehicle for liberating God, who is in exile in the narrative of the biblical text. To begin, zimzum is an act that occurs inside God as eyn sof (Infinite),18 setting the stage for the possibility of finitude. This is captured by the seventeenth-century kabbalist R. Shabbtai Sheftel Horowitz when he said, “. . . before creation, God contracted [zimzum] Himself in His own essence, as it were, from Himself to Himself and into Himself (m’azmo ‘el azmo u betokh azmo).19 The empty space in God’s essence (azmuto), resulting from zimzum, produced a receptacle to contain His emanation [what would be the world of Azilut (Emanation)]. . . and [subsequently] create [the worlds of ] Beriah (Creation), Yezeriah (Formation) and Asiah (Action).20” Zimzum is initially a self-contained act in eyn sof resulting in extra-eyn sof divinity that becomes, via emanation, the cosmos. Creation occurs from these cosmos, already one step removed from eyn sof itself. Although the distinction between origins and beginnings is not part of conventional kabbalistic parlance, this distinction that plays a central role in various other creation myths may shed light on the particular character of zimzum and the post-Lurianic focus on the knowledge of origins as a prerequisite for redemption.21 Most readers of the Bible understand the notion of beginning from Genesis 1:1 that depicts God’s relation to the world as Creator (“In the beginning God [Elohim] created”).22 The Bible gives us no information about God before creation nor any indication that the God who is acting in Genesis 1 is different from the God before that utterance.23 In other creation myths, however, we often find descriptions of God or gods before the beginning of the world. Such is the case with Kabbala in general and Lurianic Kabbala in particular. These Jewish mystical traditions are based on the

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description and elucidation of the changing nature of God from eyn sof to Creator (cosmos), while maintaining that this change is no indication of any actual change in God, who, as perfect, is unchanging. Invoking neoplatonic terminology, they assume a change in the existence (meziut) but not essence (mehut) of divinity as a prelude to the unfolding (hitpashtut) of creation.24 Genesis begins with the proclamation “In the beginning . . .” God is never described nor are any reasons given for his creating the world. While the midrash offers numerous “reasons for creation,” they all stay quite close to the biblical text in that their “reasons” are all framed within God’s relatedness to the world.25 This is not the case with Lurianic Kabbala, whose interest is not “why” God created the world or “how” He created it, but “how” God became Creator. One example will suffice to illustrate the ways Kabbalists speak directly to the question of origins rather than beginning, focusing on the nature of God before He was Creator. Luria’s closest disciple, R. Hayyim Vital, begins his abbreviated version of Etz Hayyim entitled ‘Ozrot Hayyim with the following statement: Before everything (tekhilat ha-kol)26 all existence was undifferentiated light (‘or pashut), called eyn sof. There was no space (halal) and no receptacle (avir panui).27 All existence was the light of eyn sof. When it went up in His undifferentiated Will (razon pashut)28 to emanate emanations,29 for the reason, as is well known, that He be called merciful and kind—for if there is nothing to receive His mercy how could He be called merciful?30. . . At that instant, He contracted Himself into the center of that undifferentiated light [resulting in] a central point. From that point He contracted Himself [again] outward from that point. What remained was a space between the point and the light extracted from it. This was the first zimzum of the lofty Emanator. . . 31

The use of the terms “emanation” and the description of God as “Lofty Emanator” is markedly not creation language.32 Standard creation verbs (bara, yazar) and God language (YHVH, Elohim, Yozer, Bore ‘Olam) are conspicuously absent. What this text speaks about is the birth of the cosmos as an extension of the divine—the birth of divine finitude, as it were, from eyn sof, in eyn sof, and then finally beyond eyn sof. It is noteworthy that in one of Vital’s later compendiums, Adam Yashar, he amends his abbreviated language in ‘Ozrot Hayyim [and Etz Hayyim] by using creation language in his description of the initial stage of divine Will. He states, “Before emanations were emanated and creations were created (nivra’u ha-nivra’im), the supernal light was undifferentiated. . . there was no category of eyn sof nor any rosh (head/Keter). . . When it

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went up in his undifferentiated Will to create world and emanate emanations. . . ”33 Although I am not familiar with any reason for the addition of creation language in this late text, it is striking that Vital chooses to include both creation and emanation locutions rather than substitute one for the other. In later kabbalistic texts that work within the Lurianic system, especially in Hasidism and other texts that attempt to read Lurianic cosmogony into/onto Genesis 1, emanation (or origin) language disappears, giving way to the more conventional (and exegetical) language of creation. In any event, the cosmogony apparent in both texts cited above have three distinct parts: (1) zimzum (cosmogony) is not emanation but leads to it, (2) torat ha-sephirot (cosmology) is the result of emanation and the true beginning of creation, and (3) beriah (Genesis 1) is the final phase of creation devoid of any explicit mention of emanation.34 Our Kabbalists are interested in (1) and (2) and spend little creative energy on or, pay little attention to (3).35 Yet (3) is where Genesis begins. The body of Lurianic discourse thus lives in the primordial space before Genesis 1:1, interested primarily in the conditions for creation and not creation itself. Although zimzum in Lurianic texts is largely a mythic trope mapping the cosmogonic origins of existence, post-Lurianic Kabbalists, especially those who either had philosophical or pietistic motives, reconstructed this mythic trope to become a model for human devotion, including the act of reading and study (talmud torah). In the post-Lurianic Kabbalists that serve as the basis for this study, zimzum has a devotional as well as a theosophical dimension. The Kabbalists in question understood zimzum as a divine act to be emulated by humankind through sacred reading, revealing the divinity of the text embedded in its external garments. The Lurianic Kabbalists posited a second zimzum that would consummate creation. The human enactment of zimzum through reading (and devotion in general) serves as the bridge between the first zimzum and second zimzum that will usher in the final phase of creation and return the world to its primordial origins.36 I. Between Origin and Beginning—A Philosophical Prolegomenon A distinction between origin and beginning that may help us clarify the kabbalistic phenomenon of zimzum can be found in Walter Benjamin’s discussion of origins in his The Origin of German Tragic Drama.37 Discussing Benedetto Croce’s theory of art as “intuition” rather than “expression,” arguing that art cannot be subject to classification or “historical deduction,” Benjamin suggests that history has two distinct dimensions, origin (Ursprung) and genesis (Entstehung).

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Origin (Ursprung), although an entirely historical category, has, nevertheless, nothing to do with genesis (Entstehung). The term origin is not intended to describe the process by which the existent came into being, but rather to describe that which emerges from the process of becoming and disappearance. Origin is an eddy in the stream of becoming, and in its current it swallows the material involved in the process of genesis. That which is original is never revealed in the naked and manifest existence of the factual: its rhythm is apparent only in a dual insight. On the one hand it needs to be recognized as a process of restoration and reestablishment, but on the other hand, and precisely because of this, as something imperfect and incomplete.38

The idea that origin “emerges from the process of becoming and disappearance” can be translated into cosmogonic language to mean that God’s creative act, the movement from Being to becoming, requires the eclipse of Being, a remnant of which is concealed in creation until it is restored in the final phase of the eschaton. The language of restoration in Benjamin is also used by Kabbalists to refer to a retrieval of origins, which serves as the foundation for kabbalistic reflection on traversing the chasm between creation and redemption. The kabbalistic understanding of redemption as restoration of primordial existence suggests that it is not only the world (becoming) that is imperfect and incomplete but that the very existence of the world is founded on the incomplete and unfulfilled God who creates it.39 This means that the cosmos (sephirot) require restoration as well as the material world. The notion of redemption extends beyond the material world to the supernal realms, and even to God Himself. This implies that the relational/creative God (or Godhead) of the cosmos is redeemed and restored to its original place in eyn sof. This underlies the theory of zimzum even though its advocates eschew the seemingly blasphemous statement of divine imperfection by bifurcating God into meta-Cosmos (eyn sof/infinite/pashut) and Cosmos (sephirot/finite/imperfect). The first is the radically transcendent God (not unlike Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover) whose Being is unaffected by becoming, and the latter is the God of creation (Plato’s receptacle or eternal pattern), who willfully becomes finite in order to create. It is this latter dimension of God that subsequently becomes the object of emulation (imitatio dei) for the Kabbalists. God’s disappearance (exile), the result of the volitional act of God to create limits (creation), is the direct result of zimzum as it initiates a process of divine effacement. It also serves as the culmination of that process (redemption) and the way in which humanity can hasten that eventuality.40 For the Lurianic Kab-

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balists, this initial act of divine concealment presupposes a second zimzum in the future that will yield the restoration of the initial Being to it fullness, now including the fulfilled “history” of becoming, more perfect than the initial perfection of Being.41 A similar idea appears in Benjamin’s analysis. According to Benjamin, the culmination of beginning is the restoration of origins that constitutes “a return which is simultaneously a leap beyond the original condition of perfection, its realization on a higher plane.”42 Benjamin calls the historical category of origin “pure history” that I have rendered “the history of God” as opposed to “natural history” or the “history of the world.” Commenting on Benjamin, Richard Wolin notes: “[Origin has nothing to do] with the idea of the emergence of a given phenomena at a determinate moment in time. Instead origin refers to history of a different type: not empirical history, in which the inessential being of the phenomena persists in its mere facticity, unredeemed, but a type of essential history, in which the phenomena stands revealed as it will one day in the light of Messianic fulfillment.”43 The redemptive quality of origins in Benjamin emerges from its teleological foundation. Origin begins with a condition of perfection that is eclipsed but not erased. Beginning (Entstehung/creation) is the first (historical) moment of this lost perfection (exile). Therefore, natural history or the history of the world is essentially the history of divine absence or exile. Benjamin himself noted that his notion of origin in the Trauerspiel is a Judaized or theological version of Goethe’s notion of Urphanomen that was drawn from ancient pagan literature.44 I will argue that zimzum largely functions as a kabbalistic Urphanomen and not a theory of beginning or genesis, which is understood as the phenomen itself. II. Origin and the Bifurcation of God Moving from Benjamin’s philosophical and literary/critical category of origins as a model for historicizing German idealism to the theological universe of kabbalistic theosophy is not as radical a leap as one might think. Essentially, Benjamin was trying to determine the nature of human creativity (in art and ideas) and subsequently the ways it can be evaluated. The Kabbalists were attempting to determine the nature of divine creativity in order to understand the Urphanomen of divine fragmentation and the ways toward the restoration of divine unity. Zimzum serves as the centerpiece of this cosmogonic reflection. In sixteenth-century kabbalistic theosophy, zimzum as origin can be now defined as follows: it is a protocreative volitional alteration of God’s inner life that bifurcates God’s infinite nature, resulting in a distinction between his es-

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sential nature (eyn sof ) and His relational or creative nature (torat ha-sephirot).45 This bifurcation enables the undifferentiated eyn sof (‘or pashut) to become a personalized biblical God who creates. Eyn Sof which is Will Willing Itself (razon ha-elyon) becomes divine Will (razson elohim), or the Will that seeks to bestow It’s kindness on creation. It is this relational nature that is the subject of Genesis’ proclamation, “In the beginning.” Although never fleshed out, the volitional character of zimzum is imperative for the Kabbalists, as any suggestion of the necessity of creation would take the Kabbalists back to Aristotle’s eternity argument largely rejected in medieval Jewish philosophy. Although most Kabbalists of this period do not discuss the nature of divine Will as creative Will, it is assumed that creation is a free act of divine Will that sets in motion a cosmological process that is ordered but not necessary.46 While creation (Genesis 1) may be the byproduct of divine Will and happens outside of God’s essence, origin (zimzum) or the act that bifurcates God’s essence, occurs solely within God—it is an inner divine phenomenon which results in the possibility of existence of God’s “other,” that is, creation.47 Since origin (zimzum) results in divine limitation by introducing God’s relational (i.e., creative) nature as the subject of divine creativity, it is seen by some kabbalists simultaneously as the genesis of divine exile and the birth of esotericism (hokhmat ha-nistar/torat ha-sod), the latter understood as the secret of redemption lodged in the biblical narrative.48 There is a similitude, perhaps even an identity, between exile and creation in this kabbalistic system. Exile is alienation, between God (eyn sof ) and God (cosmos), God (cosmos) and his presence in the world (Shekhina), and God and His people (Israel). Israel’s experience of exile is an act of collective imitatio dei. The imperfection of God’s presence in the world (Shekhina), itself a definition of galut, has two parts: (1) His Will is concealed in the world; and (2) His presence (Shekhina) is separated from His essence (eyn sof ).49 Restoration occurs when those concealed elements are revealed in their fullness, subsuming the exoteric reading of Scripture the way redemption subsumes history.50 While Lurianic Kabbalists accepted the integrative relationship between creation and Torah, a midrashic idea that is fundamental for kabbalistic theories of creation in general, zimzum speaks to the Kabbalists in a way that extends beyond its cosmogonic context. Zimzum serves as the foundation for redemptive reading, a retrieval of the origins of God’s creativity that is concealed in the biblical narrative. To uncover and understand the esoteric message of Scripture is to move beyond the text to the speechless origins of divine zimzum accessed through human zimzum. The silent word, which is the divine text unspoken (Torah Kadumah) is apprehended through the enactment of zimzum, resulting in: (1) the experience of the creativity of God (Torah

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Kadumah); and (2) liberating that creative force to act in the world (redemption). Zimzum becomes the trope of esoteric redemptive reading that includes enacting the origin of creation (zimzum) within the creation.51 When this retrieval of origin is complete, creation dissolves and God is perfected (mushlam).52 The redemptive reader, by reading through the lens of origins (zimzum), is always looking for the end (culmination) of humanity, past Genesis 1, to the origin before the Beginning. As the originary divine movement from eyn sof to finitude, zimzum presupposes that the biblical description “In the beginning” (bere’shit bara elohim) taken together with the endless attempts throughout classical Jewish literature to understand its meaning, is insufficient for understanding the conditions which make creation possible.53 This point is not solely the product of kabbalistic reflection. The twentieth-century theologian Emile Fackenheim notes: [T]he Biblical creation myth does not explain cosmic origins. The Greek cosmogonies may do so, for they derive the present world of man from a prior world of gods. The Biblical creation account, however, reveals the incommensurability of an infinite God with all things finite. Hence it does not and cannot explain the origin of the world but only assert it: “creation” is the primordial miracle.54

Fackenheim acknowledges that Genesis can, at best, assert creation as a miracle precisely because it fails to address the cosmogonic question of origins. The Lurianic Kabbalists enter to fill this lacuna in biblical theology by developing origin myths that precede the commencement of the biblical narrative. For these Kabbalists, the creation story in Genesis is post facto. The mystery of the origin of divine finitude had already taken place before Genesis 1. In short, the primordial movement from eyn sof to finitude, from unity to exile, from the One to the many, precedes the scriptural account of creation, which is merely the consequence of the fragmentation of divine unity. Zimzum is thus not part of the biblical drama of creation but creates the condition for its possibility. As zimzum creates the conditions for existence, it is not part of existence. I will argue that this idea also serves as the foundation of kabbalistic esoteric reading. As was the case for most esotericists who were proponents of mystical secrecy yet never abandoned the truth of the exoteric canon, these Kabbalists developed methods of reading Scripture in order to unlock its primordial origins, retrieving the text before the text, the Primordial Torah (Torah Kaduma) within God.55 For many in this tradition, reading was understood as a reversal of divine creativity: moving from the text that describes (and serves as the foundation of)

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creation back to the origins of existence (zimzum), which serves as the condition for creation. Mystical reading of this sort is simultaneously an emulation and reversal of divine zimzum, serving to bring the written text to its primordial beginnings, beyond speech, beyond writing, to the nexus between the infinite One and the moment of its fragmentation (exile). This is generally how these Kabbalists define the redemptive process. Although zimzum does not emerge by means of conventional exegesis, it has strong hermeneutic implications that underlie the entire kabbalistic relationship to reading Scripture. Paul Riceour defines the originary act of reading as follows: “The primary task of hermeneutics is not to bring about a decision in the text but first to allow the world of being that is the ‘thing’ of the biblical text to unfold.”56 The “thing” of the text in our case is the alteration of divine infinitude via zimzum, resulting in the emergence of Scripture and subsequently creation. The “thing” of the text is both absent and silent, eclipsed at the moment God’s presence is revealed in the text. Zimzum is the genesis of divine exile (bifurcation/sephirot) and thus the condition for beginning (creation). The infusion of divine presence via the direct light of emanation (kav ha-yashar), presupposes His absence (halal/avir panui). This occurrence is simultaneously the first historical moment of divine exile and the beginning of its restoration (redemption). By focusing on origin (zimzum) rather than beginning (creation) these Kabbalists sought to locate the germ of exile in an attempt to overcome it by completing the redemptive process of creation through mystical reading. This final dissolution of exile lies in the silence outside the text that needs to efface the spokeness of the text. This silence is the first word uttered by the already exilic God, a God who stands between His perfection (eyn sof ) and His deficient creation.57 III. Exile and the History of God The phenomenon of exile is one of the more fascinating ways Jews understand their covenental relationship to and experience of God.58 David Roskies, recently reflecting on modern Judaism’s use of exile as a touchstone for its national and cultural identity, portrayed this enduring phenomenon in the following manner. “What distinguished the Jews from other uprooted peoples, however, was the symbolic shorthand that they developed, a modern ‘semiotics of exile’ that allowed them to read their individual experience in the light of historical archetypes.”59 In my view, Roskies’ “semiotics of exile” not only captures the Jewish obsession with exile but its need for exile—Jews see the world and thus create their world, including their relationship to God, through the prism of exile and alienation. In the centuries following the destruction of the Second Commonwealth, Rabbinic Judaism read its contemporary experience of exile

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into the entire tradition, beginning with the biblical narrative of Genesis, (including Adam and Eve’s departure from the Garden of Eden), continuing with the Israelite descent into Egypt and the history of the Israelites in the desert, culminating with the experience of destruction in the First and Second Commonwealth. The notion of exile progressed from a deficiency in the covenant, i.e., a divine response to sin, which is rooted in Deuteronomy and prophetic literature, to a necessary stage in the drama of redemption.60 The sixteenth-century kabbalistic notion of zimzum projected the exilic trope back even further, claiming that creation itself originates with an act of divine exile, making Israel’s exilic experience in history an emulation of God’s inner life.61 It is therefore predictable that, when describing zimzum, the eighteenth-century Kabbalist R. Moshe Hayyim Luzatto would describe the genesis of the sephirot in the following manner: “[T]he sephirot were all contained in eyn sof [before zimzum], even as we cannot say they existed in the same manner they do now [after zimzum]. When they were exiled (ub’higalutam) from Him [i.e., eyn sof ], they took on the new form they now have.”62 The consequence of zimzum, here read as the birth (or transformation) of the sephirot from potentia to actu, is described using exilic language embodied in the verb form of the word galut (exile). Invoking Walter Benjamin’s distinction above infused with the theosophic nomenclature of the Kabbala, we can say that exile moves backward from the foundation of natural history, the facticity of events, to pure history, the life of God. Taking this trope of exile to extend beyond creation itself, divine exile becomes the originary divine act that made history (creation) possible by concealing the infinite nature of God. The problematic theological consequences of this originary act as exilic did not go unnoticed in Jewish philosophical thought, even among those whose relationship to Kabbala was, at best, marginal. For example, in distinguishing between Halakhic Man and the mystic, Rabbi Soloveitchik notes that, for the mystic: “. . . the existence of the world [is] a type of affront to God’s glory; the cosmos, as it were, impinges upon the infinity of the creator. The Kabbala senses and empathizes with the anguish of Shekhinta be-galuta, the Divine Presence in exile—the glory of God that emerged from the hiddenness of infinity, that became embodied in the creation of the cosmos, and that became contracted in it and by it.” 63

Soloveitchik observed that the kabbalistic notion of zimzum is posited precisely to create a discontinuity in God’s own nature, making the creative act and its product a divine act of self-imposed exile, compromising God’s infinity for the sake of the finite. Although Soloveitchik suggested Halakhic Man has a more positive view of the world than one who adopts the theory

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of zimzum (Mystical Man?), in this text he misses the fact that the Kabbalists’ intent is precisely to posit a compromised God that can be emulated by humanity as opposed to the radically transcendent God of the philosophers who shares nothing with His creation.64 That is, in this text Soloveitchik did not recognize the extent to which the kabbalistic idea of God was at least partially an attempt to replace the radically transcendent God of Maimonidean rationalism.65 As Gershom Scholem suggested, it very well may be that divine exile (zimzum) is a justificatory projection of Israel’s experience in history. It may also serve a positive function as a way of constructing Israel’s devotional life that enabled mitzvot to survive the philosophical critique waged against it in the Middle Ages.66 For the Kabbalists, the radical transcendence of God presented by the medieval philosophers could not serve as a healthy model for imitatio dei. Maimonides’ notion of imitatio dei as both abstract thinking (Guide I:1) and compassion (Guide III:53) is implicitly rejected and viewed as destabilizing the theological efficacy of mitzvot.67 For the Kabbalists in question, zimzum was understood as the first expression of divine Will, the Will toward finitude, resulting in the genesis of love, symbolically depicted as hesed (grace).68 Implicit in zimzum is a highly romanticized notion of love that is predicated on the sacrifice (concealment) of selfhood, requiring an initial rupture (and thus diminishing) of the divine self in order to create the possibility of relation.69 This relation is exemplified both in the engendering of the Godhead (the sephirot) and the engendering of God’s relationship to the world (brit). Both are built on the foundation of desire (ta’avah)—the former (sephirot) being the desire for restoration in the unity and eventual effacement of a gendered cosmos, the latter (brit—covenant) being God’s desire to choose Israel as the recipients of His Torah (election).70 The bifurcated God resulting from zimzum (eyn sof versus sephirot— essence versus relation) is reflected in the bifurcated cosmos (masculine-feminine) and served as the basis of the rabbinic depiction of the covenant at Sinai as a wedding between God and his bride, Israel. The restoration of the former comes about via the fulfillment and culmination of the latter. In Lurianic Kabbala, the culmination of divine love is concretized in the reification of erotic copulation and birth (yihud and layda). These mythic symbols depict: (1) the temporal unification (restoration) of the gendered cosmos (love or the product of desire); and (2) the separation and alienation of the self (birth) in order to reproduce the desire necessary for the perpetuation of love. Zimzum is thus a simultaneous expression of self-alienation and love, viewed as God’s exile into Himself to give birth to His own finitude.71 This bifurcation of God in theosophic Kabbala results in two distinct but related phenomena: divine speech (creation), and divine text (revelation).

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These are the two dominant consequences of divine exile, each holding the key to His restoration. As we will presently see, divine speech/creation, culminating in sacred Scripture/revelation, illustrates the depths of historical and literary exile in the kabbalistic imagination. Some post-Lurianic Kabbalists, evoking the tripartite model of sefer (text), sephar (number), and sippur (speech) found in Sefer Yezeriah add a third component; the unreadable book, the source that serves as the origin of divine speech and the destination of the esoteric reader of the divine text.72 IV. God’s Speech and Reading the Unreadable Book As explained above, God’s exile begins before the beginning—it is the very condition for beginning. It is framed by Kabbalists as the silent speech or the unspoken text that serves as the Platonic eternal pattern of creation.73 This exilic speech then yields the ten utterances (‘asara ma’amarot), which become the tools of creation.74 The Kabbalists, searching for the origin of divine speech internal to God Himself or the infinite (silent) language of God, conjure a silent utterance (ma’amar satum) that lies at the root of the ten utterances of creation.75 This silent utterance serves to emphasize creation (the ten utterances) as the second phase of divine movement, a phase that already stems from God’s finitude. The silent speech (ma’amar satum) brings forth creation speech (ma’amarot or dibburim), that is heard, followed by a text that is seen and subsequently read.76 Creation speech, when transformed into the written word via divine speech (revelation) becomes Scripture. The Torah in the form of a text, which is preceded by the divine word heard at Sinai, is viewed as the final stage of God’s self-imposed exile. In this light, the theophany at Sinai is envisioned as the moment the Jewish people inherit the yoke of the exilic God (Scripture) and are commanded to redeem Him through the performance of mitzvot.77 This God, whose voice is heard (and seen) at Sinai, is, as Creator, a God unfulfilled. This only deepens the correlation between God and the estranged and exilic nation of Israel. The reciprocity of the covenental partnership (brit) is that both parties are in need of redemption. The covenental nation is comprised of an exilic people unredeemed, carrying the message of an exilic God unfulfilled. The parties of the covenant, God, Torah, and Israel, share a common bond—the experience of exile.78 For our Kabbalists, the act of zimzum, the originary act that preceded the overarching ontology of exile, serves as the matrix of redemption; the redemption of God, of Scripture, and the culmination of creation. For many of the Kabbalists who incorporate this into their thinking, zimzum is an idea that must be infused into the devotional life of Israel in order to reconstruct the fragments of exile and thus complete the process that zimzum began.

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If zimzum is the “necessary exile” that embodies the origin of becoming, it is also the “necessary exile” that precedes every transformation from being to being, i.e., every movement of becoming.79 The human enactment of zimzum as imitatio dei is the devotional method for such transformation. On this point Martin Buber observes, Man cannot finish and yet he must begin, in the most serious actual way. This was once stated by a Hasid in a somewhat paradoxical interpretation of the first verse in Genesis; “In the beginning,” that means for the sake of the beginning;80 for the sake of beginning did God create the heaven and the earth. For the sake of man’s beginning that there might be one who would and should begin to move in the direction of God.81

For the Kabbalists, this movement in the direction of God can only be accomplished by re-enacting God’s movement toward finitude (creation) by means of zimzum. As Buber implies, many of those influenced by Kabbala, especially (but not exclusively) in Hasidism, were primarily not metaphysicians who were interested in the “how” of creation for its own sake.82 Just as zimzum was the way they understood the transformation of the One to the many it was the way they envisioned how the human being (as zelem elohim) restores the many back to the One.83 The covenant is fulfilled and subsequently completed via a reenactment of zimzum in order to restore that which divine zimzum began (divine exile), resulting in the divine response of a second zimzum (zimzum sheini) that completes this redemptive return.84 This kabbalistic notion of human piety as a reversal of divine zimzum is reflected in Edward Said’s notion of beginning as reversal. “Let us then formulate this general definition of any beginning that involves reversal, change of direction, the institution of a durable movement that increasingly engages our interest. . . ”85 Said suggests that beginning is change without novelty. That is, any reversal of the past, even (or precisely) as it preserves the past, constitutes beginning. In the kabbalistic imagination, God’s protocreative movement from eyn sof to finitude is part of Israel’s covenental inheritance— it is God’s “durable movement that increasingly engages our interest.” V. Reading Past the Beginning: Zimzum and Esoteric Reading The trope of zimzum as a model of reading functions on various levels. It is important to state at the outset that zimzum does not offer us any new practical way of reading Scripture. Rather, it is a description of the mental processes of the redemptive reader (imitating the processes of God’s initial act

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of Will) who seeks either to redeem God from the text by reconstructing it (Zohar) or unveil the coded message of the text by reading it through an independent mythic narrative (Luria). The symbolic/midrashic method common in the Zohar, which draws out esoteric meaning from the text, and the mythic method of Luria and his circle, who use their mythic drama (constructed from the text) as a grid through which to reread Scripture, are both illustrations of such kabbalistic reading.86 Both offer radical reconfigurations of the Bible that they claim turns the text inside out, thus revealing its inner core. This type of reading reflects a reversal of zimzum, which is itself a reversal toward infinitude. In its cosmological form zimzum, through contraction, turns God inside out in order to bring forth the possibility of the finite. In its human form, zimzum turns the text inside out, revealing its infinite core. I would like now to briefly examine zimzum as it might be used as a trope of reading that is simultaneously creative and redemptive. This requires: (1) reading; (2) reciting; and (3) interpreting the Torah as the embodiment of the exiled God.87 Mystical readers envision the Torah as broken or fractured divinity. The act of reading functions as tikkun (rectification) of that brokenness. Zimzum is used as a technique to return the divine Word of Scripture to its silent infinite origins by deconstructing the written word until it once again becomes open speech (dibbur—study), closed speech (ma’mar satum—contemplation), and pure thought (eyn sof ). Harold Bloom’s suggestion that zimzum is a substitution of the finite for the infinite, which could not be maintained after creation, sharpens the Lurianic presentation of redemptive reading that I am suggesting. Paradoxically God’s name was too strong for His words, and the breaking of the vessels necessarily became a divine act of substitution, in which the original pattern yielded to a more chaotic one that nevertheless remained pattern, the guarantee of which was that the vessel of the tenth and last Sephirah, Malkhut, or the female world, broke also but less severely than the other vessels splintered.88

According to Bloom, substitution is an act that replaces one thing for another while denying any absolute distinction between them. In the creation model Bloom cites, this new manifestation is chaotic yet contains the essence of order. The kabbalistic substitution of the finite for the infinite (zimzum/ shvirah) is temporary—its purpose is to be overcome through esoteric reading. Torah is the chaotic form of the exiled God (God as finite) and therefore reading Torah is by definition misreading God as Eyn Sof. Yet the Kabbalists in question, reared in the neoplatonic world of unity and restoration, have a far

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more optimistic outlook than the Gnostic Bloom.89 The very act of study as misreading reverses the substitution of chaos and order and begins a reordering of the chaotic finite God, culminating in redemption. Using Said’s suggestion of beginning as reversal coupled with Bloom’s notion of substitution, I would suggest that the human enactment of zimzum is a reverse substitution that inverts the process that Paul Ricoeur calls “distantiation,” the “cultural estrangement” of writing resulting from speech becoming text.90 For our purposes, Ricoeur’s distantiation may refer to the human estrangement from God’s will as a result of His word becoming exilic text. The dialectical component here is that our only access to divine Will is through its concealment or fragmentation.91 Kabbalistic reading intends to rend the veil of the text while concealing its meaning. It is an act of exposing the concealed God.92 Yet the more He is exposed, the more concealed He becomes until the moment when human zimzum evokes the second zimzum of God, which overcomes the need for the text altogether as creation comes to an end. This itself is an act of zimzum; concealing to reveal and then reading to reveal that which is concealed, which lies at the root of esoteric reading. It restores the finite (revelation/Scripture) back to its infinite source (beginning/Divine Speech) and finally its protocreative origin (eyn sof ). As primordial zimzum moved the concealed origin (silent speech—ma’mar satum) to the revealed beginning (creation speech/God’s Word), through reading, human zimzum takes the result of beginning (Scripture) and returns it to origin. In the kabbalistic imagination, this entire enterprise is played out in language.93 Later Kabbalists are particularly adamant about denying any significant distinction between the written Torah and the divine word of creation first spoken and then written at Sinai. However, the conventional notion that divine speech (creation) preceded divine writing (revelation) is not at all clear. In fact, R. Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna (GRA), suggests that spoken language, as opposed to the silent language of God (ma’amar satum), is the result of the cosmic rupture (shvirat ha-kelim) following zimzum yet preceding creation. Speaking about the space created from this cosmic rupture (‘olam hanekudim) he states: The removal and rupture [of divine light] exists in the realm of nekudim (lit. dots, but here referring to Hebrew vowels. . . These (vowels) are the roots of all letters. There is no letter without a vowel (neduka) and no creation that does not result from that rupture (nekuda). Any unvoweled/unruptured thing has no existence. This is God’s will. . . When the nekudot left their vessels [and descended], like the vowels under the Hebrew letters, they came to constitute the life of the cosmos as vowels give life to the let-

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ters. There is no possible movement/vocalization of the letters without the vowels.94

This text suggests that precreative divine language, before spoken language (which emerges out of the cosmic rupture), consists of letters without vowels (and thus silent), or letters whose vowels are not yet distinguished. The “life of language” as a communicative tool occurs only when the vowels descend below the letters. In other words, creation emerges out of rupture. In another place the GRA suggests that this first prevocalized and thus noncommunicative language (Hebrew letters without vowels) is the primordial text of God, a text that is unread because it cannot be read.95 Although the speech act or creation speech is the first act of the Creator God or God as finite, some Kabbalists define the source of this creation speech as the result of God’s reading a primordial text; the silent concealed text alluded to in Sefer Yezeriah or the Torah Kadumah (Primordial Torah) of Sefer Temunah. Sefer Yezeriah 1:1 introduces a tripartite form of the Hebrew root SFR (to speak) as Sefer, Sephar, and Sippur.96 The GRA understood these three phases as follows: Sefer—the Sealed Book; Sephar—the letters that are disclosed to the one who reveals/speaks this Book; and Sippur—the narrative of the Torah, which serves as the map of creation.97 He suggested that the Sefer represents a concealed text that is read by God (through the letters that are Sephar) and then revealed in the Sippur (the narrative of Torah).98 Using these and other texts, Elliot Wolfson has recently argued that this provocative interpretation of the GRA suggests that divine writing actually precedes divine speech.99 According to this approach, the ten utterances that rabbinic tradition depicted as God’s Creation/creative act were actually the product of God reading the concealed book and, through speech, bringing forth the exilic written text of Scripture. This is understood by Wolfson to mean that the concealed book is revealed by clothing it in/with speech. Invoking Bloom’s theory of zimzum as substitution and Said’s notion of beginning as “changing direction” may strengthen Wolfson’s claim. The closed book, or the inactive protocreative realm of the Divine, becomes open and thus creative when speech (Sephar) substitutes the primordial written word (Sefer). This change of direction from unread (or unreadable) text to read text is exemplified in the shift from Sefer to Sephar, a shift in orientation that maintains the original root of SFR. The price of this movement is exile as it occurs via descent, in the case of language the descent of the vowels below the letters that result in language as communication (speech).100 The garment of speech or, more precisely, speech as garment (Sephar) does not replace the concealed book (Sefer); it merely clothes the book by means of substitution or zimzum. It/God be-

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comes revealed (Sephar) by concealing its/God’s primordial roots (Sefer).101 Zimzum acts simultaneously as concealment and disclosure in that divine speech (Sephar) envelops the primordial silent speech of divine writing, concealing the primordial text (Sefer). This substitution of primordial text for divine speech creates, as it were, the Creator God, revealed in the world through Sippur or the narrative to Torah. The Kabbalists influenced by the Lurianic tradition were a strange amalgam of metaphysicians and mythic narrators. They consistently attempted to depict their cosmology in embodied language, creating a mythic cosmos using the symbolic language of the Zohar. 102 As mentioned earlier, the Lurianic Kabbalists focused particularly on the birth metaphor as it represents both continuity of self and alienation from self simultaneously.103 The verse depicting humans beings as created b’zelem elokim (in the image of God, which the Kabbalists took quite literally, even visually) was an obvious influence on the Kabbalistic depiction of the cosmos from the perspective of human growth and development. I would add that the physical dimension of the birth metaphor as concealing and revealing the fetus also presents a window into a deeper understanding of zimzum. In the kabbalistic depiction of cosmic birth, the consciousness (mohin) of the primordial father (Abba) and mother (Imma) descend into the fetus, enabling it to become revealed (birth). The cosmic child is the carrier of this new consciousness, bringing new divinity into the world. Unlike physical birth, cosmic birth is liminal; it is always on the way to something beyond itself (i.e., redemption/restoration). Pregnancy and birth are temporal categories as both result in the daily return of the child (Zeir Anpin) to the primordial womb, carrying with it lost sparks liberated through the performance of mitzvot. Through its reabsorption into the cosmic mother (Imma), the child (Zeir Anpin) restores the fragmented Godhead, hastening redemption. Birth, like creation, is an exilic phenomenon that contains the seeds of redemption. The child is a new creation, alienated from the warmth and comfort of the womb. She is not a reproduction of her parents but holds the potential to transcend them, fulfilling what her parents were unable to accomplish. It has been duly noted that some Kabbalists may have mythically construed the notion of zimzum as exile from the midrashic depiction of the Shekhina’s descent into Egypt and God’s descent into the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple.104 The usage of zimzum in the Kabbala, as opposed to its usage in rabbinic literature, takes on the additional meaning of being a catalyst for transformation through simultaneous acts of concentration and expansion. The first implants the higher consciousness of Abba and Imma as in-

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active kernels in the soon to emerge “beginning” (Zeir Anpin/creation/the Shekhina’s descent to Egypt). Expansion then catapults the inner force of the divine into exile (revelation/the Shekhina in the Holy of Holies). Scholem captured this transition when he said, “every movement of regression toward the source has something of a new zimzum about it.”105 As presented, the concept of zimzum represents birth as exile. This occurs in two ways. First, birth is the externalization of the self, yielding a vision of the self as the alienated other. This notion of estrangement is a fundamental principle in Lurianic theodicy. Evil is depicted as goodness (divine sparks) disconnected from its source that becomes the life force of the demonic (kelippot). Second, a reshimu (remnant) of the self remains hidden and inactive in the exilic child awaiting redemption and reunion with its source.106 The reunion of the alienated other and the activation of the alienated self implanted in the other take place through the biblical covenant, beginning with the Noahide covenant made with nature, continuing with the Abrahamic covenant of the male body, culminating in the Sinaitic covenant of commandment.107 The alienating element in this process is the disjunction of two realms of light that descend into the void (halal) after zimzum—the returning light (‘or hozer) that retreats when it confronts evil, and the embedded light (nizuz/the sparks) that is trapped in the realm of the demonic in need of restoration. Evil results from the further alienation of the already fragmented God (shvirat ha-kelim). Cosmic birth functions within the context of this fragmentation but does so for the sake of restoration. In this schema, redemption exists through exile, not by rejecting it or even by overcoming it.108 Exile must play itself out through the daily descent and ascent of cosmic forces (birth) that gather divine fragments and return them to their source. This entire drama of zimzum, birth, and return to the primordial mother, is replayed daily through the performance of mitzvot, accompanied by the appropriate contemplative focus (kavannot and yihudim).109 Adopting the rabbinic notion that Torah study (talmud torah) is juxtaposed to the entire structure of mitzvot, these Kabbalists also claimed that this cosmic drama is enacted through the act of reading. Recitation and the verbal study of Torah are speechacts that substitutes the written word for speech, allowing the inactive potential of creation speech (embedded in the exilic text) to emerge out of the written text. The transformation of the written text to the spoken word ultimately reunites Scripture with the primordial concealed written text of God (Torah Kaduma). The process thus moves from creation (Scripture), to beginning (Creation Speech) and finally to origin (the concealed book that God reads and thus creates).110 This notion is close to the kabbalistic formulation I am suggesting

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without the strong exile/redemption matrix of kabbalistic discourse. All this rests on the assumption that Bloom’s translation of zimzum as substitution is essentially correct. For the Kabbalists, the speech of Torah study is an act of substitution (zimzum), enabling the exilic written text to reveal the concealed divine speech hidden within it. As God reads the concealed book to create exile, we read the exilic text of Scripture to bring about redemption. VI. Three Late Kabbalistic Perspectives To substantiate my claim that the idea of zimzum is envisioned as a trope of reading in post-Lurianic Kabbala, I will examine the comments of three Kabbalists trained in the Lurianic tradition: R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzato (Ramhal, eighteenth-century Italy), R. Yizhak Isik Haver Waldman (nineteenthcentury Lithuania), and R. Dov Baer Schneurson of Lubavitch (nineteenthcentury White Russia, the second Rebbe in the Habad dynasty, known as the Mittler Rebbe). Luzzato was strongly influenced by Lurianic Kabbala through the writings of R. Moshe Yona, R. Israel Sarug, R. Menahem Azaria da Fano, and the Renaissance Kabbalist R. Abraham Ha-Kohen Herrera.111 He led a brief and provocative life, composing many works on Kabbala that had a wide-ranging influence on subsequent generations.112 His writings on Kabbala and ethics became classic texts for subsequent generations in all of Europe (East and West) and exhibit a philosophical sophistication common in post-Renaissance Italy coupled with a strong mystical and devotional foundation. Haver, a disciple of R. Menahem Mendel of Sklov and the school of the Gaon of Vilna, was a close reader of Luzzato’s kabbalism and its Lithuanian interpretation. He was one of the most prolific Lithuanian Kabbalists in the nineteenth-century and responsible for much of the dissemination of the Vilna Gaon’s Kabbala in eastern Europe and Palestine. R. Dov Baer, the son of R. Shneur Zalman of Liady, developed the early Hasidic and particularly Habad interpretation of Lurianic kabbalism. Emblematic of the Hasidic (i.e., metaphorical) reading of Lurianic Kabbala, R. Dov Baer’s literary contribution lies largely in developing his father’s ideas, particularly on the issue of bittul ha-yesh (self annihilation).113 Ramhal, particularly in his KLAH Pithei Hokhma (138 Paths of Wisdom), devotes numerous chapters to zimzum and consistently invokes this idea throughout his large corpus.114 Underlying Ramhal’s position is Abraham HaKohen Herrera’s assertion that zimzum serves as the condition for creation but not creation itself or, in our terminology, origin but not beginning.115 Building on his Renaissance predecessors, Ramhal presents an ethical rather than a spatial interpretation of the entire protocreative process.116 That is, zimzum is

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a change in divine Will in order to create the possibility of relation but does not point to any cosmic movement. He begins with the assumption that infinitude, if it contains everything, must also contain the finite.117 Before creation, the finite existed in infinity’s negation of it. In this schema, the only difference between God (eyn sof ) and world (divinity that contains the actualization of the finite) is that finitude exists in God via its negation. After creation the negative relation is maintained but reversed: God exists in the world through concealment. Zimzum facilitates this reversal. It can be defined as the willful act of God as eyn sof to remove the inherent negation of the finite resulting in: (1) the externalization or manifestation of finitude (creation); and (2) the concealment of the infinite in the finite. Zimzum functions as an interpretive tool to understand creation while maintaining two theological principles—the perfection of God and the possibility of the covenant. First, it suggests that the emergence of finitude (existence/creation) does not alter the unchanging nature of the infinite God (eyn sof ). Second, it offers a kabbalistic foundation for covenental theology by embedding God in creation as divine exile (in Scripture) making Israel responsible for God’s redemption. Torah study becomes a redemptive act that liberates God from the product of His own doing, that is, zimzum. Ramhal takes the position that zimzum is necessary as a prerequisite for creation, which is the completion of God’s perfection. Basing himself on midrashic sources, he argues that zimzum was necessary in order for God’s infinite nature to be maintained while creating the world.118 God’s volitional removal of His negation of the finite is not viewed as compromising His infinitude but as the fulfillment of God as infinite.119 This idea is substantiated in the following manner. Ramhal suggests that God as infinite is perfect (shalem) but not perfected (mushlam) because the potential for the finite, which existed by means of its negation, had never been realized. By removing His negation of the finite, giving birth to creation, He realizes the fulfillment of His own infinitude.120 Herrera understood it this way: “The light of the sephirot are not new. . . but primordial (kadmon). It is God’s Will [via zimzum] that allows them to be seen. Therefore, there is no revelation in God (eyn gilluy b’Elohut) only in what is revealed to those who receive it.”121 God before creation (eyn sof ) conceals his finitude in the infinite. God after creation (sephirot) conceals His infinitude in the finite. God’s infinite nature remains unchanged, both outside and within creation. What changes is the dimension of his essence that is concealed.122 This observation squares with the general kabbalistic understanding of creation ex nihilo—reading nothing (Ayin) as No-thing or the infinite eyn sof. 123 The creation (finitude) is not “new” but always existed in God (eyn sof ). But, as internal to

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God, it never “existed” until God no longer negated its existence. The Kabbalistic eyn sof has Will even as this Will may be created, that is, created as a condition for creation. Therefore, Keter, the most elevated element in the sephirotic system, is sometimes called “Divine Will” (Razon Ha-Elyon) and sometimes called eyn sof. That is, it is eyn sof relative to creation, but, as Will, is already not eyn sof in its precreative form. This is all for the sake of maintaining the biblical account of ex nihilo, while acknowledging: (1) a necessary change in eyn sof in order to create; and (2) defending the unchanging nature of eyn sof as perfect. This position is not defended exegetically but speculatively, focusing on the condition for creation and not creation itself. God’s infinitude makes everything that comes into existence already existing in God. Ex-nihilo for the Kabbalists only means that everything that exists and can exist already exists in God. Or, in Aristotelian terms, nothing comes from nothing, understood by Kabbala to mean everything comes from No-thing. As stated above, zimzum implies concealment and disclosure simultaneously; the concealed state of the infinite in creation are the sephirot and the reshimu (remnant of divine light after its removal, which will be discussed below). Concerning the notion of finitude emerging by the removal of its negation, Ramhal states: There are objects that affirm a certain principle by including that principle in itself. There are objects that affirm, by negation, the very thing that are their opposite. Let us take death as an example. Death has no meaning outside of life, as death is nothing more than the absence of life. Hence, death includes life by its negation. This is not true of life, which can be understood without death. So too, infinitude includes finitude by means of its negation of it. . . . When God no longer intends to maintain infinitude (lit. limitlessness) by negating the finite, the finite exists as it does now. God didn’t think of creating the finite but only of removing its negation. When infinitude no longer negated the finite, the finite existed by means of the absence of its negation.124

Underlying Ramhal’s statement is Herrera’s two-part notion that zimzum is an act of divine Will rather than a change in divine Essence (i.e., zimzum should be understood metaphorically, lo k’peshuto, and not literally, k’peshuto) and that zimzum is only a condition for creation and not part of creation itself.125 Understood as a volitional removal of the negation of the finite, zimzum enables two things to happen. First, it causes the infinite to become concealed in the finite, reversing that which existed before zimzum (where the finite in potentia

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was concealed in the infinite). The concealed element of the infinite in the finite is called the reshimu (remnant), while its connection to its infinite source is called kav yashar (direct light). Second, zimzum readdresses a problem inherent in the neoplatonic emanation theory of creation in earlier Kabbala. The earlier kabbalistic tradition faced the dilemma of how the infinite, which is the source of emanation, becomes finite.126 The emanationist model assumes that all manifestations of emanation are rooted in the One (God). With zimzum, the source of emanation is concealed in all manner of emanation. Not, however, by being its root but by serving as its foundation.127 There is no linear progression from the One to the many. The emanation of the direct light (kav ha-yashar) into the circular void is already part of the “many” resulting from the concealment of the One through zimzum. God is in much closer proximity to creation according to the zimzum theory than the emanationist scheme, even as in the former His presence is concealed. According to the model of zimzum, while eyn sof may still be the “source of sources,” the emanation of divine light (kav ha-yashar) into finite existence (halal hapaneui) had already taken on the characteristic of finitude via God’s abandoning His negation of the finite.128 Zimzum suggests a transformation of God in God prior to the act of creation. The world contains divinity not because it is linearly connected to the One via emanation but because a remnant of God (reshimu) serves as the very foundation of the material world. The Gnostic component here is that this remnant is trapped in the demonic realm of existence in need of liberation through God’s chosen people (Israel) enacting God’s chosen behavior (mitzvot). The Lurianic Kabbalists projected their own exile onto God, making exile the covenental bond (brit) that makes for a codependent relationship between Israel and God. This codependency is more covert than explicit in our texts but does shine through the theosophical language of our thinkers. For example, Ramhal states: The light that is seen (i.e., that has limits) appears to be new but in truth is only a remnant of primordial [infinite] light that was diminished through zimzum. This emanated light is called the remnant [reshimu] of primordial light that could not be distinguished due to its grandeur. This is the secret meaning of the statement that the reshimu encompasses all of existence. This reshimu contains all that will be in the future. . . however this could not exist if God does not direct it. This [direction] is called kav ha-yashar [straight/direct line of divine effluence], which is emanated into the place of divine absence.129

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Creation occurs solely within the realm of the finite brought about by the originary act of zimzum. Adopting the metaphysical claim that the result of zimzum is the concealment of the infinite in the finite, Ramhal reformulates the relationship between exile and redemption through a conflation of the terms tikkun (correction) and gilluy (revelation). Revelation is the unveiling of a dimension of the infinite embedded in the finite. This act itself is both a corrective (tikkun) and completion (shelamut) of zimzum.130 “The final tikkun, which will be the final redemption and all that follows, is the final revelation of the perfection of God [gilluy ha-shelamut], and the return of evil to God.”131 Redemption does not “occur” but is always occurring because it is part of the nature of creation. Ramhal and other Kabbalists offer a metaphysical interpretation of the rabbinic notion of the inevitability of redemption by making creation the inception of exile and redemption its fulfillment. Adopting R. Hayyim Vital’s statement that zimzum results in the inception of harsh judgment (din/gevurah/limits), Ramhal argues that this is the necessary prerequisite for the telos of creation; the transformation of evil to good via a reversal of zimzum.132 In this sense, the metaphysical or cosmological mythos of Luria becomes the basis for the ethical and hermeneutical principles of later Kabbalists. 133 According to Ramhal, the act of reading Scripture is an act of engaging the garments that conceal the infinite. The Torah is seen as the microcosm of creation that, like creation, comes into existence (i.e., is distinguished from eyn sof ) via zimzum, resulting in the concealment of the infinite in the finite. Both creation and Torah are viewed as photographic negatives of eyn sof (where the finite was concealed in the infinite). Liberating finitude by negating its negation, eyn sof brings forth creation, understood as the initial stage of the fulfillment of God’s perfection (mushlamut). The completion of this process will be the return of the finite into the embrace of the infinite. This is accomplished when the infinite concealed in the garments of the finite (Torah) is liberated, overcoming that which contains it. This occurs through esoteric study (reading), directed toward disclosing the infinite nature of the text by exhibiting its limitlessness. Disclosing secrets (the telos of mystical reading) occurs through the human enactment of zimzum, an act that is both a corrective (tikkun) and a completion (gilluy/shelamut) of exile. The enactment of zimzum is the deconstruction of the text, diffusing its external meaning by reading the text through the prism of kabbalistic myth, reading it inside out, exposing new meanings concealed underneath the external narrative.134 This act of reading corrects (m’taken) the mistaken assumption that the text can been understood externally by revealing that it can never be fully revealed. The kabbalistic reading does not fully disclose the text, for if it

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did the text would disappear. Rather, by seeing the text as garment, it enacts a “stripping away” of the external meaning (via deconstruction) thus enabling its infinite concealed source to shine through. This source is activated and revealed as the kabbalistic myth becomes embodied in the biblical narrative. Yet, at the moment of embodiment, the (new) kabbalistic meaning is lost in the new levels of mystery and details it reveals. This is not to say that the text has no intrinsic meaning. Rather, it suggests that intrinsic meaning of the text is lost as soon as it is rendered. Its disclosure is its disappearance since the object discovered is the infinite concealed. Each new level of meaning introduces another level of mystery, as the Zohar teaches, “the secrets are revealed and not revealed.”135 Once again, following Bloom’s translation of divine zimzum as substitution of the infinite for the finite, human zimzum (mystical reading) reveals that the substitution is not complete; the infinite remains in the reshimu (Torah), waiting to be liberated via the zimzum of Israel. Ramhal’s presentation of zimzum as reversal through divine volition, that is, reversing the relationship of the finite and the infinite by negating the negation of the finite, becomes the basis for future reflection on the nature of mystical reading as a redemptive act that reveals the infinite embedded in the text and, in doing so, reveals a new level that is concealed and awaits liberation. While Ramhal’s discussion remains largely on the theosophic plane, the quasiphilosophical interpretive grid he presents is used by later Kabbalists who take a more focused interest in the human act of zimzum through reading. We will now look at two such Kabbalists from nineteenth-century schools diametrically opposed to one another; R. Yizhak Isik Haver Waldman from the Lithuanian school of Sklov, whose kabbalistic studies emerged from the GRA, and the writings of the second rebbe of Lubavitch, R. Dov Baer Schneurson, son of the R. Shneur Zalman of Liady, the founder of the Habad movement. R. Yizhak Isaac Haver Waldman was one of the most prolific Kabbalists in nineteenth-century Lithuania (and later, Palestine). A disciple of R. Menahem Mendel of Sklov, he was trained in the tradition of the GRA, writing an extensive commentary to Luria’s Etz Hayyim entitled Pithei Shearim, one of the most comprehensive and systematic kabbalistic texts in Lithuanian Kabbala.136 Haver built on Ramhal’s general understanding of zimzum as negating the negation of finitude.137 His utilization of this notion will be much more useful for our purposes in that he directly relates zimzum to the act of reading. In a sermon composed for the Sabbath between Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur (Shabbat Shuva),138 Haver claims that zimzum creates the duality that serves as the necessary context for free will.139 Adding to the conventional dichotomies common in Kabbala of light and dark and good and evil,

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Haver includes thought and speech. Building on the GRA’s use of these concepts in his commentary to Sefer d’Zniuta, Haver understands creation to have taken place in two distinct stages; first in thought (the silent ma’amar satum), and then in speech (ten mamarot).140 He then invokes the Lurianic notion of reshimu in order to exhibit the interface between these two realms. But as the heavens are high above the Earth, so are My ways above your ways (Isaiah 55:9). Divine thought does not influence the lower world, only words emanate downward from the heavens to the earth...The entire realm of existence in time depends on divine speech...This is not the case with divine thought even though a spark (nizuz) from the Hidden Light (’or haganuz) does shine below, it does so only to aid those who purify themselves.141 But, this light is hidden and concentrated/concealed (m’zumzam) in order that it not nullify free-will...142

The spark of the Infinite (eyn sof ) is embedded in both creation and Torah through zimzum. Haver later notes that the Torah is called both water and light (4b). The water image denotes that Torah purifies like mikveh (ritual immersion), and light implies that Torah contains the supernal Hidden Light, embedded in the words of Scripture. His interpretation of the rabbinic dictum that “study is greater [than action] in that it leads to action’ is that study (enacted through reading) is immersion in the purifying waters of the Infinite. This act of purification leads to the uncovering of the Hidden Light (’or ha-ganuz) concealed both in the subject (the reader) and the object (Torah). The interaction of reader and text through study leads to the unfolding of the hidden realm that brings the dualistic nature of creation and Torah to its conclusion.143 The Jew and the Torah both contain the divine spark, enveloped in garments that hide it (the body and the text). The interface of the individual and the text results in the disclosure of the infinity in both, bringing about their unity, culminating in enlightenment (human) and redemption (historical). The imitatio dei of study is the human enactment of zimzum, reversing the process of creation by redeeming the exiled God in Scripture, taking the consequence of beginning (Torah) and returning it to origin (eyn sof ). Harking back to the GRA’s comments at the beginning of his commentary to Sefer D’Zniuta, Haver argues that creation takes place by God reading or speaking the primordial concealed book. Through study, we read or speak the exilic book of Torah, reversing the process of exile by unveiling the primordial Torah of its written garment and returning it first to spoken word and then to silent utterance. This process is a reverse of the first zimzum resulting in exile. The imitatio dei of study reverses this process by

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redeeming the exiled (concealed) God, rending the veil of Scripture to reveal its primordial roots. In Pithei Shearim, Haver presents a metaphorical interpretation of zimzum initiated in the Renaissance using the argument of dual perspectivity; God’s Will versus our perception of His will (m’zido u m’zidanu).144 The sephirot have essence and reality only from our perspective by means of zimzum. Zimzum is the source of the description of God as “place of the world” (makomo shel ‘olam) as will be explained. . . We can only speak from zimzum and what exists below it. This is also only from our perspective and not from God’s. Even after zimzum, He remains “filler of worlds” and nothing exists outside of Him as is explained by R. Hayyim of Volozhin in his wondrous book Nefesh Ha-Hayyim, Gate 3.145

Zimzum as an act of divine Will to remove the negation of the finite only exists as “real” in the finite realm. From God’s perspective (eyn sof ) nothing changed as a result of zimzum since His essence as eyn sof remains as it was before creation.146 Rejecting the literal, spatial interpretation of zimzum, Haver pushes the metaphor by suggesting that zimzum is a necessary illusion (our perspective) in order to enable individuals to live inside the covenant, that is, in order to foster the efficacy of devotion. Creation itself is built on the illusion that something exists outside of God whereas, from God’s perspective “there is nothing outside of Him” (eyn ‘od m’lvado) and “there is no place void of Him” (le’et ‘atar penui me’neh). Haver offers the following argument for the illusory nature of creation. By utilizing the diagram of zimzum presented in Vital’s writings (i.e., that zimzum creates a circle with eyn sof outside), the material world (creation) lies at the center of the circle, the farthest point from eyn sof. Haver argues that since the center point of any circle can never be isolated and is infinitely divisible so too the center point of zimzum, that is, finite existence, must be illusory.147 For Haver, the foundation of the illusory nature of creation (finitude) is the concealment and apparent absence of the infinite. The material world, as the illusory center of zimzum, is understood as nothing more than the place of divine absence that, given God’s infinite nature, must also be an illusion. The necessity of the illusion of God (His absence in creation) now becomes Haver’s focus. This illusion accomplishes two goals: (1) the existence of evil (bozina d’kardinuta/hard or dark spark) and (2) the affirmation of free will.148 According to Haver, evil (din/judgment/limitation) is necessary for free will to exist. The telos of free will is “to draw close to the holy” (l’hitkarev l’kedusha), which requires the possibility of its opposite. This “drawing close to

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the holy” has two consequences. First, it disempowers evil by turning away from it. Second, it completes creation by revealing the infinite embedded in it, thereby exposing creation’s illusory nature. Up to this point, Haver merely surveys conventional (theosophic) kabbalistic doctrine. In the aforementioned sermon he uses this kabbalistic formulation of the world to understand the value of Torah study. The Hidden Spark of the truly real (eyn sof ) is buried in the illusion of the real, that is, Torah. Drawing oneself to the holy is accomplished by cutting through the illusion until one accesses the hidden source of the “truly real,” the Hidden Spark of divine thought concealed in the garment of the text. At that instant, the entire nature of Torah becomes transformed as the veil separating God’s perspective and our perspective dissipates. As mentioned above, Haver adopts the position that sacred reading not only transforms the text being read but the reader as well. In the following passage, he uses the idea of zimzum to describe how Torah study and knowledge of the holy reveals the inherent sanctity latent in the human heart, the place where desire for the holy resides. The heart is the realm of zimzum in the human being.149 There God embedded all of the powers of holiness in potentia. . . .These [powers] are not immediately revealed. When a person is born s/he is born untamed and incomplete, without any overt element of sanctity. This changes as s/he is educated and taught Torah. Then the [inherent] good traits move from potentia to actu and s/he begins the process toward holiness [through study]. This is equivalent to the Highest Source that begins with zimzum in order to yield [the existence of ] evil. Afterward, a strand of holiness emanates downward as a stream (kav) to fill the place of [divine] emptiness. . . This is what is meant when it is said “the heart understands.” It understands through wisdom of the Torah, which is taught and enters the heart. [Through this process] the [latent] good traits become revealed. . . 150

The process of creation is reversed as the sanctity latent in the heart is revealed through study. Although Haver does not focus on the language of Scripture but solely on the acquisition of knowledge, his basic assumption is that talmud torah in all of its facets (reading/understanding) is a product of zimzum in that it brings out the latent potential of holiness.151 My claim here is that the “holy” in Haver’s expression “drawing oneself to the holy” (l’hitkarev l’kedusha) is the Hidden Light embedded in the Torah, revealed through esoteric study (i.e, the study of/for secrets). This disclosure occurs through zimzum that brings out the potential (the truly real) in the actual (the illusion), reversing the act of divine zimzum that preceded creation.

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Human zimzum via Torah study is enacted by transforming the written word to speech, redeeming divine speech embedded in the written text. For Haver, the scriptural words, “In the beginning” are already a part of the illusion of creation because beginning implies a distinction between creation and the Creator—it is already an occurrence outside of God. He posits that the purpose of Torah study is to read God’s illusion, revealing the “truly real” embedded in the exilic (illusory) text. Opposed to the more strictly Lurianic depiction of study as recitation, Haver’s Lithuanian roots and his devotion to the GRA’s focus on the intellect lead him to incorporate understanding as a necessary component in the devotional act of talmud torah.152 In Haver’s comment cited above, understanding, the fundamental component of education, plays an essential role is bringing out the latent sanctity imbedded in the human heart of the developing child. Through understanding Torah the human heart contracts and expands (m’zamzam), creating an empty space that is filled with the descending stream of consciousness (kav ha-yashar) actualizing the latent sanctity concealed from birth. The cosmogonic notion of zimzum in Lurianic metaphysics becomes a model for human actualization through study.153 This process occurs via reading and understanding the written text of Scripture, liberating the Hidden Light that lies within. The third post-Lurianic thinker who draws a parallel between zimzum and study is R. Dov Baer Schneurson (1773-1827), the son of R. Shneur Zalman of Liady and the second master in the Habad dynasty.154 He suggests that zimzum as a protocreative divine act results in cosmic dysfunctionality and thus is the exile of divine language. This language, fragmented and unable to communicate unmediated divine Will, is redeemed though reading (i.e., human zimzum). Sacred reading for Schneurson is an act of ordering, reflecting the Lurianic model of tikkun (‘Olam Ha-Berudim) as the proper ordering of the sephirot in their descent through the cosmos.155 This is also based on his interpretation of the Lurianic notion of veils (masakhim)156 which separate one supernal world from the next.157 The body of the veil and curtain (pargod) is made from letters that are called “stones” in Sefer Yezeriah (4:16).158 The letters are haphazard, like stones piled one on top of the other. This is like a tapestry woven from threads which divide and separate [one thing from another]. Such is the case with letters which are the foundation of speech. When they are ordered by the intellect [through study], the light of the intellect shines through them and they can be understood by one who hears them...This is not the case when they are random; one hearing the words cannot understand anything.159

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R. Dov Baer suggests that the consequence of zimzum is the emergence of veils (finite existence) that prevent the infinite from appearing in the world. Textually, the result is that “the letters [of Torah] are disorganized” and thus convey no meaning.160 This dysfunctionality simultaneously prevents both the flow of divine light onto the text and the reader (kav ha-yashar) and the emergence of divine light from the text (reshimu). This indecipherable text is closed. While it may hold the potential to be a catalyst for divine effluence its indecipherable (exilic) state cannot actualize this potential.161 The closed text resembles the unreadable primordial concealed text mentioned in the GRA’s commentary on Sefer Yezeriah discussed above. Both hold the potential for meaning but require a spoken component to release that potential. The concealed text, God’s speech, or His reading the text, results in the ten utterances of creation, releasing the creative potency in primordial writing.162 In Dov Baer’s rendition, the closed text of Scripture is opened and thus efficacious through human speech, releasing the text’s divine potential. The indiscriminate nature of the letters of Torah are organized and made comprehensible through the act of the text being read. Its primordial orality is retrieved through human speech. This enables the intellect to understand what is written. When the letters become ordered, the source of divine potency (eyn sof beyond zimzum) begins to shines through. The kabbalistic context of R. Dov Baer’s remarks about the construction of Torah is based on the Lurianic description of the veils that exist between the world of azilut (emanation) and beriah (creation). The defining characteristic of these veils is their opacity that prevents evil from ascending beyond the world of creation (beriah). However, this also results in the persistence of evil below because evil cannot be eradicated without the presence of the higher light of the world of emanation (azilut). The fabric of these veils are the letters of the Torah, which are mystically understood in Sefer Yezeriah as the letters of creation.163 The more the fabric of the veil (the letters of Torah) is aligned (m’sudar) the more translucent and transparent it becomes, enabling more light to shine through from the upper world to the lower. Zimzum creates this opacity by producing a fabric (creation and Torah) that is indiscriminately organized. While this opacity is necessary in order to create a shield protecting the upper worlds from the demonic forces below, it also creates and perpetuates exile by preventing the redemptive light of eyn sof to descend into the world, thereby unifying the remnant of divine light (reshimu) with its source. For R. Dov Baer, sacred reading is an act of creating order so that the human mind can decipher the divine Will embedded in the text. The delicate vocation of the reader is to create order in the text in a manner that both thins the veils yet does not endanger the pristine light of azilut from becoming de-

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filed by the demonic. A fundamental principle of sacred reading it that it is an act that requires a pietistic context and foundation. Comprehension of the text is not purely an act of human intellection for these kabbalists—it is a devotional act that, as the rabbis state, “is equal in stature to the entire body of mitzvot.”164 Thus, reading as tikkun requires the pietistic context of mitzvot. These two complimentary and mutually inclusive practices organize the letters of the text and insure that its results (emanation of the higher light) will not result in the empowerment of evil. The outcome is the liberation of the divine potency of the text in a world that can absorb it.165 In sum, for R. Dov Baer the kabbalistic notion of study combines the speech act of reading aloud coupled with understanding (sekhel). Study orders the haphazard letters, that constitute the veil of separation, and orders them, making the veil translucent and finally transparent, resulting in the confluence of the higher light with vessels that can sustain it. The veil, which is the product of zimzum and was necessary to prevent the higher light from descending, becomes the catalyst for the uninterrupted flow of that light. Talmud Torah, understood here as organizing the letters of the text (speech/reading) so that they can convey meaning, is a precarious but necessary act that creates the context for the completion of creation. It is precarious because it exposes divinity to the demonic forces that seek to use it for destructive purposes. This may be why the kabbalistic tradition influenced by the Zohar places such emphasis on pietistic and asetic behavior as a necessary companion to esoteric study. If the veil of zimzum is thinned through study while evil is empowered through sin, the result would be more destructive than the absence of study altogether! Therefore, study must function on various levels simultaneously and be enacted in a particular devotional context. It must be a corrective (tikkun) for inappropriate behavior by making the reader more aware of proper action. It must also create the potential for the eradication of evil by activating the Hidden Light (reshimu) in the text and by drawing Supernal Light (kav ha-yashar) to the text. Finally, it must take place only in the pietistic context of human devotion (mitzvot), which strengthens the vessels to contain the emanation of the redemptive light. Ordering the text (study) reverses cosmic zimzum that conceals God’s Will, resulting in creation and the closed text of Scripture (divine exile). Speaking and subsequently understanding the text transforms divine letters to human language, which serves as the catalyst for divine Will. Human intellection through reading (i.e., study) begins with reconstituting the veils initiated with zimzum and ends with the transparency of the veils themselves, enabling redemption to emerge via the uninterrupted flow of divine light into the world.

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R. Dov Baer’s use of zimzum as the act that produces the veils (masakhim) in Lurianic cosmology exemplifies the notion that the very act that creates chaos fosters redemption. Reading Scripture as the veiled, exiled God succeeds in externalizing the latent redemptive power of the text by reading (and thus ordering) the veils that conceal the text’s true meaning. This process is activated by transforming the written text to speech, connecting it to the creation speech of the ten divine utterances of creation and finally to the silent utterance (ma’mar satum), which envelopes eyn sof itself. The presentation of Scripture as the result of zimzum sets the stage for the notion of sacred study as a reenactment of zimzum, reversing the beginning in search of origin. Redemption is thus not achieved by recovering “In the beginning”—it is achieved by overcoming it. Conclusion I have argued that the kabbalistic theory of zimzum extends far beyond a theosophic model used to answer the perennial question of creation in Jewish literature. Zimzum presents us with a theory of creation that is simultaneously a poetics of exile and a prescription for redemption. Focusing on the overarching correlation between humankind and God in the biblical image of being created “in the image of God,” the rabbinic model of imitatio dei, and the tripartite covenental model of God, Torah, and Israel in the Zohar, postLurianic Kabbalists examined here transformed zimzum from a theory of the birth of origins to a prescription of retrieving origins.166 This made human interaction with sacred literature through reading an act of imitatio dei, better translated in this context as “replicating God’s originary act.” What is being emulated is not God per se but God’s creativity, not in creating the world but in transforming Himself. God’s creativity resulted in His concealment (creation); our emulation of that activity results in His liberation (redemption). A mystical reading of the Torah is reading the exilic God for the sake of redeeming Him. Finally, zimzum became a corrective and completion of God’s self-imposed exile, correcting our misconception of finitude as distinct from the infinite, completing and thus reversing the concealment of the infinite in order to “complete God’s perfection.” When we speak of the notion of “beginning” in Kabbala we must consider the extent to which Lurianic Kabbala in particular is engaged in a particular kind of defense of creation ex nihilo. The particular nature of this defense is that the miraculous and rationally indefensible claim that something comes from nothing (yesh m’ayin) is not left unexamined as it was by apologetic philosophers like Saadia Gaon or Judah Ha-Levi, nor is it rendered the

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most viable option for pragmatic reasons, as in Maimonides. As cosmologists Lurianic Kabbalists are interested in process more than doctrine. The “how” is far more interesting to them than the “what” or the “why.” Therefore, creation ex nihilo is justified by creating the conditions for its possibility, that is, the transformation of God from eyn sof to Creator. In doing so, these Kabbalists give both Aristotle and Plato their due. Eyn Sof alone (Aristotle’s Unmoved mover, Plato’s Good) cannot create. It must be transformed into something else, while remaining itself, in order to bring about something other than itself. This cannot imply any “real change” in God, as God’s perfection cannot be compromised. Therefore, God’s infinitude becomes concealed to enable the finite to appear. This act, known as zimzum, is the substitution (Bloom) and reversal of eyn sof. The finite, concealed in potentia in eyn sof, now becomes the real, containing the infinite concealed within it. Exile or beginning (they are essentially synonymous) is the result of this process—it is the reversal of the perfect (eyn sof ) for the sake of perfection. The kabbalists argue that zimzum is the missing link in conventional (i.e., rabbinic and philosophical) Jewish reflection on creation that prevents a deeper understanding. Implied in the kabbalistic argument is that cosmogony is the “rationale,” as it were, for creation ex nihilo that can only be understood or deciphered through its own esoteric tradition. Cosmogony, which may be translated here as the science of origins, plays no role in the biblical narrative, which begins only at the beginning, without any overt interest in origins. In the kabbalistic imagination, beginning (Genesis 1:1) is already after-the-fact; it is a secondary stage that results from God’s willful severing of himself from Himself. Beginning (creation) already dwells in the realm of divine exile and therefore tells us little (or at least not enough) about what needs to be done to redeem the world. Redemption implies an overcoming of beginning, an erasure that serves as the prerequisite for the retrieval of origins that paradoxically lie buried in the exilic text of Scripture. In order to access these origins, which, when liberated will overcome and erase creation, the reader must replicate the originary act (zimzum) that gave birth to exile. This is the way the Kabbalists understand Israel’s covenental responsibility—to undo and thus complete God’s work. Notes 1. The term post-Lurianic Kabbala in this context refers to the European interpretations of Lurianic Kabbala, beginning with the Italian Renaissance in the seventeenth century and continuing with the Hasidic and Lithuanian traditions in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The metaphorical rather than literal understandings of zimzum began in the Renaissance with such Kabbalists

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as R. Menahem Azaria da Fano and later R. Abraham Ha-Kohen Herrera. See Nisim Yosha, Myth and Metaphor: Abraham Ha-Kohen Herrera’s Philosophic Interpretation of Lurianic Kabbala [Heb.] (Jerusalem, 1994), 188–200. The three Kabbalists discussed in this study, R. Moshe Hayyim Luzatto, R. Yizhak Isik Haver Waldman, and R. Dov Baer Schneurson, are all influenced by this metaphorical rendering of zimzum. See, for example, Tamar Ross, “Two Interpretations of Zimzum: R. Hayyim of Volozhin and R. Schneur Zalman of Liady” [Heb.] Mekharei Yerushalayim (1982):152–69 and Joseph Ben Shlomo, “The Kabbala of the Ari in the Teachings of Rav Kook” [Heb.], Mekharei Yerushalayim 10 (1992):449–57. On the more literal rendering of zimzum see Isaiah Tishby, Torat Ha-Ra ve Ha-Kelippah b’Kabbalat Ha-Ari (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1984), 57–61, and idem. Netivei Ha-Minut (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1982), 25–29. Cf. Joseph Dan, “No Evil Descends from Heaven: Sixteenth Century Concepts of Evil,” in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. B. Cooperman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 89-105 and S. G. Soham, Ha-Gesher ‘el Ha-Ayin (Tel Aviv, 1992). On the term “postLurianic Kabbalist” see R. J. Z. Werblowsky, “O Felix Capula: A Cabbalistic Version,” in ed. B. Stein, R. Loewe, Studies in Jewish Religious and Intellectual History Presented to Alexander Altmann on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday, (Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1979), 354–60. For a history of the term ex nihilo, see David Winston and Jonathan Goldstein, “The Origin of the Doctrine Ex-Nihilo,” Journal of Jewish Studies 35-2 (Autumn, 1984):127–35. A review of some of the basic positions and their arguments can be found in Hasdai Crescas’ ‘Or Ha-Shem, Book III (Jerusalem, 1990), p. 264ff. Crescas, although he adopts the position of creation and rejects eternity, offers a unique position of “eternal creation,” which reflects Philo’s synthesis between Genesis and Plato’s Timeaus. For an in-depth study of this problem in medieval Jewish philosophy, see Norbert Samuelson, Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Sara Klein-Breslavy, Perush Ha-Rambam l’Sippur Beriat Ha-‘Olam (Jerusalem, 1978). For Sa’adia’s position see Herbert Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 86–153 and Harry A. Wolfson, “The Meaning of Ex-Nihilo in the Church Fathers, Arabic and Hebrew Philosophy, and St. Thomas,” Medieval Studies in Honor of J. D. M. Ford (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), 355–70. The scholarship on Maimonides’ position on creation is extensive. For a summary see William Dunplay, “Maimonides and Aquinas on Creation: A Critique of Their Historians,” Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1983), 361–79. See Aristotle, Physics I:8 and Metaphysics, Book 12. An example of this phenomenon can be found in R. Menahem Mendel Schneurson’s (Temakh Tedek) Derekh Mitzvotekha (Brooklyn, 1993), 44b–46b.

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9. 10.

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Schneurson cites Nahmanides’ interpolation of Maimonides’ first positive commandment in Sefer Ha-Mitzvot, which includes creation ex nihilo (which is absent in Maimonides language). He takes it as obvious that Maimonides believed creation ex nihilo was a true doctrine and then aligns his position to the Zohar’s explicit statement of creation ex nihilo. Nahmanides’ comment can be found in his gloss to Maimonides’ first negative commandment in Sefer Ha-Mitzvot. On the relationship between Kabbala and philosophy in general see my “Hasidism in Transition” (doctoral dissertation, Brandeis University, 1994), 60-146. Cf. Eliezer Schweid, trans. David Avraham Weiner, Judaism and Mysticism According to Gershom Scholem, (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985), 117–32. R. Moses Cordovero devotes a great deal on the question of creation ex-nihilo. See his Pardes Rimonim (Jerusalem, 1962), p. 126ff; and Joseph Ben Shlomo Torat He-Elohut shel R. Moshe Cordovero (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1986), 200–04. See Nahmanides “Torat Ha-Shem Temimah,” in Kitvei Ramban, ed. C. Chavel (Jerusalem: Mosad He-Rav Kook, 1982), vol. 1, 156–60 and R. Yehudah Ha-Levi, Sefer Ha- Kuzari 4:26f. Ha-Levi was not really a defender of ex nihilo but strove to disqualify Aristotle’s eternity argument. In fact, it appears that Ha-Levi leaned more toward a platonic understanding of creation, using Sefer Yezeriah as his traditional text. See Harry A. Wolfson, “The Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic Theories of Creation in Ha-Levi and Maimonides,” in Essays in Honor of J. H. Hertz (London: Edward Goldston, 1952), 438ff. For Ha-Levi’s use of Sefer Yezeriah, see Kuzari 4:25 and David Kaufman, “R. Judah Ha-Levi and His Doctrine of a Primordial World” [Heb.], Mekharim be Sifrut ‘Ivrit shel Yemei Ha-Benayim (Jerusalem, 1962), 208–11; and Yohanan Silman, Philosopher and Prophet: Judash Ha-Levi, the Kuzari, and the Evolution of His Thought (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995), 220–26. A few exceptions are worth noting. Perush ‘al Ha-Sephirot, printed in R. Meir Ibn Gabbai, Derekh Emunah (Warsaw, 1850), 3–9. See Moshe Idel, “Platonism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” in Len Goodman ed., Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992), 319–52, esp. 319–25, and Karl E. Grozinger, “Principle and aims in Lurianic Cosmology” [Hebrew], in Mekharei Yerushalayim 10 (1992): 37–46. Renaissance Kabbalist R. Menahem Azaria da Fano suggested that zimzum is a necessary component of any kabbalistic theory of creation precisely for this reason. See his Yonat ‘Elam, reprinted in Ma’amrei Ha-Ramah, vol. 1, chapter 4 (Jerusalem,1997), 5a–6d. See Maimonides Guide II: 25. Cf. Ha-Levi Kuzari 1:67. Both acknowledge that Scripture does not give us proof either way. For Ha-Levi, the textual proof only lies in Sefer Yezeria, which he attributed to Abraham. Maimonides interestingly presents Abraham as reaching the speculative conclusion of creation through philosophical inquiry. See Mishneh Torah, “Laws of Idolatry” 1:3. Yet in Guide II:25 he states that he has no philosophical proof for creation. In fact, in Guide II:14 he makes a very convincing case for eternity, which he claims (at the beginning of II:15) is compelling but not demonstrative.

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12. One interesting exception is the Vilna Gaon’s interpretation of the six days of creation in his commentary to Sefer Yezeria. In this short text, the Gaon utilizes the principles of Sefer Yezeria to offer a running commentary of the first part of Genesis 1. See, R. Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (GRA), Likkutei HaGRA l’Sefer Yezeria in Perush ha-GRA l’ Sefer Yezeria (Warsaw, 1888), 22b–25d. This text is printed in the back of standard editions to Sefer Yezeria (Jerusalem, 1988). 13. On the relationship between kabbalistic myths of creation and earlier Gnostic and Orphic traditions, see Yehuda Liebes, “The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus” in Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism, trans. Batya Stein (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), 65–92. 14. Moshe Idel has recently documented pre-Lurianic sources that speak of zimzum. See his “On the Concept of Zimzum and its Research” [Hebrew], in Mekharei Yerushalayim 10 (1992): 59–112. Cf. idem. Kabbala: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 264–67. This concept was already mentioned in passing by Scholem in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocker, 1961), 260–66; Kabbala (New York: Dorset Press, 1974), 588-601; Reshit Ha-Kabbala (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1948), 150f; and The Kabbala in Gerona [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Akadamon, 1964), 286–91. Cf. Isaiah Tishby, Torat Ha-Ra ve Ha-Klippah b’Kabbalat Ha-Ari (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1984), 57–61, idem. Netive Emunat ve Minut (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1982), 25–29. 15. For a brief biographical sketch see Scholem, Kabbala, 420–28. 16. This is clearly Scholem’s position. See Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocker Press, 1941), 251–58. Cf. Yehuda Liebes, “Myth verses Symbol in the Zohar and in Lurianic Kabbala” in Essential Papers on Kabbalah, ed. L. Fine, (New York: NYU Press, 1995), 212–42. Moshe Idel has recently challenged that assertion, arguing that Lurianic Kabbala was far less influential than previously thought, see Idel, “One From a Town, Two From a Clan: A New Look at the Problem of the Diffusion of Lurianic Kabbala and Sabbateanism” Jewish History 7 (1993):79–104 and idem. Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995), 33–42. Elliot Wolfson also argues for a more widespread influence of Lurianic Kabbala, even in the early sixteenth century, before its dissemination in Italy and Eastern Europe. See his, “The Influence of Luria on the Shelah,” [Hebrew] in Mekharei Yerushalayim 10 (1992): 423–48. 17. This distinction already appears in Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed II:14, (288, 289 in Shlomo Pines’ translation) “. . . if God, may His name be sublime, has produced the world in time after having its been nonexistent, God must have been an agent in potentia before He had created the world: and after He had created it, He became an agent in actu. God had therefore passed over from potentiality to actuality.” This is one of the methods used to affirm the eternity of the world Maimonides rehearses in this chapter. The speculative interpretations of zimzum, which, to some degree, integrate certain Maimonidean concepts, began in earnest among Renaissance Kabbalists.

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18.

19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

See, for example, in R. Joseph Shlomo del Medigo, Novlot Hokhma, 49, and Abraham Ha-Kohen Herrera, Sha’ar Ha-Shamayim (Warsaw, 1864), Book 5; and G. Scholem, Avaraham Ha-Kohen Herrera—Ba’al Sha’ar Ha-Shamayim (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1978), 38. The translation of this term is problematic. Scholem prefers unendlich, which is a literal translation. The Hebrew ‘bli takhlit (without telos) is similar. Eternal is another translation often used which has its own difficulties. Infinite is perhaps the best because it tells us the least and, in a sense, defines God by what he is not (in-finite, i.e., not-finite). Yehudah Liebes notes that this formulation is Cordoverean rather than Lurianic in nature and seems to be adopted by R. Shabbtai Sheftel to explain his Lurianic version of zimzum. See Liebes, “The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus,” 86, 87, and note 79. This tripartite description also seems to reflect the Aristotelian notion of God as “thought thinking itself,” which is reiterated (and Judaized) in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah “Laws on the Foundation of the Torah.” See Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 12. R. Shabbtai Sheftel Horowitz, Shefa Tal (Jerusalem, 1971), 30a. See Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York: Waveland Press, 1998), chapters 2 and 3, and C. Long, Alpha: The Myth of Creation (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983). The distinction between origin and beginning is discussed briefly in Michael Fishbane’s Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts (New York: Schocken Press, 1979), 1–39. Biblical theologians are not as convinced as traditional readers with the centrality of Genesis 1 as the foundation of biblical reflection on creation. Jon Levenson, for example, argues that Genesis 1 is a latter stage in biblical reflection on creation, one that had all but erased the more ancient notions of preexistent creatures such as the Leviathan, depicted in Psalm 104. See his Creation and the Persistence of Evil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 53–65. Mishna Avot 5:1, which describes the ten utterances of God in creation, is a reading of Genesis 1. The number ten comes from the ten times the phrase “And He said” appears. Sefer Yezeriah reads this differently in its description of the 32 paths of wisdom, comprised of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the 10 numbers. The number 32 is also the numerical value of the letters Bet and Lamed, the first and last letters of the Pentateuch. This is the topic of an early Kabbalitsic treatise on this issue. See R. Azriel of Gerona’s Perush ‘al Eser Sephirot, printed in the beginning of R. Meir Ibn Gabbai’s Derekh Emunah, pp. 1a/4d. The language of essence and existence (mahut and meziut) is originally Platonic (Timeaus) and becomes the nomenclature of most theosophic kabbalistic discourse. A collection of these midrashic reflections is compiled in Genesis Raba, Chapter 1. Some of these midrashic comments speak about “creation before creation” (Genesis Raba, 1:4). Many begin exegetically, “Why is the world created with the letter beit” (1:10). None, to my knowledge, speak about the nature or movement of God before creation.

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26. My translation of tekhilat ha-kol as “before everything” is based on the fact that our text intentionally does not use the standard phrase b’reshit ha-kol, reshit referring to the biblical term b’reshit (in the beginning). I would suggest that the term tekhilat ha-kol is used precisely to indicate origin rather than creation, which is illustrated though the word reshit. 27. The translation of receptacle for avir panui (lit. empty light) is taken from Plato’s Timeaus, which posits a receptacle of pattern of the Divine, that precedes creation. The space or halal brought about via zimzum becomes the receptacle (ne’ezal) of the Emanator (ma’azil). 28. The use of the adjective pashut (lit. simple, without differentiation) to define both God’s light and Will before creation is significant. This term distinguishes between created will, which always wills a thing and divine Will, which wills no thing other than itself. In Aristotelian terminology razon pashut is will willing itself. This phrase is telling when used in the context of eyn sof. The kabbalistic eyn sof is a notion close to Aristotle’s notion of the unmoved mover (Metaphysics, Book 12, Physics, Book 8) except that Aristotle’s God, being perfect, can have no will. The Kabbalists, living in the ideational world of the Bible, must construct a God who wills, as will is the operating principle of covenant. Most Lurianic Kabbalists, except those like R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzato who are more philosophically oriented, do not reflect on the notion of their radically transcendent God who wills creation. For example, see R. Moshe Hayyim Luzatto, 138 Paths of Wisdom (KLAH Pithei Hokhma), (Bnei Brak: Gitler Bros. Books, 1992), 58ff. and his essay “Perush l’Arimit yadei b’Zlotav” in Ginzei Ramhal, (Bnei Brak: Gitler Bros. Books, 1984), 227. In those texts, it is interesting that Ramhal often substitutes the word koah (potential) for razon (will). See Luzzato, KLAH Pithei Hokhma, no. 24, 59. “The Lofty Will (razon ha-elyon), which is eyn sof, blessed be He, includes infinite potential.” It is noteworthy that Luzzato here identifies eyn sof as Will itself. God as eyn sof/ Infinite does not have Will, He is Will! Cf. KLAH, no. 26, 69, “Therefore, reshimu [the remnant of divine light after zimzum] is the limited potential that emerges from infinite potential. In it [reshimu] the razon ha-elyon [Infinite Will] becomes apparent...” 29. It is significant that Vital uses the phrase “emanate emanations” instead of using creation language. This could be translated as “the becoming of being.” The same is true of his description of God as Lofty Emanator, which may be translated as “Unemanated emanantor.” 30. Vital offers a standard midrashic understanding of the “why” of creation. I take this as a throwaway statement. That is, Vital is not really interested in the question and has nothing new to say about it. He preempts his reader’s interest by offering the standard rabbinic explanation beginning with “as is well known . . .” and then he quickly moves on to his main point, which is, what happens in/to God to make Him a creator. Cf. Vital’s Adam Yashar (r.p. Jerusalem: Yeshivat Ahavat-Shalom, 1994), 1a–2a. In this later text Vital offers a more elaborate discussion of what he determines as “reasons for the creation,” representing rabbinic midrashic material.

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31. R. Hayyim Vital, ‘Ozrot Hayyim, (Jerusalem, 2000), 1. For a Hasidic reading of a similar text that attempts to understand the nature of divine will in reference to eyn sof see R. Zvi Hirsch Eichenstein of Zhidachov (1763–1831), Zur me Rah ve Aseh Tov, (Pest, 1942), 107. 32. Contrast this with the opening of the Zohar 1.16a, which uses the term Resh (from rosh, rishon, be’reshit) to inaugurate its reading of creation. 33. See Adam Yashar, 2b. The GRA seems to adopt and even extend this creation language. He states, “The notion of zimzum is at the time of the creation. When it went up in God’s Will to create the world . . .” See GRA, ‘Asara Kelalim, printed in Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA (Jerusalem: Kerem Elijah, 1991), 129. Even though R. Menahem Mendel of Sklov, a disciple of the GRA, likely wrote the text it generally reflects the GRA’s kabbalistic system. 34. Cf. Vital, Mevo Shearim 1, “Here [in discussing zimzum] I will expound upon what precedes emanation, which resulted in the ten sephirot. . . ” 35. Note in the three exegetical Lurianic texts, Sefer Ha-Likkutei, Sha’ar Ha-Pesukim and Likkutei Torah, the discussion of Genesis 1:1 largely relies on the Zohar’s description and contains no discussion of zimzum whatsoever. 36. The notion of a second zimzum in Lurianic Kabbala suggests interesting parallels to the second coming of Christ in Christianity. To my knowledge no study has explored these similarities, even as Lurianic Kabbala was influential in the development of Christian Kabbala in the early modern period. 37. See Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragedy, J. Osborne trans. (London: Verso Books, 1977), originally published as Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, appearing in Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften I, 1 (1974). 38. Ibid., 46. 39. The notion of finite perfection in defining the sephirot originates in R. Azreil of Gerona’s Perush ‘al Eser Sephirot, one of the first systematic presentations of the sephirot as divine potencies. This most widely read edition of this short monograph is the edition published at the beginning of R. Meir Ibn Gabbai’s Derekh Emunah (Warsaw, 1850), 3–9. A translation of the entire text into English can be found in The Early Kabbala, Ron Keiner, Joseph Dan, eds. (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 89–96. Joseph Dan states, “The sephirot are stages in the creation process which preceded the creation itself, which prepared the existence for ‘let there be light,’ the actual beginning of creation.” See also The Ancient Jewish Mysticism (Tel Aviv: MOD Press, 1993), 208. Yet, the sephirot, even as they are divine, are created and therefore finite, as opposed to eyn sof, which is infinite. 40. R. Hayyim Vital stressed the voluntary nature of zimzum, but an earlier version of the doctrine preserved by R. Joseph Ibn Tabul suggests that its voluntary status is not uncontested. See I. Tishby, Torat ha-Ra ve Ha-Kelippah (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1963), 56-61. Cf. Yehudah Liebes, “The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus,” 87. 41. See, for example, R. Isaiah Horowitz’s Shnei Lukhot Ha-Brit (Jerusalem, 1993), Parshat Balak, vol. 5, 80b, “The curse (referring to Balaam’s curse in Numbers 22) which is the destruction is itself the blessing. This is necessary

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42. 43.

44. 45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

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for the purposes of purification at which point the light which will emerge will be loftier than what it was before [destruction]. . . Ibid., 96. Richard Wolin, Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994), 97. For a more detailed discussion of this Wolin suggests that Benjamin’s notion of origin comes from his reading of Scholem’s kabbalistic essays where origin is presented as that which “represents an original condition of harmony and perfection, which is subsequently squandered, yet ultimately recaptured. . . ” See Benjamin, “Nachtrage zum Trauerspielbuch,” in Gesammelte Schriften 1 (3): 953-955 cited in Wolin, ibid., 97, and Handelman ibid., 125. The volitional as opposed to necessary nature of zimzum is stressed by Cordovero yet remains somewhat problematic in Luria’s writings. For Cordovero’s position see ‘Or Yakar, vol. 4, 107. See Berakha Zak, Sha’arei Ha- Kabbala shel R. Moshe Cordovero (Jerusalem: Ben Gurion University Press, 1996), 77. Cf. I. Tishby, Torat ha-Ra ve Ha-Kelippah, 56-61. Cf. Yehudah Liebes, “The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus,” 87. Therefore, as David Novak has noted, the Kabbala is almost devoid of any theory of natural law. See, David Novak, Judaism and Natural Law, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 145. This is complicated by the fact that Kabbalists see the world as divine or at least containing some element of divine essence. However, the divinity of the world is often framed by distinguishing between God’s essential nature (eyn sof ) and his relational nature (torat ha-sephirot). The redemptive character of kabbalistic reading has a long history, becoming a central motif of the Zohar. See Yehuda Leibes, “R. Shimon bar Yohai: Messiah of the Zohar,” in idem., Studies in the Zohar (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), esp. 48–55. For a recent study on this phenomenon in Lurianic and post-Lurianic Kabbala see Boaz Huss, “The Anthological Interpretation: The Emergence of Anthologies of Zohar Commentaries in the Seventeenth Century,” Prooftexts 19 (1999):1–19, esp. 6–9. On this see Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead, (New York: Schocken Press, 1991), 182-196. On the mourning of the Shekhina see my “Conjugal Union, Mourning and Talmud Torah in R. Isaac Luria’s Tikkun Hazot,” in Da’at 36 (1996):xvii-xlv and Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 308–20. On restoration subsuming history see Benjamin, The Origin, 45-46 and Wolin, Walter Benjamin, 96-97. On revealing the esoteric as the culmination of the reading of Scripture see my, “From Theosophy to Midrash: Lurianic Exegesis and the Garden of Eden,” AJS Review 22-1 (1977):37–75. Harold Bloom correctly comments on the curious absence of any substantive literature on the “literary motives of the Kabbalists.” See, Bloom, Kabbala and Criticism (New York: Continuum, 1993), 71. In this essay I attempt to view how the cosmological phenomenon of zimzum is used by the Kabbalists as a trope of sacred reading or reading redemptively.

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52. See Karl Jaspers, “The Creation of the World,” in idem., trans. E.B. Ashton, Philosophy and the World: Selected Essays (Washington, D.C.: Gateway Editions, 1963), 132, “Once the ‘before’ is fully, completely clear, there is no need for an ’afterward’ to clarify it. We would no longer be living in the possibilities of our situation; we would command a view of it, would have control over it, and thus would have terminated it. Knowing our beginnings, we would be at the end of our humanity.” 53. Ibid. 54. Emile Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History (New York: HarperCollins, 1970), 38. 55. See Antione Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1994), 3-48. Cf. Daniel Matt, “‘New-Ancient Words’: The Aura of Secrecy in the Zohar,” Gershom Scholem’s Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism: 50 Years After, ed. P. Schafer (Tubingen: Mohr, 1993), 181–207. 56. Paul Riceour, From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 95, 96. 57. See Moshe Halamish, “Silence in Kabbala and Hasidism,” [Heb.], in Da’at veSafah (1982):79–89. 58. For an overview of how this notion serves as a central motif of Jewish identity, see Arnold Eisen, Galut (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1986), 3-58. 59. David Roskies, The Jewish Search for a Usable Past (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1999), 43. 60. The necessity of exile as purification is developed systematically by Nahmanides in his Sefer Ha-Geula. See ed. C. Chavel, Kitvei Ramban, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1973), 261-275. Building on the temporal nature of collective exile in rabbinic literature, philosophic and kabbalistic views of redemption focus on return and restoration respectively. See Shalom Rosenberg, “The Return to the Garden of Eden: Thoughts on the Idea of Restorative Redemption in Medieval Jewish Philosophy” [Heb.], The Messianic Idea in Jewish Thought: A Study Conference in Honor of the 80th Birthday of Gershom Scholem, ed. S. Re’em (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of the Humanities, 1982), 37–86. The necessity of exile is used by Nahmanides in a polemical manner in his argument against the viability of the Christian messianic claim because it argues for a notion of the premessianic Messiah. See Nahmanides, Sefer Ge’ulah, Book 3, in Kitvei Ramban, 281–95. 61. On the relationship of the expulsion to the sixteenth-century notion of zimzum, see relevant texts in Scholem and Idel’s equivocation in “One From a Town, Two From a Clan: A New Look at the Problem of the Diffusion of Lurianic Kabbala and Sabbateanism,” Jewish History 7, (1993):79–104. 62. KLAH Pithei Hokhma, no. 24, 60. 63. Rabbi Joseph Baer Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan, (Philadelphia: JPS, 1983), 49. 64. I do think that Soloveitchik deeply understood the problematic nature of radical transcendence and opted for a more mystical definition of God. See Walter Wuzberger, “Imitatio Dei in the Philosophy of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik,” in

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65.

66.

67. 68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

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Hazon Nahum, Y. Elman, J.S. Gurock, eds. (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1997), 557–75. Wurzberger argues that Soloveitchik rejects the Maimonidean notion of God and adopts the mystically influenced God idea in R. Hayyim of Volozhin’s Nefesh Ha-Hayyim. See Moshe Idel, “Maimonides and Kabbala” in Studies in Maimonides, ed. I. Twersky (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 31-82 and my “Maimonides and Kabbala,” in Hasidism in Transition [dissertation, Brandeis University, 1994], 147–200. In this sense I agree with Scholem that the Lurianic myth corresponds to the cultural and spiritual breakdown of the Spanish exile. See Scholem, Major Trends, 248–59, idem., “After the Spanish Expulsion,” [Heb.] in Devarim b’Go 1, (Jerusalem: ‘Am Oved, 1976), 262-269. Cf. I. Tishby, Messianism in the Time of the Expulsion from Spain and Portugal [Heb.] (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalach Shazar, 1985) and Moshe Idel’s critique of the Scholemanean position in Messianic Mystics, 169–75, esp. 179–82. See R. Moses Cordovero, ‘Or Ne’erav, (r.p. Jerusalem: ‘Ohr Hadash, 1999), Part II, 17–19. The notion that creation was an act of love also appears in Soloveitchik’s writings. On this David Hartman notes, “The creation of an imperfect universe was an act of love, since it enabled the human species to undertake the task of perfecting that which God brought into being in an imperfect and incomplete form.” See David Hartman, A Living Covenant (r.p Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 1997), 66. Conjugal and parental love are arguably the two dominant themes of the Lurianic system. Piety (love of God) is an outgrowth of these two natural human tendencies. On zimzum as the genesis of love see R. Moshe Cordovero, Pardes Rimonim (Jerusalem; Ha-Hayyim ve Ha-Shalom Press, 1972), Gate 3, Chapter 4, 12b. On zimzum in Cordovero, see Brakha Zak, “R. Moshe Cordovero’s Doctrine of Zimzum” [Heb.] Tarbiz 58 (1989):207–38 and idem., Sha’arei Ha-Kabbala shel R. Moshe Cordovero, (Jerusalem: Ben Gurion University Press, 1995), 57–82. See Zohar 3.193b and R. Hayyim Vital’s gloss, ad loc. Liebes, “Eros and the Zohar,” ‘Alpayim 9 (1994):67–110. Cf. Wolfson in Speculum and in Circle in the Square where he challenges Liebes on the status of masculine verses feminine and the temporality of the feminine as the result of exile. This is succinctly captured by the German Romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling, (whose use of zimzum is well known) when he said “God makes Himself.” Friedrich Schelling, ed. K. F. A. Schelling, Sammtlich Werke (Stuggart: Augsburg, 1855-1861): 7–432. On this, see Christoph Schulte, “Zimzum in the Works of Schelling,” Iyyun 41 (1992):21–40. See Sefer Yezeriah 1:1. For an explanation of these three concepts and its use in subsequent Kabbala see Aryeh Kaplan, Sefer Yezeria: The Book of Creation (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weller Books, 1990), 19–22. The use of these terms in interpreting later sixteenth-century Kabbala was a chief contribution of Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna. See his Biur Ha-GRA l’Sifra d’Zniuta in

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73. 74. 75.

76.

77.

78. 79.

80. 81. 82.

83. 84.

Sifra d’Zniuta im Perush Ha-GRA ve Yadid Nefesh (Jerusalem, 1995), 1. Cf. Joseph Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, esp. 32–74. This “pattern” consists of the reshimu or remnant of divine light that remains in the inner divine space after zimzum. Mishna Avot 5:1; B. Talmud Haggigah 12a; Avot de Rebbe Natan, chapter 31. For some examples of ma’amar satum in post-Lurianic Kabbala, see R. Shnuer Zalman of Liady, Torah ‘Or (Brooklyn: Kehot Press, 1975), 91b/c; R. Nahman of Bratslav, Likkutei MoHaRan I:12; R. Nathan of Nemerov, Likkutei Halakhot, vol. 3, “Laws of Rosh Ha-Shana” no. 6:1, 2 and idem. vol. 5, “Laws of Honoring One’s Parents,” 4:1. Cf. R. Yizhak Isik Yehudah Safrin of Komarno, Nozer Hesed (Jerusalem, 1982), 80, 81. The importance of the visualization of the text (reading) is already present in midrash, although it becomes prominent later in Kabbala. See Daniel Boyarin, “The Eye of Torah: Occular Desire in Midrashic Hermeneutics,” Critical Inquiry 16 (1990):532–50 and M. Lieb, The Visionary Mode: Biblical Prophecy, Hermeneutics, and Cultural Change (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1991), 8ff. On the notion of a seen text in Kabbala see E. R. Wolfson Through a Speculum That Shines (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 53ff, “It may be said that the way of seeing in simultaneously a way of reading.” See Morris Faierstein, “God’s Need for the Mitzvot in Medieval Kabbala,” Conservative Judaism 36 (1982):45-59; and Daniel Matt, “The Mystic and the Mitzvot,” in Jewish Spirituality I, Arthur Green ed. (New York: Crossroads Books, 1986), 367–404. On the identity of God, Torah, Israel see Zohar 3.73a/b. The necessity of exile (or creation) in Lurianic Kabbala is complex. David Biale, for example, argues that Lurianic Kabbala contains a strong “undercurrent of determinism” even as he admits that R. Hayyim Vital incorporates the medieval notion of divine Will into his description. Biale is correct that Luria’s unwillingness to espouse a more simple model of creation ex nihilo based on divine Will alone, lends itself to a determinist reading. See David Biale, “Jewish Mysticism in the Sixteenth Century,” in An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe, ed. Paul E. Szarmach, (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1984), 322–24. Genesis Raba 1:6. Cf. Leviticus Raba 36:4 and Rashi on Genesis I:1 ad loc. Martin Buber, “The Faith of Judaism” in Mamre—Essays in Religion (Greenport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970), 218. This may be one way of understanding the distinction between Lurianic and post-Lurianic Kabbala. The post-Lurianic Kabbalists, which included Renaissance Kabbalists, certain Lithuanian Kabbalists, and Hasidic masters, used Lurianic metaphysics as a foundation for devotional, ethical, or humanistic ends. See, for example, R. Nahman of Bratslav, Likkutei MoHaRan II:5. See Nisim Yosha, Myth and Metaphor, 205, 206, and Alexander Altmann, “Notes on the Development of the Kabbalistic Thinking of R. Menahem

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86.

87.

88.

89.

90.

91.

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Azaria da Fano,” [Heb.], in Mekharim b’Kabbala: Presented to Isaiah Tishby, eds. Joseph Dan and Joseph Hacker, (Jerusalem, 1986), 241–67. Edward Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), 34. Said, commenting on Erik Erikson’s reading of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism, suggests that beginning is a movement that by its very nature creates a new authority (in Foucault’s words, a discontinuity). Although all beginnings, according to Said, create new boundaries, they never let go of the past completely, building on a remnant of the past. This notion of a remnant of the past has a kabbalistic correlate in the notion of reshimu, the remnant of divine light in the vacuum created as a result of divine absence. On this see Yehudah Liebes, “Myth verses Symbol in the Zohar and in Lurianic Kabbala,” in Essential Papers on Kabbalah, ed. L. Fine, (New York: NYU Press, 1995), 212–242; and Shaul Magid “From Theosophy to Midrash: The Lurianic Reading of the Garden of Eden,” AJS Review Spring/Summer (1997):37–75. In the Lurianic tradition, recitation or reading without understanding takes on special significance. As we will see, both in Lithuanian Kabbala (Haver) and Hasidism (Schneersohn) understanding plays an essential role in the redemptive nature of kabbalistic reading. On Luria’s position see Lawrence Fine, “Recitation of Mishna as a Vehicle for Mystical Inspiration: A Contemplative Technique Taught by Hayyim Vital,” Revue des estudes juives 1–2 (1982):183–98. Harold Bloom, Kabbala and Criticism, 41. For the zoharic source of “breaking of the vessels” see Zohar 2.42b.This may have been drawn from the rabbinic midrash Genesis Raba 12:15. See Liebes, “The Kabbalistic Myth as Told by Orpheus,” 85. It is true that Luria’s system exhibits a Gnosticism rarely found in medieval Kabbala, which was dominated by Neoplatonism. It is therefore not surprising that Bloom, through Scholem, should find a strong affinity for Luria and later Shabbatai Zevi. However, I would argue that even Luria’s most Gnostic readings are still refracted through the Neoplatonic prism of the Zohar and thus maintain a strong Neoplatonic foundation. See I. Tishby, “Gnostic Doctrines in 16th Century Jewish Mysticism,” Journal of Jewish Studies 6 (1955):146–52. See Paul Ricoeur, Interpretaion Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, Texas: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 25–44, esp. 43, 44. Cf. idem, “The Hermeneutical Function of Distantiation” Philosophy Today 17–2 (Summer, 1973):129–41. On this see E.R. Wolfson, “Occultation of the Feminine and the Body of Secrecy in the Medieval Kabbala” in Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Religions, ed. E.R. Wolfson, (Chappaqua, NY: Seven Bridges Press, 1999), esp. 113–24. This is implied in R. Horowitz’s statement in Shefa Tal, 31b, “. . . it was necessary to create worlds below Azilut that would be distant from Godliness in order that they should reveal God’s power, greatness and action. This [distance] would increase God’s power, greatness and action.” This implies that the concealment of God results in the revelation of his in-

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92.

93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

99.

100.

101.

fluence. Cf. Joseph Ben Shlomo, Torat Ha-Elohut shel R. Moshe Cordovero [Heb.] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1986), 95–100. For an interesting description of nistar in Hasidism that reflects this idea see R. Kolonymous Kalman Shapiro of Piasceno, Derekh Ha-Melekh (Jerusalem, 1991), vol. 2, 180. “What is esotericism (sitrei torah)? It is the “hidden God” (‘el mistater). God is hidden in the Torah in the realm of divine commandments. The Torah is called ‘commandment’ (pikudei) from the language of deposit (pikadon). This means that God is deposited and hidden in the Torah.” See Gershom Scholem, “The Name of God and Linguistic Theory in Kabbala,” Diogenes 79 (1972):164–94. Cf., Moshe Idel, “Reification of Language in Jewish Mysticism,” in Steven Katz ed. Mysticism and Language (New York, London: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3–41. The kabbalistic correlation of language and creation is based on Sefer Yezeriah, where language becomes the tool of divine creativity. On this see A. P. Hyman, “The Doctrine of Creation in Sefer Yezeriah: Some Text-Critical Problems,” in Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), 129ff. See ‘Esara Kelalim # 8, (attributed to the Vilna Gaon) printed for the first time in Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 138, 139. See GRA’s commentary to Sifra d’Zniuta ‘im perush yadid nefesh (Petah Tikva, 1995), 1. For a useful introduction to this phenomenon in English see Aryeh Kaplan, Sefer Yezeriah: The Book of Creation, 19–22. See Sifra di-Zniuta ‘im Perush ha-GRA (Petah Tikva, 1995), 1. Ibid., and Tikkunei Zohar ve Tikkunim Hadash ‘im Perush Ha-GRA (Vilna, 1867), 156a. See Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 32–33. Cf. Sifra di-Zniuta ‘im Perush Ha-GRA, 14c/d, and Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 49. Cf. the GRA’s ‘Esara Kelalim, reprinted in Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 126–27. Elliot R. Wolfson, “From Sealed Book to Open Text: Time, Memory and Narrativity in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics,” in Interpreting Judaism in a Postmodern Age, ed. Steve Kepnes, (New York: NYU Press, 1996), 145–75. Cf. GRA, ‘Esara Kelalim, # 2 in Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 126, 127. In theosophic terms, this represents the world of rupture called ‘Olam HaNikudim (lit. the world of points). The mapping of the descent of divine sparks to the nether world constitutes the second part of the tripartite cosmos: The World of Boundedness (‘Olam Ha-Akudim), the World of Points (‘Olam Ha-Nikudim), and the World of Repair (‘Olam Ha-Berudim). Linguistically, the middle world represents the movement from silent letters (unvowelled to speech. See GRA ‘Esara Kelalim # 8 in Avivi Kabbalat HaGRA, 138, 139. On this see E. R. Wolfson, “From Sealed Book,” n. 50, 59. Cf. R. Hayyim Vital Etz Hayyim, “Drush Iggulim ve Yoshar,” Gate 1, 11d; R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzato (Ramhal) Da’at Tevunot 9:10; idem. Sefer Ha-Kelalim no. 100, 249; and “Esarah ‘Orot” in Ginzei Ramhal, ed. R. Hayyim Friedlander (Bnei Brak: Gitler Bros. Books, 1984), 307. Cf idem. KLAH Pithei Hokhma no. 24, 61, “Zimzum is not only concealment alone but also existence. Limitlessness is

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104.

105. 106.

107.

108.

109.

110. 111.

112.

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concealed but existence is established. This is the root of judgment (din) which is revealed.” See Yehuda Liebes, “Myth vs. Symbol in the Zohar and Lurianic Kabbala,” Essential Papers in Kabbala, L. Fine, ed. (New York: NYU Press, 1995), 212–42. See Mordecai Pachter, “Circles and Lines: The History of an Idea” [Hebrew], Da’at 18 (1987):59-90, and idem., “Clarifying the Terms Katnut and Gadlut in the Kabbala of the Ari and a History of its Understanding in Hasidism” [Heb.], Mekharei Yerushalayim 10 (1992):171–200. On this see R. Moshe Cordovero, ‘Or Yakar, vol. 4, 125, to Zohar 1.77b. On the rabbinic use of the term see Dalia Heshen, “Torat Ha-Zimzum and the Teachings of R. Akiva: Kabbala and Midrash” [Heb.], Da’at 34 (1995):33–60. See Gershom Scholem, Kabbala, 131. Cf. R. Shabbtai Sheftel Horowitz, Shefa Tal, 31b. The notion of reshimu is not new in Lurianic Kabbala but comes from Zohar 3.72, among other places. Cf. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 246ff, and I. Tishby, Torat Ha-Ra ve Ha-Kelippah, 22-28. Reshimu plays a pronounced role in Luzzato’s kabbalistic system. See Rivka Shatz-Uffenheimer, “The Metaphysics of Ramhal in an Ethical Context,” [Heb.], Shlomo Pines Jubilee Volume, Part II (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1990), 365–70. There is a direct correlation between the creation of nature and the human body in Kabbala. One of the more striking examples of this can be found in the GRA’s commentary to the creation story in Genesis 1 in Likkutei Ha-GRA l’Sefer Yezeriah, Sefer Yezeriah (r.p. Brooklyn, 1989), 24a–25d. In fact, one can say that exile includes redemption. In the mind of the Zohar the world to come is not some future moment but exists in the present. ’Olam Ha-Bah is defined as “the world that is coming, constantly, without stopping.” See Zohar 3.290b. See Scholem, “The Concept of Kavannah in Early Kabbala” A. Jospe ed., Studies in Jewish Thought (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1981), 162-180, and Mark Verman, “The Development of Yihudim in Spanish Kabbala” Mekharei Yerushalayim 8 (1989): 25-40. In Luria’s tradition see Lawrence Fine, “The Contemplative Practice of Yihudim in Lurianic Kabbala,” Jewish Spirituality II, ed. A. Green, (New York: Crossroads Press, 1987), 64–98. See Paul Riceour, Text and Action, 110–13. On the transmission of Luria’s teachings in Italy see J. Avivi, “Lurianic Kabbala in Italy Before 1600” [Hebrew], ‘Aley Sefer 11 (1984): 134–91. On the influence of Herrera on Luzatto see R. Shatz -Uffenheimer, “The Metaphysics of Ramhal,” 365–70. For a broader discussion on the influences on Ramhal see S. Ginzburg, Letters and Documents—R. Moses Hayyim Luzatto and His Generation [Heb.], (Tel Aviv, 1937). See, for example, in I. Tishby, “The Relationship of R. Moshe Hayyim Luzatto to Sabbateanism” and “The Impact of R. Moshe Hayyim Luzatto to Hasidism” [both in Hebrew] in Hikrei Kabbala u Shalukhoteha, Volume III (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1993), 756–79, 961–94.

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113. On the metaphorical interpretation of Kabbala in Habad see Moshe Halamish, “The Doctrine of R. Shneur Zalman of Liady and Its Relationship to Kabbala and the Beginning of Hasidism” [Hebrew] (dissertation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1976), esp. 95–106; Yoram Jacobson, “The Doctrine of Creation of R. Shneur Zalman of Liady,” [Hebrew] Eshel Be’er Sheva 1 (Beer Sheva, Israel, 1976): 316–31; and Tamar Ross, “Two Interpretations of the Doctrine of Zimzum: R. Hayyim of Volozhin and R. Shneur Zalman of Liady,” [Hebrew] Mekharei Yerushalayim 1-2 (1982): 153–69. 114. Ramhal deals with the purpose of creation in many of his writings. 138 Paths to Wisdom (KLAH Pithei Hokhma) is from the third period of Ramhal’s writing. It was written in 1732 and published in Warsaw in 1888. Ramhal’s opinions on these matters change slightly in each of his major works. My treatment will be limited primarily to KLAH. For a survey of his position on creation in all of his writings, see Joseph Avivi, “The Purpose of Creation in Ramhal’s Writings” [Hebrew] Ma’ayan 25 (1985): 1-18. Scholem suggested that the nonliteral understanding of zimzum began in the Italian Renaissance when Lurianic Kabbala interfaced with Renaissance philosophy. See Scholem, Kabbala, 131. 115. On this see Nisim Yosha, Myth and Metaphor [Hebrew], 190-192. Yosha argues that zimzum as the volitional act of God rather than the catastrophic myth of the earlier Lurianic teaching begins with Herrera’s synthesis of Lurianic and Cordoveren ideas. Cf. Ramhal’s stance on this in KLAH # 30, 90. On Cordovero’s influence on Ramhal, see Ginzberg, R. Moses Hayyim Luzatto and His Generation, 102. 116. See Ramhal, Hoker ‘u Mekubal (Jerusalem, n.d.), 16a/b. Cf. Shatz-Uffenheimer, “Ramhal’s Metaphysics,” 379. 117. This itself is not new. See Perush Eser Sephirot shel R. Azreil, printed in R. Meir Ibn Gabbai’s Derekh Emunah, 2b. 118. This is similar to R. Moshe Cordovero in ‘Or Yakar to Sifra d’Zniuta cited in Boaz Huss, “Tefisat ‘Or Ganuz b’Sefer Ketem Paz l’R Shimon Lavi,” in Mekharei Yerushalayim 10 (1992): 349. 119. It seems that the midrashic statement “there is no King without a people” referring to God and Israel underlies Ramhal’s suggestion that creation was necessary to fulfill God’s infinite nature. 120. It is significant that Altmann uses the birth metaphor in his description of Herrera’s understanding of zimzum. See Altmann, “Lurianic Kabbala in a Platonic Key: Abraham Cohen Herrera’s Puerta del Cielo,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, I Twersky and B. Septimus, eds. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 36. “The emanation as such was but the passive recipient of the divine power, not perfecting anything but being itself perfected, not giving but receiving, like a pregnant woman giving birth by virtue of the infinite power of Eyn Sof.” Cf. R. Zvi Hirsch Eichenstein, Zur me Ra ve ‘Aseh Tov, 106. R. Zvi Hirsch understood this by differentiating between eyn sof and divine Will. Divine Will (sometimes referred to as Keter) is created, and it is the first condition of creation and the first result of zimzum.

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122. 123.

124.

125. 126.

127.

128.

129. 130.

131. 132.

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On this, see Dov Schwartz, “R. Zvi Hirsch of Zhidachov—Between Kabbala and Hasidism” [Heb.], Sinai 102 (1988): 241–50. R. Abraham Ha-Kohen Herrera, Sha’ar Ha-Shamayim, (Warsaw, 1864), Book Three, cited in Shatz-Uffenheimer, “Ramhal’s Metaphysics,” 366, n. 11. It is important to note that the kabbalistic view of eyn sof, while it shares a great deal with Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, is an entity that has a will. Ramhal, who in my mind was aware of the apparent similitude between eyn sof and the Unmoved Mover stressed the volitional nature of eyn sof by emphasizing an earlier kabbalistic notion that Keter (crown), the first manifestation of God in creation, is called razon (Will). See his KLAH, 59, “For the Lofty Will (harazon ha-elyon), which is eyn sof. . . ” The need for the Infinite to have a will emerges from the biblical notion of God as a relational partner of Israel, relation (covenant) as necessitating volition. For a rendering of this, that reflects Luzzato’s reading, see R. Yizhak Isik Haver, Magen ve Zina (Bnei Brak: Nezah Books, 1985), 17a. Daniel Matt, “Ayin: The Concept of Nothingness in Jewish Mysticism,” in The Problem of Pure Consciousness, Robert K. C. Forman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 121–59. See Zohar Ha-Rakiya, 23a, and KLAH # 26, 66-72. Cf. S. Ginzburg, ed., Iggrot Ramhal u B’nei Doro, (Tel Aviv, 1937), Letter # 4, and Kinat Ha-Shem Ziva’ot in Ginzei Ramhal¸ ed. R. Hayyim Friedlander, (Bnei Brak: Gitler Bros. Books, 1980), 89. Cf. Luzzato, Hoker u M’Kubal, 19d. See also R. Joseph Igras Shomer Emunim Ha-Kadmon (Vilna, 1882), 38bf. In one of the early systematic attempts to understand creation, this “leap” from the infinite to the finite remains a mystery. See Azriel of Gerona’s Perush ‘al Eser Sephirot, printed in the beginning of R. Meir Ibn Gabbai’s Derekh Emunah, 1a/4d. For both Herrera and Ramhal, ayin (nothing or no-thingness) is not eyn sof but the by-product of eyn sof. It is already a part of creation. See Luzzato, Hoker u Mekubal, 16. On the notion that kav ha-yashar is the confinement of the infinite God see R. Yizhak Isik Haver Waldman, Pithei Shearim (Tel Aviv: Sinai Publishing, 1989), “Netive Ha-Zimzum,” 7b/8a. In the words of R. Shimon Lavi, “With its [divinity’s] concealment, all individual existence was created.” See Lavi, Ketem Paz (Jerusalem, 1981), 1:124c cited in Matt, “New Ancient-Words,” 187. KLAH #’s 25, 27. Cf. Avivi, “The Purpose of Creation,” 5, 6. For both Luzzato and Haver ayin (no-thing-ness) is not eyn sof but the product of eyn sof in the finite world. See Luzzato, Hoker u Mekubal, 16, and Haver, Pithei Shearim, “Netive Ha-Zimzum 13,” 7b/8a. KLAH # 30, 94, 95. See Etz Hayyim, “Drush Iggulim ve Yosher,” 11d, Zohar Ha-Rakiya, 23c, and KLAH # 30. In Luzzato’s second period of literary activity, which includes KLAH Pithei Hokhma, Pithei Hokhma ve Da’at, and Vikuah Mar Yenukah ve Mar Kashisha, he adopts Vital’s basic stance adding his own ethical reading. See Avivi, “The Purpose of Creation,” 115, 16. Cf. Yosha, Myth and

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133. 134.

135. 136.

137. 138. 139.

140. 141.

142.

Metaphor, 188–206, and Alexander Altmann, “Lurianic Kabbala in a Platonic Key: Abraham Cohen Herera’s Puerta del Cielo,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. I. Twersky and B. Septimus, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 1–39. See Rivka Shatz-Uffenheimer, “The Metaphysics of Ramhal in an Ethical Context,” [Heb.] 365-370 Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 9 (1990): 361–97. This type of mystical reading is particularly true of the Lurianic Kabbalists, who pay little attention to the plain-sense meaning (peshat) and formulate their reading in opposition to peshat. See my “From Theosophy to Midrash: Lurianic Exegesis and the Garden of Eden,” AJS Review 22/1 (1977): 37–75. The Zohar’s relationship to peshat is more complicated. See Elliot R. Wolfson, “Beautiful Maiden Without Eyes: Peshat and Sod in Zoharic Hermeneutics,” in The Midrashic Imagination, ed. Michael Fishbane, (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), 155–204, and Yehudah Liebes, “Myth and Symbol in the Zohar and Lurianic Kabbala,” in Essential Papers in Kabbala, ed. Lawrence Fine, (New York: NYU Press, 1995), 212-242. Zohar 1.100b. Almost no scholarly work has been done on Haver. For a biographical introduction see R. Hayyim Friedlander’s preface to Haver’s Magen ve Zina (Bnei Brak: Nezach Press, 1985), 3–33. A slightly revised version of this introduction can be found in Haver’s Sefer Ha-Zemanim (Jerusalem, 1994), 1–13. As a student of the GRA (via R. Menahem Mendel of Sklov) Haver’s Kabbala is largely drawn from the Ramhal’s writings. This sermon was first published in R. Joshua Alter Waldman’s ‘Amek Yehoshua (Warsaw, 1913), reprinted in ‘Ozrot R. Yizhak Isik Haver (Jerusalem, 1990). This is explicit in the GRA’s understanding of creation. See ‘Esara Kelalim, reprinted in Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 125. “It was God’s Will to create finite creatures in order that the human being should have free-will and choose good [over evil]. . . Therefore, he had to limit His own Will in order that it would be finite. This is the beginning of existence—the concealment of divine Will. This is the secret of zimzum—that God limit His Will in order for it to be possible for creation to receive goodness even though they are limited and finite.” Cf. Haver, Pithei Shearim, 3a, “It is said among Kabbalists and explained in the writings of the Rav [GRA] that the purpose of the zimzum and creation is the existence of free-will.” The correlation between zimuzm and free-will plays a role in Cordovero’s understanding as well. See Pardes Rimonim, Gate 3, Chapter 4, 12b. On the GRA’s use of these terms see Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 32–36. See Tikkunei Zohar, Introduction, 4d. This is also strikingly similar to Descartes’ comment in Rules for the Direction of the Mind, “For the human being has in it something that we may call divine, wherein are scattered the first gems of useful modes of thought.” See Descartes, Philosophical Works, trans. E.S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), 1:10. Haver, “Drush l’Shabbat Shuva,” 3b/4a.

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143. This is strikingly similar to Franz Rosenzweig’s description of human language (revelation) as the unfolding of God’s language (creation). For Rosenzweig, human speech is revelation as it completes creation by keeping it alive as a day to day renewal of God’s creation. See Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption, trans. William Hallo (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 1970), 111f, and Joseph Turner, “Franz Rosenzweig’s Interpretation of the Creation Narrative,” Jewish Journal of Thought and Philosophy 4-1 (1994): 28, 29, and n. 23. 144. On the perspectivity argument in the Kabbala of R. Hayyim Volozhin, a disciple of the GRA, see Tamar Ross, “Shnei Perushim le-Torat Ha-Zimzum: R. Hayyim of Volozhin ve-R. Shneur Zalman mi-Liady,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2 (1982): 153–69, and my “Deconstructing the Mystical: The A-Mystical Kabbalism in R. Hayyim of Volozhin’s Nefesh Ha-Hayyim,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, 9 (1999): 21–67. 145. Pithei Shearim, 3b/4a. 146. See Haver, Magen ve Zina, 17a. “Everything we are speaking about in terms of the supernal worlds, zimzum, and sephirot. . . are all from our perspective—that which God revealed to us according to our understanding. From God’s perspective, however, He remains the true One, both before and after creation.” 147. Haver, “Drush l’Shabbat Shuva,” 3b. 148. Ibid., 2a. On bozina d’kardenuta as the first existent, see Zohar 1.15a, Cf. Zohar 1.16b 3.135b. 149. This is apparently based on Psalms 109:22, My heart is empty within Me (libi hallel b’kirbi). A strikingly similar formulation can be found in R. Nahman of Bratslav’s Likkutei MoHaRan I:8. For R. Nahman, however, it is the primal scream and not knowledge attained through study that brings light into the dark empty recesses of the human heart. On R. Nahman’s warning against the dependency of knowledge in general, see Likkutei MoHaRan II: 12, 19d. 150. Haver, “Drush l’Shabbat Shuva,” 3b, in the gloss Beit Netivot. 151. This reflects a similar attitude in the GRA. See GRA Biur l’Mishle (Petah Tikva, 1985) 4:2, 6:20 and 19:9. Cf. Biur Tikkunei Zohar Hadash (Vilna, 1866), 19c. Cf. Avivi, Kabbalat Ha-GRA, 54, 55. 152. The inclusion of recitation as part of the mystical depiction of talmud torah has been treated by Lawrence Fine, “Recitation of Mishna as a Vehicle for Mystical Inspiration: A Contemplative Technique Taught by Hayyim Vital,” Revue des estudes juives 1-2 (1982):183-198. This model has also been adopted by early Hasidism. See Joseph Weiss, “Torah Study in Early Hasidism,” in idem. Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism (New York/London: Oxford Univeristy Press), 56–68; and Norman Lamm, Torah Lishma: Torah for Torah’s Sake (New Jersey: Ktav Press), 102–37. The Lithuanian mystical tradition, devoted to the GRA’s understanding of Torah study, was reluctant to incorporate recitation as an adequate model for study. See, R. Hayyim of Volozhin Nefesh Ha-Hayyim, Gate Four, Chapters 11–29. 153. Cordovero formulated the notion of zimzum as the catalyst for human apprehension earlier. On this see Brakha Zak, Sha’arei Ha-Kabbalal shel R, Moshe

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154.

155. 156.

157. 158. 159. 160.

161. 162. 163.

164. 165.

Cordovero, 68. For a source in Luria on zimzum and human apprehension, see Meir Benayahu, Toldot Ha-Ari (Jerusalem, 1967), 164. On R. Dov Baer see, Rachel Elior, The Doctrine of the Divine in the Second Generation of Habad Hasidism [Heb.], (Jerusalem: Magnus Press, 1982). Moshe Rosman, in Founder of Hasidism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 187–211 offers an interesting analysis of the controversy of the leadership of the second generation of Habad between R. Dov Baer and R. Aaron Ha-Levi of Staroselye. See Vital, ‘Ozrot Hayyim, 16d-18b, “Sha’ar Ha-Kelalim,” Chapter 2 in Etz Hayyim, 8d-9b. The word is a play on the Hebrew root M-S-SK, The feminine form of the verb masakhot means “to veil,” while the masculine form, masakhim, is “to mask.” R. Dov Baer, following the Lurianic tradition, utilizes the masculine form of the verb in describing divine veils that separate one cosmic realm from the next. See Etz Hayyim, “Drush ABY”A”, Gate 42, Chapter 14, 92dff. Cf. R. Abraham David of Posquieres’ commentary to Sefer Yezeriah, Pri Yizhak, ad. loc. R. Dov Baer Schneurson of Lubavitch, “Sha’ar Ha-Yihud” in Ner Mitzvah ve Torah ‘Or (Brooklyn: Kehot Press, 1979), 37b–38a. On this see N. Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 156. The notion that zimzum creates darkness, which prevents clarity of vision, appears in certain Geronese kabbalistic thinkers such as Nahmanides and Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov. On this, see Scholem, Ha-Kabbala b’Gerona (Jerusalem: Akadamon Press, 1964), 289, 290; idem. Kabbala, 129; and Idel’s comment in “On Zimzum in Kabbala and its Research,” 68, 69. See Zohar 2.224b, “Just as eyn sof is concealed, so too all words of Torah are concealed.” On God’s writing before speaking, see E. R. Wolfson, “From Sealed Book to Open Text,” 147–51. Although there is midrashic precedent for the notion of Torah as the blueprint of creation, only in Sefer Yezeriah is this idea developed and expanded. See Genesis Raba 1:1, “God gazed into the Torah and created the world.” Cf. Zohar 2.161a/b, 2.34b. Zohar 2.151b states that God looked at the “letters” and created the world. Zohar 3.239a states that God gazed at the form of “the holy Malkhut” and created the world. Mishna Pe’ah 1:1, Talmud Shabbat 127a. The recognition of this danger is shared by the GRA as well. See his Biur l’Mishle, 24:31, “Torah to the soul is like rain to the earth. It can produce both beneficial and poisonous produce. Therefore, regarding Torah, after study one must extract the extraneous matter [of study] through fear of heaven and acts of kindness.” For a discussion on this, see Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Personality of the GRA and his Influence on History” [Hebrew], Zion (1966): 60. Cf. Zohar 1:102a and 3.144b on the punishment for revealing secrets. Michael Fishbane has recently developed what he has called “exegetical

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spirituality,” which reflects some of the kabbalistic ideas discussed here. See Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Unviersity Press, 1998), esp. 105–122. Cf. Daniel Matt, “New-Ancient Words,” 186, 187. 166. See Zohar 3.73a/b.

chapter 8

Cyclical Motions and the Force of Repetition in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig Zachary Braiterman

Explaining his decision to join the propaganda division of the Zionist Congress, Martin Buber wrote to his wife Paula: “Of the various choices offered me, I have chosen the Propaganda Committee, because that is what I love: communicating movement (Bewegung mitteilen).”1 This particular devotion to a political movement (on the one hand) dovetailed with a love for spiritual movement (on the other). Writing back, Paula denounced the bourgeois spirit for leveling difference. Consciously echoing Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer, she intoned, “[D]ivergencies, movement, life. We don’t want to sleep. O you hobbling, you lazy, you used-up people!”2 I cite this exchange because it formed part of a broader European sensibility. The work of the Italian Futurist Umberto Boccioni, Marcel Duchamp’s famous Nude Descending a Staircase, Wassily Kandinsky’s ghostly horsemen all reflected a keen postromantic interest in movement.3 So too the aesthetic driving Franz Rosenzweig’s philosophical reflections. Indeed, our example from the Buber correspondence indicates how the temporal structure of movement organized modern “religious” thought in the early twentieth century. Viewed from this perspective, the key words to understanding religious life and thought are rhythm, alteration, stasis, rest.4 To my mind, Rosenzweig’s The Star of Redemption evokes the modern turn toward motion far more clearly than Buber’s own magnum opus. The degree to which movement characterized Buber’s mature thought was confined to the oscillation between the schematized poles of the I-Thou and the I-It. By turn-

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ing to the motif of movement in Rosenzweig’s system, I mean to make more of a point made by Stéphane Mosès. According to Mosès, Rosenzweig has “eternity” refer to static, motionless time.5 Ironically, however, the immobilization of time depends upon a particular type of motion. As Mosès observes, the “movement” that creates “stasis” in Rosenzweig’s system is circular.6 Building upon this paradoxical relationship between movement and stasis shows the following. Circular motion generates epiphanies in which time stops dead as eternity breaks into the temporal order. At the same time, this very same circular motion brings the person back from what would be an otherwise premature climax and back into the prosaic cycles of everyday life. In an anthology devoted to the theme of beginning, I want to argue that “repetition” defines Rosenzweig’s understanding of Jewish life. This takes the form of two overarching cycles: [1] The ritual calendar (discussed throughout part III of The Star of Redemption) constitutes the most obvious cycle. The calendar continuously ends, begins anew, and as such repeats itself. This repetitive rhythm is said to both reflect and generate eternity within a thisworldly temporal framework. By eternity, Rosenzweig means that which is “wholly alive,” the transition of momentary existence into something enduring, the durability of the world that takes place beneath constantly momentary existence.7 The experience (the event) of eternity in this-world is the static effect created by the whirring hum of a ritual calendar cycle. A circular figure (Gestalt) of eternity, the calendar endures through and in spite of linear time and historical change. Again and again, we will see Rosenzweig attending not just to the ideational content of each particular ritual, but to the formal structure of repetition that defines the cycle as such. [2] The second cycle driving The Star of Redemption has been less recognized in the scholarly literature. We will call it “existential,” but with one caveat: this cycle points beyond temporal existence. Rosenzweig begins his text by describing the human creature’s terror before death. He ends the text alluding to the “kiss” of God (i.e., returning to the figure of death). I call this cycle “existential” because it charts the soul’s movement from the fear of death, into unredeemed terrestrial life, and back again to death.8 The stasis of repetitive motion should not lead one to overlook the creative force of repetition. The recurring movement of the ritual and existential cycles does not indicate identity; it does not signify the monotonous repetition of the same. As this argument unfolds, I will turn to the writings of Jacques Derrida and Soren Kierkegaard. These theorists elucidate the power of repetitive motion to introduce difference, to effect change, and to transform existence and consciousness. In Rosenzweig’s text, religious thought clearly picks up where it began: at a new year, at the encounter with death.

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But the cyclical process will have transfigured both. In the first case, repetition includes new moments and generates affective flux. In the second case, the force of repetition proves more radical. By the end of the text, Rosenzweig has rendered death practically unrecognizable. Repetition turns the fear of it into ecstatic embrace. In both cases, the experience of love is the force of repetition. Revelation and redemption are figures of love that power the holiday’s cyclical form. Love redeems the human soul from the fear of “creaturely death” by pointing it to “redeeming death.”9 The Holiday Cycle: The Force of Repetition, Eternity in Time In the Kuzari, Judah Halevi claims that the servant of God does not detach himself [sic] from the world, does not hate life. And yet, Halevi makes this claim only insofar as this-world prepares the servant for life in the-world-tocome. The cyclical movement of the Jewish calendar provides the servant of God the structure with which to accomplish that end. The systematic introduction of holiday-moments into the yearly cycle nourishes the human soul. It offers the servant regular opportunities to free itself from worldly matters, youth, women, and wicked people.10 This understanding of the holiday shares a great deal with Rosenzweig’s. Both Halevi and Rosenzweig point to the calendar’s cyclicality, the way in which holiday-points recur throughout the year on an even, repetitive basis. Moreover, both accounts (Halevi’s explicitly and Rosenzweig’s implicitly) link the holiday cycle with the contemplation of death and eternal life. I have noted elsewhere that Yom Kippur and the figure of death represent highpoints in Rosenzweig’s discussion of the ritual cycle.11 Indeed, Yom Kippur serves to dramatize the interplay between death, love, and life at its highest pitch. With the beloved soul standing alone before God on the Day of Judgment, the holiday cycle has reached its crescendo. In Rosenzweig’s description, On the Days of Awe . . . [the soul] confronts the eyes of his judge in utter loneliness, as if he were dead in the midst of life . . . beyond the grave in the very fullness of living . . . God lifts up his countenance to this united and lonely pleading of men in their shrouds . . . And so man to whom the divine countenance is lifted bursts out into the exultant profession: the ‘Lord is God:’ this God of love, he alone is God!12

Yom Kippur represents the jubilant soul’s last confident cry at the apex of the holiday year.13

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Following this climax, Rosenzweig briefly returns to the holiday of Sukkot. In his description of the holiday cycle, the observance of Sukkot does not merely follow Yom Kippur. The line between the two holidays forms a circular pattern, not a linear one. Rosenzweig concedes, “. . . it is difficult to imagine that a way can lead back from here into the circuit of the year.”14 In other words, the soul has reached a highpoint, but must now return to everyday life. Referring back to Yom Kippur, he continues, To neutralize the foretaste of eternity, the Feast of Booths reinstates the reality of time. Thus the circuit of the year can recommence, for only within this circuit are we allowed to conjure eternity up into time.15

Mosès has already noted the melancholy that attends the transition between Yom Kippur and Sukkot. In turn, I would link this shift in mood to repetition. Rosenzweig describes the transition between Yom Kippur and Sukkot with the words “reinstate,” “recommence,” and “circuit.” This language suggests a return to the beginning of a cycle that has just concluded. From the apex of Yom Kippur anticipating death, the ritual cycle has forced the beloved soul back into ephemeral life, back into daily, unredeemed existence.16 This melancholic repetition concludes the section of Part III, Book One, entitled “The Holy People: The Jewish Year” by bringing us back into the circuit of the year. Having anticipated the goal within this-world, having “conjured” (beschworen) eternity within a temporal framework, the soul returns to unredeemed, historical existence. Having finished his discussion of the holiday structure, Rosenzweig turns to “Messianic Politics.” He begins this unit by reflecting back on the calendar. “It was the circuit of a people. In it, the people was at its goal and knew it was at the goal.”17 Rosenzweig’s language makes clear that the experience of eternity occurs within a repeating cycle. However, this cycle does not stand still or move backward. It moves forward, like the motion of a bicycle or automobile wheel, but with one crucial difference. The riders of bicycles and the drivers of automobiles propel themselves. In contrast, calendar time is pulled forward (like astronauts by tractor beams in low-budget science fiction films). Explaining the forward pull of repetition, Rosenzweig writes, “The future is the driving power in the circuit of its year. Its rotation originates, so to speak, not in a thrust, but in a pull.”18 Rosenzweig rejects the notion of linear time held out by the proponents of historicism and progress. The year circles forward, but within its own prescribed ambit: [1] from empirical life and unredeemed existence to [2] spiritual apex and back to [3] empirical life and unredeemed existence. Yom Kip-

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pur had signified nothing less than the people’s dramatic foretaste of redemption, eternity within time: a moment of perfect stasis where time stops still before the face of God at the anticipated border of life and death. One might have thought that Rosenzweig’s discussion of the holiday cycle might have ended at such a consummate moment. But we have just seen that it doesn’t. The discussion shifts from Yom Kippur to Sukkot. This movement suggests that the calendar resumes its cycle instead of ending at a climax. By what power then does the year repeat itself? According to Rosenzweig, the consciousness that redemption is nevertheless not yet gives the year the power to repeat itself and (and in the process link itself into the linear chain of historical time). Rosenzweig must proceed cautiously here. On one hand, he has to acknowledge that this-world remains unredeemed; therefore the cycle must repeat itself. On the other hand, he must insist that this circular movement does not represent historical growth (i.e., development, progress, change). Since (as Rosenzweig also insists) the Jewish people is eternal, it must always already have reached or anticipated its goal in time.19 The image of the circle allows him to have it both ways: the cycle moves on (and as such is pulled into the forward moving flow of unredeemed time); at the same time, the circle moves according to its own predetermined trajectory, returning again and again to the consummate moment epitomized by Yom Kippur. This shift from the highpoint of Yom Kippur to the mundane realia symbolized by Sukkot does not represent the first and only such transition between climax and anti-climax in Rosenzweig’s system. A similar transition had already marked the passage from part II to part III of The Star of Redemption. Part II constituted the formal and thematic heart of the program, including chapters on creation and revelation and concluding with redemption. This final chapter of part II had ended on the same high note with which Rosenzweig concludes his discussion of the ritual calendar in part III. Like Yom Kippur, redemption represents a consummate figure. Rosenzweig has redemption symbolized by the community’s chorus welling into an immense vision of a universal, fraternal We. This chorus drags all future eternity into the present now of the moment. Rosenzweig proclaims “The We are eternal: Death plunges into the Nought in the face of this triumphal shout of eternity. Life becomes immortal in redemption’s eternal hymn of praise.”20 As we will see in the third section of this chapter, these words represent the penultimate confidence of the redemption chapter. For now, it is enough to note the lyric force of this climactic moment. The question that I want to address here concerns the composition of Rosenzweig’s text. It would have seemed that he could have stopped at any number of consummate moments. His description of the ritual cycle might

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have ended with Yom Kippur. The entire Star of Redemption might have ended at the high point of Redemption. We ask once again: why then does Rosenzweig repeatedly bring us to and then bring us back from these climatic high points? The answer reflects time and timing. We noted above that the calendar cycle repeats itself because this-world remains unredeemed. Eternal life is planted in temporality.21 In other words, eternity must occur in time, within the temporal and social structures that Rosenzweig will discuss in part III.22 Ultimately, this planting of eternity within time has to do with timing. Having concluded part II invoking the apex of redemption, Rosenzweig resumes his discourse in part III on a more sober note. In the introduction to part III, he reflects on how one must time the coercion of the “kingdom.” The kingdom (the “visible representation of what is experienced only in the soul’s holy of holies,” the “reciprocal union of the soul with all the world”) represents a messianic figure of redemption.23 By messianic, Rosenzweig means a thisworldly end. The kingdom grows step by step as the beloved soul turns in love to redeem the social world through love. Rosenzweig vigorously rejects the path of the fanatic who would leap to this end point without taking the intermediary step of turning toward one’s neighbor.24 Rosenzweig situates himself between the fanatic and Goethe. This too requires proper timing. Like so many other German intellectuals, Rosenzweig has Goethe stand as the purest symbol of this-worldly living.25 Against the fanatic and with Goethe, Rosenzweig acknowledges the importance of temporality and temporal life. Rosenzweig explains, “Life, and all life, must first become wholly temporal, wholly alive before it can become eternal.” But then he adds, “An accelerating force must be added to it.”26 How fast is too fast and how slow is too slow? To be sure, the fanatic proceeds too quickly toward the end. However, Goethe does not move fast enough; he lingers. The beloved soul’s prayer must therefore supplement, must quicken, Goethe’s unbelieving humanism. The believer “supplements the nonbeliever’s devotion to pure temporal life into a plea for eternal life.”27 As such, the repetition of the liturgical cycle (and the prayers it includes) accelerates the person’s motion toward the anticipation of eternity in time and toward eternal life. The beloved soul seeks to anticipate eternity today, an infinite Now that would not perish. And yet, Rosenzweig recognizes that within the flow of time eternal moments remain especially fleeting. How then make a transient moment imperishable? The answer depends on a cyclical notion of sacred time: “The moment which we seek must begin again at the very moment that it vanishes; it must recommence in its own disappearance; its perishing must at the same time be a reissuing.” The hour represents such a symbol of eternity.

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Because it is stationary, the hour can already contain within itself the multiplicity of old and new, the fullness of moments. Its end can merge back into its beginning because it has a middle, indeed many middle moments between its beginning and its end. With beginning, middle, and end it can become that which the mere sequence of individual and every new moment never can: a circle returning in upon itself. In itself it can now be full of moments and yet ever equal to itself again . . . This recommencement, however, would not be possible for the hour if it were merely a sequence of moments—such as it indeed is in its middle. It is possible only because the hour has beginning and end.28

As Robert Gibbs notes, the experience of eternity in time is the effect of a human institution.29 The hour does not occur in “nature”—by which Rosenzweig here means an interminable succession of moments organized roughly by solar and lunar cycles. The hour contains an end and a beginning marked by human artifice, the ringing of a clock. Having once struck, the hour recommences, exactly like the one that had just ended. “In the hour, then, one moment is re-created, whenever and if ever it were to perish, into something newly issued and thus imperishable, into a nunc stans, into eternity.”30 The Kingdom, the incursion of eternity into time, unfolds in its own proper time through temporal structure, through the repeating motion of human institutions: the hour and (more importantly for Rosenzweig’s discussion) the calendrical cycle of cultic prayer and gesture. The introduction to part III of The Star of Redemption (with its discussion of hour, week, and year) sets the reader up for the descriptions of Jewish and Christian congregational life that follow. For Rosenzweig, the soul senses earthly eternity within the human community.31 The human institution of the week (and here Rosenzweig already has Shabbat in mind) is a law for the cultivation of the earth laid down by human beings. At the same time, it holds a higher significance: It is meant to regulate the service of the earth, the work of “culture,” rhythmically, and thus to mirror, in miniature, the eternal, in which beginning and end come together, by means of the ever repeated present, the imperishable by means of the Today.32

Rosenzweig’s description of the week segues seamlessly into cult. Here he finally shows how the hour and the calendar’s repetitive movement effects eternity in time. Rosenzweig goes on to say that “The cycles of the cultic prayer are repeated every day, every week, every year, and in this repetition faith

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turns the moment into an ‘hour,’ it prepares time to accept eternity, and eternity, by finding acceptance in time, itself becomes—like time.”33 For Rosenzweig, the calendar’s most important characteristic is its repetition. As a rhythmically repeating structure it is always there. As an enduring figure, it both reflects and generates eternity in time. The Holiday Cycle: Repetition and Difference To all intents and purposes, Rosenzweig ignored historical difference in The Star of Redemption. Yet surely, he must have known that the calendar does not “simply” repeat itself. With the passing of time, new observances, new prayers, new gestures, new ideas filter into and change the calendar year. The ahistorical quality of Rosenzweig’s thought therefore constitutes a major weakness. However, I would argue against his critics that repetition (and the stasis that it effects) does not preclude historical change and nova.34 While the ritual cycle effects repetition, the ultimate collapse of beginning and end, it does not ignore new moments in the middle. We have already quoted Rosenzweig’s discussion of the hour: “In itself it can now be full of moments and yet ever equal to itself again.”35 By “full of moments,” Rosenzweig includes new moments. That is, the hour is “equal to itself ” in as much as it retains its formal identity with every other hour. But that formal structure contains many moments, many new and variegated contents. We again requote Rosenzweig’s statement that, “the hour can already contain within itself the multiplicity of old and new, the fullness of moments.”36 In our view, these “new moments” complicate, even if they do not confound, the critique of Rosenzweig’s ahistoricism. Rosenzweig’s critics have overlooked a fundamental distinction between “formal” identity and variable “content.” In fact, this conceptual contrast might have helped them isolate an irreducible tension in Rosenzweig’s discussion of repetition that terms such as “stasis” otherwise obfuscate. The hour serves as a paradigm for the ritual calendar. Like the hour, the calendar is structured by formal repetition and variable content. To be sure, Rosenzweig describes Sabbath and holidays in terms of an even steady flow that underlies the year. However, this does not mean that he has overlooked the “surge of joy and sorrow, of anguish and bliss that the feasts bring with them.” The steady flow of Sabbaths throughout the year does not stand over against this surge in order to contain it. Rather, this even flow constitutes the very condition of possibility that generates “these whirlpools of the soul.” Both Sabbath and Creation are “renewed throughout the year, week after week the same, and yet week after week different, because of the difference in the weekly

cyclical motions and the force of repetition 2 2 3

[Torah] portions.”37 As such, the formal repetition of Sabbaths has introduced the variables of affective flux and textual succession into the year. These comments do not in themselves dispel doubts regarding the ahistorical quality of Rosenzweig’s system. Unfortunately, the tension between repetition and variation and its relationship to ritual remain largely understated in The Star of Redemption. However, Rosenzweig’s treatment of this tension proves more explicit in the afterword to his Judah Halevi translation. At the very end of this essay, most famous for its theory of translation, Rosenzweig has the following to say about liturgical prayer. Returning to the theme of the holiday year, he describes how: In the recurrence [the words of the liturgical poem] are the variable, but because . . . they are bound nevertheless to recurrence, they are necessarily forced into a certain similarity. That is not conspicuous as long as they stand in their natural relationship to application; [i.e.,] the different poems . . . were then divided by a . . . full year full of events in the life of the synagogue. Repetitions were not experienced as such, or, as far they are experienced, it is entirely in order. For this recurrence in the year is after all the essence of the festival. As in the final analysis, repetition is altogether the great form which man has for expressing what is entirely true for him. In these poems one can find the always renewed words of humility and devotion, of despair and trust in redemption, of world-aversion and longing for God . . . That [the heart] does not become tired of saying anew this always One again and again testifies to [the poem’s] enduring power. In the mouth of the lover the word of love never becomes old . . . ”38

This explicit passage from the Judah Halevi commentary helps interpret the implicit tension between repetition and variation in part III of The Star of Redemption. Rosenzweig recognized the changes that the passage of a year introduces into the meaning of a liturgical poem. Yet the very fact that the reading of the poem repeats itself allows the poem to maintain a loose identity over against time. The “great form” of repetition allows the heart to express continuously the contradictions that are most true to it (i.e., despair and trust, aversion and longing). These contents and their expression, precisely because they are subjective and contradictory, vary over time. Rosenzweig’s short treatise Understanding the Sick and the Healthy contains the theoretical foundation for understanding liturgical repetition and difference. In this text, Rosenzweig sets out to debunk essentialist notions of identity. Taking as his example a stick of butter, Rosenzweig rejects any attempt to locate any single, substantive essence underlying the surface varia-

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tions in taste and texture that subsist between it and any other stick of butter. No underlying essence (no “butter in itself,” no “idea of butter”) makes the butter that I eat today identical with the butter that I remember from yesterday. In Rosenzweig’s words, “The butter remembered, the butter desired, and the butter finally bought, are not the same.”39 The only link between all the possible varieties of butter is the word (the name) “butter.” In other words, human beings maintain the identity of butter over time through repetition: through the formal repetition of a name. The same theory holds true for personal identity. Rosenzweig recognizes that a person’s identity shifts over time. John proposing marriage today is not the same person who receives his lover’s consent or rejection. The lover who accepts or rejects his offer has also changed since it was proffered. Since “time must elapse, the answer is unavoidably given by another person than the one who was asked, and it is given to one who has changed since he asked it.” By what right then do people marry? How can one know that one’s partner will remain the same through time? According to Rosenzweig, the lovers dare not deny, not even Romeo and Juliet, that changes, involving both of them, will inevitably take place. Nevertheless they do not hesitate . . . They cling to the unchangeable. What is the unchangeable? Unbiased reflection reveals once more that it is only a name.40

At the further reaches of philosophical inquiry, the vagaries of temporal change cast personal identity into considerable doubt. In the name of healthy understanding, Rosenzweig calms his readers, “as soon as the ‘person’ becomes ‘John’—well defined by his name—the doubt disappears.”41 Building upon Rosenzweig’s analysis, we might add: as surely as a circular motion defines the holiday form, the repetition of a name establishes the identity of a person or thing. This is not to say that single names exhaust the identity of a person or thing. First, Rosenzweig recognizes the point made by Saussure that the relationship between name and referent, signifier and signified, remains arbitrary and conventional. However, Rosenzweig accounts for the historical and equivocal character of language. Things have many words. They receive new names that sit alongside old names. People appropriate old names and translate them into new ones. This, according to Rosenzweig, is the secret of human continuity.42 The object can change, the person can change, but they retain their identity. How? By the repetition of a name. But names change, new names enter the historical record, and yet the thing still retains its identity. How? By the act of human memory that repeats old names along with new names in the process of transmission.

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In short, Rosenzweig knows that “formal” repetition includes new “content.” Reading backward, the discussion of identity in Understanding the Sick and the Healthy helps unpack Rosenzweig’s discussion of the holiday cycle in part III of The Star of Redemption. We now see (perhaps more clearly than Rosenzweig himself ) that an ostensibly static cycle generates difference within its ambit. Change (in terms of content) is worked into the formal structure of cyclicality. The holiday structure can thereby include historical variation. Of course, the biblical Yom Kippur does not resemble the exact same event as delineated in the mishna, gemara, or as practiced today. Yet they share the same name. The thoughts expressed in the Halevi commentary and in Understanding the Sick and the Healthy suggest that the calendrical structure retains a nominal identity by retaining the name of each festival within a precise sequential order. Identity is preserved through language, through the formal repetition of names, not through any ideal or essential content. To be sure, Rosenzweig ascribes rich and meaningful content to Sabbaths and holidays. The calendar sets the stage where the romance between God, soul, and world unfolds through the course of creation, revelation, and redemption. But as a historian, Rosenzweig surely knows that the precise content of a particular holiday remains subject to historical variation. As such, the festival cycle’s formal repetition is as important as any particular set of particular contents (prayers, piyyutim, kavvanot, gestures, customary observances, or theological interpretations) that it may have assumed or jettisoned over time. In other words, Rosenzweig suggests that the importance of the holiday structure lies less in exact historical content than in the repetition of the names “Shabbat,” “Sukkot,” “Passover,” “Shavuot,” “Rosh HaShana,” and “Yom Kippur.” It is precisely this formal repetition that reflects and (re)creates Eternity (understood as identity in the face of change, especially in the face of death). To use the language of Understanding the Sick and the Healthy, repetition contributes to “health.” The repetition of a name (and the way it compounds with new names) constitutes the linguistic condition for an object or subject’s nominal identity in the face of temporal change. Likewise, the holiday cycle’s continuous passage back and forth reflects the workday’s sleep and wakefulness. The holiday moves steadily from one to the other, and then back again—it is in continuous transition. This movement is identical with that which governs the work day. Here we discovered that waking and sleeping, tension and realization alternate.43

The holiday trains sick reason in the art of living. Respecting the “rhythmic movement” of the holiday structure allows the convalescent to yield to the work-day’s rhythm. Shifting metaphors, Rosenzweig compares this rhythm to

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breathing—the signature of good health. “What rhythm dominates everyday occurrences? What pulsation appears in even the minutest phase? Throughout the day in every single breath, inhalation gives way to exhalation; work is replaced by rest.”44 The Existential Cycle: From Death, to Life, to Death The momentary rest formed by the holiday structure anticipates ultimate rest and brings us to our second cycle. However, the cryptic quality of this cycle (the one that moves from the creature’s fear of death and back again to the soul’s ecstatic climax at the gates of death) makes it harder to identify. Indeed, most interpretations of The Star of Redemption would have the reader trace a linear development leading from [1] an analysis of death and the fear of death to [2] an analysis of speech, love, social structure and terrestrial life. ElseRahel Freund was among the first to note that the text begins with the phrase “from death” and concludes with the words “into life.” In her view, “from death into life” constitutes the entire meaning of Rosenzweig’s existential analytic.45 However, this neat schematization overlooks how the figure of death reappears at highpoints throughout and at the very end of The Star of Redemption. That is, it ignores repetition. In our view, the course Rosenzweig charts does not proceed in a linear direction from death to love and everyday life. A circular pattern, it instead jolts back and forth from [1] created death and creaturely existence to [2] love, terrestrial life, and the anticipation of truth in time and [3] back again to redeeming death and a spectacular vision of the truth. As practically all of Rosenzweig’s commentators agree, love (revelation) constitutes the pivotal point in the system. One might have thought that love overwhelms the figure of death, giving credence to the idea that Rosenzweig’s thought proceeds in a linear direction away from death and into life. To be sure, love is a symbol of life in the midst of death; it refracts eternity within the calendrical and ritual structures of terrestrial life. However, the eternity that love effects takes the form of a static, cyclical repetition in which the flow of time stands still within the linear parameter of historical time.46 As such, it mirrors that final stasis that lies beyond the line separating life and death. One can imagine time standing still at the moment of death and at those moments when the human person anticipates it. One might want to argue that love and aesthetic pleasure constitute additional and more life-affirming examples. But as I see it, the intimate link between love and death severely complicates those interpretations that would otherwise privilege love and life in Rosenzweig’s thought.

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We have already quoted Rosenzweig proclaiming in the redemption chapter that “Death plunges into the Nought . . . Life becomes immortal in redemption’s eternal hymn of praise.”47 Freund takes this passage to buttress her argument that the move from death to everyday life constitutes the meaning of Rosenzweig’s thought. Others have pointed to the messianic character of Rosenzweig’s thought. Indeed, death lies vanquished, but not in the sense intended by Freund. In our view, everyday life and this-worldly messianism do not exhaust his understanding of redemption. Something supplements thisworldly messianism. According to Rosenzweig, “the kingdom may build its growth on the growth of life. But in addition it is dependent on something else, something which first assures life of the immortality which life seeks for itself.”48 By “addition to life,” Rosenzweig alludes to the eternal life that lies beyond this-world and the messianic. With this suspicion in mind, the conclusion to the redemption chapter should not surprise anyone. Immediately after the passage quoted by Freund, Rosenzweig points to the rabbinic sage Rav’s depiction of the pious in the world-to-come. Rosenzweig comments, “For only thus did the Rabbis dare to describe the eternal bliss of the world to come, which differs from that ever renewed peace which the solitary soul found in divine love: the pious sit, with crowns on their heads, and behold the radiance of the manifest deity.”49 So ends the chapter on redemption. Its veiled allusion to a luminous appearance of a deity-become-manifest does not belong to this-world. This image of eternal life in the world-to-come combines the trope of light with the promise of a spectacular vision. It suggests that life and love propel the beloved soul toward the goal of death and the radiant vision described by the rabbis. This movement confounds Freund’s contention that the passage “from death into life” exhausts the meaning of Rosenzweig’s system. In projecting the soul toward this vision of eternal life, The Star of Redemption returns to its own point of origin: the anticipation of death. Rosenzweig had begun his text describing the creature’s fear of death. He has now returned us to a figure of death, that is to eternal life after death. Rosenzweig does not, of course, believe in the literal truth of Rav’s account. He suggests no reason to suppose that he believed in personal immortality. His understanding of the spirit’s passage from this-world into the next assumes a more apocalyptic color. It is well known that Rosenzweig had built part I of The Star of Redemption upon the recognition that no idea, no single name can exhaust reality. The following goes less recognized in the Rosenzweig literature. The course charted by the soul ultimately leads to the annihilation of all finite names, names such as “God,” “world,” and “soul.” In a section of the redemption chapter entitled “The End,” Rosenzweig describes

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the last judgment: “. . . All merges into [God’s] totality, the names of all into His nameless One.” Returning again to the theme of repetition, Rosenzweig writes, Redemption lets the day of the world end beyond creation and beyond revelation with the same stroke of midnight with which it began. But of this second midnight, it is true, as it is written, that “the night is light with Him.” The day of the world manifests itself at its last moment as that which it was in the first: as day of God, as the day of the Lord.50

In Rosenzweig’s apocalypse, the last day is like the first. It repeats itself, but with one difference. All names (the sixfold All of God, world, soul, creation, revelation, and even redemption) return to and disappear within the void of God’s totality. Only now, a “dark” and terrifying midnight has turned. It has turned into one glorious flash of blinding light, signifying eternal life, the end of this-world, the end of time. We have already seen that the Redemption chapter and the discussion of Yom Kippur represent highpoints in Rosenzweig’s text. Mosès and Richard Cohen remind us that Rosenzweig writes one last climax into The Star of Redemption: a vision of God’s face.51 We have just seen that Rosenzweig associates redemption with death. We remember him associating death with the Yom Kippur rhapsody. Now at the very end of the book, the soul encounters a detailed vision of the divine face. In this last vision, the soul sees the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth of God. According to Rosenzweig, the life of this face is gathered in the mouth. He writes, “The mouth is consummator and fulfiller of all expression of which the countenance is capable, both in speech as, at last, in the silence behind which speech retreats: in the kiss.” Having described God’s face, Rosenzweig concludes, “But for Moses . . . God sealed this completed life with a kiss of his mouth.”52 The face, of course, represents the configuration of absolute truth. God, world, person, creation, revelation, and redemption form into the unitary pattern that speculative cognition had failed to grasp. Not the lyric refrain “into life,” but this vision of the face constitutes the apex of Rosenzweig’s system. This climactic vision at the end of The Star of Redemption occurs nowhere else but at the gates of death. Or rather, the vision of the face represents a spiritual death that anticipates the physical death that awaits the beloved soul. In either case, the figure of death brings us full circle, back to the same figure with which Rosenzweig had opened the book. I will grant that this last allusion is not immediately obvious. Rosenzweig’s final rendering of the figure of death remains cryptic, almost as if he had meant to hide it. The association

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between the vision of the face and death reveals itself gradually. First, the coupling of death and God’s face had marked the text’s previous highmarks. Allusive references to the divine presence and divine countenance appeared at the conclusion of the Redemption chapter; there Rosenzweig had described the reward of the righteous in the world-to-come. A divine countenance appeared again at the apex of Yom Kippur. Now again, Rosenzweig mentions the face (without having to refer explicitly to death). Textual allusion constitutes our second reason for associating the appearance of the face with death. The depiction of the face concludes with God kissing Moses on the mouth.53 In midrashic literature, the rabbis picture Moses resisting the Angel of Death. Since Moses refuses to yield to death, God must come, and personally, to draw out Moses’ last breath with a kiss. Maimonides will later associate the kiss of God with the philosopher’s ecstatic apprehension of the Active Intellect at the moment of death.54 By citing midrash (or more likely Maimonides but possibly Schiller), Rosenzweig subtly links the spectacular vision of absolute truth with death’s advent.55 The image of light provides one further warrant for associating this appearance with death. At the end of the Redemption chapter, Rosenzweig had associated light with the reward of the righteous in the worldto-come (as described by the rabbis in Berakhot). We saw the apocalyptic light in which all names disappear. Once again, now at the very end of The Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig returns to this motif. He describes the gate leading out of the mysterious, miraculous light filled sanctuary in which no man can remain alive.56 The vision of the face does not entirely obviate Freund’s reading. After all, the beloved soul has only anticipated its own death. Like Redemption, its own death is “not-yet.” As such, the face does not pull the beloved soul through the gate into the light-filled sanctuary, but rather back “into life.” These remain the last words of The Star of Redemption, even if they do not exhaust its meaning. In our view, the linear schematization “from death into life” does not capture the cyclical movement of Rosenzweig’s system. Death appears in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of Rosenzweig’s text. As such, the figure of death repeats itself. However, this repetition does not mean repetition of the same. In this second cycle, repetition has transformed the soul’s encounter with death. At the beginning of the text, death had terrified the human creature. No luminous face illuminated the creature’s terror. At the end of the book, Rosenzweig returns to the figure of death but now associates it with a pictogram of absolute truth. Love, of course, is the difference between the first and last appearance of the figure of death. It has intervened in the process of repetition. In Rosenzweig’s system of cyclical motions, the revelation of love is the force of repetition. It proves as strong as death; that is, as strong as the

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“creaturely death” that terrifies the human creature. Only love can yield “redeeming death” and so transfigure the fear of death into ecstatic vision. The Existential Cycle: Derrida, Kierkegaard, and Rosenzweig It should be understood that Rosenzweig’s vivid treatment of repetition in The Star of Redemption occurs within broader literary and philosophical parameters set by Neoplatonism, Romanticism, and German Idealism.57 My own understanding of repetition depends heavily on Kierkegaard and Derrida as read by John Caputo in Radical Hermeneutics. By “radical hermeneutics,” Caputo means a radical type of antimetaphysical philosophy that interprets identity and existence in terms of flux and repetition. His more complete survey of our theme includes mediation in Hegel’s thought, Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, internal time-consciousness in Husserl’s phenomenological analysis, and Heidegger’s understanding of temporality and appropriation. I neither can nor want to provide an exhaustive review of Caputo’s study or his larger project. That would bring us to epistemological and ontological issues that go beyond the immediate scope of this essay.58 Nevertheless, a quick look at Kierkegaard and Derrida can help unpack the significance of repetition and its relationship to stasis and change in Rosenzweig’s religious system. Derrida’s discussion of iteration and grafting provides the original impetus; Kierkegaard’s linking repetition and transcendence completes the picture. Both suggest how repetition generates difference and transforms experience/consciousness. Derrida takes up the theme of repetition in Limited Inc, a composite text documenting what was a running argument with the Anglo-American philosopher John Searle. Derrida argues that the irreducible iterability of all utterances (all signs, written and spoken) disrupts any possible attempt to elucidate authorial intent. In his view, any sign (insofar as it constitutes an iterable mark) can be “grafted” into an infinite number of contexts. He explains that, Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written . . . , in a small or large unit, can be cited, put between quotation marks; in so doing it can break with every given context, engendering an infinity of new contexts in a manner which is absolutely illimitable. This does not mean that a mark is valid outside of a context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center or absolute anchorage.59

In the process of this dissemination, the meaning of the sign changes. Its significance at T2 (the moment and context in which we hear or read it) has

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changed since its inception at T1. This does not preclude Derrida’s interest in intentionality or in the context in which an utterance was first uttered. Authorial intent and literary origins retain a place in the interpretation of an utterance, but they lose their privileged hermeneutical status. They can no longer govern the entire system of shifting contexts in which a mark will be grafted.60 There are plenty of points at which one might take issue with Derrida: the conflation of different signs under one single rubric (writing, or rather “archewriting”), remarks concerning the “absolutely illimitable” field of new possible contexts, the radical difference that subsists between contexts, the uniqueness that characterizes each context, and the exaggeration that such claims entail. At the same time, Derrida’s position in Limited Inc throws light on the repetition of signs in The Star of Redemption. The signs in Rosenzweig’s text that have concerned us so far in this essay are “holidays” and “death.” Derrida’s contribution to our discussion of the holidays proves fairly obvious. We have already argued that the calendrical cycle’s repetition does not preclude the introduction of historical change. According to Derrida, each holiday would constitute a sign that subsists within the calendrical structure. The meaning of each sign is context-dependent. This dependence dissolves the identity of neither the sign nor the structure (as critics of deconstruction might fear). It does indicate that the precise content and meanings of the holiday shift as the formal sign-structure breaks off from one historical context and grafts onto another. Derrida’s analysis throws more dramatic light on Rosenzweig’s treatment of death. Looked at in one way, death is a sign in Rosenzweig’s text—and an unstable one at that. Its iteration throughout the text transfigures both the meaning this sign carries and its literary appearance. The first occurrence of death in The Star of Redemption does not resemble its last because Rosenzweig has grafted this sign into an entirely new thematic context. From the original context of terror, death now occurs in a context that has been redefined by passionate love. In fact, the new graft proves so radically transformed that we barely recognize the figure of death. No longer an explicit subject, Rosenzweig hides the presence of death with aesthetic markers such as light, face, and the “kiss of God.” Iteration and the graft are the conditions that make this transformation possible. Death has been reinscribed within a radically transformed context and thus takes on new thematic meaning and literary form. As such, the graft allows death to become a redeeming figure (the border at which the beloved soul apprehends a detailed vision of the face), not the object of creaturely terror. It remains to be seen what will become of ideas like iteration and the graft, now that Derrida has begun to pay more attention to religion in his

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more recent writings.61 Apart from pointing to a shift in context, Derrida cannot (at least not in an early text like Limited Inc) explain why the meaning of the sign shifts in the process of iteration. From the standpoint of religious thought, Kierkegaard proves more interesting. For the early Derrida, iteration, grafting, and the generation of new meaning occurs in an immanent, semantic framework. In contrast, Kierkegaard’s exploration leaves open the possibility of a transcendent event sitting midway between the first appearance of a figure and its repetition. In the pseudonymous book entitled Repetition, one Constantin Constantius ostensibly sets out to advise a young poet how to break off an engagement with a young woman. The plan involves a pretence by which the young poet would seem to carry on a love affair with another woman. This would then allow the young woman to retain her honor against the young poet. The young man, however, seeks to uphold his own honor. He flees to Stockholm where he prepares himself for some thunderstorm from God that would allow him to acquire the necessary ethical attributes that would make him suitable for marriage. But the thunderstorm occurs differently than imagined: the young woman has married another man. This fortuitous change in circumstances allows the poet to preserve his original aesthetic nature. He writes his older friend, “Is there not, then, a repetition? Did I not get everything double? Did I not get myself again and precisely in such a way that I might have a double sense of its meaning?”62 The comparison of course is with Job who also stands by his own honor, is met by a thunderstorm, and (in the end) receives back double everything that he had lost. Constantin Constantius himself had sought to experience repetition in a grosser form. He had abandoned an earlier faith in repetition, having failed in a farcical attempt to repeat a previous vacation to Berlin (with its myriad of fortuitous circumstances). The poet, on the other hand, learns the secret of repetition (albeit still at a primitive level) first from the book of Job and then from the recovery of his true poetic nature. In Kierkegaard’s text, repetition means a critique of Platonic stasis and Hegelian mediation, a pressing forward, the preservation of identity, the actualization of eternity by virtue of the absurd. For our purposes it is enough to note that repetition is made possible only by the incursion of a foreign and unexpected element—the thunderstorm in Job and the good news that the poet’s estranged fiancee has married another man. Rosenzweig’s repetition occurs at a more sublimated level, but remains just as surprising. Grafting the poet’s experience of repetition into Rosenzweig’s system shows the incursion of infinity into time. The difference between the figure of death at the beginning of The Star of Redemption and its

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reappearance at the end is the intervening thunderstorm, the revelatory intervention of love. Conclusions Rosenzweig’s The Star of Redemption suggests a way in which to understand religious existence in nonlinear terms. He has brought a cyclical model of time into a religious culture that has too often been interpreted along a linear map leading from creation to redemption. Rosenzweig’s thought allows us to see how the pattern of redemption unfolds in circular time. The regular unfolding of the liturgical calendar allows the Jewish soul to anticipate on a yearly basis Yom Kippur’s vision of God’s countenance at the moment of judgment. As understood by Rosenzweig (and richly suggested by the Mahzor’s unetanah tokef), this vision occurs as the religious soul contemplates its life and the decree that threatens to end it now, this very year. In the process Rosenzweig shows how religious contemplation stands transformed at the very point from which it had begun (with the threat of death now turned into promise). In more traditional terms, yirat shamayim (understood here as the fear of heavenly decrees) turns into the love of God. However, this rich dramatization of life and death should not go without a strong critique. To be sure, the circular pattern of yearly living coupled with the religious contemplation of death represents an example of religious thought that is existentially profound and aesthetically compelling. That does not preclude the following questions: First, how are we to warrant Rosenzweig’s shift from the holiday cycle to the figure of redemption? Why should this repetitive motion yield revelation and redemption and not boredom? More to the point, perhaps the repetition of the liturgical calendar (perhaps the very observance of Judaism) will generate visions and drive energies more demonic than divine. Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of Muslim worshippers at the Cave of Machpelah on Purim and Yigal Amir’s assassinating Yitzhak Rabin remind us of this point. Similarly, why should the existential cycle from death-to-life-to-death (ad infinitum) yield confidence and joy instead of nausea and terror? Yom Kippur’s yearly reminder (that this might be the year whose end we don’t live to see) might frighten the beloved soul and twist its spirit into something ugly and dangerous. In both cases, Rosenzweig trusts the power of love. Love justifies his confidence that the force of repetition will yield good in this world, not evil. It also warrants his faith that repetition points to a great light at the other side of the gate separating this-world from the next.

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Perhaps, however, we need to approach love, circles, and their spiritual power less trustingly. Without wanting to lend too much credence to the speculations of Mircea Eliade and other phenomenologists of religion, one might still accept the power that circles possess as a mediated form of spiritual consciousness. To be sure, the circle might easily represent a host of goods as understood in Western and non-Western religious history and thought. At the level of social symbol and spiritual metaphor, circles can represent and generate completeness and harmony, community and communion. One might even follow Kierkegaard and Derrida and argue that repetition does not necessarily mean closure. Rosenzweig’s thought amply illustrates this aspect of the circle. On the other hand, the circle can simultaneously represent an exclusive figure that resists the introduction of radical heterogeneity within an ostensibly pure matrix. It can organize terrific energies with which people strike out against those who are perceived to threaten them from within and without. Symbol and metaphor are of course multivalent, but for that reason should not yield the unequivocal confidence that we find in Rosenzweig’s thought. This suspicion takes on a historical hue when we remember the political context in which Rosenzweig wrote. Those who find themselves enchanted by Rosenzweig (and I count myself among them) should not forget too easily Scholem’s stated opinion regarding “marked dictatorial inclinations” in Rosenzweig’s personality.63 Indeed, the political tensions that defined Weimar Germany were no less operative in Rosenzweig’s thought than they were in the work of such compatriots as Martin Heidegger. Repetition represents a case in point—but to see this means bringing Rosenzweig under the rubric of early twentieth-century modernism. In his book on the rise of the modern German novel, Russel Berman (1986) has noted the recurrence of cycles in the writings of a liberal humanist such as Thomas Mann. Berman understands Mann’s aesthetic to oscillate between development and permanence. He points to the unchanging dynamic beneath the vicissitudes that characterize the Bruddenbrook family chronicle. Referring to Faustus, Berman argues that theology, composition and temporal structure converge in a seriality that alone allows for the possibility of dialectically inverting damnation into hope.64 However, Berman also notes the use of cycles by another group of German modernists. Here repetition denies change; it means a plethora of interchangeable episodes, the recurrence of destruction and destiny, an alliance between the archaic and the futuristic. In the works of Ernst Junger and Hans Grimm, nothing new is uttered as a spectacular image transfixes the helpless and uncomprehending

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viewer. These writers fall under the rubric of what Berman calls “fascist modernism.”65 This does not mean to say that Rosenzweig was a fascist. Without entirely dismissing the observation, I would not take too seriously Scholem’s caustic appraisal of Rosenzweig’s character flaws. In its formal structure, The Star of Redemption shares a strong family resemblance with the best features of twentieth-century art and literature. Rosenzweig shows how cycles define religious life (in the form of the holiday structure) and religious contemplation (turning again and again to the figure of death). These cycles oscillate between repetition and difference according to a redemptive pattern. The human soul retains its integrity throughout the worldly course of creation, revelation, and redemption. On the other hand, we should not forget that the soul (active in its relationship with the world) remains relatively passive before God. Note too that The Star of Redemption ends in the very spectacle described in Berman’s account of fascist modernism. Berman reminds us that cycles formed part of a broader modernist aesthetic. We now know better than Rosenzweig admits that circular motion powers religious and utopian systems whose intensive rhythm can always turn against other people. Notes 1. Martin Buber to Paula Winkler Buber in Nahum N. Glatzer and Paul MendesFlohr, ed., The Letters of Martin Buber. A Life of Dialogue, trans. Richard and Clara Winston and Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1991), 66. 2. Ibid., 69 3. For a discussion of Kandinsky, Italian Futurism, and Duchamp see, “The Cosmopolitan Eye” in John Russel, The Meanings of Modern Art (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1981, 1974), 126–155. For a discussion of movement in romantic literature and German Idealism see, M. H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism. Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1971), chapters 3–5. 4. I use the terms “religion” and “religious” guardedly. Clearly, both Buber and Rosenzweig rejected these terms insofar as they delineate a separate, narrow, clerical sphere of existence. For both Rosenzweig and Buber, the terms “Judaism” and “revelation” comprehend so much more than “religion.” I retain and use the terms “religion” and “religious” insofar as they indicate a family resemblance that Judaism shares with other traditional cultures. That Rosenzweig would reject comparing Judaism and Christianity (as “systems of revelation”) with Buddhism or Islam speaks more to the limits of his conception than to the term “religion.” As such, I apply the terms “religious” to his thought against the grain. 5. Stéphane Mosès, System and Revelation, trans. Catherine Tihanyi (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992), 138.

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6. Ibid., 170. 7. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 222–23. 8. My discussion of this second cycle depends heavily on my “’Into Life’? Franz Rosenzweig and the Figure of Death,” AJS Review 23, no 2 (fall 1998), where I argue this point more thoroughly. 9. Ibid. The difference between “creaturely death” and “redeeming death” occurs in the Rosenzweig correspondence. 10. Judah Halevi, The Kuzari (New York: Schocken Books, 1964), 139–40. 11. Again, I refer to my “’Into Life’? Franz Rosenzweig and the Figure of Death.” 12. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 327. 13. Emil Fackenheim refers to Yom Kippur as “apex” in his “The Systematic Role of the Matrix (existence) and Apex (Yom Kippur) of Jewish Religious Life in Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption.” In Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (ed.), Der Philosoph Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929), vol. 2 (Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 1988), 567–75. 14. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 327. 15. Ibid., 327–328 (emphasis added). 16. Stéphane Mosès, System and Revelation, 196. 17. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 328 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., 253. 21. Ibid., 259. 22. Here my analysis dovetails with that of Robert Gibbs, Correlations in Rosenzweig and Levinas (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), chapter 5. 23. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 233. 24. Ibid., 270–271, Cf. 265–71. 25. For a general appraisal of Rosenzweig’s estimation of Goethe, see Stéphane Mosès, System and Revelation, 162–63. 26. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 288. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 290 29. Robert Gibbs, Correlations in Rosenzweig and Levinas, chapter 5. 30. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 290. 31. Ibid., 291. 32. Ibid. (emphasis is added). 33. Ibid., 292. 34. Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), 95; Arthur Cohen, The Tremendum (New York: Crossroads Press, 1981), 102–107, esp. 104–105. See also Eliezer Berkovits, Major Themes in Modern Jewish Philosophy, 47. 35. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 290. 36. Ibid.

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37. Ibid., 310–11. 38. Barbara Ellen Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi. Translating, Translations, and Translators (Montreal & Kingston, London, Buffalo: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995), 183 (emphasis is mine). 39. Franz Rosenzweig, Understanding the Sick and the Healthy (New York: Noonday Press, 1953), 36. 40. Ibid., 37. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid., 60. 43. Ibid., 87. 44. Ibid., 85. 45. Else-Rahel Freund, Franz Rosenzweig’s Philosophy of Existence: An Analysis of The Star of Redemption (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), 3–5. 46. Stéphane Mosès, System and Revelation, 170–72, 223. 47. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 253. 48. Ibid., 225. Emphasis is mine. 49. Ibid, 253. 50. Ibid., 238 (emphasis added). 51. Stéphane Mosès, System and Revelation, 284–86. Richard A. Cohen, Elevations. The Height of the Good in Rosenzweig and Levinas (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 241–73. 52. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 423. 53. Ibid. 54. Moses Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 3:51. 55. See, for instance, Schiller, who wrote in The Gods of Greece: . . . no ugly skeleton came To the bed of the dying. A kiss Drew the last breath of life from his lips; A Genius lowered his torch . . . Cited in Hugh Honour, Neo-classicism (Penguin Books, 1968), 149. 56. Ibid., 424. Cf. Stéphane Mosès, System and Revelation, 286. 57. See M. H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism, chapters 3 and 4. Abrams locates the theme of the circuitous journey in (among others) Plotinus, Proclus, Kabbalah, Fichte, Schelling, Schiller, Hegel, Holderlin, Goethe, and Novalis. 58. John D. Caputo, Radical Hermeneutics. Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987). 59. Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 12. 60. Ibid., 18. 61. See John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida. Religion without Religion (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), 51, 68, 157, 194–96, 227, 254, 272, 329.

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62. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling/Repetition. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (ed. and trans.), (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 220–21. 63. Gershom Scholem, From Berlin to Jerusalem. Memories of My Youth, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1980), 140. 64. Russel A. Berman, The Rise of the Modern German Novel. Crisis and Charisma (Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 1986), 280–82. 65. Ibid., 222–25.