This was originally written for a series on hermeneutics for AML-List. As such it may seem a little disjointed. The intent was to show different ways people interpret scripture. I wrote it quite a few years ago, so I don't necessarily agree with everything below. These were originally two articles and I've not reconciled the footnotes into a single series.
Hermeneutics is the science of interpreting passages. This article attempts to deal with the history and theory of how one interpret texts along with practical applications of how various styles of hermeneutics interpret particular passages. The idea is less to argue for one particular reading of a text than to help people become aware of how texts are interpreted and how such methods can illuminate the scriptures. In some cases the methods may lead to conclusions we disagree with. These can be, however, important to understanding how some groups come to the interpretations they do.
In the last article on Hermeneutics we briefly outlined what Hermeneutics are. We then went through a brief outline of modern Hermeneutics and how a specific Hermeneutical approach was the basis for much of Protestantism. The basis of all of those Hermeneutical approaches was that there was a correct meaning in the text and that Hemeneutics could discover what that meaning is. This quest for the true, original objective meaning or intention forms the basis of most Hermeneutics. This week we examine a different approach to Hermeneutics. Instead of looking for a single meaning, this movement sought to discern multiple meanings through which the dynamics of God could be discerned.
One of the major strains of though in Judaism is the so-called mystical tradition: Kabbalism. Kabbalah literally means 'tradition' and purports to be the secret and esoteric divine tradition given to Adam. As such the tradition was essential to how Jews viewed themselves and also their relation to the divine. By mystical we do not necessarily mean a bunch of monks, cloistered away trying to rid themselves of any sense of their own existence. Rufus Johns defined the mystic approach as "the type of religion which puts the emphasis on immediate awareness of the Divine Presence." Thomas Aquinas called it the knowledge of God through experience. (1) As early as the first century we have record of Jews attempting to discern the workings of God by use of divine names, meditation, or concentrating on divine sphere.
We are less concerned here with the details of Kabbalistic meditative practice or theology than with their approach to Hermeneutics. We will later see how their view of Hermeneutics can throw light on the Mormon approach to scripture.
While our emphasis is not on Kabbalistic theology per se, there is one point we must make clear to understand their approach to scripture. Theologically they conceived of the emanations of power and divine light from God as an unfolding of divine language. To quote Gershom Scholem, "The secret world of the godhead is a world of language, a world of divine names that unfold in accordance witha law of their own. The elements of divine language appear as teh letters of the Holy Scriptures. Letters and names are not only conventional means of communication. They are far more. Each of them represents a concentration of energy and expresses a wealth of meaning which cannot be translated, or not fully at least, into human language." (2)
One important fact to keep in mind was that the Hebrew scriptures were written without vowels and without any punctuation or spacing at all. Because of that there was always some uncertainty in what was being said. Adding to the confusion was the fact that Hebrew had no separate glyphs representing numerical values. Instead each letter could represent a number or a letter. Because of this linguistical fact it was not too far a stretch for the Kabbalists to recognize that the possible meanings of scripture were not limited by an objective Hermeneutic. Rbbi Bahya ben Asher writing in the 13th century wrote:
The Scroll of the Torah is [written] without vowels, in order to enable man to interpret it however he wishes - as the consonants without the vowels bear several interpretations and [may be] divided into several sparks. This is the reason why we do not write the vowels of the scroll of the Torah, for the significance of each word is in accordance with is vocalization, but when it is vocalized it has but one single significance; but without vowels man may interpret it [extrapolating from it] several [different] things, many, marvelous and sublime. (3)
Instead of a fixed meaning the scriptures were viewed as having a dynamic meaning, whose actual meaning depended upon the relation between a person and God. Thus the reading of the scriptures was considered a dynamic affair, literally a type of creation in which divine potencies were brought to light as meanings were created in the relation of man to God through the text. One 18th century Rabbi put it in these words.
When a man utters words of the Torah, he never ceases to create spiritual potencies and new lights, which issue like medicines from ever new combinations of the elements and consonants. If therefore he spends the whole day reading just this one verse, he attains eternal beatitude, for at all times, indeed, in every moment, the composition [of the inner linguistic elements] changes in accordance with the condition and rank of this moment, and in accordance with the names that flare up within him at this moment. (4)
The Kabbalist did not view the text as necessarily having an unlimited set of possible meanings or significations. They would keep to the overall grammatical structure of the text. Within that grammar however the significant unit of interpretation was not the letter or even the word but instead the verse or even collection of verses (5). A further difference was that Kabbalists viewed the text as not presenting the existence of things, whether abstract or concrete. Instead they saw the text as articulating a series of events, events that had multiple layers of meaning. Thus things that speak of the earthly also spoke of the heavenly. This dynamic relationship manifest in the text became a basis of not only Kabbalistic thought but of Kabbalistic Hermeneuitcs.
Even beyond the dynamic relationship of the cluster of Divine sentence to the Divine world was the relationship of the symbol to the esoteric meaning of scripture. Unlike our own common view of symbols as a type of static mapping of one meaning to an other the Kabbalists viewed symbols as being a dynamic relationship. The leading modern scholar of Kabbalism, Moshe Idel, described Kabbalistic symbolism as "part of the deepening of the understanding of human activity, oriented to the higher world, not as a disclosure of the static meaning projected onto certain words, alone." (6)
The Hermeneutics of Kabbalism can be summed up as taking three different approaches to scripture. The first is the literal reading, which is never rejected, but which was considered only the first step to understanding the Divine Will as manifest in scripture. The second reading was the allegorical or figurative reading. That reading was considered only an intermediate step to the highest reading of the divine dynamic as found within the scriptures. This latter reading is the esoteric or inner meaning of scripture which was available only by a manifestation of the divine on man. More significantly it was not only viewed as the manifestation of the divine to man but the man to the divine. Thus "a Kabbalist symbol invited one to act rather than to think." (7)
By focusing in on action Kabbalistic Hermeneutics became an experimental affair. Umberto Eco, focusing in on the Semiotics of Kabbalism and Deconstructionism, noted the two possible approaches to a text. The signs in a text - the individual elements that signify a meaning - can be viewed not as fixed in some correct meaning. Instead "language can be the place where things come authentically to begin: in Heidegger's hermeneutics the word is not 'sign' (Zeichen) but 'to show' (Zeigen), and what is shown is the true voice of Being. In such a line of thought, texts can be indefinitely questioned, but they don not speak only of themselves; they reveal something else and something more." (8)
Reading a text is viewed not as an unveiling of the true meaning, but an eternal questioning, a type of experimentation, by wich the Divine itself is questioned and entered into as a type of dialog. To put it an other way, the Divine texts were perceived not as a potential dictionary but rather as a potential thesaurus. (9)
As an experimentation to perceive the Divine, the text could not be isolated from the reader. They were in one sense inseparably intwined. The interpretation of a text "was thus a function not only of its symbolic or esoteric nature but also of the spiritual state of the reader or exegete himself." (10) In a sense the approach of the Kabbalist to scripture was to become a prophet. As Idel put it, "a clear understanding of Holy Scripture is attained by returning to the frame of mind of the ancient prophets who had received the "spiritus." (11) One 14th century Kabbalist wrote
One cannot comprehend the majority of the subjects of the Torah and its secrets and the secrets of the commandments cannot be comprehended but by means of the prophetic holy intellect which was emanated from God onto the prophets. ...Therefore, it is impossible to comprehend any subject among the secrets of the Torah and the secrets of performing the commandments by means of intellect or wisdom or by "intellectus acquisitus," but by means of the prophetic intellect. ...by the divine intellect given to the prophets, which is tantamount to the secret of knowledge of the great [divine] name. (12)
Thus it was by a return to prophetic inspiration, literally by a unification with the divine that the text's unlimited meaning became manifest. Kabbalistic Hermeneutics thus not only changed the meaning of the text from the static to the dynamic, it effaced the distinction between the writer and the reader. Eco puts it in modern philosophical terms.
...the text must be (with a radically Kabalistic option) deconstructed, until fracturing its own expressive texture. Thus the text does not speak any longer of it's own 'outside'; it does not even speak of itself; it speaks of our own experience in reading (deconstructively) it. There is no more a dialectics of here and there, of signans and signatum. Everything happens here - and the dialectics takes place, at most, as a further-and- further movement, from signans to signans. Only in this way...is it possible that the very act of reading provide a certain approach to what a text truly (even though never definitely) says. [...] In this ultimate ephiphany of the symbolic mode, the text as symbol is no longer read in order to find in it a truth that lies outside: the only truth (that is, the old Kabalistic God) is the very play of deconstruction. The ultiamte truth is that the text is a mere play of differences and displacements. (13)
To conclude, Kabbalistic Hermeneutics fundamentally viewed reading as an experimental effort by man that could only be achieved by reconecting to the prophetic tradition and what made that tradition possible. The text was not viewed as being independent of the relationship of man to God. The true interpretation of text thus became possible only by capturing the dynamic relation and relating of humanity with God. The fundamental approach to scripture might be best summed up by quoting Gershom Scholem three principles of Kabbalistic conceptions of the Torah's nature.
1. The principel of God's name
2. The principel of the Torah as an organism
3. The principle of the infinite meaning of the
divine word
1. Both of these references are from Gershom Scholem's _Major
Trends in Jewish Mysticism_, 4
2. Scholem, _On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism_, 36
3. R. Bahya ben Asher, _Commentary on the Pentateuch_, 62
as quoted in Moshe Idel, _Kabbalah: New Perspectives_, 214
4. Rabbi J. D. Azulai, _Devarim 'Ahadim_, 52c-d as quoted in
Scholem, _On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism_, 76
5. Idel, _Kabbalah: New Perspectives_, 222
6. ibid, 224
7. ibid, 223
8. Umberto Eco, _Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language_, 154
9. Idel, 232
10. ibid
11. ibid
12. MS New York, JTS 1805, fol 6a as quoted in Idel, 236
13. Eco, 154-155
In the last article we looked at how the Kabbalistic notion of Hermeneutics was very different from both the modern view and also the Protestant view. As opposed to the view of Hermeneutics as an objective scientifice endeavor, Kabbalists viewed interpretation as an intrinsically subjective and dynamic experiment which operated through relation to and relating with the divine. As one might imagine, such a radically different Heremeneutic leads to a different exegesis of scripture. In this week's article we will examine a few examples of Kabbalistic exegesis and use them to further ellucidate their approach to scripture.
Before we can begin to approach the scriptures we first must introduce a few basic elements of Kabbalistic cosmology and symbolism. God, in Kabbalism, reveals himself through his attributes and powers. Those attributes and powers are depicted as a system of ten individual symbols. The dynamics of those symbols and what they represent correspon to the dynamic Be-ing of God. In practice they are anthromorphized to the extent that they are nearly individual divine beings. As such their characteristics bear an amazing resemblance to what some scholars consider the early view of God by the Hebrews in pre-Mosaic times. Such an anthromorphization, while in practice done, was also denied by the Kabbalists. They still had to remain within the community of normative Rabbinical Judaism and thus could not fundamentally alter in doctrine the Rabbinical view of God.
The imagery of kabbalistic symbolism contrasts not only with the allegorical imagry of philosophy, but also, by it's very nature, with the imagery of myth. Myth presents the divine as a fundamental cosmic force, or as a material object, or in the guise of a number of gods having human form. But all this is intrinsically different from the imagery of the Kabbalah, although it appears to be similar. Believers in myth do not see their corporeal forms and images as symbols for spiritual substances, as the symbolists of Kabbalah do, but for them, the image and that which is denoted by the image are one and the same. [...]
However the relationship of kabbalistic symbolism to myth is not so simple and uncomplicated as would at first appear from categorical statements such as these. One can be absolutely sure, of course, that all kabbalists, out of religious conviction, would associate themselves with any expression of serious opposition to myth, because of their fidelity to trandtional Jewish religious principles. [...]
...we find extremely important kabbalists, for whom the emotional attraction of myth was so strong that they cultivated it and expressed it in their teachings, despite outward protestations; and they consequently obliterated the boundaries between symbolism and myth. [...]
...in the Zohar we have long and detailed descriptions, which occur again and again, squeezing the maximum effect out of the anthromorphic symbols. We can sense the absolute delight and satisfaction that the author of the Zohar must have felt when he depicted God, without any theological qualms or reservations, just as He appeared to him in his vision. (1)
With that qualification but also with that awareness of the anthromorphic nature of the Sefirot and symbolism we move to a presentation of the ten Sefirot. The term sefirot designates the divine emanations through which the Being of God is unfolded. The term Sefirot actually appears rarely in important Kabbalistic works such as the Zohar. Instead symbols such as "levels," "powers," "sides," "areas," "worlds," "firmaments," "pillars," "lights," "colors," "days," "gates," "streams," "garments," "crowns" or others are used. (2) Each use of a term signifies a different dynamic nature, facet or work of the sefirot. As these symbols are key to understanding Kabbalistic exegesis of scripture, I'll present a brief chart that attempts to outline them. Recognize though that the symbols were viewed dynamically and no one chart can possibly capture the fulness of Kabbalistic symbolism.
It is also important to recognize that the Kabblists viewed this unfolding of God's Being in the sefirot not only as an unfolding of his power, energy and light but also as an unfolding of divine language. Thus the sefirot are perceived not only in cosmological terms but fundamentally in a Hermeneutic. The are not signs to signify the workings of the Divine but fundamentally signs that further signify an other text. Thus the interpretation from one passage of scripture results in an other text that can be further interpreted. This leads to an unending Hermeneutics. There is no final text; no final interpretation. Hermeneutics here is in a sense a continual deconstructive play.
With that in mind here are the ten sefirot
Keter Elyon - supernal crown, the highest point above, the primeval divine Will, the will of wills, "I am", the source of all being
Hokhmah - wisdom, hidden thought, primeval being, father, YHWH (upper)
Binah - understanding or intelligence, repentence, palace, mother, Eloheim (upper)
Hesed - love, greatness, goodness, light
Gevurah (din) - power, judgment, fear, wrath, strength, darkness,
Tiferet - beauty, mercy, firmanent, YHWH (lower), Sun
Nezah - eternity or endurance
Hod - majesty
Yesod - foundation
Malkhut - kingdom or sovereignty, Israel, supernal earth, shekhinah (divine presence), Eloheim (lower), Moon
The upper three sefirot are sometimes separated from the lower seven. They form the supernal parents and it is from them that the lower sefirot are emanated. (The details need not concern us here) The next six sefirot are sometimes unified to form Adam Kadmon, or the heavenly Adam who unites with his consort the Shekhinah. That symbol becomes the type of the ideal man. The whole of the sefirot are sometimes represented as the body of Adam, with each one being some organ or body part. Usually they are drawn as Adam with the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil being the unification of the sefirot. Thus they referesent the divine dynamic of a true person.
Probably not much of that made much sense. Hopefully it will become more clear as we approach some Kabbalistic exegesis.
Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. (3)
When is the Lord called "great"? When Knesset Yisrael is to be found with him, as it is written, "In the city of our God is he great." "In the city of our God" means "with the city of our God" ...and we learn that a king without a queen is not a [real] king and is neither great nor praised. Thus, so long as the male is without a female, all his excellency is removed from him and he is not in the category of Adam, and moreover he is not worthy of being blessed. (Zohar III:5a)
To begin with the Kabbalist shifts the view of the verse from being a static description of God to a dynamic one. For convinience I'll introduce two concepts from philosophy of language: spacing and temporizing. Spacing deals with the boundaries of concepts in terms of difference of meaning, location, or other attribute. Temporizing is the differing of a concept to time. Here the Kabbalist has shifted a spacing difference to a temporizing one. The discussion moves from where ("in") to when.
The second thing the Kabbalist does is notice the play on the names of God: Lord (YHWH) and God (Eloheim). YHWH is a symbol for Tifert, the male figure. Eloheim is the symbol for Malkhut, or the female figure. That Malkhut and not Binah is meant can be told because the verse discusses the "city of our God" which is Jerusalem. But the land Israel and the people of Israel are symbolized by Malkhut, not Binah.
After identifying the verse as dealing with Malkhut and Tiferet the Kabbalist notes the dynamic implied by the verse. The emphasis is on the word "great." Greatness is not an inherent quality of the male, but is acquired through his relationship with the female. Thus the Kabbalist notes that YHWH (Tiferet) is only called Great when he is with the City of God (Malkhut). Since Tiferet is a symbol for Adam Kadmon, or the supernal man, the meaning of the verse is that man can only be Adam when he unites with the female.
The Kabbalist thus produces an exegesis where dynamic of heaven (the relationship of Tiferet and Malkhut) is tied to the dynamic of earthly people. More importantly the emphasis is on action and behavior of the Kabbalist. Here the divine command is that of marriage and reuniting Adam and Eve in heaven and on earth. Because it relates to the divine dynamic, it is perceived as describing perfection and how to be a perfect man. Man is perfected only in the female.
This is a rather common exegesis in Kabbalism, where the mystery of sexual relations is one of the great esoteric secrets of the divine. The Kabbalists would, for example, go further with the above verse dealing with how the mountain of the Lord (Tiferet) is in the city of God. That is partially how they justify changing "in" to "with" - by the sexualization of the verse. As Moshe Idel puts it
[The verse's] plain sense is simple and obvious - that the Lord is great and, as a separate assertion, that his mountain is located in his holy city. [...] The pattern of relationship is a vertical one; divine holiness imposed upon a material entity which is metamorphosed into a sacred center. The Zohar radically changes this pattern: the vertical relationship is transposed on the divine plan, where it can now be viewed as horizontal - that of two sexually differentiatied entities. (4)
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, "if any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock."
What does "man" ('Adam) signify here? Once the sun and moon had become united together [Moses] began by saying "man," as it is written, "the sun and moon stand still in their habitation." (Habbakuk 3:11). "Stand" here is in the singular, not the plural. "When any man of you bring" signifies that whoever performs sacrificial worship with an unblemished offering must be both male and female. This is the meaning of "of you" - he should be a reflection of you. (Zohar I:239b)
The exegesis of the verse begins by asking what is meant by 'Adam (man) in the verse. The priest making the sacrifice is altering the dynamics of heaven. Thus the sacrifice in the temple which is the boundary between the earthly and the heavenly. The heavenly man is the symbol of Adam Kadmon, the heavenly Adam or the type of the perfect man. Thus the verse implies the dynamic of the priest and Adam Kadmon. The priest is sacrificing on behalf of the Assembly of Israel. But the assembly of Israel is the symbol of Malkhut. The sacrifice is to bring an atonement or a uniting of Israel with her King, YHWH. But the King is represented by Tiferet.
Adam Kadmon's perfection is the uniting of male and female as the uniting of Tiferet and Malkhut. The symbol of Tiferet and Malkhut are respectively the sun and the moon representing the male and female in Kabbalistic thought. Thus the Kabbalist quotes an other verse interpreted as about Tiferet and Malkhut in Habbakuk.
The verse in Habbakuk is quoted because "stand" is singular rather than plural and thus implies the unity of the male and female, or the unity within Adam Kadmon of Tiferet and Malkhut.
Going back to the dynamic of the event, the Kabbalist interprets the hidden meaning as that a priest must be married. If the priest is not in the image of the heavenly (Tiferet and Malkhut) in terms of marriage he is blemished and can not administer.
Once again quite a bit in made of marriage in the Kabbalah, especially in association with the Temple.
And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.
"Even that selfsame day it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the Land of Egypt." ...Whenever Israel is enslaved, the Shekhinah, as it were, is enslaved with them, as it is said, "And they saw the God of Israel, and under his feet there was," and so on. But after they were redeemed what does it say? "And the likeness of the very heaven for clearness." (6)
The Kabbalist breaks up the verse into three parts.
A. They saw the God of Israel
B. Under his feet was a paved work of sapphire stone
C. it was the likeness of heaven for clearness
In the original verse, as understood by a traditional Hermeneutic, (C) modifies (B) with the subject being the same - the paved work. The Kabbalist sees (B) and (C) as being opposing situations. (B) deals with Moses and Israel in slavery while (C) deals with them in freedom. This is once again the Kabbalist temporizing the text where originally we had a spacing. The Kabbalist justifies this by an old Jewish tradition that livnat hasappir - "paved work of sapphire" - was an allusion to the levenim (bricks) and thus a symbol of Jewish slavery in Egypt.
The Kabbalist next makes the tie of Israel's enslavement to God. God too was enslaved as he had bricks beneath his feet. (7) This is once again the dynamic relation between the earthly and the heavenly that is such an essential component of Kabbalistic though. Once the slavery ended, however, the feet of the Lord are described as "clear."
The Kabbalist thus sees in the verse the relationship of the divine with Israel as summed up in Isaiah 63:9, "In all their affliction he was afflicted."
Kabbalism did not stop at this point though. They went further to further discern the dynamic of God. (C) becomes interpreted as a symbol for mercy. (A) describes Elohey Yisrael (God of Israel) but Eloheim is the attribute of judgment. (C) is thus the redemption of Israel and the attribute of mercy acting in God. (A) is when Israel is put into slavery and is the attribute of judgment in the Divine. That judgment in a sense enslaves God who is freed as much as Israel is by the later redemption.
Now this seems somewhat shocking, especially to typical sensibilities of interpreting scripture. Even the Kabbalists seemed to flinch a little. In one of the Midrash expanding upon the above verse, Rabbi 'Akiva wrote, "were it no expressly written in scripture, one could not say it. Israel said to God: 'thou has redeemed thyself'- as though one could conceive such a thing." (8)
With these examples of Kabbalistic exegesis hopefully I've imparted a taste of the type of thinking that was going on.
and Theology