Methods for Jewish constructive theology

Methods for Jewish constructive theology

Version 2.2, 10/25/2018

Counter-historyisatypeofrevisionisthistoriography,butwheretherevisionistproposesanewtheoryorfindsnewfacts,thecounter-historiantransvaluesoldones.Hedoesnotdenythathispredecessors’interpretationofhistoryiscorrect,asdoestherevisionist,butherejectsthecompletenessofthatinterpretation.

DavidBiale,GershomScholem:KabbalahandCounter-History

THEPOLEMICSOFMODERNISM...........................................................2TOWARDSAJEWISHHERMENEUTIC..................................................4THETEXTUALPROCESS.......................................................................12JEWISHTHEOLOGY................................................................................27KABBALAHASCOUNTER-HISTORY..................................................35CONCLUSION............................................................................................40BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................44

Methods for Jewish Constructive Theology

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INTRODUCTION

KabbalahandEcology:God’sImageintheMore-Than-HumanWorldisaworkfoundedonquestionsthatarisefromthepostmoderncritiqueofmodernism,joinedwithaculturalcritiquerootedinecology.Assuch,itusesmethods thatare rarelycombined,especially in the fieldof JewishStudies.This essaywill explore themethodology Iuse inKabbalahandEcology,bothfromtheperspectiveofthegoalsofKabbalahandEcology,and from the perspective of doing the best reading of Jewish textspossible.

KabbalahandEcologyembracesthefullnessofJewishtradition,whileusingthediversityoftraditionalvoicestofreetheologicalthinkingfrombeing dominated by one voice. Alongside traditional text criticism andhistorical analysis, in Kabbalah and Ecology I engage in constructivethought and literary analysis, using methods drawn from many areas,including feminist studies of rabbinic and Biblical texts, Christianecotheology,andhermeneuticalmethodsrelated to “textual reasoning”,as well as some of themethods of deconstruction. In this essay, Iwilldelineatesomeofthemethodsofanalysisusedthereandcomparethemto theworkof other scholars.Abrief on thismethodology can alsobefoundinKabbalahandEcology, inthesectionof the Introduction titled“Constructivetheology”(pp.35–7,onlineatkabbalahandecology.com).

THE POLEMICS OF MODERNISM

One particular voice has dominated almost all contemporary orpopular Jewish theology from the beginnings of modernity until now.This voice had its origins in the moment when secular and Christiantheologians, philosophers and religious historians posited a radicaldichotomybetweenhistoryandnature.Theymappedhumanevolutionfromamore“primitive”wayofseeingtheworldtoamore“enlightened”one, equating this with evolution from paganism through Judaism toChristianity, culminating in the Enlightenment. Jewish philosophers oftheHaskalah (“Enlightenment”),andtheacademicianswhofollowed intheirfootsteps,overcamethedisadvantagetoJudaismembeddedinthisframework by asserting an absolute dichotomy between Judaism andpaganism, and by equating Judaism with humanistic rationalism. Thisdichotomy has been criticized from the perspective of intellectualhistory. As discussed in the section on “Jewish ecological thought” of


On Kabbalah and Ecology: God’s Image in the More-Than-Human World by David Mevorach Seidenberg (Cambridge U. Press, 2015), cambridge.org

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Kabbalah and Ecology (pp.7–11),1 Ismar Schorsch described this“celebration of ‘historical monotheism’” as “a legacy of nineteenthcenturyChristian-Jewishpolemics,afierceattemptbyJewishthinkerstodistanceJudaismfromtheworldofpaganism.”

The prejudices arising from this framework coincided in the 20thcenturywith the Jewishpeople’s deeplywounded sense of place in theworld. This led to an extraordinary near-consensual misreading of theJewishtradition,amisreadingthatI label“modernist-humanist”.(ManyexamplesofthisareexaminedinKabbalahandEcology,abbreviatedKAEbelow.SeeespeciallyChapter3therein.)

The modernist-humanist framework is not rooted in an historicalpicture but rather in a kind ofmythical picture that dates back not toancienttimesbuttoanevenearlierimaginedBiblicalrevolutionagainst“paganism”,a religiouscategory that inhistorical terms isnotcoherentand has never existed. (See n.33 in KAE.) It projects a hierarchicaldivision of rationalistic religion over superstition, and of history’sprogress over nature’s cycles, that yields a theology aboutGod’s imagewhichisorpretendstobetranscendental,whileitisinfactanartifactofthenineteenthcentury.This framework ismodernist in that itbelievesthat religiousevolution isahistoryofprogress,andhumanist in that itbelievesinthesupremacyoflogicandreason,i.e.thehumanmind,overother ways of knowing and being, and affirms in the importance ofhumanneedsaboveotherneeds.

Ratherthansimplydemonstratetherecencyinintellectualhistoryofthis framework, KAE takes ancient and medieval texts about tselemElohim (God’s image) and shows that these texts support alternativeframeworks of meaning. What becomes clear in KAE is that themodernist-humanist interpretation is often not the best reading, andcertainlynottheonlyreading,ofrabbinictextsintheircontexts.

Thereisnoneedtoinferorconstructsomeimaginedrabbiniccultureor history, or any actual history of the Enlightenment, in order todemonstrate this to be true. It is enough simply to read the texts. Bydoing so, the modernist-humanist framework becomes, as it were,suspended,allowingroomforotherinterpretationstotakeroot.

The Kabbalistic alternative

Not only is the modernist-humanist reading of God’s image out ofsyncwithearlyrabbinicmidrash.TheKabbalah,diverseasitis,includes 1 AswithinKabbalahandEcology itself,pagenumberreferences inthisessaypreceded

by“p.”or“pp.”refertoKabbalahandEcologyunlessotherwisenoted.


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manytextsthatpresentanevenstrongercontradictiontothemodernist-humanist paradigm than the Midrash does. By focusing on thoseKabbalistic texts, which stand as countertexts in relation not only tomodernist-humanismbutalsotomedievalJewishphilosophy,KAEtracesthedevelopmentofaworldviewwithinKabbalahthatcontrastsstronglywithmodernist-humanism.Insodoing,KAEconcretizesfourpoints:

1. Thepolemicalinterpretationimposedbymodernist-humanisttheologyontheJewishtraditioninaccuratelyreadsrabbinicliteratureandfailstoreadKabbalisticliterature.

2. Acarefulreadingofthetextsyieldsapicturethatismoreinlinewithideascurrentinecologicalthinking,andthat,independentofecologicalquestions,istheologicallyrichandimportant.

These first twopoints are justifiable according to the canonsof textualand literaryscholarship, followingspecificmethodologiesrelatedtothework of Kadushin, Boyarin, Neusner, Wolfson, and others, includingespecially those whose work helped introduce postmodern criticismfirmlyintothedomainofJewishStudies.

The second two points fall in the domain of constructive theologyratherthantextualscholarship:

3. Interpretingthesesametextshomiletically,onecanarriveatawell-groundedecotheologythatwouldbethemonotheisticcorrelativetodeepecology,andthatis,incomparisonwithmodernisthumanism,oftenamoresensitivereadingofrabbinictextuality.

4. Alloftheseelementsfullyjustifythechoiceofanecotheologicalperspective,rootedinanauthenticreadingoftheJewishtradition,aperspectivethatisalsodemandedbythecurrentsituationofhumanityupontheearth.2

Establishing these points means rooting alternative theologies in thesourcesandsoilofJewishtradition.

TOWARDS A JEWISH HERMENEUTIC

Inthissection,Iwillexploresynergiesandcongruenciesbetweenthehermeneutics of reading rabbinic literature and the hermeneutics ofconstructing Jewish theology.Furtheron, Iwill contrast thesemethods

2 Iamusing“authentic”hereprovisionally tomeanauthenticallyopenandresponsible

to the panoply of texts, traditions and contradictions. SeeThe Jargon ofAuthenticity(London,1973)byTheodorAdorno.



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withsomeofthemethodsusedinChristiantheologyandecotheology,inordertohighlightthespecialnatureofdoingJewishtheology.

Boyarin’s methodological model

DanielBoyarininCarnalIsraelprovidedamodelforsomeaspectsofthemethodologyIuseinKAE.ThoughBoyarinlaterrejectedaspectsofhismethodology,Carnal Israel had a profound impact on the study ofrabbinic literature, attuning scholars to the subject of the body, andintroducing methods of literary and cultural theorists from thehumanities into Jewish studies.3 I will start by describing both themethodology of Carnal Israel, and the critiques of Carnal Israel byGwynn Kessler, Burton Visotzky, and Aryeh Cohen.4 In comparingCarnal Israel toKAE, I will also discuss whether those critiquesmightapplytoKAE,andifnot,whynot.

For the purpose of this essay, what is most important is not howCarnal Israel connected rabbinic studies to the body or to postmoderncriticism (though these connections are resonant in KAE), but ratherhow Boyarin’s work is informed by a political agenda, summarized byCharlotte Fonrobert as the “goal of changing Jewish culture and itsgenderissues”.5InCarnalIsrael,BoyarinreadsTalmudicstoriesinorderto show that there are voiceswithin rabbinic literature that contradictthedominantpatriarchalunderstandingofgender.Boyarin’sgoalwastounderminethatdominantunderstanding,andhedescribeshisintentasboth “redemptive” and “cultural-critical”.6 Boyarin’s choice of texts andmotifswasdrivenbyfeministconcerns,andwhatischosenissubjecttocriticalanalysisonlyafterthefactofbeingchosen.Byliftingupfeministconcerns, Boyarin hoped to establish a new picture of the rabbis andtheir social and cultural world, one which is not exactly feminist butwhichisatleast“redeemable”.

3 See “On Carnal Israel and the Consequences: Talmudic Studies since Foucault”,

CharlotteFonrobert,TheJewishQuarterly,95:3(Summer2005)462–469.4 KesslerandVisotzky,“IntersexualityandtheReadingofTalmudicCulture”inArachne

1(1994)238–52;AryehCohen,RereadingTalmud:Gender,Law,andthePoeticsofSugyot(AtlantaGA:ScholarsPress,1998),90–96.ThoughBoyarinhasabrogatedmanyofthemethodsheusedinCarnalIsrael,itsmethodbothprovidesamodelandservesasafoiltohelpdescribemymethod.AsIwilldescribefurtheron,themethodIusealsodifferssubstantially fromBoyarin’s, and therebyeliminates someof its elements thatotherscriticized.

5 “OnCarnalIsrael”,463.6 CarnalIsrael,230.


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Boyarin’shopewasthatbyhistoricizingthenatureofandrocentrismandmisogynyinancientcultures(boththroughcontrastingrabbinicandHellenistic culture, and through comparing different rabbinic cultures,i.e. Babylonia and Palestine), androcentrism and misogyny wouldbecome “demystified”, that is, they would cease to seem natural andhencebecomelessstableandmoretransmutable.InBoyarin’swords:

[T]he very fact that we can show that the different androcentric formationsfunctionedinentirelydifferentfashionsatdifferenttimesandplacesprovidesakind of demystifying historicization, showing that each was contingent andspecific and that all are equally unsettled from the position of trans-historicalnaturalstatus.7

Boyarin’s intention of destabilizing assumed meanings is criticallyimportant,anditstructureshisentirebookfrombeginningtoend.Itisalso an important strategy used inKAE. This goal ofCarnal Israelwasheavilycritiqued,andBoyarinlargelyrepudiateditinlaterworks.

However,Boyarin’smethoddoesnotcorrespondtowhatIdoinKAE,especiallybecauseIhavenointentionofdoingculturalhistory,andalsobecausemymethodforchoosingtextstoanalyzeisquitedifferent.ThesedifferencesareimportantforexplaininghowtheconstructiveaspectsofKAEareconsonantwithtraditionalJewishStudies.

In Carnal Israel, Boyarin hoped to be able to reconstruct theworldviewandsocialpracticeoftherabbisbyliftingupandconnectingtextsthatcontradictthepictureofrabbinicmisogynythatfeministshavecriticized. Boyarin rejected the idea that he was constructing a heroicalternative to this stereotyped picture, insisting that “[t]he culturalreward of this analysis is not…in the discovery of a golden age in thepast”.8 This, however, did not stop Boyarin from making constructiveclaimsabouttherabbis’socialworld.

Boyarin writes that counter-hegemonic voices “manifest themselvesin the social body as dissident groups, in the individual as hidden andpartly repressed desires, in the texts of the culture as intertextuality”.9FortheBoyarinofCarnalIsrael,allthreeoftheseareasofconcernwereanalogous to the emergence of the repressed, each charged with thepower of historical manifestation. In particular, his claim is that therepressed feminine emerges even within the framework of rabbinichegemony. Is there a correlation, as Boyarin implies, betweenintertextual resistance, cultural practice and dissident social bodies?10

7 Ibid.,243.8 Ibid.9 Ibid.,104.10 AsimilarideaisputforthbyJudithHauptman.CitingJudithBaskin,Hauptmanwrites,



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Theimplicationofhisformulationisnotonlythattheemergenceofthefeminine can redeem what would otherwise be an oppressive ormisogynisticdiscourse,butalsothatonecanextrapolate fromthetextswhere the discursive hegemony is broken to actual social and culturepracticesthatwerecounter-hegemonic.

ThisaspectofBoyarin’sworkwasstronglycriticizedbybothVisotzkyandKessler,andasmentioned,Boyarinhimselfrejectedtheseclaimsinlaterworks.AsKesslerstated,Boyarinisanacutereaderandinterpreterofculturaldialectics,buthemisstepswhenheequatesculturaldialecticswithsocialpractice.11Boyarin in factwasalsounclearaboutwhetherornothewasdoinghistoryand/orstudyingsocialpractices.

In contrast to Boyarin in Carnal Israel, to the extent that I doconstructanalternativevisionoftherabbisinKAE, it isavisionthatisrestrictedtotheirintellectual-textualpractices.Sincemyinquirythereisstrictly focused on the terminological language of rabbinic andKabbalistic texts related to tselem Elohim, I make no attempt toextrapolate fromthese texts toanynotionof socialpractice,and Ionlyrarely make reference to the rabbis’ social world. Furthermore, thediversemeaningsoftselemElohimthatarerecoveredinKAEwereneverrepressedinrabbinicculture,butratherrepressedlaterbythemedievalrationalists andmodern humanists when they read rabbinic literature.Finally,asanareaof inquiry,ecologyisnotanareainwhichtherabbishad socialpractices that couldbe judgednegativelybyour twenty-firstcentury standards. Because of this, their lifeworld and society have noneedofour“redeeming”interpretation.12

Rather, the redemptive goal in KAE is analogous to what wasenumerated above as Boyarin’s third goal, that is, to historicize and

Inexploringimagesofwomen…wefindevidenceofmultivocality,ofminorityviewsthataresometimes more enlightened than those of the dominant view of women’s essentialdifference from and inferiority toman. (Rereading the Rabbis: AWoman’s Voice [BoulderCO,1997],13,n.13)

11 “Intersexuality”,247–9,esp.248.Visotzkymakesasimilarclaim,thoughhisstatementof it is far more polemical: “Asserting that literature must represent the culture inwhichitwasproduced,Boyarinconfusesthenarrativeworldofdidacticliteraturewiththerealworldthatproducedtheseidealistictexts….Oldorthodoxydoesnotdie,itjustfadestopostmoderngenerouscritique.”(246)

12 Onthecontrary, totheextentthatwehavearecordofsocialpractice inthe formofJewishlaw,therabbisweremodelsofecologicalvirtueincomparisonwithmodern-dayeconomicpracticeintheWesternworld.ThereisstillariskthatthepolemicalaspectofKabbalahandEcologywillleadtoover-generaloressentialistconclusionsthatparrytheessentialismofthemodernist-humanistparadigm.Theguardagainstthisistostayawareoftheproblem.


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henceproblematizeacertainanti-ecologicalreadingofJewishtradition.Boyarin’sdescriptionofhismethodforanalyzinggenderisinthisrespectanexactanalogueofthemethodofaboutone-thirdofKAE:

My hope is that by paying attention precisely to the differences between themany stories frommany times andmany texts we will be able to generate amore nuanced and historicized understanding of the different readings of thesignifier“woman”indifferentrabbiniccultures,openingupspace,perhaps, fornewpossibilitiesforthefuture.13

WiththeprovisothatIamlookingatteachingsaboutthesignifiertselemindifferent rabbinic literatures, rather than“rabbiniccultures”,BoyarinfairlyaccuratelydescribesmyapproachtoMidrashandtoKabbalah.

Selecting texts

This is not the place to go into Boyarin’s conceptualization ofHellenism versus the rabbis, which Visotzky expansively critiques, andwhich I discuss in Chapter 5 ofKAE.14What I do want to go into areVisotzky’s concerns about how Boyarin’s redemptive goals affect hisselection of primary texts. For Visotzky, Boyarin’s method leads to adiscountingof importantevidence.Thesameconcern is raisedbybothKesslerandCohen.Kesslerwritesthattherearemanymisogynistictextswhich Boyarin “dismisses as exceptional”, but which in fact should beviewed as countertexts. “They are opposing views within talmudicculture that by Boyarin’s own practice of reading should have beenmagnified, not minimized.”15 The essence of this critique is that when

13 CarnalIsrael,86.14 Seethesection“Thehumansoulintherabbinictradition”.Boyarinrepudiatedmuchof

thisanalysisaswell.Seen.64.15 250.While Kessler’s point is undeniable, what is also true is that suchmisogynistic

textshad alreadybeenwell discussed anddebated,whereas the texts and the tropesthat Boyarin was pointing out had been largely overlooked. Highlighting themmaythereforebeconsideredanecessaryiftemporarycorrective(andthesamecouldbesaidaboutsomeoftheproto-ecologicaltextsfocusedoninKAE).

NotethatKessler’scritiqueisbothmethodologicalandfeminist.Sheremarks,“Ineffect, [Boyarin] saves rabbinic (male) sexuality by sacrificing ‘woman’” (251). Boyarinhimself notes the tension between these two “poles” when he asks “Can…dialecticaldescription…provide us with tools for a synthesis that will enable both thevalorizationofsexualityandtheliberationofwomen?”(30,myemphasis).SeealsoTalIlan’srelatedcritiqueinMineandYoursandHers:RetrievingWomen’sHistoryfromRabbinicLiterature(LeidenNL:Brill,1997),30,n.111.

AsBoyarinhimselfnotes,hismethodhasgreatpotentialforexactlythesekindsofmistakes,whichhehopeshis readerswillcorrect.Visotzkymightask,Whyemployamethodthat issusceptibletofailureinthisway?Ithinktheanswermustbe,becausethe rewardsof reading “redemptively” are so great.Visotzkymight reply, that iswhy



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one is looking to confirm a hope, one is likely to ignore disconfirmingevidence.

One obvious solution is to read all the possible evidence first. Thiscan be taken to an extreme, as one finds in JacobNeusner’swork.16 Inthiscontexthowever,what ismore important tonote is thatNeusner’scorrectivedoesnotfixtheproblem.Theissueisnotwhattextsonehasreadanddigested,butratherwhichtextsonechoosestobringtobearonaparticularproblem.

Aryeh Cohen suggested a less grandiose corrective to Boyarin’smethod inhisbook,RereadingTalmud:Gender,Law,and thePoeticsofSugyot.Henoted that “while [Boyarin’s]method itself is sound,on thewhole,Boyarin’sapplicationofitisflawed.”17Boyarin’smethod,asCohenepitomizes it, entails identifying a tension within the text and thencreating a grouping of intertexts that Boyarin calls a “discursiveformation”. “It is thesecondstepwhichisproblematic.Whendoesoneabandon the rhetorical structure of one text to insert it into another‘formation?’Howdoes one identify a ‘discursive formation?’”18Cohen’ssolution is to thoroughly read the text in its full context first beforeturningtotheselectionofrelevantintertexts.JudithHauptmanrespondsto the same problem when she discusses her own methodology. Shewrites thatbyextracting themain ideas from loci classici inTorahandTalmud,“Iamnotmakinganychoicesastowhichmaterialtoexaminebutammerelyanalyzingtherabbis’principalstatementsonasubject.”19In both cases, the goal is to avoid making choices based on theideologicalanswersparticulartextscanprovide,at leastduringthefirstphaseofgatheringevidence.

Quiteobviously, these solutionsarenot foolproof.Who is todecidehowmuchcontextisnecessarytounderstandatradition?Isitenoughtofocusonawholesugya,asCohensuggests,ormustitbeawholebook,àla Neusner? Can the judgment of what constitutes “principal”statements,àlaHauptman,becompletelyfreedofprejudgment?Whilenone of the solutions proposed are free from error, they all share one

thetemptationsaresogreat,andwhythelikelihoodoferrorisalsogreat.

16 Neusner insistedon reading (that is, forhim, “retranslating”) theentiretyof rabbinicliteraturebeforehewouldmakeanystatementsaboutrabbiniccultureotherthan,“xbooksaysy”.OneproblemwithNeusner’smethodisthatheoftenmissesthenuancesoftextsinhisrushtoreadeverything.Theseproblemswillbediscussedfurtherbelow.

17 90.18 Ibid.,96.19 RereadingtheRabbis,7.


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commonfeature:thehermeneuticforselectingtextsdifferscategoricallyfromthehermeneuticforreadingthem.

NotethatbothHauptmanandCohen(andtoalargedegreeBoyarin)are all focused on Talmud, which, while it preserves much oldertraditions, is quite notable for the way in which it reads them into a“canonizeddissensus”,asBoyarincalls it,20adissensusthatnonethelesshas an underlying unity. That unity is the basis of what Cohen names“sugyaetics”. Midrash and Kabbalah do not readily show the sameunderlying unity. Compared to Talmud, early midrash is far lessintegrated into larger discursive units, while Kabbalah as a genre is akind of theological anarchy, even though individual Kabbalistic worksmaybemoresystematic.

Hauptman’sworkreliesonasecondkindofunitytodeterminewhattextsaresignificant,thepost-factounityofwhattextsarealreadyreadbyclassicalhalakhahashavingnormativevalue.Manyofthetextsfocusedon inKAE however aredistinctlynon-normative.While I amof courseinterested in the context of the traditions I cite, neithersugyaetics northeidentificationoflociclassicifitstheframeworkofthetextsthatplaythelargestroleindevelopingKAE’sthesis.

The solution in KabbalahandEcology

The solution I chose for KAE differs from both Hauptman’s andCohen’s, but it follows the general pattern they employed. ThefundamentalissueraisedbythecritiqueofBoyarinishowtoseparatetheselection of texts from themethod of reading them, particularly whenonehasa“redemptive”(i.e.polemical,politicalorideological)agenda,asIdoinKAE.TheprimaryselectionmethodIuse,whichismeanttoavoidexcludingorprejudgingimportantordiscomfirmingtexts,istoassociatetexts on thebasis of their terminology, rather thanon thebasis of anyconceptual,ideological,orinterpretedcommonality.Thisistruebothformidrashic andkabbalistic literature. I group texts togethernotbecausetheymake a certain point, but because they read or include a certaintrope,oruseacertainterm.(BytropeImeanarepeatingturnofphrasein the literal semantic sense, rather than a repeating image in theconceptualsense.)Everytextthatfitsthecriteriaofcontainingthattropeisvalidevidencethatrequiresconsidered.21Afteridentifyingthesetexts,

20 CarnalIsrael,28.21 For the earliest layers of rabbinic literature, it is actually possible to marshal every

extanttextthatusesaparticularterminology.Forlatergenres–especiallyKabbalah,aswellasChasidut–thatishardlypossible.FormedievalJewishphilosophy,itmightbepossible,butinnoneofthesecasesisitreallynecessary,sincewearenotlookingforan



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theanalysisofeachone isbasedonrhetoricaland text-critical (that is,contextual)considerations.

For Midrash, I strive to include every instance in early rabbinicliterature (that is, before theTalmud)where the term tselemElohim isinterpreted, whether or not it accords with or relates to my politicalagenda. My analysis of midrashic texts in Part 1 establishes both theparameterswithinwhichtherabbisdebatedthemeaningofGod’simage,as well as the terminology that is most significant for theseinterpretations.InKabbalah,whichisafarmorevastcorpus,IfocusonthosetextsandauthorsthatdifferinasignificantwayfromthearrayofinterpretationsfoundinMidrash.

One often finds that the same trope is used with a conceptualmeaning thatdiffers radically fromoneperiod toanother, so that textsthat are related by common terminology may be ideologically quitedistant from each other. In many cases it is the use of a commonterminology that indicates that a significant intellectual shift is takingplace.Forthisreason,Ialsopaycloseattentiontoanytextsthatusetheterminologies found in Midrash that relate to tselem and repurposethem.MuchofthetextualworkandintellectualhistorythatIdoinKAEthereforeisshapedasahistoryofterminology,carriedoutinawaythatexplicitly brackets out cultural or social history and practice (see nextsection).InthissenseKAEcanbedescribedasastudyofintertextuality.

StandardanalyticalmethodsusedinJewishStudiesalsopayattentionto such phenomena, but in KAE these diachronic differences are alsoused to destabilize any univocal meaning or interpretation. Thus,intertextualanalysisisdoneinadiachronicratherthansynchronicway.This also differs fromBoyarin’s description of intertextuality,which hedescribes as a kind of synchronic analysis in contrast to other textualmethods.22 So, while the goals of KAE can be called “redemptive”,intertextualityisnottreatedasaprivilegedmethodofreading.

exhaustive catalogof all interpretations at each stage of history, but rather for thoseinterpretations in subsequent stages that specifically deviate fromor transformwhatcamebeforethem.

22 He equates intertextuality with a synchronic view and “the search for sources andinfluences”withadiachronicview.Iwouldnotethat‘synchronic’and‘diachronic’mustalwaysbepartlyrelativeterms,becauseanytimeoneisolatesoneculturefromanother,as we do rabbinic culture from ancient non-Jewish cultures and frommedieval andmodernJewishcultures,onemustinvoke,athowevermanyremoves,ahistoricalanddiachronicviewoftextuality.Thatis,noteverytextineverytimeandplaceisequallyrelevant. I think however that what Boyarin means is that in the moment ofcomparison, using the tools and methods denoted by intertextuality, the associatedtextsare treatedas thoughtheycouldhavebeenwrittentogether, regardlessof their


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I do also discuss the homiletical meaning of the texts analyzed in

KAE.However,whenever I do this, I explicitly label suchdiscussion ashomiletical, anddistinguishand segregate it from thehistorical-criticalanalysis.Theologythereforebecomessomethingexplicitlyaddedontopof historical analysis. This has the potential not only to preserve theintegrityofhistoricalandcriticalanalysis,butalso tobringto light thefreedom involved in the theological process. The appearance of thisfreedomwithintheselimitsisoneimportantfeatureofthemethodologyIuseinKAE.

THE TEXTUAL PROCESS

The whole of traditional Jewish literature is imbued with ahypersensitive consciousness of textual, terminological and linguisticcorrelations, even when an author is not using this hermeneuticexplicitly, as one may find in some medieval philosophical texts.23 Bycitingtheearliestversionsofaninterpretationorsaying,focusingontheterminological tropes and linguistic or semiotic ideas that make thatinterpretationpossible,andthenanalyzingtheuseofthesametropesinlater texts, one can trace the history of theological thinking withoutimposingapriorinterpretationonwhatthetropesmean.

The way the use of terminology changes from earlier to later textsconstitutes primary evidence that new theological ideas are beingworkedout.Uniquephrasesandindividualwordscometohaveakindofreserved functionwithin rabbinic literature, andare thereafter sites forattentionandreinterpretationbylatertexts.Thisevidenceiscompletelyindependentoftheformofatext,i.e.whetheritlookslikecommentaryorcode,responsaorphilosophy,whetheritisconsciouslytheologicalornot. An author will choose an already significant theological term andappropriateitforanewusage,oftenwithoutacknowledging(orperhapsevennoticing)thatatransformationhastakenplace.Onecanbeassuredthat any reserved theological term that remains in use over many

history.Whatis“intertextual”inthemethodIamdescribing,however,isthattwotextssharingacommonterminologyarereadasiftheywereconnected,withthelatertextreading the earlier, regardless of the possibility of proving any historical lines ofinfluencebetweenthem.

23 It isalsotruethat fromadeconstructiveor literarypointofviewonemaydrawsuchcorrelationsregardlessofwhetherthesecorrelationsareintendedorevencontextuallyjustified.



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centuries carries or structures important theological information andevolutionarychange.

Take theprimarysubjectofKAE.TheTanakhuses the terms tselem(image) andd’mut (likeness) in relation tohumanbeings inonly threeplaces, almost entirely without explication. The locus classicus for themeaningoftselemandd’mut inJudaismisnottheTorahbutrathertheMidrash, where one finds the earliest statements of what these termsmeant for the rabbis. A primary example is the idea of the upper andlower creations, which is fundamental to rabbinic ideas about God’simage: “Theupperones (creatures) /elyonimwerecreated in the imageand likeness, and don’t bear fruit and multiply; and the lower ones/tachtonim bear fruit andmultiply and were not created in the imageand likeness.”24Theuse of the terms “upper” and “lower” can easily betraced in later texts. One can outline the evolution of different ideasaboutthehumanplaceintheworldbyattendingtohowthesetermsareused.(Iwillreturntothisexampleseveraltimesbelow.)

Theevidenceof theearliest layersofmidrashiccommentary iswhatdefines both the rabbis’ anthropology and the place of tselem in thatanthropology.Therefore, theevidenceof theearlymidrashneeds tobesurveyed in full, attending to the variety of interpretations and thesubtlety of their rhetoric. Comprehending the range of this evidence,including its rhetoric, is of utmost importance in order to establish abaseline that will enable us to examine how both the Kabbalah25 andmodern thought takeadvantageof the rabbinic traditionandhowtheyeachhavecreativelybetraythattradition.26

Later textswilloften refer to,modify,oroverturn this anthropologybyusing thesamerhetoricalvocabulary, thesametropes,evenwithoutdirectly referencing the term tselemor earlier conceptualmeanings. Intracing passages from different genres where the terms “upper” and“lower” appear, we may not be tracing the continuous evolution of aconcept or idea, since the conceptual meaning of the same termschanged quite radically over time. Rather, whatwe arewitnessing is ahistory of theological “grammar”, tracing theway inwhich subsequent 24 B’rei’shitRabbah8:11.25 Since Chasidic interpretation draws directly on the tradition of Kabbalah, Chasidic

texts are also cited inKAEas extensions ofKabbalistic interpretation for the sakeofthisanalysis.Again,Ifocusonthewaytheyreinterpretthemeaningofthetropestheyinherit.Inmostcases,thetheologicalorhistoricalrelationshipbetweenChasidismandKabbalahmaybebracketedoutforthesakeofthisanalysis.

26 The terminology “creative betrayal” was coined by David Roskies. See Against theApocalypse (CambridgeMA:HarvardUniversityPress, 1984)andABridgeofLonging(CambridgeMA:HarvardUniversityPress,1995).


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authorsreadthetraditionthatcamebeforethemandassimilateditintotheirownlifeworld.

Terminology as the primary factum for Jewish theology – Kadushin

Ifonewantedto label theoverallapproachused inKAE, itcouldbedefinedasa“intellectualhistoryoftherhetoricoftheology”,inthiscaserhetoric related to the idea of God’s image. I am not writing about“theology” in the traditional, limited sense of reasoning about God(thoughaspectsoftheologyinthissensedocomeintoplaywhenevertheintellectual and rhetorical history of theology is dealt with).27 ThemethodusedinKAEbearssomesimilaritybothtoKadushinandtosomeof the later work of Neusner. Like Schechter before him, Kadushinemphasized again and again that the terms under which rabbinicthinkingshouldbeexaminedmustbebasedonnativecategories.28WhatKadushinadded,critically,isthatthenatureoftherelationshipbetweenthese categories, the process of thinking and connecting, was alsounique. Kadushin called this “organic thinking” and he thought it wasuniquely expressed by rabbinic literature, though he also thought thatorganicthinkingwasrepresentativeofothernon-Westerncultures.

Kadushin’s cultural-historical and essentialist claims notwith-standing,29 the inductive process through which he arrived at adescription of “the rabbinic mind” is an important precedent for themethodsusedinKAE.Hisinsistenceontracingtheconnectionsbetweenrabbinic ideasusingnativecategoriesandeschewinghierarchical logicsfocusedhimuponterminology.Kadushinwasthefirstonetonotethatiftherabbisdidnotcoinaterminologyforatheologicalidea,itcouldnotbe considered a “value-concept”; he associated this process particularlywith the rabbis coining abstract nouns derived from Biblical roots.Kadushin attempted to carefully build up an understanding of therabbinic worldview on the basis of these value-concepts, identifyingsome as fundamental concepts and others as sub-concepts. He alsofirmlydemonstratedthatcategoriesofrabbinicthoughtcouldnotbeput

27 By “theological history” I mean history done with theological objectives rather than

history about theology. By “rhetoric of theology” I mean both the language andhermeneutics used by theology, especially as it is expressed through the use ofterminology,asopposedtotheologicalconcepts.

28 NeusnerdismissesSchechter’sworkinthisdirection(aswellasUrbach’s),butbothofthemfurtheredthisagendainsignificantways.

29 I want to caution that inmy opinion, and in the opinion of Neusner (withwhom Irarely concur), Kadushin did not succeed in his goals. Furthermore, his use ofessentialist categories (such as “the rabbinic mind”, as if there were one floatingamongstthePlatonicforms)wouldhavemadesuccessimprobable.



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into ametaphysical or ontological hierarchy, as onemightdowith thecategories of philosophy or Christian theology, and that to do sonecessarilyviolatedandmisrepresentedwhattherabbisbelieved.

Despite the importance of Kadushin’s principles, his method alsocomes up against limitations that make accurate description of theevolution of ideas difficult. Because Kadushin focused on “value-concepts”, he tended to ignore other kinds intellectual coherence andother aspects of discourse. Specifically, Kadushin emphasized that theexpression of fundamental value-concepts emerged in contradictoryformulations because different concepts were being emphasized indifferenttexts.Thisperspective,whilevaluable,meantthathetendedtooverlook actual disagreements within and between rabbinic texts,attributingall suchtensionstothenatureof the“organicmind”, ratherthan exploring the possibility that these tensions could represent amakhloket or argument between various rabbinic perspectives.Fundamentally, he moved too quickly from terminology to concept,sometimesmissingthetextintheprocess.

Also,by limitinghimself to enumerating “value-concepts”,Kadushinignoredmany tropes that do not express any value-concept at all, butthat are still important descriptors of the rabbinic worldview. Oftenthese elements reflect thedeep structureofwhathe calls the “rabbinicmind”.TwoexamplesfromKAEthatareinadequatelynotedbyKadushinand other modern scholars are the already discussed division of theworldinto“upper”and“lower”,andtheideaofstatureorqomah.Theseterminologies are metonymic for rabbinic anthropology, and theybecame incorporated into the subsequent evolution of ideas aboutcosmos and Nature (or what in KAE is called the more-than-humanworld).30 Such elements are not explicit theological ideas, not “value-concepts”.Rathertheyrepresentfundamentalaspectsofhowtherabbisperceived and interpreted the world. It is these elements that are themainfocusofKAE.

NeusnerhimselfwentfarbeyondKadushin’sworkbyenumeratingagreat number of fundamental theological ideas that he calls “nativecategories”, andbyexploring,both inhis laterworkon the theologyoftherabbis,andinhisearlierworkonthepolemicsofindividualrabbinicbooks, the hermeneutical devices that connect these ideas and makethemcoherent.31However,becauseNeusner’searisnotalwayssensitive 30 i.e., they canbeused to trace thedevelopment in Jewish thought of ideas about the

human role and the structure of the cosmos, through rabbinic, philosophical,Kabbalisticandmodernliteratures.

31 See esp.Theological Grammar, vol.1, 4–7 on “native categories”; also vol.3, 361–92 on


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to the subtleties of terminology, translation, and allusion, his hammerhits thenails thathavebigheads, so to speak,andbendsothersoutofshape. (One of his readings will be analyzed below as an example.)Nonetheless,IseeNeusner’swillingnesstofurtherKadushin’sagendaonapracticalandtextuallevelasexemplary.Themajorproblemisthatheusedconceptualratherthanterminologicalcategories.

The focus on terminology inherent in Kadushin’s method is

particularlywell-suitedtothesubjectofGod’simage,andtotheprocessof developing a new theology about tselem. The term tselem Elohim iscorrelated with a vast number of diverse concepts. It therefore makessense to look at the way in which tselem Elohim and its associatedterminology evolve and come to have radically diverse meanings,throughdifferentincarnations,indifferenttextsandliteratures.

Terminology and textuality

Whilemuchof the analysis inKAE looks at texts synchronically, itsfundamental method is diachronic, even when, as in the Midrashchapters, I ammost interested inearlymidrashic textsandnot in latertexts.That isbecauseeverytext isexaminedimplicitly inrelationto itsdifference from modernist and humanist interpretations. Wheneverdiachronicchangesareexamined inKAE,myprimary interest isnot inhowawhole traditionorconceptchangesperse,but inhowparticulartropes or terminologies evolve and change. This means looking at thewaysuchtropesarerecontextualizedinlatertexts,focusingespeciallyonthoseexampleswhereatropetakesonadifferentmeaning.WhenIshiftinto homiletical commentary inKAE, only then do I focus in on thosetexts that move the anthropology of Judaism in an ecologicallysignificantdirection.

Thisdiachronicapproachisespeciallyimportantforderivingaseriesofpositionsthatcanbedatedasearlierandlater.Iamalwaysinterestedinwhetheratrajectoryofdevelopmentissuggestedbythisseries.Totheextent that theseatomisticpointsaddsuptoagreaterpicture, it is thepicture of a “theologoumenon”, a complex of ideas connected to aparticular set of theological tropes and terminology. On a homileticallevel, their trajectory can be used to extrapolate what kind ofcontemporary theological evolution would be in harmony with earlierincarnationsofthesametropeortheologoumenon.

“modelsofanalysis”.



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Asexplained, inmost cases it is the terminologyused to express aninterpretation or idea, rather than the “conceptual meaning” that itsignifies,isthebasisforcomparingtexts.Totheextentthatpeoplethinkof the physical (written or articulated) word as a kind of body and itsmeaningasakindofsoul,Iamprimarilyinterestedinthebody.Thisispartlybecausecontinuityofterminologycanbedefinedobjectivelyandmeasuredindependentlyofanyone’sagendaorinterpretation.Thisfocusis also congruentwith the nature of traditional rabbinic texts, becausethe fundamental unit of continuity in rabbinic hermeneutics is theindividualwordorrootthatcreatesassociationsbetweentwostatementsor teachings. Such associations are often intended by the text andpresumedtobeanintegralpartofthereader’sexperience.32

Thoughthismethodisdiachronic,andcorrespondsinmanywaysto

classicalhistoricalcriticism,myultimateinterestisnotinthehistorical-contextualmeaningofagiventext,butinthepossibilitiesitenactsforacontemporarytheology.Thus,amongallthetextsexamined,thosetextsthathaveretrospectivevalueasdeterminedbyapostmodernecologicalsensibility,orthatdemonstratethedevelopmentofothertextsthathavesuchvalue,aretheonesliftedupinthehomileticalsections.

32 According toZvi Septimus, this is actually adescriptionof the ideal reader from the

point of view of the final editors of the Babylonian Talmud (the Bavli): the entireTalmudiccorpusispresumedtobeknowntothisidealBavlireader,andanyuseofaspecific terminology automatically acts as a “trigger” that “activates” other passagesthatusethesameterminology:

TheBavlireaderunderstandswhatawordmeansinitscurrentcontextandthencomparesitsmeaninginthatcontextwiththewaythatthesamewordmeansintheothercontexts.WhentheBavlireaderturnstothesecondorthirdcontextinwhichtherarewordappears,hereturnsnotonlywiththemeaningofaparticularwordbutwiththeentireweightofthecontextinwhichthatwordappears.Thisreaderthenrereadsthecurrentcontextwithallofthat other information raised to the surface. Since the rabbis apply this type of semioticreading technique in their interpretation of the Biblical text, it makes sense that theirculturewouldproduceatextthat lendsitselftooperateonitsreaderinasimilarmanner.This is all themore true if theBavli reader learns how to readbymimicking the readingpractices of the rabbis, the reading practices employed by the Bavli. (“The PoeticSuperstructure of the Babylonian Talmud and the Reader It Fashions”, University ofCaliforniaBerkeley,PhDdissertation,2011,136–7)

WhatIamsuggestingisthatevenastheBavli’sinternalhermeneuticderivesfromtheapplicationoftherabbis’BiblicalhermenuticstotheBavliitself,sotoocanweassumethat this broadly intertextual hermeneutic can be applied and is operative in laterliterature, and even in all rabbinic literature, such that earlier uses of a specificterminologyappearingin lociclassicimaybeassumedtobe“activated”byitsuseinalatertext,evenwhenthe“content”isunrelated.


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Onthe levelof constructive theology, thismeans that the texts thatare analyzed are then used to show that a certain interpretation ispossible within the tradition, rather than to show that a certaininterpretationisnormativeforthetradition.Inthisrespect,theevidenceofasingletextmaybesufficientfordemonstratingthehistoricalvalidityofanewtheologicalideaoranewinterpretationofanoldtrope.

Bywayofillustration,theMidrashusesasimilarhermeneuticinthefollowingmeimra:

Ineveryplace[scripture]advancescreationoftheheavensbeforetheland,andinoneplace it says: “in thedayofYHVHElohim’smakingearthandheavens”[Gn2:4],tellingthatthetwoofthemareequal,thisonelikethis.33

The hermeneutic underlying this statement is twofold: first, when thesystem of scripture otherwise appears to concretize one consistentmetaphysical position, a single contradictory statement may overturnthatposition;andsecond,whenthatstatementappears,itsweightasanexception is magnified, so that the position it concretizes has equalweighttoallotherstatements.

Evenfromtheperspectiveofthemidrashicprocess,thisisjustoneofmany ways to read the texts, yet it is a theologically authentic way ofreading. The teaching just cited may itself be regarded as an outlyingposition,sincemosttraditionsrelatingtotheorderofcreationteachthateithertheearthwascreatedfirst,orthattheheavenswerecreatedfirst,ratherthanthattheyareequal.Thehermeneuticthisteachingillustratesjustifiesfocusingonoutlyingpositionsascentraltorabbinicdiscourse.

David Kraemer has examined the importance of this tendency toemphasize alternative interpretationswithin the rhetorical structure ofthe Bavli (the Babylonian Talmud).34 If outlying positions, whetherconcretized in scriptural verses or in rabbinic sayings, are in fact givenspecial significance by rabbinic hermeneutics, this also suggests thatwheneverthetraditionpreservessuchoutlyingpositions,itisinasenseprepared for them to be read as significant, out of proportion to theirfrequency. Thus, while thesemoments of textual discourse are usuallyregarded as counter-traditions in the sense of minority or dissidentvoices, there are times when one may, even from a historical-critical 33 BR1:15.34 TheMindoftheTalmud.Noteesp.whatKraemerwriteson322–3:

[T]he rabbis thought “universally valid truths” to be inaccessible.…[I]t is precisely thisrecognition that is embodied in the Talmudic form.…This recognition was not complete,however,attheearlieststagesofrabbinism.…TheoverwhelminginsistenceonalternativesininterpretationwouldawaittheBavli,anditwasatthetimeofitscompositionthatthefullimplicationsofthepositiondescribedearlierwouldberecognizedandaffirmed.



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perspective, treat them as equal to other voices without distorting thetextsthemselves.

On deconstruction

I have noted that a primarymethod of challenging the “modernist-humanist” interpretation of Torah is through a close reading of therabbinic texts that are used to support that interpretation. Historical-critical and deconstructive techniques can be used to tease apartmeaningsandequationsbetweenmodernthoughtandclassicalMidrash,in order to “suspend” themodernist-humanist paradigm that generallydominatescontemporaryJewishreligiousthought.

This approachmay create the appearance of a contradiction in mymethodology.WhereKAEexploresthedevelopmentofanewparadigm,in order to create a “lens” for a Jewish deep ecology (see p.34ff.), itsometimes treatsdiachronicmeanings and ideas that areheld togetherby common vocabulary as though they represented a coherentintellectual continuity. Where the modernist paradigm is concerned,however,discontinuitiesarewhatishighlightedandaccentuated.Thus,it may seem that I employ a double standard, where constructivemethods are used when it serves the goals of my thesis, anddeconstructive methods are applied to theologies that contradict mythesis.However,asInoteinrepeatedlyKAE,itisobviousthatanydeepecology or ecotheological reading of tradition can be just as readilydeconstructed as a conventional (that is, modernist) reading. Decon-structing modernist-humanism does not represent the erasure ornullification of prior theologies, or necessitate their replacement bynewerones.Rather,itrepresentsthesuspensionofadominantparadigminordertoallowotherparadigmstobeadequatelyexploredalongsideit.Thisiswhatitmeanstotalkabout“suspending”themodernist-humanistparadigm.

ThoughtherearemanypointsinKAEwhereItrytoshowthatanewunderstandingof tselem is a better readingof the rabbinic texts and ismore congruent with the Kabbalah, there is no doubt that themodernist-humanisttraditionprovidesamorecomprehensivereadingofthetextsofmedievalJewishphilosophy.Furthermore,thereisnotextualor apodictic reason why a paradigm rooted in an earlier rabbinicconception of the body or anthropology should be more true orauthenticthanonefoundedonmedievalphilosophicalconceptions.Onthecontrary,thesuspensionofoneparadigmandexplorationofanotherismeanttoallowtheseparadigmstostandinequalrelationship.


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As Iwrote inKAEandabove, theverypurposeof thehistoricalandtextual work done inKAE is to allow the appearance of this degree offreedom to choose from among adequate interpretations. Thehermeneutical and theological choices that onemakes in thatmomentareneither objective on theonehand,nor arbitrary on theother.Thisshould both afford us greater choice about what Jewish culture andtraditions mean, while also guaranteeing that that the meaning wechoose is coherentwithwhat camebefore.Themore traditional anewinterpretation can be said to be, themore transformational it is, for ittransformsnotonly the futurebutalso thepast.Withoutsomekindofprocess that guarantees such continuity, any new interpretation isstrictly homiletical, applying only to its contemporary moment in thepresent,andonlylooselyatthat.

Ibelievetheworlditselfmakesuschoosebetweenparadigms, firstlybyvirtueofwhateachparadigmoffers intermsofrichnessandbeauty,andsecondlybyvirtueofwhatpoliticalandpracticalconsequenceseachtheology brings. Reality, that is, the real-life value of more fullyembracingLifeandcreatingasustainablefuture,issufficienttoargueforor against aparticularparadigm.Whilemyownprejudices aboutwhatthatmeansareclear throughoutKAE, Idonotexpect todomore thanconvinceanacademicreaderthatthealternativemodelsIproposetothe“standardmodel”areequallyadequatelensesthroughwhichtoviewthetradition, based on both traditional and historical-critical values andhermeneutics.Thehumanbeingwhoisalsoascholarmustmakehisorherownchoicesafterthat.

The truth is that themodernist-humanistparadigm that so stronglyaffirms human rights and human equality, in a world where humanrightsareregularlyviolated,hasnotoutliveditsusefulness.Perhapsthebest choice is not to deny one paradigm in favor of another, but toacknowledgemultipleparadigms,evenwhentheycontradicteachother.Anything else would only be systematic in the negative sense ofexcluding truths and beliefs that were inconvenient, and it would bemorallyandspirituallyincomplete.

Hermeneutical foundations, rules of thumb, and examples

BoththeconstructiveanddeconstructiveaspectsofKAEarerootedinthehermeneuticsoftraditionalJewishtexts.InthissectionIwillanalyzeafewspecificdetailsabouthowthesehermeneuticsfunction.

Broadlyspeaking,onefindsthatnewideasintraditionaltextsarenotsignaledby theappearanceofnewterms,and thatwhennewtermsdoappear, they do not always signify new ideas. Rather, as already



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discussed, new ideas are often introduced by recontextualizing orreinterpretingolder terminology.Sucholder termsaregenerally rootedin canonical texts, that is, texts to which the hermeneutics of sacredreading apply.35 Because of this, when an older terminology issuccessfully transplanted into anew field ofmeaning, it can effectivelychange the meaning of an entire tradition without disrupting thattradition’scontinuity.

While there are no strict rules of interaction when comparing two

textsthatuseacommonterminology,certainrulesofthumbdoemergeas guidelines. Based upon the rhetorical conventions of rabbinic texts,one may start with the assumption that the use of a commonterminology in two different traditions or texts places them in somerelationship, even if themeaning is quite different. (This is simply onefacet of intertextuality.) As mentioned, an older terminology may beused specifically to effect radical change, while preserving theappearanceofcontinuity.Oneexampleofsuchconservedterminologyisthe term s’firah, taken from the ancient text Sefer Y’tsirah, which wasusedinlaterKabbalahtointroduceandbeartheweightofahugesystemofsymbolsandideas.

Where the same terminology is used by different tradents, in thesame “book” and without explication, the traditions are likely to befounded upon a common metaphysical conception or hermeneuticalidea. Conversely, where different terminology is used in two relatedteachings–especiallywhenthetwoteachingsappearinthesamebook–one should look for an ideological ormetaphysicaldivergencebetweenthem.

AnexampleofthisthatIanalyzeinKAEisthedifferenceinB’rei’shitRabbah 8:11 between the terminology l’ma`lah (“above”) and èlyonim(“upperones”).36Thetextreads:

R’Yehoshua:Godcreatedinthehumanfourcreationsfromabove/mil’ma`lah–hestandsliketheangels,andspeakslike[them,etc.]R’Tifdai:Theupperones/èlyonim were created in the image and likeness, and don’t bear fruit andmultiply.

Since the first teaching refers only to the angels, the second teaching,which takes up a different terminology,may refer to somethingmore. 35 Thehermeneuticsof“sacredreading”meansespeciallytheideathateverythinginthe

textwillbefoundtocoherewithscriptureandwithitselfifoneworksoverandkneadsthegapssufficiently.

36 SeeKAE,pp.50–54,esp.p.52.


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Based on surveying every use of èlyonim inB’rei’shit Rabbah, one canestablish thatB’rei’shitRabbah uses èlyonim to refer to theangels andtheheavenstogether.IconcludethatR’Tifdai,ortheimageofR’Tifdaicreated by the book’s redactor, claims that the angels and the heavensareall inGod’simage,whileR’Yehoshuaholdsthatonlytheangelsarein God’s image. The difference between the two terminologies, whichmostotherscholarstreatasequivalent(seefurtheron),actuallyhintsatametaphysicaldifferencebetweenthetwoteachings.

Morecomplexhermeneuticsarise fromthispossibility.Forexample,where the same terminology appears twice in a typically multivocalrabbinictext,ifthisterminologyisexplicatedinonecasebutnotintheother, it is possible that the tradition in which the terminology isexplicated is reformulating the commonly accepted meaning of thatterminology.Wemightsearchinsuchcasesforanideologicalshiftfromone tradent to the other. This may also be true when the sameterminologyisusedbyadifferentauthorinalatertext.Withrespecttotheologicalmeaning,thisprocessisgenerallyeisegetical:typically,atextthatexplicatesanolderterminologyistransformingtheideaunderlyingtheterminology.37

These reformulations may be intentional and therefore a way ofarguingwithprevioustextsortraditions,ortheymaybeevidenceofanunconsciousevolutionofthatideainanewdirection,inwhichcasetheauthor or tradent may be imagining what they are teaching to be inagreement with previous uses of that terminology. None of thesepropositions is very radical, but I have found that such analyses areemployedlessfrequentlyinscholarlyliteraturethantheycouldbe.

Some more examples of terminology

The bottom line is that the use of old terms for new ideas is apowerful and traditional way of revolutionizing the Jewish tradition,while at the same time remaininggrounded in the tradition. It ismostimportantlyawayofnaturalizingnew ideas.Theprocessofdevelopingnew concepts using older rabbinic terms often mimics the process ofdevelopingrabbinicterminologyfromscripturalverses.38Anexampleofthiswould be the termbeynoni, originallymeaning an average person,

37 Anexamplediscussedatlengthinthenextsectionis“dibrahTorahbil’shonAdam”in

Maimonides.38 Someexamplesaren’shamahand òlam.Eachof thesewordsexistnotas theological

terminologybutassimpleconceptsintheTanakh.TheyarebothexaminedinKAE,inChapters4and9.



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whichwas takenover from theMishnahbyShneurZalmanofLiady tomean a person whose actions are without sin but who wrestles withincorrect desires.39 As such, it became a cornerstone of Chabad ethicalthought.

In halakhah, a similar process of conserving terminology isincorporatedintohowlegalprecedentsfordecisionsareestablished.Theterminology used may derive from a law’s locus classicus in scripture(thoughthiskindofderivationisaslikelytobeeisegeticalasexegetical),butmayalsobederivedstrictlyfromrabbinicsources.40Thesametermmayprovidetherubric forboththeologicalandhalakhic innovation,asone finds inCordovero’s use of the termmitah yafah (“a gooddeath”),which in the Talmud is applied only to humans, to refer to animalslaughter.41Sincesimilarrulesapplyandthesameterminologiesmaybeused,thereisnoreasontodrawahardlinebetweentheologicalandlegaldiscourse.

Thisprocesscanapplytowholephrasesthatdescribecomplexideas.For example, the hermeneutical principle that “the Torah speaks inhuman language / dibrah Torah bilshon Adam” means very differentthings in rabbinic andmedieval contexts.42AryehCohen examines thisexampleinRereadingTalmud:

The Talmudic function of this principle is to limit the applicability of themidrashic reading practice in instances of the doubling of verbs. The “general

39 LiquteyAmarim(Tanya),trans.NissanMindeletal.(London:OtsarHachasidim,1972).40 Someexamplesoftheformerincludem’la’khah(“work”,fromEx35:2,29),baltashchit

(“notwasting”,fromDt20:20).Notehoweverthatmanykeyrabbinicconceptshavenogrounding in the terms used by scripture. For example, “eiver min hachai” denotestakingpartofananimalforfoodwhileitisstillalive.Thespecificterminologyusedintheverseswheretheprohibitionappears,“fleshwithitslife/basarb’nafsho”(Gn9:4)and“thelifewiththeflesh/hanefeshìmhabasar”(Dt12:23),wasnotincorporatedintohalakhic discourse. The appearance of new terminology here, as in other cases,mayindicateanewconcept,oritmayindicatetheconcretizationofanolderconcept.

41 See KAE, pp.164–5. B’rakhah or blessing is another example that illustrates bothtendencies.ThisnounforminTanakhdenotesblessingsthatGodgrantstopeopleorthatonepersongrantstoanother;whenthisrootisusedforapersonblessingGodintheTorah it appears only as a verb. The idea of blessingGod, specifically “making ab’rakhah” by uttering the appropriate rabbinically-coined formula “Barukh atah…”,representsbothatheologicalandritualinnovation,anditalsodefinesacategorythatcanbethetargetoflegislation.

42 Another fascinating example of this process, where the change is from early to lateclassicalrabbinicliterature,canbeseeninthetransformationoftheinterpretationofEc 12:11 from the Tosefta to the Talmud. See Shlomo Naeh, “‘Make Yourself ManyRooms’:AnotherLookattheUtterancesoftheSagesAboutControversy,”inRenewingJewish Commitment: TheWork and Thought of David Hartman, eds. A. Sagi and Z.Zohar(Jerusalem:HartmanInstitute,2002),851–75.


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rule”thatonemightdrawfromthisprinciple isthatcertainstylisticdevicesofbiblicaltextarenottobecountedasredundancies,andthereforearenottobereadmidrashically.MaimonidesreadsthisprincipleasarabbinicvalidationofaspecificreadingofTorah.Thatis,MaimonidesimputestothephrasethegeneralrulethatallanthropomorphicoranthropopathictermsintheToraharenottobe taken as literal. It is not however, the language of the phrase that haschanged,butitscontext.43

Concerning the “cultural context of interpretation”, Cohen explains, “Itwastheneo-AristotelianphilosophicaldiscourseoftheearlyMiddleAgesthat naturalized this recontextualization of the phrase.”44 Cohen refersboth to the recontextualization of the principle of bilshon Adam byMaimonides, as well as the recontextualization of Jewish civilization,whichMaimonidesisrespondingtoaswellascreating.

In this example, Maimonides does not explicitly reinterpret thephrase“bilshonAdam”.Atnopointdoesheshowanyawarenessthathehas transformed its meaning. Rather, as Cohen states, he isrecontextualizing the phrase.While this has the effect of changing themeaning of the Talmudic principle, it is possible that neitherMaimonidesnorhis sympathetic readerswouldhave recognized that achange had taken place. It is not wrong to regard this move as areinterpretation, and one could certainly claim that the new meaningwasintendedtosupplantorerasetheearliermeaningofthephraseinitsoriginal context. However, it is probably more accurate to treat thephrase itself as a thread that ties together the steps in an evolutionarythoughtprocess.

In this example, the technical terminologyofbilshonAdam, inbothits rabbinic and Maimonidean usage, points to a similar kind ofhermeneuticalprinciple.Onecouldsaythatthisisitsprimaryfunction,rather than having its primary function be one or another of itsmeanings,andthatthisfunctionhasremainedconstant,eventhoughthephrasehasbeentransferredbyMaimonidestoawhollynewcontext.

Noticing thatMaimonides is radically redefining themeaningof theconcept bilshon Adam neither invalidates his reading of rabbinictradition, nor does it make Maimonides’ theological position less truethantherabbinicposition.Itdoesletusdotwousefulthings,however:itallowsustoseethecontingencyofMaimonides’reading,anditmakesiteasierforustonoticealternativeevolutionsforthesameterminology.45ThisisthemethodemployedinKAE. 43 134–5.SeealsoTheRabbinicMind,321,n.68,citingYehezkelKaufman.44 Ibid.45 To the extent that theMaimonidean usage has become normative for Jews thinking

abouttheJewishtradition,anewconceptthatreliedonthesameterminologywould



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From Cohen to Neusner: How much context?

One element that factors into understanding the transformation ofterminology is to understand a terminology’s redactional context. Thisraises the question of howmuch context is necessary to meaningfullyanalyze a text. Cohen would suggest that a whole sugya is sufficient,while for Neusner, the smallest sufficient context is a whole book.46Neusner’s insistenceononlydrawingconclusionsonthebasisofwholebooks is a reaction against many decades of scholarship that werefocused on the one hand on theminutiae of text-criticalwork, and ontheother,onwhatamountedtohomileticalinterpretation.Theworkofdescribing the content of “Judaism”, which scholars like Schechterpursued,oftencataloguedrabbinicsayingsthroughtopicalorhomileticalassociation,whiledisregardingtheirredactionalorrhetoricalcontext.47

Neusner’sradicalshiftinfocustransformedJewishStudies,anditliesin the background ofmuch of the postmodern, rhetorical, and literarycriticism. Neusner therefore provides a good foil for illuminating thereasonsforthemethodsIuseinKAE.Inhisexplicitlytheologicalwork,Neusnermoves fromreadingwholebookstoaccounting for “thewholecorpus”. “Viewed synchronically, how do the assertions of thedocumentarycomponentsoftheOralTorahcohere?Theologyrespondstothatquestion.”48WhatemergesforNeusnerarethe“nativecategories”– a vast improvement over the paucity of value-concepts Kadushinprovided, but limited to what Neusner calls the “head-nouns” of thelanguage of theology.49 (One might say that KAE is interested in thetheological “prepositions” that relate to adiscursivegroupofNeusner’snouns.)However,Neusner’ssynopticandlarge-scaleconceptualmethodof reading obscures what I believe was a primary motivation of theredactor:not(ornotprimarily)tocreateaunifiedpolemic,butrathertocreateamultivocaldialectic.

necessarily either compete with his recontextualization, or extend and somehowincludeit.

46 KadushininTheologyofSederEliahureallysetoutthemethodologyNeusneradoptedwhenhewrote,“Toguardagainstthepossibilityofimposinganarbitraryorsubjectiveorganization upon the material, I have utilized every available statement of theMishnah.” (21)On the following page he suggests that his projectwould require thesame level of analysis for othermidrashim, describing this task as one “on which…Ihopesometimetoventure”.NeusneressentiallyundertookKadushin’sproject.

47 SeeNeusner, “TheDocumentaryHistoryof Judaism,Or:WhySchechter,Moore,andUrbach Are Irrelevant to Scholarship Today” in From Literature to Theology inFormativeJudaism(Atlanta:ScholarsPress,1989),197–218.

48 TheologicalGrammar,3,4.49 Ibid.,5–7.


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I have found that Neusner’s tendency to read larger and larger

contexts, inorder toavoidtheatomizingandcataloguingstyleofolderscholarship, leads to other kinds of errors as well, as one finds forexample inhisbookGenesisandJudaism.50 Inthiswork,Neusnerreadslong chains of midrashic sayings as though they add up to unifiedarguments.Byfocusingalmostexclusivelyonfindingwhatheregardsasthe consistent or predominant message, Neusner sometimes misreadsindividualstatementsandmissesrhetoricalsubtleties.

His fundamental point, that a multivocal text is not the same as a“mere anthology” or catalog of sayings, is of course correct.51 But hispoint needs to be followed several steps further. For example,wehavealready discussed the difference in B’rei’shit Rabbah 8:11 between theterminology l’ma`lah (“above”) used in one teaching, and èlyonim(“upperones”)usedinapairedteaching.Forboth,afundamentalpointisthatthedivineimageinhumanbeingsisanimageofthemoreexaltedcreations of God, rather than of God directly. Nevertheless, byjuxtaposing statements that use different terminologies, the redactorsuggeststhatamakhloketordisagreementexistedbetweentwoschoolsofthoughtaboutthisverypoint.52

Neusner, however, translates l’ma`lah and èlyonim with the samephrase, “beings/creatures of the upper world”. This kind of blurrytranslation makes it easy for Neusner, and others (KAE, pp.50–1), toconclude that R’ Yehoshua and R’ Tifdai are saying the same thing.However,itismycontentionthatthiskindofjuxtapositioninmidrashiccollections like B’rei’shit Rabbah is part of a dialectical method. Thiswould dovetail with Zvi Septimus’s understanding of the ideal readerenvisionedbytheeditorsoftheBavli(seen.32herein.However,Iwouldclaim that this ideal readerwas already envisioned by the redactors ofearlierrabbinicliterature.

These are all reasons why I focus throughoutKAE on terminology.Rather than readingwhole books or evenwhole pericopes or sugyot, Iinstead read the “molecular” level of the texts where a particularterminology appears. As such, the context can be both smaller than a 50 Genesis and Judaism: The Perspective of Genesis Rabbah: An Analytical Anthology

(AtlantaGA:ScholarsPress,1985).51 49.52 Seep.19ofthisessay.Whethertheseschoolsofthoughtexistedpriortotheredactionis

aseparatequestion.AsystematicstudywouldbeneededtodetermineifthismethodofjuxtapositionisalargepartoftheprogramofB’rei’shitRabbah,orifitsimplyappearsasanoccasionalhermeneuticaltechnique.Ifitisageneralprogram,asIsuspect,thenonemighthypothesizethattheredactionalmethodsofthismidrash(andsimilarones)sowedseedsthatdevelopedintothemoreexplicitdialecticsoftheTalmuds.



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sugyaandlargerthanabook,sincethatcontextcanextendintertextuallyovermanycenturiesandgenres.

JEWISH THEOLOGY

InthissectionIwanttoconsidersomeofthemoreconventionalwaysofdoingJewishtheology,aswellastolookmorebroadlyattherelativelyrecentphenomenonof“textualreasoning”,whichiscloselyrelatedtothemethodology I use in KAE. Jewish theology is a genre that has beenwidelyopentomidrashicorsermonicstyling,sinceithasnorealcanonsor gatekeepers. For this reason, Jewish theology has traditionally beendoneoutsidetheacademy.

PopularJewishtheologyisoftenconstitutedasadescriptionofbasicJewishconcepts,and/ordefinitionsofwhatthe“essence”ofJudaismis.Itgenerally accepts Judaismas anontologically real andunified category.ManyscholarlyexpositionsofJewishtheologytendtoelaboratethesamekinds of concepts and definitions, using more philosophically refinedcategories.Eitherapproachcanbecomeahistorical,hegemonic,anddeafto the nuances of rabbinic literature and culture.53 Amoremeaningful(thoughstillpopular)approach is tocatalog thedifferentvoiceswithintradition using conceptual frameworks, e.g., “What does Judaism sayaboutlifeafterdeath?”MuchoftheteachingaboutJewishphilosophyisjustamoretechnicalversionofthisapproach,inwhicheachphilosopheris categorized according to the conceptual position he took on astandardizedsetof issues(e.g.creatioexnihilo, thenatureofprophecy,etc.).ThisframeworkisnotalientomedievalJewishphilosophy,whichislargelystructuredaccordingtoprinciplesandconceptsratherthantextsor intertexts. It would seem then that one could give a meaningfulaccount of at least this narrow area of Jewish thought according toconceptualandrationalisticcategories.

However,IwouldclaimonthecontrarythatwhatismostsignificantaboutspecificJewishthinkers,eveninmedievalphilosophy,isnotwhatpropositions they believed, but rather how they read texts, and morebroadly, how they read the tradition, both synoptically as a coherentwhole,andintertextuallyasachorusofmanyvoices.Perhapsthemain

53 See Lori Krafte-Jacobs, “The ‘Essence’ of Judaism: A Process Relational Critique” in

Jewish Theology and Process Thought, eds. Sandra Lubarsky and David Ray Griffin(Albany, 1996), 75–87. See also Seidenberg, “Confessions of a Jewish Post-Postmodernist” in Response (Summer 1995) 14–22 and online atneohasid.org/culture/confessions.


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differencebetweenthoseJewishphilosopherswhohadagreatimpactonJudaism over the course of centuries, and those who did not, is howthoroughlytheyreadthetextsofthetradition,andwhethertheirreadingofthetextswascompellingtoothers.

Understanding this process means understanding the hermeneuticsof reception and reading, which precede any concrescence of “what isJudaism”. The hermeneutics of a particular thinker are the truestmeasureofhowheorshestandsinrelationJudaismasawholetradition.Howdotheyinheritfromthosethatcomebeforethemandhowdotheypassontothosethatcomeafter–thatis,tous?Withoutaccountingforthisdimension,onehasnotexplainedwhataparticularworkmeanstothe tradition, or why it has a place in that tradition. This is whycatalogingtheconceptualturnsofJewishthoughtcannotadequatelygiveanaccountofJewishthought.Atmostitcanbeaprefacetothepracticeofphilosophyortheology.

What this alsomeans is that themost important Jewish theological

work occurs either through a systematic rereading of the texts of thetradition(as inMaimonides’MorehN’vukhim),or throughthesystemicapplicationof anewhermeneutic tomanydiverse texts (as inChasidictheology/commentary).Inotherwords,Jewishtheologymustoperateinrelation to a canonical text or set of texts, andmustpose its questionsand answers as interpretations of its canon.Most importantly forKAE,Kabbalah fundamentallyworksout itsmetaphysicsbyworking throughtexts, reading the tradition and realigning the matrices of rabbinicthoughtonnewlines, throughtheprocessofcommentary. It is forthisreasonthatthecanonicalbookofKabbalahistheZoharandnotanyofthebooksthatdefineandenumeratetheSefirot.TheZohar,byworkingthroughvirtuallytheentirescripturalcanon,createdthefactofKabbalahas an all-encompassing reading of Judaism, without ever needing tosystematizeanyofitsideas.Similarly,LurianicKabbalah,whichseemssosui generis and eisegetical, can still be read as a commentary on theZohar, being rooted not only in the concepts but especially in the“ungrammaticalities”oftheZohar.54

Therearevirtuallynomodern Jewish theologians that comenear toaccomplishing such a systematic reading of the tradition, with the

54 See ShaulMagid, “FromTheosophy toMidrash: LurianicExegesis and theGardenof

Eden” in AJS Review (22:1 1997) 37–75. I am making use here of Aryeh Cohen’sexplanationofreading,whichdrawsbothontraditionalrabbinicmethodologyandonliterarytheoristslikeBakhtin.



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exceptionofHeschel inhisTorahMinHashamayimb’AspaqlariyahshelHadorot,55andtoalesserdegreeRosenzweiginTheStarofRedemption.

Since these aspects of Jewish thought are not taken into account in

theconventionalunderstandingof “Jewish theology”, it isan importanttypological question whether to regard these questions as a differentformof theology, or as alternatives to theology itself.We can even seehistorical precedent for such ambivalence: Kabbalah, as a reactionagainst philosophy,may be said to have rejected the idea of theology,even while it enumerated and elaborated a vastly complex series oftheologicalideas.56

Theseprocessesandhermeneuticsexistacrossawidevarietyoftexts,even though the models delineated by scholarship are mostly derivedfromclassicalrabbinicliterature,ratherthanfromlaterliteratures.MaxKadushindefinedwhathecalled the “organic thinking” in termsof theearlyrabbis,57andhisideashavebeenexploredfurtherbyotherscholarssuchasJacobNeusner58andPeterOchs,especially inOchs’elaborationofwhathecalls“text-processthought”baseduponKadushin,Pierce,andpostmodernism.59Kabbalahhoweverequallyprovidesexamplesofnon-linear,non-hierarchical,“organic”thinking.

55 (New York: Shontsin, 1962). Heschel’s work is a systematic rereading of classical

rabbinicliterature,ratherthanallofJewishtradition.ThisistheonlyworkofHeschel’sthat could be said to deal with the tradition in a hermeneutical as opposed toideologicalway.WhileTorahMinHashamayim,likemostofHeschel’swork,isoverlaidwithpoeticornamentation,itisaverystrongreadingofthetexts.Seeesp.thesections“MinHashamayim”(vol.2,80–2)and“KolTorahAmarMipiHaqadosh”(vol.2,72),andhissummaryofvol.2intheintroductiontovol.3.

56 Obviously, therearealsomanytextswrittenaspartof the traditionofKabbalahthatinterpretthattraditioninamoresystematicorconceptualmanner,especiallythemanypopulartreatisesonethics,likeLuzzatto’sM’silatY’sharim.SeeJosephDan’sbriefbutwell-formulatedbook,JewishMysticismandJewishEthics(NorthvaleNJ,1996),esp.6–9,11–3andch.2.

57 See especially Kadushin’sThe Theology of Seder Eliahu: A Study in Rabbinic Judaism(NewYork:BlochPublishing,1932),aswellasTheRabbinicMind.Also,ofthearticlesonKadushin inUnderstanding theRabbinicMind:Essays on theHermeneutic ofMaxKadushin,ed.PeterOchs(AtlantaGA:ScholarsPress,1990),seeesp.SimonGreenberg,“CoherenceandChange in theRabbinicUniverseofDiscourse:Kadushin’sTheoryoftheValueConcept”(19–43)andRichardSarason,“Kadushin’sStudyofMidrash:ValueConceptsandTheirLiteraryEmbodiment”(45–72).

58 AmongthebooksbyNeusnerthatshowtheinfluenceofKadushin,seeespeciallyFromLiterature to Theology in Formative Judaism (Atlanta GA: Scholars Press, 1989), andTheologicalGrammaroftheOralTorah,(OakdaleNY:DowlingCollegePress,1998).

59 See his article “Rabbinic Text Process Theology” in Jewish Theology and ProcessThought,eds.SandraLubarskyandDavidRayGriffin(AlbanyNY:SUNYPress,1996),195–231.


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Otherattemptsatderivingaclearerdescriptionof“whatJewsdo”canbefoundinRosenzweig’snotionofsprach-gedenkenorspeech-thinking,also known by his term “the new thinking”.60 In the previous twodecades,descriptionsofrabbinicmethodintermsofdeconstructionandpost-critical theory, first by Susan Handelman,61 then in Boyarin, asalreadydiscussed, and in the annalsof the “TextualReasoning” listservand the Journal of Textual Reasoning,62 constituted a vibrantunderstandingof“whatJewsdo”.Midrashwasthematrixandmodelthatinspired many of these accounts of a different process of thinking, aprocess that is somehownatively Jewish and theologicalwithout beingreifiedastheology.

The framework of textual reasoning, as opposed to philosophicalreasoning, is perhaps themost inclusive and instructive of all of thesemodels.Kadushin’s formulationssometimes imply that logic isnotpartof rabbinic thinking, but the emphasis on reasoning in the phrase“textual reasoning” is a reminder that rabbinic thinking is not theopposite of logical, but rather based in a different kind of logic. Thisframework leads towards ethics and reading, and away from so-called

60 Rosenzweig’sstatementistranslatedinitsentiretyinAlanUdoffandBarbaraE.Galli,

FranzRosenzweig’s “TheNewThinking” (SyracuseNY, 1999). See esp. 74–87. See alsoMichael Oppenheim on “the new thinking” in Speaking/Writing of God: JewishPhilosophical Reflections on the Life with Others, 36–41. Rosenzweig’s ideas aboutspeech-thinking or new-thinking are strongly based in his own theory of translationand in themodes of signification that he and Buber analyzed in their translation ofHebrewscripture.However,Rosenzweig’saccountofdasneugedenkenislimitedinitsdescriptive capacity by hisHegelian focus on completeness. Rosenzweig even claims(p.87) that “[c]ompleteness is after all the true verification of the new thinking”.Rosenzweig subsumes Judaism under Hegelian and post-Hegelian categories in thismoment(eventhoughhispost-HegeliancategoriesaroseinpartfromhisdialoguewithJewish tradition). By doing so he shows how very far his idea is from the nature ofTalmudic discourse – not because the rabbis did not strive to describe theworld asthoroughlyaspossible,butbecausetheycouldneverhaveimaginedanydescriptionasbeingcomplete.

61 SeeTheSlayersofMoses:TheEmergenceofRabbinicInterpretationinModernLiteraryTheory (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 1982). Handelman’s groundbreaking work wascriticizedintheJewishStudiesacademyforseveralreasons,butitwasrepairedandre-deployedbyotherscholarslikeBoyarin.OnmodernJewishthoughtandancientJewishthinking, see Steven Kepnes, Peter Ochs, and Robert Gibbs, eds., Reasoning AfterRevelation:Dialogues in Postmodern JewishPhilosophy (BoulderCO:WestviewPress,1998).DiscussionsonthistopiccansometimesbemoreabouttheJewishidentityofthescholarthantheyareaboutJewishthought.

62 Both grew out ofOchs’ gatherings of scholars under the banner of the “PostmodernJewishPhilosophyNetwork”.Archives canbe foundat etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/tr/indexpast.html (Sep. 2012). See also Peter Ochs and Nancy Levene, eds., TextualReasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century(GrandRapidsMI:WilliamB.Eerdmans,2002).



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“Greek” ontology.63 Though there are obvious problems withstereotypingandforcedharmonizationofdiverseapproaches,problemsthatcanbefoundwithinanytradition,thisframeworkhasprovenusefultomanyinterpretersofJewishthought.64

Returning to the problem at hand, one may see these techne andliteratures either as alternative methods of doing theology, or, asKadushinwouldclaim,alternativestotheology.Furtheron,Iwillusetheframe of alternativemethods of theology, and in particular, talk aboutthesemethods as alternatives to philosophical or “discursive theology”,toquoteIraStone.65

Christian theology: systematics and models

Itmaybehelpful to contrastwhat Ihavedescribedabove as JewishtheologywiththeChristianpracticeof“systematictheology”.Whileonecan find examples of theology in the Jewish tradition that may becategorizedassystematic,thetermanditsmeaningarerootedstrictlyinChristian tradition. Paul Tillich’s description of systematics may showwhy it is difficult to use the methods of Christian theology to “do”theologywithinJudaism.

“Systematic theology” according to Tillich systematizes the “world”through the conceptual rather than textual categories of a tradition,particularlythroughtheconceptualcategoriesoftheChristiantradition.Tillichcontraststhiswithwhatwewouldcalltextualreasoning:

Thereisnoontologicalthoughtinbiblicalreligion;butthereisnosymbolornotheological concept in it which does not have ontological implications….To

63 Levinas of course is the most important partisan for this paradigm of ethics vs.

ontology. Levinas’s two most important works for this question areOtherwise thanBeing or Beyond Essence (DordtrechtNL: Kluwer, 1991) andTotality and Infinity: AnEssayonExteriority(Pittsburgh:DuquesneUniversityPress,1990).

64 Any discussion of the “Jewish/Greek” dichotomy needs to grapple with JacquesDerrida’s deconstructionof it inhis essayonLevinas, “Violence andMetaphysics” inWritingandDifference,trans.Bass(Chicago,UniversityofChicagoPress,1978),79–193.Since Derrida and Levinas, for most scholars of Jewish thought, are the primaryexemplarsof“rabbinism”insidetheworldof“Greekthought”,Derrida’scritiqueofthisdifference is especially interesting. Note also Boyarin’s Socrates and the Fat Rabbis(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), which argues that the most intensedialectical layer of the Talmud is connected to a Greek literary form, specificallyMenippeansatire.

65 See Stone, Seeking the Path to Life: Theological Meditations on God, the Nature ofPeople, Love, Life and Death (Woodstock VT, 1992). Stone writes, “I call the naturalfunctioningofthesewaysofexpression‘imaginativetheology’inordertodistinguishitfromwhattheologiansdo.ThatIcall‘discursivetheology’.”(106)


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prohibitthetransformationofthepotentialintoanactualtheology–ofcourse,within the theological circle – would reduce theology to a repetition andorganizationofbiblicalpassages.66

Tillich’s formulation essentially rules out textual reasoning, which hesees asmere “repetition and organization”.WhileTillich acknowledgesthat ontological categories and systematics cannot encompass Biblicalreligion, his formulationwould apply to the textuality of any tradition.Assuming the correctness of Tillich’s description, any Christian doingsystematicsmustattempttosystematizethe“religion”,thatis,evidenceof the tradition itself, through concepts alone. But this is not possiblewithoutexcludingallthecontrarysystemsandcreedsthathaveprecededthe author’s own theological statement.Thus,what counts as evidencefor a given systematic theology is not all the available evidence of atradition,butrathertheevidencethatrelatestoaparticularsetofcreed-based symbols and categories. Tillich calls this a process of correlationbetweenexistentialquestionsandtheologicalanswers.67

Whilesystematictheologyattemptstosystematizeallexperienceandphenomenaavailable intoacompleteunifiedmodel, it is thecategoriesof the model itself that provide the primary evidence. A systematictheology arranges in a particular way all the significant categories ofChristian thought and belief. This requires at least a “denomination-wide”agreementaboutwhatthosesignificantcategoriesare,whichinacreed-basedreligionisquiteplausible.

Thesefactscanalsoformthebasisforadifferentkindoftheological

thinking, one that acknowledges that the theologian cannot create acomplete systemout of the intersection of religion andworld. Instead,sheorhecanonlyprovideapartialmodelthatexplainssomeaspectsofthis intersection. The word “model”, used in Christian theology verydeliberately to indicate that the picture one creates in theology isnothingmorethananintegratedmetaphor,dependsforitsmeaningnotuponanyverifiabletruthortranscendentgnosis,butratheruponsimplepsychology and hermeneutics. This paradigm, expounded in Sallie

66 SystematicTheology(ChicagoIL:UniversityofChicagoPress,1967),vol.2,12.67 Ibid.,vol.1,60–2:“Systematictheologyusesthemethodofcorrelation.…Themethodof

correlation explains the contents of the Christian faith through existential questionsand theological answers in mutual interdependence.…In using the method ofcorrelation,systematictheologyproceedsinthefollowingway:itmakesananalysisofthehumansituationoutofwhichtheexistentialquestionsarise,and itdemonstratesthatthesymbolsusedintheChristianmessagearetheanswerstothesequestions.”



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McFague’s earlierworks,68becomes the foundation for the “theologyofnature”shedevelopsinTheBodyofGod:AnEcologicalTheology.69

But even if one focuses on the “models” approach rather than onsystematics,bothframeworksarelimitedintheirapplicabilitytoJewishtheological thinking. Judaism is hardly based upon creed or pureconceptual categories, and Jewish thought or meaning cannot beencompassed by any system or model.70 Without a canonical set ofcategories for describing belief and faith, which Judaism lacks, suchsystematization is untenable.This is not only trueof rabbinic thought,whoseresistancetosystematizationandhierarchicalcategorieshasbeenwell-documentedinKadushin’sworkandinmanyotherexplorationsofJewish texts.71 It is also evidenced by the fact that the enumeration ofìqarim,principlesoffaith,soimportanttomedievalJewishphilosophy,neversucceededasaframeworkforthesystematicexpositionofJudaism,butratherexistedasakindofsuperstructureatmost,whattheTalmudmighthavecalledornamentationor“parpar’ot”.72

In fact, Iwould say that theonly truly significant successes inwhatmight be called “systematic Jewish theology” may be limited toMaimonides’ Moreh N’vukhim and Franz Rosenzweig’s The Star ofRedemption.73Theseworkswereessentiallymotivatedandstructuredby

68 MetaphoricalTheology:ModelsofGodinReligiousLanguage(MinneapolisMN:Fortress

Press,1982);ModelsofGod:TheologyforanEcological,NuclearAge(MinneapolisMN:FortressPress,1987).

69 (MinneapolisMN:FortressPress,1993).70 See Kadushin, The Theology of Seder Eliahu, 24. “Scriptural reasoning”, a sister

enterprise to textual reasoning that sprung up among Christian interlocutors in thetextual reasoning circle, is another alternative to systematics, which is in factcompatiblewithJewishtextualtheology.

71 Amongthemanybooksthatassumethisperspective,DavidKraemer’sworkTheMindoftheTalmudisespeciallyimportantinthatheshowsthattheintenselydefinedlogicof the Babylonian Talmud serves not to systematize but to destabilizemeaning andcategoricaldefinition.

72 MishnahAvot3:18.ThemostsystematicexpositionsofJudaismfocusonJewishpracticeandarestructuredbythehalakhiccategoriesthatdefineJewishpractice,ratherthanby philosophical or creedal categories. This is most importantly true of works likeMaimonides’ Mishneh Torah, even though it does expound theology in one of itsfourteenvolumes.Moreover, inmodern times the smallnumberof ideological issuesaround which there is intense inter-denominational dispute, and hence relativeunanimitywithineachdenomination (e.g. theoriginofTorah),hardly comeclose tobeing a sufficient framework for organizing the meaning of Judaism, much less themeaningofreligiousandhumanexperienceingeneral.

73 OnemightalsomentiontheTanyahereasanexampleofarelativelysystematicworkof Jewish thought that is grounded in native Jewish categories. In Tanya, ShneurZalman created a new “systemic” lens through which all of Judaism could be read,consciouslyusingthetextualevidenceofmuchearlierKabbalahratherthanChasidut.


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secular philosophical systems of thought, rather than by native Jewishcategories. This is quite different than Christian systematics, which isrootedinnativeChristiancategories.WhetherasystematicexpositionofJudaism’smeaningcouldbepossiblefromoutofthenativecategoriesofJudaismisanopenquestion;thereisnoworkthathasaccomplishedthis.Maimonides’magnumopusinparticularreadsthetraditionintermsofasetofproblems;itisnotasystematicexpositionofJudaisminthesenseusedbyChristiantheologians,thoughitcanbecorrelatedwithChristiansystematics.

Systematic v. “systemic” theology

The grounds for creating a contemporary systematic theology forJudaism, à la Maimonides rather than Tillich, do exist. A full-blownsystem of secular-scientific thought is presenting itself today as aframework for new theology, and there is a need to coherently explainJudaismintermsthatcanbejoinedtothisframework.However,KAEisnotanattemptatasystematictheologyinthissense.Instead,IworkinKAE towardswhat Icalla systemic theological lens.By this Imeantheconstructionofa“lens” throughwhichonecanviewtheentiretyof theevidence of Judaism, including texts, ideologies, ethics, rituals andpractices. This lens brings into focus diverse parts of the traditionthroughrenewed“native”categories,rootedinpre-modernterminology.Through this “systemic” process, one could in theory develop a“systematic”comprehensionoftheJewishtradition,notintheChristiansensebutinasensethatmayfitrabbinicJudaism.Ihopetoexplorethatlargerprojectinasubsequentbook.

Onegoalofasystemicapproachtoecotheologyistoshapeareligious

sensibility that focuses on the appreciation and enhancement of theabundanceof life, in the fullest interior andworldly senses.A systemiclens,asIamdescribingit,isthereforeanideologicallens.However,theprincipleof itsconstruction isnot ideologybutratherhistorical-criticalevidence drawn from earlier textual traditions. I have specificallyexcludedmodern Jewish ecological thought from the primary evidencethat I consider inKAE, focusing ratheron traditions thatnotonlypre-date ecological concerns and questions, but that also pre-date or avermost of the medieval philosophical ideas which are the basis of

However, unlike Maimonides or Rosenzweig, who endeavored to read the whole ofreality from a particular philosophical perspective, and unlike Christian systematics,TanyahadamorenarrowlydefinedgoalofsystematicallyreadingKabbalahfromtheperspectiveofChasidut.



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modernist thought. (This does not diminish the significance ofMaimonides in KAE, whom I rely on heavily for his opposition toanthropocentrism.)

Asdiscussed, thehomileticalway the lens is usedmustbedifferent

fromthehistorical-criticalway the lens is constructed.Furthermore, inKAE I try to distinguish between the homiletical and historical-criticaluse of texts. This is a departure from most other works of Jewishtheology,whichareconstructedusingthesamehomileticalmethodsandideology that they wish to inculcate. In other words, the typicaltheologicalwriter iseitherunconsciousorequivocal insomewayaboutthere being any difference between their perspective and theperspectives theyderive fromthe texts theyare reading.This is trueofboth modern and medieval theological texts, with some arguableexceptions,whichmay includenot only somepassages inMaimonides’worksbutperhapsalsopassagesinSaadyahGaon’sEmunotv’Deiòt.74

KABBALAH AS COUNTER-HISTORY

BothmedievalphilosophicalinterpretationandKabbalahsignificantlyalter the anthropology received from the rabbis. The anthropology ofmedieval philosophy was remade yet again in themodernist-humanistthought of most contemporary Jewish theologians. Kabbalah in turnprovides a basis for developing an alternative anthropology based inJewishtradition.

MyexplorationofKabbalahinKAEfocusesonnoticingthosechangesinmeaningthatmovetowardsamoreholisticandlessanthropocentricorhierarchical anthropology.While theprimary reason for focusingonKabbalah here is its openness both to diversity in the cosmos and tohuman responsibility for the cosmos (seeKAE, 37–8), its hermeneuticvariegationandpower togeneratenew imagesandsymbolsareequallyimportant. It may in fact be the case that these two dimensions areconcomitant with each other. Thus Kabbalah (alongwithmuch of theHasidicandphilosophicalliteraturethatinterpretedtheKabbalah)isthemainfocusoftheconstructivepartsofKAE.

74 I emphasize that Iamspeakingonlyabout themostwell-knowntheologicalworks. I

havenotattemptedtoanalyzetheentireliteratureofJewishtheologyintermsofthisquestion. Onemight also includemodern works that consciously confess their owncontingentnature,likeArthurGreen’strilogy(seeKAE,p.24).


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As discussed, modernist interpretations, based largely on medievalrationalism,virtuallyignoretheKabbalah.Consequently,anyalternativeanthropology,sourcedinKabbalistictexts,easilyallowsonetoshowthatanymodernistinterpretationisconditionedbyitsownideology,andisnotcongruentwithmajorpartsofthetradition.

Rather than reconstructing the anthropology of whole Kabbalistictexts or systems, I have lifted up “textual moments”, i.e., so-calledcounter-texts, to generate a counter-history of Jewish thought andtheology.Assuch,IamusingKabbalahinamannercongruentwithmyfocus on tropes and terminology. Such a method does not by itselfprovide a statement of Kabbalistic anthropology. Rather, it focuses onthe variation and divergence from the dominant paradigm that can befoundwithintheseliteratures.

On a historical-critical level, as already mentioned, there is stronggroundforapplyingsuchtechniquestorabbinictexts,sincetheyaresoclearlyandintentionallymultivocal.Theliftingupofcounter-traditions(orcountertexts,multivocality,heterogeneity,counter-hegemonic texts,etc.,dependinguponwhichscholar’sterminologyonewishestouse)canhappenunderseveralinterpretiveregimes.Forexample,onemayemployliterarycriticismtobracketouthistoricalcontext,orproposeaculturalhistorytoexplainthecounter-tradition inquestion.Theremayevenbecounter-traditions within the work of a single author or even a singletext, and all themore so in collections like theTalmuds – as has beenamply explored in Kraemer’s work on the rhetoric of the Bavli.75Morestrongly, alternative texts may be treated as counter-traditions in themannerinwhichcriticslikeMiekeBalreadthetextoftheBible.76Partof

75 Deconstructionism methodically finds such counter-voices within single works by

single authors.On the counter-voicesof theBavli, see alsoBoyarin,Socratesand theFat Rabbis, esp. 143–6, 184–6, 194–204. Boyarin identifies two different stamma(editorial voices) in theBavli, one voice seeking to create a “dominant language” inwhich argument leads to authoritative halakhah, and another discordant voice, theproductofalatereditor,whichcallsthisprogramintoquestion.

76 See Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington IL:UniversityofIndianaPress,1987)andDeathandDissymetry:ThePoliticsofCoherencein the Book of Judges (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988); also see IlanaPardes,Countertraditions in theBible:AFeministApproach (CambridgeMA:HarvardUniversity Press, 1993). In the area of Bible studies, one may examine counter-traditions andpiece togetherpicturesof alternative theologies alongwith alternativedocumentsandhistories,whereas inotherareasof JewishStudies, suchanapproachwould often be seen as breaking the boundary between scholarship and subjectivereading. Similarly, in themargins of Jewish Studies, i.e. those areas less centered onrabbinic texts, advocating feminist positions through reading texts is often part andparcel of academicwork, andmanyof themodels forbothnew Jewish theology andcriticismcomefromfeministwritersdoingengagedratherthan“objective”scholarship.



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thenotionofcountertextsinBiblicalscholarshipisthatdifferentvoiceshave been preserved in the process of combining different documents.Thishasopenedthedoortowideacceptanceoffeminist literarytheoryand to the reconstruction of what might be deemed liberating voiceswithinthetextualtraditionsoftheBible.

Gershom Scholem also used the idea of re-emergence to explainKabbalahasthereturnoftherepressedenergyofmyth–somethingthatcan be understood as its own kind of countertext.More generally, thehermeneuticsofKabbalahandtheabundanceoftheologicalimagesandrelationshipswithinKabbalisticliteratureprovidetheirowngroundsforattending to multivocality. By connecting these together, one cangenerate an alternativehistoryofwhat Judaismmeans andwhat it canmean.ThisisexactlywhatDavidBialecalls“counter-history”:

Counter-historyisatypeofrevisionisthistoriography,butwheretherevisionistproposesanewtheoryorfindsnewfacts,thecounter-historiantransvaluesoldones.Hedoesnotdenythathispredecessors’interpretationofhistoryiscorrect,asdoestherevisionist,butherejectsthecompletenessofthatinterpretation.77

In sum, by focusing on countertexts and on areas of the tradition thathavenotbeentakenintoaccountinmoderntheology,suckworkpointsout the incompleteness ofmodern readings of Judaism and suggests adirectionwhich can lead us toward amore complete understanding ofthetradition.

Wolfson and the reading of Kabbalah

Canonemake ecotheology out of selected texts ofKabbalah in thismanner?While Biale would appear to support this approach, Elliot R.Wolfson,discussingtheideaof“thedivinefeminineinNature”,answersno.AsIdiscussinKAE,WolfsonsaysthatKabbalahcannotgenerate“a

77 David Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge MA:

Harvard University Press, 1982), 7. He applies these concepts to Kabbalah in thefollowingmanner:

WheretheWissenschaftdesJudentumssawonlyahistoricalcorpse,Scholemfinds“hiddenlife”.…[By] considering “degeneracy” and “impotent hallucinations” as equally legitimatewithin Judaism, onediscovers hidden life – “a great livingmyth,”which Scholem finds inJewishGnosticismandtheKabbalah.IshallcallScholem’shistoricalmethodofunearthingthe“hiddenvirtue” fromtheWissenschaftdes Judentums “counter-history.” Imeanbythistermthebeliefthatthetruehistoryliesinasubterraneantraditionthatmustbebroughttolight,muchastheapocalypticthinkerdecodesanancientprophecyorasWalterBenjaminspoke of “brushing history against the grain.” Counter-history is a type of revisionisthistoriography[.]


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morepositiveviewofnature”,andthatthosewhowoulduseKabbalahinthisway aremisreading the texts, explaining that this is “amisreadingthat I readily endorse as a human being but regrettably reject as ahistorical scholar.”78 Wolfson describes the feminist and ecologicallyinspired reading of Nature in Kabbalah as a “morally demandedmidrashic eisegesis”, thereby simultaneously rejecting and endorsing it.HiscritiqueofthefeministandecologicalinterpretationsofKabbalahisparallelinsomewaystoVisotzky’scritiqueofBoyarin.SusanE.Shapironotes, “Wolfson does not in principle foreclose feminist rereadings ofthesetextsaslongastheyarebasedontherecognitionthatsuchwasnottheauthorialintentofthemedievalmystics.”79

Butwhatistheauthorialintentof“Kabbalah”?AccordingtoWolfsoninCircle in theSquare, “Thepurposeof thedivinecatharsis is topurifythe feminine aspect of the divine, but the ultimate purification isattainedonlywhenthefeminineisrestoredtothemale,whentheotherisobliteratedintheidentityofsameness.”80Inotherwords,theliftingupofthefemininewithinKabbalahhasnofeminist implications,sincethefeminineinits/herredeemedstateismasculinizedand“obliterated”.

Wolfson has tested the validity of this reading many times,demonstrating– tosomepeople’ssatisfaction–thatKabbalahdoesnotprovideamodelofgenderliberation.81Butthereisanalternativevisionof gender within Kabbalah that we can authentically draw on withoutgiving the texts a false or ahistorical reading. There are passages inLurianicKabbalah,forexample,thatsuggestthatthefemaleuniteswiththemaleonlyafterbecomingcompleteinherself:

78 “TheMirrorofNature inMedieval JewishMysticism” in JudaismandEcology, 305–31;

321.Inthispaper,WolfsoncritiquesaparticularecofeministreadingofKabbalah.Themanifestchallenge,however,whichWolfsondoesnotengagewith,istouseKabbalitictexts to explore new theological responses to ecological questions, not to determinewhether a particular interpretation of Kabbalah is correct. Establishing the correctreadingofatextmaybeanintermediarysteptowardthisgoal,butitisnotthegoal.

79 “TowardaPostmodernJudaism:AResponse”inReasoningAfterRevelation:Dialoguesin Postmodern Jewish Philosophy, eds. StevenKepnes et al. (BoulderCO:Weestview,1998),77–92;89,n.7.

80 116,myemphasis.SeealsoLanguage,Eros,Being:KabbalisticHermeneuticsandPoeticImagination(NewYork:FordhamUniversityPress,2005).

81 Wolfson’s interpretation is hotly contested within the community of Kabbalahscholarship.SeeworkscitedinKAE,nn.620and624.Forexample,IdelseestheentirecorpusofKabbalistic textsaboutdu-par’tsufim, thedouble-bodiedandrogynyused inMidrashtodescribethefirsthumanandinKabbalahtodescribeaspectsoftheSefirot,as representing theperspective that the female and themale aredestined to achieveequal and independent stature. (Kabbalah and Eros [NewHavenCT: YaleUniversityPress, 2005], 53–103.) Even if one agrees thatWolfson’s overall perspective is correct,theexceptionsthatprovetherulearemoreimportant,andmoretransformative,thanWolfsonadmits.



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Beholdnow that the female/Nuqva ofZèyrAnpinhas twoaspects,one inherbeing included at first with themale, the secondwhen she is separated fromhim, and he gives her the crown of strength / àtarah dig’vurah.…[W]hen sheseparatesfromuponhimandbecomesanaspectbyherself/làtsmah…thenthetwoofthemareinthesecretofahusbandandhiswife/baàlv’ishto,themalealoneandthefemalealone.82

ThoughthistextisquotedbyWolfson,henegatesitsimplications,usingthecontinuationofthisverypassagetoexplainthat“purificationofthefeminine”isonlyforthesakeofitsabsorptionintothemale.

However,thereisacompetingframeworkatplayhere,whichinfactisplayedoutinmanylatertexts.Asdiscussed,passageslikethisonemaybetreatedascountertextsthatsuggestanalternativesystemofmeaning–not justa “counter-tradition”,butevenacounter-theology.Thereareenoughtheologicalstatementscongruentwiththispassagethatonecanjustifytheclaimthatthiscounter-theologyhasitsowncoherenthistoryandtrajectory.83Evenwithoutmakingsuchastrongclaim,thesetextsongender deconstruct (and reconstruct) what Wolfson describes as thenormativesystemofgenderinKabbalah.

I believe Wolfson is too quick to deconstruct these “redemptivemoments”.WolfsonassimilatesthembackintothegreatersystemofÈtsChayyim,withoutilluminatinghowVitalcoulddiffersoradicallyinthesesentences from what he writes in conjoining passages. Regardless ofVital’s intent or Wolfson’s interpretation, no monolithic reading ofKabbalah can adequately represent how later Kabbalists received thesetraditionsaboutgender. In fact, for severalKabbalistsexplored inKAE,the femalebecomingcompleteand independentof themale is theendgoal of redemption, and not just a step toward the absorption of thefemalebythemale.Wethereforecanconfirmthatearlierpassagessuchas the one from Vital that allude to gender equality inspired a far-reaching reconstruction of gender among a number of later Kabbalistsand Chasidicmasters. Centuries before Jewish feminists began to takestock of Jewish mysticism, the idea of redemption coming throughfemale autonomy became an overarching theological principle, asdemonstrated in Chapter 12 of KAE, and in Sarah Schneider’s workKabbalisticWritingsOntheMasculineandtheFeminine.84

82 Èts Chayim,Heykhal 2, 10:3, vol.1, 97, cited also inKAE, n.971; quoted inWolfson,

CircleintheSquare,116.83 SeeChapter8,“QomahSh’leymah”and“QomahSh’leymahinChasidut”84 See texts fromOrHame’ir andTsadiq Y’sod Òlam inKAE, Chapter 8, already cited

above,whichrepresentatraditionofinterpretingtheversethatdescribesthemomentBoaz finds Ruth lying at his feet (Rt 3:8) in a redemptive fashion. Schneider’s book


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RedemptionplaysacentralroleinJudaism’smeaninginalmosteverytime and place, most emphatically in Kabbalah. Theologically andhermeneutically,theconceptofredemptionpointstoacontextthathasnotyetcomeintobeing.Byitsverynature,redemptioninvitesthereaderto contemplate the transformation of Judaism and religion, and thecosmos in general. Any invocation of redemption necessarily makesreferencetosomethingbeyondhistory,i.e.,beyondthehistoricalmilieuofauthorandtext.The“gender-redemptive”readingthatissuggestedbythesetextsistheùbar,thespiritualembryo,withinKabbalah.

CONCLUSION

The aligning of countertexts is related to what I would describe as“retrospective” reading, inwhich the text is lifted up forwhat itmightcontributetothefutureandnotonlyforwhatithascontributedtothepast. Itmay alsobe called “redemptive reading”, though it differs fromBoyarin’sversionofthesame.Visotzky’soverarchingconcernisthatthismethod can never become anything other than homiletical.Hewrites,againaboutCarnalIsrael,

[I]t may be good Jewish practice to reread texts in this way – to turnmisogynistic texts on their head andmake them serve late twentieth-centuryJudaism.This isanoldrabbinicmodel– it’scalledmidrash–but itbelongs inthesermonsofsynagogueJews.85

Wolfsonsimilarlylabeledsuchinterpretationasmidrashiceisegesis.ButIamclaimingthat there is somethingreal, in thehistoricalandcriticalsense,tobefoundinthismethod.

Rereading and construction

Iwant to focus for amoment on theword “reread” asVisotzkyhasused it. The significance of the trope of “reading”, both here and inreader-responsetheory,isthatthereaderisthecenterofmeaning.Foralong while now, reader-response theory and reader-centered criticismhaveturnedtraditionalideasaboutbooksupsidedownandfocusedourattentiononthewaytextshavemeaningtous.Whilethishasopenedup

similarly traces the redemptive interpretation of the oft-cited midrash aboutdiminution of the moon and her ultimate restoration as a trope for equality of thefeminineinKabbalah.SeealsoDanielAbrams’sTheFemaleBodyofGodinKabbalisticLiterature(Jerusalem:Magnes,2004).

85 “Intersexuality”,244.



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manydisciplinesofacademicdiscoursetoliteraryordeconstructivewaysof reading, it can also blur the boundaries between academics andadvocacy.

VisotzkyarguesthatwhatisgoodJewishpracticeisbydefinitionpoorscholarlypractice.ThisdistinctionwasindeedoneofthefoundationsofWissenschaftdesJudentums,theso-calledscientificstudyofJudaism,inthe nineteenth century. However, the idea of reading and rereading –including for constructive or contemporary purposes – has alreadybecome an important part of scholarly discourse throughout theacademy,andinmostareasofJewishStudies.86

Reader-centered criticism can never replace history. By focusing onthe act of reading, the interests of the reader and the text necessarilyoverlap in potentially corrosive ways: there is no firm line dividingmisreading and rereading. However, amisreadingmay be transformedinto anopenlywillful buthumbly subjective rereadingwhen it is doneconsciouslyandconscientiously,withclearacknowledgementofatext’shistorical context and place. Theology is an ideal arena in which topracticedoingthiskindofrereading.

A game that’s real?

Is there a place then in Jewish Studies for books about rabbinicliterature and Jewish theology that simultaneously address constructiveandcritical issues?Theworksthatattendtorabbinichermeneuticsandmultivocality,suchasthosementionedinthenoteshereandabove,werein their timemold-breaking.Eachoneadvanced thenotionof rabbinictext as literature without blurring the lines between literary andhistorical-cultural analysis. InKAE, I draw on all thesemethodologies.Theseworksdemonstrate that it isnotnecessary toexile literaryand, Ipropose, constructive, that is, midrashic, methodologies from theacademicstudyofrabbinictexts.

IhavealreadybeendiscussedtwoapproachesinKAE takentoavoidthe problem of muddy homiletics and muddy scholarship. First,homiletical readingshavebeendistinguishedandsegregated fromboth

86 Even in the arena of rabbinic texts, which is one of the more conservative areas of

JewishStudies, this trendwaswell-establishedby the90’s.The scholarlyworks citedabove,RereadingTalmudandRereadingtheRabbis,alongwithCarnalIsrael(subtitledReadingSexinTalmudicCulture)andDavidKraemer’sReadingtheRabbis:TheTalmudas Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), revolve around this trope.Though the first three strive to separate their scholarly reading from the feministinterests thatmotivatethem,theremustalwaysbe“crossings”wherethetwoaspectsmerge.


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literary analysis and historical-critical analysis. Second, the process ofidentifyingwhichtextsarereadisbasedoncriteriathatareindependentof any theological frame of reference, in this case, independent ofecotheology. Texts that use the same terminology are presumed to berelevant, without regard for their theological content or point of view.This is especially true of the midrashic material examined in KAE.However, even the Kabbalistic material is chosen not because it fits atheologicalagenda,butbecauseitextendsandtransformstheconceptoftselemElohimasitwasarticulatedintheMidrash.

Nevertheless, the problems created when scholarship and advocacyoverlapcanneverbeentirelyeliminatedfromconstructivetheology,norcansuchtheologybecomepurelyobjective.AsTillichnotes,

Since [historical, sociological and psychological]materials from the sources ofsystematictheologyareusednotastheyappear intheirhistorical,sociologicalor psychological setting but in terms of their significance for the systematicsolution,theybelongtothetheologicalansweranddonotconstituteasectionoftheirown.87

While I have contrasted Christian and Jewish theology above, in thismanner they are similar. One can attend to the setting of one’s texts,whetherthatbeinliterary,redactional,historicalorculturalterms.Thisattentioncanconformtoanylevelofacademicobjectivityrequired.Butultimately, if we are reading theologically, we have a certain degree oflatitudeinourinterpretation,becauseitbelongstoatheologicalanswerratherthanahistoricalone.

Nonetheless, if one is able to separate the agendas of these variedmethodologies sufficiently, then theology can become a tool forresearching the history of texts, aswell as vice versa. In fact, there aremanyWissenschaftlichconclusionsIdrawinKAEthatIwasonlyabletolimn because of the theological agenda that frames the book. OneexamplewouldbetherecognitionthateventhoughthegoalofimitatingGod, imitatio dei, appears in the earliest texts, it is not associatedwithGod’simage,tselemElohimorimagodei,outsideofTanchumaandtextswe know to be of the Geonic period and later. (SeeKAE, pp.105–8.) Iarrivedat thisconclusionasaresultofmy focusondeconstructingthemodernist interpretation of tselem Elohim. But in noticing the lateevolutionofthisassociation,onealsoderivesevidenceofthemosthard-nosed Wissenschaftlich kind about the composition of Tanchuma,evidencethatsupportstheclaimthatitisalaterwork.

87 SystematicTheology,vol.1,66.



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Ultimately, even after the application of all themethods of positivehistorical scholarship, theology remains a language game that cannotrefertoanythingoutsideitsownhermeneuticcircle.Itisnotreallyaboutmetaphysical truthsanymore than it is abouthistory.Butby the sametoken,asa languagegameonecanapplyto itall thescholarlytricksoftextualreasoningandpostmodernanalysis.KAE isfundamentallyaboutthelanguageandterminologythatframetheology,andonlysecondarilyaboutbeliefs.KAEexplorestheconditionsnecessaryfortheappearanceofacertainsetofideasthatareimportanttousnow,usingamucholdersetoflinguistictropesandprecedents.

Is thereawayoutof this languagegame?TheodorAdornoremarks,

“Taking literally what theology promises would be…barbarian…Yet ifthesemessages [are] cleansed of all subjectmatter…their core remainsempty – and so does religion.”88 Since theologians are stuck betweenbarbarity and emptiness, the way beyond language is a way that isbeyond theology. As Ira Stone has written, “What is the purpose oftheology?Itistobringaboutthedisappearanceoftheology.”89

Whatliesbeyondthegameoftheologyaretherelationshipswehaveas livingbeingswithother livingbeings andwithBeing in thebroadersense (i.e., Nature, the Earth, the more-than-human, or even, withdivinity),relationshipsthatmayholdwithinthemselvessomerevelationwhose hermeneutical circle encompasses more than theology orlanguage.KabbalahandEcology:God’s Image in theMore-Than-HumanWorldexplores the conditionsnecessary to choose as freely aspossiblehow we use the past and create the future. But it is because ourrelationshipswithallLifeandalllivingbeingsmatter,thatsuchchoicesmatter.

88 NegativeDialectics(NewYork:Continuum,1992),399.89 SeekingthePathtoLife,106.


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Documents

Methods for Jewish constructive theology