interpreting the Word

[Doug Millison]

Jody wonders what a Jew is.  One approach might be to look at the 
community defined by the Jewish canon, the various books and 
commentaries at the heart of that faith tradition.

"What did the Israelites hear at Mount Sinai? According to one 
rabbinic commentator, they were so overwhelmed by the divine voice 
that they could hear only the first two of the Ten Commandments. 
Another said they couldn't withstand even that much. All they could 
hear was the first letter of the First Commandment: the aleph. But 
the 20th-century historian of Jewish mysticism, Gershom Scholem, went 
a step further. He pointed out that an aleph is not really a sound at 
all. It is a mere opening of the throat. It is not actual speech; it 
is potential speech. And that means that the revelation is itself 
inchoate; everything else is an interpretation, a human creation. 
This is a suggestive but mischievous idea. It means that everything 
canonical in Judaism, every religious law, every divine prophecy, is 
open to modification because it has human origins. This is not, of 
course, what devout believers think. But because there is no central 
religious authority in Judaism and because the religion is based on 
sacred texts, Judaism is marked by constant debate over textual 
interpretation. The canonical texts of Judaism, particularly the 
Talmud, are themselves chronicles of interpretive argument.  .... 
the canon lives by mutation and adaptation: every boundary, every 
category, every rule requires interpretation. The canon becomes the 
central authority not because it is the source of all answers, but 
because it is the source of all questions. The canon shapes the 
world; it does not determine it.

from:
February 24, 2001
Critic's Notebook: A Jewish Canon, Yes, But Not Set in Stone
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/24/arts/24CANO.html

.... an article in today's NY Times asks questions familiar to many 
Pynchon readers.
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