interpreting the Word

[jporter]

> From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>
> Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 08:54:07 -0700

> 
> 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.
> -- 
> d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>
> 

Okay. But could you stretch a little further, perhaps, and fit the likes of
Sid Liftoff and Ernie Triggerman into that perspective?

jody