The Complete, Broken Jew
By Be'eri Zimmerman | 08/04/2010
The character of contemporary Jewish reality has been determined, as has been the case with Jewish reality in previous epochs, by the ongoing confrontation between the proponents of
peshat (literal interpretation of biblical texts) and the proponents of derash (non-literal interpretation of biblical texts). While the literal interpreters are the guardians of the wall, the non-literal interpreters expand and repair it. Be'eri Zimmerman believes that the great modern Hebrew poet Haim Nahman Bialik poured a living, breathing midrash (non-literal interpretation) into the ailing throat of Judaism and that this midrash contains a new, concealed literal interpretation that will be a useful tool in the hands of future generations of non-literal interpreters
“Do not judge others,” counsels Hillel the Elder in Pirkei Avot, “until you have put yourselves in their place.” However, can we ever put ourselves in the other's place? For example, in his London-based monthly, Hame'orer (no. 3, March 1906, p. 30), Joseph Haim Brenner makes the following declaration: “The God of Israel lives! He is right before us! [Haim Nahman] Bialik's Mishirei haza'am (Poems of Rage) has just appeared!” What did Brenner, then a young man of 25, mean when he uttered this enthusiastic statement? What was Brenner's “place” at the time? Can I today, although I am in a different place, become just as enthusiastic?
In Brenner's eyes, the three poems by Haim Nahman Bialik, “On the Slaughter,” “In the City of Slaughter” and “I knew, in a night of fog....,” which he read in London after they appeared in a single volume (under the Russian censors' watchful eyes) were vivid testimony of the vibrant Jewish national spirit that was not extinguished after the slaughter of the pogroms and which had not withered and died after sustaining so many deaths at the hands of anti-Semitic murderers. “If you have a god ... may his throne be destroyed forever” was a cry that found a responsive chord in the soul of a reader like Brenner. The young Brenner, an embittered former yeshiva (academy of advanced Talmudic studies) student who had become a heretic and a rebel, describes the impact of Bialik's poetry on him in a quasi-biblical rhetoric that recalls the words of Jacob the Patriarch, “Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die” (Genesis 45:28), and those of his son Joseph, “[D]oth my father yet live?” (Gen. 45:3). Brenner declares publicly that his (spiritual) father is still alive. Bialik's provocative, heretical proclamations revive the God of Israel and, while attesting to the capacity of the Jewish national spirit to emerge with a new strength from the ashes of the pogrom, they also graphically illustrate how the secular midrash channels fresh, revivifying water into the rusty pipe of religious literal interpretation.
Challenging the world of literal interpretation
The character of contemporary Jewish reality has been determined, as has been the case with Jewish reality in previous epochs, by the ongoing confrontation between the proponents of
peshat (literal interpretation of biblical texts) and the proponents of derash (non-literal interpretation of biblical texts). While the literal interpreters are the guardians of the wall, the non-literal interpreters expand and repair it. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, the gap between literal and non-literal interpreters of biblical texts was not so wide. Both camps shared a common Weltanschauung and what was seen in one generation as a daring midrash became in subsequent generations the foundations of a new literal interpretation that soon became the target of a new midrash. Even mid-17th-century Sabbatean midrash, with all its radical conclusions, remained faithful to fundamental religious principles. The same can be said for 18th-century Hasidic midrash and 19th-century Reform midrash. This pattern changes with the appearance of the most important event of modern Jewish history: the secular-nationalist revolution. The entry of energetic secular-nationalist Jews into the social and cultural arena created an unprecedented situation: Religious Jews continued to be proponents of literal interpretations while non-religious Jews – namely, those individuals whose starting-point for the definition of their world and their identity was not religious – held on to non-literal interpretations.
In the wake of this secular-nationalist revolution, a “balance of fear” – to borrow a Cold War term – developed within the Jewish people: In order to remain Jewish nationalists (that is, bonded to their historical and cultural identity), secular Jews had to apply a non-literal interpretation to their traditional sources (that is, to the religious literal interpretation). Non-literal interpretation cannot exist without a literal one. An alternative narrative cannot exist without a traditional one. Without the religious kiddush (traditional prayer sanctifying the wine on Sabbath and festivals), a modern formulation cannot exist. However, secular-nationalist Jews have a real need not only for the documented past but also for the living presence of religious Jews. For instance, my heretical, non-literal interpretation for the granting of the Torah at Mount Sinai or for the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea or for the laying of tefillin (phylacteries) revives my spiritual existence and my identity because of the presence of those who are certain that these two great events actually occurred and who lay tefillin every weekday morning. The naïve trust and consistent behavior of the proponents of a literal interpretation enable me to be a far-from-naive skeptic and a tireless non-literal interpreter. For their part, the “religious” proponents of the literal interpretation (whose ranks also include those who are by no means “naive”) need the presence of secular-nationalist non-literal interpreters, whether or not the literal interpreters perceive that the presence of secularism in the midst of Judaism is not a passing phase, that we are here to stay. The radical content of the secular midrash enables religious Jews, no matter what their affiliation, to preserve the literal interpretation of their common identity and to absorb new, fruitful concepts that challenge the world of literal interpretation, question traditional moral conventions and lead to soul-searching on both the physical and spiritual planes.
The God of Israel lives
Nevertheless, the sin of the rash, impulsive severing of ties between these two camps is a problem that we must deal with now. That is why a creative giant like Hayim Nahman Bialik is so important: Both camps, secular Judaism and religious Judaism, are tightly bonded and united in Bialik, as are literal interpretation and non-literal interpretation. With each succeeding generation, and, as the dust of historical events begins to dissipate, Brenner's cry of “The God of Israel lives! He is right before us!” proclaiming truth in the face of Bialik's poems, becomes increasingly purer. Although I might not be able to speak about the hidden God in the Jewish prayerbook, I can speak about the concealed God in this poet's verses. Bialik's midrash enables me to warm my hands before the devouring flame of Jewish religious tradition without burning them.
I return to Bialik's window after my sojourn in warmer climates. How my soul longs for the beauty of his poetic voice. He has poured a living, breathing midrash into the ailing throat of Judaism and this midrash contains a new, concealed literal interpretation that will be a useful tool in the hands of future generations of non-literal interpreters who can discover it for themselves, can roll it with their tongues and can absorb it into their lives. He is the complete, broken Jew: In one hand, he is holding a burning cigarette on the Sabbath, and, in the other, his interpretation of the Mishnah. He has a garden in which
g “the Lord God [is] walking ... in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8). That garden has a well and and the well is equipped with a bucket.
Be'eri Zimmerman is a biblical commentator, a poet and a lecturer at the Alma cultural and educational center for adults in Tel Aviv.
