From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala

Introduction Kabbala, New Historicism, and the Question of Boundaries

This is a book about the nexus between Kabbala (in particular Lurianic Kabbala) and the interpretation of Scripture. More than that, it is a book that views scriptural interpretation as literature, a series of texts that emerge from the reading of other texts but that also stand alone as a test t tament to how a particular community understands itself, its station in hist ory, and its legacy through the lens of its literary canon. It also argues that textual traditions are not only produced by or from history but, in fact, produce history themselves—that the mythic world of Lurianic Kabb t bala is both a response to, and a construction of, the historical reality in which it lived; furthermore, its canonical status influences the way future generations understand their own historical station. If the textual tradit t tion becomes canonical (as Lurianic Kabbala certainly does) the “hist t Introduction Kabbala, New Historicism, and the Question of Boundaries Freedom is only present where there is no other for me that is not myself. —Hegel, The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences From heresy to deviation to degeneration to syncretism, the notion of the different which claims to be the same or, proj t jected internally, the disguised difference within, has prod t duced a rich vocabulary of denial and estrangement. For in each case, a theory of difference, when applied to the proxim t mate “other,” is but another way of phrasing a theory of “self.” —Jonathan Z. Smith, “Differential Equations: On Constructing the Other”  From Metaphysics to Midrash tory” it produces often becomes normative and the underlying historical circumstances that produced that history are often effaced by the powerf t ful myth that constructs its own “historical” trajectory. The historicity of Lurianic Kabbala as canonical is well-documented, as are its metaphysical assumptions and influences. What interests me is, first, to explore the exegetical imagination of this tradition and the affilia t ations between metaphysics and that imagination. My second aim is to examine factors that enabled these texts to work—that is, to learn the nat t ture of their “connection” to Scripture, and to understand how Scripture worked for them to create a historical reality refracted through the biblic t cal narrative. If the Hebrew Bible is the unquestioned canon of Judaism (a canon that is, of course, re-created and “rewritten” constantly), then all subseq t quent “canons” will need the Bible to refract and reflect their own spec t cific agendas. But the Bible is much more than a text for these traditional communities: it is the lens through which one fashions oneself, how one sees, and does not see, God, and is a template that enables one to decip t pher the real from the illusory. I begin with the assumption of canonical layers—the Hebrew Bible and Lurianic Kabbala—each with its own force and influence. In bet t tween, of course, is the whole of classical Judaism from the rabbis and their intellectual descendants, the Zohar and subsequent Kabbala, Jewish philosophy, pietism, Musar literature, and so on. This book will examine a specific moment in the unfolding and ever-changing canonicity of the Bible in Judaism, viewing that moment in context but, more importantly, examining how the literature produced from (and in response to) that moment often challenges, subverts, and sometimes undermines what prec t cedes it for reasons that are rooted in particular communal identities. What were these texts (the Lurianic interpretation of Scripture) conn t nected to that enabled them to succeed, to convince, and to prosper? Why should we be interested in this particular exegetical trajectory? Part of the answer lies in the particular nexus of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in sixteenth-century Safed that informed and may have partially driven this exegetical approach. While this nexus was quite fleeting (lasti t ing no more than thirty or forty years), the influence of Lurianic Kabbala was and remains widespread.1 Moreover, we are witnessing a new nexus of these three traditions, quite different from theirs (modernity separates us from them) but containing enough similarities to constitute a “cont t temporary concern.” I aspire, then, to function as a critic—a concerned reader who reads the past with a curiosity about the way it produces the present and can help us understand the present anew. Reading historic t cally is thus never reading solely about the past—it is (also) about reading [18.191.228.88] Project MUSE (2024-04...