Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism

PREFACE

• PREFACE • One of the most engaging issues in the rich body of Jewish mystical literature, especially medieval kabbalistic texts, is the use of gender images to characterize the divine-human encounter as well as the nature of the Godhead itself. To be sure, gender imagery, particularly the erotic interplay ofthe loverand the beloved, is central to the texture ofreligious experienceas it has beenexpressed both in the Occidentand in theOrient. In this respect, therefore, the kabbalistic tradition is not unique in the history of religions. Moreover, even within the more circumscribed religious history ofJudaism, the kabbalistic orientation is not distinctive. That is to say, the use of gender images to depict either the nature ofGod or the relationship between God and humanity is a phenomenon well attested in otherforms of religious expression within Judaism, beginning as far back as certain documents contained in Scripture. However, what is singular about the kabbalistic use of gender to characterize the divine is the explicitness of expression and the extensiveness of application. Elsewhere I have argued that one could chart the history of mystical speculation in Judaism as a transition from an implicit to an explicit phallocentrism connected especially to the visualization of God. The esoteric dimension so central to the various currents ofJewish mysticism is inseparably tied to the question of eroticism. The issue of gender, therefore, goes to the very heart of Jewish mysticism in its different historicaland literaryconfigurations. Indeed, to attain the ground whence the way of kabbalistic thinking proceeds one must heed the complex phenomenon of imaging the deity in explicitly gendered terms. While much of my scholarly work touches upon the problem of genderand the symbolic mythicization ofGod in kabhalistic sources, the four chapters I have selected for this volume deal with aspects of this xi xii l'REf/\CE problem in essential ways. The firs!: chapter, "Female Imaging of the Torah: From Literary Metaphor to l{eligiolls Symbol," deals at length with the evolution of one of the central symbols of the feminine in Judaism. With the exception of only slight revisions from the original essay, I have left the piece as it waf originally published in 1989. The significance of the topic, the feminization of the Torah, arguably the central artifact in all forms ofreligiou;; worship inJudaism, alone justifies the decision to include this chapter in this collection. In terms of my own intellectual development, the reader will sense that at the early stage of my research I was mostly concerned with delineating the exegetical transformations in the midrashic ard kabbalistic texts clustered about this fundamental motif that has infDrmed the religious mentality and practice of Jews through the ages. The second chapter, "Circumcision, Vision of Cod, and Textual Interpretation: From Midrashic Trope to Religious Mystical Symbol," published in essay form in 1987, deals with the correlation of three seemingly disparate phenomena tl1(lt are nevertheless intrinsically connected in the Jewish hermeneutical imagination, especially as it is expressed in the classical work of medieval theosophic kabbalah, the Zohar. The detailed study of this cmreiation seeks to bring to light the ecstatic underpinning of the midrashic form of the zoharic life experience . Beyond this concern I have ,I\so sought to highlight the deeply erotic nature of esoteric hermeneutics in the Zohar, as well as to expose the phallocentric ocularcentrism of this work that informed subsequent developments in Jewish mysticism. Although I had not yet formulated the analytic category that has informed my more recent work on gender symbolism in tlwosophic kabbalah, namely, the conception of the male androgyne or the androgynous phallus, it will be evident to the circumspect reader that some of the texts that rcited in this piece point in that direction. The third chapter, "Erasing the Erasure/Gender and the Writing of God's Body in Kabbalistic Symbolism," is a much elaborated version of a study to be published in French in 1995. rn this chapter Isuggest that the depiction of God as writer as it evolves in thcosophic kabbalah is related to the attribution of gender characteristics to the divine. In particular, the activity of writing is valorized in distinctively sexual terms: the instrument of writing is the phaIlus; the letters that are written are the semen; and the tablet upon which the writing is inscribed is the feminine. As a consequence of the sustained reflection on the convergence ofthese two central aspects of kabbaIistic speculation Jhaveshown that the role of gender is assigned to the upper limits of the divine, to the Ein...