Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century (review)

Textual Reasonings, an entry in the series Radical Traditions: Theology in a Postcritical Key, edited by Stanley M. Hauerwas and Peter Ochs, shows the unique potential and configuration of American Jewish postmodernism. The collection exemplifies the announcement made by Eugene B. Borowitz, whose distinguished career bridges both the modern and the postmodern, that contemporary Jewish thinkers not only carry on "communal discussions but do so ourselves in community" (p. 157). Modern Jews often seemed to stand in glorious isolation; theorists spun out conceptions of an ethical monotheism or even a catholic Israel from their isolated studies. Postmoderns, on the other hand, recognize that they speak within a community, their thinking occurs not alone in some study but in conversation with others. The meaning of Jewish texts, of the vocabulary and concepts of Jewish religiousness, of the power of Jewish practices emerges out of what is done in public and as part of a communal existence.

A more somber note emerges in Peter Ochs' epilogue. Ochs reflects on the fact that despite ourselves we who seek to bridge the academic and religious spheres find ourselves oppressing now one and now the other of these. We seem trapped in the violence of one or another decision. Ochs expresses the hopes that the community of textual reasoners has created a refuge from that violence (pp. 289–290). He may well be right; nevertheless every action entails its own violence. It may be that the best we can hope for is to create that community in which former violence is addressed even while present violence is acknowledged and confessed. The self-consciousness of the participants in this volume, the recognition of inevitable disagreement, the effort to provide some respite from violence provides a basis for hopefulness.

The intention to create a community that overcomes past violence and looks toward a less violent present seems to animate the volume as a whole. The conversation occurring in the book embraces voices of all kinds, even those outside the specifically Judaic community. The penultimate section of the book, "Christian Reflections," testifies to the breadth and inclusiveness of this widened community of textual reasoners. George Linbeck, opening that section, notes how he developed from being a detached outsider to being an enthusiastic participant (p. 252). The Jewish textual reasoners here join with religious thinkers from other traditions to wrestle with the presence of the divine in texts, in life, and in communities of faith.

The collection as a whole affirms and cultivates a pluralism among participants in what becomes an open conversation focused on discovering Jewish religiousness through encountering religious texts. How does one read a classic text? Michael Fishbane's interpretive sketch of the development of a text in Song of Songs Rabba suggests that reading itself is an erotic activity and engagement with the divine. In response Steven D. Fraade complicates the schema—study is both a drawing near and a distancing from the divine. A text, he also implies, must "practice what it preaches" and set up a type of erotic tease for the student seducing and being seduced by elusive meaning.

That teasing interplay continues as Tikva Frymer-Kensky raises the tantalizing possibility that the Hebrew Bible includes within its corpus self-doubt. The Bible, she argues, seeks to assure that it will never become an absolute authority. She clearly opens conversation about the Bible to several voices usually excluded. Was that, however, what the midrashic approach intended? Aryeh Cohen tries to put rabbinic exegesis into context and, reluctantly it seems to me, concludes that much as neo-traditionalists would like a more inclusive rabbinic heritage, the rabbis were exclusivist and authoritarian in their own right. These conversationalists agree on values but tease out from the texts and from each other a more productive tension.

While Robert Gibbs and Peter Ochs engage in discovering the correlation between economic...