Sárospataki Füzetek 20. (2016)
2016 / 2. szám - ARTICLES / STUDIEN - György Kustár: Ont he Slopes of Sinai - Some Hermeneutical Questions in Light of the Kabbalistic and Historical Critical Exegesis
On the Slopes of Sinai - Some Hermeneutical Questions are set by the zoharic text, we are invited to “write with the Zohar”,15 to expound more meaning by establishing connections between passages through placing them besides each other, thereby bringing as much meaning as possible out of the texts. Without getting deeply involved in a particular interpretation, it is sufficient to outline the possible network of connections we can create that could serve as starting points for concise teachings. The allusion to the dew establishes a connection to the primordial dew that was the material of the tablets, and the figure of Jacob also creates a link to the Sefirotic explanation found in the discussion about the date of arrival. Furthermore, we are introduced to the eschatological future as the realization of the final resurrection. In this context, moreover, the return of the Shekinah can be understood as a paradigm for resurrection, as it will be the reinstatement of the original creation, the order of the universe and the divine inner structure. We find the same symbolic light in our first quotation. And we did not mention the grammatical and other possible gates to a new consideration. The multiple links might be created between these texts based on numerical, conceptual, nominal, symbolical, even grammatical components that would make an extremely intricate web of meaning that is always open to more allusions and reference, and meanings. In the process “plays of words and subtle reshadings of the meaning often serve as pathways leading toward a total reconfiguration of the Scripture at hand.”16 This is the path of the constructive and creative interpretation. Complex interpretations arise from a defective form, or from the gematric or numerical value of certain expressions, and this can lead far from the grammatical-literal sense of the certain texts. The creative interpretation in that point turns out to be an aggressive method, where the text is torn apart in order to reach the mystical core.1 This aggressive reading requires a strict immutability within the text as we have seen in the first chapter, and also a basic belief that the written word is a repository of hidden divine truths that are contained but not explicitly revealed by the texts. The generally shared assumption of the Kabbalist is that the narrative has a deeper stratum (the black letters contain but conceal the white ones)18 that reveals the inner life of the Godhead, informs us about the celestial and cosmological issues, and incorporates every dimension of these events which are only equivocally and dimly described by the literal story. The text, if we fathom its depth by creating an intricate net of relationship between its parts, discloses itself as a map that contains and maintains all. To sum it up, the divine text is an all absorbing reality, which through the proper interpretative techniques and 15 This expression originally applied to the midrashic interpretation of Scriptures. See Neusner, Jacob: Introduction to Rabbinic Literature, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1999, 229ff. 16 Green: A Guide to the Zohar, 65. 17 Cf. Idel, Moshe: Absorbing Perfections - Kabbalah and Interpretation, Birmingham, New York, Vail-Ballou Press, 2002,17-18. 18 Ibid., 49. 2016-2 Sárospataki Füzetek 20. évfolyam 33
