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 Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, while the first one was from the Tree of Life.35 These symbols represent the first law as the medium of salvation, and the second one as the legislation, prohibition and denial. The second tablet was a shadow of the first intention, and as such, a burden.36 This distinction has no support in the text, though it might have a well grounded theological reason to form the story in that way. The cosmic happening, the reinstatement of condemnation and the unsuccessful attempt of the return of the Shek- inah from the exile profoundly influences not just the actual understanding but the basic shape of the canonical story. The historical or narrative reference was not only a point of departure, but a molding and transforming reality. As symbolical stratum that refers beyond itself to a more profound reality, the historical dimension is open to correction and addition or omission from the perspective of the eternal. As in the famous story of the “ten martyrs” where not even contemporary rabbis are gathering in the already demolished temple for mystical discussion and descent to the Chariot, the mystical vision is not bound to the historical reality but more to the vision of the time transcending unity of voices in a symbolical place that does not cease to exist with its destruction.37 b) “You SAW THE SOUND OF TRUMPETS” In the case of Kabbalah, to pose the historical question alone is somehow an anachronistic attempt, but doing that gives an excellent contrast to the modern historical approaches. In medieval times the history at best was “understood as a sermon, [...] not a disinterested attempt to trace and explain the course of civilization”.38 This statement not only informs the theological horizon in which the historical was understood, but the profoundly narrative character of historical understanding.39 The functional distinction between annals and history made possible to transfer from one domain to the other, from the narrated story to the depicted reality without a sense of discontinuity. This made it possible to treat texts less rigorously than most historical studies do, as there was no sense of separateness from the narratives and historical per se. But we do face a certain “critical” attitude toward the text, in order to bring out its implicit meaning in its fullness. The fascinating universe of the Kabbalah created a hermeneutical horizon in which written and oral, divine and mundane eternal and temporal was united. This complex universe reflects the complete realm of divine, and the attempt to interpret the texts and disclose their mystical meaning is to gain access to this reality. This system, moreover, works contrary to western metaphysics, as the total absence and presence co-exists in continuous interplay inside the God35 Ibid. 36 Waite: op. cit., 310. 37 Dan, Joseph: The Ancient Jewish Mysticism, 182. 38 Cohen - Mendes-Flohr (eds.): Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, 378. 39 Cf. Frei, Hans: The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, Chelsea, Michigan, Yale University Press, 1974,1-16. 2016-2 Sárospataki Füzetek 20. évfolyam 37
