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
György Kustár head, and similarly the absolute distinction between writing and speech is denied.40 The Torah was an organic part of this structure as the mediator and container of divine and human. An excellent example is given in the story of Sinai revelation, in Ex 20:18a carried over into Ex 20:22, where we read that the people saw (ro’im) the sound of the trumpet. Referring to the same phenomenon, in Deuteronomy an apologetic passage against any image finds support in the fact that at the mountain the people “saw no images, only voice.”41 The Kabbalist interpretations were incorporated into the explanation of these verses, and the idea of white fire on black fire, for the Zohar at least, emerged from the interpretation of this passage.42 They did not try to harmonize it with the general experience, as most of the translations and commentaries do. They kept the tension alive given by the texts and allowed multiple interpretations to emerge from the ruptures of the texture. The visible voice of God as a contradictory image is full of meaning for a Kabbalist as they find in the zeugmatic structure a deeper divine meaning being concealed, a unity that is behind the platonic and Aristotelian distinctions of material and form, essence and attribute. Where the historical studies would strive to bring forth a sense that is not strikingly different from the scientific worldview, and would find meaningless contradictions in verses like this, mystics could stay with the text assuming its unity and meaningfulness as a book,43 The belief in a rigid inspiration and in the iconic nature of the Torah, that forbids the replacement of even a single character conceiving the text as a reflection of the shape of the divine certainly helped the mystic to assume that each and every single letter is a treasure house.44 If the letters have functions as God’s limbs and organs, than they in themselves represent a divine reality that is concealed in them. Perforce the divine voice as white fire in black fire, and accordingly the concept of the dual Torah as white letters concealed in the black ones could prevail and flourish among mystics despite its incompatibility with general, mundane perception.45 40 Cohen - Mendes-Flohr (ed.), Ibid. 41 Although some scholars tried to interpret the verse as an antithetical parallelism, and perceive the last phrase as a caesura to avoid the zeugmatic construction, and connect the "only a voice" part to "hearing" in the former line, Thomas B. Dozeman argues that the description of visible voice being as contradictory as it may be, corresponds to the Deuteronomistic Tendenz. Dozeman, Thomas B.: God on the Mountain, A Study of Redaction, Theology and Canon in Exodus 19-24, Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1989, 52. 42 The Zohar, fol. 81 a-81 b (244). 43 I am aware of the fact that much more should be said here from a hermeneutical standpoint as these days the concept of text is not clearly defined, especially form the poststructuralist perspective that transgresses the borders of texts and reality in several ways. Cf. Derrida, Jacques: Disszemináció, Budapest, Jelenkor, 2003. 44 See the discussion in the first chapter of this essay on the divine shape of the Torah. 45 In Zohar, the initial question concerning the issue of visible fire is an introduction from the standpoint of general perception. "Surely it ought to be heard the thunderings?" (italics in text). The Zohar, fol. 81a. 38 Sárospataki Füzetek 20. évfolyam 2016 - 2
