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Our Homeland, the Text Author(s): GEORGE STEINER Reviewed work(s): Source: Salmagundi, No. 66 (Winter - Spring 1985), pp. 4-25 Published by: Skidmore College Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40547708 . Accessed: 24/04/2012 17:20
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Our Homeland, Text the


BY GEORGE STEINER often citations a context in of Successive, polemicinterpretations, or sacreddoctrine ofpolitical-historical around construe, opportunity, thearchaic,cardinalwordsin theHebrewcanon,a resonant field.An and definition extends aura ofvitalparaphrase aroundtheword-core; and or ofdubiousdefinition misunderstanding, lessdynamic no (miscan yieldthemoreurgent the understanding reading, morecompelling out attention). Meaning vibratesas does a crystal, of whose hidden and interference. clarity pulsatefragmentation To the word mikrascholarsof Biblical and Talmudic Hebrew of attach a network meanings. They questionits literalroots kof, and the consonantalmi. The definitions forward are resh,alef, put delineate semantic a field(again, literally, la lettre). they polysmie, The mikramay,at theoutset,have been theplace of summoning, of To the vocationand con-vocation. experience Torah and Talmud as to these texts cognitive emotional in and is mikra, apprehend plenitude, It to hearand accepta summons. is to gather oneself the(inseparaand in ble) community a place of calling.This summonsto responsible to answerability themostrigorous in intellectual ethical and response, is simultaneously and public,individual and collective. sense, private The concepts and associationthatattachto mikra makeofthereading of the canon and its commentaries literal-spiritual the locus of selfand of communal for identification theJew. recognition It follows,proclaim a numberof rabbinic masters,that the commandment Judaism, to in supreme supreme precisely thatitcomall and animates others, given Joshua,1,8: "The book ofthe is in prises law shallnotdepartout ofthymouth;butthoushaltmeditate therein and night." Observetheimplicit or critiqueof sleep. day prohibition to Hypnosis a Greekgod, and enemy reading.

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but activereading, answerIn post-exilic Judaism, perhaps earlier, and to thetexton boththemeditative-interpretativethebehavability motionofpersonaland nationalhomecomis iourallevels, thecentral and The Torah is metat theplace ofsummons inthetimeofcalling ing. to ascribed Israelis the is night day).The dwelling and assigned, (which das aufgeschriebene theBook. Heine'sphraseis exactly House of right: In is the The Vaterland. 'land ofhisfathers', patrimoine, thescript. its to immobilize textin a substanthe in doomedimmanence, itsattempt architectural tive, space,theDavidic and SolomonicTemplemayhave of of a beenan erratum, misreading thetranscendent mobility thetext. the of At thesame time, doubtless, centrality thebook does coinof cide withand enactthecondition exile. Thereare radicalsensesin fromthe banishment whicheven the Torah is a place of privileged unwritten of immediacy Adamic speech,of God's direct, tautological addressto man. Reading,textualexegesis,are an exile fromaction, the at of the from existential innocence praxis,evenwhere textis aiming practicaland politicalconsequence.The readeris one who (day and of action.The 'textuality' theJewish is condition, night) absentfrom of of from destruction theTemple to thefoundation themodern the stateofIsrael,can be seen,has been seenbyZionism,as one oftragic thatsurvival of The impotence. textwas theinstrument exilicsurvival; To at of a camewithin breath annihilation. endure all,the'peopleofthe Book' had, once again,to be a nation. the The tensions, dialecticalrelationsbetweenan unhousedatof on the between dwelling-place thescript theone in homeness thetext, Torah isthetrue in hand(wherever theworlda Jewreadsand meditates of of ground, thepromised mystery thenative Israel),and theterritorial consciousness. divideJewish of strip land on theother, Hegel's analysisis ominous. By leavinghis nativeland of Ur, "breaksthetiesof love." He breaksthenatural Abrahamdeliberately and their bondswhichunitea humanpersonto hisancestors places of burial(the 'Antigone'themeobsessesHegel); he abandons his neighthe Such bonds,says Hegel,transcend humanand boursand culture. in man'slegitimate thesecularsphere. presence nature, Theyconstitute of in theorganictotality theactual world.Specifically, arguesHegel, the Abrahamrepudiates worksand days of his childhoodand youth. seemed suchrepudiation No lessthanforRousseau and theromantics, both of of to Hegelthemostcorrosive alienations, estrangements from of and of therest mankind theharmonious (Hegel's integration theself.

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the callsto mind severance the from in childhood, pre-maturity polemic mienof thevery thebentshoulders and somnambular youngYeshiva in bones of children.) old students, readers themuffled on a severed to Abraham, Hegel,is a wanderer theearth, passer-by of communal and organiccontext love and oftrust. from familial, the of each land withindifferent He is a shepherd the winds,traversing instinctual offoot.He is incapableoflove in theunreflexive, lightness intialmostautistic, sense.SeekingonlyGod and a singular, (Greek) in uninterested or even withGod, Hegel's Abrahamis radically macy hostileto othermen, to those outside the covenantof his search. to and Abrahamobjectifies, masters uses physical nature; contrary the orderno theHebraicperceives thenaturaland pragmatic in Hellenic, the and Thus theJudaicrelations between finite the animatemystery. the naturaland the supernatural whichinspireGreekreligiinfinite, in and and itscreative at-homeness thevariousness beautyofthe osity to commitment abstraction, wordand text, to realworld.In itsextreme As Hegel'sdialectic would Hebraism comesto scornthenatural sphere. in contradiction. haveit,Abrahamand hisseed are enmeshed a tragic seemto achieve, More thananyother people,Jewsclaim,indeedthey nearnessto the conceptof God. They do so at the suicidal cost of the of mundane of ostracism from earth itsfamily and renunciation, self nations.ButtheGod to whomtheJewwouldstandso nearis,byvirtue of oftheimplacable elevation attributed abstraction, theunfathomable to Him,furthest from man. Mosaic law, theJewish addictionto minutiaeof archaic obsertheatrophy theJewish of tradition and vance, through legalism literalfor ism of reiteration ritualrepresent, Hegel, a logical but also and to endeavour keeptheworldat bay and to remain God's in desperate The descendantof rootlessAbrahamhas no other neighbourhood. him placeto go. For eventhelandpromised was nothis.He could seize it only by cunningand conquest. Driven out of this land by upon the restored to conquerors, Jewis,strictly subsequent merely speaking, hisnativity dispersal, hischosenforeignness. of to to Hegel, According this'foreignness' becomesontological. The sensibility theJewis,par of the of between and thought, life excellence, medium thebitter struggle between and analytic between man's reflection, spontaneous immediacy unisonwithhis bodyand environment man'sestrangement and from them.(Lvi-Strauss's itself chapterin the cria tragicanthropology, Judaism, here,profoundly is, tiquesof themessianic emancipated by

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Hegelian.)To Hegel,'the people of theBook' are as a cancer deepTheirBook is notthatoflife. seated,vital,enigmatically regenerative. of at Theirarts and energies reading,like analyticthought its most consume and deconstruct living the intense, objectof laser-sharp pitch, their questioning. a Whatis to Hegelan awesomepathology, tragic, arrested stagein towards liberated a theadvanceofhumanconsciousness homecoming the of and of from alienation, to others, opensecret theJewish is, genius a When he its survival.The textis home; each commentary return. he reads, when,by virtueof commentary, makes of his readinga theJewis,to purloin and life-giving echo, Heidegger's image, dialogue "The seeming nomadintruth carries world of the "theshepherd being. as within him,as does languageitself, does Leibniz'smonad(the play the between twowordsare,one senses, unsettheillicit on, congruence to Hegel,and suggestive). tling the But whether theyare seen as positiveor negative, 'textual' in Judaismare ontologically the interpretative and fabric, practises at theheartofJewish identity. historically Thisis obviously ina formal so sense.The Torahis thepivotofthe of weave and cross-weave reference, hermeneutic debate elucidation, whichinform whichorganize, the organically, dailyand thehistorical The lifeof thecommunity. community be defined a concentric can as of The Gemara, commentary theMishna,the the tradition reading. on of collection oral laws and prescriptions whichmake up the Talmud, theMidrash, whichis thatpartofthecommentary pertaining particuto of and activate canon,express larly theinterpretation thescriptural thecontinuum Jewish of of being.The incessant readings theprimary theexegetic, elaborative of texts, readings thesereadings disputatious, is and define endless), (theprocess formally pragmatically temporality. of the seekto elicit Theymanifest presence thedeterminant past;they always latentin the presentapplication;theyaim at the futurities Thus neither act Israel'sphysical nor original ofrevelation. scattering, thepassage ofmillennia, abrogatetheauthority aUctoritas can of (the of or authorship) thepressure meaningin theholybooks, so longas theseare read and surrounded a constancy secondary, of satellite by texts. virtue metaphoric, of esoteric and chalallegoric, By explication these texts rescue canonfrom ebbing the the motion of lenge, secondary thepast tense, from thatwhichwoulddrawlivemeaning intoinert or Via the merelyliturgical monumentality. magisterial commentary,

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as existential yield given passagewill,inplacesand times yetunknown, of and illuminations spirit unperceived. yet applications is and of a The Adamiccircumstance one of linguistic tautology to wereas Adamnamedand said them be. Word Things lasting present. thereis no and worldwereone. Wherethereis perfect contentment, The tenseoftheverbis also thatof summons remembrance. present to It the perfect tomorrow. was the Fall of Man thatadded to human its its itsambiguities, necessary secrecies, power(thecounterspeech to from opaque the the factuals, 'if constructions) dissent speculatively After Fall, memories dreams, the which so of and are coercions reality. of become the store-house of oftenmessianicrecollections futurity, and of hope. Hence the need to re-read,to re-call(reexperience in of in the vocation)thosetexts whichthemystery a beginning, which ofa lostself-evidenceGod's "I am thatI am"- are current. vestiges no Ideally,suchrecallshouldbe oral. In Hebraicsensibility, less of thanin thatof Plato, a distrust thewritten at word,a critical regret are The is thepassingoforality, evident. written alwaysa shadowafter in a senseoftheterm. decayfrom Its thefact, post-script, thematerial moment meaning exemplified, of is in theprimary obscurely, thedeof of struction theTables oftheLaw on Sinai, in themaking a second The letters fire,of that firewhichspoke in the of set or facsimile. in silence thestone. of bush,havebeenextinguished thegraven burning has beentheindestructible On theother hand,assuredly, writing guarof the of antor, 'underwriter', theidentity theJew:acrossthefrontiers acrossthecenturies, acrossthelanguagesof whichhe of hisharrying, and frequent has been a forcedborrower master.Like a snail, his towards antennae the menace,theJewhas carried houseofthetexton hisback. Whatother domicilehas beenallowedhim? and Butthedestiny history Judaism 'bookish'ina fardeeper of are set sense;and in one thatdoes virtually themapart. In the relationto God whichdefinesthe Jew,the conceptsof and of covenantare not metaphoric. narrative contract A a charter, of in form, magnacartaand document instauration narrative setting and obligationsas betweenGod and man, is out reciprocalrights in of is explicit Genesisand in Exodus. The foundation electidentity textual.In Hobbes and Rousseau, theinvocation an original of contract between individuals civicsociety between soveror the founding eignand thosewho delegatetheir powersto him,is a methodological In it fiction. Judaism, is a literal a deed instrument,spoken-written of

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not and communal ratification, trust, subject onlyto constant personal the the but to close probing.Even after promiseto Noah, even after redaction Sinai, and doublyso after at each visitation of transcendent disasteron the Jewishpeople, the God-pact,the covenantand its The innumerable are codicils, thefocusofre-examination. legal-ritual is and textual. Therehas beentoo muchagonyin latter moral, legalistic thefineprint. the The millennial God, ofwhich Book ofJobis only dialoguewith Thisimagecan be themostpointed is thatofa 'bookkeeper'. protocol, book' on His people,whoare,everlastingly, God 'keeps closely. pressed creathedebtors His initial to advance whichis,pastall repayment, the after Flood, thecovenantat Sinai and the tion,whichis survival deed of titleto the promisedland. At all times, such is the comfor of His and clientIsraelis in arrears, pounding God's interest, partner evenin default.Whereit is allowed,a moratorium an act of grace. is as The cancellation thedebt,the revaluation all currency, proof of claimedin Christ, to theJew,an empty is, fantasy. there a sensein whichtheJew'keepsbook' on is Concomitantly, God. Do theaccounts, and notethesemantic overlapand interference an as between 'account'and 'narration', balance?Is there intelligiever ble balance-sheet be drawnbetween to merit and recompense (Job's and to and certify book of life),between the suffering attempt inspect Has He with man,more happiness? God mettheobligations contracted the with of advocatesand negotiators being, Jews? precisely, thosefirst to Anti-semitism alwaysdenouncedin Judaismand its relations has an God, videShylockand his bond,a contractual, economy, litigious of inheritance sharppractises barter. there Is and not,inthemoralisticrestiof didacticepilogueto themysterium tremendum Job,a twofold for tution, payment damagesincurred? But the 'bookkeeper'is also, and inextricably, 'keeperof the a of The accountant byvirtue this of Book', an archivist therevealed. is, accountableto God as is no othertribe.In Ezekiel, 3, this custody, to takes on a grotesque 'keepingof books', this clerkship eternity, vehemence. God's emissary holdsout a scrollto His servant, physical "and it was written overon bothsides."Ezekielis bidden"eat this all of scroll"(Ben Jonsontellsofthe'ingestion' classicaltexts)."Swallow thisscroll."Ezekieldoes so "and ittasted sweet honey" wespeak as as and thathauntstillof"honeyed ofthelinksbetween words", language associateboth ingsavourwhichMiddle Easternand Atticmythology

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withthesun and thegardensof thedead. It is thecontractual, foundation coreofJudaism and promissory the of which haveentailed singularity pathology contra (the naturami) The survival. 'books havebeenkept'and keptup to date.The 'keepers' in and historical make new entries everymoment theirindividual at of in existence. But considerthedeterminants terror thescript. Considerthe overwhelmingly manifest metaphysically rationally and yet to scandalousadherence Jewish of experience theprescriptsetdown foritin thebooks whichare itscard of identity, thebooks ithas so in the of and viewed, fate Judaism kept. proudly contentiously Rigorously is a post-script thepenalty to clausesin God's contract (thatfine print, of to foot-notes, marginalia, again). It is a sequenceof demonstrative thetextof God's (non-)reply Job and to thetextsof theProphets. to is from start. the The rest beenunbearahas Everything there, spelt-out blefulfillment. other No no on has culture thisearth been nation, other No menhavehad to bearlikewitness thecognate to soprescribed. other of whichsignify denunciaand meanings prescription ofproscription, for and tion,ostracism, a written designation death. Whatis there add to Amos,which to taketo be theoldest scholars ofprophetic books,datingitc. 750 B.C. whentheNorthern Kingdom of Israelwas headingforruin? is God's promise unequivocal: I willsenda fire upon Judah, and it shalldevourthepalace ofJerusalem. As theshepherd takesout of themouthof theliontwo legsor a piece of an ear, so shallthechildren Israelbe takenout . . . of The citythatwentout bya thousandshall havea remnant a hundred, thatwhich of of wentout bya hundred, shall remain. ten The long terror the Diaspora is precisely of promised:the songs of "shallbe howlings," Israel"shallwanderfrom to sea, and sea worship fromthe northeven to the east" seekingsanctuary vain. Because in God's wordsare of fire, thosewho hearand who read themare to be made ash.

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Its and The oracularis open-ended. duplicities triplicities three nearDelphi- are thoseofhumanfreedom. meetat thatcrossing roads of Propheciesare the contrary oracles: theyanswerbeforetheyare without for asked.How has itbeenpossible theJewish peopletoendure to moreor less without mad, yielding goingmoreor less collectively willed self-destruction impulseto both do run deep in Judaic (the of the and foresight its knowing, reading re-reading binding sensibility) when theresolve, life-tenacity, the find Wheredid Judaism Prophets? writ had beenservedon itbyitsown seersofdarkness an apocalyptic to set havebeenrealised, the and whenthepredictions out in thiswrit me This strikes as the timeand timeand timeagain? hideousletter, 'Jewish question'. Part of the answerlies, of course,in the antinomian, pendular themselves. of motion theMosaic and prophetic Catastrophe prescripts are on In unconditional. God's sentence Israelthere redeeming is never clauses. The just, be theybut a handful, maybe saved; therepentant from heart the of The restored. dialectic possiblerehabilitation springs wind-scattered the at ofterror. is eloquent thecloseofArnos: captive, It backto thepromised of remnant Israelshallbe brought land,"and they them.Theyshallplantvineand inhabit the shall rebuild wastecities, and eat of the Theyshallmakegardens yardsand drink winethereof. The entireZionist dream and purpose,the mannerof theirfruit." in miraclein whichthesehave been realised,are 'programmed' this verseof thisninth fourteenth Throughout chapterof Amos's script.* of the dictate future books which the theTorah,throughout prophetic is of horizon, setagainst Israel,thenoteofcompensation, themessianic thatof interminable suffering. Butthistwofold truth holywrit in the onlycomplicates phenomeThe deterministic nologicaland thepsychological question. imperative or ofthepromise selective ultimate of rescueis as binding, coercive as a as of blueprint, are theprevisions persecution, dispersaland martyrdom. Amos's clairvoyance to Zionism is as prescriptive is his as as of in and foresight Jewish agony.No othercommunity theevolution of social history man has,from outset, its without read,re-read cease, learnt heartor byrote, and expoundedwithout thetexts end which by
* Ifthisis Amos'sscript, itis precisely promissory for this passagewhichmanyscholars as regard a muchlaterinsertion.

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These texts,moreover, feltto be of are spell out its whole destiny. infallible their in as and transcendent pre-diction, authorship authority, are is oraclesinthepaganworld, therefore, notoriously, not.The script, withtheinevitable. God has, in thedual senseof utterance a contract and ofbinding affirmation, 'givenHis word',His Logos and His bond, to Israel.It cannotbe brokenor refuted. of Again one asks: what abstentionsor strengths spirit,what and what pride,are requiredof a people called geniusforservitude takedictation itself? of to, pre-script, as itwere, uponto actouta primal the Lightblindsus whenitis too clear.Yet theJewhas had to inhabit has a turns textofhisforeseen literal being.Canetti written playwhich in man knows,in advanceand on theconceitofa society whichevery the ineluctably, date of his own death. The parable on Judaismis and a It unmistakable. is becausehe lives,enactsprivately historically, note servedon himwhenGod soughtout a written writ, promissory Abrahamand Moses, it is because the'Book of Life' is, in Judaism, thattheJewdwellsapart.(It wasjust thissuffocating textual, literally from unknown theJewish the in condiimmunity dj-vu,thisservile and tion,whichbothfascinated repelled Hegel.) mechanism remains the obscure, factis Thoughthepsychological The a commonplace: are, self-fulfilling. stronger prophecies to a degree, the the its the prophecy, moreoftenit is proclaimed, greater inertial In realisation. hisdreadhistory, Jewwouldseemto the towards thrust the to havebeenintent certify accuracyoftheroad mappedforhimby The script been'acted',first has acrossthatvalleyofthe theProphets. of and massacrewhichclimaxedin shadowand of thenight dispersal of the "whirlwind" the 1940s,in the Shoa (the noble Greek word, a has 'holocaust',signifyingsolemnburnt offering, no legitimate place morerecently theforetold, in inthismatter); underwritten contractually to return Israel. of and Does thismeanthattheUtopian pre-vision homecoming of withAbrahamand in thecoda to the peace which,in the settlement on will books,follows millennial suffering, also be realised? prophetic in is Not now,notnecessarily seculartime.The print too fineforthat. is The messianic an escape-clause bothparties. is on theadventof for It of themessianic orderthattheprevision blessedness Till hinges. then, at eventhein-gathering Zion is, in theexact Latinetymological sense, it of pro-visional, is a previsionthe natureand temporality whose remains uncertain. certain accomplishment

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the But thecrux is this:neither Jewish indeedtradiendurance, of and across tionalacceptanceofa continuum ostracism persecution nor therationally, return a modern of absurd, history, geopolitically barren of ethnic strip earthin theMiddle East, to a groupto a largely could onlybe and of longoccupiedbyothers whosefrontiers strip earth and can be understood outsidethemetaphysics psythoseof hatred, The of thepre-scribed. canonictextshad to be shownto be chology true. The priceforthis'keepingof the books' (forthis'going by the monstrous. notionthatthenight-vision The book*)has been,literally, the in somesecret on oftheJewhas,somehow, measure, brought itself none theless. is but torments foreseen, irrational, haunting of in of It is compelling our reading Kafka. The practises literary are criticism study moreor less helplessbeforeThe Trialand The and of inhumanities their faithful Castlewith minutely prevision theclerical to meansor literary reference stylistic of lifein our time.Explication, of Kafka'sblueprint theconcentration-camp trivialize context, merely and betweentorturer world,of the comingobscenitiesof intimacy victim,as these are spelt out, in October 1914, in "In The Penal in Kafka'suse oftheword"vermin" "The MetaColony";or consider that the of morphosis" 1912in precisely senseand connotations would is there later.In Kafka'swritings to be given itbytheNazis a generation almostwholly worthrenders which literalism avantla lettre a revealed whichtheyhave provoked.Even the less the spate of commentaries in exchange on Kafka's religiosity the Walter Benjaminmasterly with Mandelstam's whichmay, together GershomScholem letters, essay on readingDante, be the best thatthe arts of modernliterary of conundrum theprophetic. haveto show,avoid theurgent criticism or the as after Prophets, Kafkaknew.In him, As no other speaker scribe a in them, was and invention pedanticnotaimagination secondsight his Kafka's misery one coercedinto writing, as tion of clairvoyance. diffidence before mundane are almost authorship, thefacsimhysterical of arrived of theattempts theProphetsto at, ile,perhapsconsciously the of to burden their evadetheintolerable seeing, shakeoff command"I Jeremiah's do not knowhow to speak,"Jonah's mentof utterance. have literal from foretelling, their parallelin Kafka's"impossibilflight of Having the unspeakable impossibility not writing." ityof writing, notonlyin hiswritings also in but hissight, Kafkawas, future litto so It to himself. is some his personalexistence, knowingly posthumous

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I informs notation thisscarcely of conceivable condition which, suspect, manafter that theprofoundest by allegory produced western Scripture, of the parable "In Front of the Law" composed in Novemberor December1914. of the In Kafka'scredoof reading, Jewish experience theimperaof tiveterror thetextis manifest: does notwakeus, as witha Ifthebook we are reading then we readit?So that do fist on hammering ourskull, why itshallmakeus happy? Good God, wewouldalso be happy ifwe had notbooks,and suchbooks as makeus happywe haveare But ourselves. whatwemust could,ifneedbe,write and thosebooks whichcome upon us likeill fortune, disthan r tressus deeply,like the death of one we love better like ourselves, suicide. of How muchcould be said (inadequately) thatmesmeric opposition between"one we love betterthan ourselves"and "suicide",about of that Kafka'simplicit finding suicideis alwaysthekilling the'other', in us. within Whatis pellucid this thanourselves' oftheone'lovedbetter to is famousdictum theparadoxicalneed,theself-testing destruction, of visionand experience thebook. in theJewish The indispensable books, thosewhose comingupon us is more even thanthe death of the beloved,are the syllabusof the powerful Judaic. What theyhave in common,what relatesthe rare secular as a their status a mikra, summons examplesto thecanonic,is,indeed, hamand sub-poenato mankind. Theycall and call upon us. The fist us on mering our skullforces to keep our eyesopen. can Nothing erasethisnight butthere's light still withyou. At Jerusalem's gate a blacksun has risen. The yellowone frightens more. me Israelites Lullaby,lullaby, have buriedmymother in thebright temple.

the OurHomeland, Text Somewhere outsidegrace, withno priests lead them, to Israelites have sungtherequiemoverher in thebright temple. The voicesof Israelites rangout overmymother. I wokein thecradle,dazzled bytheblacksun.

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ThispoembyMandelstam entitled is "Black Sun". LackingRussianthetranslation byClarenceBrown is and W.S. Merwin I can sayvery little about it,aboutthesourcesofitsspell.Moreover, there maybe in thesefour esoteric echoesof Russianapocalyptic and eschaquatrains accessible This tological symbolism onlyto theinformed. happensto be the case, quite often,in both the greatvoices of Russian JudaeoOrthodoxy(the baptized but remembering Jew), Mandelstamand Pasternak. thestrength universality thepoem'ssummons Yet and of are suchthatwe mustlisten bestwe can. as Certainmotifs declarethemselves. Russianpoetry fiction, In and in the incomparable articulation the 'strangeness' the Russian of of tradition Pushkinand Dostoevsky, the politicaland psychological by "whitenights", in are The particularly St. Petersburg, emblematic. "blacksun"ofMandelstam's with precedent Baudelaire its in and lyric, the whitenights. The black sunrise answers to Nerval,reverses febrile thewhite But to is nightfall. moreominous thepoetthaneither thelight ofcommon - "The yellow frightens more."In Paul Celan's one me day of a poetryon the destruction European Jewry, poetrywhich,by incessant echo and allusion,often thatof Osip Mandelincorporates the sun'willhavebecome(remaining, actualreference, in stam, 'yellow thesame) theyellowstarof thecondemned. As does so muchofelegiacand philosophic after Proverbs poetry and Ecclesiastes it is the lattertext which seems subtlyactive in Mandelstam'slines- thereis in the"Black Sun" an interplay the of cradleand thegrave.Lullabyinterweaves withrequiem. The birth of thechildis always,ina banal sense,theend ofmaternity. theother On death is a son's re-birth, a re-birth but into adult hand, a mother's of and aloneness,into the mostdefinite exiles fromsharedidentity

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From thispsychic and somaticexile,therecan be no remembrance. return. Exile would seemto be at thehammering heartof Mandelstam's "in a temple", poem. Israelitesburythe speaker'smother the bright or ritualabsurdity scandal. They do so "Somewhereoutsidegrace,/ The allusionto burialin unconsecrated to Withno priests lead them." rather thana Jewish is a motif, evident. But, ground, paganorChristian is in a larger No but sense,thestatement one of ostracism. kaddish, a In evenin death.The requiem. theDiaspora, a Jewis made homeless child is woken by the exiled voices of Israel, woken to apocalyptic terror. The sun whichdazzles him is a black sun, and it rises"At Jerusalem's gate." We can read thisimagein at least twoways.That or is shut to the outcast and/ a blacknessat noon shall enter gate it intothecity. through Mandelstam's had poem is dated 1916.RussianJewry knownthe recent ofthefairly and theso-calledcivilized worldwas past, pogroms the northeWhirlwind at war.Butneither Bolshevik-Stalinist nightmare wereinanywayvisible. Mandelstam Yet outofHitler andwakes wakes, his reader,to the clear vision of the night-dawn ahead. He already to in knows a knowledge be fulfilled hisownappallingsuffering and death. is As in Kafka,so there herean inextricable between the intimacy Not onlyAmos, but numerousrabbinic and the foreseen. imagined haveconjectured every that whenhe is wholly to masters, Jew, present God's word,to thelivingsummons theTorah, is in a condition of of and pre-vision. is,at somelevel,madea party thefact He to prophecy thatGod remembers future. the thequestion is Again acute, nags.Where prophecy so penetratively does it not preparefor,indeedprovoke,fulfillment? Could therebe some (incomprehensible) guilt in annunciation? (In the Brussells museum theAnnunciation; hangsan anonymous 'primitive' depicting behind a of head,hangs smallpainting the Mary'sbowed,overwhelmed In has cometo lorditoverlife? Does the Crucifixion.) Judaism, thetext fact follow but after word? humbly, also murderously, thecommanding At itsgreatest, Jewish secularwriting at from the when, last,itsprings and of carries with liturgical, exegetical textuality monopoly theghetto, it, from Heine to Celan, an enforcedclairvoyanceand guilt of accomplishment. The bookkeeper notonlythecustodianand, in hisrackedbone is

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and flesh, certifier prophecy. is a cleric. the of He The mystery the and No other of are to tradition or practises clerisy fundamental Judaism. culture ascribeda comparable has aura to theconservation tranand beenan equivalent of of In has mystique scription texts. no other there the philological.This is trueof orthodoxpraxis,in whicha single the of entailsthepermanletter, erratum, wrong transcription a single entremoval therelevant of or the scroll pagefrom holybooks.It is true, to thesame pitchof literalist in and techintensity, thewholetheory of niques of the Kabbala, in the kabbalist'sexhaustive scrutiny the manifold in form denomination and Hebrew letter whosegraphic single of are energies meaning incised. The quarrelwithHellenism and withChristian gnosisis stark.In it to the is of indeed thekabbalist, isthe Judaism, letter thelife thespirit, Hence theclericalideals,theclericalcode ofscribalobservance spirit. of and conveyance theexilichistory theJews.Hencetheclerisy the in of ecstatic rabbinic casteintheghetto Statile.To sayofthis and textuality and in and clerkship-botharetotally instrumental Kafka'sprofession social in Kafka'scalling thatthey for werea surrogate thepolitical, surviacts barredto theJews,to say of the'scribal'natureofJewish of for vancethatitwas an inhibiting substitute theproduction secular intellect and art, is a facileclich.The point is that the sometimes to of and disciplines attention the text,the hallucinatory techniques bestowedon its of to word,thereverence mystique fidelity thewritten withinJudaic sensibility concentrated expositorsand transmitters, of and uniquestrengths purities disinterested purpose. It is these whichhave made so many Jewishmen and, more It womenmostnativeto modernintelligence. is thesethat recently, of havegenerated provocative the pre-eminence theJewin modernity, or The be it humanistic scientific. 'bookish' geniusof Marx and of of is and Freud,ofWittgenstein ofLvi-Strauss, a seculardeployment in and thelongschooling abstract, in commentary clerkship speculative the exegeticlegacy(while being at the same timea psychologicaloverwhelmoften presence, againstit). The Jewish sociologicalrevolt is economicand social theory, ing,in modernmathematics, physics, the from mundane, the heir from approximate, direct tothat abstinence whichconstitutes ethosof thecleric. the a Akiba made of his refuge 'place' or UnderRoman persecution, of but 'house ofthebook'. A secularized closelyderived system values and was to makeof CentralEuropeanJewry itsAmerican after-glow

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heartlandof modernity. the intellectual-spiritual Prague, Budapest, and Frankfurt New York have been the Jewish Vienna,Leningrad, the capitalsofourage,butalso thecapitalstoutcourt.In them, clerks, the after theaddictsof thewordand of thetheorem, exact dreamers have led,havedancedthelifeofthemind;forthatmotionof Einstein, thedance before arkin whichthetextoftheLaw is housed,liesat the theancient core ofJewish consciousness. has A kabbalistic and hassidicintimation it thatevilseepedinto the crackofa single erroneous our worldthrough hair-line that letter, man's suffering, that of the Jew especially,came of the false and letter wordwhenGod dictated Torah to or of the transcription a single is his elect scribe.This grimfantastication utterly expressiveof a to of as scholar's code. It points thedefinition a Jew onewhoalwayshas a pencilor pen in hand whenhe reads,of one who will in thedeatha emenda doubterror, camps(and thiscameto pass) correct printing fultext, hiswayto extinction. themorality metaphysics But on and of theclerkare not only,nor indeedprimarily, thoseof pedantic, mandarinabstraction. need onlylook to Spinoza to knowotherwise. We What is at stake is a politicsof truth. Such politicsare, in essence, of Socratic and Socratesis theone gentile whoma thinking has Jew thenever-ending to obligation be jealous. The socraticmoment modern for is Affair. It Jewry theDreyfus he on theJewthe questionof whether could, even in an compelled and emancipated assimilationist garb,everobtaina securecitizenship in thecityof the gentile, whichis the post-Napoleonic nation-state. Withcrueledge,theDreyfus Affair confronted idealsofjusticeand of with claimsofthenation-state transcendent the conscience to personal The case threw sharpest the loyalty. possiblelighton the inherently anarchicgeniusofabstract and thought thesearchforabsolutetruth. of and clashed,metaphysically Imperatives reasonand of conscience withthoseconventions expediency, moralapproximaof of ethically, tionand irresolution without whichthefabric society of cannothang As Affair together. does the trialof Socrates,so the Dreyfus passes on the of schism, contested judgment thepolis. The resulting victory individual and lamednotonly justiceoverpatriotism reasonsofstate, France theVichyregime, rhetoric tactics civilwar perenthe and of nial to Frenchpoliticsare a directlegacy but the veryconceptof nationalism. Fiat iustitia, pereatmundus. Boththeoccasionand thelogicoftheconflict came out ofJuda-

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the intotheterritorial, ism.Theycame from ambiguousentry fundanationofa people at homein Roman politiesofthemodern mentally not tribe housednotin place butin time, rootedbut exile,ofa pilgrim he he legs.Whether knewitor not,whether millennially equippedwith he and it wished ornot indeed, desperately hopedotherwise didmuch to deceivehimself the Jew,whengivennationality his adopted by itself a visa to the in Judaism defines as remained transit. hosts, gentile 'otherland'. messianic this in For thecleric, theideal of clerisy Jewishness, house of for it tenseneednotbe Israel.Or rather, is an 'Israel' of truththefuture each out Each seeking ofa moral,philosophic, verity, positive seeking. is of and established expounded, an aliyah,a homecoming textrightly of and to and Judaism itself to itskeeping thebooks. The impositions to as gloryof thistrusteeship, theymodulatefromthe religious the in seculardomain,are formulated JulienBenda's The Treasonof the case. Jewish book whichcame of theDreyfus an Clerics, inescapably instances fanatithe and himself Heir to Spinoza, Benda defines cism of disinterested vision,the ecstaticexactionsand exactitudes, On and scholarship. the Sabbath, the whichunderlie majorthought to extendexplicitly thescholar. benedictions spokenin thesynagogue householdifthereis no Thereis, or oughtto be sadnessin a Jewish Benda goes further. He scholaramongitschildren. scholaror future savant of the takes for his own a dictate by a now-forgotten nineteenth-century: motives-patriotic, for Whoever, whatever political,relieven the slightest gious and even moral- allows himself mustbe stricken of or manipulation adjustment thetruth, the from rollof scholars. must felt. be Observe of commandment The tranquil enormity this the ascendingorder in whichthe condemnedapologias are listed. of the Patriotism, loveand defense thehomeland- oftheThirdRepubNext lic underthreat Germaninvasion- is thelowestnon-excuse. of of thosepracticalities civiccomprocome politicalloyalty, efficiency, Let miseand herd-instinct whicha Socratesand a Spinoza refuse. the "eventheslightest" commits the before cleric and city thenationperish whichis truth. of ground hisbeing, mendacity. Theyare notthenative must evenreligion truth naturalhabitation, a Whereit cannotafford

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Yet it too is set aside. The yield.'Morality'is the crownof motives. to edict(Kierkegaardwill repudiateit injunction do so is a fearful a coincidence between WhereKant postulated transcendent utterly). Benda knewthattheremaybe cases of theethicaland thecognitive, ethics thepursuit knowledge in and of conflict between irreconcilable in in and nuclear findphysics, genetics, thepsychologist's thewriter's he his from mikra, the inman.The cleric if betrays calling, isabsent ings or the if for heflinches from, hemuffles deflects purehunt truth Plato is halloo whena truth cornered-evenifthishunt the records hunter's or shouldlead to his own destruction thatof hiscommunity. It is herethatthecreedof Spinoza and of Kafka meetswiththe a a scholar,must conductof Socrates.A truethinker, truth-thinker, knowthatno nation,no body politic,no creed,no moralideal and is a be a necessity, it thatof humansurvival, worth falsehood, willed or the manipulationof a text. This knowledgeand self-deception are the observance his homeland.It is thefalsereading, erratum that makehimhomeless. to A Jewenters manhood,he is admitted thehistory Judaon of he to time, called,literally, the ism,on theday on which is,forthefirst text,on theday on whichhe is asked and allowed to read correctly the from Torah. This summons to or entails, a greater lesser passage to or a degreeof intensity, a greater lesserdegreeof self-awareness, of of to The commitment theclerisy truth, truth-seeking. prophetic and to are thespeculative addiction insight thenationhoodofJudaism. In of as of thehumblest clerks in thegreatest thinkers, acceptanceof the of thiscalling, this'callingup' in thefullsenseofa perilous enlistment musthave practical and promotion, (impractical) consequences. of How can a thinking be but man,a native theword, anything the of and provisional patriots? nation-state founded The mostwary is on and ofinstauration ofmilitant It perpetuates itself lies glory. myths by and half-truths (machine gunsand sub-machine guns).In hismodelof Rousseau declaredunequivocally the social contract, thatthereis a between and contradiction "Forc de combattre humanity citizenship: la nature les institutions ou faire homme un sociales,il fautopterentre ou un citoyen; on ne peut pas faire la foisl'un et l'autre."The car is for are consequenceis stark:"a patriot hardon strangers, they but men." The 'patriotism' thetruth-seeker antithetical Rousseau's of is to civic option. The sole citizenship the cleric is that of a critical of

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He is humanism. knowsnotonlythatnationalism a sortofmadness, a virulent infection edgingthe species towardsmutual massacre. He knowsthatit signifies abstention an from freeand clear thought and of from disinterested the pursuit justice.The manorwomanat homein a thetextis, by definition, conscientious objector:to thevulgarmysto tiqueoftheflagand theanthem, thesleepofreasonwhich proclaims or to right wrong", thepathosand eloquenceofcollective "mycountry, the on mercanmendacities which nation-state be ita mass-consumer or tile technocracy a totalitarian oligarchy-builds its power and is its is The aggressions. locusoftruth alwaysextraterritorial; diffusion of made clandestine the barbed wireand watch-towers national by dogma. and The quarrelis as ancientas Israel. It is thatbetweenpriest It the and thoseofuniversality. between claimsofnationhood prophet, The clash out speaksto us irreconcilably ofAmosandJeremiah. mortal beweenan immanent homelandand the between politicsand verity, is 36-9.KingJahoiakim spaceofthetranscendent,speltoutinJeremiah He dictated God's clerk bookkeeper. cutsoutthe and seizesthescroll by textintotheconsuming flame columnsand caststheentire offending burnbooks). God vigilantes patriotic (governments, politicalcensors, on scroll and write itall instructs prophet: the "Take theeagainanother on "The truth out.Somewhere will were written thefirst. thewordsthat a whichthe there a pencil-stub, mimeograph is a machine, hand-press abode in thecourtof the king'smenhave overlooked."So Jeremiah when was taken;and he was there prisontilltheday thatJerusalem in is was taken."The formulaic Jerusalem specification magnificent meaning.The royalcity,the nationare laid waste; the textand its the there and now.The Templemaybe destroyed; transmitter endure, them. textswhichit housedsingin thewindsthatscatter was Pauline universalism an inspired amalgam of the transcenin and ofHellenic of dent,immaterial textuality theProphets Judaism everto Jewish It syncretism. provedto be themostseriouschallenge the in survival, precisely so faras it sprangfromwithin Utopianelein ments theJewish tradition Paul of (and utopia means"no-where"). Tarsussetprophecy ecumenism againstpriesthood, againstterritoriality.It is altogether possiblethatJudaismwould have lost its identity, itself Christianity,thelatter beentrue its in if wouldhavediffused to had Judaic catholicity. a Instead, Christendom became, itself, politicalterritorial structure, prepared,on all practicalcounts,to serve,to

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of and hallow,thegenesis militancy secularstates. Ideologicalimperialismis inseparable from Constantine the modadoptionofChristianity; ern nationalism Truth bears the stampof the Lutheranprogramme. it in was,again,madehomeless; moreexactly, was left the(unsafeor, of keeping thepariahand theexile. from A.D. to 1948A.D. 70 Duringtheperiod,roughly, In thefounding secular manifesto Zionism, of Herzel'sJudenstaat, the language and the vision are proudlymimeticof Bismarckian It nationalism. Israelis a nation-state theutmost to degree. livesarmed to theteeth. has beencompelled makeother It to menhomeless, servile, in from disinherited, orderto survive day to day (it was, duringtwo the of millennia, dignity theJewthathewas too weakto makeanyother human as as The of as being unhoused, wretched himself). virtues Israel are thoseof beleaguered Its propaganda,its rhetoric selfof Sparta. are as desperate anycontrived thehistory nationalas in of deception, ism.Underexternal to and internal has stress, loyalty beenatrophied and patriotism madechauvinism. Whatplace,whatlicense patriotism, is there thatgarrison the'treason'of theProphet, Spinoza's in for for of refusal thetribe? said committed on Humanism, Rousseau,is"a theft la patrie" Quite so. There is no singularvice in the practisesof the State of Israel. These follow ineluctably the simple institution the modern on of on necessities which exists it with nation-state, thepolitical-military by It is by empirical and againstits nationalist need thata competitors. nation-state sups on lies. Whereit has tradeditshomelandin thetext forone oftheGolan Heights inGaza- "eyeless" or was theclairvoyant Milton Judaism becomehomeless ofthatgreatHebraist, has epithet to itself. But this,ofcourse,is onlya partof thetruth. the To manyamong the fewsurvivors, interminable pilgrimage the defenselessness theJewin the of through persecution, interminable wereno longer faceofbestiality derision, and endurable. refuge A had to be found,a place of physicalgathering whicha Jewish in parent could giveto his childsome hope of a future. The return Zion, the to fantastic the courageand labour whichhave made thedesertflower, survival the'Old Newland'(Herzel's famousphrase)againstcrazy of The odds, have made a wonderof necessity. politicaland military of overwhelming majority Jewsin Israel,ofJewsintheDiaspora, seek neither be prophets to nor clericsderangedby some autistic, other-

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addictionto speculative abstractions and theelixirof truth. worldly for They hunger, desperately, thecommonconditionof man among men.Theywould,likeall othermenand nations, enevanquishtheir and scattered them;ifharshreality miesrather thanbe oppressed by eventorture wouldrather thanbe occudictates, censor, they occupy, and tortured theyhave been forso long. What as pied and censored what ivory-tower mandarinfantasy, nonsense,is it to suppose that of alone among men,and afterthe unspeakablehorrors destruction the lavished uponhim, Jewshouldnothavea landofhisown,a shelter in thenight? I knowall this.It would be shallowimpertinence to see the not the forceof theargument. Moreover,is the psychological, empirical in to indeedordained, thevery textsI have return Israelnotforeseen, a cited?Is Zionismnotas integral partofthe'prescribed' and mystery times sufferance of of as condition Judaism weretheterrible (Shylock's word)and dispersal? is of answer clear.Bothcurrents prevision to be The Orthodox are The prescriptions suffering of have long been made accomplished. to And so shallbe thehomecoming thepromised land. But manifest. the hour.The imperilled brutalized condition notbefore messianic of of State of Israel,thefailure Israel to be Zion, provethe thepresent of the in temporality its re-establishment expedient spurious, purely armedmenaboutand politicians. Messiah The 1948.Therewere, then, ThustheStateofIsrael,as itstands in neither was nowhere sight. today, the covenant return. of nor The fulfills disproves M osaic and prophetic timeis notyet. I to Personally, have no right thisanswer.I have no partin the whichunderwrite But its intuitive it. and ritualpractises and beliefs to can be felt be real. evidential strength The survivalof the Jews has no authenticparallel in history. no and no Ancientethniccommunities civilizations less gifted, less trace.It is, on the most have perished, self-conscious, manywithout to existential rational, level,difficult believethatthisunique phenomenonof unbrokenlife,in the face of everydestructive agency,is Judaismhas drawn its with the exilic circumstance. unconnected from adaptivedemands the madeon it from uncanny vitality dispersal, the ofthat 'finalsolution' Ironically, threat might proveto bymobility. be thegreatest iftheJewswerenow to be compactedin Israel. yet But thereis a more centralintimation. One need be neither a

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to nor religiousfundamentalist a mystic believe that thereis some to of is that meaning thesingularity Judaicendurance, there exemplary or somesensebeyond interest theinterlockto contingent demographic of The ingconstancy Jewish pain and ofJewish preservation. notion life thattheappallingroad ofJewish and theever-renewed of miracle survival shouldhaveas their the end,as their justification, setting of up in a smallnation-state theMiddle East, crushed military burdens, by is pettyand even corruptin its politics,shrillin its parochialism, implausible. I cannotshakeoff conviction thetorment themystery the that and in ofresilience Judaism an that enact, arduoustruth: human exemplify, mustlearnto be each other's evenas beings guestson thissmallplanet, must learnto be guests beingitself ofthenatural of and world.This they is a truth to to immediate, our breath, our skin,to thepassing humbly shadow we cast on a groundinconceivably more ancientthan our and and visitation, itis also a terribly abstract, morally psychologically truth. Man will have to learnit or he will be made extinct in exigent suicidalwasteand violence. The State of Israel is an endeavour whollyunderstandable, in many aspectsadmirable, perhaps historically inescapable to normalthe of izethecondition, meaning Judaism. wouldmaketheJewlevel It the with common of denominator modern It 'belonging'. is,at thesame to an of of time, attempt eradicatethedeepertruth unhousedness, an in at-homeness theword,whichare thelegacyof theProphets and of of thekeepers thetext. In Jerusalem today, the visitoris taken to the "Shrine of the Scrolls"or,as it is also known, "House of theSacred Books". In this are building keptsome oftheDead Sea scrollsand priceless exquisite biblical papyri.It is a place of poignant,if somewhatsepulchral, One's guideexplainsthehidden radiance. mechanism wherehydraulic edifice or be can, in theeventof shelling bombardment, by theentire madeto sinksafely belowground. Such precautions indispensable. are Becausenation-states bythesword.Butsuchprecautions also a live are and ethical barbarism.Words cannot be broken by metaphysical nor live artillery, thought in bomb-shelters. in Locked materially a material the homeland, textmay,in fact, lose itslife-force, itstruth and values maybe betrayed. whenthe But textis thehomeland, evenwhenit is rootedonlyin theexact remembranceand seeking a handful wanderers, of of nomadsoftheword,it

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Timeis truth's and itsnative cannotbe extinguished. passport ground. for Whatbetter lodging theJew?

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