First I thought I was a writer. Then I realized I was a Jew. Then I no longer distinguished the writer in me from the Jew because one and the other are only torments of an ancient word. -Edmond Jabes SUNY SERIES ON MODERN JEWISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE Sarah Blacher Cohen, Editor The Slayer~f Moses THE EMERGENCE OF RABBINIC INTERPRETATION IN MODERN LITERARY THEORY Susan A. Handelman UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND State University of New York Press ALBANY Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 1982 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Library of Congress CatalcJglng In Publication Data Handelman, Susan A. The slayers of Moses. (SUNY series on modern Jewish literature and culture) Bibliography: p. 2.51. I. Rabbinical literature-History and criticism. 2. Talmud-Inftuence-Civilization, Occidental. 3. Criticism. I. TItle. II. Series. BM496 .. 5.H34 121'.68 81-16522 ISBN 0-87395-576-5 AACR2 ISBN 0-87395-577-3 (pbk. I For my mother, Marian Handelman In memory of my father, Milton Handelman Contents Acknowledgments xi Methodological Preface xiii Note to the Reader xix I. Historical Background: The Interpretive Agon of Greek, Jew, and Christian 1. Greek Philosophy and the Overcoming of the Word 3 Plato and Language: The Cratylus Aristotle and the Problems ofP redication Aristotle: Words and Things, Rhetoric vs. Philosophy The Contemporary Critique: De"ida and Ricoeur The Model ofM etaphor 2. Rabbinic Thought: The Divinity of the Text 27 The Bible and the Greeks The Text The Development of the Oral Law 3. Some Philosophic Aspects of the Rabbinic Interpretative System 51 Kal Ve-Chomer The Other Twelve Middot: The Relations ofG eneral and Particular Midrash Metaphor and Metonymy in Interpretation 4. Escape from Textuality: The Fulfiller of Signs 83 The Letter and the Spirit Philo Origen The Logos and the Letter Unity, Trinity; Literal, Figurative Augustine Augustine's Theory ofS igns vii vIII The Slayers of Moses II. The Slayers of Moses: Freud, Lacan, Denida, Bloom and the Dark Side of Displacement Prologue: The Book of Books and the Book of Nature 123 5. Solomon-Sigmund, the Son of Jakob 129 Undoing Moses Heretic Hermeneutics: Re-writing Origins Freud's Methodology: New Arrangements, Hidden Gaps The Hybrid Science 6. The Analyst as Scribe: Jacques Lacan and the Return of the Father's Name 153 7. Reb Denida's Scripture 163 Derrida vs. Lacan The Curtained Torah To Love the Torah More than God 8. The Critic as Kabbalist: Harold Bloom and the Heretic Hermeneutic 179 From the Visionary to the Revisionary Company The Revisionary Ratios The Revisionary Warfare of Christian Exegesis The Conflict of Literary Traditions: Genteel Classical versus Judaic Antithetical Satanic Criticism Scholem, Kabbalah, and Heresy Revelation and Tradition Revisionary Blindness The Theory of Literary /tifluence and Kabbalistic Terminology Analogical Transformation Appendix to Chapter 3: Rabbi Ishmael's Rules 225 Glossary 229 Notes 231 Selected Bibliography 251 Index 263