other_life
bioconfused
Okay, I'm just going to copy this as is from how I phrased it to another mutual.
For context, this line of questioning was spurred by 1) third's comments on deconstruction as downstream from Talmud Torah and Tafsir 2) Reading a collection of essays by Scholem 3) Reading Joyce and the Jews by Ira B. Nadel 4) Taking up letter permutation and verse-linking as a sheerly meditative practice once again (but still dissatisfied that it never materialises as coherent writing).
"Torah" here is shorthand for the entire canon of the Hebrew Bible [Masoretic, in this case; a perhaps arbitrary but evidently necessary constraint].
If any specific point needs clarification I am happy to do so.
"If every single word [here meaning strictly a three letter shoresh (root), another constraint] in the Torah implies -
-
1) All of its appearances elsewhere in the text
2) All valid words (or phrases) derived by permutation [of which there are 6 of any shoresh, making an 18 letter Divine Name]
3) All words derived by substituting letters for their phonetic relatives [this calls aloud for explanation here, *]
5) All words derived in turn from permutation of those phonetic cognates
5) All words those permutations, cognates and permutations-of-cognates appear in the text
-
Then how has anyone ever written so much as one single cogent and self contained comment on any part of the Bible?
Where does one decide the stopping point for searching out and mapping these resonances between individual words, and start linking the intended meta-level messages [ie, 'creation', 'exile', 'redemption', 'kingship', the Sefiros-as-emanations, Christian typology, &c &c] of entire verses, let alone entire literary units, or discrete Biblical books?
-
Are the limits on interpretation of the Holy Tongue, which is a kind of infinity,
-
a) Immanent to tradition (ie, can one derive exegetical rules by following guidelines laid down as plain-text in, say, the Book of Proverbs, or Pirkei Avos)
b) Self imposed [ie, I limit myself to the Masoretic canon and do not account for the Samaritan canon or different Christian canons - or I limit myself to interpretation of and by the shorashim, and not more complex constructs - and this is arbitrary, and not bound by tradition]
c) Felt through by whim and intuition [the "Do not fret over your words, for the Holy Spirit will give them to you" school of exegesis; or the exegesis-as-play school of exegesis]
-
How, for example, does one interpret the "aur" of "yotzer aur" (that is, "Fashioning light [and creating darkness]") in Isaiah 45:7 by means of another verse with the word "aur" present if there are 157 other verses to choose from?"
* Here are the phonetic groupings of the letters
Gutturals: אהחע
Palatals: גיכק
Dentals: דטלנת
Labials: בומפ
Sibilants: זסצרש
For context, this line of questioning was spurred by 1) third's comments on deconstruction as downstream from Talmud Torah and Tafsir 2) Reading a collection of essays by Scholem 3) Reading Joyce and the Jews by Ira B. Nadel 4) Taking up letter permutation and verse-linking as a sheerly meditative practice once again (but still dissatisfied that it never materialises as coherent writing).
"Torah" here is shorthand for the entire canon of the Hebrew Bible [Masoretic, in this case; a perhaps arbitrary but evidently necessary constraint].
If any specific point needs clarification I am happy to do so.
"If every single word [here meaning strictly a three letter shoresh (root), another constraint] in the Torah implies -
-
1) All of its appearances elsewhere in the text
2) All valid words (or phrases) derived by permutation [of which there are 6 of any shoresh, making an 18 letter Divine Name]
3) All words derived by substituting letters for their phonetic relatives [this calls aloud for explanation here, *]
5) All words derived in turn from permutation of those phonetic cognates
5) All words those permutations, cognates and permutations-of-cognates appear in the text
-
Then how has anyone ever written so much as one single cogent and self contained comment on any part of the Bible?
Where does one decide the stopping point for searching out and mapping these resonances between individual words, and start linking the intended meta-level messages [ie, 'creation', 'exile', 'redemption', 'kingship', the Sefiros-as-emanations, Christian typology, &c &c] of entire verses, let alone entire literary units, or discrete Biblical books?
-
Are the limits on interpretation of the Holy Tongue, which is a kind of infinity,
-
a) Immanent to tradition (ie, can one derive exegetical rules by following guidelines laid down as plain-text in, say, the Book of Proverbs, or Pirkei Avos)
b) Self imposed [ie, I limit myself to the Masoretic canon and do not account for the Samaritan canon or different Christian canons - or I limit myself to interpretation of and by the shorashim, and not more complex constructs - and this is arbitrary, and not bound by tradition]
c) Felt through by whim and intuition [the "Do not fret over your words, for the Holy Spirit will give them to you" school of exegesis; or the exegesis-as-play school of exegesis]
-
How, for example, does one interpret the "aur" of "yotzer aur" (that is, "Fashioning light [and creating darkness]") in Isaiah 45:7 by means of another verse with the word "aur" present if there are 157 other verses to choose from?"
* Here are the phonetic groupings of the letters
Gutturals: אהחע
Palatals: גיכק
Dentals: דטלנת
Labials: בומפ
Sibilants: זסצרש