What Happens When God Invents Language?
EILBERG-SCHWARTZ, HOWARD
What Happens When God Invents Language How the rabbis spun tales in the midrashic world of Genesis Rabbah HOWARD EILBERG-SCHWARTZ ^H^^^eccntly some Jewish literary critics ^^^^^Phave discovered...
...Just as a mule cannot absorb semen (i.e., cannot conceive), so it is impossible for Lot to mix with the seed of Abraham" (Genesis Rabbah 40:6...
...and find the nimr "Adam" '7JA/, C1H...
...The sages assume that the Torah, like language, existed prior to the creation of the world (Genesis Rabbah 1:1, 1:4, 1:8, 8:2...
...But it is always more pleasant to be able to say a word and perhaps to recognize it as one you know...
...Historically, Hebrew was written without vowel marks (and is written without vowel marks in Israel today...
...11 in ilnv was raihci than another...
...The preoccupation with finding thr etymologies of words thus represents an attempt by the rabbis to understand how God consirui trd Hebrew and todisi over ihe dn me moinaimns in i tr.tittu...
...This suggests how important truth is to God, who is also described as "the first and last" (Isaiah 44:6...
...h} one acquired (CJ.V...
...The real point of Scripture lies in the commentary embedded in the text...
...Connections between words are also significant...
...Presumably, some basic words must exist that cannot be broken down further into either acronyms or smaller words...
...But the words that comprise this narrative are linked in various ways to one another and thus force the reader onto the level of commentary...
...Since God generally wants to avoid such an allusion, the other form occurs much more frequently in Scripture (Genesis Rabbah 51:6...
...The 2 is the second letter of the alphabet and thus has the numerical value of two...
...ihamaym represents a contraction of two words, "fire" ('S, WH, aish) and "water" (MTM, D'D, mayim), thus signifying the elemental composition of the heavens (Genesis Rabbah 4:7...
...Midrash is also the name used for the collections of such rabbinic interpretations...
...Here, say the modem critics, the rabbis arc aggressively manipulating the scriptural lexl to suit their own purposes...
...In the sages' view, the divine narrative must be read on two different levels...
...For example, two different words signify separate (HBDL, ^nnn, hibadel and HPRD, "nan, hipared...
...As in the case of English, words in Scripture have alternative spellings...
...We are now in a position to understand the relationship between the sages' understanding of language and their view of Torah, God's teaching...
...In other words, since they share certain presuppositions about the material they analyze, the rabbis and chemists subject their material to similar sorts of analyses...
...Moreover, the 2 is written with two projections, one on the bottom pointing to the right and one on the top pointing upward...
...This seems counterintuitive to us since we assume that language must exist before a text can be written...
...The letters in the word for truth ('MT, DDK, emei), for example, were selected because they represent the first, middle and last letters of the alphabet respectively...
...The inclusion of the n makes allusion to the concept of "exile" (GLWT, rrfa, galut), which implies that Noah was the cause of exile for himself and subsequent generations...
...We can now see how inappropriate it is-to say the rabbis are ignoring God's intention when they manipulate Scripture's language...
...Therefore, by adding or deleting extra elements, God can either establish relationships among words that would not have been operative or rule out links that would otherwise have been present...
...The narrative in question is the story of Abraham and Lot dividing up the land after disputes between their herdsmen...
...The il has two properties that determined its selection...
...Let us look at the rabbis' assumptions about language — particularly the Hebrew language—in an early '4th-6lh century C.E.i mid rash ic commentary on Genesis known as Cmem Kabbah According 10 the rabbis, the Hebrew language existed prior to ihr creation of thr world...
...The word permutations can be seen more clearly without the vowel signs...
...Other properties include the way a letter is pronounced and its shape...
...The seemingly unproblematic level tells a story...
...This understanding easily explains why the scriptural text includes no vowels...
...Two words with different letters but similar numerical equivalences can be substituted for one another in sentences...
...Therefore, along^with the English letter equivalents for Hebrew words, e.g., SMTM, we include the translation (heaven) and the transliteration (shamayim) as well as the printed Hebrew (?W...
...Since language and the Torah existed before the world, it follows that these two creations are interconnected...
...3p, Lanah two worlds," meaning that one whom God prmius 10 reach old agr has merited life in this world and in the world to come {Omrtu Habbah 59:6...
...Cod's comments are embedded in the very language of the narrative...
...What is important in reading Scripture, therefore, is understanding the divine perceptions and comments that are embedded in the very language of the narrative...
...Consequently we recognize no linguistic relation between the words "God" and "dog" even though they share precisely the same letters...
...The interest in etymologies, therefore, represents an interest in language as an independent vehicle for communicating divine perceptions...
...By placing this letter at the beginning of Scripture, God intimated from the very outset that two worlds were being created, this world and the world to come...
...Genesis Rabbah 81:2...
...By the same token, God controls the possible links among signifiers by altering their spelling...
...In writing Scripture, God was in control of all the possible relations among signifiers...
...After receiving the Torah, God instructs Moses to fashion a serpent without telling him what kind of material to use (Numbers 21:8...
...pnx red 10 rearrange thr ihrrc Hebrew letters in thr word "very" (AfT...
...After all, woman was created from man and ii is in Hebrew, not Aramaic or Grrrk, that thr word for woman r.SH...
...In this article we are only concerned with the Hebrew letters contained in words and not with how those words are pronounced The rabbis believed that God gave the Torah in a Hebrew without vowels...
...By subjecting all Hebrew words to linguistic analysis, the rabbis believed they could recover the divine perception of the things or concepts signified...
...In this view, it makes no sense to worry about the author's intention...
...For example, Genesis says that Abraham took 318 men with him to pursue Lot's kidnappers (Genesis 14:14...
...The sages argue that the D is superfluous because God could simply hav>e used the word (YGL,yigaI) to convey the same idea...
...Since chemists and rabbis both share an atomistic understanding of the materials they are analyzing, both perform similar kinds of operations on that material...
...Since this Hebrew letter (n) has a large opening at its base, it indicates that the dead descend to the netherworld...
...The assumption that God created Hebrew mrans that thr composition of and intr......ncit 1 Dili .uiKPiiy words ,tir necessarily significant...
...The vocalization of a word is another property that derives from its elemental structure...
...Since they believe God created language, their analysis of it attempts to discern the divine motivations that led God to create it this way and not another...
...In attributing an atomistic understanding of languages to the sages, I am suggesting that they had no conception of roots or stems at all...
...The very idea of vowel notation is incompatible with the sages' assumption that God created language out of consonants...
...The shape of the 2 is 4also significant...
...rn, ubah/ is elymo-logkallv related 10 the word for man ' trt<, uA...
...According to Genesis Rabbah, the text actually means that Abraham took only his servant Eliezer with him, for the numerical value of Eliezer's name is 318 (Genesis Rabbah 43:2...
...Since one reads Hebrew from right to left, the configuration of this letter indicates that one is permitted to investigate what comes after creation (i.e., toward the left), but not what was before creation (i.e., toward the right...
...In creating language, therefore, God intended all interconnections among signifiers to be meaningful...
...As noted above, the letters SMTM (?,DB>, shamayim) allude to the heaven's elemental composition out of water (MTM, D'D, mayim) and fire ('S, E>K, aish...
...55, No...
...L'ndrrslatiding how Hebrew is consl rutted enables one 10 gain arress to divinr perceptions of the world...
...Therefore, the vowels have always been ignored in midrashic interpretations...
...Since letters of the Hebrew alphabet signify a number, one can also calculate a total number for every word...
...Moreover, the smaller gap in its side suggests that an opportunity always remains open for repentance...
...According to post-structuralist literary theory, every text can be understood in many equally valid ways, each informed by its own set of assumptions...
...The text both tells a story and explicates that story...
...This technique limm 1 In- basis l'ii 1 Ke following interpret a I ion God saw all that w» fashioned and behold HrAim 7M/, CtM) was good (Gnviu Habbah B 5 By transforming thr word "very" into "Adam," God's pronouncement that "it is good" is directed specifically, to the creation of humankind, noi lo creation in its entirety...
...What Happens When God Invents Language How the rabbis spun tales in the midrashic world of Genesis Rabbah HOWARD EILBERG-SCHWARTZ ^H^^^eccntly some Jewish literary critics ^^^^^Phave discovered that the ancient ^^^^T rabbis who produced midrashic* elaborations of Scripture actually presaged contemporary developments in literary criticism.1 These Jewish literary critics claim that the aggressive way the rabbis manipulated texts demonstrates that they subscribed to an understanding of textual interpretation that strikingly resembles 20th-century post-structuralist literary theory...
...For further details, see Howard Eilberg-Schwarlz, "Who's Kidding Whom?: A Serious Reading of Rabbinic Word-Plays," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol...
...This is why they were willing to divide words into smaller words and to connect words that share the same letters even though the order of those letters is reversed...
...The divine Author, however, intended scriptural words to evoke all the links that had been encoded in language and, consequently, did not include vowel notation...
...Words share the same consonants because God intended for humans to understand a connection between the concepts those words signify...
...When two words share one pronunciation, one can substitute them for one another in certain sentences...
...The symbol ['] is the scholarly convention to transliterate the letter aleph [X...
...The Hebrew word for "heaven" is a case in point...
...According to these Jewish literary critics, the ancient rabbis' interpretive strategies take for granted these guiding assumptions of post-structuralist literary theory...
...In the sages' view, therefore, the Author of Scripture took account not only of the already existing linguistic connections but specifically designed new ones to fit certain narrative contexts...
...For example, the word ' 'let there be" (THT, TP, yehi), the command God gave in creating the world, is composed of only two Hebrew letters (n and ¦>) in order to signify that God created two worlds, this one and the world to come...
...But a molecular understanding of language makes the order of letters irrelevant...
...God must have spoken Hebrew in creating man and woman {(irntiu Habbah 18:4...
...Genesis states that, after six days, when God finished creating the world, God "saw all that was fashioned and it was very (M'D,** 7ND, pronounced mi'od***) good" (Genesis 1:31...
...It follows that a proper interpretation of Scripture is impossible unless one seeks readings that rely on the various sorts of linguistic transformations I have discussed...
...Given the sages' assumptions about language, one could presumably determine why various words were composed of the same letters...
...Indeed, in some cases God fashioned a single word so that it would simultaneously allude to several other concepts...
...The letters sin (!!>) and samech (D) are pronounced identically...
...The activity of interpreting a text, therefore, is not a passive experience of letting the text speak, but a creative and even aggressive act of making the text mean something...
...In the same way that chemists analyze matter, the rabbis analyze the molecular structure of language and attempt to understand how and why language takes the form in which we have it...
...Thr sagrs assume that God used thr Hebrew language in creating the world...
...1 See, for example, Susan Handelman, The Slayers of Moses, Jose Faur, Golden Doves with Silver Dots, and Geoffrey Hartman and Sanford Budick, eds., Midrash and Literature...
...The sages conclude that that form of the word is used only when God wants to elicit the concept of a mule...
...Not only is it impossible to say what the author originally meant, but that meaning, even if it could be determined, would not do justice to the endless possible readings that a text can sustain...
...Each letter, like the elements of the periodic chart of chemical elements, has an atomic number or value by virtue of its position in the alphabet...
...Jl H If Hebrew pre-existed thr world, then it was obviously (Jod— and not humans— who created this language...
...The other projection points backward toward the first letter of the alphabet, the aleph (V), which is the first letter of the word "Lord...
...Interpreters of rabbinic literature have always taken for granted that the rabbis correctly understood Hebrew words as having three-letter stems...
...this is why the rabbis say that the patriarchs were able to study it (Genesis Rabbah 63:6...
...But why did God select the elements ~ (heh) and 1 (yod) in particular...
...The assumption that God created language led the sages to adopt what I call a molecular theory of language...
...In the sages* view, God formrd Hebrew-words in one of two ways...
...When Abraham says to Lot "separate yourself," a sensitive reader detects an implied comparison between Lot and a mule...
...According to the rabbis, each letter (element) of the Hebrew alphabet has certain properties that explain why it is present in particular words (molecules...
...Words that share the same molecular formula are related to one another independently of the structure in which the elements are connected...
...It signifies that the creator is Lord ('DWN, p-lK, adon) (Genesis Rabbah 1:10...
...Since the n is an aspirate and requires no effort to pronounce, it signifies how effortlessly God ^ created the world (Genesis Rabbah 12:10...
...Second, ihr sagrs assume I ha I God constructed some words oul of smaller words...
...Words were chosen with care to allow only certain acceptable readings to emerge...
...If an interpretation departs from the surface meaning of Scripture, that is because the surface meaning is only the superficial meaning...
...At some point, one might even get back to those first words and understand why they comprised certain letters rather than others...
...But even in these cases, the words are not understood as arbitrary designations for ideas...
...For example, the word for heaven (.SAfJ'Af...
...By reflecting on the fact that the word "snake" (NHS, BTU, nachash) and "copper" (NHST, ntSTtf, nichoshet) share the same letters, Moses realizes that God intends the snake to be made of copper (Genesis Rabbah 31:8...
...The sages assume that God actually created certain words with the text of Scripture already in mind...
...This Hebrew letter is bounded on all sides except the left...
...Similarly, the properties of the letter 2 (bel) made it the most appropriate element to serve as the first letter of Genesis...
...But the sages assume that the creation of language and text occurred simultaneously...
...But with the decline of Hebrew as a spoken language, vowel symbols became necessary and at least two different vowel systems were developed between the seventh and tenth centuries C.E...
...The rabbis • Midrash is a style of interpreting Scripture to bring out its lessons...
...That nuance would have been unavailable to the reader had the n not been added to the word (Genesis Rabbah 36:4...
...Consequently, some words, despite differences in composition, share the property of being pronounced alike...
...A divine commentary to the narrative is encoded at the linguistic level within the narrative itself...
...The use of such techniques shows how littlr inicrrst the rabbis had in the Author's inlenlion...
...The rabbis believe, moreover, that the Torah already had linguistic formulation from the very beginning...
...The one pointed upward is directed toward heaven and signifies that God is the creator...
...answered Job out of the storm (Job 38:1), one can make a substitution...
...Moses-himself is said to have understood this principle...
...The word "storm" (S'RH,* TTWD, si'arah), for example, has the same pronunciation as the word "hair" (S'RH, mutf, si'arah...
...There was a reason that particular letters were chosen to comprise these original words...
...All of these characteristics determine whether a letter will form part of a given molecule...
...Some words represent divinr acrostics For example, thr word for "elder" or "old" I.C(?V l?t, zaknt) is understood as an acrostic that signifies "this !"tt...
...Thus, when it is reported that God * The symbol ['] is the scholarly convention to transliterate the letter ayin [S...
...Consider an example...
...It is molecular in the sense that the sages treat words as molecules that are constructed out of more basic elements (letters...
...But only the latter shares the same consonants with the word "mule" (PRDH, rms, piredah...
...Since the links among words are based on their consonantal (i.e., molecular) structure, the addition of vowels to the scriptural text would have intimated that a word has only one interpretation...
...We understand words as being related when they share a certain number of basic letters and those letters are linked together in the same order...
...This view of the rabbis' interpretive undertaking is seriously flawed It ignores basic assumptions aboul the origin and character of language that inform ihr r.itilin' midrashn interpretations When these assumptions arc understood, the rabbis' manipulations of scriptural words can be seen as reasonable and straightforward attempts to understand ihr Author's intention...
...In at least one narrative context, however, God used the particular term for "separate" that would evoke the concept of a mule...
...TK5...
...Not only, as I said, does its easy pronunciation signify how effortlessly God created the world, but its configuration or shape also makes it appropriate...
...In describing the results of Noah's drunkenness, Genesis says that Noah was uncovered or naked (TTGL, yilgal) (Genesis 9:21...
...Pronunciation came easily to those who spoke the language...
...God is revealed in a person's hair, expressing the paradox that although God fills the earth, God also can be revealed in a person's hair (i.e., a very small place) (Genesis Rabbah 4:4...
...Similarly, the word "Let there be" (THT, TP, yehi), which was the word God used in creating the world, has "n" (heh) as its basic letter...
...They are not, therefore, suspending the rules of the Hebrew language when they manipulate Scripture's words but are seeking to understand the divine perceptions that can be recovered through linguistic analysis...
...These moves appear absurd to anyone who thinks of language as having stems, because the notion of a stem has an element of linearity built into it...
...The Y ('), the rabbis said, was selected for its curved configuration, which suggests that the wicked will not walk erect (Genesis Rabbah 12:10...
...Why does the Bible begin with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet...
...The rabbis' linguistic operations make sense given their understanding of Hebrew's divine origin and its molecular composition...
...The activity of chemists provides an illuminating analogy for understanding the rabbinic method of handling language...
...But, in addition, God intended the word to suggest that heaven evaluates (SMTM, O'W, shamim) human deeds, that its mysterious qualities would astonish (MSTWMMTM, UViavwn, mishtomimim) people, and that it would change colors like the elements (SMTM, D'BD, samim) (Genesis Rabbah 4:7...
...4 (Winter 1987...
Vol. 14 • August 1989 • No. 5
