Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 541 g
Reading the Talmud
Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 541 g
ISBN: 978-0-691-05920-4
Verlag: Princeton University Press
In a profound look at what it means for new generations to read and interpret ancient religious texts, rabbi and philosopher Marc-Alain Ouaknin offers a postmodern reading of the Talmud, one of the first of its kind. Combining traditional learning and contemporary thought, Ouaknin dovetails discussions of spirituality and religious practice with such concepts as deconstruction, intertextuality, undecidability, multiple voicing, and eroticism in the Talmud. On a broader level, he establishes a dialogue between Hebrew tradition and the social sciences, which draws, for example, on the works of Lévinas, Blanchot, and Jabès as well as Derrida. The Burnt Book represents the innovative thinking that has come to be associated with a school of French Jewish studies, headed by Lévinas and dedicated to new readings of traditional texts, which is fast gaining influence in the United States.The Talmud, transcribed in 500 C.E., is shown to be a text that refrains from dogma and instead encourages the exploration of its meanings. A vast compilation of Jewish oral law, the Talmud also contains rabbinical commentaries that touch on everything from astronomy to household life. Examining its literary methods and internal logic, Ouaknin explains how this text allows readers to transcend its authority in that it invites them to interpret, discuss, and re-create their religious tradition. An in-depth treatment of selected texts from the oral law and commentary goes on to provide a model for secular study of the Talmud in light of contemporary philosophical issues.Throughout the author emphasizes the self-effacing quality of a text whose worth can be measured by the insights that live on in the minds of its interpreters long after they have closed the book. He points out that the burning of the Talmud in anti-Judaic campaigns throughout history has, in fact, been an unwitting act of complicity with Talmudic philosophy and the practice of self-effacement. Ouaknin concludes his discussion with the story of the Hasidic master Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, who himself burned his life achievement--a work known by his students as "the Burnt Book." This story leaves us with the question, should all books be destroyed in order to give birth to thought and renew meaning?
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
Preface
Acknowledgments
BOOK ONE: TALMUDIC LANDMARKS
I. Revelation and Transmission
II. Transcription
III. The Talmudic Masters: The Schools
IV. The Post-Talmudic Period
V. Jurisprudence Derived from the Talmud
VI. Interpretation
VII. Dialogues
BOOK TWO: OPENINGS
First Opening: What Is a Book? or, The Story of an Effacing
Translation
Remarks on the Translation: Legible and
Illegible
Commentary
I. The Two Nunim
II. The Story of the Nunim
III. Dots, Coronets, and Letters
IV. The Structure of the Text
V. An Atopian Text
VI. The Book: The Verse's Beyond
VII. An Open Work
VIII. The Talmid Hakham and the Wise Man: Hokhmah and Wisdom
IX. The Book and the "Manual"
X. Time and Interpretation
XI. Violence and Interpretation
Second Opening: Visible and Invisible; or, Eroticism and Transcendence
Translation
Layout of the Commentary
FIRST PART (A)
I. Architecture
II. Visible and Invisible: The
Contradiction
III. Different Modes of Perception of Revelation
IV. The Parokhet: The Text, the "Trace"
V. New Faces
VI. Confronted with the Text
VII. The "There" and the Name
SECOND PART (B)
I. The Structure of the Text
II. An Erotic Image
III. Eroticism and Transcendence
IV. Eroticism and Prophecy
THIRD PART (C)
I. Invisible Faces
II. The Double Gaze
III. Seeing and Death
IV. The Body beyond the Body
BOOK THREE: THE "BURNT BOOK"
Glossary of Hebrew Words Used in This Work
Bibliography
Index
