Psalms In/On Jerusalem 9783110336917, 9783110460803, 9783110459296, 2018956631

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Myth and Mimesis in the Psalm of Jonah
His Highness: God’s Voice and the Autoimmune in Two Royal Psalms
“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Walls of Jerusalem”: A Late Antique Hebrew Elegy on the Destruction of Jerusalem
Oral Tales and Written Truth in the Early Reception History of LXX Psalm 118(119)
David and Jerusalem: From Psalms to the Zohar
The Voice of the Psalmist: On the Performative Role of Psalms in Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem
Rosenzweig’s Reading of Psalm 115: The Gruesome “We”
Paul Celan, the Last Psalmist
“By the Waters of Babylon”: The Amnesia of Memory
Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)
Notes on Contributors

Citation preview

Psalms In/On Jerusalem

Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts

Edited by Vivian Liska Editorial Board Robert Alter, Steven E. Aschheim, Richard I. Cohen, Mark H. Gelber, Moshe Halbertal, Christine Hayes, Moshe Idel, Samuel Moyn, Ada Rapoport-Albert, Alvin Rosenfeld, David Ruderman, Bernd Witte

Volume 9

Psalms In/On Jerusalem Edited by Ilana Pardes and Ophir Münz-Manor

ISBN 978-3-11-033691-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-046080-3 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-045929-6 ISSN 2199-6962 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956631 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Ephraim Moses Lilien, born Galicia (1874–1925), By the Waters of Babel, Etching, 1910, 340 x 585 mm, The Israel Museum, Gift of the Lilien Family, Rehovot, Reg.no.4798.3.78; photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Preface Hallelujah. Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise in the faithful’s assembly. . . Let them praise His name in dance, on the timbrel and lyre let them hymn to Him. – Psalm 1491

I begin with a quotation from the Book of Psalms – granting the first note to the grand ancient text around which this volume revolves. Psalm 149 calls for the creation of an exhilarating “new song” of praise – “Sing to the Lord a new song” [shir hadash] – thus highlighting the aesthetic project at stake, the psalmist’s work of art. But the composing of songs in Psalms is not set in a void. The cherished site which serves as inspiration for the psalmist is the Temple of Jerusalem. Many psalms are presented as liturgical songs sung in processions of pilgrims ascending to the Temple or as songs sung by the Levites’ choir, with musical accompaniment, at the Temple. Psalms In/On Jerusalem sets out to explore the ways in which Jerusalem is represented in Psalms – from its position in the context of liturgical and pilgrim songs to its role as metaphor. Jerusalem in the Book of Psalms is multifaceted. It is the site of scenes of redemption, joy, and celebration of the proximity to God and the house of the Lord. But it is also the quintessential locus of loss, marked by cries over the devastating destruction of the Temple. And these two antithetical poles of Jerusalem are expressed in both personal terms (even confessional at times) as well as within a collective framework. Psalms In/On Jerusalem begins with an exploration of the mythical bent in the representation of Jerusalem in Jonah’s psalm (Ronald Hendel) and moves on to discuss the authorial voice of God as it is revealed on the Temple Mount (Ariel Zinder). The bulk of the articles are devoted to questions of reception, to the ways in which the geographies of the Book of Psalms have travelled across their native bounds and entered other historical settings, acquiring new forms and meanings – from the liturgical poetry of late antiquity (Ophir Münz-Manor) to the early reception of the Septuagint translation of Psalm 119 (Jonathan Stavsky), the Zoharic perception of David as Psalmist (Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel), the performative role of Psalms in Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem (Yael Sela-Teichler),

1 All translations here are from Robert Alter’s The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Com­ mentary (New York: Norton, 2007). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-201

VI 

 Preface

Rosenzweig’s reading of Psalm 115 (Leora Batnitzky), modern poetic renditions by Paul Celan (Vivian Liska), and Yehuda Amichai (Sidra Dekoven-Ezrahi). This book has its beginnings in a conference titled “Psalms in/on Jerusalem: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Hermeneutics” that was held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in June 2015. The conference was part of a collaborative research project on “Aesthetics, Ethics, and Hermeneutics” between the University of Antwerp, the Hebrew University, and Princeton University. I am grateful to my fellow travelers – Vivian Liska and Leora Batnitzky – for their invaluable support. The conference was supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1798/12). Special thanks go to Richard Cohen, the academic director of the I-CORE of Daat HaMakom, for his generosity, encouragement, and thoughtful suggestions all along, and to Anat Reches, the administrative director. I am, as always, indebted to my research assistant, Miri Avissar, for her superb work. This conference was also sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am delighted that it was part of the inaugural events of the new Mandel building and am grateful to Israel Yuval, the Mandel School’s academic director, for his ongoing support and to the administrative team, Ira Dostov and Shiri Azulai, for their help. I greatly appreciate Ophir Münz-Manor’s willingness to join me as co-editor of this volume. And on behalf of both of us, I wish to thank Jeremy Schreiber for his much appreciated editing. Heartfelt thanks go to Vivian Liska, the general editor of Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts, for the invitation to publish these conference papers in book form and for her unstinting belief in this project. Ilana Pardes Jerusalem, 2018

Contents Preface 

 V

Ronald Hendel Myth and Mimesis in the Psalm of Jonah 

 1

Ariel Zinder His Highness: God’s Voice and the Autoimmune in Two Royal Psalms 

 11

Ophir Münz-Manor “Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Walls of Jerusalem”: A Late Antique Hebrew Elegy on the Destruction of Jerusalem   27 Jonathan Stavsky Oral Tales and Written Truth in the Early Reception History of LXX Psalm 118(119)  43 Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel David and Jerusalem: From Psalms to the Zohar 

 67

Yael Sela The Voice of the Psalmist: On the Performative Role of Psalms in Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem   109 Leora Batnitzky Rosenzweig’s Reading of Psalm 115: The Gruesome “We”  Vivian Liska Paul Celan, the Last Psalmist 

 135

 143

Sidra Dekoven Ezrahi “By the Waters of Babylon”: The Amnesia of Memory 

 153

Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)  Notes on Contributors 

 189

 165

Ronald Hendel

Myth and Mimesis in the Psalm of Jonah Not all the psalms of Jerusalem are in the book of Psalms. One of the most eloquent is a prayer by the wayward prophet Jonah in Jonah 2:3–10. After being swallowed at Yahweh’s command by a “big fish,” Jonah utters a psalm of thanksgiving from the belly of the beast. By the end of the psalm, however, Jonah seems to be in Jerusalem, offering a thanksgiving sacrifice at the temple. According to the rhetoric of the psalm, he is “semiotically” in Jerusalem, even as the fish turns to vomit him out at Nineveh. The situation of the speaker complicates the temporal and spatial dynamics (what Bakhtin calls the “chronotope”) of this psalm of Jerusalem (Bakhtin 1981, 85–258).1 In the following I will explore these complications, beginning with the mythic resonances of the psalm’s imagery, and then describing how the psalm translates the myth into a poetic narrative of the individual’s trouble and rescue. Through the mimetic resources of the psalm of thanksgiving, the myth is refocused from the cosmos to the microcosm and from primeval to present time. The interplay between myth and mimesis is basic to the expressive power of the psalm and to the semantics of its “floating” signifiers, which are transferable from Jerusalem to the belly of a whale, and from everyman (and everywoman) to Jonah. In the afterlife of this psalm, its signifiers expand to include other protagonists – notably, Jesus and other messiahs – as the mythic tropes are remythologized. The signifiers of the psalm describe new concepts of apocalyptic trouble and rescue as its chronotope expands to new configurations of time and space. The psalm’s Nachleben – and that of other psalms of Jerusalem – mingles with another kind of afterlife. The following translation arranges the poem according to its formal structure, which is based on the poetic line and organized by poetic parallelism.2 Each line consists of two parallel versets, forming a couplet. The larger sense units (or stanzas) consist of two poetic lines (viz. two couplets), which have various kinds of parallelism between them. The sole exception is the middle stanza,

1 Bakhtin emphasizes that chronotopes are “generically typical” and “plot-generating” (251), both of which are pertinent to Jonah’s psalm, as we will see. 2 On the terminology – line, verset, couplet, triplet, and stanza – I am drawing on Alter (2011, 8); Harshav (2014, 42–44) and Dobbs-Allsopp (2015, 20–29). Dobbs-Allsopp uses “line” where I use “verset” (following Alter and Harshav). These are analytical terms, not native terms, so differences of usage are unremarkable. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-001

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 Ronald Hendel

which has a third parallel verset at its middle, forming a triplet. This stanza formally and rhetorically marks the extremity of the crisis, which thereafter turns (the peripeteia, reversal of circumstance) towards its resolution, Yahweh’s rescue and the sufferer’s ceremonial thanksgiving. I called out from my trouble To Yahweh, and He answered me. From the belly of Sheol I cried out, You heard my voice. 2:3

You flung me into the depth in the heart of the sea, And the river surrounded me. All your breakers and waves Streamed over me. 4

And I thought: I am cast out from before Your eyes. Yet again will I look On Your holy temple?3

5

Water lapped about me to the neck, The deep surrounded me, Seaweed was bound round my head. 7 To the roots of the mountains I went down – The underworld’s bolts against me forever. 6

But you raised my life from the Pit, O Yahweh my God. 8 As my life-breath grew faint within me, Yahweh did I remember. And my prayer came to You, To Your holy temple. 9 Those who rely on vaporous lies Will abandon their mercy.4 But I, with a voice of thanksgiving, Let me sacrifice to You. What I vowed let me pay. Rescue is Yahweh’s. 10

3 Although I have translated this line as a question, it could be a declarative or optative sentence, “Yet again I will look / On your holy temple.” 4 This is a difficult line. I assume it refers to the wicked abandoning the favor of Yahweh’s mercy (‫ ;)חסד‬see: Barré (1991, 237–248); Sasoon (1990, 194–199); On the poetic form, see also: Trible (1994, 160–173); Simon (1999, 15–25).

Myth and Mimesis in the Psalm of Jonah 

 3

Myth: The Conflict of Order and Chaos The conceptual background of this psalm, what we may call its implicit metaphysics, relies on a basic tension between life and death. As Johannes Pedersen observes, this conceptual dichotomy is manifested in the spatial structure of the cosmos: The Israelitic conception of the universe is an expression of the conflict between life and death, or, rather, the fight for life against death. The land of life lies in the centre, on all hands surrounded by the land of death. The wilderness lies outside, the realm of death and the ocean below, but they send in their tentacles from all sides, and make the world a mixture of life and death, of light and darkness. (Pedersen 1926, 1:470)

In this cosmic topology, the contrast between center and periphery is aligned with a series of complementary oppositions: center life order health friend blessing civilization Jerusalem land earth presence of God

periphery death chaos disease enemy curse wilderness foreign lands ocean underworld hidden from God

The Jerusalem temple is the central point, the axis of the cosmic center, from which all blessing, life, health, etc., flow. The world is constituted by the network of these opposing fields. As Pedersen and others have emphasized, these oppositions are not set in a static structure. The world is “a mixture of life and death, of light and darkness,” it is in a state of dialectical and periodic struggle. The dynamic nature of the clash of chaos and order provides the conceptual backdrop for the myths that narrativize this conflict, shaping this tension into a paradigm in which order prevails over chaos. I use the word “myth” to refer to (in Alan Dundes’s definition) “sacred narrative[s] explaining how the world or humans came to be in their present form” (Dundes 1988, 1). The myths situate this victory in primeval times and features divine protagonists who ultimately create the conditions of the human world.

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The myths of the conflict of order and chaos from Israel’s cultural context include the Canaanite myth of Baal’s conflicts with Sea [Yamm] and Death [Môt]; the Mesopotamian myth of Marduk’s conflict with Sea [Tiamat]; and biblical accounts of Yahweh’s conflicts with Sea [yām] and other oceanic monsters (Tannin, Leviathan, etc.).5 A classic biblical example is Psalm 74:12–15: O God, my king from of old, Worker of rescue in the midst of the earth; You split Sea [yām] with your strength, You smashed the heads of the monsters [tannīnîm] of the sea; You crushed the heads of Leviathan, You gave them as food for the desert creatures; You broke open channels for the spring and brook, You dried up the mighty rivers.

This psalm recalls these primeval events in order to bestir God into action – note the emphatic repetition of the fronted “You” [wə’attâ] to focus God’s attention6 – in the wake of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. The myth of the primeval conflict – in which God prevails over chaos – is a resource when chaos reasserts itself and overwhelms the cosmic order. It is a cultural memory that can be activated to remind God of his responsibility to restore order and to summon hope in the interim.

Mimesis: From Myth to Experience In Jonah 2 and other psalms of thanksgiving, this myth provides a linguistic register and narrative structure for the conflict of order and chaos in personal experience. As Frank Cross comments, speaking of Jonah’s psalm: The manifestation of the power of death, sterility, or chaos may be described as the attack of Sea or River, or as the attack of Death, or as the attack of their agents, including the rivers and breakers of Sheol. Thus the rich poetic language used in speaking of life and death, or of the manifestation of death or danger in life, may draw on images that stem from mythic geography, and, in some instances, democratized versions of Semitic cosmogonic myths. (Cross 1998, 128)

I would qualify this by emphasizing that the use of mythic language for individual experience is not a “democratization” of myth; rather it is a potential meaning 5 See: Day (1985); Clifford (1994). 6 Six times in this quote; see: Dobbs-Allsopp (2015, 21–52).

Myth and Mimesis in the Psalm of Jonah 

 5

that is always available in myth, as when the Mesopotamian sufferer asks why Marduk treats him as an enemy – “in his rage he’s irresistible, a very deluge is his wrath”7 – or when Job asks Yahweh, “Am I Sea or the Dragon [tannîn], that you set a guard over me?” (Job 7:12). The themes and images in the myths of order and chaos are always transferable to the contingencies of human experience, since this is their ground of intelligibility and their imaginative source. In the psalm of Jonah, the speaker is initially positioned as Yahweh’s enemy, whom Yahweh cast into the waters of death and chaos. This is a metaphorical situation – the mythic tropes are the vehicles of the metaphorical transfer of meaning, and their tenor (viz. the actual situation) is unspecified and backgrounded. The “openness” of the signifier is a standard feature of the genre of psalms of thanksgiving, making it at once flexible in application and richly affective, drawing on the vehicle of myth. Psalm 107 provides a poetic catalogue of comparable circumstances when people “cried out to Yahweh from their troubles,/and from their straits he rescued them” (v. 6). These troubles include being sent into exile, lost in the wilderness, bound in prison, and caught in a storm at sea. Illness is another type of disaster that occasions such psalms. Three cases where psalms of thanksgiving are uttered in narrative contexts (as in Jonah’s psalm) offer additional circumstances: Hannah’s psalm of thanksgiving responds to her rescue from childlessness (1 Samuel 2:1–10); David’s psalm responds to his rescue “from the hands of all his enemies and from the hands of Saul.” (2 Samuel 22:1); and Hezekiah’s psalm responds to his rescue from illness: “when he became ill, and he recovered [lit. “lived”] from his illness” (Isaiah 38:9).8 In Jonah’s psalm and other psalms of thanksgiving, the hyperbolic imagery of myth raises the individual’s trouble to a matter of cosmic urgency; similarly, it also raises the remedy to a miraculous rescue. As Robert Alter comments, the mythic language raises everyday misfortune to a “second power of signification, aligning statements that are addressed to a concrete historical situation with an archetypal horizon” (Alter 2011, 182). Hence, Jonah is not merely captive in a whale’s innards, but is, in a sequence of parallel images of cosmic geography, cast into “the belly of Sheol,” “the heart of the sea,” “the deep,” “the roots of the mountains,” “the underworld,” and “the pit.” All these are in the periphery, the realm of chaos and death. In Mesopotamian diction, this is “the land of no return” [mātu lā târi], the land of death (Scurlock

7 Ludlul bēl nēmeqi I.7; transl. William L. Moran, “The Babylonian Job” (Moran 2002, 193); see also: Oshima (2014). 8 On these circumstances, see: Mowinckel (1962, 2:30–43); Miller (1994, 184–186).

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1995, 1886–1888). Yet – as one knows from the myth – there is return. Just as Canaanite Baal revives and ascends from the miry underworld kingdom of Death [Môt], the sufferer is rescued from the depths of the underworld. In the denouement of the psalms of thanksgiving, Yahweh is the one “who raises me from the gates of Death [Māwet]” (Ps 9:14). And so in Jonah’s psalm he exclaims, “You brought up my life from the Pit,/O Yahweh my God” (v. 7). When the psalm speaks of Yahweh’s rescue of Jonah – his restoration from periphery to center – it turns toward Jerusalem, the cosmic center. Jonah’s cries out, from the depths of Sheol, for rescue: “And my prayer came to You,/To Your holy temple” (v. 8). The rescue itself is not detailed; like the initial trouble it is backgrounded. But it is rhetorically immediate, and Jonah finds himself at the temple, offering a thanksgiving sacrifice to accompany his verbal thanksgiving: But I, with a voice of thanksgiving, Let me sacrifice to You. What I vowed let me pay. Rescue is Yahweh’s.

The final scene of sacrifice at the Jerusalem temple, whether imagined or actual, is part of the chronotope of the psalms of thanksgiving. The verbal psalm eventuates in the celebration of Yahweh’s rescue at the cosmic center itself, the source of blessing, life, and right order. The fulfillment of the vow and the sacrifice itself close the loop of reciprocity between the worshiper and Yahweh. Order is restored in myth and reality, as the work of rescue and the celebration at the Jerusalem temple – echoing the primeval victory and celebration of divine kingship (cf. Psalm 24) – restore the proper relationship between God and his human subject. In Jonah’s psalm, the myth of order and chaos is translated into the individual experience of chaos and rescue, and it ends – as it must – back at the cosmic center, in Jerusalem. The final scene is a reciprocal exchange, a transaction of gifts and moral capital. The speaker makes whole the debt incurred in his cry to Yahweh, and Yahweh takes him back into the shelter of his holy place. The mythic plot is, and will continue to be, available. The myth and its mimesis in the psalms of thanksgiving together imply that Yahweh will be receptive to future cries. The “sense of an ending” that holds in any well-ordered plot leaves a possibility for future sequels. The conflict between chaos and order is, as Pedersen observes, basic to the Israelite worldview, and it is never definitively resolved. The psalm of Jonah is reusable by other speakers in other straits, and this illuminates the motivation and perpetual Sitz im Leben of psalms of thanksgiving.

Myth and Mimesis in the Psalm of Jonah 

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Origins and Afterlife of Jonah’s Psalm As commentators have long noted, Jonah’s psalm is imperfectly aligned with its narrative context in the book of Jonah. The praise of rescue seems premature coming from a man still in the belly of a big fish. The final sacrificial ceremony at the Jerusalem temple also seems anomalous. It is relatively clear that this was an independent psalm of thanksgiving, probably sung at the Jerusalem temple, which the author of the book of Jonah reused. The strategy of composition by bricolage is conventional in biblical literature, as in the cases mentioned above of Hannah’s and David’s psalms of thanksgiving (note that David’s is a doublet of Psalm 18). The open signifiers of the psalm make it adaptable to new circumstances. In sum, Jonah’s psalm, in its first instance, is already an interpreted text. The placement of this psalm was probably motivated by the mythic image in verse 2, “From the belly of Sheol I cried out” (‫)מבטן שאול שועתי‬, which transitions nicely from the repeated phrase in verses 1–2, “in/from the innards of the fish” (‫ במעי הדג‬and ‫)ממעי הדגה‬. The imagery of the speaker sinking in the water also makes this an attractive fit. The final line, “Rescue is Yahweh’s” (‫ישועתה ליהוה‬, v. 10), transitions elegantly to Yahweh’s command in verse 11 for the fish spew Jonah onto dry land. These intertextual links facilitated the placement of this psalm, and activated other intertextual associations, e.g., the analogy between Jonah’s descent in the boat in chapter 1 (Jonah “goes down” to the lower deck to sleep) and his descent into the fish.9 The interpretive life of the psalm in late Second Temple times and afterwards continued to exploit intertextual links and the floating signifiers of the mythic tropes.10 The following excerpts – from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and classical Judaism – illustrate these interpretive dynamics. In a thanksgiving psalm from Qumran (from the Hodayot scroll), the mythic language of Jonah’s psalm is literalized – the vehicle and tenor, the two sides of the metaphor, collapse together – and now articulates the geography of hell and the cosmic conflict at the end-time. When the deeps boil over the sources of the waters, and the waves surge high, and the breakers of the water with their noisy sound. And as they surge, Sheol and Abaddon open up, all the arrows of the Pit with their forces.

9 See: Ackerman (1981, 213–246). 10 See: Sherwood (2000).

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They make their sound heard to the deep, and the gates of Sheol open to all the works of the serpent. And the doors of the Pit close against the one who conceives iniquity, and eternal bolts against all the spirits of the serpent.11 (1Q Hodayota xi.15–18)

As William Tooman observes, “Jonah 2:3–7, though a mere five verses, is the largest source” for this apocalyptic psalm (Tooman 2011, 65). Other biblical texts are also reused in this end-time pastiche. In Matthew 12:29–30, Jesus refers to the “sign of Jonah” [σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ]. He interprets this sign as a cryptic prophecy of his own death and resurrection: “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). Jonah’s rescue from the metaphorical realm of death is turned into a signifier of Jesus’s bodily resurrection. The mythic tropes crystallize into the messianic script of the end of days. Jack Sasson has adduced a Jewish amulet from late antiquity in which Jonah’s psalm is rewritten to allude to the mystical vision of the heavenly temple and the resurrection of the dead: Jonah prayed to YHWH: To Him I called out from my trouble, To YHWH, from the belly of Sheol I cried, You heard my voice. I will look on your holy temple. You raised my life from the Pit, YHWH, the god of Israel. I will sacrifice to you and remember, And with the sound of resurrection (‫( … )ובקול תחייה‬Sasoon 1990, 214–215)

A perhaps related interpretive trajectory is the identification of Jonah in some medieval Jewish texts with the resurrected soul or the messiah.12 In the Qumran psalms, the New Testament, and classical Judaism, Jonah’s psalm takes on new afterlives, remythologizing the mythic tropes, and summoning visions of a permanent end to the mythic conflict of order and chaos. The chronotope of Jonah’s psalm expands to include the marvelous events of the endtime – the cosmic battle, the destiny of the messiah, the resurrection of the dead – all of which conclude with a joyful afterlife in the New Jerusalem. The mythic 11 The word ‫ אפעה‬could be “serpent” or “worthlessness.” In either case, it refers to the semantic field of Belial and his minions. 12 See: Ginzberg (1909–1938, 6:351 note 38); Adelman (2009, 210–213).

Myth and Mimesis in the Psalm of Jonah 

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backdrop is transplanted into the foreground, and the wayward Jonah becomes a signifier of greater things.

Bibliography Ackerman, James S. “Satire and Symbolism in the Song of Jonah.” Traditions in Transformation: Turning Points in Biblical Faith. Eds. Baruch Halpern and Jon D. Levenson. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1981. 213–246. Adelman, Rachel. The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe De-Rabbi Eliezer and the Pseudepigrapha. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Poetry. New York: Basic Books, 2011. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics.” The Dialogical Imagination: Four Essays. Transl. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. 84–258. Barré, Michael L. “Jonah 2,9 and the Structure of Jonah’s Prayer.” Biblica 72.2 (1991): 237–248. Clifford, Richard J. Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and in the Bible. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1994. Cross, Frank Moore. “The Prosody of Lamentations 1 and the Psalm of Jonah.” From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. 99–134. Day, John. God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W. On Biblical Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Dundes, Alan. The Flood Myth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. (7 volumes). Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909–1938. Harshav, Benjamin. “Rhythms of the Bible Revisited,” in Three Thousand Years of Hebrew Versification: Essays in Comparative Prosody. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. 14–63. Miller, Patrick D. They Cried to the Lord: The Form and Theology of Biblical Prayer. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994. Moran, William L. The Most Magic Word: Essays on Babylonian and Biblical Literature. Ed. Ronald Hendel. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 2002. Mowinckel, Sigmund. The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (2 volumes). Transl. D. R. Ap-Thomas. Oxford: Blackwell, 1962. Oshima, Takayoshi. Babylonian Poems of Pious Sufferers: Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi and the Babylonian Theodicy. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Pedersen, Johannes., Israel: Its Life and Culture (2 volumes) London: Oxford University Press, 1926. Sasson, Jack M. Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretation (Anchor Bible 24B). New York: Doubleday, 1990. Scurlock, Jo Ann. “Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Mesopotamian Thought.” Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Ed. Jack M. Sasson. New York: Scribner, 1995. Vol 3: 1883–1893.

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Sherwood, Yvonne. A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Simon, Uriel. Jonah. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999. Tooman, William A. “Between Imitation and Interpretation: Reuse of Scripture and Composition in Hodayot (1QHa) 11: 6–19.” Dead Sea Discoveries 18.1 (2011): 54–73. Trible, Phyllis. Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994.

Ariel Zinder

His Highness: God’s Voice and the Autoimmune in Two Royal Psalms 1 Psalm 48 is a song of God, king, and mountain. Early in the psalm the speaker(s) exclaim: “Great is the Lord and highly praised in our God’s town, His holy mountain. Lovely in heights, all the earth’s joy, Mount Zion, far end of Zaphon, the great King’s city” (Ps. 48, 2–3).1 These verses produce a forceful joining of theology, ideology, and topography. It is clear that Jerusalem, with its one mountain and one great king,2 stands at the intersection of a vertical and a horizontal axis. The vertical axis connects the mountain and the king to God’s highness and omnipotence. The horizontal axis is where the splendor and terror of this highness spread to the ends of the earth. There are foreign kings who walk this horizontal plane, thinking they can conspire against God, but who quickly stand “astounded… panicked, dismayed” (v. 6–7) when faced with God’s power. Others, who rejoice in God’s highness and splendor, are encouraged to “Go round Zion, encircle it” and, no less important, “count its towers” (v. 13). They are encouraged to hold on to the high towers of the high mountain of the high God. These Jerusalemite towers are icons of God’s ultimate highness. Their vertical volition tells all that “this is God, our God, forevermore. He will lead us forever” (v. 15). How fitting, therefore, that we met on a mountain in Jerusalem in the summer of 2015 to discuss Psalms in/on Jerusalem. From our vantage point, on Mount Scopus, we could both experience this verticality yet also stand as onlookers, watchers, those who glance not from the peak of the mountain but from a different one, somewhere farther along the horizontal plane. The following essay is, in

1 The translation here and in the following pages is by Robert Alter, as they appear in his The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (2007). It is a unique pleasure to cite this exceptional translation, which is so attuned to the literary and stylistic nuances of the Hebrew text. 2 Alter translates the Hebrew Meleh Rav as “Great King,” the capital K suggesting that it is God who is considered here as the king. Traditional Jewish exegetes such as Rashi in fact address this issue, specifically claiming that the reference to the “great king” is a clear reference to King David. The ambiguity itself, of course, is the most telling feature of this matter. Both notions apply perfectly to the paradigms of royalty and sovereignty that the Book of Psalms relies upon. Note: I thank Prof. Michael Gluzman, Dr. Noam Mizrahi, and Prof. Vivian Liska for their thoughtful advice and comments. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-002

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many ways, such a look from the other mountain, the mountain of skopos, mountain of those who look out and watch attentively. The main theme of the essay is another important part of the vertical axis of mountain, king, and God, namely, God’s voice, descending from up high and fortifying the axis. This divine voice has a crucial function in many psalms, especially the “royal” psalms. Through a reading of several of these Royal Psalms, I wish to point out this unique vertical character of the divine voice, as well as its ambiguous status as a voice which both confirms and disrupts the notion of human royal sovereignty in Jerusalem.

2 When God speaks in the Hebrew Bible, His voice is usually a disquieting one. Rarely does He speak to someone, or of someone, simply in order to agree with that person or to express satisfaction with his or her present condition. Even in those rare cases when He commends someone and reaffirms His faith in that person, it is almost always in order to assign them another task or test, or to promise them some distant future. “I have seen that you alone in this generation are righteous before me” (Genesis 7, 1), says God to Noah, and sends him off to build an ark; “I am with you and I will guard you wherever you may go” (28, 13), God says to Jacob, as the ancient father embarks upon a journey into unknown lands of exile and family intrigue. In these cases and many more, God speaks – voices a command, a warning, a promise – as a means of intervening in the course of events, changing them, thrusting the addressee forward, challenging the addressee, preventing him from dwelling peacefully in the present. No matter how affectionate this voice may sound, it always reproduces and safeguards the gap between the divine and human spheres.3 But how does God’s discourse function in the Book of Psalms? Do His appearances as a dramatic persona in these poems resonate with the same disquieting, interventionist tone, or does He do other things with His divine words? As a partial answer to this question, I will focus on God’s appearances as a literary persona in two Psalms, so as to present a certain paradigm of the divine in the Book of Psalms, but also to point to the inner fractures that this paradigm bears within it.

3 For further discussion on the importance of God’s voice as a constant generation of suspense and expectation, see J. P. Fokkelman’s article “Genesis” in The Literary Guide to the Bible (Alter and Kermode 1987, 42–44). A discussion of the ethical and political implications of such a voice appears in Elaine Scarry’s classic study The Body in Pain (1985, 188–277).

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God appears infrequently as a speaker in the Book of Psalms. Fewer than twenty Psalms contain direct representation of His words.4 These include four Royal Psalms, namely, poems in which “The king is in the foreground. He is the one who prays or the one who is spoken of, or who is prayed for” (Mowinckel 1962, 47).5 Two of these Royal Psalms (2 and 89) include rather long divine speeches. As biblical scholars teach us, these soundings of God’s words may have been performed in annual coronation rituals, and they resonate with motifs from nearby societies.6 For many biblical scholars, this ritualistic grounding has functioned not only as a guide to the recovery of the poems’ original context, but also as a reading and explication guide. For this reason, these Royal Psalms are described repeatedly as acts of restoration and renewal of the Davidic kings’ legitimacy.7 However, from a literary point of view, these same poems can be seen not only as sites of ideological construction but also as sites of the deconstruction of that same ideology. Notably, in so claiming, I do not intend to dispute the ritualistic context; rather, I suggest that the literary readings of such poems are useful not only as evidence of this context, but also as a challenge or potential digression from it.

3 We begin with Psalm 2. Here is the Hebrew text, followed by the recent translation of Robert Alter: ’‫ה‬-‫יָ ַחד ַעל‬-‫נֹוסדּו‬ ְ ‫א ֶרץ וְ רֹוזְ נִ ים‬-‫י‬ ֶ ‫ (ב) יִ ְתיַ ְּצבּו ַמ ְל ֵכ‬:‫ריק‬-‫ּגּו‬ ִ ‫ּול ֻא ִּמים יֶ ְה‬ ְ ‫(א) ָל ָּמה ָרגְ ׁשּו גֹויִ ם‬ ‫יֹוׁשב ַּב ָּׁש ַמיִ ם‬ ֵ )‫ (ד‬:‫יכה ִמ ֶּמּנּו ֲעב ֵֹתימֹו‬ ָ ‫רֹותימֹו וְ נַ ְׁש ִל‬ ֵ ‫מֹוס‬-‫ת‬ ְ ‫ (ג) נְ נַ ְּת ָקה ֶא‬:‫מ ִׁשיחֹו‬-‫ל‬ ְ ‫וְ ַע‬ ‫ (ו) וַ ֲאנִ י נָ ַס ְכ ִּתי ַמ ְל ִּכי‬:‫ּוב ֲחרֹונֹו ַיְב ֲה ֵלמֹו‬ ַ ‫ (ה) ָאז יְ ַד ֵּבר ֵא ֵלימֹו ְב ַאּפֹו‬:‫למֹו‬-‫ג‬ ָ ‫יִ ְׂש ָחק ֲאד ֹנָ י יִ ְל ַע‬ :‫ק ְד ִׁשי‬-‫ר‬ ָ ‫צּיֹון ַה‬-‫ל‬ ִ ‫ַע‬ (1) Why are the nations aroused and the peoples murmur vain things? (2) Kings of the earth take their stand and princes conspire together against the LORD and His anointed. (3) “Let

4 Beyond the two psalms discussed here, one can find God speaking in Psalms 60, 75, 110, 132, and others. 5 The first to identify a group of ten psalms as “royal” was Herman Gunkel. His findings were debated, and still are, especially with regard to the specific psalms that should or should not be  included under that heading. For a concise description of the scholarly debate see: Eaton (1976, 1–26). 6 See, for example, Ward (1961). 7 The discussion by Eaton (1976, especially 129–134) is exemplary of this paradigm.

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us tear off their fetters, let us fling away their bonds!” (4) He who dwells in the heavens will laugh, the Master derides them. (5) Then will He speak8 to them in His wrath, in His burning anger dismay them: (6) “And I – I appointed My king on Zion, My holy mountain.”

The first sound God makes in Psalms is this laughter, this sarcastic dismissal of the words of the earthly kings. They attempt to interfere with the sovereignty of God and king, and His laugh is meant to clarify that their attempts are futile. And indeed, the laugh is followed by an avowal of divine loyalty: “I appointed My king on Zion, My holy mountain.” He is my king on my mountain, God states. As you observe this king, He is saying, do not think you are encountering merely a political, human phenomenon. Do not attack him; he is my representative, immune to attack by force of choice, ritual, and topography – by force of the voice speaking highly of him.9 This powerful statement, meant to present the king as part of the natural, God-given habitat, presents a specific paradigm of thought and representation that recurs throughout the Book of Psalms. It is a paradigm of one: one God, one king, one mountain, all three eternally set in place, in perfect harmony with each other, with no specific task at hand but to remain as they are.10 Although this paradigm is presented within God’s discourse, one is forced to realize, very early in the Psalter as a whole, that within this collection of poems, God’s voice will probably not appear as an unsettling, intervening one, but rather as a forceful affirmation and reaffirmation of the current state of affairs, the current king and royal dynasty, and the current relationship between God and king. In other words, God’s words, as the poet recounts them, serve here as a site of the ultimate ideological strategy: the portraying of sovereign power as natural, everlasting, and simply expressing the truth of the land, like a map corresponding to the territory it details or a dress corresponding to the body it clothes.

8 Interestingly, the medieval exegete Avraham ibn Ezra refers to the Hebrew verb ‫ וידבר‬as stemming from the notion of extermination [‫ ]הדברה‬and not from speech [‫]דיבור‬. Whether or not he meant it, Ibn Ezra shows an astute understanding of the perlocutionary function of God’s speech here: it is meant as a vehicle of violent rejection of all kings but the chosen one. 9 For the near eastern background of this view of monarchy, see: Spieckermann (2010). 10 Alongside the Royal Psalms’ recurrent projection of such images, the so-called Zion psalms promote the same view of the oneness of God, the king, and the mountain. This consistency is especially poignant when compared to prophetic views of such matters. Both Michah and Isaiah rebuke the Israelites for believing that the mountain and its king could not be replaced or destroyed. For further discussion, see: Hayes (1976, 46–56).

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But the Psalm does not stop here, nor does God’s active part within it: ‫ (ח) ְׁש ַאל ִמ ֶּמּנִ י וְ ֶא ְּתנָ ה גֹויִ ם‬:‫(ז) ֲא ַס ְּפ ָרה ֶאל חֹק ה’ ָא ַמר ֵא ַלי ְּבנִ י ַא ָּתה ֲאנִ י ַהּיֹום יְ ִל ְד ִּתיָך‬ :‫יֹוצר ְּתנַ ְּפ ֵצם‬ ֵ ‫ (ט) ְּתר ֵֹעם ְּב ֵׁש ֶבט ַּב ְרזֶ ל ִּכ ְכ ִלי‬:‫א ֶרץ‬-‫י‬ ָ ‫נַ ֲח ָל ֶתָך וַ ֲא ֻחּזָ ְתָך ַא ְפ ֵס‬ (7) Let me tell as is due of the LORD. He said to me: “You are My son. I Myself did beget you. (8) Ask of Me, and I shall give nations as your estate, and your holdings, the ends of the earth. (9) You will smash them with a rod of iron, like a potter’s jar you will dash them so.”

Here God speaks again, or, rather, is quoted by the speaker of these verses, who seems to be the king himself.11 Clearly, the main goal of this second speech is to reinforce the ideological claim of the verses discussed previously. God is portrayed not only as He who mocks the other unruly kings, but also as He who expresses a personal affection to the king himself, and intends to accompany him as he expands his empire until the ends of the earth. Indeed, God literally goes out of His way in order to impress His approval on His listeners: He emphasizes the intimate, familial relationship with the king and the fact that He chooses the king today, and even accords him special power: just ask, and you shall be given.12 And if all this were not enough, God’s words are accompanied by a clear spatial orientation: He speaks to the king as though calling him, inviting him to see things as He, God, sees them; namely from above, from a high stronghold, a place that can allow him to smash his enemies as a potter does his lowly jars. Thus, the transition from verse 6 to verses 7–8 comprises a movement of God’s gaze. No longer mocking foreign kings, God directs His words towards embracing the chosen king. It is also a move from an outspoken God to an inspoken God, a God who commends His beloved ones generously, regardless of external threats. It would seem that these moves would just strengthen the bond between God and His king, would only further fortify the Davidic royal ideology. However, I posit that this move – from outside in, from laughing to stating familial reassurance – demonstrates not only ideological support, but also a breach within this very same ideology; a breach that leads to the apprehension of the impossibility of the identification between divine and earthly sovereignty.

11 Most scholars agree upon the identification of the dramatic speaker and the king. Yet Johnson suggests one interesting alternative, claiming that verses 1–6 are spoken by a dramatic presenter and only verses 7–9 are spoken by the king himself. See: Johnson (1967, 129). 12 This promise of divine assistance is a common trait in the Royal Psalms. See Eaton (1976, 157–165). For a discussion of such promises in their near-eastern context, see: Weinfeld (1993, 222–251).

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The breach appears in what seems to be the most unpromising feature of verse 7. Before God’s words are presented, the king says that these words are accompanied by a sense of obligation: ‫אספרה אל חוק‬. Scholars have offered various interpretations and translations for this curious phrase, all of which grapple with the meaning of the preposition “to.” Though no definitive meaning has been established, in most commentaries, both medieval and modern, the phrase is understood as “I will tell according to the law” or “I will tell and make it into a law.” In both cases, the phrase indicates an effort made by the speaker of the phrase to lend the force of rule, law, or binding custom to the story he is about to tell.13 But a cautious reading of this rhetorical maneuver clarifies that this rule is non-existent, until the king hereby makes it a rule. Thus, ultimately, this move of relating the story to law is not so much an act of obedience as it is one of ideological fortification. The king is not saying merely that he is obliged to tell the story; he is saying also that the addressees of his story will hear it as he tells it, according to his law, his duty. In other words, the king quotes God not as a prophet who succumbs to an overpowering divine revelation, but rather as one who is in charge, in command of the divine voice – as one who expects the divine Word to succumb to his duties, to his law. Thus, the seemingly dutiful proclamation of the king turns out to be an appropriation of God’s words. In this sense, those same words comprise an intriguing example of what Jacques Derrida called the “logic of the supplement.” For it is the supplement, writes Derrida, which holds together these two conflicting notions: a “plenitude upon plenitude,” and a replacement and an appropriation (Derrida 1997, 141–164). Verse 7 in Psalm 2 presents such a supplement, for two complementary reasons: the king wishes to supplement God’s promise with the force of the law,14 and he wishes to supplement God’s voice with his own. In both cases, the added law or voice serves as plenitude and as an appropriation. It serves as

13 As Avraham ibn Ezra aptly summarizes in his commentary, “These are the words of David, or of the poet speaking on his behalf. And the meaning of El Hok is: this which I will tell, I shall make a rule for it to be retold.” Thus he understands the preposition el as meaning “unto.” In most modern interpretations, as well as most English translations, the problematic preposition is simply glossed as “the,” as in the King James Bible: “I will declare the decree” (emphasis mine). Alter’s translation, cited above, seems more attentive to the peculiarity of the original Hebrew. 14 The supplementarity of the law is a matter of acute importance for Derrida but lies beyond the scope of the current discussion. Suffice it to say that Derrida exposes the fashion in which laws are introduced in the name of justice, while in fact “The operation that amounts to founding, inaugurating, justifying law, to making law, would consist of a coup de force, of a performative and therefor interpretive violence that in itself in neither just nor unjust and that no earlier and previously founding law, no preexisting foundation, could, by definition, guarantee or invalidate” (Derrida 2002b, 241).

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the former because readers or listeners are invited to hear their two sovereigns speaking in unison – a King’s voice upon a king’s voice; and the latter, for those same readers are required to imagine God’s presence and promise as dwelling somehow in the only actual voice being spoken – that of the human sovereign. Unlike Rousseau, whom Derrida portrays as acutely conscious of the danger of this paradoxical supplementarity, the royal speaker in this Psalm seems to embrace it in a blindness that only a critical reading might identify. This speaker – this king – seems unafraid to supplement God’s presence with his own, God’s speech with his own quoting activity. Seemingly, moreover, he embraces without hesitation his familial relation with God, as son to father. Any Oedipal anxiety or Rousseau-ist repulsion that may surround these acts is well hidden behind the fortifications of the self-assurance and duties of the king who says, “Let me tell as is due.”

4 I believe more could be said of the personal characteristics of this king figure throughout the Book of Psalms, and especially within the Royal Psalms. However, I will remain with Derrida while broadening the scope of discussion from the personal relation of the king and the King, and address the overall political implications of these relations. To this end, it is useful to introduce a different term, which Derrida introduced later in his life and which was a key concept in his late work: the Autoimmune or Autoimmunity. This term emerges in Derrida’s work from the 1990s onward, used in addressing directly, with great force and persuasion, matters of contemporary political and ethical importance.15 While referring to the autoimmune, Derrida joins Carl Schmitt and others in the investigation of the theological foundations of western sovereignty. Derrida’s unique part in this conversation is exemplified by the concept of the autoimmune. What “autoimmunity” means for Derrida (in the most general way) is the drive, the necessity, of any system – and especially systems of sovereignty – to turn on their own defenses. This breaching of the defense must necessarily happen, Derrida explains (following Carl Schmitt), because sovereignty is always caught in a double bind: it needs to be a blank, complete force, preceding any law or institution, but it also needs those same laws and institutions in order to justify itself. The sovereign

15 For a survey of the history of the term in Derrida’s thought see: Naas (2006).

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is he who must be able to cancel laws and refute institutions and norms; yet he always ends up using those same institutions to fortify his own rule, once and for all. In Derrida’s words: To confer sense or meaning on sovereignty, to justify it, to find a reason for it, is already to compromise its deciding exceptionality, to subject it to rules, to a code of law, to some general law, to concepts. [It is] … to compromise its immunity. This happens as soon as one speaks of it in order to give it or find it some sense or meaning. But since this happens all the time, pure sovereignty does not exist; it is always in the process of positing itself by refuting itself, by denying or disavowing itself; it is always in the process of autoimmunizing itself, of betraying itself. (Derrida 2005, 101)

I suggest that we borrow Derrida’s gaze at western democracy and utilize it in the Ancient Israelite context of the Book of Psalms. Such borrowing is justified by two prominent features of the theoretical model and of the text discussed here. First, as Derrida clearly states, the autoimmune is an inescapable necessity in any structure, most importantly in any structure of sovereignty. Furthermore, the application of Derrida’s thinking to questions of Davidic royalty would seem to be especially rewarding given the Hebrew Bible’s own ambivalence toward questions of divine and human sovereignty.16 Given this ambivalence, it is necessary to perform a reading of these Royal Psalms with an attentive eye to the cracks in the system – cracks regarding which Derrida’s deconstructive technique provides sound methodological grounds. As we shall see, these cracks attest to what seem to be the textual symptoms of an unconscious drive towards the dismantling of the very palace that these poems are supposed to fortify. This autoimmune drive is nowhere more evident than in the two verses just read in Psalm 2, verses 6 and 7. In verse 7, the king quotes God’s birth (or adoption)17 proclamation. By doing so, this king attacks and undermines the foundation upon which His royalty stands, which is God’s ultimate highness, God’s existence outside any system of duties, laws, and interests. For here the king not only speaks on God’s behalf; he also makes God speak on the king’s behalf. Thus, in these verses God does not speak but is instead quoted; He is

16 For a survey and appreciation of the ambiguous stance toward kingship in Israelite culture, see: Eichrodt (1961, 441–442); see also: Machinist (2005). 17 See Weinfeld (1993, 240–248). Weinfeld clearly seeks to set aside any implications of the biological metaphor. Other scholars disagree with such a complete disregard of the biological figure implied, and suggest that it could be understood as a figure that “must be interpreted figuratively against a mythological background” (Botterweck and Ringgren 1990, 80).

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quoted by a human bound to some duty or law; He is quoted as being a father, eternally and legally bound to His offspring; and He allows that offspring to make demands of Him. If this is the God present in this supplemental speech of the king, then in fact that king has unseated the sovereign God who bestows power upon earth. And so it happens that the Royal Psalms are not merely the site of an unusual representation of God’s voice. The appearance of this reaffirming, presentoriented divine voice is neither a mistake nor a curiosity. Rather, it is an outcome of what Derrida calls “that illogical logic of the autoimmune”; it is the only voice that could appear while the king tries to assume the sovereign position once and for all, instantaneously and for an unbreakable eternity. This is the voice of a triumphalist ideology carrying within it, as if stowed away or repressed, the signs of its own defeat.18

5 God’s voice is sounded in another Royal Psalm, the unique and tantalizing poem that is Psalm 89.19 It is within this psalm that the hidden and the repressed returns. For while the breach of the sovereign in Psalm 2 appears only via a critical reading, Psalm 89 provides a simpler case: instead of unconsciously con­ taining the logic of autoimmunity, Psalm 89 offers a dramatization of this same logic. A close reading of the entire psalm is beyond the scope of the present essay.

18 From this perspective, the history of the reception of Psalm 2 in Second Temple literature, as well as in modern scholarship and theology, seems like an ongoing oscillation between the understanding of the construction and deconstruction that this psalm offers. On one side stand those who read the psalm as pointing to the eternal chosen one (be it a king or messiah); on the other side are those who read it as a future-oriented psalm, pointing to the yet-to-come messianic figure. For a survey of this rich history, see: Collins (2003). 19 Biblical scholars debate to this day whether indeed this Psalm should be labeled a “Royal Psalm,” or rather a “Communal Lament.” As the contributions to this debate prove, those defending the royal thesis are also defending the literary and ritual unity of the Psalm, while those who adhere to the lament thesis see the psalm as comprised of different historical strata. While not claiming to settle the debate or even attempting to intervene in it, my present reading does come closer to the former thesis, thus understanding the Psalm as a unified dramatization of a divine promise and its re-examination upon failure. For the proponents of the former thesis, see: Ward (1961). For the latter: Creach (2005).

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 Ariel Zinder

I focus instead on the point where this dramatization is most evident. This begins with verse 20, where God’s voice is incorporated into the poem: :‫ימֹותי ָבחּור ֵמ ָעם‬ ִ ‫ּגִ ּבֹור ֲה ִר‬-‫יתי ֵעזֶ ר ַעל‬ ִ ִ‫אמר ִׁשּו‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ב ָחזֹון ַל ֲח ִס ֶידיָך וַ ּת‬ְ ‫(כ) ָאז ִּד ַּב ְר ָּת‬ ‫ […] (כז) הּוא יִ ְק ָר ֵאנִ י ָא ִבי ָא ָּתה ֵא ִלי וְ צּור‬:‫אתי ָּדוִ ד ַע ְב ִּדי ְּב ֶׁש ֶמן ָק ְד ִׁשי ְמ ַׁש ְח ִּתיו‬ ִ ‫(כא) ָמ ָצ‬ ‫לֹו ַח ְס ִּדי‬-‫א ְׁש ָמר‬ֶ ‫עֹולם‬ ָ ‫ (כט) ְל‬:‫א ֶרץ‬-‫י‬ ָ ‫אנִ י ְּבכֹור ֶא ְּתנֵ הּו ֶע ְליֹון ְל ַמ ְל ֵכ‬-‫ף‬ ָ ‫ (כח) ַא‬:‫ׁשּוע ִתי‬ ָ ְ‫י‬ ‫עֹולם‬ ָ ‫ (לח) ְּכיָ ֵר ַח יִ ּכֹון‬:‫עֹולם יִ ְהיֶ ה וְ ִכ ְסאֹו ַכ ֶּׁש ֶמׁש נֶ גְ ִּדי‬ ָ ‫] (לז) זַ ְרעֹו ְל‬...[ :‫יתי נֶ ֱא ֶמנֶ ת לֹו‬ ִ ‫ּוב ִר‬ ְ :‫וְ ֵעד ַּב ַּׁש ַחק נֶ ֱא ָמן ֶס ָלה‬ (20) Then did You speak in a vision to Your faithful and did say: “I set a crown20 upon the warrior, I raised up one chosen from the people. (21) I found David my servant, with My holy oil anointed him, (22) that My hand hold firm with him, My arm, too, take him in. (23) No enemy shall cause him grief and no vile person afflict him. […] (27) He will call me: ‘My father you are, my God and the rock of my rescue.’ (28) I, too, shall make him My firstborn, most high among kings of the earth. (29) Forever I shall keep My kindness for him and My pact will be faithful to him. […] (37) His seed shall be forever, and his throne like the sun before Me. (37) Like the moon, firm-founded forever - and the witness in the sky is faithful.

God’s voice in these verses sounds similar to the voice in Psalm 2, and once again it is a quoted voice: a retelling of a hearing that happened earlier and which is now brought into play so as to strengthen the king’s hold on the throne. Furthermore, it is a unique re-telling of an initial narrative of promise to which we have access: it is the promise sounded by Nathan to David, according to II Samuel, 7, 4–17.21 The verses’ doubly citational character lends them a reassuring tone: we remember the initial promise and we sound it today as it was sounded before; this imparts a sense that things are proceeding along the right track. Yet, as it turns out, this quoted Divine vow to uphold eternal sovereignty is but a prologue to what follows – an earth-shattering lament, a poem of loss, and of loss of power over both the crown and the land: ‫ (מ) נֵ ַא ְר ָּתה ְּב ִרית ַע ְב ֶּדָך ִח ַּל ְל ָּת ָל ָא ֶרץ‬:‫יחָך‬ ֶ ‫מ ִׁש‬-‫ם‬ ְ ‫(לט) וְ ַא ָּתה זָ נַ ְח ָּת וַ ִּת ְמ ָאס ִה ְת ַע ַּב ְר ָּת ִע‬ ]...[ :‫ּגְ ֵדר ָֹתיו ַׂש ְמ ָּת ִמ ְב ָצ ָריו ְמ ִח ָּתה‬-‫ (מא) ָּפ ַר ְצ ָּת ָכל‬:‫נִ זְ רֹו‬

20 Alter translates the Masoritic ‫ עזר‬by emending it to ‫ ;נזר‬thus, “crown.” Without such an emendation, the translation would be “assistance” or “additional force.” 21 A long interpretive history exists regarding the relations between this psalm and the verses in II Samuel. In relation to the issue at hand, Nahum M. Sarna’s view seems most pertinent. He discusses Psalm 2 as a case of “inner biblical exegesis” and shows how the psalmist adapted it to his needs. Especially interesting is his suggestion that only in the psalmist’s version is God’s promise introduced as a solemn oath, unlike the prose version, which mentions no such oath. See: Sarna (2000, 384).

His Highness: God’s Voice and the Autoimmune in Two Royal Psalms 

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-‫מה‬-‫ל‬ ַ ‫ח ֶלד ַע‬-‫ה‬ ָ ‫אנִ י ֶמ‬-‫ר‬ ֲ ‫ (מח) זְ ָכ‬:‫אׁש ֲח ָמ ֶתָך‬-‫מֹו‬ ֵ ‫מה ה’ ִּת ָּס ֵתר ָלנֶ ַצח ִּת ְב ַער ְּכ‬-‫ד‬ ָ ‫(מז) ַע‬ ‫ׁשאֹול‬-‫ד‬ ְ ַ‫ּמוֶ ת יְ ַמ ֵּלט נַ ְפׁשֹו ִמּי‬-‫ה‬ ָ ‫ (מט) ִמי גֶ ֶבר יִ ְחיֶ ה וְ לֹא יִ ְר ֶא‬:‫א ָדם‬-‫י‬ ָ ֵ‫ּבנ‬-‫ל‬ ְ ‫את ָכ‬ ָ ‫ָּׁשוְ א ָּב ָר‬ ‫ (נא) זְ כֹר ֲאד ֹנָ י ֶח ְר ַּפת‬:‫ (נ) ַאּיֵ ה ֲח ָס ֶדיָך ָה ִראׁש ֹנִ ים ֲאד ֹנָ י נִ ְׁש ַּב ְע ָּת ְל ָדוִ ד ֶּב ֱאמּונָ ֶתָך‬:‫ֶס ָלה‬ ‫אֹויְביָך ה’ ֲא ֶׁשר ֵח ְרפּו ִע ְּקבֹות‬ ֶ ‫ (נב) ֲא ֶׁשר ֵח ְרפּו‬:‫ר ִּבים ַע ִּמים‬-‫ל‬ ַ ‫יקי ָּכ‬ ִ ‫ֲע ָב ֶדיָך ְׂש ֵא ִתי ְב ֵח‬ :‫עֹולם ָא ֵמן וְ ָא ֵמן‬ ָ ‫ (נג) ָּברּוְך ה’ ְל‬:‫יחָך‬ ֶ ‫ְמ ִׁש‬ (39) And You, You abandoned and spurned, You were furious with Your anointed. (40) You canceled the pact of Your servant, You profaned his crown on the ground. (41) You broke through all his walls, You turned his forts into rubble. […] (47) How long, LORD, will You hide forever, will Your wrath burn like fire? (48) Recall how fleeting I am, how futile You made all humankind. (49) What man alive will never see death, will save his life from the grip of Sheol? Selah (50) Where are Your former kindnesses, Master, that you vowed to David in Your faithfulness? (51) Recall, O Master, Your servant’s disgrace, that I bore in my bosom from all the many peoples (52) as Your enemies reviled, O LORD, as Your enemies reviled Your anointed one’s steps. (53) Blessed be the LORD forever, amen and amen.

The complaint is simple yet devastating: the speaker of the poem, the same speaker who quoted God’s promises, now acknowledges that the promise has been broken. What is especially striking in this supplement to the divine voice is the speaker’s honest admittance of the autoimmune within the immune, the breach within the fortification. This reference appears not only in the mere juxtaposition of the promise and the lament. It also emerges in how the later lament rewrites and rearranges the very same imagery that appeared in the initial promise, thereby admitting that those same images actually contain the potential for their own deconstruction.22 This rewriting is most evident in how the speaker treats the imagery portraying the relationship between God and king. When God speaks in verses 20–21, He begins by saying that He found the king, anointed him, and crowned him. These are fairly simple images of a political relation between God, as the ultimate sovereign, and His representative. But God’s (quoted) voice does not terminate there. In verses 27 through 38 it continues, and supplements the coronation imagery with images of a familial, biological nature. In these verses, God’s relation to the king is depicted as an embrace, an enriching of seed, and finally a setting of the king as an eternal star in the firmament. However, when the lament commences, all fatherly or cosmic imagery dissolves, and God’s relation to the king is rewritten.

22 Sarna notes the repeated use of key elements in the various parts of this psalm as clear indication of the presence of “a single creative editorial psalmist” who strove to harmonize its units into one homogenous hymn. See: Sarna (2000, 378–380).

22 

 Ariel Zinder

The God of the lament is neither He who was a father nor He who embraced; rather, He becomes the one who has “broken a pact” and “thrown the crown to the ground.” To be sure, these divine gestures are keenly painful and humiliating; yet, simultaneously, they underscore the fact that the prior images extended too far, not least in venturing too enthusiastically into a binding of God to the anointed king.23 Undoubtedly, the speaker of the lament is in great pain; but he is also, in a way, cured from the attempt to reign in God’s voice and presence for the sake of a specific royal lineage. He acknowledges, now, and after great suffering, that God is allowed to intervene, to remove the crown just as He can put it on, and that God’s voice cannot be wholly appropriated by any human endeavor. This hurtful acknowledgement of God’s ultimate sovereignty (and thus the Davidic kings’ ultimate subservience) is nowhere more obvious than in the content of the requests and pleas in these lamenting verses. Nowhere does the speaker (or speakers) of these verses explicitly ask for a new Davidic king, and nowhere does he (or they) even plea for any human monarch. Their requests are now centered on God alone: “How long will You hide forever” (47); “Recall how fleeting I am” (48); “Where are your former kindnesses” (50). Somehow, through the imagery of the fallen crown, the discourse is directed at the sovereign who crowns, and not at the human monarch whose crown has been displaced. Such a reading of the shift from the promise to the lament and from the human king to God counters a prevalent reading that sees this same shift as a display of faith and trust in God’s ability and commitment to restore the fallen king. The underlying assumption in such a reading is that the discourse of suffering and doubt should be understood – or translated – as a discourse of restitution. As Richard Clifford argues, for example, “The defeat of Yahweh’s lieutenant has thus raised in a most troubling way the validity of his promise never to reject his son. The psalm shows that Israel had faith enough in Yahweh’s creation and commission to David to hold him to his promise” (Clifford 1980, 35–47). This claim has its own ritualistic logic, perhaps of the kind that Victor Turner wrote about in describing the ritualistic humiliation that was a popular phase in rites of passage directed at upward-bound chiefs and governors (Turner 2008). However, this selfsame ritualistic understanding could undergo the same critical deconstruction performed here regarding the Royal Psalms. Arguably, Turner’s intuition about the “translation” of the downward ritual is only partially accurate, and even the ritualistic context cannot prevent the negative, deconstructive element of this downward motion from becoming part of the upward motion as well. In other

23 Ironically, Hebrew prophets address similar allegations to foreign kings. See, for example, Isaiah 14, 3–24, where the king of Bavel is mocked for hoping to become one of the constellations.

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 23

words, the doubtful, sober look at the fallen king cannot be completely contained within the translation. An excess – an overflow of the devastating gaze at the broken promise – must remain, even after a new one is sounded or hoped for. Yet one must acknowledge that Psalm 89 does not go so far as to claim that the ties with God had been severed. Quite the contrary, the last part of Psalm 89 presents us with a sorrowful, hurt, yet honest opening-up towards God. Read backwards from this ending, it becomes apparent that the earlier quotes of the divine vows threatened to close off any possibility of change, of otherness, of an unforeseen event, and that these are re-opened in the lament, as a view to the future, to the great Other which is God – a God that cannot be reined in but can be addressed, wondered at, and hoped for. As Derrida notes in his discussion of the autoimmune, suppressing the initial defense of the body may weaken it yet it also allows the body to accept a foreign organ, an otherness, a future life, which those initial defenses were unable to deal with (Derrida 2002a, 79–82, see especially note 27). This “illogical logic” leads us to the double conclusion, to the double bind and aporia so prevalent in Derrida’s thought: there are no structures which are closed off and totally immune; yet the breach of these structures does not cancel their necessity or deny their recurrence. As Derrida wrote of the overall movement of différance: “Différance does not resist appropriation, it does not impose an exterior limit upon it. Difference began by broaching alienation and it ends by leaving reappropriation breached” (Derrida 1997, 143). This paradoxical conclusion, of a breached reappropriation, seems to be the direction in which these two psalms lead. Perhaps this is how the last verse of Psalm 89 should be heard: ‫ברוך ה‘ לעולם אמן ואמן‬, blessed be He for the time yet to come, the future unforeseen, the otherness we cannot imagine yet.

6 And so it happens that Psalms 2 and 89 place the Judean king in a frustrating position. On one hand, he is the chosen one, the one anointed on the mountain. On the other hand, this king of the mountain is just far enough from God as to allow the repressed countercurrents to resurface and distance him from any eternal, surefooted stand. However, this same frustrating position is also a fruitful one. For the king may encounter devastating questions, yet those same questions may re-open his vital relationship with God. If the king enters these Psalms as one confident of His blessing, His royalty, and His highness, then the disrupting voices that follow in the poems reproach him, but also soften him and open him to otherness.

24 

 Ariel Zinder

And since we began with the notions of highness and a disquieting voice, I will conclude this journey with such a voice. This same dialectic, of those confident in themselves who nonetheless discover otherness and are opened by it, is depicted well by no other than Bob Dylan in a stanza from his “Ballad of a Thin Man” – a stanza offering a sound critique of anyone assuming to fully possess his or her own highness. Fittingly, it begins with someone raising his head, as if that is all the sovereign needs to do in order to figure everything out: You raise up your head And you ask, “Is this where it is?” And somebody points to you and says “It’s his” And you say, “What’s mine?” And somebody else says, “Where what is?” And you say, “Oh my God Am I here all alone?”

Bibliography Alter, Robert. The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary, New York: Norton, 2007. Botterweck, Gerhard Johannes, and Helmer Ringgren (eds.). Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Vol. 6. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. Clifford, Richard J. “Psalm 89: A Lament over the Davidic Ruler’s Continued Failure,” Harvard Theological Review. 73.1/2 (1980): 35–47. Collins, John J. “The Royal Psalms and Eschatological Messianism.” Aux origines des messiaismes juifs, Ed. David Hamidovic. Leiden: Brill, 2003. 73–89. Creach, Jerome F. D. “The Mortality of the King in Psalm 89 and Israel’s Postexilic Identity.” Constituting the Community – Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr. Eds. John. T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005. 237–250. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Transl. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Derrida, Jacques. “Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of ‘Religion’ at the Limits of Reason Alone.” Transl. Samuel Weber. Acts of Religion. Ed. Gil Anidjar. New York: Routledge, 2002a. 40–101. Derrida, Jacques. “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority.’” Transl. Mary Quaintance. Acts of Religion. Ed. Gil Anidjar. New York: Routledge, 2002b. 228–298. Derrida, Jacques. Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Transl. Michael Naas and Pascale-Anne Brault. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2005. Eaton, John Herbert. Kingship and the Psalms. Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series, Vol. 32. London: S.C.M. Press, 1976. Eichrodt, Walther. Theology of the Old Testament. Transl. John A. Baker. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961.

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Fokkelman, Jan P. “Genesis.” The Literary Guide to the Bible. Eds. Robert Altman and Frank Kermode. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. 42–44. Hayes, John H. Understanding the Psalms. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1976. Johnson, A. Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1967. Machinist, Peter. “Hosea and the Ambiguity of Kingship in Ancient Israel.” Constituting the Community – Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr. Eds. John. T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005. 153–181. Mowinckel, Sigmund. The Psalms in Israel’s Worship. Transl. Dafydd R. ap-Thomas. New York: Abingdon, 1962. Naas, Michael. “‘One Nation … Indivisible’: Jacques Derrida On the Autoimmunity of Democracy and the Sovereignty of God.” Research in Phenomenology 36 (2006): 15–44. Sarna, Nahum M. “Psalm 89: A Study in Inner Biblical Exegesis.” Studies in Biblical Interpretation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2000. 377–394. Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Spieckermann, Hermann. “God and His People: The Concept of Kingship and Cult in the Ancient Near East.” One God – One Cult – One Nation. Eds. Reinhard Gregor Kratz and H. Spieckermann. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. 341–356. Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New York: Routledge, 2008. Ward, James M. “The Literary Form and Liturgical Background of Psalm LXXXIX.” Vetus Testamentum 11.1 (1961): 321–339. Weinfeld, Moshe. The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Ophir Münz-Manor

“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Walls of Jerusalem”: A Late Antique Hebrew Elegy on the Destruction of Jerusalem Psalms have always played a significant role in Jewish cult. Some psalms were recited as part of the sacrificial rituals in the (second) Jerusalem temple (Anderson 1991, 15–33) and after its destruction in 70 C.E. they gradually became part of rabbinic, post-sacrificial, liturgy. The most notable impact of the Book of Psalms on rabbinic prayer is the recitation of the hallel [Hebrew, praise], psalms 113–118, which are recited during holidays and festivals.1 Another remarkable instance is the recitation of psalms 120–134, the so-called shirei hama’alot [Hebrew, songs of ascents], that serve as a prelude to the morning service.2 Other psalms were inserted into other parts of the liturgy as interludes, and in many other instances verses from the psalms were interwoven with the statutory text of the liturgy.3 It is fair to conclude that the Book of Psalms had a central place in Jewish liturgy of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Apparently, however, the psalms were inadequate for late antique liturgists, as sometime in the fourth century C.E., in the Galilee, a new chapter in the history of Hebrew poetry began – the age of piyyut.4 Simply put, piyyut is liturgical poetry, namely, poetry that was written as part of the synagogal rite. In fact, the piyyutim replaced in most cases the standard text of prayer, perhaps because the latter had become dull through constant use in the daily liturgy.5 The poetic, prosody, and language of piyyut differ considerably from biblical and post-biblical poetry, although certain features of the ancient poetry found their way to piyyut.6 It is worth noting that the rapid emergence

1 The custom dates to the days of the temple, in which the Hallel was recited during the paschal sacrifice. On the Hallel see: Hammer (2011, 101–113). 2 In fact, the opening section of the morning service is much more complex and contains many other psalms and biblical sections. The historical development of this section is still mostly unknown. See for now: Crow (1996) and Fleischer (1988). 3 On the role of the psalms in late antique and medieval Jewish liturgy see: Brody (2006, 61–81). On the quotations of biblical verses (not necessarily from the Psalms) in piyyut see: Elizur (2006, 83–100). 4 From the Greek word poietes, from which also derives the English word poetry. 5 This is the theory of Ezra Fleischer, one of the greatest twentieth-century scholars of piyyut. See: Fleischer (2006, 363–374). 6 These are the acrostics and refrains that are marginal in biblical poetry but central in piyyut. The metrical schemes of piyyut are much more consistent and systematized than those of biblical https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-003

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 Ophir Münz-Manor

of piyyut and its many idiosyncrasies are paralleled by similar developments in contemporary Christian and Samaritan liturgies and, taken as a whole, this new kind of religious poetry is associated with the new types of religiosity that were developing in the same period in the Near East. In short, the fact that the piyyutim were from the outset written as liturgical poems designed to be part of rabbinic prayer explains their popularity and prestige. From Palestine, the birthplace of piyyut, this new school of religious poetry influenced, in the course of the early Middle Ages, poets from most Jewish centers, from Baghdad through Al-Andalus to Germany and France.

*

This article is dedicated to a literary and ritual examination of a qina [Hebrew, elegy] that dates to the fourth or fifth century C.E. The elegy juxtaposes the lament on the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple with verses from the Book of Psalms and with an extraordinary lament of the signs of the zodiac. It belongs to a special payytanic genre for the Ninth of Av, the fast day commemorating the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. The prayers of the day, as shaped by late antique liturgists, contain special texts relating to the fall of Jerusalem, selected biblical chapters associated with the day, and numerous elegies. The array of texts is attested in masekhet sofrim [Hebrew, tractate of scribes], the earliest manual of Jewish liturgy, which dates to the sixth or seventh century C.E., and reflects the Palestinian liturgical rite. The treatise dictates that psalms 79 and 137 should be recited on the night of the Ninth of Av.7 This selection is appropriate for the annual commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem. Psalm 79 opens with the verse “God, nations have come into your estate, they have defiled Your holy temple. They have turned Jerusalem to ruins” and Psalm 137 famously begins “By Babylon’s streams there we sat, oh we wept, when we recalled Zion.”.8 Besides the liturgical recitation of these two psalms the tractates also dictate recitation of both Jeremiah 14:19–22 and the biblical Scroll of Lamentations (18:4–5).9 As noted, the day’s highlights include recitation of the elegies. The elegy at the focal point of this article was written during the early stages of the development of piyyut, as evident by the absence of rhyming.10

poetry. See: Münz-Manor (2010, 336–361). 7 On the role of the psalms in the Ninth of Av liturgy see: Brody (2006, 80). 8 All English translations from the Psalms are from Alter (2007), unless otherwise noted. 9 See: Higger (1937, 314–317). 10 From the sixth century onwards rhyming became obligatory in piyyut. This in itself is an intriguing fact in the context of world literature as piyyut is the earliest poetic corpus that introduced this feature on a systematic scale. See: Yahalom (1987, 111–126).

“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Wlls of Jerusalem” 

 29

Its author is unknown and the work was transmitted to us in manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah and from medieval Europe. It is a short elegy, consisting of twenty-two verses (the number of characters in the Hebrew alphabet) and a refrain that appears after every two verses.11 Thematically, the elegy presents a lament on Jerusalem by the signs of the zodiac, a rather unusual theme in Jewish texts from this period. In what follows I offer an overview of the elegy, a literary analysis of selected verses, and an exploration of the elegy’s ritual function within the synagogue.

1 The Introductory Verses and the Refrain of the Elegy The elegy is divided into three sections: an introduction (eight verses), the lament of the zodiac signs (twelve verses), and a conclusion (two verses). I will first examine the introductory verses and the refrain, which is central to the performance of the elegy. The first two verses and the refrain:12 Then because of our sins the temple was destroyed And because of our transgressions the sanctuary was burned In the city which is bound a lament was heard While the heavens pronounced an elegy How long must Zion cry and Jerusalem mourn? Take pity on Zion, rebuild the walls of Jerusalem!’13

The first verse of the elegy encapsulates the essence of the entire poem. That is, the congregation acknowledges that the sins of Israel caused the catastrophe.14 The second verse presents another fundamental feature of the poem, namely, the correspondence between the lament on earth and in the heavens. Indeed, the

11 As was customary in the earliest period in the development of piyyut, each poetic verse is divided into four equal stiches, with a caesura in the middle of the verse. Because of technical consideration of the English translation, each verse is printed in two halves, one under the other. 12 The English (literal) translation is based on the following, with some corrections and amendments: Posner (2010, 61–63). Translations by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb. 13 For the Hebrew text, see: Münz–Manor (2015, 37–39). The text discussed here presents occasional alternative versions according to manuscripts. 14 On this notion, see: Schwartz (2009, 3–12).

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second part of the second verse anticipates the lament of the signs of the zodiac that appear later in the elegy. Special attention should be given to the opening phrase of the second verse: “In the city which is bound,” an epithet for Jerusalem based on Psalm 122:3: “a city which is bound firmly together.”15 The choice of that psalm is acutely poignant, as it describes the joy of the pilgrims celebrating the festivals in Jerusalem; in the context of the elegy the verse conveys a deep sense of bitterness.16 At this point the refrain is introduced for the first time. The refrain is a common feature of late antique liturgical poetry (Jewish and Christian alike) and served as a platform for congregational participation in the performance of the poem.17 Moreover, it is improbable that the congregants could have forgotten the phrase upon departing the synagogue. Whether they desired to or not, they would have had to take the refrain with them to bed that night, and perhaps awake with it the next morning. A closer look at the refrain exemplifies its merit in the context of the elegy, the Ninth of Av, and the usage of the Book of Psalms. The first part of the refrain poses a question formulated in a parallelistic fashion, one reminiscent of biblical poetry, with a perfect equation of Zion and Jerusalem and crying and mourning (‘How long must Zion cry and Jerusalem mourn?’).18 The second part of the refrain adds more complexity as it also echoes its first part but in an optimistic key, again paralleling Zion and Jerusalem with a meaningful shift of the verbs, which are now in the future/imperative mode and addressed to God: “Take pity on Zion, rebuild the walls of Jerusalem!” Thematically, the conclusive part of the refrain fuses in a sophisticated manner two verses from the Book of Psalms: Psalm 51:20 (“Show goodness in Your pleasure to Zion, rebuild the walls of Jerusalem”) and Psalm 102:14 (“You, may You rise, have mercy on Zion, for it is the hour to pity her, for the fixed time has come”). Both psalms are highly appropriate in the context of the elegy: the first concludes a petitionary prayer of David after Nathan rebuked him for the Bathsheba affair; the latter, similarly, presents the prayer of a person whom God had deserted and whose enemies chastise him. Here too the speaker begs God to rebuild Zion and reclaim its sovereignty. After the first introduction of the refrain the introduction of the elegy continues:

15 On epithets in piyyut, see: Münz-Manor (2011, 57–60). 16 Interestingly, this verse is interpreted by Rabbi Yochanan in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Ta’anit 5a as alluding to the celestial and terrestrial Jerusalem, much like the dual presentation of the elegy. 17 On the congregational aspects of the refrain see: Arentzen and Münz-Manor (2019); Lieber (2010, 47–119). 18 Here and elsewhere in the elegy the poet uses Jerusalem and Zion interchangeably.

“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Wlls of Jerusalem” 

 31

And Jacob’s tribes wept bitterly And the zodiac signs shed tears The ensigns of Jeshurun covered their heads And the faces of Pleiades and Orion dimmed

We have seen that in the first two verses the lament of the heavens is mentioned; now it is spelled out explicitly. We can also note the ongoing emphasis on the mutual mourning of heaven and earth. Note also the subtle use of the same semantic fields in each verse: in the first it is that of crying; in the second, that of a sad movement of head of face, and the two are also connected by their facial aspect. The following two verses introduce a new theme, namely, God’s ignorance of Israel’s plea: The Forefathers pleaded but God did not hear Children bawled but the father did not respond And the voice of the turtledove was sounded on high But the faithful shepherd turned a deaf ear

This first verse employs familial imagery. In the first half, the merits of the biblical patriarchs are mentioned; God, however, disregards their intercession.19 In the second half, God, now the father, ignores the children, Israel.20 The tension between Israel’s appeal and God’s denial is also highlighted by the depiction of Israel as a turtledove, drawing on the Song of Songs 2:12, and of God as a shepherd, an epithet for God in both Psalm 23:1 and 80:2. The next two verses return to the cosmic descriptions: The sacred seed wore sack cloths And the heavens donned sackcloth too The sun darkened the moon was dim The stars and planets withheld their shine

The symmetry between the celestial and terrestrial is again invoked, even more forcefully, because of the description of the darkening luminaries. Indeed, the elegy presents the destruction as a disruption of the entire cosmic order.

19 The idea that the deeds of the patriarchs and their prayers can affect present reality was known in late antique Jewish culture as the “merits of the fathers” [zekhut avot]. See: Ehrlich (2008, 13–23). 20 On God as father in contemporary Judaism (and Christianity) see: Alon (2001).

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 Ophir Münz-Manor

2 The Lament of the Signs of the Zodiac Upon conclusion of the first eight verses begins the lament of the zodiac signs. The zodiac and its associated signs developed in Babylonian culture (also known as Chaldean) during the first half of the first millennium B.C.E. From there it entered Greco-Roman traditions and, later, in Late Antiquity, appeared in Judaism. References to the zodiac occur in several places in Rabbinic literature, but it is in piyyut and in synagogue mosaics that the zodiac played a central role.21 The elegy is one of the earliest examples of the use of the zodiac in Hebrew literature. In what follows I examine the elaborate descriptions of the lament in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. It is interesting that the role of the zodiac in the elegy is not directly related to astrological issues; rather, the poet uses it in order to demonstrate the cosmic dimensions of the disaster. The signs of the zodiac react, each in its own way, to the events on earth; in doing so, they share their lament with the laments of Israel.22 It is notable that the basic idea of the signs of the zodiac is based partially on the personification of the stars and on the resemblance of certain groups of stars to animals and objects. In the elegy, the poet enacts the personified attributes of the signs of the zodiac and expands them further in order to demonstrate the impact of the destruction of the temple. As we shall see, in some cases the poet makes only small use of the figurative potential of the signs whereas elsewhere they are developed in meaningful and beautiful ways.23 Already in the first verse we see how the poet employs the figurative potential of the zodiac sign Aries:

21 For a comprehensive survey of the subject see: Levine (2012, 317–336). 22 The correspondences between heaven and earth in relation to the liturgy are well established in ancient Jewish liturgy. The most famous example is the qedusha [Hebrew, sanctity] in which the angels and the congregates recite simultaneously the praises of God according to verses from Isiah and Ezekiel. The literature on the qedusha is immense. For a recent survey see: Chazon (1999). 23 Interestingly, the lament has a poetic counterpart, a piyyut for the Day of Atonement that describes the joy of the people of Israel and the signs of the zodiac after the High Priest had concluded the central ritual of the holiday. The piyyut opens with the verse “Then as the priest exited the house of holiness” and it likewise includes twenty-two verses (according to the alphabet) and features a similar rhythmic division of the poetic line; hence it should be dated to approximately the same time period of the lament. This piyyut deserves a separate study and in what follows I comment only on several verses that exemplify its connections with the lament. The piyyut was printed in: Yahalom (1986).

“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Wlls of Jerusalem” 

 33

Aries first wept bitterly For his sheep were led to slaughter

Figuratively, the verse connects Aries (a lamb, in Hebrew) with sheep, his parents. The connection is based on a common metaphoric epithet for Israel – sheep. Moreover, the poet alludes here to Isiah 53:7 (“like a lamb that is led to the slaughter”), hence further enriching the figurativeness of the description.24 Other verses do not develop any meaningful connection between the zodiac sign and the description of the destruction, as exemplified in the next verse: Taurus bellowed up above For we were pursued on our necks25

Here there is no connection whatsoever between the bull and the description of the persecution of the Israelites. In the next two verses the connection is present but rather minimal: Gemini star seemed torn apart For the blood of brothers was spilled like water Cancer wished to fall to the earth For we fainted from thirst

In the first verse Gemini (the “twin” star) is connected with Israel (“brothers”), hence drawing upon the semantic association of siblings. In the second verse the crab is joined with Israel, possibly hinting that water is crucial for both. The next verse presents once more a developed figurative description: The heavens trembled at Leo’s roar For our roaring did not reach the heavens

Israel’s prayers, called here metaphorically as “roars,” are connected with the lion in the sky who roars because God did not accept Israel’s prayers. This notion 24 In the piyyut for the Day of Atonement the connection between the sign of the zodiac and its earthly counterpart is concrete: “As he [the High Priest] exits, Aries is the first to rejoice / As he offers the continual burnt sheep.” Namely, the sheep in the second part of the verse is the sacrificial lamb that was offered daily in the temple. 25 Some manuscripts bring a different version of the second half of the verse, in which an ox is mentioned, and hence a figurative connection is made. This part of the verse alludes to Lamentations 5:5: “With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven.”

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of God turning a deaf ear was mentioned in the opening verses of the elegy. The next three verses revert to a very simple connection between the zodiac signs and their earthly counterparts: Virgins were killed and also young lads Therefore Virgo’s face dimmed Libra wheeled and supplicated For death was decreed over life Scorpio wore with fear and trembling For we were condemned to sword and hunger by our almighty

Virgo’s verse juxtaposes the zodiac sign with the killing of virgins, a description that appears several times in the Book of Lamentations.26 Similarly, the symbol of justice, Libra, is related to the death sentence inflicted upon Israel. The description of scorpion in the version quoted here reveals no figurative connection, although another version renders the second half of the verse as “for our capturers chastised us with scorpions” (alluding to 1 Kings 12:11, 14). The next two verses offer allusions to the Psalms: Streams of water shed tears like a brook For we did not receive a sign in Rainbow Water flowed above our head But even Aquarius’s bucket left our palates dry

The phrase “streams of water” appears in both Psalms 119:136 (“My eyes shed streams of tears”) and Lamentations 3:48 (“my eyes flow with rivers of tears”). The resemblance between the two verses suggests that either could be invoked by the listeners, although the version from the Book of Lamentations better fits the context of the elegy.27 Furthermore, the first half of the verse is somewhat excessive, as the crying of the streams of waters are described via a simile of another source of water, a brook.28 Interestingly, the sign of the zodiac is only hinted in the second half of the verse: the allusion is to God’s promise to Noah not to exterminate humanity again (in Genesis 9); this promise is signified by a rainbow, which

26 In the piyyut for the Day of Atonement Virgo’s face is also the focus of the verse: “Virgo’s face shouted and rejoiced / when he [the High Priest] purified the spot of Jacob’s virgin [an epithet for Israel].” 27 The phrase appears also in Psalms 1:3 (“He is like a tree planted by streams of water”) but this appearance does not seem relevant here. 28 In this case, a verse from the Book of Lamentations (2:18) is part of the figurative expansion: “Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night.”

“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Wlls of Jerusalem” 

 35

in Hebrew is the same word as the name for Sagittarius. Moreover, it seems that the excessive use of water imagery in the first half of the verse relates directly to the allusion to the flood. In the Aquarius verse we find an interesting allusion to Psalm 137:6 (which, as noted, opens the Ninth of Av service): “Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy,” an allusion highly appropriate to an elegy for the destruction of Jerusalem. Finally, the lament concludes with Capricorn and Pisces29: The sacrifice we offered was not accepted And Capricorn ceased our sin offering When compassionate mothers cooked their own children Pisces averted his eyes.

Capricorn, the goat, is associated with the sacrificial offering in the temple,30 and Pisces, the fish, cannot stand the horrible description of mothers cooking their children as described in Lamentations 4:10 and in many other elegies of the day.31 In terms of the performance of the elegy it should be noted that the refrain was recited after each two verses of this central part of the elegy, hence the centrality of the appeal to rebuild Jerusalem, an appeal which is articulated by two verses from the Book of Psalms.32

*

As the lament of the signs of the zodiac end, the concluding verses of the elegy are introduced:33 We forgot the Sabbath with our wayward hearts God forgot all our merits You will zeal for Zion with great zeal And illuminate the city the once was full with the light of your splendor

29 For an unknown reason, Capricorn appears in the elegy after Aquarius, not before it. 30 In the piyyut for the Day of Atonement, Capricorn’s verse is quite similar in its figuration: “Capricorn gave praise and singing / when he saw Azazel carries our sins.” Azazel refers to the scapegoat (cf. Leviticus 16:8) that the High Priest sent into the desert with the sins of Israel. 31 In the piyyut for the Day of Atonement, the Pisces verse is more developed: “Pisces gave strength and might / when our sins were put in the depth of the sea.” 32 It is notable that the piyyut for the Day of Atonement has no refrain. 33 The allocation of the Hebrew alphabet plays a significant part in the cosmic dimension of the elegy. The entire alphabet is invoked to express the grief over the destruction, as are the mystic meanings of its twenty-two characters, which were used to create the universe. On the meaning of the alphabetic acrostic in a similar context see: Lieber (2008).

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The first verse refers to the theodicean concept from the beginning of the elegy, according to which the Jewish people is responsible for the sufferings inflicted on them by God. Then, in an abrupt turn, the poet turns to God and begs for both redemption and the return to Zion. This final statement dovetails nicely with the refrain, recited here for the last time, as the elegy comes to an end.

3 The Spatial and Ritual Dimensions of the Elegy “By far the most stunning Hellenistic-Roman depiction to appear in Jewish art of Late Antiquity is that of the zodiac signs… Indeed, no single motif in all of ancient Jewish art has aroused more surprise and scholarly attention than that of the zodiac appearing in a number of synagogue from Byzantine Palestine” (Levine 2012, 319). As Lee Levine notes, scholars have long been intrigued by the visualization of the zodiac in synagogues mosaics, as it was a well-known Greco-Roman symbol from a “pagan” culture perceived as alien to contemporary rabbinic Judaism. However, numerous studies in the last three decades have shown that this assumed dissonance was not actually the case (Levine 2012, 319–336; Bowersock 2006). I mentioned earlier that the zodiac is only marginal in contemporary rabbinic literature; however, in piyyut it is much more prominent, as exemplified by the elegy at the center of this article. Furthermore, scholars of piyyut and of Jewish art have claimed that there was an inherent connection between the two, since the piyyutim were recited within the synagogue.34 Several scholars have pinpointed and examined the correspondences between late antique piyyut and Jewish zodiac mosaics,35 and in what follows I will focus on an element not discussed in its entirety in this context, namely, the ritual significance of performance of a liturgical poem that relates to synagogue mosaics. In order to elaborate on the ritual and performative aspects of piyyut, another term should be considered, that of ekphrasis, a rhetorical technique common in the classical Greco-Roman world and which influenced late antique liturgical poets.36 Classical rhetoric handbooks usually define ekphrasis as “bringing a subject vividly before the eyes.” In practice an ekphrasis usually involves a description (in verse) of an artefact, artwork,

34 See for example Fine (1999); Foerester, (1985). 35 See: Magness (2005, 16–20); Weiss (2007, 65–86). For a more skeptical view see: Schwartz (2001, 270–272). 36 For the most updated discussion of classical ekphrais see: Webb (2009).

“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Wlls of Jerusalem” 

 37

building, or the like.37 Despite a gradual decline in its usage in late antiquity, ekphrasis continued to leave its mark, especially on nascent Christian literature.38 That said, one can discern also an impact of the ekphrastic tradition on Hebrew liturgical poems that describe temple rituals, most notably in the poetic genre of the Avodah.39 The Avodah poems describe the cult of the temple during the Day of Atonement and pay close attention to the visual elements of the rituals. Thus, for example, one finds a detailed description of the vestments of the High Priest, the altar, and other ritual objects in the temple.40 Moreover, in rabbinic Jewish thought the synagogue was perceived as a diminished type of the Jerusalem Temple. Seen in this light it is quite clear why the elegy (and other piyyutim that focus on the signs of the zodiac) is a good example of ekphrasis. Nikolaos, a fifth-century author who composed a handbook of rhetoric, explained the importance of vividness to the ekphrastic description: “‘vividly’ is added because it is in this respect particularly that ekphrasis differs from diegesis (narration). The latter sets out the events plainly, while the former tries to make the listeners into spectators” (Webb 2009, 212). Nikolaos’s distinction between “simple” narration and an ekphrastic description fits quite well, I contend, the elegy that brings vividly before the eyes the signs of the zodiac and their cosmic significance. Moreover, one of the salient features of liturgical poetry in this period is its operation as a mediator between different realms. In the case of the elegy, we have witnessed how two sacred spaces (the heavenly and the terrestrial) are joined together and presented as a unity in front of the congregants. In other instances, the liturgical poets would connect the mythical-biblical past to the liturgical present in order to include the congregation in the flow of sacred time.41 Robert Ousterhout, writing about the experience of contemporary Christian ritual in its spatial context, explains that “the interiors of the buildings are treated as microcosms in which ordinary time, as well as ordinary modes of perception, is surpassed and the past is made eternally present through images, through the structure itself, or through tangible signs of empire” (Ousterhout 1995, 76). 37 There is a debate among scholars concerning the definition of ekphrasis in antiquity and in the modern world; see: Webb (2009, 15–27). 38 Two famous examples of classical ekphrasis in a Christian context came to us from the sixth century of the common era: John of Gaza’s ekphrasis of a bath building and the description of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople by Paul the Silentiary. The classical study of the ekphrasis of these two authors is: Friedländer (1912). See also Webb (2009, 31–35). 39 On this genre see: Swartz and Yahalom (2005, 1–42). 40 See: Swartz (2002, 57–80). 41 On the ritual function of late antique liturgical poetry see: Swartz (1997, 152–153); Krueger (2014, 130–143); Münz-Manor (2013a; see also pages 315–319 in the same volume).

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While there are meaningful differences between churches and synagogues in this regard, Ousterhout’s description is relevant to the sacred space of the late antique synagogue.42 It should be noted that the case of the zodiac signs and the piyyutim are but one example of a widespread phenomenon;43 taken together they suggest that the impact of late antique liturgical poetry was synesthetic, that is, words, sounds, and images were combined to a holistic ritual experience. As Patricia Cox-Miller has written, in late antique ekphrastic technique “words and pictures and words as pictures collaborate ‘to produce a hyper-real, sensuously intense experience that goes beyond the limits of both pictures and words’” (Cox-Miller 2009, 69; Cox-Miller quotes Bryson (1994, 273)).

4 Conclusion The elegy I have explored in this article is both beautiful and meaningful, and undoubtedly it holds a preeminent place among the great works of Hebrew poetry. In the context of the Ninth of Av, it emphasizes the centrality of Jerusalem in Jewish thought and liturgy through its continuous presentation of the dire condition of the city and its inhabitants. One of the central ways by which the poet crafts his piece is the use of biblical verses, many of them from the Psalms, as is highlighted forcefully in the refrain. As I hinted at the beginning of the article, piyyut was a contemporary supplement to the Book of Psalms in the liturgy. As the Psalms were adorning the sacrificial cult in the Jerusalem temple, so did piyyut in the new liturgical setting. Indeed, piyyut offered more than that; it developed during an age that witnessed a decline in animal sacrifice and a rise of new kinds of religiosity in general, prayer in particular.44 Piyyut, like contemporary Christian liturgical poetry, often functioned as a verbal sacrifice, namely, stories about sacrifices that are narrated in order both to involve the congregation in the sacred past and to allow the liturgical present to become an act of sacrifice (MünzManor 2013a, 154–156). Naturally, in the case of the elegy for the Ninth of Av, the absence of sacrifices functioned in a similar way. The combination of the Psalms and piyyut thereby offered a poetic representation of past and present, and so it is little wonder that in the course of the Middle Ages piyyut became an integral element of Hebrew sacred poetry.

42 See: Talgam (2010, 75). 43 See: Münz-Manor (2013b). 44 See: Pertopolou (2008); Stroumsa (2009).

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‫ ”‪“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Wlls of Jerusalem‬‬

‫‪Liturgy, like the cosmos, moves in perpetual cycles, and thus the elegy‬‬ ‫‪that was recited on the Ninth of Av in one year would be recited again the next‬‬ ‫‪year, on the same date. The connection between the signs of the zodiac and‬‬ ‫­‪the mosaic would be reinforced on other major holidays in which similar piyyu‬‬ ‫‪tim would be recited. Consequently, this connection would persist throughout‬‬ ‫‪the liturgical years and continue to resonant in people’s minds and bodies and‬‬ ‫‪within the synagogue.‬‬

‫‪Appendix A – The Elegy for the Ninth of Av, in the‬‬ ‫‪Original Hebrew‬‬ ‫יכל‬ ‫ֹונֹותינּו נִ ְׂש ַרף ֵה ָ‬ ‫ּוב ֲע ֵ‬ ‫ָאז ַּב ֲח ָט ֵאינּו ָח ַרב ִמ ְק ָּדש ַ‬ ‫ּוצ ָבא ַה ָּׁש ַמיִ ם נָ ְׂשאּו ִקינָ ה‬ ‫ְּב ֶא ֶרץ ֻח ְּב ָרה ָלּה ָק ְׁשרּו ִמ ְס ֵּפד ְ‬ ‫ירּוׁש ָליִ ם‬ ‫ּומ ְס ֵּפד ִּב ָ‬ ‫ַעד ָאנָ ה ְּב ִכּיָ ה ְב ִצּיֹון ִ‬ ‫רּוׁש ָליִ ם‬ ‫ְּת ַר ֵחם ִצּיֹון וְ ִת ְבנֶ ה חֹומֹות יְ ָ‬ ‫ּגַ ם ָּבכּו ְב ֶמ ֶרר ִׁש ְב ֵטי יַ ֲעקֹב וְ ַאף ַמּזָ לֹות יִ ּזְ לּו ִד ְמ ָעה‬ ‫יהם‬ ‫ּוכ ִסיל ָק ְדרּו ְפנֵ ֶ‬ ‫ימה ְ‬ ‫אׁשם וְ ִכ ָ‬ ‫ִּדגְ ֵלי יְ ֻׁשרּון ָחפּו ר ֹ ָ‬ ‫ֶה ְע ִּתירּו ָאבֹות וְ לֹא ָׁש ַמע ֵאל ָצ ֲעקּו ָבנִ ים וְ לֹא ָענָ ה ָאב‬ ‫רֹועה נֶ ֱא ָמן לֹא ִה ָּטה אֹזֶ ן‬ ‫וְ קֹול ַהּתֹור נִ ְׁש ַמע ַּב ָּמרֹום וְ ֶ‬ ‫סּותם‬ ‫הּוׂשם ְּכ ָ‬ ‫ּוצ ָבא ַה ָּׁש ַמיִ ם ּגַ ם ֵהם ַׂשק ַ‬ ‫זֶ ַרע ק ֶֹדׁש ָל ְבׁשּו ַׂש ִּקים ְ‬ ‫ּומּזָ לֹות ָא ְספּו נָ גְ ָהם‬ ‫כֹוכ ִבים ַ‬ ‫ָח ַׁשְך ַה ֶּׁש ֶמׁש וְ יָ ֵר ַח ָק ָדר וְ ָ‬ ‫הּובלּו‬ ‫ָט ֶלה ִראׁשֹון ָּב ָכה ְּב ַמר נָ ֶפׁש ַעל ִּכי ְכ ָב ָׂשיו ַל ֶּט ַבח ָ‬ ‫ארנּו נִ ְר ַּד ְפנּו ֻכ ָּלנּו‬ ‫רֹומים ִּכי ַעל ַצּוָ ֵ‬ ‫יְ ָל ָלה ִה ְׁש ִמ ַיע ׁשֹור ַּב ְּמ ִ‬ ‫אֹומים נִ ְר ֶאה ָחלּוק ִּכי ַדם ַא ִחים נִ ְׁש ַּפְך ַּכ ָּמיִ ם‬ ‫ּכֹוכב ְּת ִ‬ ‫ַ‬ ‫ָל ָא ֶרץ ִּב ֵּקׁש ִלנְ ּפֹל ַס ְר ָטן ִּכי נִ ְת ַע ַּל ְפנּו ַּב ָּצ ָמא‬ ‫ָמרֹום נִ ְב ַע ִמּקֹול ַא ְריֵ ה ִּכי ַׁש ֲאגָ ֵתנּו לֹא ָע ְל ָתה ַל ָּמרֹום‬ ‫יה‬ ‫תּולה ָק ְדרּו ָפנֶ ָ‬ ‫חּורים ִּכי ַעל ֵּכן ְּב ָ‬ ‫נֶ ֶה ְרגּו ְבתּולֹות וְ גַ ם ַּב ִ‬ ‫ּוב ֵּקׁש ְּת ִחּנָ ה ִּכי נִ ְב ַחר ָלנּו ָמוֶ ת ֵמ ַחּיִ ים‬ ‫ָס ַבב מֹאזְ נַ יִ ם ִ‬ ‫צּורנּו‬ ‫ּוב ָר ָעב ְׁש ָפ ָטנּו ֵ‬ ‫ַע ְק ָרב ָל ַבׁש ַּפ ַחד ְּור ָע ָדה ִּכי ְב ֶח ֶרב ְ‬

40 

 Ophir Münz-Manor

‫הֹורידּו ִד ְמ ָעה ַכּנָ ַחל ִּכי אֹות ַּב ֶּק ֶׁשת לֹא נִ ַּתן ָלנּו‬ ִ ‫ַּפ ְלגֵ י ַמיִ ם‬ ‫ּוב ְד ִלי ָמ ֵלא ִח ֵּכנּו ֵיָבׁש‬ ִ ‫אׁשנּו‬ ֵ ֹ ‫ָצפּו ַמיִ ם ַעל ר‬ ‫אתנּו‬ ֵ ‫ֵק ַר ְבנּו ָק ְר ָּבן וְ לֹא נִ ְת ַק ָּבל ּוגְ ִדי ָפ ַסק ְׂש ִעיר ַח ָּט‬ ‫ּומּזַ ל ָּדגִ ים ֶה ְע ִלים ֵעינָ יו‬ ַ ‫יהן‬ ֶ ‫ַר ֲח ָמנִ ּיֹות ִּב ְּׁשלּו יַ ְל ֵד‬ ‫קֹותינּו‬ ֵ ‫ׁשֹוב ִבים ַׁש ַּדי ָׁש ַכח ָּכל ִצ ְד‬ ָ ‫ָׁש ַכ ְחנּו ַׁש ָּבת ְּב ִלּבֹות‬ ‫דֹולה וְ ָת ִאיר ְל ַר ָּב ִתי ָעם ְמאֹור נָ גְ ָהְך‬ ָ ְ‫ְּת ַקּנֵ א ְל ִצּיֹון ִקנְ ָאה ג‬

Bibliography Alter, Robert. The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary. New York: Norton, 2007. Anderson, Gary. “The Praise of God as a Cultic Event.” Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel. Eds. Gary Anderson and Saul Olyan, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991, 15–33. Arentzen, Thomas and Münz-Manor, Ophir. “Soundscapes of Salvation: Resounding Refrains in Jewish and Christian Liturgical Poems.” Studies in Late Antiquity 3:1 (2019): 36–55. Bowersock, Glenn. Mosaic as History – The Near East from Late Antiquity to Islam. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Brody, Robert. “Liturgical Uses of the Book of Psalms.” Prayers That Cite Scripture – Biblical Quotation in Jewish Prayers from Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Ed. James Kugel Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. 61–81. Bryson, Norman. “Philostratus and the Imaginary Museum.” Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture. Eds. Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 255–283. Chazon, Esther. “The ‘Qedusha’ Liturgy and its History in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” From Qumran to Cairo – Studies in the History of Prayers. Ed. Joseph Tabory. Jerusalem: Orhot, 1999: 7–17. Cox-Miller, Patricia. The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Crow, Loren. The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134): Their Place in Israelite History and Religion. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. Ehrlich, Uri. “Between ‘Ancestral Merit’ and ‘Ancestral Responsibility’: A Chapter in Early Rabbinic Prayer Thought.” By the Well: Studies in Jewish Philosophy and Halakhic Thought Presented to Gerald J. Blidstein. Eds. U. Ehrlich, H. Kreisel, and D. J. Lasker. Beersheva: Ben Gurion University Press, 2008. 13–23. Elizur, Shulamit. “The Use of Biblical Verses in Hebrew Liturgical Poetry.” Prayers That Cite Scripture – Biblical Quotation in Jewish Prayers from Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Ed. James Kugel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. 83–100. Fine, Steven. “Art and the Liturgical Context of the Sepphoris Synagogue Mosaic.” Galilee through the Centuries – Confluence of Cultures. Ed. Eric M. Meyers. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999. 227–237 Fleischer, Ezra. Eretz-Yisrael Prayer and Prayer Rituals as Portrayed in the Geniza Documents. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988 (Hebrew).

“Take Pity on Zion, Rebuild the Wlls of Jerusalem” 

 41

Flesicher, Ezra. “Piyyut.” The Literature of the Sages, Second Part: Midrash and Targum, Liturgy, Poetry, Mysticism, Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science, and the Languages of Rabbinic Literature. Eds. Shmuel Safrai, Zeev Safrai, Joshua Schwartz, and Peter J. Tomson. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2006. 363–374. Foerester, Gideon. “Representations of the Zodiac in Ancient Synagogues and Their Iconographic Sources.” Eretz Israel 18 (1985): 380–391 (Hebrew). Friedländer, Paul. Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius: Kunstbeschreibungen justinianischer Zeit. Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1912. Goshen-Gottstein, Alon. “God the Father in Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity: Transformed Background or Common Ground?” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38:4 (2001): 470–504. Hammer, Reuven. “Hallel: A Liturgical Composition Celebrating the Exodus.” The Experience of Jewish Liturgy: Studies Dedicated to Menahem Schmelzer. Ed. Debra Reed Blank. Leiden: Brill, 2011. 101–114. Higger, Michael (ed.). Masekhet Sofrim, New York: Hotzaat D’vei Rabbanan, 1937. Krueger, Derek. Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Levine, Lee L. Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Lieber, Laura. “Confessing from A to Z: Penitential Forms in Early Synagogue Poetry.” Seeking the Favor of God. Volume III: The Impact of Penitential Prayer beyond Second Temple Judaism. Eds. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline. Atlanta: The Society of Biblical Literature, 2008. 99–125. Lieber, Laura. “The Rhetoric of Participation: Experiential Elements of Early Hebrew Liturgical Poetry.” The Journal of Religion 90:2 (2010): 119–147. Magness, Jodi. “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59 (2005): 16–20. Münz-Manor, Ophir. “Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East: A Comparative Approach.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 1.3 (2010): 336–361. Münz-Manor, Ophir. “Figurative Language in Early Piyyut.” Giving a Diamond: Essays in Honor of Joseph Yahalom on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Eds. W. van Bekkum and N. Katsumata. Leiden: Brill, 2011. 51–67. Münz-Manor, Ophir. “Narrating Salvation: Verbal Sacrifices in Late Antique Liturgical Poetry.” Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Eds. A. Y. Reed and N. Dohrmann. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013a. 154–166. Münz-Manor, Ophir. “The Ritualization of Creation in Jewish and Christian Liturgical Texts from Late Antiquity.” Jewish and Christian Cosmogony in Late Antiquity. Eds. L. Jenott and S. Kattan-Gribetz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013b. 271–286. Münz–Manor, Ophir. Early Piyyut: An Annotated Anthology. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2015. Ousterhout, Robert. “Temporal structuring in the Chora Parekklesion.” Gesta 34.1 (1995): 63–76. Petropoulou, Maria-Zoe. Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Posner, Simon (ed.). The Koren Mesorat Harav Kinot. Jerusalem: Koren Publishers, 2010. Schwartz, Daniel R. “Portents of Destruction: From Flavian Propaganda to Rabbinic Theodicy.” From Despair to Solace – A Memorial Volume for Ziporah Brody z”l on the Tenth Anniversary of Her Passing. Ed. Sara Brody. Jerusalem: Midreshet Lindenbaum, 2009. 3–12.

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Schwartz, Seth. Imperialism and Jewish Society – 200 B.C.E to 640 C.E. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Stroumsa, Guy G. The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Swartz, Michael D. “Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Toward an Understanding of the Avodah in the Rabbinic Period.” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997): 135–155. Swartz, Michael D. “The Semiotics of the Priestly Vestments in Ancient Judaism.” Sacrifice in Religious Experience. Ed. Albert A. Baumgarten. Leiden: Brill, 2002. 57–80. Swartz, Michael D., and Joseph Yahalom (eds.). Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur. College Park: Penn State University Press, 2005. Talgam, Rina. “The Zodiac and Helios in the Synagogue: Between Paganism and Christianity.” “Follow the Wise” – Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine. Ed. Zeev Weiss. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010. 63–80 (Hebrew). Webb, Ruth. Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2009. Weiss, Zeev. “The Tabernacle, Temple and Sacrificial Service in Ancient Synagogue Art and in Light of the Judeo-Christian Controversy.” Image and Sound: Art, Music and History. Ed. Richard I. Cohen. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Press, 2007. 65–86 (Hebrew). Yahalom, Joseph. “The Zodiac in the Early Piyyut of Eretz-Israel.” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 9 (1986): 313–322 (Hebrew). Yahalom, Joseph. “Piyyut as Poetry.” The Synagogue in Late Antiquity. Ed. Lee I. Levine. Philadelphia: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1987. 111–126.

Jonathan Stavsky

Oral Tales and Written Truth in the Early Reception History of LXX Psalm 118(119) The polysemous Hebrew word Torah comprises the Pentateuch, the entire biblical corpus, its study, and the Jewish oral tradition.1 Each of these elements owes its formation to a period of crisis linked with the history of Jerusalem or, more precisely, with efforts at reconsolidation in the wake of its loss. The Babylonian captivity, the Judeans’ return to a tributary province of the Persian Empire, and, centuries later, the destruction of the Second Temple are milestones in the process of making the Torah (in the various senses of the word) the mainstay of Jewish religious life. At different stages, the composition, redaction, interpretation, and recitation in prayer of sacred texts served to fill the void left by debased or devastated Jerusalem.2 Take, for example, Psalm 119. While scholars have yet to reach a consensus about the genesis and historical function of this reflexive biblical text – of its 176 verses, 172 contain the word Torah or a synonymous noun3 – many consider it emblematic of the Judeans’ relation to Jerusalem. According to Erich Zenger (1998, 100), it occupies a central position in the “‘spiritual pilgrimage’ to Zion” envisioned in the “post-cultic” fifth Book of Psalms. Michael Fishbane (1992  [1989], 71), by contrast, shifts the psalm’s date and place of origin from the Babylonian captivity back to Judea by claiming that it expresses the “developments in ancient Israelite religious life taking place in the post-exilic age,” whereby biblical exegesis replaces the composition of sacred texts as a locus of religious authority.4 Not only does the history of Jerusalem’s rise and 1 According to Levenson (1987), all of these senses are operative in Psalm 118(119). 2 Among the many studies that address these developments, see Fishbane (1992 [1989]), Stroumsa (2009 [2005]), and Cohn (2013). 3 Recent discussions of Psalm 119 that explore this facet include Reynolds (2010), Arnold (2010), and Finsterbusch (2013). Freedman (1999) provides a detailed account of its intricate textuality and use of Torah synonyms. 4 Other historicizing studies include Soll (1991, 126–154), Goulder (1998, 199–209), and Reynolds (2010, 147–179). Note: Most of the research presented here was carried out during my term as a Mandel Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I wish to thank Yosefa Raz and Jon Whitman for their perceptive comments on earlier versions of this paper, as well as the participants of Psalms in/on Jerusalem for their feedback on the talk on which it is based, in particular Galit Hasan-Rokem. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-004

44 

 Jonathan Stavsky

fall play a crucial part in the composition of this psalm; it also bears upon its subsequent interpretation. As Yehoshua Amir has demonstrated (1982, 57–58, 79–80; 1985, 1–3, 31–33), classical scholarship on Psalm 119 proceeds from a Christian understanding of these events.5 The studies he tackles recast the Pauline opposition between the spirit and the letter6 as one between the covenantal, historically-minded, and creative bond with God enjoyed by the Israelites in the First – and, for Hans-Joachim Kraus (1950/1951) and Alfons Deissler (1955), also Second – Temple period and the supposedly legalistic, ahistorical, and conservative worldview of the rabbinic sages.7 The contention Amir identifies hangs on three interrelated points: when this swerve allegedly occurred, whether Psalm 119 dates to the former or latter phase in the development of the Jewish religion, and, by implication, whether the psalm exemplifies the mentality against which Jesus and Paul were to rebel or harmonizes with their teachings.8

5 Zenger (2003, 380–384) reiterates and develops Amir’s criticism while inviting Christians to respect the distinctive nature of Judaism’s relationship with the Torah. 6 E.g., in Romans 2:29, Romans 7:6, 2 Corinthians 3:6. Of special relevance is Paul’s antithesis between the written word of the Law and the spoken word of the gospel faith in Romans 10:5–10, discussed by Ito (2006). For a broader social-historical perspective, see Dewey (1995). 7 To a greater extent than Amir (1982) recognizes, Kraus (1950/1951, 349n34, 351) does take a positive view of rabbinic Judaism and its love of study insofar as he considers the doctrines by which observant Jews live to be compatible with a Christian notion of the afterlife. 8 Echoes of this polemic are still heard in depoliticized aesthetic judgments such as “Ps 119 trägt mit seiner geschlossenen Struktur ein zeitloses, fast statisches Element in den an sich äußerst dynamischen Psalter ein. Es gibt innerhalb des Textes keine markanten Umschwünge, Entwicklungen oder Gedankenfortschritte, wie sie sonst in allen Psalmen vorkommen” (“Psalm 119, with its closed structure, introduces a timeless, almost static element to the eminently dynamic Psalter. It has none of the marked twists, developments, or advances in thought found in all the other psalms”) (Ballhorn 2004, 217). Even Zenger’s (2003, 387) sympathetic argument brings the psalm more in line with Christian revelation than with the rabbinic understanding of the Torah, as defined above: “Auch wenn bei Tora in Ps 119 ein Bezug auf die inzwischen schriftlich vorliegende Tora des Mose gegeben sein dürfte, ist dies nicht die entscheidende Konnotation. Tora bezeichnet hier vielmehr die durch JHWH jeweils aktuell bewirkte Belehrung über den Sinn und die konkrete Bedeutung seiner Willensoffenbarung. Tora ist keine statische, abgeschlossene, sondern eine dynamische, offene Größe” (“Even if one might grant that Psalm 119 refers to Moses’ Torah in the written form that has since become available, this is not its principal connotation. Instead, what the Torah signifies here is YHWH’s prevailing teaching about the sense and specific meaning of the revelation of His will. The Torah is neither static nor enclosed but is rather a dynamic, open dimension”). Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations are mine.

Oral Tales and Written Truth in the Early Reception History of LXX Psalm 118(119) 

 45

Turning from Bibelwissenschaft to exegetical writings from late antiquity,9 this study traces a different strand of the psalm’s Christian reception, one that radically departs from the above tradition even though in practice both are sometimes operative in the same contexts. Rather than portraying Jews as slaves to the letter of the Old Testament, Psalm 119 – or 118 in the Septuagint numbering central to my analysis – serves to accuse them (along with heterodox movements) of being prone to excessive speech and, consequently, taking imaginative liberties with the biblical text, whose safekeeping must therefore pass to more responsible Christians. This move serves to consolidate an elite orthodox identity rooted in Scripture over against the unruly orality ascribed to its opponents. In so doing, it shifts the political import of the psalm from a celebration of Jewish revival through Torah study to an indictment of rabbinic culture as an alternative solution to the crisis faced by Judaism in the aftermath of 70 CE.

***

In order to illuminate the problems faced by the patristic interpreters of Psalm 118(119) that concern me, I must begin with certain lexical choices made in the Septuagint translation. Whereas most previous studies have dwelled on the Torah synonyms that pervade this biblical poem, the prism offered here invites closer attention to a neglected semantic cluster, albeit one typical of the Psalms and other wisdom books: the verb ‫יח‬ ַ ‫( ִׂש‬śîaḥ), appearing in verses 15, 23, 27, 48, 78, and 148, and its corresponding noun ‫יחה‬ ָ ‫( ִׂש‬śîḥâ), found in verses 97 and 99,10 which signify discussion or contemplation. Specifically, my interest lies in those verses whose Septuagint translation contains the verb ἀδολεσχέω (adole­ skheō) or noun ἀδολεσχία (adoleskhia), denoting “tale” or “chatter,”11 where the Hebrew text has, or is misconstrued as having, ‫יח‬ ַ ‫ ִׂש‬or ‫יחה‬ ָ ‫ ִׂש‬respectively. The disconcerting ambiguity produced when an originally pejorative Greek word occurs in positive as well as negative contexts stands in contrast to other Torah terms. For example, ‫( ִא ְמ ָר ֶתָך‬ʾimrātekā), namely, “Your utterance,”12 is rendered in the Septuagint as “τὸ λόγιόν σου” or “τὰ λόγιά σου” (“your saying” or “sayings”).13 9 The psalm’s late-antique reception is outlined by Deissler (1955, 33–39). See also Rose (1983), whose spiritual perspective has little in common with the one taken here. 10 As explained later, the Septuagint translator assumes that ‫יחה‬ ָ ‫ ִׂש‬also occurs in verse 85. 11 Occurrences are listed in note 25. The Septuagint usage of adoleskheō and adoleskhia is examined in detail by Lazarenco (2002). 12 Translations of the Hebrew Psalter follow Robert Alter’s The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (2007). 13 All quotations of the Septuagint Psalter are from Rahlfs (1979). The English generally follows Pietersma and Wright (2014), though see note 16.

46 

 Jonathan Stavsky

While the phrase to logion sou is more readily amenable to an uncontentious spiritual reading, adoleskheō and adoleskhia have a way of sparking controversy even when they signify divine worship. In the Masoretic Psalter, verse 85 runs “‫תֹור ֶ ֽתָך‬ ָ ‫יחֹות ֲ֝א ֶׁ֗שר ֣ל ֹא ְכ‬ ֑ ‫לי זֵ ִ ֣דים ִׁש‬-‫רּו‬ ֣ ִ ‫”ּכ‬ ָֽ (“The arrogant have dug pitfalls for me,/which are not according to Your teaching”). The Septuagint construed the Hebrew word for “pitfalls” ‫ִׁשיחֹות‬ (šîḥôt), a variant of the better-known form ‫( ׁשּוחֹות‬šûḥôt), as though it read ‫( ִׂשיחֹות‬śîḥôt)14 and took it to mean ἀδολεσχίας (the accusative plural of ado­ leskhia). Accordingly, the preceding verb was loosely rendered as διηγήσαντο (“told”).15 Though it stems from a misinterpretation, the verse “διηγήσαντό μοι παράνομοι ἀδολεσχίας,/ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὡς ὁ νόμος σου, κύριε” (“Transgressors of the law told me tales,/but not so your law, O Lord”) does not by itself reorient the meaning of the original psalm. Characteristic of its poetics is the periodic repetition of analogous statements in varying forms. Masoretic verse 85 is paraphrased in verse 110, which reads “‫יתי‬ ִ ‫ּקּודיָך ֣ל ֹא ָת ִ ֽע‬ ֗ ֶ ‫“( ”נָ ְתנ֬ ּו ְר ָׁש ִ ֣עים ַ ּ֣פח ִ ֑לי ּו ִ֝מ ִּפ‬The wicked set a trap for me,/yet from Your decrees I did not stray”) in the Hebrew and “ἔθεντο ἁμαρτωλοὶ παγίδα μοι, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἐντολῶν σου οὐκ ἐπλανήθην” (“Sinners laid a snare for me,/and from your commandments I did not stray”) in the Septuagint text, the two versions being nearly identical. In comparison, verse 23 insists that “‫יח ְּב ֻח ֶ ּֽקיָך‬ ַ ‫”ּג֤ם ָי ְֽׁש ֣בּו ָ ׂ֭ש ִרים ִ ּ֣בי נִ ְד ָ ּ֑ברּו ֝ ַע ְב ְּד ָ֗ך יָ ִ ׂ֥ש‬ ַ (“Even when princes sat to scheme against me,/Your servant dwelled on Your statutes”) or “καὶ γὰρ ἐκάθισαν ἄρχοντες καὶ κατ᾽ ἐμοῦ κατελάλουν,/ὁ δὲ δοῦλός σου ἠδολέσχει ἐν τοῖς δικαιώμασίν σου” (“Indeed, rulers sat and kept railing at me,/but your slave would ‘chatter’ about your statutes”).16 This assertion, with its emphasis on the sins of the tongue, is closer to the Greek than to the Hebrew version of verse 85. It should, however, be stressed that no greater tendency to juxtapose proper with improper speech or study is observable in the Septuagint psalm. Whereas verses 51, 69, and 78 of the Greek text concern transgression, injustice, and lawlessness, their Masoretic counterparts tackle mockery and lies.

14 Austermann (2003, 152) notes that in Psalm 56(57):7 the phrase “‫יחה‬ ֑ ָ ‫”ּכ ֣רּו […] ִׁש‬ ָ is correctly rendered as “ὤρυξαν […] βόθρον” (“they dug a hole”). 15 Mozley (1905, 170) suggests that ‫ ָ ּֽכרּו‬might have been interpreted as ‫( קראּו‬qrʾw) or ‫( ספרו‬sprw), “the ‫ ס‬derived from preceding ‫ט‬.” Austermann (2003, 152) seconds the former hypothesis. Lazarenco (2002, 117) criticizes these hypotheses and proposes instead a “translation-technical solution to the problem.” 16 In this and subsequent verses, I have replaced Pietersma’s (2014) translation (“to ponder”) with the usual, non-biblical denotation of adoleskheō and put the word in quotation marks in order to underscore the catachresis for which Christian exegetes account in various ways.

Oral Tales and Written Truth in the Early Reception History of LXX Psalm 118(119) 

 47

Though no Jewish commentary on the Septuagint Psalter is extant, one can offer a few conjectures as to how a Greek-speaking Jew might have understood the word adoleskhia in Psalm 118(119):85.17 Its speaker identifies himself in verse 19 as a πάροικος (paroikos) – “resident alien” or ‫ ( ּגֵ ר‬gēr) in the Hebrew text18 – a word that resurfaces in verse 54, which asserts that “Your statutes were musical [or like harp songs]19 to me/in my place of sojourn [paroikias mou]” (“ψαλτὰ ἦσάν μοι τὰ δικαιώματά σου/ἐν τόπῳ παροικίας μου”). In addition to verse 23, discussed in the previous paragraph, verses 46 and 161 further stress his adherence to God’s Word in defiance of the rulers of the land.20 The tales he is told could therefore be associated with an experience of political and cultural subjugation. In his Characters, Aristotle’s heir Theophrastus (1993, 3.1 [58–59]) defines adoleskhia as “prolonged and aimless talk” (“διήγησις λόγων μακρῶν καὶ ἀπροβουλεύτων”). Those who practice it are liable, for example, to complain that “there are lots of foreigners in town” (“πολλοὶ ἐπιδημοῦσι ξένοι”; 3.3 [58–59]). Pronouncing, cantillating, discussing, and upholding the words of the Torah offset this kind of discourse. Verses 13, 43, 72, 103, 130–131, 171–172, and others further emphasize the oral component of such pious activities.21 Whereas Greek-speaking Jews before the spread of Christianity sought to maintain their ancestral rites and traditions in the face of a pagan hegemony that saw little value in them, Christian exegetes of the following centuries also strove to defend their readings of the Bible against the interpretations of rival creeds. The earliest commentaries on Psalm 118(119), which survive as glosses in catena manuscripts, testify to this motivation. One example is an explication of verse 85 that has been attributed to the third-century theologian and biblical scholar Origen or, elsewhere, to his fourth-century follower Didymus the Blind. The following quotation is from the Palestinian Catena. Probably dating to the sixth century and considered among the best of its kind, this compilation shows a marked preference for Origen’s exegetical works: Many people undertake to interpret the divine Scriptures, both from within the Church and from outside it – heretics and Jews, or even Samaritans – but not all speak well. For rare is

17 For the political context of the Septuagint Psalter and its bearing on the Greek text of the Psalms, see Schaper (1998). 18 The rich biblical resonances of this verse are explored by Levenson (1987, 568–569). 19 See Muraoka (2009), s.v. ψαλτός. The MT has “‫גּורי‬ ֽ ָ ‫יּו־לי ֻח ֶ ּ֗קיָך ְּב ֵב֣ית ְמ‬ ֥ ִ ‫”ז ִ֭מרֹות ָה‬ ְ (“Songs were Your statutes to me,/in the house of my sojourning”). 20 Even if Goulder (1998, 207) is correct in suggesting that the “‘kings’ of v. 46 could be the kings of Persia,” a Hellenistic Jew might have identified them with a different empire. 21 Compare, too, the analogous situation in Psalm 68(69):13–14, where mocking chatter is contrasted with devout prayer.

48 

 Jonathan Stavsky

he who has the grace from God to do so, while many profess to speak but live badly or even in transgression of the law. And thus whatever they speak is chatter and inanity. For vigorous, wholesome, and salvific speech cannot exist in the soul of a transgressor of the law. Πολλοὶ ἑρμηνεύειν ἐπιχειροῦσι τὰς θείας γραφὰς καὶ τῶν τῆς Ἐκκλησίας καὶ τῶν ἕξω ταύτης αἱρετικῶν τε καὶ Ἰουδαίων ἢ καὶ Σαμαρειτῶν, ἀλλ’ οὐ πάντες λέγουσι καλῶς· σπάνιος γὰρ ὁ ἔχων τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ εἰς τοῦτο χάριν· πολλῶν μὲν ἐπαγγελλομένων λέγειν, οὐ καλῶς δὲ ἢ καὶ “παρανόμως” βιούντων, εἴ τι δὲ οὖν λέγουσιν, “ἀδολεσχία” ἐστὶ καὶ φλυαρία· οὐ γὰρ δύναται λόγος εὔτονος καὶ ἐρρωμένος καὶ σωτήριος εἶναι ἐν ψυχῇ παρανόμῳ. (Harl and Dorival 1972, 1:324, 326)22

Jews, Samaritans, heterodox movements, devout Christians, and those who pretend to be so all share a common text, but only those whom the grace of God inspires to live according to His laws read it correctly. Though being a member of the Church is not a sufficient condition for reaching this status, it is a necessary one. Crucially for our purposes, this passage describes exegesis, whether of the pious or impious kind, as an oral activity. The untranslatable noun λόγος (logos) – whose range of meanings encompasses speech, reason, argument, discourse, story, and the second person of the Trinity, to name but a few23 – and its corresponding verb are used to describe both what corrupt interpreters fail to perform and, by implication, what their virtuous counterparts succeed in achieving. Other glosses accredited to Origen with varying degrees of certainty elaborate on this aspect of biblical interpretation by attempting to justify the special sense that Psalm 118(119) gives to the verb adoleskheō, which reverses the valence of its usual denotation while maintaining the connotation of excess. Verse 15, which reads “About your commandments I will ‘chatter’/and put my mind to your ways” (“ἐν ταῖς ἐντολαῖς σου ἀδολεσχήσω/καὶ κατανοήσω τὰς ὁδούς σου”), is explained as follows: By these words we learn that putting one’s mind to God’s ways can be done only by scrutinizing all that regards his commandments and investigating them at length. Hence, that which is called “chatter” is used by extension to signify the painstaking examination of the commandments […] For, according to the customary usage of Scripture, “Isaac went out to ‘chatter’24 in the plain” with God [Genesis 24:63], and in many places the just are found engaging in praiseworthy “chatter.”

22 In the notes to their edition, Harl and Dorival (1972, 2:671) offer a rather hesitant defense of the Origenist authorship of this gloss. For a nearly identical version ascribed to Didymus the Blind, see Mühlenberg (1975–1978, 2:287), with a translation and discussion of its reference to Samaritans in Pummer (2002, 109–110). 23 Logos is also etymologically related to the word logion, which, as mentioned above, is the Greek equivalent of one of the psalm’s Torah synonyms. 24 The Masoretic Bible has ‫ּוח‬ ַ ‫( ָל ׂ֥ש‬lāśûaḥ), a notorious crux. For the range of solutions that ancient and modern authorities have proposed for it, see Vall (1994); Ron (2015). According to Austermann

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Διὰ τούτων διδασκόμεθα ὡς οὐκ ἄλλως ἔστι κατανοῆσαι τὰς ὁδοὺς τοῦ θεοῦ ἢ ἐκ τοῦ τὰ περὶ τῶν ἐντολῶν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξετάζειν καὶ περὶ τούτων ἐπὶ πλεῖον ἐρευνᾶν, ὥστε τὴν καλουμένην “ἀδολεσχίαν” μεταφέρειν ἐπὶ τὴν περὶ τῶν ἐντολῶν βάσανον […] κατὰ γὰρ συνήθειαν τῆς γραφῆς· “καὶ ὁ Ἰσαὰκ ἐξῆλθεν εἰς τὸ πεδίον ἀδολεσχῆσαι” τῷ θεῷ, καὶ πολλαχοῦ οἱ δίκαιοι ἐπαινετὴν ἀδολεσχίαν εὑρίσκονται ἀδολεσχοῦντες. (1:212)

Elsewhere, the excessive orality connoted by adoleskheō is taken more literally. A gloss on verse 27 from the same catena reads: “For if I receive from you the understanding needed to perceive the way of the mysteries that lie in your statutes, and consequently walk this way, I will, now that I understand the miracles that have been revealed in your statutes, be able to ‘chatter’ about them and to become conversant in the discourse that concerns them” (“ Ἐὰν γὰρ τὴν ‘ὁδὸν’ τῶν ἐν τοῖς ‘δικαιώμασι’ μυστηρίων, ὑπὸ σοῦ σύνεσιν λαβὼν, νοήσω, ὡς καὶ ὁδεῦσαι αὐτὴν, δυνήσομαι τὰ δηλούμενα ἐν τοῖς δικαιώμασί σου ‘θαυμάσια’ συνιεὶς ‘ἀδολεσχεῖν’ ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ τὴν ὁμιλίαν ἐν τῷ περὶ τούτων ποιεῖσθαι λόγῳ”; 1:232, 234). Lastly, the following remarks are made with regard to verses 47–48: “And since, after studying and carrying out the commandments, one must discuss them, [the psalmist] adds the phrase ‘I “chattered” about your statutes,’ that is: out of my love of your statutes I shall go on speaking about them continuously, as though chattering” (“Καὶ ἐπειδὴ, μετὰ τὴν μελέτην καὶ τὴν ποίησιν τῶν ἐντολῶν, περὶ τούτων διαλέγεσθαι δεῖ, διὰ τοῦτο ἐπιφέρει τό· ‘καὶ ἠδολέσχουν ἐν τοῖς δικαιώμασί σου,’ ὅπερ τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν: ἀπὸ τῆς πρὸς τὰ δικαιώματά σου φιλίας μου συνεχῶς αὐτοῖς ἐνδιατρίβων τῷ λόγῳ, οἱονεὶ ἠδολέσχουν”; 1:268).25 Several conclusions can be drawn from these repeated comments. First, the verb adoleskheō was a source of some perplexity for Christian readers of the Septuagint. They had to be taught that the word’s scriptural meaning differed substantially from its regular usage.26 However, for at least one influential exegete, adoleskheō retains its association with orality even when the Bible gives the verb a surprisingly positive twist. The kind of contemplation for which it stands is as drawn out as prattle and often results in spoken deliberation. Painstaking though

(2003, 133) and Lazarenco (2002, 113), the Septuagint translator of the Psalms probably drew on the precedent of LXX Genesis 24:63 when rendering the Hebrew verb ‫( ִׂש ַיח‬śîaḥ) in Psalm 54(55):3 (as a noun), 68(69):13, 76(77):4, 76(77):7, 76(77):13, 118(119): 15, 118(119): 23, 118(119): 27, 118(119): 48, 118(119): 78, 118(119):85 (as mentioned below, verses 97, 99, and 148 exhibit a different solution). Cf. 1 Kings (1 Samuel) 1:16, 3 Kings (1 Kings) 18:27, 4 Kings (2 Kings) 9:11, where adoleskhia is employed in the customary pejorative sense to convey a comparable usage of ‫( ִׂש ַיח‬śîaḥ). 25 Also relevant is a gloss (1:226) on verse 23, which contrasts the speech of wicked rulers with that of the just, Christlike worshiper. 26 Lazarenco (2002, 114) reaches a similar conclusion by analyzing Origen’s commentary on Genesis 24:63. Cf. the Byzantine scholars he quotes (119).

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it may be, it also yields pleasure.27 Hence, according to this interpretive tradition, verse 85 contrasts not orally transmitted yarns with authoritative Scripture but two kinds of profuse discourse, the one in loving communion with God’s Word and the other in violation of His laws. Two distinct yet by no means mutually exclusive factors may account for the interpretive tradition represented in the Palestinian Catena and elsewhere. The first is a series of pericopes in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy 1:3–11; 1 Timothy 4:1–16; 2 Timothy 4:2–5; Titus 1:7–16)28 that characterize the false and sinful teachings of Jews, Judaizers, heterodox movements, and others as “myths” (μῦθοι) and contrast them with Christian instruction (παραγγελία, διδασκαλία, εὐαγγέλιον, διδαχή). Significantly, the oral nature of both activities comes to the fore in these passages. The former is called “meaningless talk” (ματαιολογία) in 1 Timothy 1:6 and its teachers “speakers of lies” (ψευδολόγων) in 1 Timothy 4:2 or “gainsayers” (ἀντιλέγοντας) in Titus 1:9. The latter is summed up in the injunction: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction” (“κήρυξον τὸν λόγον, ἐπίστηθι εὐκαίρως ἀκαίρως, ἔλεγξον, ἐπιτίμησον, παρακάλεσον, ἐν πάσῃ μακροθυμίᾳ καὶ διδαχῇ”; 2 Timothy 4:2).29 Like Origen’s gloss on Psalm 118(119):85, these verses pit two kinds of logos against each other, the difference between them being one of message and messenger rather than of medium. It is quite possible that Origen had the Pastoral Epistles in mind when explicating the psalm in question. A different textual tradition of the gloss on verse 85, preserved in the so-called Selecta in Psalmos (1862, 1601d), begins with the sentence “[The palmist] identifies these teachings with the old wives’ tales of the Jews or also with the commandments of human beings, together with the inanities of the sages of that period” (“ Ἢ τοὺς γραώδεις μύθους τῶν Ἰουδαίων φησὶ τὰς διδασκαλίας, ἢ καὶ τὰ ἐντάλματα τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ τὰς φλυαρίας τῶν σοφῶν τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου”).30 Though likely an interpolation from another source, the 27 This exegetical tradition differs from the emphasis on Torah study as pleasurable in and of itself that other studies (e.g. Greenberg (1990, 376–378)) detect in the Masoretic version of the psalm. See also the perceptive analysis of the joys of Torah study (μελέτη) in the Septuagint version of this psalm in Toloni (1994). 28 Cf. 2 Peter 1:16–21, where the followers of myths are contrasted with the eyewitness of Christ’s greatness. 29 The translation of this verse follows the NIV. 30 Another compilation ascribes the gloss to Athanasius (1857, 495b). According to Dorival (1980), this attribution is doubtful because the work in question is essentially a series of scholia taken from Origen and other writers, some of whom postdate Athanasius. Unfortunately, the elenchus printed at the end of Vian (1978, 80) offers no help in tracing the source of the passage; the correspondences with Theodoret’s commentary that it identifies do not extend to Psalm 118(119):85.

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conflated allusion to 1 Timothy 4:7 and Titus 1:14 tallies with Origen’s use of the word muthoi in similar polemical contexts. Rejecting any interpretation of the Bible that might blemish the reputation of the patriarchs and matriarchs, he writes: “Let the Church of God […] in this way uphold the deeds of the fathers with a fitting and honorable interpretation, in this way not disgrace the words of the holy spirit with foolish and Jewish fables, but reckon them to be full of honor, full of virtue and usefulness” (“Ecclesia igitur Dei […] sic patrum gesta decora et honesta interpretatione sustollat, sic uerba Spiritus sancti non ineptis et Iudaicis fabulis decoloret, sed plena honestatis, plena uirtutis atque utilitatis adsignet”; 1981/2012, 6.3 [126/106]).31 According to Marc Hirshman (2009, esp. 246–250), this and similar passages denounce not only Jews but also whoever else disagrees with Origen’s allegorical understanding of Scripture as mere storytellers whose tales are sinful. Elsewhere, the Greek exegete notes the oral nature both of his and of his opponents’ approaches to biblical interpretation, for instance when he contrasts “this our account with your Jewish fables and disgusting stories” (“haec nostra cum uestris Iudaicis fabulis et narrationibus fetidis”; 3.6 [157/73]) or when he loses patience with talkative churchgoers: “you waste your time on common everyday stories; you turn your backs to the word of God or to the divine readings” (“communes ex usu fabulas teritis, uerbo Dei uel lectionibus diuinis terga conuertitis”; 10.1 [158/147]). One would have liked to know which Greek term Origen used in the source of the latter quotation: was it muthos or perhaps adoleskhia? As will be noted, the Latin word fabula and its derivative fabulatio served to render both. If Origen relied on the Pastoral Epistles to elucidate Psalm 118(119), does this source rule out the possibility that he also drew on first-hand acquaintance with Jewish exegesis? On the one hand, considerable evidence suggests that he enriched his exposition of Scripture – the Psalms included – with orally transmitted rabbinic traditions.32 Caesarea Maritima, his place of residence from 230 until his death, was one of the few centers where a significant population of Greek-speaking Jews and Christians (as well as Samaritans and pagans) lived side by side and perhaps even engaged in public debates.33 On the other hand, as Paul Blowers (1988) has shown, the details Origen provides about his experience of Jewish learning are scant, ideologically motivated, couched in a distinctly New Testament idiom, and therefore inconclusive. Hence, it remains uncertain whether Origen had direct access to, or experience of, rabbinic academies where 31 Like many of Origen’s writings, the Homilies on Genesis survive only in Rufinus’s fourthcentury Latin version. 32 See, especially, De Lange (1976a) and (1976b), and Kessler (2001). 33 Kimelman (1980) attempts to reconstruct one such controversy.

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oral transmission played a crucial role. He may have simply relied on informants, possibly converts. Nevertheless, in view of the increasingly negative attitude to orality manifested by later interpreters of Psalm 118(119) – even by the Hebraist Jerome, whose time in Bethlehem and Aelia Capitolina afforded few opportunities for informal observation of amoraic sages in action34 – the Caesarean background of the glosses discussed above cannot be discounted. Origen’s enthusiastic description of the oral study of the Bible and its doctrines may owe something to a desire for Christians to appropriate this distinctly Jewish cultural form while modifying its contents to suit his understanding of Scripture.35

***

This delicate balance between the oral and the written, Christian tradition and interreligious contact, and the various senses of adoleskhia is gradually upset when the Septuagint Psalter is translated into Latin and interpreted by the Western Fathers.36 Neither the Old Latin nor Jerome’s redactions of the Psalter render the pair adoleskhia/adoleskheō by means of a derivationally related noun and verb that connote excessive speech. Instead, the word exercitatio (“exercise,” “practice,” or “discipline”) and its verbal counterpart exerceor appear in the version quoted by the first Latin commentary on Psalm 118(119), which Hilary of Poitiers composed in the 360s. This rather perplexing choice may have its origin in Psalm 118(119):97, 99, and 148, where the words ‫ׂשיחה‬ ָ (śîḥâ) and ‫( ִׂש ַיח‬śîaḥ) become μελέτη (meletē) and μελετάω (meletaō) respectively, which connote not only study and discourse but also training, discipline, rehearsal, and so forth. If so, the lost Greek Vorlage of Hilary’s Psalter may have substituted the latter pair where the Septuagint has adoleskheō and adoleskhia. Alternatively, the Latin translator may have rendered the verb adoleskheō in accordance with its presumed sense (sensus pro sensu) while deriving the corresponding noun from it. As neither meletē nor exercitatio make much sense in the context of verse 85, the resulting garble requires some ingenuity on Hilary’s part: How many people claim to teach the rules of human life, while directing our soul’s pursuits, which should more rightfully serve God, to worldly values. How many people who lie about having knowledge of the divine Scriptures preach heretical and perverse doctrines!

34 I owe this observation to Stemberger (1996, 583). Cf. his discussion of Origen (578–580). 35 For the important role that orality played in fashioning Jewish identity and rabbinic authority during the tannaitic and amoraic periods, see Jaffee (2001, 65–152) and Sussmann (2005). According to Yuval (2011), this process took place in direct reaction to Christian exegesis and Scripture. Another version of this argument, which pays less attention to questions of orality, appears in Hirshman (1996 [1992]). 36 A survey of the manifold Latin translations of the Psalms is provided in Bogaert (2000).

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But the prophet, knowing that the perfect accomplishment of human learning lies in God’s law, says: “Wrongdoers have told me exercises, but not in such a way as your law” [Psalm 118[119]:85]. And God’s voice forbade the sinner from recounting/expounding the Holy Utterances, since wrongdoing does not accept the truth of celestial learning. “For God has said to the sinner: Why do you recount/expound my statutes,37 and take my testament in your mouth? After all, you hate discipline and have cast my words behind you” [Psalm 49(50):16–17]. These exercises, therefore, the prophet does not tolerate, knowing that nothing compares to recounting/expounding the law. Quanti enim sunt, qui quaedam humanae uitae instituta docere se adserant, cum ad uirtutes saeculi studia animae nostrae Deo rectius seruientia accedunt! Quanti enim sunt, qui cognitionem se habere diuinarum scripturarum mentientes haeretica et peruersa dogmata praedicant! Sed sciens propheta perfectam humanae doctrinae eruditionem in Dei lege esse ait: Narrauerunt mihi iniqui exercitationes, sed non ita ut lex tua [Psalm 118(119):85]. Et Dei uox uetuit peccatorem eloquia sancta narrare, quia iniquitas doctrinae caelestis non recipit ueritatem. Peccatori enim dixit Deus: Quare tu enarras iustitias meas et adsumis testamen­ tum meum per os tuum? Tu autem odisti disciplinam, reiecisti sermones meos retro [Psalm 49(50):16–17]. Et has igitur exercitationes propheta non fert sciens nihil narrationi legis aequandum. (2002, 11.6 [104–105])38

Though he makes no direct reference to the Greek text in this instance, Hilary is recognized to have worked closely with the Septuagint Psalter and its commentators, notably Origen.39 The latter’s influence could be responsible for the claim that, according to Psalm 118(119):85, transgressors of God’s law are incapable of interpreting Scripture truthfully. For the same reason, Hilary appears to have sought a Latin equivalent for the dual valence of adoleskhia and adoleskheō. Focusing on good and bad instruction brings him closer to this goal. However, it does not quite put the finger on the partial similarity between these activities, nor does it suffice to make sense of the awkward phrasing “Wrongdoers have told me exercises” (“Narrauerunt mihi iniqui exercitationes”). In order to maintain the oral quality that Origen attributes to legitimate biblical exegesis as well as to unlawful adoleskhiai, Hilary alternates the verb narro (“to recount”) with enarro (which also means “to expound”) so as to render them nearly indistinguishable. Yet, although he goes into less detail than his source about the identity of those who sin against Scripture, he maintains a clearer distinction between their discourse and that of his model instructor. Narratio and enarratio are relatively 37 The MT has “‫ה־ּלָך ְל ַס ֵּפ֣ר ֻח ָ ּ֑קי‬ ֭ ְ ‫”מ‬ ַ (“Why do you recount My statutes”). 38 Cf. Hilary’s discussion of exercitatio in verses 15 (2.10 [24]), 23 (3.20–21 [37–38]), 27 (4.5 [41–42]), 48 (6.12 [66]), 78 (10.16 [99]). 39 Milhau (1995, 704) argues that Hilary’s exegesis combines faithfulness to the Old Latin text, occasional criticism of its deficiency, and reliance on Origen’s commentary on the Septuagint version (704). See also Carpino (1986) and Milhau (1993).

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neutral terms: they do not convey Origen’s delightfully paradoxical ideal of the prattling exegete. Some three decades after Hilary, Ambrose of Milan wrote another major commentary on Psalm 118(119). His Latin text likewise translates adoleskhia and its corresponding verb as exercitatio and exerceor. Contrary to Hilary, Ambrose deals explicitly with the crux posed by these Greek words. Addressing verse 27, he writes: There seems to be some breach of idiom according to popular usage, since adoleskhē­ sai [the aorist infinitive of adoleskheō] is commonly held to mean either “to muse” or “to speak about something more than is needed and to appear superfluous,” which is boring to one’s listener; […] yet one cannot be fully instructed unless one becomes acquainted with everything in its proper order; […] therefore, David would rather be taught almost to the point of boredom […] than bypass the necessary order. For adoleskhia or “musing” seems to be a meditation that is longer than necessary or some lingering concentration of the mind, which is not very far from mental or physical exercise. Just as he who exercises his limbs at the gymnasium does so for an extended period of time in order to grow strong, so must he who exercises his mind in the divine Scriptures or in deliberations train at length. uidetur esse aliqua sermonis offensio secundum uulgarem consuetudinem, quia ἀδολεσχῆσαι uulgo aestimatur uel halucinari uel plus quam oportet aliquid loqui et superfluum uideri, quod audienti fastidio est; […] sed non potest plene instrui nisi qui ordine sui cuncta cognouerit; […] ideoque Dauid […] prope usque ad fastidium uult doceri […] quam necessarium ordinem praeterire. ἀδολεσχία enim uel halucinatio uidetur longa quaedam esse meditatio uel morosa quaedam mentis intentio; a quo non longe abest exercitium uel animi uel corporis. nam ut ille, qui exercet membra sua palaestra, diutius exercet, ut roboret, ita qui exercet mentem suam in scripturis diuinis uel in consiliis, diutius exercere debet. (1999, 4.13 [74])

To be precise, Ambrose’s word halucinatio means “rambling thought or speech” – an elegant way to capture the multiple senses of adoleskhia set forth by Origen, yet one that differs substantially from the Latin translation available to him. Rather than contest the inadequate alternative exercitatio, he attempts to reconcile it with his own understanding of the Greek. The result introduces an important change: whereas for Origen biblical interpretation is both protracted and gratifying, Ambrose emphasizes only the first aspect. His idea of halucina­ tio lacks the spontaneous and loving exuberance that Origen had attributed to pious adoleskhia. Elsewhere he employs the Septuagint word to describe his own manner of speaking, that of a mature scholar: “I prefer to muse with you about celestial things in the words of an old man or, as they say in Greek, adoleskhēsai […] than to blurt out something that no longer suits either my studies or my energy in words that are too hurried” (“Malo enim senilibus verbis de supernis rebus alucinari tecum, quod graece dicunt ἀδολεσχῆσαι […] quam

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 55

concitatioribus deflare aliquid iam nec studiis nostris aptum nec viribus”; 1968, 6.28.16 [194]).40 Perplexingly, when he comes to consider verse 85, Ambrose takes an extremely critical stance towards adoleskhiai, which fails to account for the positive usage of this word elsewhere in Psalm 118(119), not to mention his own self-portrayal as halucinator. He argues that people who persecute Christians have sought to entangle not only the just man’s works, but also his faith with their superfluous storytelling. For this reason [the psalmist] says that adoleskhiai, that is, superfluous babblings, are being told to him like rhymes from some fable. For superfluous storytellers corrupt the sweetness of disputation by means of their constant, swallow-like babbling […] The heretic, then, who does not speak the truth, who does not speak in accordance with the law, speaks superfluities. non solum opera iusti inpedire, uerum etiam fidem superflua narratione conati sunt. etenim quasi fabulae cuiusdam naenias narratas sibi dicit ἀδολεσχίας, hoc est superfluas loquacitates. narratores enim superflui sicut hirundines disputationis suauitatem natiuae loquacitatis continuatione corrumpunt […] Superflua igitur loquitur haereticus qui non loquitur ueritatem, non loquitur secundum legem. (1999, 11.19–20 [245])

To a greater extent than Origen and even Hilary, Ambrose foregrounds the narrative sense of adoleskhia; yet he does not admit the possibility of beneficial storytelling, even if the word is taken metaphorically. For him, fictions are the epitome of heterodox speech, which in turn resembles the chirping of birds more than it does human expression. By employing the word fabula, the Latin equivalent of muthos, he evokes its aforementioned use in the Pastoral Epistles. Since there is no example in the Septuagint or New Testament of muthos signifying pious devotion to exegesis or any other virtue, the connection between Psalm 118(119):85 and the preceding verses that, in the Septuagint, contain the verb adoleskheō is significantly weakened. The most important commentary on the Psalms from late antiquity is Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos, the relevant part of which was probably completed around 422.41 Both recapitulating and reorienting the exegetical tradition of his predecessors, Augustine seems at first glance to revise Hilary and Ambrose by recovering Origen’s understanding of adoleskhia: “I shall chatter about your commandments and consider your ways” [Psalm 118(119):15]. Where the Greek text reads adoleskhēsō [the 1sg future of adoleskheō], some Latin translators have “I shall chatter” and others “I shall exercise.” These two renderings appear to be at odds 40 In the passage elided from this citation, Ambrose quotes Genesis 24:63 from the Septuagint. 41 See Gori’s introduction to Augustine (2015, 3). Ribeau (2013) dates it to 419 based on the evidence of its anti-heretical polemic.

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with each other. Yet if one understands exercise as being of the mind, with some delight in disputation, both activities are joined together and, as it were, combined into one, so that chatter does not conflict with this kind of exercise. […] In such a way does the Church exercise in God’s commandments: chattering at length against all the enemies of the Christian and Catholic faith by dint of the copious disputations of its doctors. These arguments are fruitful to those who undertake them provided they consider only God’s ways [cf. Psalm 24(25):10]. […] On account of this sweet exercise, [the psalmist] adds: “I shall meditate on your justifications: I shall not forget your words” [Psalm 118(119):16]. in mandatis tuis garriam et considerabo vias tuas. Quod Graecus habet ἀδολεσχήσω, Latini interpretes, quidam garriam, quidam exercebor, interpretati sunt, quae duo inter se videntur esse diversa, sed si exercitatio intellegatur ingenii, cum quadam delectatione disputationis, utrumque coniungitur, et quasi ex utroque unum aliquid temperatur, ut non sit aliena ab huiusmodi exercitatione garrulitas. […] Sic autem se in dei mandatis exercet ecclesia, adversus omnes inimicos fidei Christianae atque catholicae copiosis doctorum disputationibus garrula, quae tunc fructuosae sunt disputantibus, si non ibi considerentur nisi viae Domini […] Per hanc suavem exercitationem fit etiam quod adiungit: in iustificationibus tuis meditabor, non obliviscar verborum tuorum. (2015, 118.6.4 [90])42

Like Ambrose, Augustine endeavors to reconcile two seemingly contradictory understandings of pious adoleskhia. The solution he arrives at is, nevertheless, a far cry from that of his teacher. Whereas the former exegete portrays the exercise of disputation as strenuous when considered by itself and sweet only in contrast to heterodox chatter, the latter insists that discussing the commandments is pleasurable in all circumstances. All the same, a subtle shift of emphasis is evident in this passage, which distances Augustine from his Greek forebear and reveals the enduring influence of Ambrose. The Enarrationes plays down the oral component of adoleskhia in verse 15. Instead, it becomes a predominantly mental operation that does not depend on spoken interaction. The kind of disputation it engenders is left unspecified: it could be spoken, written, or meditative. In his explication of verse 48, Augustine maintains that exercising in – or chattering about – God’s statutes entails keeping them “with delight in thought and work” (“cogitandi et operandi delectatione”; 118.14.4 [127]).43 Protracted speech becomes a mere metaphor for these occupations rather than a worthwhile pursuit that leads to God.44

42 Here and elsewhere, the bold typeface used in the CSEL edition is not reproduced. 43 This quotation is excerpted from a passage that attempts to reconcile three interpretations of ἠδολέσχουν: “I exercised,” “I rejoiced” (“laetabar”), and “I chattered.” 44 A similar dialectic is observable in Augustine’s (1958, 1.69 [26]) treatment of Genesis 24:63 in the Quaestiones in Heptateuchum.

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By contrast, in his treatment of impious adoleskhia, Augustine makes frequent references to oral practices, in line with Ambrose’s suspicious attitude towards them: “Wrongdoers have told me delights, but not so your law, O Lord” [Psalm 118(119):85]: this is how our translators have sought to render what the Greeks call adoleskhiai, which cannot by any means be conveyed using a single Latin word. Consequently, some call them “delights” and others45 “fabulations,” as these exercises are not unjustly taken to be, though with some delight in speech. They are prevalent in the secular writings of various schools and professions, as well as in the so-called deuterōsis of the Jews, which contains thousands of fables beyond the canon of the divine Scriptures. They can also be found in the vain and wayward babbling of heretics. [The psalmist] meant us to understand all of these wrongdoers, who, he says, have told him adoleskhiai, that is, delectable verbal exercises: “But not so,” he says, “your law, O Lord,” because what delights me about it is its truth, not its words. narraverunt mihi iniqui delectationes, sed non sicut lex tua, domine, eas sic transferre voluerunt interpretes nostri, quas Graeci ἀδολεσχίας vocant, quod usque adeo uno verbo nequaquam dici Latine potest, ut aliqui delectationes, aliqui fabulationes eas dicerent, ut non immerito accipiatur esse quidem illas exercitationes, sed in sermone cum quadam delectatione. Has vero habent in diversis sectis ac professionibus et litterae saeculares et Iudaeorum, quae δευτέρωσις nuncupatur, continens praeter divinarum canonem scripturarum milia fabularum. Habet eas et haereticorum vana atque errabunda loquacitas. Hos omnes iniquos intellegi voluit, a quibus sibi narratas dicit ἀδολεσχίας, id est exercitationes delectabiles verbis, sed non, inquit, sicut lex tua, domine, quia me in ea veritas, non verba delectant. (118.20.5 [154])

Augustine targets and conflates three kinds of false discourse – classical literary culture, the Jewish oral tradition, and heterodox lore – and contrasts them with the Bible, a canon of truthful writings. The last two are characterized by their excessive speech; the first resembles them in cultivating the love of words, probably because of its penchant for rhetoric. It is here that Augustine departs most radically from the exegetes who preceded him. According to Origen, impious ado­ leskhia is a product of sinful living. For Hilary, it derives from the propagation of misguided values and beliefs. Ambrose equates it with untruth, though he also drains it of its contents by likening it to irksome birdsong. Augustine isolates the formal quality of the adoleskhiai mentioned in Psalm 118(119):85, which, he indicates, suffices to condemn them. This criterion raises several problems when applied to Augustine’s own exegetical practices. As is well known, many of the Enarrationes originate in live sermons. Though his exposition of Psalm 118(119) was dictated to scribes on account of the length and difficulty of the biblical text, it was styled as a series of

45 Namely Jerome, whose Gallican Psalter is discussed below.

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homilies, with the express intention that they “be performed in public” (“proferantur in populis”; 118.Proem [69]). Based on the passage quoted above, Augustine might reply that what distinguishes his oral productions from the wrong kind of adoleskhia is their foundation in the written truth of Scripture: they seek not to replace but to clarify it. However, in dismissing the Jewish deuterōsis – a Greek calque on the Hebrew word Mishnah that could also refer to Midrashic commentary and the oral disputations of the Gemara – as fables made of empty words, he represses the formal similarity between their manner of engaging with the Bible and his own.46 By the same token, his attack on “the vain and wayward babbling of heretics” strikes a discordant note, as Origen, his main authority on this verse, had been condemned for his unorthodox views in 404. Because of this mounting polemical thrust, orality is demoted from being a potentially devout mode of exegesis to serving as ready ammunition for lambasting one’s religious and secular opponents.47 Though Psalm 118(119) had probably never functioned as a purely meditative text,48 Augustine’s legacy, as regards verse 85, was to leave the psalm more politicized than before, that is, more likely to become subservient to the maintenance of collective identities or interests against a demonized Other. Besides the massively influential Enarrationes in Psalmos, the most significant factor in the subsequent reception of Psalm 118(119) is Jerome’s so-called Gallican Psalter, a revised Latin translation of the Septuagint that was to become the standard liturgical text of the Roman Catholic Church until the mid-twentieth century. Whereas this version renders the accusative plural of adoleskhia as fabulationes, a derivative of the word fabula appearing in Latin translations of the Pastoral Epistles where the Greek text has muthos, its corresponding verb becomes exerceor. As a result, verse 85, which uses adoleskhia in the regular pejorative sense, is detached from verses 15, 23, 27, 48, and 78, where adoleskheō has an idiosyncratically positive connotation. Though it creates the false impression that Psalm 118(119):85 is explicitly evoked by the passages from the Pastoral Epistles discussed above, the noun 46 This is not to underestimate the differences between rabbinic and Christian orality. According to Porton (2002), only in the Middle Ages did the rabbis start to preach Midrash in the synagogues. During late antiquity, this form of commentary was practiced in the academies. While Porton (2002, 156–158) considers Augustine’s public exposition of Scripture to be more egalitarian, the passages discussed above suggest that by attacking Jewish orality, this Church Father expresses a preference for the authority of the pulpit over the polyphonic (if still elitist) disputation practiced in the rabbinic schools. 47 In a study in preparation, where I extend this discussion to include medieval sources, this claim is demonstrated in greater detail. 48 Though Botha (1992) argues that enmity in Psalm 119 is a literary motif that serves to emphasize the speaker’s piety, he does not ground his reading in the reception history of this text.

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fabulatio is nevertheless a relatively apt equivalent for adoleskhia. By contrast, Jerome’s choice to retain the inadequate verb exerceor from the Old Latin tradition is more problematic, for several reasons. First, as witnessed by Augustine, another version of the Old Latin Psalter contained the more suitable alternative garrio (“to chatter”), which reproduces the catachrestic usage of the Septuagint.49 Had Jerome opted for this solution, he might have even translated ἀδολεσχίας as garrulitates (“chatterings”). Second, his letter to the Gothic priests Sunja and Frithila on the Septuagint Psalter (1996, 106.49 [271]) faults the Old Latin exercit­ abar (the 1sg imperfect form of exerceor) in Psalm 76(77):4 for being an incorrect rendering of both the Greek ἠδολέσχησα (the 1sg aorist of adoleskheō), which he takes to signify “a kind of chatter or meditation” (“‘decantationem’ quandam et ‘meditationem’”), and the Hebrew verb ‫יחה‬ ָ ‫( ָא ִׂש‬ʾāśîḥâ), the 1sg imperfect form of ‫( ׂ̣שי ַח‬śîaḥ). Instead, he proposes the verb loquebar (from loqui, “to speak”).50 Why, then, did Jerome not abide by his own criticism? Though perhaps influenced by some unknown contingency, his failure to do so makes better sense when viewed in light of his notorious opposition to Origen and his followers. By hindering the exegetical potential identified by his Greek predecessor, he joins Ambrose and Augustine in rendering Psalm 118(119):85 a commonplace rebuke of unruly orality. The last commentary to be considered here is Cassiodorus’s Expositio Psalmorum, composed around the middle of the sixth century, on the threshold between late antiquity and the Middle Ages. By following Jerome’s revised text of the Psalter, the Roman exegete seems at first to purge the psalm in question of the disturbing ambiguities it had accrued. However, upon closer examination, his gloss on verse 85 turns out to encapsulate many of the issues discussed so far, proof that not even the combined efforts of previous Fathers and translators had managed to lay them to rest: “Wrongdoers have told me fabulations, but not so your law, O Lord” [Psalm 118(119):85]. The word wrongdoers obviously refers to heretics or the Jews, whose perverse babbling would seem to narrate I know not what absurdities to [the psalmist], when, having left the ranks of truthfulness, they prove to pursue the falsest inventions. These things are altogether at variance with divine law: while the latter teaches the truth, such people strive to inculcate falsehoods. Understand, you fools who deviate from catholic truth, that your teachings are

49 For more instances of garrio (or its non-pejorative synonym loquor) being used to render ado­ leskheō, see Weber (1953), Psalm 68(69): 13; Psalm 76(77):4, 7, 13; Psalm 118(119):15, 23, 27, 48, 78 (variants listed in the facing textual apparatus). In some cases, the variant meditor (“to meditate”) is likewise attested. 50 Jerome’s complex attitude to the Septuagint text of the Psalter is analyzed by Schulz-Flügel (2000).

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being compared to empty fables. […] To counter his description of the heretics, [the psalmist] now professes that “all the Lord’s statutes are truthful” [Psalm 118(119):85]. For truthfulness speaks the truth, but faithless people make every effort to cloud it somehow. Narrauerunt mihi iniqui fabulationes, sed non ut lex tua, Domine. Iniqui sunt euidenter haeretici, uel iudaei, quorum peruersa loquacitas nescio quas sibi narrare uidetur ineptias, quando relicto ordine ueritatis, inuentionibus probantur studere falsissimis. Haec sunt a lege domini omnino discrepantia, quando illa ueritatem docent, isti nituntur suadere fallacias. Intellegite, dementes, qui a catholica ueritate disceditis, dogmata uestra inanibus fabulis comparata. […] Contra illud quod de haereticis dixit […] hic profitetur omnia mandata Domini esse ueritatem. Veritas enim uerum loquitur; sed perfidi eam quibusdam nebulis obcaecare contendunt. (1958, 118.85.1461–1469, 118.86.1471–1476 [2:1094])51

Following in the footsteps of Augustine, Cassiodorus attempts to draw a clear-cut distinction between heterodox falsehood and catholic truthfulness by contrasting not only the contents of these discourses or the moral status of their speakers but also the forms in which they are couched. Whereas orthodoxy is tautologically veridical, expressing itself in the plainest terms and with but a minimal gap between words and things – “for truthfulness speaks the truth” – heterodoxy is characterized by a profusion of words that aim to diffuse it. Cassiodorus implicitly associates the latter mode of communication with rhetoric: the terms narra­ tio and inventio are central to this field.52 Though conventional, this accusation nevertheless feels out of place in the Expositio Psalmorum, which frequently elucidates the psalms in light both of their particular tropes and of their general rhetorical situations.53 The preference for transparent pronouncements upheld here is similarly inappropriate. Readers of Cassiodorus might reply that he is criticizing the abuse of rhetoric rather than any use of it. His preface to the Expositio (15.60–61 [1:19]) even goes so far as to argue that Scripture alone employs rhetoric in a dignified manner; hence, secular learning is valuable inasmuch as it allows us to recognize the perfection of this art in the Bible, in contrast to the “inept fables [cf. 1 Timothy 4:7] and blasphemous words” (“fabulas ineptas et blasphema […] uerba”) found elsewhere. The problem with this solution is that it conflicts with the Gallican version of Psalm 118(119) used by Cassiodorus. As I have argued, Jerome’s choice of the noun fabulatio to render the Greek adoleskhia and the verb exerceor for adoleskheō is the culmination of a prolonged effort in the Latin West to suppress 51 I am grateful to Rita Copeland for encouraging me to look into this commentary. 52 The only figure Cassiodorus detects in verse 85 is comparatio, which is used to attack heterodox speech, thereby strengthening its rhetorical connotations. 53 The conception and use of rhetoric in the Expositio Psalmorum are treated in great detail by Astell (1999). See also Schlieben (1974, 16–21, 80–90).

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or contain the radical implication Origen had found in Psalm 118(119), which is rooted in the etymological link between these words: that Christian exegesis could, and perhaps even should, bear a formal resemblance to Jewish oral Torah. Does Cassiodorus likewise strive to obstruct this interpretive possibility by insisting – even at the price of condemning rhetoric – that orthodox truth differs from heterodox fabulations in form as well as contents? Or is the anti-rhetorical bias exhibited in his gloss on verse 85, with its reminiscences of Ambrose and Augustine, merely derivative? There is reason to believe that Cassiodorus had a good understanding of the precursors of his argument. Commenting on Psalm 118(119):48, he writes: Note that the word exercitatio is often used in a positive sense in the Divine Scriptures, whereas in secular writings or in common speech it is either never or very rarely given this meaning. We declare this figure of speech to be specific to the Divine Scriptures. Et nota quod exercitatio in scripturis diuinis plerumque in bono ponitur54; in litteris autem saecularibus, uel in communi locutione in bono aut numquam aut raro ponitur. Quam locutionem scripturarum diuinarum propriam esse dicimus. (118.48.855–862 [2:1079])

I find no support for the claim that exercitatio is a pejorative term employed by the Bible in a special positive sense contrary to ordinary usage. However, this odd contention makes sense if one substitutes the Greek verb adoleskheō, which does function in the way that Cassiodorus attributes to exerceor, its faulty Latin translation appearing in the Gallican Psalter. He therefore would have needed to consult the Septuagint version of this pericope55 or a Latin commentary that has recourse to it when explicating the peculiarities of the word in question. Shifting back and forth between several textual and exegetical traditions allows Cassiodorus to present the only legitimate or even possible training as one that is rooted in Scripture. In making this implication, he appropriates for Christianity a key component of the literary-rhetorical curriculum, namely, the honing of one’s oratorical or compositional skills by means of exercitationes based on classical models. Consequently, even as it rejects any connection between orthodox exegesis and freewheeling debate inspired by Jewish practices, Cassiodorus’s discussion of Psalm 118(119) strives – with varying degrees of success – to support his project of reinstating the more systematic and regulated methods of Roman education.

***

54 The phrase “Et nota quod exercitatio in scripturis diuinis plerumque in bono ponitur” also occurs in 118.15.330–332 (2:1066). 55 Cassiodorus’s probable knowledge of Greek is established by Garyza (1986).

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This study has insisted on the role of interreligious contact in patristic thought about Psalm 118(119). Whether implicitly emulative or blatantly disparaging of rabbinic Judaism, and even when making no reference to it, the passages I have examined cannot be fully understood without taking into account the discursive forms this religion was developing in response to Jerusalem’s fall. Whereas an exegete such as Origen, who lived alongside the Amoraim in Caesarea, drew on Psalm 118(119) to formulate a richly ambivalent attitude towards oral Torah study, the Latin Fathers who succeeded him – and had less if any exposure to rabbinic schools – gradually endeavored to drive a wedge between this emblematically Jewish practice and orthodox Christian exegesis, which is presented as more firmly grounded in the biblical text. This view, in turn, became codified in the standard Latin translation of this psalm transmitted in the Gallican Psalter. Not only are patristic readings of Psalm 118(119) informed by anti-Jewish polemic; they also bear on the no less contentious subject of the classical heritage of Christianity. The art of rhetoric, for example, is sometimes compared with rabbinic culture and sometimes preferred to it. The interplay of these contradictory standpoints depends on a host of variables, ranging from intratextual factors like the verse under consideration (85 vs. 15, 27, or 48) to extratextual ones, such as the exegete’s proximity to or distance from Jewish centers of learning, on the one hand, and the competitive threat of pagan lore, on the other. While the late-antique commentary tradition on Psalm 118(119) cannot be said to have determined these larger processes, it served as more than a gauge of their development. Instead, by joining the New Testament opposition to muthos/fabula, it gave subsequent Christians an enduring vocabulary for distinguishing their discourse from that of rival groups. Even when, centuries later, rabbinic and ecclesiastical exegetes again came to share the same urban milieus, the commonplaces drawn from this psalm remained fixed. It was up to poets and other authors of “fables” to unhinge them, launching a process that would result in a shared secular platform allowing Jewish and Christian scholars to study the Bible together in Jerusalem and elsewhere.

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Amir, Yehoshua. “The Place of Psalm cxix in the History of Jewish Religion” (in Hebrew). Te‘uda 2: Bible Studies Y. M. Grintz in Memoriam. Ed. Benjamin Uffenheimer. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1982. 57–81. Amir, Yehoshua. “Psalm 119 als Zeugnis eines proto-rabbinischen Judentums.” Studien zum Antiken Judentum. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1985. 1–34. Arnold, Tina. “Die Einladung zu einem ‘glücklichen’ Leben: Tora als Lebensraum nach Ps 119,1–3.” The Composition of the Book of Psalms. Ed. Erich Zenger. Leuven: Peeters, 2010. 401–412. Astell, Ann W. “Cassiodorus’s Commentary on the Psalms as an Ars rhetorica.” Rhetorica 17 (1999): 37–75. Athanasius (?). Expositiones in Psalmos. Patrologia Graeca. Ed. J.-P. Migne. Vol. 27. Paris, 1857. 59–546. Augustine of Hippo. Quaestionum in Heptateuchum libri septem. Ed. J. Fraipont. CCSL 33. Turnhout: Brepols, 1958. Augustine of Hippo. Enarrationes in Psalmos 110–118. Ed. Franco Gori. CSEL 95/2. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Austermann, Frank. Von der Tora zum Nomos: Untersuchungen zur Übersetzungsweise und Interpretation im Septuaginta-Psalter. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. Ballhorn, Egbert. Zum Telos des Psalters: Der Textzusammenhang des Vierten und Fünften Psalmenbuches (Ps 90–150). Berlin: Philo, 2004. Blowers, Paul M. “Origen, the Rabbis, and the Bible: Toward a Picture of Judaism and Christianity in Third-Century Caesarea.” Origen of Alexandria: His World and His Legacy. Eds. Charles Kannengiesser and William L. Petersen. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988. 96–116. Bogaert, Pierre-Maurice. “Le psautier latin des origines au XIIe siècle: Essai d’histoire.” Der Septuaginta-Psalter und seine Tochterübersetzungen. Eds. Anneli Aejmelaeus and Udo Quast. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000. 51–81. Botha, P. J. “The Function of the Polarity between the Pious and the Enemies in Psalm 119.” Old Testament Essays 5 (1992): 252–263. Carpino, Fabiola. “Origene, Eusebio e Ilario sul Salmo 118.” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 3 (1986): 57–64. Cassiodorus, Magnus Aurelius. Expositio Psalmorum. Ed. M. Adriaen. 2 vols. CCSL 97–98. Turnhout: Brepols, 1958. Cohn, Naftali S. The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Deissler, Alfons. Psalm 119 (118) und seine Theologie: Ein Betrag zur Erforschung der anthologischen Stilgattung im Alten Testament. Munich: Karl Zink, 1955. De Lange, N. R. M. Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976a. De Lange, N. R. M. “Origen and the Rabbis on the Hebrew Bible.” Studia Patristica 14 (1976b): 117–121. Dewey, Joanna. “Textuality in an Oral Culture: A Survey of the Pauline Traditions.” Semeia 65 (1995): 37–65. Dorival, Gilles. “Athanase ou Pseudo-Athanase?” Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 16 (1980): 80–89. Finsterbusch, Karin. “Yahweh’s Torah and the Praying ‘I’ in Psalm 119.” Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Eds. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. Leiden: Brill, 2013. 119–135.

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Sussmann, Yaakov. “‘Torah Shebeʿal Peh’ Peshutah Kemashmaʿah: Koḥo Shel Kotso Shel Yod” (in Hebrew). Meḥqerei Talmud III: Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Ephraim U. Urbach. Vol. 1. Eds. Yaakov Sussmann and David Rosenthal. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005. 209–384. Theophrastus. Characters. Ed. and transl. Jeffrey Rusten. Loeb Classical Library 225. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Toloni, Giancarlo. “Un problema di semantica: La traduzione greca di šʿʿ in alcuni versetti del Sal 119 (118).” Rivista Biblica 42 (1994): 35–58. Vall, Gregory. “What Was Isaac Doing in the Field (Genesis XXIV 63)?” Vetus Testamentum 44 (1994): 513–523. Vian, Giovanni Maria. Testi inediti dal commento ai Salmi di Atanasio. Rome: Institutum Patristicum “Augustinianum,” 1978. Weber, Robert, ed. Le Psautier Romain et les autres anciens psautiers latins. Rome: Abbaye Saint-Jérôme, 1953. Yuval, Israel Jacob. “The Orality of Jewish Oral Law: From Pedagogy to Ideology.” Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the Course of History: Exchange and Conflicts. Eds. Lothar Gall and Dietmar Willoweit. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2011. 237–260. Zenger, Erich. “The Composition and Theology of the Fifth Book of Psalms, Psalms 107–145.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 80 (1998): 77–102. Zenger, Erich. “Torafrömmigkeit: Beobachtungen zum poetischen und theologischen Profil von Psalm 119.” Freiheit und Recht: Festschrift für Frank Crüsemann zum 65. Geburtstag. Eds. Christof Hardmeier, Rainer Kessler, and Andreas Ruwe. Gütersloh: Christian Kaiser, 2003. 380–396.

Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel

David and Jerusalem: From Psalms to the Zohar King David is one of the most colorful heroes of Jewish myth. Warrior and poet, sinner and penitent, conqueror and musician, adulterer and Messiah. The many facets of his character are rooted in biblical scripture, and continue to develop in the literature of the Midrash and the Kabbalah. Each generation has added new layers to David’s portrait, sketching him in a new light. Indeed, David’s personality reflects the characters and hopes of his interpreters throughout generations. Embodying the hero “with a thousand faces” and representing the messianic idea, David is not only a private character but a collective entity, wearing many different forms.1 In the Zohar, David’s collective image is identified with the Shekhinah, which is both the Assembly of Israel [Knesset Israel] and the Divine Spouse. Why was this figure of the warrior – the ultimate male, conqueror of cities and kingdoms, the redeemer, who was presented as a masculine hero in both Christian and Jewish literature – “converted” by the Zohar to signify the feminine sefira of Malkhut? I will examine three traditions that enabled the Kabbalists to identify David with the images of the Shekhinah. The first is his connection to the city of Jerusalem, symbolizing the center of Jewish holiness and messianism as well as the site of the fracture from which redemption will emerge. The second tradition is the theme of sin, which appears as a leitmotif in the biographies of the heroes of the Judaean dynasty.2 Finally, these two motifs are connected to David’s liturgical identity, which is rooted in the Book of Psalms. I will examine the perception of David as a penitent, or ba’al teshuvah, as relates to his identification with Jerusalem. The city’s feminine persona is connected to David’s biography as redeemer in the sense that both symbolize sites of exile and destruction that give rise to the myth of repair [Tikkun] and redemption. 1 See for example Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1956) and Tamar Kron, The Archetypal Couple (2015, 285–341). 2 For feminine and maternal aspects of the notion of sin and redemption in the Davidic dynasty, see Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel, Holiness and Transgression: Mothers of the Messiah in the Jewish Myth (2017). Note: I am grateful to Yehuda Liebes and friends who have read and commented on the draft of this paper: Shiri Artzi, Hillel Ben Sasson, Avner Bersgtein, Naama Cifroni, Esteban Gottfried, Iris Felix, Gili Kugler, and Yael Sela. Special thanks to Ilana Pardes for the dialogue and the invitation to present the first fruits of this research at the conference “Psalms In/On Jerusalem: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Hermeneutics” in June 2015. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-005

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David in the Book of Psalms The literature of the Second Temple, followed by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, the writings of Sages, and subsequently the mystical literature, attribute authorship of the Book of Psalms to David, notwithstanding the pseudoepigraphical nature of this attribution.3 Most of the Psalms are written in the first-person singular, and about half of them incorporate David’s name into their title – for example, “A Song for David,” “To the Conductor a Song to David,” and “To David.” Contrary to the king-andwarrior image portrayed in Samuel and Chronicles, David in the Book of Psalms is depicted as a poet and a man of prayer. Throughout the text, the speaker testifies to his poverty and distress: for example, “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me, for I am poor and needy” (Ps. 86:1); or, in Psalms 102 and 109: “For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me” (Ps. 109:22); and “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily” (Ps. 102:1–3). The words “heart” and “soul” appear in many of the psalms, reflecting the agony of the speaker, who seeks through prayer and song to cleanse his sins and relieve his anguish. As we learn from Psalm 119, “I am small and despised: yet do not I forget thy precepts […] Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet thy commandments are my delights […] I cried unto thee; save me, and I shall keep thy testimonies” (Ps. 119:141–146). This and many other psalms emphasize David’s righteousness and his supplication to God, a view that would be elaborated upon by the mystics in their identifying his fragility with the faults of the Shekhinah. Pseudo-historical titles were added to many of the psalms, such as Psalm 3, which opens with the words “A Psalm to David when he fled from his son Absalom” and continues with a description of his tribulations: “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! Many are they that rise up against me.” Similarly, Psalm 57 opens with a description of David’s escape from Saul and his entreaty to God: “A David

3 The writings of David are mentioned in Maccabbees 2 (2, 13). Many sources from Qumran mention the Book of Psalms as being a Davidic composition. The scroll of Psalms (11QPs/a) states that David wrote 3,600 psalms and 450 poems. On the notion of David as a Psalmist author in the New Testament, see for example Luke 20:42, Epistle to the Romans 11:9; Acts of the Apostles 4:25, and more. For discussions of David as the author in the Rabbinic literature, see: BT Baba Batra 14b; Pesahim 117b. According to Midrash Tehilim, the five parts of Psalms correspond with the Pentateuch, while David represents the role of Moses. See Baden (2013, 26–37); Rendtorff (2005); and Shinan (1995). I will expand elsewhere on the image of David in Rabbinic literature.

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Psalm, when he hid in a cave from Saul: Be good to me, God – and now! I’ve run to you for dear life. I’m hiding out under your wings until the hurricane blows over” (Ps. 57:1–2). These titles do not appear in the Psalms according to the chronology of the events described in Samuel. Moreover, they recount almost exclusively David’s moments of weakness or persecution – “Fleeing from Absalom,” “When he changed his behavior before Abimelech” (Ps. 34), “About Doeg, the Edomite” (Ps. 52), “When the Ziphites came” (Ps. 54), “When the Philistines seized him in Gath” (Ps. 56), “When he hid in a cave from Saul” (Ps. 57), “When Saul sent men to watch the house in order to kill him” (Ps. 59), “While he was in the Judean wilderness” (Ps. 63), and – his great sin – “When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba” (Ps. 51:1). These descriptions were intentionaly added by editors who sought to cleanse David’s biography and emphasize his experiences of persecution, without mentioning his political and diplomatic achievements. While Psalms highlights David’s position as victim, the literary plot in Samuel alternates between, on one hand, portraying him as God’s chosen one (1 Sam. 7) and, on the other hand, condemning him and presenting an account of his sins (2 Sam. 11–12). In order to gain a full portrait of his mythical figure, it seems that one must read the epic narrative of the life of David alongside the poetic narrative. According to Zakovitch (1995, 159), the juxtaposition of Psalms with the books of Samuel and Chronicles helps to transform vague idioms into concrete reality: “The Psalms cast a religious angle on the epic stories, while the stories shed realistic light on the hymns.”4 Indeed, if we focus on David’s life through the exclusive prism of the Book of Psalms, we would experience not a conquering king but a zealous believer and tormented poet.5 In contrast to the warrior-like image that arises from the historiographical descriptions in Samuel, David’s main strength as depicted in the Book of Psalms lies in his tongue. In Psalms, it is his persecutors and enemies who play an active role, while David wanders the realm of poetry and bares his broken heart before God. In the Book of Samuel, however, despite David earning a favorable mention from God (“A man to my liking”), he is

4 On the connection between the titles and the hymns, see Zakovitch (1995, 152–160) and Cooper (1983). 5 Through this prism we can combine the image of the suffering Messiah (of Zechariah 9; Isaiah 53) with the Davidic descendant (Isaiah 11; Ps. 2). Indeed, in Psalms and Samuel, David himself unites both sides of the messianic figure. On the suffering Messiah, Ephraim son of Joseph, see Fishbane (1998).

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not portrayed as an innocent protagonist; rather, the historiographical narrative reveals his malicious actions and his lust for power and conquest.6, 7

David and Jerusalem Why does the Psalmist choose to reconstruct primarily the years of David’s persecution while hardly mentioning his political achievements? According to Rendtorff (2005, 56), the protagonist’s vulnerability was meant not only to arouse the reader’s sympathy but also to consolidate a liturgical community of believers: “By setting this side of David’s image in the foreground, these psalms make David a figure to be identified with, by the individual reader as well as by the praying congregation – the more so because almost every Psalm of lamentation ends with an expression of hope and confidence in the help of God, sometimes even with thanks for God’s help already received.” According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, David wrote the psalms in order to recite them “before the altar.” By incorporating them into the Temple rites in Jerusalem, and by reciting them in the synagogue (referred to as the “Little Temple,” following the destruction of the Temple), the believer reconstructs the experience of the tormented king and thus advocates for himself and his religion. If the powerful David collapsed and sinned, then so too can a “regular” person sin and repent. Already in the Book of Samuel and Psalms, David’s biography is linked with the history of the city of Jerusalem; later, in the Kabbalah, the two narratives come together in the journey of the Shekhinah. Zion is the Divine Spouse, the mother who gives birth in pain to her children, who laments them when they go into exile.8 Following the Book of Revelation, in which Jerusalem descends from heaven as a decorated bride, in the Zohar the city is also split into two: one part reflecting the mother [Binah], the other the daughter [Malkhut]; one is heavenly and supernal, the other earthly and corporal.9 Similar to David himself, the lower city also has two aspects: one is identified with human reality; the other symbolizes divine qualities. As Haviva Pedaya notes, The Shekhinah is the lost 6 On David’s entangled use of power see Halbertal & Holmes: “David is the master of walking the fine line between innocence and manipulation... [his] efforts to control his public image – is a striking feature of the Book of Samuel.” (2017, 38–44) 7 1 Sam. 13–14; 2 Sam. 3:15–16; 1 Sam. 25:37–38; 2 Sam. 6. And subsequently in the New Testament: Acts of the Apostles 13:22. 8 On feminine images of the city, see: Trible (1985) and Gruber (1983). God’s love of Zion is mentioned in many psalms, for example, 74, 77, 88, 122, as parallel to Isaiah 86, 8 and Ezekiel 16, 23. 9 See Idel (2009). On the description of Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation (21:1–2) and Christian influence on kabbalistic literature, see Idel (2009, 70–73) and Green (2002).

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city-mother, born with the destruction. The city symbolizes both the feminine tragedy and the crisis of the sons who are seeking and mourning her.10 In kabbalistic literature, the history of Jerusalem is intertwoven with the figure of David, an association whose first symbols are anchored in the Bible and in the Midrash. Although David is forbidden from building the Temple, his longing creates a metaphoric sanctuary for the prayers of the nation.11 The tragic nature of his figure is reflected in the image of the city as a site of repeated destruction, from which emerges the hope for recovery and healing: “Jerusalem stands built up, a city knitted together” (Ps. 122:3); “Show favor to Zion in your good pleasure; and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem” (Ps. 51:18); “The descendants of his servants will inherit it, and those who cherish his name will live there” (Ps. 69:36). In the Book of Psalms the image of the Temple represents the fragments of its hero. It is the site where all hopes converge, where the personal intermingles with the collective, the real with the imagined. In the Temple the established ritual is bound together with idiosyncratic worship.12 For example, in Psalm 42 – which is not attributed, in its title, to David, but is connected to him in later commentary – the speaker’s pain is fused with images of the masses celebrating in the house of God: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When may I come and appear in God’s presence? [...] These things I will recall as I pour out my troubles within me: I used to go with the crowd in a procession to the house of God, accompanied with shouts of joy and thanksgiving” (Ps. 42:2–5). Later in the Psalm, we witness David’s tormented nocturnal experience, which overshadows any realistic perception of the Temple, and which is far from the historical and political reality that he inhabited: “therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan, from the heights of Hermon, even from the foothills […] Like the shattering of my bones are the taunts of my oppressors, saying to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’” (Ps. 42:6–7, 10). The Song of the Levites, which emerges from the heart of Jerusalem, is woven into a place that is a source of justice and law. In the face of the “enemy’s pressure” and fear of the oppressors who ask “Where is your God?” a pure divine space comes into being that presents an alternative to the poet’s state of distress (Ps. 43:1–2). The biography of the speaker, and his portrayal as one who has acknowledged his sins, strengthens the experience of the worshippers, who use David’s personal prayers as a basis for their own collective identity.

10 Haviva Pedaya, “Ve-Ima Hashata Let Lan – A Geneology of the Shekhina as a Mother” (2013). 11 Esther M. Menn, “Prayerful Origins: David as Temple Founder in Rabbinic Psalms Commentary” (2004). 12 The Temple is one of the most extreme cases of anachronism in the Psalms. See for example, Ps. 27:4; 42:5; 48:10; 65:5; 66:13; 116:19; 117:26, and others.

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The many episodes of repentance and atonement attributed to David strengthen the disparity between his epic and poetical personae. In contrast to the destructive and aggressive figure in Samuel who exploits those beneath him, in the Psalms the powerful king is portrayed as a passive hero. It is not by chance that David was chosen as a redeeming figure, as the conflictual and fragmented aspects of his personality call for resolution and unification. David of the Book of Psalms is a vagabond, much like God himself; indeed, he sees that God has no place to dwell and asks that he be allowed to build a house for God: “Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions: How he sware unto the Lord, and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob; Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; […] Until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob” (Ps. 132:1–5). The wish to find an anchor and a home reflects his fragmentary and unstable identity. Here we have no longer a God who forbids David to build a Temple or who criticizes him for the blood he has spilled, as in the Book of Chronicles (1, 22:7–8), but rather a God who empathizes with David’s pain and, like him, is a vagabond, without a place or a real home. Psychologically speaking, David’s supplication to God is marked by its intimate tone, sometimes even reaching a point of identity confusion and role reversal, wherein David seems to view himself as a divine figure even as he projects his troubles onto God. This projective identification accords with the manic-depressive nature of the Psalms, suggesting both megalomania and inferiority complex, therby characterizing David as archetypical sinner, penitant, and broken-hearted redeemer. In every occurence of the Temple, or the “House of the Lord,” in Psalms, David’s indigence and persecution are emphasized. For example in Psalm 30:2: “I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up.” This motif returns in Psalms 27, 42, 52, 55, 84, and 116, among others. Robert Alter (1981, 25–54) remarks that David is the Bible’s most complex protagonist, around whom “historicized fiction” is woven with “fictionalized history.” As Alter notes, David is “a sentient person, not just a pawn in God’s grand historical design, and about many facets of this person – in contrast to the Homeric heroes – we are left to wonder […] The underlying biblical conception of character as often unpredictable, in some ways impenetrable, constantly emerging from and slipping back into a penumbra of ambiguity, in fact has greater affinity with dominant modern notions than do the habits of conceiving character typical of the Greek epics” (Alter 1981, 143–162). David’s personality sharpens the contradiction between God’s chosenness and morality; the secret of his charm lies in his multifaceted persona. As Halbertal & Holmes state: “Neither his subjects nor his courtiers can ever be sure that David is motivated solely by political ambition” (2017, 58). He denies he killed Uriah, yet, his “underlying capacity for heartfelt grief… makes the grip that sovereign power exerts over its wielder all the more harrowing. Had David

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been a cold-blooded tyrant, his quest for deniability would have had little moral significance”. Samuel’s author “drives home the uncanny power of dissociation and its capacity to generate violence, therefore, precisely by giving us such a rich portrayal of David’s complexity as a human being and not merely as a king” (97). In the images of his annointment and playing the lyre before Saul (1 Sam. 16), and in his battle against Goliath (1 Sam. 17), David stands out for his quiet modesty. In the stories that follow, other, more dangerous, characteristics are revealed. From a hero who is portrayed as the ultimate “beloved” – by the king and his two children, Jonathan and Michal – and as a figure revered by the people and renowned for his heroism (1 Sam. 18:16), David transforms into a merciless king. Yet, at the time of his escape from Saul and from his son Absalom, his weakness and humanness are also exposed. In other instances, he is revealed as a twofaced actor, as when he disguises himself as a fool before Achish, king of Gath (1 Sam. 21:14–16), when he dances before the Ark, and when he stands up to the aristocratic haughtiness of Michal (2 Sam. 6). At the end of his life, in arranging his succession and legacy, David is revealed as a skilled tactician – good for his allies and dangerous for his rivals (1 Kings 1–2). David’s strength thus lies in the fact that each of the biblical stories highlights different facets of his complex character. Readers at any given moment can develop or highlight different characteristics of David, as commentators have done over the centuries. The trend attributing authorship of the Psalms to David seems to be based on the view that poetry has the power to capture the contradictory narratives of his life, and through this to cleanse him of his sin. In the Book of Psalms, David manages to gain God’s sympathy as a persecuted figure yearning for rescue. His libertine character arises throughout the texts, whether he is courting women or tempting God. He seduces Michal with his heroism and has her brought to him from Paltiel (who follows, “weeping all the way”); he conquers Abigail while turning her husband “into stone”; he takes Bathsheba and murders her husband; and he seduces God with the poetry of the tormented shepherd, even as he tortures himself for his sins.

David as Poet Two scenes backdrop David’s representation as a poet: his first appearance as a young man skilled at playing the lyre, and the scene of his ascent to Jerusalem, as he dances and crouches before the Ark.13 Although Samuel does not mention 13 Gideon Bohak (2008, 98–100) has suggested that the poetic persona of David in the Qumran scrolls includes the recitation of exorcistic hymns. In addition, according to Josephus, David’s

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the writing of the Psalms, the book does include David’s lamentations, as well as poetry verses, which appear at the end of the text (2 Sam. 22–23).14 At the beginning of chapter 23, David is identified as “the contented Psalm writer of Israel,” and his poetry in chapter 22 is the same as in Psalm 18:3–51.15 Chronicles emphasizes the liturgical component in David’s persona, describing David’s initiative in assembling the Levites and the institution of poetry in Jerusalem, even before the building of the Temple: “David assembled all of Israel in Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the Lord to its proper place that he had prepared for it (1 Chron. 15:3); “In the presence of the ark of the Lord, he appointed some of the descendants of Levi to minister continually by remembering, giving thanks, and praising the Lord God of Israel […] On that very day, David composed this Psalm of thanksgiving to the Lord just for Asaph and his companions” (1 Chron. 16:1–9). According to these descriptions, David prepared the spiritual groundwork for the appearance of the Temple in Jerusalem, even if the actual construction was completed by his son Solomon. Accordingly, Baden suggests that the Book of Psalms constitutes a cultic poetry that David began to assemble and whose formation continued into the first century B.C.E. This corpus of poetry was created by many poets over the course of several generations, all of whom regarded David as the source and “patron” of the book: “After chronicles, the songs of the cult, the Psalms, become David’s songs – not by authorship but by patronage” (Baden 2013, 33–34).16 His image as a patron is connected to his image as the son of God, as hinted at in certain boldly striking descriptions – for example, “Let me announce the decree of the Lord that he told me: ‘You are my son, today I have become your father’” (Ps. 2:7)) and in description of his birth as being from the womb of God, “Your soldiers are willing volunteers on your day of battle; in majestic holiness, from the womb, from the dawn, the dew of your youth belongs to you” (Ps. 110:3). In these and other cov-

harp playing also expresses an exorcistic ritual, which aims to restrain the “evil spirit” afflicting Saul as a demon. 14 Most scholars identify in these verses an archaic language that was written by David or a contemporary of his. The poetry that appears at the end of the Book of Samuel accords with a previous literary model, in which a narrative story is concluded with a verse of poetry, such as the blessings of Jacob at the end of Genesis, or the song of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. See Robert Alter, The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel (1999, 336–344). 15 Rendtorff (2005, 56, 60–61). Alter (1999) and Zakovitch (1995, 150–151) claim that the source is in Samuel and the writer of Psalms edited the psalm. For another suggestion, see Baden (2013,  32). The NRSV translation gives a different meaning: the favorite of the “Strong One of Israel.” And compare Amos 6:5; Nehemiah 12:36. 16 For a comparison of the corpus found in Qumran to the extant Psalms, see Baden (2013), chapter 1.

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enantal psalms, David sits to the right of God, a position that emphasizes the Messianic promise and parental bond between them.17 In a later excerpt from the corpus of the Hekhalot literature, known as “the Apocalypse of David,” David’s image is incorporated with a visionary description that culminates with Kedusha (Trisagion): He [God] took hold of me [Metatron] and sat me on his lap. He said to me “What do you see?” I said to him “I see seven lightening bolts that are running as one.” He said: “Squeeze your eyes shut, my son, so that you are not frightened” […] I heard the voice of a great earthquake that came from Eden [...] Behold, David King of Israel was at the head, and all the kings of the house of David (followed) after him […] the crown of David was more distinguished and praiseworthy than all the crowns. Its splendor goes from one end of the world to the other. David ascended to the Temple that is in heaven and prepared for him there is a throne of fire. As soon as David came and sat himself on the throne which is prepared for him opposite the throne of his Lord, all the kings of the house of David sat before him, and the kings of Israel stood behind him. Immediately, David stood and uttered songs and praises that no ear has ever heard. As soon as David began and said “The Lord will be King forever, etc. (Ps. 146:10).” Metatron and all his ministers began and said “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, (Isaiah 6:3).” The Holy living Creatures praise and say […] the heavens say […] the earth says […] All the kings of the house of David say: “And the Lord will be King over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one (Zecharia 14:9).”18 (Bauckham et al. 2013, 751–753)

David as poet and redeemer is at the heart of a cosmic ritual, alongside the descenders of the Holy Chariot and the angels. Contrary to the above rendering, which is based on the Schäfer edition, Wertheimer’s text is based on a version found in the Geniza and also in the Midrash HaGadol, in which this visionary scene takes place in the Holy Temple in the sky (and not in the Beit Midrash).19 I hope to expand upon this text elsewhere, but here suffice it to note that each of the versions highlights a different important facet of David’s persona: on one

17 Yisrael Knohl, The Messiah Before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2000) and Knohl, Biblical Beliefs (2007, 40–62). For more on David as the “son of God,” see Yair Lorberbaum, Disempowered King: Monarchy in Classical Jewish Literature (2011, 13–39). 18 Ulrike Hirschfelder (2005, 177) writes that “the Apocalypse of David has little interest in the happenings of the last days on earth… [It] differs in a fundamental way from the representations of the end time extant in the other apocalyptic units transmitted in Hekhalot literature.” She adds that in the Apocalypse, “the concept of redemption rests not on end time expectations but rather on a Messiah present in heaven who prays” (Hirschfelder 2005, 179). See also: Peter Schäfer (ed.) with Margarete Schlüter and Hans Georg von Mutius, Synopse zur Hekhalot­ Literatur (1981, 62–63); Yehuda Eben Shmuel (ed.), Midrashei Geula (1953, 10); Joseph Dan, Jewish Mysticism, vol. III (1999, 1021); and Peter Schäfer, The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other (2012, 85–92). 19 Wertheimer, Batei Midrashot I (1950), 78, note 33. For the poetic motif compare BT Berachot 7b.

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hand, there is the learned aspect (which, later, the Sages emphasize by turning David into a leading Torah scholar); on the other hand, there is his liturgical quality and his strength as a man of poetry and sacred prayer. The two motifs are further developed in the Zoharic literature.

David in the image of the Shekhinah in the Zohar In the Zohar, David is viewed as the feminine divine figure – the sefira of Malkhut or the Shekhinah. This figure is manifested in many feminine forms, but it also has masculine traits and stands out for its ability to change identities and personae: the Shekhinah is identified with Rabbi Shim’on Bar Yochai (Rashbi); it is also refered to as “angel,” “you” (masculine), “rainbow,” and other androgynous epithets. Sometimes it appears as Lilith, representative of the powers of evil, and sometimes as her partner, Samael.20 Elliot Wolfson (1994, 99; 2002, 231) has suggested that, in the literature of the Kabbalah, the Shekhinah is assimilated into the divine masculine, which is superior as an androgynous phallus. Studies that challenge his claims point to egalitarian descriptions of the relationship between the sefirot and emphasize the independent status of the Shekhinah.21 In my book on the mothers of the Messiah, I identify another paradigm, in which the son is “assimilated” into the activeness of the mother at the time of redemption. I also suggest that the concept of the “masculine world,” which is attributed to Binah at birth, should be interpreted not as the assimilation of the mother into the father, but as the ability to contain the other and to be called by his name during the female pregnancy (Kara-Ivanov Kaniel 2017, 210–218). I will examine David’s feminine side in light of the perception of the Shekhinah as “disguising herself” in various masculine forms.22 The Shekhinah appears in

20 See for example Zohar 1:148a. 21 I will mention here just some of the scholarship on the subject: Moshe Idel, Kabbalah and Eros (2005b, chapter 2, especially page 107, note 33); Moshe Idel, “Androgyny and Equality in the Theosophico-Theurgical Kabbalah” (2005a); Daniel Abrams, The Female Body of God in Kabbalistic Literature: Embodied Forms of Love and Sexuality in the Divine Feminine (2004); Yehuda Liebes, “Zohar and Eros” (1994); Shifra Asulin, “The Stature of the Shekhina: The Place of the Feminine Divine Countenance (Parzuf) in Idra Rabba and Idra Zuta” (2009); and Biti Roi, Love of the Shekhina­Mysticism and Poetics in Tiqqunei ha­Zohar (2017). 22 I expand on the patterns of dressing and the perception of David as the fourth leg of the chariot, in my forthcoming article “Sefirot in the Figure of Man.” See also: Haviva Pedaya, Nahmanides: Cyclical Time and Holy Text (2003, 333–349); and Adam Afterman, Devequt: Mystical Intimacy in Medieval Jewish Thought (2011, 270–279).

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practically every homily in the Book of the Zohar; in many of these, David seems as another reflection of her image, through her concrete or abstract symbols. She is a gateway to the upper worlds, moon and well, bride and doe. In the Zohar, one can view David’s biography as being woven into that of the Shekhinah; like the Shekhinah, David represents the brokenhearted, the poor, the oppressed. He is despised and rejected among his brothers, as he states in Psalms: “I am a stranger to my brothers, a foreigner to my mother’s sons” (Ps. 69:8); by virtue of this verse, the saying “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Ps. 118:22) is interpreted as being about David. The Shekhinah and David are rejected for their flaws and their sins, and yet they are granted the right to arise to the head of the sefirotic realm. They are joined by the city of Jerusalem, whose destruction is testament to her sins, and whose contempt is the source of her redemption. The tragic relationship between the city/nation and God originates in “making known to Israel her detestable practices” (Ezek. 16:1), and whose end is in the creation of a new covenant: “Meanwhile, as for me, I’ll remember my covenant with you from when you were young, because I’ll establish an eternal covenant with you” (Ezek. 16:60).23 Just as the city has two faces – of which “Zion” in most instances symbolizes the male, phallic aspect, while “Jerusalem” symbolizes the feminine aspect – so, too, does David contain androgynous elements.24 Like the city and the Shekhinah, David is a sinning and redeemed hero, awaiting the light of redemption. The Zohar attributes his words “God, you are my God! I will fervently seek you [=ashahareha]” (Ps. 63:1) to the black light [=shahor] that breaks with dawn [=shahar], in contrast to the white light sought by humankind. This light also has a dual quality, of revelation and concealment, and is revealed, of all places, in the desert, which symbolizes the contrast with the comfort of sedentary life.25 David is described in the Zohar as the “gatekeeper” at the symbolic entrance to redemption and at the entrance to divinity and the cosmic world. He is portrayed as one who knows how “to tie everything in one knot” [lekashara kola be­had kishra] and how to reach the afterlife while still holding onto this life.26 I will look at a number of homilies that illuminate his affinities with the Shekhinah and with

23 On the determinism in this relationship, see: Pardes (1992, 129–130). For more on the feminine symbolization of the nation, see Pardes (2000, 12, 28). 24 On the two faces of the city, see Idel (2009); on its gender identities: Abrams (2004); Morris (1999). Likewise, David’s yearning “as a gazelle pants for streams of water” (Ps. 42:2), the Zohar interprets as referring to both a male gazelle and the female morning star [ayelet ha­shachar] (Zohar 2:219b). 25 Zohar 2:140a; Zohar 3:21b. Hellner-Eshed (2005a, 313–315). 26 Zohar 3:20a–23a.

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Jerusalem, as figures that are deprived of “their own light,” for example, in Zohar Pekudei: Rabbi El’azar, Rabbi Yitshak, and Rabbi Yehudah were traveling on the road. Rabbi El’azar said, “It is time to proceed with Shekhinah, for Shekhinah will settle upon us only through words of Torah.” Rabbi Yehudah said, “Let the leader open first!” Rabbi El’azar opened, saying, “Puny am I and despised, yet Your precepts I have not forgotten” (Psalms 119:141). Puny am I and despised – sometimes King David praises himself, saying, showing kindness to His anointed, to David (ibid. 18:51), and it is written: Utterance of David son of Jesse, utterance of the man raised on high, anointed of the God of Jacob (2 Samuel 23:1). And sometimes he describes himself as poor, as is written: For I am poor and needy (Psalms 86:1), and it is written: Puny am I and despised. He also said, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cor­ nerstone (ibid 118:22). “Well, when he reached the rung of peace and attained true justice, he praised himself. And when he saw himself in distress, harassed by his enemies, he abased himself, calling himself poor, the least of all. Why? Because sometimes he dominated his enemies and sometimes he was distressed by them. Nevertheless, he always prevailed, and they could not overpower him. “King David humbled himself before the blessed Holy One; for whoever does so, the blessed Holy One elevates him above all. Thus, the blessed Holy One favored him in this world and in the world that is coming. In this world, as is written: I will protect this city, delivering it for My sake and for the sake of My servant David (Isaiah 37:35). In the world that is coming, as is written: They will seek YHVH their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them (Hosea 3:5). David was king in this world, and David will be king in the time to come. Therefore he said, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (Psalms 118:22). “Come and see: When the moon is deprived of light and does not shine, She is impoverished on all sides and darkened, without any light at all. And when the sun turns back toward Her, illumining Her, She adorns Herself for Him, like a female adorning herself for a male. Then She gains dominion throughout the world. “So David adorned himself in the same manner. Sometimes he is poor, and sometimes he is reveling in riches. Thus he said, Puny am I and despised; nevertheless, Your precepts I have not forgotten. Similarly, a person should humble himself in every way, becoming a vessel in which the blessed Holy One delights. This has already been established, as is written: with the crushed and lowly in spirit (Isaiah 57:15). (Zohar 2:232b–233a)27 (Matt, vol. VI, 338–340)

David’s mood swings, his lowliness, and his tendency to deprecate himself at one moment but then to laud his choseness and messianic qualities at another are related to the cosmic movement of the moon, about which it was said “that he who humbles himself before the Lord will be uplifted above all the rest.”28 The moon represents the Divine Spouse who is filled and illuminated by the masculine, the sun. The moon’s waning is likened to David’s poverty and misery. Like the moon, he is characterized by a constant cycle of emptying and filling. 27 All translations from the Zohar are from Daniel C. Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, 12 volumes (2006–2013). 28 Cf. Ezekiel 21:31; Proverbs 29:23; Luke 18:14; BT Eruvin 13b.

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The blessing for the new moon contains the words “David King of Israel, is alive and vigorous,” hinting both at the kabbalistic idea of the unification of Tiferet and Malkhut, and to the coronation of the Shekhinah, as we learn from the prayer: “and to the moon He said to renew itself. A crown and splendor to the full uterus who are destined to be renewed like her.”29 The Zoharic homily incorporates verses from Psalms that reflect David’s wretchedness, alongside verses from Samuel that emphasize his chosenness, together creating the compound of glorification and self-contempt that renders David a redeeming figure paradoxically by virtue of his flaws. This is a manicdepressive movement, symbolized by the moon as well as by the image of a stone, which is rejected and yet thrown to poetic heights until ascending to the supernal realm.30 Kabbalists of the theosophical-theurgical school theorized that David as well as the Malkhut, though they seem to be at the bottom of the sefirotic structure, actually alone have the ability to ascend to the Keter located at its apex.31 The Zoharic homily links, on one hand, David’s loyalty to God’s commandments and, on the other hand, his miserable situation; because he is “young and despised” he declares to the heavens: “I have not forgotten your commands.” Already in the Talmud and midrashim, the Sages labored to present David as a model penitent, even as they claimed that he had never sinned: for example, “whoever says that David sinned is merely erring” (BT Shabbat 56a). By transforming the historical battlefields of the Bible into the metaphorical field of Jewish Law, they were able to present David as both judge and pious Rabbi.32 Following the Sages, who transformed the outward qualities that appear in 1 Samuel 16–18 (such as David’s physical appearance and his musical skills) into spiritual qualities, the 29 BT Rosh haShana 25a. The identification of David and the Messiah with the moon appears in many commentaries, such as Zohar 1:238, a “[King Messiah] is poor, for he is in the aspect of the moon. If above, speculum that does not shine” (Matt, vol. III, 448). On the Shekhinah as the moon, see Liebes (2009); Idel (1998, 110–112, 365, note 39). On the suspensive [meubar], introverted, and depressive nature of the Messiah as compared to the images of Saturn and the moon, see: Pedaya (1996); for the blessing of the new moon, see Pedaya (2003, 359–361). 30 As Daniel Matt states: “In the Zohar, the ‘rejection’ of the stone alludes to the diminishment of the light of Shekhinah (symbolized by David), while the image of the cornerstone symbolizes Her vital role in the sefirotic structure and process” (Matt, vol. VI, 339, note 227). On the ascension of the Shekhinah, see: Idel (2015–2016). 31 Green (1997). 32 On the perception of David as a Halakhic leader, see: BT, Berachot 4a; Ruth Rabbah 4:3; Pesiqta Rabbati 9. M. Ish Shalom edition 31b–32a; and other sources. See: Kalmin (1999), chapter 6; Diamond (2007); Karras (2016). Shinan emphasizes the anachronistic attitude of the Sages toward David. According to him, the Rabbis project their own ideal on the biblical world and its heroes: “In every stage in the life of David, he sits as pious student in front of his Rabbi and studying Tora” (Shinan 1995, 187).

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mystics turned the King’s flaws into decorations of honor and beauty. As Yehuda Liebes notes, in Rabbinic literature David is already identified with the waning of the moon: “Such an affinity can already be found in the Talmudic myth about the waning of the moon, wherein the small light (ha­ma’or hakatan) asks to find solace in the figure of David, who is also called ‘the small one.’ It is particularly evident in the phrase ‘David King of Israel, is alive and vigorous,’ which serves as a secret and patently messianic code, used to notify about the holiness of the month […] and we find in the Zohar that all the shades of the moon were found in David.”33 In the literary framework of this homily, the motion of the moon illustrates the presence of the Shekhinah, which renders the anticipation of the coming of redemption all the more real and pressing. At first the circle of mystics [hevraya, literally “the friends”] are walking together at sunset and Rabbi El’azar says that “it is the time to walk with the Shekhinah,” adding that “the Shekhinah will settle upon us only through words of Torah.” Rabbi Yehuda answers that the leader should “open first,” and then Rabbi El’azar, the son of Rashbi, opens with a theurgically inspired sermon. According to the Zohar, delivering a sermon is a messianic act, and here it may hint at the tension between David as redeemer and the “Messiah son of David,” as the future savior. Similarly, Rabbi Shim’on represents a savior figure in the Zohar, while his son, Rabbi El’azar, is identified here with the moon, which has no inherent light of its own but and nonetheless has the power to hasten salvation. Rabbi El’azar is dubbed “Head” by his friends, while his father, the true leader of the group, is palpably absent from the homily.34 These tensions emerge explicitly in the statement “David was King in this world, and David will be King in the world to come.” This statement is based on the Talmud, wherein David himself, and not just his distant and future offspring, is the Messiah, destined to return to life and bring the redemption.35 The moon is identified here with David as well as with the Messiah, the “son of David.”36 It has elements of superiority and dominion that signal its affinity 33 Yehuda Liebes, “Long Live the King: The Weakness of King and Power” (2012, 464–465, notes 19–20). Cf. Zohar 1:181a–b: “And about these it is writing ‘and every single month and every single Shabbat, every flesh will come to bow down before me, said the Lord every certain flesh, because these will be renewed with everything and are worthy of being renewed in the renewal of the Shekhina. And those are in cooperation with the Levana-Shekhina are flawed with her flaw, because she is always in their company and never leaves them” (Matt, vol. III, 98–100). 34 Yehuda Liebes, “The Messiah of the Zohar – To the Messianic Character of R. Shimon Bar Yohai” (1982). 35 BT Sanhedrin 98, 2; Yerushalmi, Berachot, 82, 4. And also Zohar 1: 82b. 36 The union between the father and the son might refer to the trinity and other Christian ideas that influenced the Zohar, as well as the perception of David as the analogue of Jesus.

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with the sefira of Malkhut, and elements of brokenness and poverty, which create its deep dependence on others, who must fill it. This idea is based on the Midrash, according to which David was born without life but received seventy years of Adam’s life.37 According to the Zohar, Adam is joined by the patriarchs, Abraham and Jacob, as well as Joseph, in that each granted years of his life to David: Rabbi Shim’on said, “As already noted, before King David existed, he had no life at all, but Adam gave him 70 years of his own; so David’s existence totaled 70 years, while Adam’s came to 1000 minus 70. Thus Adam and King David shared these first 1000 years. He opened, saying, “He asked You for life; You granted it – length of days forever and ever (Psalms 21:5). He asked You for life – King David, for when the blessed Holy One created the Garden of Eden, He cast King David’s soul there and, gazing upon it, saw that it possessed no life of its own. It stood before Him all day long. Once He created Adam, He said, ‘Here, indeed, is his existence!’ So from Adam derived the 70 years for which King David endured in the world. “Further, the patriarchs bequeathed some of their life to him, each and every one. Abraham bequeathed to him, as did Jacob and Joseph; Isaac didn’t bequeath anything to him because King David derived from his side. (Zohar I 168b) (Matt, vol. III, 18)

Similarly to David [Malkhut], Isaac [Gevurah] also represents the powers that come from the “dark” and feminine side. The Zohar proposes that those who dwell in the shadow are in fact capable of receiving vitality from the illuminated figures, who draw their strength from the right column of the sefirot tree, including Chesed, Tiphe’eret, and Yesod, which are in turn identified with Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph. Thus David contains within him all the patriarchs – those who are notable for their absence and those who are present in their force and vibrancy – to become a fourth leg of the chariot. Moreover, this homily is an apparent expansion of “the blood motif,” which originates in the Bible and was developed in the Midrash: David, who sinned by spilling blood and consequently was not allowed to build the Temple, is described in the Talmud as a judge in matters of birth bloods and in laws of menstrual

Liebes (1993, chapter 3: “Christian Influences in the Zohar,” 139–162); for more on David as the resurrected Messiah (David Redivivus), see: Liebes (1984); Flusser (2001); Rofé (1986, 88–89). However, in the sermon on King Solomon, the Zohar states that he identifies with the upper sefira of Binah or represents the Yesod, while his father, David, represents the lower sefira of Malkhut, see, for example: Zohar 2:227a. 37 BT Sukkah, 52a. David is called “Bar Nafli” (BT Sanhedrin 96b), hinting at this matter. See Liebes (2012, 460–461); Liebes (1984); Shinan (1995, 183); Scholem (1987, 107); Pedaya (1996, 216, 266). See also Zohar 3: 279a. Shinan (1995, 186) claims that the supernal and miraculous narratives of David’s birth and death in the Rabbinic literature underscore his “uniqe attachment to divinity.”

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impurity, which ironically aimed to “unite a woman with her husband.”38 In the Zohar, David is portrayed as being born “without blood,” and all his vitalitiy comes from others, who lend him days from their lives. The lack of blood is also connected to the fickle character of the Shekhinah, who is described as full of blood and laws, as she is identified with the image of Nidah.39 Remarkable in these commentaries is the dual trend of disgust and enchantment at the figure of King David. It seems that the mystics projected all of their desires onto him, as a substance that can assume any shape due to his lack and his feminine identity. R. Shim’on, the author of this homily, expresses solidarity with David in many places in the Zohar. In effect, the identification of David with the messianic heroes is a salient phenomenon throughout the Zoharic literature. The Zoharic figure of Rashbi himself is influenced by the figure of David in several ways. For example, the primal image of David hiding in the cave when fleeing Saul (1 Sam. 24), or hiding in the cave of Adolam (1 Sam. 22; 2 Sam. 23), is apparently connected to the Zohar’s description of the myth of the cave. The evolution of the legend of the burial and hiding caves – from the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, through the Palestinian midrashes, and up to the Zohar and the circle of Rabbi Joseph Angelet – reflect an expansion of the biblical Davidic narrative.40 Like David, R. Shim’on is also sometimes described as a feminine figure, such as in the Idra Zuta, when, a moment before being gathered into the womb of the Shekhinah, he pronounces before his death a verse from the Song of Songs (7:10): “I belong to my beloved and His desire is for me” (Zohar 3:288a). As a messianic figure, he is supposed to adopt qualities of the primeval Messiah, and therefore in David’s death R. Shim’on constructs a sanctuary and home for the Shekhinah, in preparation of sorts for the future Temple, once the Redemption comes. Moreover, it is possible that the “poetic verses” in the Zohar are influenced by the Psalmist hymns, hinting to the figure of Rashbi as a poet who imitates David.41

38 As it is said in BT, Berachot, 4a: “All the kings of the East and the West sit with all their pomp among their company, whereas my hands are soiled with the blood, with the fetus and the placenta, in order to declare a woman clean for her husband.” See Shinan (1995, 198–199, and note 46). 39 Koren (2011); Shifra (2010). 40 This affinity is hinted at in the story of the cave, which interprets the David verses in Psalms in Zohar 3:20–23. On this story, see: Hellner-Eshed (2005b). The story of the cave appears in Zohar Hadash Ki Tavo 59b; in Angelt, Livnat HaSapir al HaTorah, Wertheimer edition (1913, 100, column 2–4); and is hinted at as well in Zohar 1: 11a. On the attribution of this text to the circle of Angelet, see: Liebes (1992, especially 151). 41 For example, the poem “Orayta Orayta ma eiima legabah” in Zohar Shelah Lekha 3:166b. For more on Zoharic poetry, see Yehuda Liebes, Mnemosyne – Translation of Classical Poetry (2011, 44–59); Peter Cole, The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition (2012,

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Furthermore, in Tikunei ha-Zohar, the hero is described as being an expert at the slingshot, echoing the killing of Goliath by David. Although the book centers on the figure of Moses and the Loyal Shepherd [Raya Meheimana], who resembles neither David nor Rabbi Shim’on, scenes from the life of David are attributed to him as a redeeming character.42 Finally, it is apparent that the messianic images describing the Shekhinah’s flaw and wanderings in Kabbalah represent an iteration of the scenes of David’s wanderings in Psalms. The journeys of Rashbi and his disciples in the Zohar clearly are based on David’s self-image as a nomad who surrounds himself with a circle of faithful followers, who in turn contribute to the development of his mythological figure. For example, in Zohar Lekh Lekha, which deals with the allegorical wanderings of the Biblical and Zoharic heroes, David is described as one who embellishes himself with the Shekhinah: Happy are the righteous who are crowned in the blessed Holy One […] Of them is written: Your people, all of them righteous, will inherit the land forever (Isaiah 60:21) […] They went on, and when they reached the site of a certain field they sat down. Rabbi Shim’on opened, saying, “Turn to me, be gracious to me […] (Psalms 86:16). This verse calls for contemplation, and indeed we have established it in various places, but this verse contains concealed words. “Turn to me. How could David say: Turn to me, be gracious to me? He spoke only because of the rung in which he was crowned. “Grant Your power to Your servant… as is written: He will grant power to His king (1 Samuel 2:10). Who is His king? The anonymous king, King Messiah. Here too, to Your servant – King Messiah, as we have said, the anonymous king. “And save the son of Your maidservant. Now, wasn’t he the son of Jesse? But we have established that when coming to request something supernal, one should mention that of which he is certain; so he mentioned his mother, not his father. Further, we have learned that this is the king, as we have said.” (Zohar I 84a) (Matt, vol. II, 36–37)

According to this homily, David’s supplication in Psalms (“Turn to me, be gracious to me”) expresses not an impudent demand but rather a decent request for the sake of the Shekhinah, the “rung” that he wears. The idea of adorning, or crowning, is central in kabbalistic literature, and is linked to the notion of decoration as a mystical and erotic repair (Tikkun, in Aramaic, means adorning).43 The process of mutual ornamentation illustrates the intimate affiliation between the upper and lower worlds, as seen in the homily’s opening verses, in which the righteous crown themselves in the Lord, while He adorns himself in

105–110). Ronit Meroz and Eitan Fishbane have recently discussed possible influences of the composition Mashal ha­Kadmoni on the Zohar as well as the connections between zoharic poetics and medieval poetry. 42 For example in Tikkun 21, 44b; 61b; Roi (2017, 73). 43 Liebes (1994).

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them. The relationship between David and the Shekhinah is portrayed here as a connection between an earthly figure and the Divine Spouse. Sometimes this image of adornment creates cohesion and identification between David and the Shekhinah. Later in the homily, the Zohar emphasizes that David pleads, on behalf of his mother, “deliver the son of your maidservant” (Ps. 86:17), thus creating a kind of reversal of the two worlds: David’s actual mother, in whose name he asks for salvation, represents the earthly world, while he, having already been adorned with the Shekhinah, turns into a kind of “supernal mother,” representing the divine hypostasis.44 This same subject arises in a corresponding Zoharic homily on the verse “turn to me, be gracious to me,” according to which there is another David in the divine world, supernal and beautiful, who represents the Shekhinah. Thanks to the face-to-face encounter between God and the Shekhinah (the upper David), grace and even mercy and forgiveness can reach the lower worlds: Rabbi Abba opened, saying, “Turn to me and grant me grace. Give Your strength to Your servant… (Psalms 86:16). Now, didn’t the blessed Holy One have anyone in the world as beautiful as David, that he said Turn to me and grant me grace? However, we have learned as follows: The blessed Holy One has another David, who is appointed over all many cohorts and camps. When the blessed Holy One wishes to be compassionate to the world, He gazes upon this one, shines His countenance upon him, and has mercy upon the world, and the beauty of this David illumines all worlds.“His head is a skull of gold, embellished with seven variegated golden arrangements, as has been established. The affection of the blessed Holy One is toward him, and in His great love for him, the blessed Holy One tells him to turn his eyes toward Him and gaze upon Him, for they are utterly beautiful. As is written: Turn your eyes away from me, [ for they overwhelm me!] (Song of Songs 6:5). Turn your eyes away – for when these eyes gaze at the blessed Holy One, catapulted arrows pierce His heart in supernal love; and from the intense flame of supernal passion toward Him, He says, ‘Turn your eyes away from me – turn your eyes in a different direction away from Me, for they are burning Me with flames of love!’45 “Therefore, of David is written He was ruddy, with fine eyes and goodly to look on (1 Samuel 16:12). Because that supernal David is

44 For references on this subject see Matt, vol. II, 37 note 287. 45 Matt suggests here that God asks Shekhinah to turn her eyes toward him, “but then, overwhelmed by her passionate gaze… He pleads, Turn your eyes away from me.” While in the printed Zohar there is an unclear version ’‫ ’אמר ליה לקב“ה דיהדר עינוי‬In Zohar Kremona (Kedoshim 152); as well as R. Moses Cordovero, ‘Or Yaqar, vol. 13 (1962–1975, 116); the version defers and says: ‘‫ ’אמר ליה קב“ה‬so that it is clear that God is asking David to turn his eyes toward Him. According to Cordovero, when love increases the arrows of love increase the love of the other side. Matt suggests translating it “catapulted arrows pierce His heart in supernal love.” He explains that “arrows” renders ‫[ קסטין‬qistin], which may be a playful variation on ‫[ קשתין‬qashtin], “bows.” Alternatively, as elsewhere in the Zohar, qistin derives from the Greek xestes, a measure about the size of a pint. If so, this could allude here to the “measures” or “qualities, attributes” within Shekhinah, which She launches at Her Beloved” (Matt, vol. VIII, 23, note 64).

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beautiful, the blessed Holy One yearns to cling to him. So David said, Turn to me and grant me grace. (Zohar 3:84a) (Matt, vol. VIII, 22–23)46

The Zohar returns in many homilies to the idea that the cosmic mitkalah, the scales, is the key to the wholeness of the worlds. Only when the upper masculine and feminine are facing one another is the world in balance and able to exist. On one hand, the face-to-face devotion occurs because of God’s great love for the supernal David – the Shekhinah; on the other hand, it is dependent on David’s seductive power, which knows that his beautiful eyes arouse God’s mercy. By virture of His desire for the supernal David, the Lord has mercy on the world and illuminates it. The problem of the homo-erotic relationship seemingly hinted at in this homily is resolved through the identification of David with the Shekhinah; the earthly masculine figure reminds God of the existence of the “other David,” feminine and supernal, to which He directs His love. Like the image of David being crowned with the Shekhinah, here David works his charm and thereby reveals the face of the Shekhinah, God’s true beloved.47 In the backdrop of this homily, of course, is the earthly David, needful of forgiveness for his sins. The Zohar suggests that David was forgiven only because of God’s love for the Shekhinah, without which the world would have remained in darkness and brokenness. But David also plays a central part in earning forgiveness, as he alone knows how to adorn himself completely in the Shekhinah. At the foundation of this homily is the fluidity of gender identities and the richness of the erotic experience. David is not a single person; he is at minimum a double figure, with masculine and feminine, high and low faces. He has a “lower” element, connected with sin, and an “upper” element, connected with beauty and reparation. Paradoxically, the split of his character into David and the “other David” allows him to take responsibility for his deeds. David’s answer “I have sinned against the Lord,” in response to Nathan’s rebuke “You are the man!” after his telling David the allegory of the poor man’s lamb, is reflected in the Zohar through the journey of the Shekhinah. The notion of David’s unique beauty raises questions about the connection between charisma and physical appearance. On one hand, David’s beauty seems to inhibit the beholder from perceiving his flaws and suffering. And yet, clearly,

46 It must be noted that the Zoharic statement is ambiguous ‘‫כדין מתערין בלביה קסטין דבלסטראי‬ ‫’ברחימותא עלאה‬. In the Zohar of Gershom Scholem he changes the word ‫ דבלסטראי‬to ‫בכל סטרא‬ which means “every side.” See: Scholem (1992, vol. V, 2505). 47 Interesting indeed is the connection between the “other David” who appears in this derasha, and the image of the “other Rachel” [diokana derahel akhra] who appears in Zohar Balak as an expression for the Shekhinah (Zohar 3:87a).

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it is David’s pain that attracts those around him and arouses their solidarity. The homily is based on the alternation between dependence, vulnerability, and desire. According to the Zohar, healthy erotic relationships in the upper world, as in the lower world, are based on the ability to change identities, to disguise oneself and to intergrate masculine and feminine aspects of personality.48 These elements are not only a means of psychological balance, but a springboard for mystical Tikkun [healing and repair]. As Charles Mopsik (2005, 31) writes: No soul, and consequently no human being exists in the full sense of the word, without being male and female at the same time. Gender is a cleaver which creates a devastating split between two halves destined to be united. Sexuality, as a drive for amorous union, is an attempt to overcome the damage caused by this primordial disassociation […] The standard idea that each individual has a physical sexual identity is rejected and replaced with the notion of identity as the manifestation of lack.

David is connected to the holiness and beauty of Jerusalem and identified with the ritual worship that takes place in the heart of the Temple. In Zohar Teruma he is compared to the bronze altar upon which the blood of the sacrifices is splattered. This is the altar of atonement, whose extraordinary beauty holds within it all the colors, as does the Shekhinah, which contains all the worlds and shapes, being the “portrait of all portraits” and the “image of all images”: “Gold and silver (Exodus 25:3) – as is said: Mine is the silver and Mine is the gold (Haggai 2:8), as has been explained. “And bronze (Exodus 25:3) – a color resembling gold, since it is hued with the color of gold and the color of silver. Therefore, the bronze altar is small, and David was the smallest (1 Samuel 17:14). How is it small? As is said: Because the bronze altar that was before YHVH was too small to hold the ascent offerings and the fat of the communion offerings… (1 Kings 8:64). Yet although it is small, all is held within it. (Zohar 2:138b) (Matt, vol. V, 277)

Here, too, the notion of David as an altar alludes to his function as a “vessel of reparation.” David’s sins are intended to be purified and to serve as an instrument for the atonement of the entire congregation. Moreover, the Zoharic image of David and the Shekhinah as the bronze altar suggests their ability to assume different forms, to change masks and roles. Just as bronze embodies all other qualities and colors – while silver symbolizes mercy, and gold symbolizes judgment – so too does Malkhut embody contradictions and disparate worlds.49

48 See Hellner-Eshed (2010, especially 156–169); Mopsik (2005, 156–167). 49 On the sefirotic and alchemical symbolism of gold, silver, and bronze, see Daniel Matt’s references to Zohar 2:24a–b.

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The Zohar interprets David’s depiction in Samuel as one who “enters and exits” before the people and before God, adding to that other colorful scenes from David’s life: a boy defeating a giant, a musician competing with a mischievous wind, a man disguised as a fool, a king dancing and babbling before God. Just as David adorns himself in the Shekhinah, so too is the Shekhinah granted a rich and complex biography, with varied sides and deep psychological experiences that can be described only through the human character. The erotic relationship between God and His spouse is depicted through her identification with David, as a bond full of vulnerability, sin, and repentance. The Shekhinah is an outcast – lacking, flawed, yet also spectacular. Sometimes it seems that it is She who fascinates the mystics, while David loses his private personality. The mystical literature largely exaggerates Alter’s distinction of David in the Book of Samuel, by which “through the strategy of transference, the private man is once again exchanged with the public figure, and David as a private person remains an unclear personage” (Alter 1981, 141). David represents the “city that thronged with people” [ha­Ir rabbati], the Assembly of Israel, as well as the human collective facing the Divine. Through these homilies, the mystics expand on the processes of deification and sublimation in the upper world, which enable David/the Shekhinah/the city/the nation to correct and atone for their sins. Atonement and forgiveness are attained thanks to the powers of seduction, adornment, and beauty that exist in the lower world, which attract the love and desire of God. David’s psychological swaying between self-contempt and chosenness, his inner distress and fear, join scenes that document the biography of both the people of Israel and the Shekhinah.

David as Penitant Jewish exegesis, as well as the Church Fathers, justified David’s deeds. The Sages labored to present him as the model of a penitent even as they claimed that he had never sinned. Following the Byzantine emperors, the Carolingian monarchs and later royal dynasties in the West identified themselves with King David, whose priestly and prophetic status they perceived as paramount.50 In twelfth-century Christian Europe David was regarded as a symbol of ideal spirituality, military leadership, poetry, and art (David rex et propheta).51 The centrality of Psalms to Christian liturgy also contributed to this positive image of David, since his words 50 Spiegel (1993). 51 Steger (1961).

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established a congregation of believers based on the idea of repentance and atonement.52 As Ruth Mazo-Karras has demonstrated, in medieval Jewish and Christian exegesis alike David’s masculinity was cleansed of negative incidents such as adultery and infidelity, while other characteristics, such as his overt sexuality and physical prowess, were emphasized. This was done in order to ensure his ultimate sovereignty and enduring kingdom53: “Medieval masculinity contained both the idea of dominance and the idea of male passion as an unstoppable force… David could still be important as a symbol of repentance, even if his sin was to be blamed on a woman… Masculinity resided both in being subject to temptation – that is, having an appetite for women – and in being powerful enough to act” (Karras 2018, near note 26). Nevertheless, Karras explores essential differences between Jewish and Christian exegesis in the Middle Ages: “while Christianity used David as a model of repentance putting the emphasis on humanity’s free will and God’s mercy, Rabbinic Judaism, ironicaly or not, put the emphasis on God’s plan and David’s obedience to it” (Karras 2016, 90). Yet, according to her analyses, both cultures stress David’s masculinity. Why, then, does nearly every Zoharic homily describe King David as an image of the feminine divine presence, the Shekhinah? In order to answer this question let us return to the idea that in the Zohar the feminine image of David is based on his image in Samuel (as a musician) and in Psalms (as a nocturnal poet). Contrary to Saul’s elevated stature, David is a diminutive youth, sanguine and almost feminine. To a large extent, the scene of bringing up the Ark to Jerusalem calls to mind heroes from Greek mythology, such as Dionysus (who dances ecstatically), Orpheus (who, with his lyre, charms the animals who surround him), Hermes (or Mercury, who is known for his androgynous character), and even Apollo, the expert archer and musician.54 On the other hand, it is evident that while the Sages sought to emphasize David’s masculine characteristics, such as his being a military hero and 52 Rendtorff (2005); see also: Cooper (1983). For a general discussion of Psalms in the Medieval context, see: Gillingham (2013); Van Deusen (1999). 53 In her research project “King David as a Figure of Masculinity in Christian and Jewish Medieval Culture,” Karras discusses David’s justification in the writings of the Church Fathers (unpublished article for God’s Own Gender? Religions and their Concepts of Masculinity (2018)). Following Irenaeus, Augustine, and others, later Christian commentators explained that the sins of David had been transformed into virtue. For example, Angelomus and St. Gregory describe David as an allegory of Jesus, in which Bathsheba represents the Jewish nation, and Uriah is the devil who must be put to death. While in the kabbalistic literature we find justification of the sexual sin, she claims that rabbinic literature mainly emphasizes the killing of Uria, rather than the seduction of Bathsheba. 54 For a comparison of David to Orpheus, see: Stichel (1998); Tsabar (1995).

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a conqueror of women, and to channel them into the context of the Beit Midrash, the Zohar underscores David’s passive and feminine aspects.55 The Zohar does not claim, as do the Sages, that “whoever says that David sinned is merely erring.” On the contrary, by developing the attitude of the Psalmist, the kabbalists emphasize the tormented figure, who, by virtue of his dependence on others and his having “nothing of his own,” bears no responsibility for his own sins.56 In addition, David’s lack and faults intensify the divine presence in his life and render his sin an instrument for the empowerment of God, as we see in Parashat Sabba de-Mishpatim: Now he is really alive – alive on all sides, for he grasps the Tree of Life. And, grasping the Tree of Life, he is called ba’al teshuvah, master of returning – for Assembly of Israel is also called teshuvah, returning, and he is called ba’al teshuvah. And the Ancient Ones said, ‘Ba’al teshu­ vah, husband of teshuvah, precisely!’ Consequently, even the completely righteous cannot stand in the place of ba’alei teshuvah, masters of returning. “King David said, Against You alone have I sinned, and what is evil in Your eyes I have done… (Psalms 51:6). Against You alone – why alone? Well, because there are sins that a person commits against the blessed Holy One and against people, and there are sins that one commits against people and not against the blessed Holy One, and there are sins that one commits against the blessed Holy One alone and not against anyone else. King David sinned against the blessed Holy One and not against people. “Now, you might say, ‘But [107a] he committed that sin of Bathsheba! And we have learned: Whoever copulates with a married woman renders her forbidden to her husband. So he sinned against his fellow and against the blessed Holy One.’ Not so! For that was permitted, and David took what was his, and she had a document of divorce from her husband before he went to war. For it was the custom throughout Israel that everyone who went to war would give a contingent document of divorce to his wife, and Uriah did so with Bathsheba. After the time had passed when she was permitted to anyone, David married her; everything that he did, he did with permission. “Otherwise, if it had been forbidden, the blessed Holy One would not have left her with him. This corresponds to what is written: David consoled Bathsheba his wife (2 Samuel 12:24) – testimony that she is his wife and she was his wife, destined for him since the day that the world was created. Surely, David did not commit a sin with Bathsheba, as we have said. What was the sin that he committed against the blessed

55 See for example Sanhedrin 107a, about which I will expand elsewhere. In rabbinic literature, however, there are already hints to David’s femininity. For example, the ritual sanctification of the new moon includes the statement “David King of Israel, is alive and vigorous” (BT Rosh haShana 25a). In other derashot, similarly to the Jewish congregation and Kneset Israel, David is identified as “the little” [David ha’Katan]. See: Liebes (2009, 107–110), Liebes (2012), and note 28 above. In addition, in BT Berachot 10a it is said “What is the meaning of the verse, (Proverbs 31:26) ‘She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and the law of kindness is on her tongue?’ To whom was Solomon alluding in this verse? To his father David” (!). It is interesting to consider Daniel Boyarin’s thesis, by which the Sages are seen as feminine heroes in the world of the Beit Midrash. See Boyarin (1997, chapter 2). 56 As is said, for example, in Zohar 1:82a.

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Holy One alone and not against another? That he killed Uriah by the sword of the Ammonites (2 Samuel 12:9), instead of killing him when he said to him my master Joab (ibid. 11:11) – since David was his master, as proven by Scripture, for it is written: These are the names of the warriors of David (ibid. 23:8), and not of Joab. Yet he did not kill him at that time, but rather by the sword of the Ammonites. “Scripture states that no fault was found in him, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite (1 Kings 15:5) – except indicates exclusion: in the matter of Uriah, and not for Uriah. The blessed Holy One said, ‘Him you have killed by the sword of the Ammonites (2 Samuel 12:9),’ and every sword of the Ammonites was engraved with an image – the image of a dragon, crooked evil serpent, their idol. The blessed Holy One said, ‘You have empowered that abomination!’ For once the sword of the Ammonites prevailed against Uriah, how potently empowered was the crooked serpent! “Now, if you say that Uriah was not virtuous – not so! Although it is written of him: Uriah the Hittite, this is simply because he dwelled there, just as is said: Jephthah the Gileadite (Judges 11:1), called so after his place. “Thus, in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, for the abomination of the Ammonites prevailed over the camp of God – which was the camp of David, the very image of above – and the moment a defect appeared in this camp, a defect appeared in another camp. Concerning this, David said, Against You alone have I sinned (Psalms 51:6) – alone, not against anyone else. This was the sin he committed against Him, and this is in the matter of Uriah, and this is by the sword of the Ammonites. “It is written: The eyes of YHVH ‫( משוטטות‬meshotetot), are ranging, over the whole earth (2 Chronicles 16:9), and it is written: The eyes of YHVH ‫( משוטטים‬meshotetim), are ranging, over the whole earth (Zechariah 4:10) – these are male and those are female, and they are known. David said, What is evil in Your eyes I have done (Psalms 51:6). In Your eyes – the verse should read before Your eyes. Well, why in Your eyes? David said, ‘The place where I sinned was in Your eyes! Because I knew that Your eyes were standing poised before me, yet I did consider them. So, where was the sin that I committed and perpetrated? In Your eyes. “‘So that You will be justified when You speak, You will be blameless when You judge (Psalms, ibid.) – and I will have no pretext to speak in Your presence.’ Come and see: Every artisan when he speaks, speaks by his craft. David was the King’s jester, and even though he was distressed, since he found himself before the King he reverted to his jesting in order to amuse the King. He said, ‘Master of the Universe! I said, Test me and try me (Psalms 26:2), and You said that I could not endure Your test. Look, I have sinned so that You will be justified when You speak and Your word will be true! For if I hadn’t sinned, my word would be true and Your word in vain! Now that I have sinned, in order for Your word to be true, I have provided space for Your word to be justified. That is why I acted: so that You will be justified when You speak, You will be blameless when You judge.’ David reverted to his craft, and in his distress said words of jest to the King. (Zohar 2: 106b–107a) (Matt, vol. V, 121–125)57

This unique homily deals with the idea of repentance as a returning to the feminine sefirot and as a process of holy marriage [hieros gamos]. In its opening, the Zohar states that David, as a penitent, became the husband of the Shekhinah, termed “teshuvah” because of her affinity with Binah, the upper mother and symbol of

57 On the uniqueness of Parashat Sabba de-Mishpatim, see: Liebes (1994); Yisraeli (2005); Benarroch (2011).

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repentance.58 Adopting the midrashic idea that Bathsheba had received a get (a contingent bill of divorce) from Uriah, thereby freeing her to marry the king, the Zohar clears David of responsibility.59 Moreover, at the end of the homily, the Zohar proposes that David, being “the King’s Jester,” did everything in his power to please the Lord. Even his sins were done to entertain and please God. Thus, from its outset, the homily is anchored in the context of justification, forgiveness, and reparation – David is accepted as a “true ba’al teshuva,” by virtue of which his sin is forgiven. The King’s jester, the clown, is a central figure in the court culture of the medieval and Renaissance epochs.60 He is the person closest to the king and dares to express what others are forbidden from saying. He is a figure who navigates between play and danger, life and death. The kabbalists choose to identify this character with David in developing his kaleidoscopic biblical and midrashic character. In the course of the homily, the Zohar situate David’s sin in the theological realm, in the killing of Uriah with the Ammonites sword, which was engraved with a snake.61 The offense, however, is not in the act of killing, as Uriah had rebelled against the kingdom, but rather in the worship of the Sitra Akhra. Instead of an adulterer, David is depicted as an idolator; instead of a sinner, he is depicted as an entertainer and a joker. His description as the King’s jester deepens the irony, for if God is the true King, then David is not the king but the “joker” and thus his deeds must not be so grave – even when they involve premeditated murder. Perry and Sternberg (1986, 283, 291) state that the chastising of David is deliberately missing from the story in Samuel so as to leave the criticism to the reader: “In the David and Bathsheba story the essentials are precisely what the narrator chooses to withhold… the system of gaps, developed primarily to direct attention

58 Tishby (1949, 1499–1510). For more on the idea of repentance in early Kabbalistic sources of the twelfth–thirteenth centuries, see Brown (2015). 59 BT Shabat 56a, and more. See Shinan (1995, 192) and the research literature mentioned in note 34 therein. 60 As Daniel Matt states, following Yitzhak Baer, there is a surprising parallel between the Zohar’s description of King David and St. Francis of Assisi’s instruction to his followers to serve as ioculatores Domini, “the Lord’s jesters (or minstrels)” (Matt, vol. V, 124). 61 As opposed to the justification of David in BT Kidushin 43a; Shabbat 56a, the Zoharic commentary links the emphasized acusation in Sam II 12:9 with its theurgic implications: “Why have you despised the word of the Lord… You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.” Although David’s evil intention damaged the upper realm, eventualy his deeds revealed the divine plan.

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to what has not been communicated, becomes the central [author] device… All the responsibility for condemning the king rests with the reader alone.” A similar claim can be proposed as we read David’s defense in Zohar Mishpatim. The Zohar authors’ hyper-playful interpretation rests on the assumption that there is nothing that cannot be interpreted as its opposite. Every sin can be justified, every perversion can be turned into model behavior, and it is the reader’s responsibility to make the moral decision. The words of the Zohar “Every artisan when he speaks, speaks by his craft” refer not only to David’s sin but also to the Zoharic poetics and its complex irony.62 The author demonstrates how murder is substituted by idol-worship, playfulness is created of sorrow, and the sin is transformed into identification with God. The homily incorporates, therefore, previous literary techniques: the storytelling in Samuel, the discretion of Chronicles (which makes no mention of the sin with Bathsheba), and above all the theologization of Psalms, which had already been adopted by the midrashic sages in Tractate Sanhedrin and other sources. Primarily, the homily adopts the defensive line taken in Psalm 51:4: “Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done what was evil in your sight. As a result, you are just in your pronouncement and clear in your judgment.” According to this reading, David, despite his sorrow, takes upon himself the role of the clown and sins in order to glorify God’s name. Adding to the poetical Zoharic level the theosophical doctrine and the idea of theurgy and repair of the world, we must ask whether interpreting such a severe sin as an example of an amusing event can serve as mystical path to the Zohar followers. A revisitation of the homily reveals that, on the hidden level, it implies a criticism of God’s role in history. Contrary to the Midrash, which makes a distinction between the human and the divine worlds, the Zohar emphasizes the mutual influence of these worlds on one another. On one hand, David, as a human figure, represents a righteous person who has strayed and who must cleanse his sins. At the same time, however, he represents the figure of the Shekhinah, who sins for the sake of the entire cosmic world. The Shekhinah bears all flaws of divinity; she is the city destroyed and exiled because of its sins and betrayal. Indeed, in many Zoharic homilies it emerges that these betrayals are, like exile, an inescapable part of God’s relationship with his spouse and with David. In this homily, David represents the people of Israel and is identified with the Shekhinah. Both are seen as having sinned: he by his deeds, and she,

62 See Liebes (1994). It could be that the Zohar interprets the midrashic expression “Kol Haposel be’mumo posel” (=He who charges others as defective is defective himself) as a variation on the craft of sculpture (‫פוסל‬/‫)פסל‬. I am grateful to Iris Felix for this reading.

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deterministically, as the one who bears the sins of divinity and nation. Later in the homily, the Zohar suggests that, through the seduction of God, the Shekhinah is extricated from her crimes. Here the irony is replaced by introspection and theodization. Through the homily the Kabbalists point to the tragic determinism of the relationship between God and the Shekhinah: she must sin in order to please him; he uses her as a toy and treats her as a clown, in order to cleanse the sin of her betrayal. Moreover, the perception of sin as a tool of pleasure for God – as the King’s jester entertains his master – evokes a deeper theological criticism. The opening of the homily with the description of David as repentant places him on both sides of the divide – both the ultimate sinner and the perfect penitent. Through David’s epic, God’s need for actual humans is exposed. David is the only one who knows how to attain atonement and solidarity through his sin. David influences the cosmic realm: he is the cause of destruction but also the key to reparation. Similarly, the Shekhinah bears the punishment of exile as the symbol of her redemption, according to the paradigm of “the shell (evil) precedes the fruit.” Ultimately, it is God who is responsible for creating the forces of evil, and the confounding of David with the Shekhinah aptly reflects this paradox. In terms of national identity, the figure of the Shekhinah and David as the King’s jesters represents the fragile reality of the Jews, who were deprived of political sovereignty. The fantastic realm of the divine sefirot afforded them a sense of power and an imaginary kingdom. Simultaneously, the very name Malkhut attributed to them points to a monarchy of another sort, one that shows an intimate relationship between a nation and its God, who are considered to be partners in a sacred covenant. Outwardly oppressed, the Jews were nonetheless able to theurgically influence the divine world. Moreover, at this time Jewish males were accused of being so feminine as to menstruate.63 Hence the symbolization of David with the feminine Shekhinah might reflect how Kabbalists turned these Christian accusations into virtues.64 However, it could also be influenced by the androgynist nature of the mystical experience itself. Thus this symbolization

63 David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians (2007, 105–107; and see references there, notes 87–89, 98). 64 For other examples of turning accusations into virtues, see: Yuval (2006); Lachter (2014). For Christian influences on medieval Jewish culture and Kabbalah, see: Green (2002); Schäfer (2002). See also: Marcus (1996). More on David in Judeo-Christian Messianic symbolism: Brooke and Najman (2016). On the Zohar’s anti-Christian attitudes regarding David, I hope to expand in another place. I find in the homilies on Michtam leDavid a polemic against the belief in the immaculate conception (since Michtam alludes to Makula = stain, fault, damage. See for example Zohar 3:233a). For other debates on this subject: Koren (2010).

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indicates neither a “feminization” of the male Jew nor a “masculinization” of the female divinity. Rather, it demonstrates the Kabbalists’ freedom of identities as a key for understanding the connection between Heaven and earth (on the theosophical level), and as a tool of rebellion (on the political level). In R. Joseph Gikatilla’s thirteenth-century treatise The Secret of the Marriage of David and Bathsheba David is not identified with a feminine figure; rather, he is depicted as a masculine hero who represents the image of the “middling” person. Unlike the righteous who attains his designated wife (symbolizing the “second half” of his soul), or the evil person, who never attains his spouse, the middling person attains his wife, albeit only after torment and sorrow. Seemingly, Gikatilla (in Mopsik, 2005, 183) says of King David that he “had a very strong inclination [yeser] and thus he did not initially deserve Bathsheba, even though she was destined [to marry] him ever since the six days of Creation, because from there David’s soul was emanated [with] the soul of Bathsheba [as] his mate.” While Gikatilla blames David’s bad inclination, which “weighed very heavily upon him,” the Zohar seems to dispute this approach, viewing God as being responsible for David’s fate. David did not obtain Bathsheba in the first place, not because his sins but because of a Divine plan. Here the picture is opposite, as the righteous man takes upon himself the sin (“against you alone”), while God detains him and prevents him from achieving his amorous union.65 The description of David as the “King’s jester” influenced Hassidic and Sabbatean perceptions that emphasized ideas such as “redemption through sin,” “transgression committed with good intention [averah lishma],” and “violation of the law in order to preserve it.” According to this approach, the sexual sin is seen as a redemptive praxis and as a sublime means of redemption that expresses love of God.66 The Zohar suggests that in the supernal world there exists a spiritual site, which is named “in your eyes.” This place purifies and cleanses the sin from the earthly realm, while emphasizings its existence ostensibly only before God. When this antinomistic attitude was adopted by the masses, a heavy rift was created in the Jewish world and “jokerism” was revealed as deceitfulness. This Zohar reveals the faces of King David, not only as an earthly and a celestial figure but also as a masculine and feminine hero. The end of the homily

65 As Mopsik (2005, 154) claims, “the treatment of this subject in the Zohar is very different, and in several places it emphasizes David’s fundamental innocence.” Other derashot deal with David’s sin with Bathsheba from a different angle. See, for example, Zohar 3:79a (Aharei Mot); or the dialogue between God and Duma (the devil) Zohar I 8a–b. Mopsik (2005, 154–156, 167–169 especially note 7); Karras (2018, note 39). 66 On the image of David as Badiha de­Malka in Hassdic literature I will expand elsewhere. For the development of the concept averah lishma, see Kara-Ivanov Kaniel (2017, chapter 4).

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emphasizes the feminine aspect of his character, as the King’s jester, similar to the ancient wisdom, Sofia, who dances before God in Proverbs: “Then I was with him, his master craftsman – I was his delight daily, continuously rejoicing in his presence” (Prov. 8:30). However, the homily opens with the portrayal of David as a ba’al teshuvah: “and he is called ba’al teshuvah… husband of teshuvah, precisely!” Here the focus is on his masculine identity and on his description as one who took the Shekhinah for a wife, purchasing her in atonement for his sins. This matter is emphasized even more acutely in other homilies in the Zohar, which describe Bathsheba as the nickname of the Shekhinah. The Shekhinah is the seventh sefira, counting from Binah downwards, being the seventh daughter after the six masculine sefirot, and representing the cyclical pattern of seven found in the days of the week, years of shmita, etc.67 A surprising gender duality is thereby revealed in this story: not only is David identified with the sefira of Malkhut, but so is Bathsheba, his wife. How can we resolve the idea that each partner represents the same divine quality? It seems that through this duality the Zohar preserves the tension in the descriptions of the identities of its heroes. David, as Bathsheba’s husband or as a true “ba’al teshu­ vah,” is depicted as masculine; when he stands alone before God, however, he is portrayed as feminine. David is the King’s jester, but he is also the “ideal man,” the only one who knows how to overcome God in being “a true ba’al teshuvah.” The Zohar may refer here to the sages, who hinted at the gender reversal between David and his wives in their discussion of Michal, the daughter of Saul, about whom it is said that she wore tefillin. This ritual is identified as a masculine activitiy even if it is permitted to women.68 Michal’s infertility may also hint at her masculinity, similar to Philon’s explanation that Sarah’s barrenness was evidence of her primary masculinity.69 David and Michal’s relationship, as well as David and Abigail’s, are no less complex than his relationship with Bathsheba, and they, too, have moments of upheaval. Throughout the various descriptions of

67 Zohar 3:37a; 108b; 115a, and Zohar 3:6a–b; and more. As Mopsik (2005, 190–191, n.71) stressed, according to Manuscript Paris 840 “Batsheva was destined for David since the six days of creation... she is the ‘daughter of the seven’ [sefirot]. One can also say that she is filled by the edifice and that she is the seven.” In this text instead of the doctrine of the soul emphasized the sefirotic realm, while David and Batsheva are both identified with the sefira of Malkhut. 68 BT Eruvin 96a. 69 On this theme, see: Niehoff (2004). For more on David’s affairs, see: Valler (1994).

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David’s relationships with his wives, his symbolic role alternates between male and female, while the women sometimes assume the dominant role.70 Based on the analogy between the story of David and Bathsheba and the story of Abimelech and the woman who threw a millstone on him (according to the enigmatic reference in 2 Sam. 11:21, referring in turn to the description in Judges 9:53–54), Perry and Sternberg (1986, 282) conclude that “in both cases a king falls because of a woman.” Mieke Bal criticizes this reading as misogynist, claiming that it is the product of oppressive conventions in which women are always seen as the property of men. She protests the presentation of the adulterous act as necessarily the fault of Bathsheba, and proposes to place the responsibility on David, as in the parable of the poor man’s lamb.71 The Zohar is also clearly preoccupied with the question of who is responsible for the sin.72 Identifying David with a feminine character places the guilt on the “divine woman.” In addition, it emphasizes David’s lack of liability, since, as a feminine figure, he has no agency for his deeds. After all, the Zohar was written in the masculine, patriarchal world of the Middle Ages. And yet, as we have seen, the Zoharic position is also subversive, with hints of criticism of God, the “true king” responsible for the events. God, as King, necessarily falls into the hands of a woman, be it David, Bathsheba, Michal, or the Shekhinah, though He is nonetheless ultimately responsible for what happens in both worlds.

The City of David Jerusalem, the city that David founded and that was named for him – “The City of David” (2 Sam. 5:7–9; 6:10–16) – is one of the central expressions of the Shekhinah in the Zohar. First and foremost, the affinity between David and Jerusalem is mediated through the dual image of the city and the mother, an image symbolizing lack and absence but also the ability to fill and repair.73 The city of Jerusalem,

70 A similar gender reversal between husband and wife is proposed by Joshua Levinson, who suggests reading the masculine character of the wife of Potiphar facing the femininity of Joseph. See: Levinson (2000). On David as the other, and his relationship with Michal through a Jungian prism, see: Kron (2012). 71 Bal (1987, 10–36). 72 The idea that the woman is guilty arises in the medieval midrash which claims that Bathsheba intentionally initiated David’s seduction and was purposely bathing naked on the roof. See: Ginzberg (1928, Vol I, 166). 73 On kabbalistic readings of the connection between David and Jerusalem in the blessing to “Rebuild Jerusalem” (from the Amidah and Birkat Hamazon prayers), see Pedaya (2001, 164–169);

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epitomized by destruction and construction, is rebuilt out of her ruins, as is the Shekhinah, who falls into dust, and about which it is said “Arise, now, shake off the dust.” Jerusalem has for generations symbolized a site of redemption that is built upon exile and fracture. It is the woman on whose flesh is etched the suffering of generations, as seen in the descriptions in Lamentations, and in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “I’ll again build you, and you will be rebuilt, Virgin Israel! You will again take up your tambourines and go out to dance with those who are filled with joy” (Jer. 31:4). This is the city that since biblical times has been variously likened to a menstruating woman and to a prostitute, each of which symbolizes the sinning people who wander in exile and wallow in its own blood and sins. I will now briefly discuss two homilies that elaborate on the affinity between David and Jerusalem. The first explains David’s feminine character through his burial on Mount Zion, representing the masculine element within the feminine city; and the second deals with his sin and with the flaw that David left on Jerusalem, which is a mirror of his identity as the sefira of Malkhut. Come and see: The town is called Kiriath-arba, City of Four. Why? Because four couples were buried there: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah. Look, there is a difficulty here! For we have learned that the patriarchs are the holy chariot, yet a chariot consists of no less than four. And we have learned that the blessed Holy One joined King David with them and they became a complete chariot, as is written: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (Psalms 118:22) – King David was conjoined to constitute the chariot along with them. If so, David should have been buried among the patriarchs, so that together with him it would be City of Four. Why wasn’t he buried with them? “Well, King David had a place prepared for him fittingly. Who is that? Zion, to join as one. As for Adam, who was buried among the patriarchs, they were buried with him because he was the primordial king, from whom kingship was removed and conferred upon David. With the days of Adam, King David existed in the world; because a thousand years had been ordained for Adam, and the days of King David were removed and withdrawn from him – he provided them. Now, how could the patriarchs endure until King David appeared? Rather, he attained his place fittingly, and was therefore not buried alongside the patriarchs. (Zohar 1:138b) (Matt, vol. III, 525–526)

This homily draws a connection between the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Tomb of David, two holy sites of Jewish and Christian pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.74

Afterman (2011, 280–286); Liebes (1984); Goldreich (1984, 44–47, 384–387). 74 On the polemic between Jewish and Christian traditions about the location of David’s Tomb in the Middle Ages, see Reiner (1998, 161–174); on the Tomb of the Patriarchs: 175–188. As Reiner shows, beginning in the twelfth century, the tomb of David on Mount Zion became a common stop on the route of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. On the other hand, Benjamin of Tudela claims, polemically, that the grave is located not in the Zion Church but within a secret hidden

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The Zohar, written at the end of the thirteenth century, acknowledges the religious significance attributed to these sites and infuses their geography with metaphysical and theurgical meaning. Perhaps the Zohar seeks to deepen the Jewish connection to the site, since, as Elchanan Reiner (1998, 171) states, “possession of a tomb of a saint is equivalent to possession of the saint himself: he who holds possession of the tomb of David holds possession of David himself, and in his hands is the religious truth connected to his figure – the true meaning of the messianic dynasty […] Here, between two rival religions competing for the exclusive connection to the messianic lineage, there was no room for cooperation; the true grave, like the true family tree, can be in the hands of only one of the claimants.” David’s biography creates a link between the two places. David first ruled for seven and a half years in Hebron, home to the Cave of the Patriarchs; he then he ruled for thirty-three years in Jerusalem, where he was buried (Sam II 2:5). Similar to the cave that Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite, David purchased the threshing floor, the site of the temple, from Araunah the Jebusite (Zakovitch 1995, 134–135). Both of these places were at first “foreign” and after their purchase underwent a transformation into holy sites. However, the Zoharic homily tells not only about the similarity of the two places but also about their differences. Unlike David, who undergoes Tikkun through his burial in a masculine site, an aspect absent in his personality, the patriarchs are buried, along with their wives, in the cave that symbolizes the feminine aspect of the Shekhinah and can contain both masculine and feminine. The Zohar proposes an esoteric mystical interpretation of the two sites. The gender distinction serves the theosophical interpretation, which touches upon not only the ritual of pilgrimage but also the theory of reincarnation and repair of the souls of the Patriarchs and David upon their deaths.75 The notion of the cave as alluding to rebirth is hinted in the midrashic statement comparing the womb to “a tomb.” The cave is the site of the future revival and the burial of the righteous in this world; it is a gateway to paradise and an exit to death and rebirth. David is meant to build and strengthen his masculine element following his death, just as the patriarchs are repaired by being with their wives in the cave. Another aspect of the affinity between David and Jeursalem arises in Zohar Vaikra (3:23b–24a):

cave – “the place is unknown” – that is revealed and disappears and that within this cave is a sumptuous palace and the tombs of the house of David. See also: Limor (1988); Yuval (2006, 38). 75 It could be that in this way the Zohar challenges the assumption that the two cases indicate caves, not only the cave of the patriarchs but also the idea that the true tomb of David is not at Mount Zion but in a hidden cave on the compound. As Reiner points out, Josephus contains the pilgrims’ viewpoint that David is buried on Mount Zion.

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Rabbi Yehudah opened, saying, “Or his sin that he has committed ‫( הודע‬hoda), is made known, to him (Leviticus 4:23). Is made known to him – by whom? The verse should read or ‫( ידע‬yada), he knows; why is made known? Well, the blessed Holy One commands Assembly of Israel to make known to a person the sin that he has committed. And how does She make it known to him? By Her punishments, as is said: Heaven will expose his sin, and earth will rise up against him (Job 20:27). Hoda, Make known, to him – like one commanding another. “For we have learned: When a person sins before the blessed Holy One and does not examine his sin to return in teshuvah before his Lord, but throws it over his shoulder, then his very soul ascends and testifies before the blessed Holy One. The King then commands Assembly of Israel, saying, ‘Hoda, Make known, to him his sin that he has committed – launch Your punishment upon him and make known to him his sin, as is said: Hoda, Make known, to Jerusalem her abominations (Ezekiel 16:2). “Once punishment comes upon him, his spirit awakens to return in teshuvah before his Lord and he is humbled to bring an offering – for one whose heart is arrogant sins and forgets his sin, ignoring it; but the blessed Holy One confronts him, commanding that the sin be made known to him so that it will not be forgotten.”

This homily deals with the mental process that the sinner must undergo in order to recognize his sin. The Zohar interprets verses from Leviticus: “If any of the common people of the land inadvertently sins by disobeying one of the Lord’s commands that should not be violated, he will be guilty. When the sin that he committed is disclosed to him, he is to bring his offering for his sin that he had  committed” (Leviticus 4:27–28). By emphasizing the words “when the sin that he committed is disclosed to him,” the Zohar hints that man needs an external force to help him understand his misdeeds. From this general principle, by which the Shekhinah discloses man’s sin to him, though he denies having committed one, the Zohar goes on to discuss the case of David and his connection to the city of Jerusalem, who likewise learns of his sins from the Shekhinah, his cosmic counterpart: Rabbi Yose said, “Certainly so! How do we know? From David. Once he committed that act with Bathsheba, he ignored it. The blessed Holy One said to him, ‘You have forgotten it? I will remind you.’ Immediately… What is written? Thus says YHVH, ‘You are the man!’ (2 Samuel 12:7) – ‘that did not remember it. You are the man who forgot it.’ How did He make it known to him? By punishment. “If one rises at night to study Torah, then Torah informs him of his sin – not by punishment, but like a mother telling her child gently; and he does not forget, but returns in teshuvah before his Lord. “Now, you might say, ‘David, who rose at midnight – why was he attacked by punishment?’ Well, David is different, for he transgressed against that to which he was linked, and he required punishment; he was judged according to his transgression. He sinned against the holy Malkhut, Kingdom; he was driven from Jerusalem and deprived of the kingdom, until he was rectified fittingly and punished.” (Zohar 3: 23b–24a) (Matt, vol. VII, 149–151)

David’s fate differs from that of the rest of mankind. Being the beloved son of God, the Shekhinah censures him for his sins not as a disciplinarian exacting

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punishment but rather as “a mother who scolds her son with a soft word.” As the Zohar emphasizes, David wounded the very heart of holiness, the city of Jerusalem. And not only this, but he also damaged his own measure, that of holy Malkhut, and therefore his sin is regarded with far more severity.76 Therefore, until he is punished “measure for measure” – by the removal of his kingship and his exile from Jerusalem, the city of his reign – his sin will not be atonable. This homily reflects an understanding of the psychological process the penitent must pass through. The sin cannot be regretted only through external judgment, shaming, and punishment; there must also be inner recognition. The Zohar derives this idea from the commandment in Exodus 21: “Make known, to him, his sin that he has committed.” The knowledge achived in this way is indirect, still active, and rooted in the depth of the soul which is linked to the Shekhinah. As Daniel Matt states, since David impaired Malkhut, so he was fittingly punished here by Her and deprived of his kingdom.77 Yet, since he rises every night to study Torah, the Torah itself becomes his motherly figure that informs him of his sins in loving ways. Of course, here the mother function is combined with the ultimate Oedipal desire, namely, that she will function simultaneously as both as his beloved consort and his wife, the Shekhinah. The Zohar insists that David was severely punished despite his chosenness. As one who is chosen to perform holy rites and likened to a “holy vessel,” he can render even more severe damage in the divine world. The “cutting of the shoots” and the negative theurgy that David caused is manifested in the punishement that comes to him from close to home, when his son Absalom rebels against him and takes his wives. Finally, the Zohar emphasizes that David, like the city of Jerusalem, contains both reparation and atonement, as he comes to the world in order to establish “the Yoke of Repentance.”78 Just as his sin is written in the upper world and harms the Shekhinah and the city, so, too, does his repentance have the power to build both upper and lower Jerusalem. The punishment that David receives from his own house does not damage the chosenness of the

76 While Ruth Karras claims that in this text Bathsheba symbolizes the Shekhinah, I would suggest that here, as in many other Zoharic homilies, we find identification of David with the Malkhut. There are only rare cases when Bathsheba herself is the Shekhinah. Karras (2018, note 42). 77 See Matt, vol. VII, 151 as well as Matt’s explaination: “Like Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yose construes the verb hoda as imperative, not passive” (Matt, vol. VII, 150). 78 BT Mo’ed Qatan 16b; Avoda Zara 5a. In the manuscripts – “Ula shel Torah”.

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dynasty; rather, it is seen as a targeted punishment intended to awaken him from his state of denial.79 In the homily of Saba Mishpatim, the repentant David takes the Shekhinah and Assembly of Israel as his wife. The description of his sin as a playful and erotic seduction of God exposes the feminine aspects of his character – as an expert temptress, as a liminal figure who changes identities and can survive in all worlds. The homilies that identify David with the city of Jerusalem, as a manifestation of the Shekhinah, teach us about his flaws and his need to be repaired and turned into a “male” who is fully responsible for his actions and their repercussions. As a ba’al teshuvah, David’s virility is expressed in his ability to correct and take responsibility for his deeds, and not only to seduce the Lord as the King’s jester. To conclude, I would like to compare the image of Jerusalem as a spouse and mother who punishes David but is ultimately crowned thanks to him and becomes his wife, to the images in R. Moshe de Leon’s Shekel ha­Kodesh: King Messiah It is a known matter that He is the King who is anointed with all supernal powers of governance, symbolized by the royal myrrh unguent, which is perfumed with many fragrant spices, the oil of which is written “[It is like the precious oil on the head running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes; It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion] For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life for evermore” (Ps. 133:2–3). Truly, the King is joyous when the good oil descends upon him by way of the Upper Measures. He is anointed by them, delighted in becoming the “King in His Beauty” (Is. 33, 17). Since his status is thereby confirmed, his joy

79 I would suggest that both Zohar Vaikra and Gikatilla in The Secret of the Marriage of David and Bathsheba, hinting to play on words ‫[ פגה ופגם‬prematurity of taking Bathsheba, and flaw/ fault]. In addition, they both claim that the sin of David was “cutting of the shoots.” According to Gikatilla, although Bathsheba was destined for David “and their shared souls were androgynous,” he did not deserve to be conjoined with her, “because the righteous had lost his mate and the first man sinned from the begining and caused the separation of the intimates” (Gikatilla 2005, 184). Gikatilla also adds that “because he preempeted and took her with the foreskin he breached Malkhut and consumed her unripe before the time of redeeming” (187). These images resonate with the Zoharic claim that “he transgressed against that to which he was linked, and he required punishment,” which is linked to the Malkhut. We see here that Gikatilla suggests that David’s sin has two facets. The first is linked to his “evil inclination” [hard Yetzer], thus David was punished by not receiving his soulmate as would the completely righteous. Moreover, when he took Bathsheba, she was “unripe” for him, like Adam eating the fruit of Eden too early when it was not yet ripe. In Zohar Mishpatim, however, David commits a sin against God, which turns into a virtue. Still, it must be noted that the sin of idolatry is connected in the Zohar to the cutting of the shoots. Mopsik (2005, 167–169) suggests that according to Gikatilla David inherited Adam’s sin and his “premature reuniting” with Bathsheba cuased the slavery of Malkhut by the evil power and the “foreskin” ‫ערלה‬.

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is an everlasting joy (Is. 61, 7). It is by way of this “good oil”, which we previously referred to, that he possess the ability to govern in this world. Indeed, it is by dint of the secret of this known Measure (Malkhut) that the King Messiah will be established in this world, and thus he will possess the ability to govern Nature and have dominion over all Peoples, as it is written “May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Ps. 72:8) The Rabbis said, “those kings who were anointed with the horn of unguen, their kingdoms lasted, whereas those who were not anointed with the horn of unguent, theirs did not” (BT Hurayot  12a). Because those who were anointed by the horn – namely, the kings of the House of David – received their kingship from the Supernal Horn which is also called the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the Horn that descends from Above. Now, David was worthy of being anointed with this Horn by dint of the secret of his cleaving to the Kingdom of Heaven, as it is said of him, “a man of battle (Ma’arakha or ‘system of the divine,’ i.e., Sefirot) from his youth” (Sam. I 17, 22). Since David himself was always struggling to establish Her, and to cleave to Her, he therefore inherited the (Measure of) Kingdom (Malkhut) and then bequeathed it to his sons forever, as an eternal covenant. (de Leon 1996, 71–72; translation by Iris Felix)

The good oil that descends on the hills of Zion is connected here to the supernal horn with which David was annointed.80 De Leon portrays an eschatological vision in which Jerusalem stands in her beauty at the heart of the world, from where the Messiah controls all the nations. According to him, because of David’s cleaving to the sefira of Malkhut, he draws a divine flow of emanation for both worlds and inherits its power for eternity. In this vision, the historical and political dimensions are intertwined with the mystical realm, expressing David’s universal role as a symbol of providence, chosennes, and global morality. It is indeed interesting that this text contains none of the gender reversal of the Zoharic texts, no descriptions of David’s sin, and no reference to the homilies about the damage he caused to the sefira of Malkhut. Instead of the feminine image of David playfully tempting God, de Leon proposes a masculine messianic image of redemption centered upon the phallic anointing horn that weaves together past and future.

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80 On this source, see Idel (1998, 110–115, especially note 39); Garb (2005, 86). The supernal Horn for annointment is identified with the sefira of Malkhut and symbolizes the process of the divine flow of emanation, see also in the book Ma’arekhet ha’Elohut (Jerusalem 2012, 74, 159, etc.); Scholem (1991, 245, footnote 731).

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Kron, Tamar. The Archetypal Couple. Tel Aviv: Contento De Semrik, 2012. Lachter, Hartley. Kabbalistic Revolution: Reimagining Judaism in Medieval Spain. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2014. Levinson, Joshua. “Cultural Androgyny in Rabbinic Literature.” From Athens to Jerusalem: Medicine in Hellenized and Jewish Lore and Early Christian Literature. Eds. S. Kottek and M. Horstmanshoff. Rotterdam: Erasmus, 2000. 119–140. Liebes, Yehuda. “The Messiah of the Zohar – To the Messianic Character of R. Shimon Bar Yohai” The Messianic Idea in Israel [Hebrew]. Ed. S. Re’em. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, 1982. 87–236. Liebes, Yehuda. “Mazmiah Qeren Yeshu’ah.” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 3 (1984): 313–349. Liebes Yehuda., “Two Young Roes of a Doe: The Secret Sermon of Isaac Luria Before his Death.” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 10 (1992): 113–169. Liebes, Yehuda. Studies in the Zohar. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993. Liebes, Yehuda. “Zohar and Eros.” Alpayyim 9 (1994): 92–104. Liebes, Yehuda. “Natura Dei: The Jewish Myth and Its Transmutations.” God’s Story: Collected Essays on the Jewish Myth [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Carmel Publishing, 2009. 96–110. Liebes, Yehuda. Mnemosyne – Translation of Classical Poetry [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2011. Liebes, Yehuda. “Long Live the King: The Weakness of King and Power.” On Public Opinion – Religion and Politics in Jewish Thought: Essays in Honor of Aviezer Ravitzky [Hebrew]. Eds. Benjamin Brown et al. Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 2012. 452–489. Limor, Ora. “The Origins of a Tradition: King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion.” Traditio 44 (1988): 453–462. Lorberbaum, Yair. Disempowered King: Monarchy in Classical Jewish Literature. London: Continuum, 2011. Marcus, Ivan. Rituals of Childhood, Jewish Acculturation in Medieval Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Matt, Daniel C., transl. The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, 12 volumes. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006–2013. Mazo-Karras, Ruth “Goliath Thought David Rather Boastful: Royal Masculinity in Kingless Societies.” Haskin Society Journal 28 (2016): 85–100. Mazo-Karras, Ruth “King David as a Figure of Masculinity in Christian and Jewish Medieval Culture” [unpublished]. 2018. Menn, Esther M. “Prayerful Origins: David as Temple Founder in Rabbinic Psalms Commentary.” Of Scribes and Sages: Early Jewish Interpretation and Transmission of Scripture, Vol. II. Ed. Craig A. Evans. London: Bloomsbury, 2004. 77–89. Mopsik, Charles. Sex of the Soul: The Vicissitudes of Sexual Difference in the Kabbalah. Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2005. Morris, Leah. “The Secret of beit hareḥem.” The Fourth Fountain of the Book “Elima” [Hebrew]. Ed. Bracha Sack. Beer-Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1999. 112–147. Niehoff, Maren. “Mother and Maiden, Sister and Spouse: Sarah in Philonic Midrash.” Harvard Theological Review 97.4 (2004): 413–444. Pardes, Ilana. Countertraditions in the Bible – A Feminist Approach. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Pardes, Ilana. The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

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Pedaya, Haviva. “Sabbath, Sabbatai, and the Diminution of Moon – The Holy Conjunction: Sign and Image.” Eshel Beer-Sheva 4 (1996): 143–191. Pedaya, Haviva. Nahmanides: Cyclical Time and Holy Text [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2003. Pedaya, Haviva. “Ve-Ima Hashata Let Lan – A Geneology of the Shekhina as a Mother.” As a Perennial Spring: A Festschrift Honoring Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm. Ed. Bentsion Cohen. New York: Downhill, 2013. 87–151. Pedaya, Haviva. Name and Sanctuary in the Teaching of R. Isaac The Blind [Hebrew] Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2001. Perry, M. and M. Sternberg. “The King through Ironic Eyes: Biblical Narrative and the Literary Reading Process.” Poetics Today 7 (1986): 275–322. Reiner, Elchanan. “Overt Falsehood and Covert Truth: Christians, Jews, and Holy Places in Twelfth-Century Palestine.” Zion 63.2 (1998): 157–188. Rendtorff, Rolf. “The Psalm of David: David in the Psalms.” The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception. Eds. Peter W. Flint et al. Leiden: Brill, 2005. 53–64. Rofé, Alexander. “David’s Battle with Goliath: Legend, Theology, and Eschatology.” Eshel Beer Sheva 3 (1986): 55–90. Roi, Biti. Love of the Shekhina-Mysticism and Poetics in Tiqqunei ha-Zohar. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 2017. Schäfer, Peter, ed., in collaboration with Margarete Schlüter and Hans Georg von Mutius. Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981. Schäfer, Peter. Mirrors of His Beauty: Feminine Images of God from the Bible to the Early Kabbalah. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Schäfer, Peter. The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Scholem, Gershom. Shabbetai Zevi and the Shabbatean Movement During His Lifetime [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1987. Scholem, Gershom. Researches in Sabbateanism [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1991. Scholem, Gershom. Gershom Scholem’s Annotated Zohar. 6 volumes. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992. Shifra, Asulin. “The Flaw and its Correction: Impurity, The Moon and the Shekhinah – A Broad Inquiry into Zohar 3:79.” Kabbalah 22 (2010): 193–251. Shinan, Avigdor. “King David in the Literature of the Sages” [Hebrew]. Epilogue. David: From Shepherd to Messiah. Yair Zakovitch. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1995. 181–199. Spiegel, Gabrielle M. Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in Thirteenth-Century France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Steger, Hugo. David Rex et Propheta: König David als vorbildliche Verkörperung des Herrschers und Dichters im Mittelalter, nach Bilddarstellungen des achten bis zwölften Jahrhunderts. Nuremberg: H. Carl, 1961. Stichel, R. “Scenes from the Life of King David in Dura Europos and in Byzantine Art.” Jewish Art 23–24 (1998): 100–116. Tishby, Isaiah. The Wisdom of the Zohar, Vol. III. Bialik: Jerusalem, 1949. Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985. Tsabar, S. “King David in the Mirror of Jewish Art.” David: From Shepherd to Messiah. Yair Zakovitch. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1995. 201–244.

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Yael Sela

The Voice of the Psalmist: On the Performative Role of Psalms in Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem 1 Prologue The elegiac cantata Sulamith und Eusebia, written by the Enlightenment poet Karl Wilhelm Ramler in the spring of 1786, following the death of Moses Mendelssohn on 4 January that year, venerates the Jewish philosopher from Berlin in poetry and music and laments his death as a tragic loss to humanity. Ramler’s intricately woven libretto was the only elegy for Mendelssohn ever set to music, and that by a young Jewish composer, Bernhard Wessely, Mendelssohn’s protégé and nephew of the Hebrew poet Naphtali Herz Wessely.1 Sulamith und Eusebia, unlike any other necrology in Mendelssohn’s honor, demonstrates profound engagement with core concepts of his philosophical universe. Written as a dirge sung by two allegorical figures, the Jewish-Hebraic Sulamith and the Christian-Hellenic Eusebia, the piece constitutes a midrash on Mendelssohn’s critical project; being both a poetic text and in its performative capacity as a musical genre, it functions as an allegorical interpretation of his politicaltheological notion of Judaism. In the present article, I read the epilogue of the cantata libretto (the score being long since lost), into which Ramler embedded a psalm, as a hermeneutical key to Mendelssohn’s conception ot Psalms and to his own role as their translator. The cantata’s inception and its subsequent performances were the result of a joint commemorative endeavor undertaken by forward-thinking entrepreneurs and intellectuals of the Berliner Aufklärung, both Christians and Jews, among them Ramler and David Friedländer, one of the leaders of the enlightened Jewish

1 Sulamith und Eusebia was performed three times, in Berlin and Königsberg, in 1786–1787. Only the libretto of the piece has survived. On the work’s inception, performances, and reception, see Sela Teichler (2013, 352–384). Note: This essay originated in a paper presented at the Psalms in/on Jerusalem Conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in June 2015, during a research fellowship at the University’s ICORE Center Da’at Hamakom. For their elucidating comments and invaluable suggestions, I am indebted to Edward Breuer, Richard I. Cohen, Yakir Paz, Elchanan Reiner, and David Rotman. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-006

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elite in Prussia.2 These often overlapping interreligious circles shared not only a friendship with Mendelssohn, but also a belief in the political potential of the Enlightenment and a vision of civil betterment for Jews within an altogether reformed society. The uniqueness of the piece as a historical event and as a text attests to the political optimism that the short-lived Christian-Jewish encounter in Mendelssohn’s circles of the Berliner Aufklärung harbored.3 Indeed, a cantata in honor of a Jew, R. Moshe Ben Menachem of Dessau – neither a king nor even a citizen – was extraordinary in eighteenth-century Prussia. It was out of place, outside of time, beyond any familiar speech- or soundscape; a musical utopia.4 The cantata is written as a dirge sung by two female figures – the Hebraic Sulamith, allegory of Judaism, and the Hellenic Eusebia, allegory of Christianity – accompanied by a chorus evocative of the Daughters of Zion. The piece thus evolves around the exegetical axis of the Book of Lamentations and the Song of Songs, embodied in the figure of Sulamith – the Shulamite, the biblical beloved turned desolate widow, an allegory of Jerusalem bewailing its destruction.5 The libretto, emulating with its mournful key the voices and structure of the Book of Lamentations, is largely dominated by biblical poetics of destruction. The epilogue, however, interrupts the lament as Sulamith summons the interreligious community, both the dramatic and the real one, to cease mourning and join her in singing “what Mendelssohn now sings”:

2 On David Friedländer, see Meyer (1979 chapter 3); (Sela Teichler 2013, 358–359). 3 The libretto was printed on the front page of the June 1786 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift, the main organ of the German Enlightenment and a public forum of cultural and political discourse. 4 Funeral cantatas (Trauerkantaten) are embedded in Christian liturgical traditions and ecclesiastic contexts. In the eighteenth century, they were largely reserved for members of the aristocracy and royalty; examples include the cantata in memory of King Frederick the Great, also written in 1786, by Reichardt (1786). 5 Ramler’s Sulamith is an inversion of the figure of the heavenly bride lamenting the death of Christ, as it appears in early modern German Passion poetry, cantatas, and oratorios. On the Shulamite in Christian and Jewish allegorical traditions, see, for instance, Matter (1990); and Green (2002, 1–52). On the interchangeable allegorical roles of the Shulamite as Knesset Israel or Shechinah and the desolate widow of Jerusalem, see Hazan-Rokem (2000, 114, 120).

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Sulamith: Und nun, Gespielen, traurt nicht mehr um unsern Freund; Singt mit mir, was er jetzo singt, Und was der König unsers Volks ihm vorgesungen.

Sulamith: And now, companions, mourn our friend no more; Sing with me what he now sings, And what the King of our people sang to him before.

„Ich wallete im Todesschattenthale,

“I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, And walked there without fear; For my God was with me. – Bliss and happiness have followed me In my first life. – Now I rest forever In the house of the Eternal One.”6

„Und wallete dort ohne Furcht; „Mein Gott begleitete mich. – „Mir folgten Heil und Seligkeit „Im ersten Leben Nach. – „Nun ruh’ ich ewige Zeit „Im Hause des Ewigen aus.

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Quoting Mendelssohn’s translation of Psalm 23, the librettist sets the philosopher’s voice as an echo, or perhaps a continuation, of the voice of King David the Psalmist singing on Mount Zion. This is evident in the preceding verses, where Sulamith addresses Mendelssohn:6 Sulamith: Nun unterhalte dich mit deinem David; […] Er, dessen feurige Gesänge Du hier in kältrer Sprache nachsangst, Stimmt nun mit dir in höherm Ton Das Lob der Gottheit an; Erhebt mit dir den Ewigen, Den er und du geliebt; Den er auf Sions Bergen Lobte, Den du die Welt gelehrt, Zur Zeit, als neue Weisheitslehre ihn verkannten.

Sulamith: Now converse with your David; […] He, whose fiery songs You repeated here but in a colder language, Now sings with you in a loftier tone The praise of the Godhead; Elevates with you the Eternal One, Whom he and you have loved; Whom he praised on Mount Zion, Whom you have taught the world, At a time when the teachers of new wisdoms failed to recognize him.

The epilogue introduces, then, a modulation from the mournful key of destruction to a redemptive key, a transition announced in Sulamith’s prophetic voice; without the musical score, we can only imagine how this modulation was expressed in musical terms. The Lutheran Ramler’s deployment of Psalm 23 not only departs from its common usage in the Protestant tradition, in Luther’s classic 6 Sulamith und Eusebia, eine Cantate auf den Tod des Weltweisen Mendelssohn, in Ramler (1801, 2:36–44 [my translation]).

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translation.7 By explicitly framing the psalm as a distinct song, sung by the figure of Mendelssohn and heard as such by the other figures (diagetic sound), it is elevated above all other speech planes within the dramatic reality of the cantata (in which, as in opera, the characters, unlike the audience, are unaware of their singing). The singing voice is that of the late Mendelssohn, heard from eternity. The psalm he sings, Sulamith tells us, was handed down to him orally by King David himself (“what the King of our people sang to him”). To enhance this performative effect, Ramler paraphrases the verses of the psalm through a grammatical manipulation to the past tense: “I walked through the valley and walked there without fear” instead of “though I walk… I will fear no evil,” and “in my first life” instead of the original “in this life” from Mendelssohn’s translation: Und wall’ ich auch im Todesschatten-Thale, So wall’ ich ohne Furcht; Denn du beschützest mich. […] Mir folget Heil und Seligkeit In diesem Leben nach, Einst ruh’ ich ew’ge Zeit Dort in des Ew’gen Reich. (Mendelson 1783, 48–49)

In being sung, as it were, by Mendelssohn’s immortal soul, the words of Psalm 23 create a metaphysical continuum between the first life under divine Providence and the salvation of the soul in the hereafter. We hear the singing soul as the voice of the subject, whose speech, to follow Hermann Cohen’s observation, constitutes the “I” in the direct address of the one singing psalms to God (Cohen 1980, 1:246). I suggest reading the epilogue of the cantata Sulamith und Eusebia as a poetic midrash on Mendelssohn’s aesthetic, theological, and ultimately political conception of Psalms, and a key to his translation as it was understood by his closest and most sympathetic circle of adherents and friends, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Mendelssohn published his German translation of the Book of Psalms in 1783 without commentary. The dedicatee of the translation, Ramler, Mendelssohn’s longtime friend and interlocutor in matters of poetry and translation, “the critical poet of Germany, the equivalent of Lessing in matters of philosophy”8 seems to have profoundly grasped Mendelssohn’s critical philosophical and exegetical project.9 7 Psalm 23 is commonly used as a funeral meditation as well as in the Lutheran rite of affirmation of faith (confirmation). 8 Mendelsson (1783, iii–vi, my translation). See also, Mendelssohn (1972–10.1:5–6) (hereafter JubA). 9 Ramler and Mendelssohn were probably introduced around 1756 through Friedrich Nicolai and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. See Engel (1979, 61–82).

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Ramler’s sympathetic engagement with Mendelssohn’s universe and above all with his philosophy of religious enlightenment are evident in the attempt to reclaim biblical poetry to Judaism and fashion a Jewish “Passion cantata” within a dramatic realm delineated between a mournful Jerusalem (Sulamith) and a sympathetic Athens (Eusebia). The juxtaposition of the Hebraic-Jewish Sulamith and the Hellenic-Christian Eusebia also dramatically (and astutely) articulates the question of the relationship between “Jerusalem” and “Athens,” or the place of Judaism within and next to (Christian) European modernity. This topos is central throughout Mendelssohn’s thought, and is fundamental to his critique of Enlightenment. Jerusalem is also the locus that Sulamith identifies as the ever-sounding source of the Hebrew psalms since the days of King David the Psalmist singing on Mount Zion. Fashioning Mendelssohn’s psalm singing in the cantata as an echo to the voice of the Psalmist, and Sulamith’s invitation to join him directs our reading to another “Jerusalem” – Mendelssohn’s political-theological essay Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism, also published in 1783, in which verses from Psalms play a vital role.10 How, then, can the vocal dramatization in the cantata of Mendelssohn’s psalm translation, itself an echo “in a colder language” to the Psalmist’s voice sounding from Jerusalem, elucidate the role of Psalms in Jerusalem? In what follows, I depart from the epilogue of the cantata Sulamith und Eusebia as a hermeneutical key for exploring the performative role of Psalms in the second part of Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem. I suggest that psalm verses in Jerusalem are intended to yield an oral effect, as dramatically enacted in Ramler’s cantata libretto. I thereby examine the role of orality in Mendelssohn’s conception of Psalms as universal documents of natural religion, proof of Judaism’s inherent enlightenment. Exploring the tension between the ancient Hebrew origin of Psalms and their universality, in Mendelssohn’s view, my discussion engages the meaning of Mendelssohn’s translation and his role as translator of Hebrew Scripture. Finally, by way of an afterthought, I consider how, in the epilogue of Ramler’s cantata libretto, the turn of the gaze, or indeed of the ear, toward a utopian “Jerusalem” may shed light on the question of Mendelssohn’s notion of redemption in Jerusalem: where is Mendelssohn’s “Jerusalem,” and what sort of redemption might the ending of Ramler’s cantata in his memory allude to?

10 Variants in the translation between Mendelssohn’s complete Psalms translation and the verses in Jerusalem are beyond the purview of this essay.

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2 Mendelssohn’s Translation of Psalms Mendelssohn’s translation of the Book of Psalms was published in Berlin in 1783, the fruit of over a decade’s work. Unlike his German translation of the Pentateuch (1780–83), which appeared in Hebrew characters with Hebrew commentary (Biur) and was intended exclusively for a Jewish readership, the Psalms translation was in German characters, lacked commentary, and was intended for a broad, non-Jewish readership. The translation of Psalms had been largely instigated by the attack on Mendelssohn in 1769–70 by the Swiss Protestant theologian Johann Caspar Lavater, who had publicly challenged the by-then renowned Jewish philosopher to either refute “the essential arguments in support of the facts of Christianity” or else do what “Socrates would have done if he had read [Charles Bonnet’s work on the subject] and found it irrefutable,” namely, convert ( JubA 7:1–3).11 In the subsequent exchange with Lavater, Mendelssohn sought to refute the theologian’s claim to the exclusivity of Christianity by affirming the universality of natural religion, the one indispensable means of promoting man’s vocation – the quest for virtue that leads to eternal felicity (Sorkin 1996, 26). Mendelssohn would devote much of the 1770s and early 1780s to buttressing this argument and above all to showing that Judaism was in harmony with reason and with natural religion. One result of these efforts was his attempt to produce a nonpartisan translation of Psalms as a document of natural religion that was free of messianic interpretations, Jewish or Christian. Another result was his political-theological essay Jerusalem, the pinnacle of Mendelssohn’s defense of Judaism as an inherently tolerant, rational religion. In a letter written shortly after the publication of the new translation, Mendelssohn explains to his friend Elise Reimarus, the erudite Hamburg salonnière and daughter of the deist Hermann Samuel Reimarus, that his main purpose was to show that “the Psalms do not contain what Christians and Jews have until now been looking for with so much criticism and erudition”.12 Although 11 English translation of Lavater’s dedication to Mendelssohn [of translated sections from Charles Bonnet’s Palingenesis] (1769), in Mendelssohn (2011, 5). On the Lavater affair, see Altmann (1973, 194–263); Dominique Bourel locates the roots of Lavater’s attack in south-German Pietism and engages attitudes shared by Lavater and other contemporary theologians in the Germanspeaking realm toward the Jews’ role in preparing for messianic redemption through conversion, in Dominique Bourel (2007, 279–318). Mendelssohn’s original intent in 1770, following the affair, was to publish only a selection of psalms as part of an essay on the lyrical poetry of the Hebrews, to be added to the revised edition of his Philosophical Writings; see Altmann (1973, 242–243). 12 Letter to Elise Reimarus, 20 May, 1783, in JubA 13:109 (my translation). On the Reimarus circle, see Spalding (2005).

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Mendelssohn’s intention was not widely acknowledged or even understood amongst non-Jews, a small circle of sympathetic Enlighteners expressed interest in the project, including Karl Lessing, who, as early as 1770, confessed, “I get from it [the translation] a conception of David the singer and of the entire Hebrew poetry completely different from what I gathered from Luther’s version or Cramer’s versified paraphrases” (Altmann 1973, 242).13 Lessing understood, it seems, and perhaps sensed, the distinctness of Mendelssohn’s translation, which maintained, even in German, a direct and vital affinity of biblical poetry to its Hebrew origin. Guided by an aspiration to rational edification (Erbauung) that would promote universal religiosity, as opposed to mystical and prophetic interpretations, Mendelssohn’s approach to translating the Book of Psalms (as with any translation of Hebrew Scripture) was non-literal, emphasizing the significance of aesthetic and oral qualities of Hebrew Scripture to the meaning of its content (Sorkin 1996, 47). An aesthetic conception of biblical poetry had already been heralded in his first discussion on the subject, the 1757 review of Robert Lowth’s Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews (1753). In this essay, Mendelssohn joins a long tradition of European Bible exegesis in rendering the psalms the supreme and most ancient example of human songs of devotion, or odes, in praise of the divine.14 Moreover, he locates the origins of ancient Hebrew poetry in the art of music: [T]he Hebrews alone offer the earliest examples of [poetic hymns in praise of God]. […] In the schools of the Prophets, which had flourished long before the Kings, the young disciples were primarily taught music and the holy art of poetry. Under the reign of King David, the art of music and poetry reached its highest degree. Four thousand singers and musicians rotated in singing hymns in the Temple, accompanying the singing with various musical instruments. It was there that most of the Psalms were created, which have survived to the present day. These were robbed of their most noble adornment, since we have not the

13 The reference is to Johann Andreas Cramer’s popular Poetische Übersetzung der Psalmen (Leipzig, 1763). Mendelssohn’s translation of some psalms appears to have already circulated among interested friends and supporters in the late 1770s, as suggested by contemporary choral settings of several psalms by Berlin’s foremost composers Carl Friedrich Fasch, Johann Philipp Kirnberger, and Johann Friedrich Reichardt. Some of these works were performed in Berlin at the time; see Mendelssohn’s letter to Reichardt, 14 December, 1784, cited in Altmann (1973, 270). 14 The long tradition that holds Hebrew biblical poetry, and above all Psalms, to be superior to ancient Greek and Latin poetry goes back to the Church Fathers. This discourse renders the Psalms of David divine poetry, a concept nourished by early modern theorists, among them Charles Batteux in his Principes de la literature, translated into German by Ramler in 1756–58. Batteux argues that the Psalms were directly given to David by God. See Pape (2006, 17–34).

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slightest clue about either their instruments or their music. We can thus talk about these divine odes only as far as the poetry is concerned. (Mendelssohn 1757, 1.2:276–277 [my translation])

In ancient Israel, so Mendelssohn, the arts of music and poetry were inextricable in forming religious service. The Hebrew poets were thus essentially musicians, and the psalms we know today, sung by the Levites in the Temple, were, as with all other Hebrew lyrical poetry, embedded in music. But that musical knowledge has (like other bodies of knowledge) been lost in exile.15 The ancient psalms nonetheless remain musical in both origin and essence. The Lowth review begins to explicate the aesthetic category of the sublime, which would become pivotal in Mendelssohn’s entire aesthetic project between the mid-1750s and the early 1770s, particularly in his critical writings on poetry, both European and Hebrew, ancient and modern.16 The sublime would primarily serve as a theoretical foundation for Mendelssohn’s scrutiny, exegesis, translation, and historical account of Hebrew biblical poetry, of which the psalms are the prime example. In his On the Sublime and the Naïve in the Fine Sciences (1758), Mendelssohn notes that that which is or appears immense as far as the degree of its perfection is concerned is called sublime. God is called ‘the most sublime being.’ […] In the fine arts and sciences the sensuously perfect representation of something immense will be enormous, strong, or sublime depending upon whether the magnitude concerns an extension and number, a degree of power, or, in particular, a degree of perfection. (Mendelssohn 1997, 192–232 at 195)

The sentiment aroused in reaction to the sublime, to God, to the magnitude of his perfection, and, albeit to a far lesser extent, to sublime representations in the fine arts, is awe, a “mixed sentiment” of simultaneous pleasure and pain: The immensity arouses a sweet shudder that rushes through every fiber of our being, and the multiplicity prevents all satiation, giving wings to the imagination to press further and further without stopping. All these sentiments blend together in the soul, flowing into one another, and become a single phenomenon we call awe. (Mendelssohn 1997, 195)

15 See also Mendelssohn’s commentary on Exodus 15, below. 16 See also Schorch (2012, chapter 3).

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Perfection (which, in Mendelssohn, refers to all higher faculties of the mind: knowledge, ethics, aesthetics) consists in harmony in multiplicity. Whereas beauty, or unity in multiplicity, cannot suffice in representing God, the sublime can capture the infinite power of the divine (Mendelssohn 1997, 195).17 In the realm of human creation, the sublime is thus “something sensuously perfect in art, capable of inspiring awe” (Mendelssohn 1997, 195). The sublimity of biblical poetry therefore cannot represent God, but it can move us to a response of the same sort, a response that is adequate to the divine, as Gideon Freudenthal has pointed out.18 Above all, the psalms arouse awe in response both to their “sensuous perfection” as well as to the object of praise. We can thus say that the psalms partake in perfection, the attribute we ascribe to the most perfect being (albeit to an infinitely lesser degree) – God. Both in their provenance and in performed religious practice, the psalms are embedded in the art of music, which, for Mendelssohn, is a “divine art,” superior to all other arts, one linked with the aesthetic, emotional, and ethical experience associated with the sublime through its appeal to the three faculties of aesthetic experience: intellectual perfection (Vollkommenheit), beauty, and sensuous gratification.19 Music alone, however, does not suffice to express or evoke a specific sentiment. It is non-referential and thus obscure. To express a concrete sentiment – religious or other – music must therefore be wedded with words, which indicate the object of the emotional reaction.20 In the psalms, the objects of emotional reaction are concepts of the divine, God, his creation, and eternity, concepts closely related to the tenets of natural religion. When practiced in religious service, they constitute a particularly adequate human response to the divine.21 In coupling words and music, “the divine poets among the ancient Hebrews,” Mendelssohn asserts, were able to “arouse the most sublime sensations in us” and “knew how to make their way directly to our hearts” (Mendelssohn 1757, 1.1:122). To Mendelssohn, the psalms are therefore an eminently suitable universal source of edification (Erbauung) and as such are proof of Judaism’s harmony with natural religion. Thus, once available in a nonpartisan German translation that revealed the aesthetic qualities of Hebrew poetry according to sense and rhythm, the Book of Psalms would be “a primer of universal religiosity,” to use David Sorkin’s phrase (Sorkin 1996, 51). 17 See also Freudenthal (2012, 206–207). 18 I borrow the concept of “adequacy” of the reaction from Freudenthal (2012, 15–19, 202). 19 Mendelssohn, On the Sentiments (1755), Letter 11, in Mendelssohn (1997, 48). 20 Mendelssohn, On the Main Principles of Fine Arts (1761), in Mendelssohn (1997, 187). 21 See also Freudenthal (2012, 202–211).

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3 Hearing Psalms in Jerusalem It is only natural that Mendelssohn interspersed verses from Psalms in prominent places in his defense of Judaism as natural religion, the essay Jerusalem, Or On Religious Power and Judaism, published, like the Psalms translation, in 1783.22 Jerusalem was similarly written in response to a theological charge, one made the previous year by the theologian August Cranz, whose open letter to Mendelssohn, entitled The Search for Light and Right, was a response to Mendelssohn’s preface to Manasseh Ben Israel’s Vindiciae Judaeorum.23 Contesting Mendelssohn’s expressed position against the excommunication and expulsion of members of a religious community (a community ban), Cranz denounced Judaism for sanctioning religious coercion, and challenged Mendelssohn to forsake Jewish ceremonial law, which hinders unification or at least closer affinity between Christians and Jews. Before Cranz’s eyes was the New Testament prophecy that “there will be only one shepherd and one flock” (John 10:16).24 To refute Cranz’s charge, Jerusalem sets out to defend the authority of Jewish ritual law and to reject the claim that Christianity is a religion of freedom and tolerance. More broadly, Jerusalem lays out a defense of ancient Judaism’s affinity to natural religion, being a synthesis of rational, universal religious truths, or “eternal truths” – God’s existence, divine Providence, and the immortality of the soul – with revealed legislation, the foundation of Jewish ritual law and moral freedom, a temporally embedded event, or a “historical truth.” “Judaism knows of no revealed religion in the sense in which Christians understand the term. The Israelites possess a divine legislation – laws, commandments […] in the will of God as to how they should conduct themselves in order to attain temporal and eternal felicity” (Mendelssohn 1983, 90). The revelation at Sinai was a historical event, consisting in revealed commandments and ordinances upon which the people’s legislation and rules were to be founded, not in religious truths indispensable to human felicity (Mendelssohn 1983, 98). The laws of revealed legislation, or the Torah, “were made known by God through words and script” (Mendelssohn 1983, 127). To Mendelssohn, revealed legislation

22 All subsequent quotes from the essay are from the English translation in Mendelssohn (1983). 23 [August Friedrich Cranz], Das Forschen nach Licht und Recht in einem Schreiben an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn auf Veranlassung seiner merkwürdigen Vorrede zu Manasseh Ben Israel (Berlin, 1782), JubA 8:73–87. See Altmann (1973, 502–552). On the identification of the author, see Katz (1964, 112–132). 24 For an English translation, see “The Search for Light and Right in a Letter to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn, on the Occasion of his Remarkable Preface to Manasseh Ben Israel,” in Mendelssohn (2011, 55–67).

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in the form of the Torah is thus a historical truth: it comprises a set of precepts transmitted by God at some point in time, in a specific place, to a certain people, as something “that occurred once and may never occur again, propositions that have become true at one point in time and space through a confluence of causes and effects, and that, therefore, can be conceived of as true only in respect to that point in time and space” (Mendelssohn 1983, 91). In contrast to Christianity, “Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths that are indispensable to salvation, of no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usually understood. Revealed religion is one thing, revealed legislation another” (Mendelssohn 1983, 97). In Judaism, the “eternal truths” necessary for salvation are available to all, not just Jews, through reason alone, and must be accepted freely on the basis of rational conviction.25 Eternal truths are the matter of natural religion, the “universal religion of man­ kind, without which men are neither virtuous nor capable of felicity” (Mendelssohn 1983, 97). Natural religion comprises a body of elementary universal knowledge about both God and his relation to man. This universal knowledge is comprised of “propositions that are not subject to time and remain the same in all eternity” (Mendelssohn 1983, 90–91). It is known to all people at all times and to all religions by reason alone, and is at the basis of religious enlightenment. All eternal truths, either necessary or contingent, “flow from a common source, the source of all truth – the former from the intellect, the latter from the will of God” (Mendelssohn 1983, 91). Universal religion, however, was not and could not have been revealed at Sinai, “for who was to be convinced of these eternal doctrines of salvation by the voice of thunder and the sound of trumpets?” (Mendelssohn 1983, 97).26 Obedience to Jewish law, Mendelssohn maintains, coheres with the Aristotelian (and Maimonidian) concept of perfection of the intellectual soul and with the ideals of political liberty and religious tolerance (Gottlieb 2011, 43). Indeed, perfection of the mind and soul (shlemut ha­nefesh) is the ultimate goal of religious life. It constitutes the highest form of divine worship, which can be achieved by Jews and non-Jews alike (Gottlieb 2011, 38). But if the psalms are documents of natural religion, containing knowledge about eternal truths, how will this knowledge be useful to humankind? How will the enlightened person seeking self-improvement (tikun) and perfection (shlemut ha­nefesh) obtain these truths on her way to salvation? 25 See also Gottlieb (2011, 48). 26 Mendelssohn does not deny that divine revelation presupposes knowledge of eternal truths. Similarly, the Torah contains rational truths intimately related to the laws, which, in turn, “refer to, or are based on, eternal truths of reason, or remind us of them, and rouse us to ponder them” (1983, 99).

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In Judaism, Mendelssohn expounds, “the commandments of the divine law are addressed to man’s will, to his power to act.” This power is man’s belief, which, in Hebrew, as Mendelssohn notes, means “trust” or “confidence” (emun, emuna, leha’amin). However, “whenever it is a question of eternal truths of reason, it [the Torah] does not say ‘believe’ but ‘understand’ and ‘know.’” In Hebrew, the words are da’at (knowing) or shmi’ah (hearing) (Mendelssohn 1983, 100). The knowledge of eternal truths is internalized by the rational person as a cognitive process through the sense of hearing. And though eternal truths were not revealed at any given point in time, Mendelssohn nonetheless draws upon the Torah to illustrate his point: the verse “Hear, O Israel, the Eternal, our God, is a unique, eternal being!” (Deuteronomy 6:4) epitomizes the inherent link between knowledge and the cognitive act of hearing. Nowhere, he emphasizes, does it say “Believe, O Israel, and you will be blessed” (Mendelssohn 1983, 100). This cognitive mechanism of rationally internalizing knowledge through the sense of hearing seems to be demonstrated, rather than explicated, in several instances throughout the second part of Jerusalem through verses from Psalms that are integrated into the discussion. The manner by which they are introduced into the text is not only distinct from the rhetorical plane of the rest of the discussion; it also diverges from all other biblical quotes throughout the essay, in that the psalms are cited as oral speech acts. Let us consider the following examples. Responding, at the outset of the second part, to his adversary’s charge that obedience to revealed Jewish law is based not on reason but on fear of punishment, Mendelssohn cries out against the mere possibility of subordinating reason to faith: “Authority can humble but not instruct, it can suppress reason but not put it in fetters.” Reason will always raise its head in the form of doubts that would “resolve themselves into childlike prayers.” To buttress his claim, Mendelssohn introduces a second, distant voice, which he joins with his own: I would call out with the Psalmist: Lord, send me your light, your truth, That they may guide and bring me Unto your holy mountain, unto your dwelling place! [Ps. 43:3] (Mendelssohn 1983, 86)

Mendelssohn refuses to deny the primacy of reason over faith. To him, the existence of God is not a matter of belief, but a rational concept. Religious action without rational conviction is of no religious value. The two are inseparable. He joins the Psalmist’s words to assert that God is truth, and divine Providence a source of infinite solace. Following God’s guidance as a matter of rational choice, as an act of reason, will eventually lead the soul to its eternal dwelling place. The resilience of reason, which Mendelssohn here defends, is expressed vocally in those “childlike prayers” – in the psalm verse whose objects of reference

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are the very concepts of eternal truths of reason. But more than a mere verbal representation, the act of “calling out with the Psalmist,” the very vocal utterance of the verse, does here what its content represents: the singing itself constitutes an act of rational religiosity and edification. In this sense, it is a performative speech act. Explicating the nature of eternal truths, Mendelssohn proclaims “Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths, which are indispensable to salvation…[.] Eternal truths are “the universal religion of mankind, not Judaism” (Mendelssohn 1983, 97–98). Yet, eternal truths are nonetheless one of the core components of Judaism, next to revealed legislation and commandments. Without eternal truths, he notes, “man cannot be enlightened and happy.” Moreover, eternal truths, the tenets of natural religion, were revealed “through nature and thing, but never through word and script” (Mendelssohn 1983, 90). “The Supreme Being,” Mendelssohn explains, “has revealed them to all rational creatures through things and concepts and inscribed them in the soul with a script that is legible and comprehensible at all times and in all places” (Mendelssohn 1983, 126). Here, too, the voice of the Psalmist is invoked: For this reason our much-quoted poet sings: The heavens declare the majesty of God, And the firmament announces the work of His hands; From one day this doctrine flows into another; And night gives instruction to night. No teaching, no words, Without their voice being heard. Their chord resounds over all the earth, Their message goes forth to the ends of the world, To the place where He has set a tent for the sun, etc. [Ps. 19:1–4] (Mendelssohn 1983, 126)

By deploying verses from Psalms, Mendelssohn renders them a prime representation of God’s creation, such as nature and the universe. Indeed, both those universal “things and concepts,” tenets of natural religion, as well as the psalms themselves, are distinguished from words in mere script. Quoted in their oral quality as songs, or odes, the psalm verses in Jerusalem constitute performative speech acts in that not only are they heard (or imagined to be heard by Mendelssohn) in the Psalmist’s voice and echoed by Mendelssohn; their appearance within the text of Jerusalem itself constitutes a vital human response to those “things and concepts” of which they speak. “Their effect,” according to Mendelssohn, “is as universal as the benefit influence of the sun, which […] sheds light and warmth over the whole globe.” Whereupon this concept once again comes to life in the voice of the royal poet-singer, invoking the universe in all its unfathomable sublimity, its eternity:

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From sunrise to sundown The name of the Eternal is praised. [Ps. 113:3] (Mendelssohn 1983, 126)

In Jerusalem, the verses quoted from Psalms constitute more than plain textual references. Moreover, rather than a mere rhetorical device, the repeated pattern by which Mendelssohn introduces the verses as the words sung by the Psalmist and echoed by Mendelssohn yields a performative effect, which, in turn, engenders an audial cognitive experience of a different order than reading, inviting us to hear the words of the psalms rather than merely read them. Being themselves beyond “words and script,” the singing of the Psalmist re-uttered by the orator is invoked as a vocal enactment of eternal, rational religious knowledge. Mendelssohn’s conception of the oral origin and nature of the Torah (the concept of living script and the hermeneutical function he attributed to the cantillations) is elaborated in Or la­Netiva, the introduction to the German translation of the Pentateuch, and further developed in Jerusalem. We have already encountered his claim regarding the musical provenance of all biblical poetry at large. We now see that the oral quality of Hebrew Scripture seems to be pivotal in the distinction between the faculties of knowledge and belief. While Mendelssohn’s notions about the orality of Hebrew Scripture are drawn from medieval Jewish scholars, primarily following the legacy of Judah Halevi’s twelfth-century Book of the Kuzari,27 the observation that knowledge of rational concepts as a cognitive activity derives from the sense of hearing reverberates with contemporaneous theories about the origins of language. In particular, in Johann Gottfried Herder’s theory of the origins of language, which Mendelssohn had engaged closely, hearing is the foundation of knowledge; of all the senses, Herder renders hearing “the sense of language,” so that thought is itself primarily auditory (Herder 1772, part 1 section 3).28

4 The Musical Origin of Biblical Poetry In hearing echoes of the Psalmist’s voice in Jerusalem, we are reminded of Mendelssohn’s conception of the inherently musical nature of the art of biblical poetry, to which the Lowth review already alludes. The notion of the power of 27 See, for instance, Freudenthal (2012, chapter 4); and most recently Sacks (2016). 28 Mendelssohn’s review of Herder’s essay was published in (Mendelssohn 1773, 439–51); see JubA 5.2:174–83. On language in Mendelssohn, see also Schorch (2012, especially 89–95).

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music wedded with words in biblical poetry, like the idea of the living script of the Torah, is fully explored in the Hebrew commentary on the Pentateuch translation (1780–3).29 In his introduction to Exodus 15, Song of the Sea, Mendelssohn fully develops the idea that music serves the end desired in [poetry]  – namely, that the words enter not only the listener’s ear, but also his heart, and remain engraved on the tablets [of his heart], moving him to joy or sadness, timidity or confidence, fear or hope, love or hate (according to the intended meaning), and firmly establish within him the virtues and excellent dispositions like goads and nails that have been planted, like a stake that will not be dislodged. And since the pleasantness of poetry and pleasing music contribute greatly to meeting this need and promoting this end, as is known to experts in psychology, our ancestors chose to order their noble phrases according to a beautiful order that agrees with the art of music. (Mendelssohn 2011, 212–213)30

The orality of Hebrew poetry is intended not only as a memorizing aid, but as a means of preserving “the sweetness of content,” that is, the meaning of the words. Yet, the art of music and poetry of the ancient Hebrews bears no resemblance to what we know today; in contrast to contemporaneous music and poetry, which is “concerned primarily with what is pleasant to the senses, in ancient times,” the purpose of the former art “was to subdue the faculties of the soul […] and transform its dispositions according to its will” (Mendelssohn 2011, 214–215). This extensive discussion preceding the commentary on the Song of the Sea resonates with the much earlier unpublished fragments Letters on Art (Briefe über Kunst, written in the late 1750s), in which Mendelssohn addresses the power of words wedded with music: The purpose of this inestimable art [music] is to make the effect of poetry on our mind more emphatic, more vital, and more passionate. When a song in praise of God, of wisdom, or of virtue is sung with the appropriate energy, inspired by an accompanying instrument, it completely governs our sentiments.

Here, too, music is given the role of explicating the meaning of the words and of effecting the proper moral sentiment, as the passage continues in an almost ecstatic crescendo:

29 Sefer Netivot ha­Shalom (Book of the Paths of Peace, Berlin: 1780–3) with Mendelssohn’s introduction Or la­Netiva (Light to the Path, Berlin: 1782). On Mendelssohn’s Pentateuch translation and commentary, see, for instance, Breuer (1995, particularly chapter 5). 30 See JubA 15.1:125–134.

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The rational perception of the sung words masters our soul; and the pleasantness of the tones through which the words are carried, puts our senses into the state of the affect [the emotion] that they are supposed to arouse. The excitement becomes total, we are simultaneously pulled away against our will, accompanied by joy and delight, on our way to happiness. (Mendelssohn 2006, 95 [my translation])

As in his commentary on Exodus 15, the ultimate purpose of sacred poetry is thus, as Mendelssohn concludes, “guidance toward eternal felicity and true flourishing by means of the elevated and lofty content, prophecies, promises, blessings, and psalms praising the Eternal that lead man to eternal life” (Mendelssohn 2011, 215). In a letter written a few days before his death, Mendelssohn offers religious advice to a Protestant friend, the young poet Sophie Becker of the Reimarus circle in Hamburg. His advice reveals a great deal not only about his view on the function of singing psalms as an act of religious enlightenment, but also about the intention behind his own translation: Every person, I believe, sings not so that God will hear him and like his melodies. We sing for our own sake, the wise man as well as the fool. Have you ever read the Psalms with this intention? It seems to me that many of the Psalms are of the sort that, sung by the most enlightened persons, they must effect true edification (Erbauung). I would recommend to you my translation […]. So much is certain, to me the Psalms have sweetened many bitter hours, and I pray and sing them whenever I sense in me a need to pray and sing. (JubA 13:334 [my translation])

Yet, of no less interest are Becker’s spiritual pangs to which this oft-cited letter was a response. Writing to Mendelssohn the night before Christmas, Becker is torn between the loss of “false” yet simple Christian religious sentiments, and her new adherence to natural religion by the power of reason, through which she had managed to “lift all contradictions that had sometimes confused her childish head.” Seeking Mendelssohn’s advice, she asks Dearest friend, how have you, with your sensitive heart, managed to overcome those early false religious sentiments without at all becoming colder? [...] I can now only venerate and marvel at nature itself and the intricate forces at work in it. My prayers are no longer words, because I would have to direct them at an object, they are merely emotions, expressed only through my tears. I have thus lost all sense for the public prayer. […] Advise me, how do I begin to bring my heart closer to God, whom my reason [Verstand] worships in a grain of sand as in the sun. Pure reason seems to me too cold. [...] The law that prescribes Jews to pray with their face toward Jerusalem is rather strong evidence that the lawgiver knew the human soul. (JubA 13:331–332 [my translation])

Aspiring to adhere to natural religion, Becker is at loss in the absence of an object of worship: she no longer believes in the physical, human image of Christ, the

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son of God (“how can perfection take on the image of something imperfect?”), and, as a non-Jew, she cannot direct her prayers to a mental image of Jerusalem. She lacks any means of prayer that would give sense to her religious emotions and provide an adequate response to the Deity, which she identifies in every dimension of creation, including nature and the forces of the universe. How, then, can she respond to the Godhead without surrendering to the pitfalls of idolatry? Mendelssohn’s answer, like the question at hand, is rather about the form, not the object, of religious practice. He does not rebuke Becker’s desire for a concrete conceptual framework to contain her bursting religious emotions toward the divine, just as he acknowledges the need to tame music’s intense but indeterminate expressive power by pairing it with words (Mendelssohn 1997, 187). On the contrary, as he empathetically reassures his interlocutor, religious practice should be adequate to the human response to the divine, rather than to the divine object of worship: “The wisest rational person, as anyone else, needs words to sing in prayer to the divine, even against his own will” (JubA 13:334 [my translation]). The singing of psalms, Mendelssohn suggests, is an adequate, universal form of prayer available to every individual, Jew or Christian, because it is the subject’s act – a performance of the enlightened self, to recall Hermann Cohen – in response to the abstract religious object (God), internalizing the eternal truths of which he is the source. The religious experience is then not determined by the divine object but by the individual human need to respond to it:31 “Read so,” Mendelssohn recommends to the reader of his translation, as to “pick a psalm appropriate to your state of mind at a particular time” (JubA 10.1: 7–8 [my translation]).

5 Hearing Psalms in Athens-on-the-Spree In Mendelssohn’s defense of Judaism’s religious enlightenment, the Hebrew psalms are pivotal documents of natural religion. The eternal truths of natural religion are encapsulated in the marriage between words and the singing voice.

31 Mendelssohn’s view that religious service in general (such as prayer and Torah learning, which replace the sacrificial service in the Temple) is an expression of a human, rather than a divine, need is articulated also in Jerusalem, 57. Altmann further elaborates on the novelty of this nearly deist position and its significance in Mendelssohn’s political-theological philosophy in his commentary on Jerusalem, 182–184. See also Freudenthal (2012, 208).

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Their performance by the enlightened person, as a form of prayer, is an adequate response to the Deity. Yet Mendelssohn’s project – to free the Psalms from prophetic exegeses and typological interpretations and to introduce them as universal sacred poetry for individual prayer and edification, whose origins are in ancient Hebrew culture – precipitated little resonance among Christian theologians and Bible scholars beyond the small circles of the north-German Enlightenment. In a reprimanding essay published several months after Mendelssohn’s death in the Berlinische Monatsschrift, one of the main organs of the Berliner Aufklärung, Mendelssohn’s friend and disciple David Friedländer attempted to rekindle interest for the underappreciated translation. “It seems extraordinary,” Friedländer writes, that Mendelssohn’s “masterful translation has aroused so little sensation.” Friedländer’s rebuking finger is directed at “philosophers and poets, scholars of history and mankind, theologians and non-theologians,” who ought to have “grabbed with their desiring hands a text […] described as the fruit of ten years’ work. And indeed, that text would have deserved to be appraised” (Friedländer 1786, 523–549 at 524 [my translation]). In defense of the translation, Friedländer proclaims: Only a man such as he, who with extensive knowledge of the original language […]; with his philosophical mind and sensibility of a poet; only a soul such as his […] could have produced a translation of these old and venerable monuments of philosophy and poetry, [a translation] so loyal and noble, in which the original has lost so little or no energy and succinctness, as little as tone and color. Only he could have presented everything exactly in the spirit of the original script, without becoming too dark or too overt. In particular, he has recovered the concepts of God and the divine, the wisdoms of pure worship, and moral conduct of people, of which the Psalms contain such a wealthy treasure, from the twilight and darkness in which they had been buried, and, through correct […] and no longer ambiguous expression, presented them in their purest and brightest light. Those concepts and wisdoms, over which other churches and schools proudly claim ownership, appear there in our Psalms and illuminate everyone with their clarity. Now one can quite accurately recognize the degree of enlightenment already reached at the time of the Royal Singer. (Friedländer 1786, 524–527 [my translation])

Friedländer underscores Mendelssohn’s unique capacity to preserve in translation the metaphysical and religious knowledge encapsulated in the Hebrew psalms, above all “the concepts of God and the divine.” The origin of this knowledge, of this “wisdom of pure worship” in the ancient Hebrews, attests to Judaism as a religion of reason and enlightenment and to its affinity to natural religion. Turning to the “experts and true friends of oriental literature, the Tellers, Herders, and Eichhorns,” Friedländer’s defense becomes a bill of indictment, as he deplores, “none of the reviewers has recognized […] the merits of this excellent translation[.] … and now it sits quietly on the shelf next to the man’s complete

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writings, which every booklover wants to possess, but of which nobody ever makes any use” (Friedländer 1786, 524 [my translation]). Alas, as he concludes, “most of the readers never wanted to grasp the intention behind the translation, even though Mendelssohn quite explicitly indicated it in his Jerusalem” (Friedländer 1786, 527 [my translation]). Indeed, Mendelssohn clearly indicates his intention in Jerusalem, though not in words and script, but rather by way of exempla that should inspire the reader to internally hear the Psalmist, reflect upon his words, and ultimately reenact his singing, as Mendelssohn himself does. The poet and librettist Karl Wilhelm Ramler was evidently among the few nonJews who truly grasped the significance of Mendelssohn’s translation of Psalms and was able to engage with its far-reaching theological, cultural, and ultimately political implications for the Enlightenment. As Sulamith relates in the epilogue of the cantata, which can be read as a dramatized allegory of Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem, what Mendelssohn now sings from eternity is “what the King of our people sang to him before.” That is, Ramler renders Mendelssohn’s role as translator of Psalms an intermediary one, one that traverses the distance to the Hebrew “fiery songs” of the Psalmist “in a colder language”, without losing their “tone or color,” thereby presenting them “in their purest and brightest light,” as praised by Friedländer. As in Jerusalem, in Ramler’s cantata epilogue Mendelssohn’s voice echoes the singing of the Psalmist, inviting us to similarly follow with ours. When Sulamith summons the community to cease from mourning and join her in singing “what he now sings,” a performative moment is engendered, in which the voice of Mendelssohn enacts the exemplum of the Psalmist on Mount Zion. This moment in the cantata itself constitutes an exemplum, instructing the audience and readers of the piece to sing psalms as a religious act of edification, an act of universal prayer. Emphatically articulated as a song sung by the subject – Mendelssohn’s immortal soul, singing from the afterlife, reflecting back upon the first life – this moment in the piece constitutes a dramatic representation of all three eternal truths: the existence of God, Providence in the first life, and the immortality of soul in the second. The human voice – which the cantata as a vocal musical genre highlights, and more so by distinctly articulating the psalm as a discrete song within the dramatic reality of the piece – is the medium through which, to Mendelssohn and some of his contemporaries, knowledge and language itself are formed, the knowledge of eternal truths of reason represented in the Hebrew psalms. As an icon of enlightened religiosity, Mendelssohn’s figure in the cantata takes on the role that the Psalmist is given in Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem – a model, an exemplum to follow. The image of King David holding a harp kneeling in a

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pensive devotional gesture on the frontispiece of the first and second editions of the Psalms translation (Fig. 6.1)32 conjures a visual exemplum, one perhaps intended to inspire the enlightened person to sing and pray following the modern Psalmist, who “repeated here but in a colder language” the “praise of the Godhead” (Ramler 1801, Sulamith und Eusebia, Epilogue). Although Mendelssohn’s intention was to make Psalms available as a compendium of natural religion across confessional boundaries, he did not deny the relativity of their universality. That essential universality, as Friedländer well observed, is maintained only through the proper translation, one based on intimate knowledge of both their vocal Hebrew quality and musical provenance, wherein lies the key to their true meaning. This meaning is found not in the Hebrew inscribed in words and script alone, but in that which simultaneously exists orally. It is the inherent musical nature of the psalms, in their original Hebrew specificity, that guards their meaning, the “sweetness of content,” and enables, to a large extent though never entirely, their translatability. In other words, despite the longing to eliminate difference inherent to the act of translation, Mendelssohn’s translation of Psalms instead underscores the authenticity and irreducibility of Hebrew biblical poetry, indeed of Hebrew Scripture at large. To Mendelssohn, the correct translation is that which does not seek to blur boundaries of difference but rather acknowledges an inherent measure of untranslatability within the translation itself.33 Ramler seems to have well understood Mendelssohn’s embrace of the potential to link aesthetics, particularly music, with hermeneutics and biblical exegesis. This link, in Mendelssohn’s thought, bears far-reaching implications for Judaism’s theological claim within the Enlightenment and, ultimately, for the political project of the Jews’ civil rights.34 In Ramler’s hermeneutical libretto, Sulamith, allegory of Judaism – perhaps a redeemed “Synagoga” – is neither blind nor deaf nor dumb. She is a singer, guiding the enlightened world, Christians and Jews alike, to join her in singing a psalm of David, humanity’s most ancient ode to the divine.

32 The second edition was printed in Berlin in 1788, after Mendelssohn’s death. 33 Compare to the notion of the limits of cultural translatability in Walter Benjamin, “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” in Benjamin (1972, iv/1:9–21). 34 See Goetschel (2004‬, 97–8); and Schorch (2012, 136–140).

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Fig. 6.1: Frontispiece, Die Psalmen übersetzt von Moses Mendelssohn (Berlin: Friedrich Maurer, 1783).

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6 Epilogue: Where is Mendelssohn’s “Jerusalem”? The sisterhood between the two allegorical figures in Ramler’s cantata libretto, the Hebraic–Jewish Sulamith and the Hellenic–Christian Eusebia, also juxtaposes the places associated with them – respectively, “Jerusalem” and “Athens”; and, perhaps, by extension, “Athens on the Spree,” Spree­Athen, namely, Berlin.35 This structural element in the cantata merits attention, if only briefly, as an allegorical dramatization of Mendelssohn’s notion of the place of “Jerusalem” (Judaism) next to “Athens” (Christianity) within the Enlightenment and European modernity as the primary context of his translation of Psalms. The antithesis between Jerusalem, birthplace of religion, and Athens, cradle of European culture and philosophy, was at the heart of Enlightenment debates about the tension between reason and faith, philosophy and religion. From the mid-eighteenth century on, it became a theoretical commonplace and a defining cultural topos for European modernity concerning the dual roots of European civilization – Hebraic and Hellenic, Jewish and Greek – and the boundaries between Judaism and Christianity (Leonard 2012, Introduction). At the same time, in Ramler’s cantata libretto, this juxtaposition also delineates a third, indefinite locus onto which the figurative dialogue between the two women directs our consciousness: a utopian locus between Mount Zion and Athens, where Mendelssohn engages in conversation with King David and with Socrates (Ramler 1801, Sulamith und Eusebia, parts 4 and 5). As Willi Goetschel points out, the dichotomous topos of Jerusalem and Athens, though bound up with the project of Enlightenment, commanded a reduction of the complexity and challenges of modernity to a simple binary scheme, one that ignores the period of Hellenic-Jewish cultural contact and plurality in pre-Christian antiquity and obscures the reality of cultural diversity in the modern world. Apart from the fact that “Hellenism” was a crucial element in Mendelssohn’s quest for a modern sense of Judaism, his critical agenda involved showing not only the problematic proposition of this dichotomy, but also its contradiction with the very project of enlightened universalism (Goetschel 2011).36 Sulamith und Eusebia subtly engages with Mendelssohn’s aesthetic, poetic, exegetical, and ultimately political-theological discussions concerning Hebraism and Hellenism, Judaism and Christianity, giving voice(s) to his 35 The neo-classical appellation for Berlin was coined in 1706; see Scholl (2009, 85–98). 36 See also Leonard (2012, chapter 1).

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critique of European modernity and Christian Enlightenment. As sympathetic sisters-in-mourning, Sulamith and Eusebia, or Jerusalem and Athens, thus form a new figurative image of “harmony in diversity” in a utopian “Jerusalem,” which we, through Mendelssohn, hear in the epilogue of the cantata.37 Without further transgressing the purview of the present discussion, I will conclude by pondering the question of where Mendelssohn’s “Jerusalem” actually is, as Ramler and other contemporaries may have understood it. Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem is, arguably, concerned, at least in part, with the question of redemption. As Gideon Freudenthal has shown, the essay maintains numerous messianic allusions.38 In accord with the theological argument to which the essay responds, namely, Cranz’s prophetic vision of a united monotheism, Mendelssohn proposes a messianic vision that is not opposed to religious pluralism. His ultimate reply to Cranz is that “in order to be under the care of this omnipresent shepherd the entire flock need […] not enter and leave the master’s house through a single door” (Mendelssohn 1983, 135). That is, “diversity is evidently the plan and purpose of Providence” (Mendelssohn 1983, 136). Notwithstanding Freudenthal‘s extensive discussion of the meaning of Mendelssohn’s messianic vision in Jerusalem, I propose that my reading of psalms in Jerusalem sheds light on the nature of “Jerusalem” not only as the locus of redemption but also, at least as a mental image, of individual salvation and, ultimately, a political utopia. In Mendelssohn’s messianic vision, however we interpret it, “Jerusalem” does not seem to mean the geographical site where Mount Zion is located. Responding to his Christian adversary’s hope for a unification of religions under a Christian model of devotion – a model that “no longer connects true divine service to either Jerusalem or Samaria,” but rather locates the true essence of religion “in spirit and in truth,” as Christ promises the Samarian woman in John 4:23 – Mendelssohn is perhaps suggesting a third option: that the essence of religion is indeed located in Jerusalem, albeit not the physical place, where the Levites would one day resume their singing in the newly rebuilt Temple. Mendelssohn’s “Jerusalem” might rather be understood as a political-theological model, a model of universal civil liberties and religious pluralism, a utopian “Upper Jerusalem.” The primacy of Jerusalem, reflected also in Sulamith und Eusebia, is entirely consistent with Mendelssohn’s conviction that Judaism is the true religion, a

37 Harmony in multiplicity is perfection, while unity in multiplicity constitutes beauty; see Mendelssohn, Letters on the Sentiments, Letter 5, in Mendelssohn (1997, 22). 38 For Freudenthal’s extensive discussion, see Freudenthal (2012, 235–240).

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conviction that does not appear to contradict his belief in both natural religion and religious pluralism (Freudenthal 2012, 87). Moreover, for the individual, “Jerusalem” transpires as an imagined locus of individual salvation, the birthplace of the earliest human odes in praise of the divine and a source of knowledge about God, Providence, and immortality of the soul. The psalms in praise of the Deity, those “monuments of philosophy and of poetry,” treasures of “the concepts of God and the divine, the wisdoms of pure worship, and moral conduct of people” (Friedländer 1786, 524), guide the enlightened person on the way to eternal felicity and salvation, as Ramler’s epilogue portrays, following the example of the poet–king singing on Mount Zion. Perhaps this mental image of “Jerusalem” would have offered a religious person such as Sophie Becker the object of worship she had been longing for, enhanced by the act of singing psalms in praise of the divine, a source of solace and a referent for her overwhelming religious sentiments. Anytime, anywhere, in any “Athens,” would the enlightened person be able to aspire toward eternal felicity in “Jerusalem” through religious edification and prayer, singing and hearing the Hebrew psalms of David, starting on the banks of the River Spree.

Bibliography Altmann, Alexander. Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973. Benjamin, Walter. Gesammelte Schriften. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1972. Breuer, Edward. The Limits of Enlightenment: Jews, Germans, and the Eighteenth-Century Study of Scripture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Bourel, Dominique. Moses Mendelssohn: Begründer des modernen Judentums, trans. Horst Brühmann. Zürich: Ammann Verlag, 2007. Cohen, Hermann. Hermann Cohens jüdische Schriften, 3 vols., ed. Bruno Strauss. New York: Arno Press, 1980. Cramer, Johann Andreas. Poetische Übersetzung der Psalmen. Leipzig, 1763. Engel, Eva. “The Emergence of Moses Mendelssohn as Literary Critic,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 24.1 (1979): 61–82. Freudenthal, Gideon. No Religion without Idolatry: Mendelssohn’s Jewish Enlightenment. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012. Friedländer, David. “Etwas über die Mendelssohnsche Psalmenübersetzung,” Berlinische Monatsschrift (1786): 523–549. Goetschel, Willi. “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Orient Express of Philosophy,” Bamidbar 1.1 (2011): 9–34. Goetschel, Willi. Spinoza’s Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press‬, 2004. Gottlieb, Michah. Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

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Green, Arthur. “Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs: Reflections of a Kabbalistic Symbol in Its Historical Context,” AJS Review 26.1 (2002): 1–52. Hazan-Rokem, Galit. A Web of Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature, trans. Batya Stein. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Herder, Johann Gottfried. Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache. Berlin: Voß, 1772. Katz, Jacob. “To whom was Mendelssohn Replying in ‘Jerusalem’?,” Zion 29 (1964): 112–132 (Hebrew). Katz, Jacob. “To whom was Mendelssohn Replying in ‘Jerusalem’? (Appendix),” Zion 36 (1971): 116–117 (Hebrew). Leonard, Miriam. Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Matter, E. Ann. The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. Mendelssohn, Moses. “Robert Lowth: De sacra Poesi Hebrauorum. Oxford 1753: Rezension,” Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste, 1.1 and 1.2 (1757): 1.1: 122–155; 1.2: 269–297. Mendelssohn, Moses. “Über den Ursprung der Sprachen. Rezension,” Briefe, die Neueste Litteratur betreffend. Letter 75, 4 (1759): 389–396. Mendelssohn, Moses (trans.). Die Psalmen. Berlin: Maurer, 1783. Mendelssohn, Moses. Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe, eds. Ismar Elbogen, Alexander Altmann, Eva Engel e.a. Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt: Frommann- Holzboog, 1972—. Mendelssohn, Moses. “[Review of J. G. Herder,] Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache... Berlin, 1772,” Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek 19.1 (1773): 439–451. Mendelssohn, Moses. Jerusalem, Or On Religious Power and Judaism, trans. Allan Arkush, with Introduction and Commentary by Alexander Altmann. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1983. Mendelssohn, Moses. Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. Daniel Dahlstrohm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Mendelssohn, Moses. Jerusalem, oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum. With Introduction to Manasse ben Israel, “Rettung der Juden,” ed. Michael Albrecht. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2005. Mendelssohn, Moses. Ästhetische Schriften, ed. Anne Pollock. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2006. Mendelssohn, Moses. Writings on Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible, ed. Gottlieb, Michah. Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2011. Meyer, Michael A. The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749–1824. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979. Pape, Walter. “’Lies du eben so, mein Leser! wie ich geschrieben habe.’ Mendelssohns Lyriktheorie und seine Übersetzung der Psalmen,” in Zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik: Neue Perspektiven der Forschung, Festschrift für Roger Paulin, eds. Konrad Feilchenfeld, Ursula Hudson, York- Gothart Mix, and Nicholas Saul. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2006, 17–34. Ramler, Karl Wilhelm. Poetische Werke: operosa parmus carmina fingo, 2 vols. Berlin, 1801. Reichardt, Johann Friedrich. Cantus lugubris in obitum Friderici Magni borussorum regis in C minor [Trauerkantate bei dem Leichenbegängnis Friedrichs des Grossen, verfertigt von dem K. Kammerherrn Marquis de Lucchesini, in Musick gesetzt von dem K. Kapellmeister Joh. Friedrich Reichardt]. Latin text by Girolamo Lucchesini, trans. into German by K. W. Ramler (1786).

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Sacks, Elias. Moses Mendelssohn’s Living Script: Philosophy, Practice, Religion, Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016. Scholl, Christian. “Normative Anschaulichkeit versus archäologische Pedanterie: Karl Friedrich Schinkels ästhetischer Philhellenismus,” in Graecomania, eds. Gilbert Heß, Elena Agazzi, and Elisabeth Décultot. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009. Schorch, Grit. Moses Mendelssohns Sprachpolitik. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. Sela Teichler, Yael. “Music, Acculturation, and Haskalah between Berlin and Königsberg in the 1780s,” Jewish Quarterly Review, 103.3 (2013): 352–384. Sorkin, David. Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment. London: Peter Halban, 1996. Spalding, Almut. Elise Reimarus (1735–1805), the Muse of Hamburg: A Woman of the German Enlightenment. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005.

Leora Batnitzky

Rosenzweig’s Reading of Psalm 115: The Gruesome “We” Franz Rosenzweig has long been considered a dialogical philosopher who celebrated not only the reality of God’s revelation but also, as the title of his magnum opus, The Star of Redemption, might suggest, a redemptive future in which all of humanity would unite in singing God’s praises. In this respect, Rosenzweig is also often taken to affirm Judaism and Christianity’s separate but equal work in bearing witness to the truth of God’s revelation.1 Yet Rosenzweig’s reading of Psalm 115 calls into question this view of him as well as of his characterizations of Christianity and the world historical mission of the Jewish people. For Rosenzweig, praising God and God’s creation is not only an act of confirmation; it is, perhaps more fundamentally, also a proclamation of dreadful judgment, which divides as much as it unites. In what follows, I turn first to Rosenzweig’s interpretation of Psalm 115 and then to the particular political and theological context of his arguments. I suggest that Rosenzweig’s interpretation of Psalm 115 is consistent with his internalization and revaluation of a long history of Christian anti-Jewish and racialized anti-Semitic characterizations of Judaism and Jews. Far from advocating Jewish-Christian mutuality, Rosenzweig describes a dreadful [grauen­ haft] reality defined by the Jewish witness to the one, true God, which elicits violent hatred as much as it invites the nations of the world to participate in the work of redemption.

Part One: Rosenzweig’s Interpretation of Psalm 115 Within the framework of the Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig’s interpretation of Psalm 115 closes his discussion of redemption. Whereas Rosenzweig characterizes revelation as the lyrical encounter between the I and the Thou, he describes redemption as the communal song of the community that “is not yet, everyone… yet – it claims to be everybody. This ‘yet’ is the world of the Psalms” (Rosenzweig 1976, 252; Rosenzweig 2005, 268). Rosenzweig maintains that what he terms the

1 See for instance Van Buren (1995). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-007

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“fully luminous and manifest We” finds its deepest expression in Psalms 111–118. These Psalms form the basis of “Hallel,” the special prayer included on Jewish holidays that celebrate joyous moments in the Jewish liturgical calendar. Within this group of Psalms, Rosenzweig argues, the “central part is constituted by Psalm 115” (Rosenzweig 1976, 253; Rosenzweig 2005, 269). Rosenzweig begins his analysis of the Psalm by noting that Psalms 115 “is the only one… that begins and ends with a powerfully underscored We” (Rosenzweig 1976, 253; Rosenzweig 2005, 269). Many of Rosenzweig’s interpreters leave matters at this, maintaining that Rosenzweig’s reading of Psalm 115 and his view of redemption more generally describe the community coming together in song in anticipation of a redemptive future in which all of humanity will praise God and God’s creation. Yet Rosenzweig’s declaration of the powerfully underscored We is motivated by a claim not about harmony and unity but rather about what I will call division, derision, and disconnection. Division. The Psalm’s first sentence testifies to division. Psalm 115 is the only Psalm that begins with a negative – lo. The first verse yields two divisions: between us and God and between the present and the future. As Rosenzweig puts it, “of these two We’s, the first is in the dative, quite simply in the dative, that is to say immediately dependent on the word ‘to give’” (Rosenzweig 1976, 253; Rosenzweig 2005, 269). Derision. The powerfully underscored We of Psalm 115 suggests not harmony and agreement but derision and judgment. Rosenzweig notes that Psalm 115 is “the only context where the Psalms take up the derision, so prevalent in the Prophets, against the idols: in them, the life of divine love rigidifies within the passivity and muteness of deaf-mutes” (Rosenzweig 1976, 253; Rosenzweig 2005, 269). According to Rosenzweig, this is “because the Psalm anticipates that the We’s will be beside God, it sees the You’s instinctively with God’s eye, so that they become They’s” (Rosenzweig 1976, 253; Rosenzweig 2005, 270). Rosenzweig recognizes that this judgment is dreadful, and even gruesome [grauenhaft]. As he writes: the “We cannot avoid this sitting in judgment, for only with this judgment does it give a definite content to the totality of its We” (Rosenzweig 1976, 228; Rosenzweig 2005, 237). Disconnection. The Psalm ends by disconnecting the world of the living from the world of the dead. In Rosenzweig’s words: “It is not the dead, truly not, ‘but We, we praise God from now to eternity.’ This triumphant ‘but’ – ‘but we are eternal.’ The We’s are eternal; before this triumphant cry of eternity, death is hurled down into nothing” (Rosenzweig 1976, 253; Rosenzweig 2005, 271). As we see, Psalm 115 and the community in song as the anticipation of redemption is as much about division as it is about any future unity – between human beings and God, between the present and the future, between Israel and the nations, and between the living and the dead.

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Part Two: The Theological-Political Context of Rosenzweig’s Reading To appreciate the theological-political framework of which Rosenzweig’s reading of Psalm 115 is a piece, it is helpful to begin with the final point. Rosenzweig’s interpretation of the Psalm’s closing lines (what I have called the disconnection between the living and the dead) is especially curious. Since the living will someday be dead, how is it that they are eternal whereas the dead are not? To answer this question, we must look at the next part of The Star of Redemption, Part III – Book One, entitled “The Fire or Eternal Life.” Praised be he who has planted eternal life in our midst. The fire burns in the heart of the Star. It is only out of the fire of the center that the rays shine forth and flow outwards irresistibly. The heart of the fire must burn without ever stopping. Its flame must eternally nourish itself…. Time must roll past it without power. The fire…must beget itself eternally. It must make its life eternal in the succession of generations, each of which begets the following one. Bearing witness takes place in bearing [Das Bezeugen geschieht im Erzeugen; English translation slightly modified]. (Rosenzweig 1976, 213; Rosenzweig 2005, 317)

Rosenzweig internalizes and revalues the anti-Semitic and racialized image of the eternal and wandering Jew. Rosenzweig affirms that the Jews are a bloodcommunity and that, in their lack of rootedness and their eternal wanderings, they are fundamentally different from all other peoples. In making this claim, Rosenzweig criticizes not only the nations of the world but also Zionism: While every other community that lays claim to eternity must take measures to pass the torch of the present on to the future, the blood-community does not have to resort to such measures. … The peoples of the world cannot be satisfied with a community made up of the same blood; they put forth their roots into the night of the earth. We alone have put our trust in blood and parted with land… when a people loves the soil of the homeland more than its own life…the earth betrays the people that entrusts to the earth its own permanence. (Rosenzweig 1976, 213; Rosenzweig 2005, 318)

Rosenzweig revalues the anti-Semitic image of the eternal Jew, arguing that Jews are indeed distinct but that this is a triumph rather than a failure. The transmission of the nation through blood guarantees an eternal future denied to all other peoples who put their faith in the earth. In keeping with his rejection of Zionism and his affirmation of eternal Jewish wandering, Rosenzweig makes no mention of Psalm 115’s connection to David or to Jerusalem. Indeed, when he does mention Jerusalem, Rosenweig insists on

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severing any connection between Jerusalem’s historical existence, in the past or the future, and its theological significance. Thus, Tisha B’Av, the holiday commemorating the destruction of Jerusalem, and Chanukah, which celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the victory of the Macabees, are “extraneous to the Torah”2 (Rosenzweig 1976, 410; Rosenzweig 2005, 391). We can now turn to the second theme Rosenzweig finds in Psalm 115, what I called above derision. The judgment that Rosenzweig highlights in Psalm 115 also finds its expression in the image of the eternal Jew. Here, the Christian image of the wandering Jew mocking and betraying Jesus is also relevant. According to Rosenzweig, the Jew judges the Christian harshly for having “to learn from someone else, whoever he may be, to call God ‘our Father’” (Rosenzweig 1979, 113). Rosenzweig does not deny the Jewish contempt for Christianity: “Every Jew feels in the depths of his soul that the Christian relation to God, and so in a sense their religion, is particularly and extremely pitiful… and ceremonious” (Rosenzweig 1969, 113). With the terms “pitiful and ceremonious” Rosenzweig inverts the Christian supersessionist claim that it is the Jews who are pitiful and ceremonious. As Rosenzweig puts it, “to the church we can only say: we have already arrived at the destination, you are still en route” (Rosenzweig 1979, 142; letter to Rudolf Ehrenberg, 4 November 1913). Let us recall Rosenzweig’s observation that Psalm 115 is “the only context where the Psalms take up the derision, so prevalent in the Prophets, against the idols: in them, the life of divine love rigidifies within the passivity and muteness of deaf-mutes.” More recently, Jan Assmann has made this same claim about Psalm 115, which, he argues, epitomizes what he calls “the Mosaic distinction.” This was “a radically new distinction which considerably changed the world in which it was drawn… Whereas polytheism, or rather ‘cosmotheism’ rendered different cultures mutually transparent and compatible, the new counter-religion blocked intercultural translatability. False gods cannot be translated” (Assmann 2009, 3). Assmann’s observation that “False gods cannot be translated” alerts us to Rosenzweig’s rejection, at least theologically, of the idea that different cultures are mutually transparent to and compatible with each other. The They’s, as opposed to the We of the Jewish community, are not transparent to each other, because the We of the Jewish community, Rosenzweig claims, is blind. Once again, Rosenzweig inverts and revalues an anti-Jewish image, this time the blindfolded synagogue. In Rosenzweig’s words: “Is not part of the price that the Synagogue must pay for the blessing in enjoyment of which she anticipates the whole world, namely, of being already in the Father’s presence, that she must wear the bandages of

2 Rosenzweig elaborates on these themes in Part III of The Star of Redemption.

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unconsciousness over her eyes?” (Rosenzweig 1969, 114). Note Rosenweig’s play on Psalm 115’s “they have eyes but they cannot see.” Whereas idols of silver and gold have eyes that cannot see, the Jews have eyes that can, though they do not need to, see as they are already in the presence of God. Rosenzweig, who died in 1929, was obviously not writing with Assmann in mind. But Rosenzweig certainly knew Hermann Gunkel’s work on Psalms (indeed, Rosenzweig and Martin Buber’s German translation of the Bible is replete with references to Gunkel on Genesis and Psalms). Writing in 1903, Gunkel distinguished between the Old Testament and Judaism in order to argue that those aspects of the biblical text that did not live up to the morality of the Prophets or the Psalms were aspects of Judaism, not of the Old Testament: “We absolutely do not intend to conceal the obvious weakness of Israel from ourselves, which are occasionally expressed in the Old Testament as well, and we have no need to find everything in Israel splendid and beautiful. Jewish monotheism… is often stained with hatred, and sometimes a blood-red hatred against the heathen” (Gunkel 1903, 32). Gunkel extends this distinction between the Old Testament and Judaism to a distinction between Christianity and Judaism when he writes: “we Christians do not go along with the bad habits of Judaism, which believes it is honoring its God by scorning and blaspheming all other religions” (Gunkel 1903, 16). Rosenzweig’s reading of Psalm 115 highlights the very aspect of Judaism that Gunkel rejects. And he locates what Gunkel calls Judaism’s “blood-red hatred against the heathen” in Psalms, which Gunkel both singles out for moral praise and equates with the Protestantism of his day. Notably, Gunkel’s own account of Psalm 115 focuses not on the derision of idols but instead on the second verse – “Where, the nations say, is your God?” For Gunkel, this verse represents “the proud Jew driven over to shame and humiliation” (Gunkel 1998, 88–90). Again Rosenzweig inverts this Christian image of the Jew. It is not the Jew, he argues, who is enveloped by shame; it is the Christian. Rosenweig writes, This existence of the Jew constantly subjects Christianity to the idea that it is not attaining the goal, the truth, that it ever remains – on the way. That is the profoundest reason for the Christian hatred of the Jew, which is heir to the pagan hatred of the Jew. In the final analysis, it is only self-hate… it is hatred of one’s own imperfection, one’s own not-yet…. by the fact that in the narrowest confines of his Jewishness the Star of Redemption nonetheless still burns, the Jew involuntarily shames the Christian. (Rosenzweig 1970, 413)

These diametrically opposed interpretations may explain why Gunkel categorizes Psalm 115 as a song of complaint while Rosenzweig categorizes it as a song of praise. Where Gunkel finds in the Psalm the humiliation of the Jews, Rosenzweig finds their triumph.

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Conclusion Let us conclude by returning to the beginning of Psalm 115. Rosenzweig maintains that the first sentence yields two divisions: between us and God and between the present and the future. Redemption is not “yet” and “yet is the world of the Psalms.” But how does the yet become the now, according to Rosenzweig? In other words, how do we get to the redemptive future? This is not entirely in human hands, of course, but Rosenzweig emphasizes the world-historical role of the Jewish people in this process. “Bearing witness [Bezeugen] takes place in bearing [Erzeugen].” The very existence of the Jews pushes the world towards redemption. As we have seen, this is not an entirely happy story. It is perhaps even a gruesome one. The Jewish people, by dint of their existence, invite idolaters and Christians to turn toward the one true God, yet in proclaiming the truth of the one God, the Jewish people may also invite hatred of themselves. As Rosenzweig puts it: “The unique characteristic of the people is this: that it looks at itself in about the same way as the outside world looks at it. A whole world asserts that the Jewish people is outcast and elect, both; and the Jewish people…only confirms it…. the vessels of curse and blessing communicate so closely that the latter can overflow only when the former too is full to the brim” (Rosenzweig 1983, 159; Glatzer 1953, 335–336 (translation altered)). For Rosenzweig, it simply is the truth that the Jews are both outcast and elect. And, as the opening epigraph of The Star of Redemption makes clear – “ride on, in behalf of truth” (Psalm 45:5) – it is the truth that Rosenzweig seeks to tell, regardless of the consequences. The Jewish people proclaim the truth of God’s majesty for all to hear; Rosenzweig, however, recognizes that not all people, and certainly not his contemporaries, can accept this truth. Here Rosenzweig re-appropriates (as opposed to internalizes) for Judaism the Christian image of the suffering servant, which Christianity of course identifies with Jesus. In keeping with a long history of pre-modern Jewish interpretation, Rosenzweig contends that the Jewish people are God’s servant who suffers innocently and vicariously for the sins of others: “Israel intercedes with him [God] in behalf of the sinning peoples of the world and he afflicts Israel with disease so that those other peoples may be healed. Both stand before God: Israel, his servant, and the kings of the peoples;... so inextricably twined that human hands cannot untangle them” (Rosenzweig 1976, 326; Rosenzweig 1970, 306–307). Rosenzweig wrote these words in 1921. Their prescience resonates with Chagall’s famous White Crucifixion of 1938. Unlike Chagall, however, Rosenzweig wrote these words not in the midst of anti-Semitic violence but from within the elite, intellectual bastions of German civilization, and, moreover, at a time of renaissance of Jewish life in Weimar Germany. Whether this renders

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Rosenzweig’s words prophetic or appalling, or both, I cannot say. What I can say is that Rosenzweig own term – grauenhaft – captures the gruesomeness, horror, and atrociousness (all are possible translations of grauenhaft) of what he takes to be the message of Psalm 115. For Rosenzweig, the gruesome we is the price of redemption. And unlike Assmann’s price of monotheism, it is a price worth paying.

Bibliography Assmann, Jan. The Price of Monotheism. Transl. Robert Savage. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Glatzer, Nahum. Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought. New York: Schocken, 1953. Gunkel, Hermann. Israel und Babylonien. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprechts, 1903. Gunkel, Hermann. An Introduction to the Psalms. Transl. James D. Nogalski. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998. Rosenzweig, Franz. Letter to Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, October 1916. Judaism Despite Christianity: The “Letters on Christianity and Judaism” between Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and Franz Rosenzweig. Ed. Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. Transl. Dorothy Emmet. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1969. Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. Transl. William W. Hallo. Notre Dame and London: Notre Dame University Press, 1970. Rosenzweig, Franz. Franz Rosenzweig: Der Mensch und sein Werk: Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 2: Der Stern der Erlösung. Bostonand The Hague : Martinus Nijhoff, 1976. Rosenzweig, Franz. Der Mensch und sein Werk: Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 1: Briefe und Tagebücher, vol. 1: 1900–1918. Eds. Rachel Rosenzweig and Edith Rosenzweig-Scheinmann in collaboration with Bernhard Casper. Boston and the Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979. Rosenzweig, Franz. Der Mensch und sein Werk: Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 4: Band Hymnen und Gedichte, vol. 1: Band Jehuda Halevi Fünfundneunzig Hymnen und Gedichte Deutsch und Hebräisch. Ed. Rafaël N. Rosenzweig. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983. Rosenzweig, Franz. The Star of Redemption. Transl. Barbara E. Galli. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Van Buren, Paul. A Christian Theology of the People Israel: A Theology of the Jewish-Christian Reality. London: University Press of America, 1995.

Vivian Liska

Paul Celan, the Last Psalmist Sprich auch du, sprich als letzter, sag deinen Spruch. Sprich – Doch scheide das Nein nicht vom Ja. (Celan 2003, 85) Speak you also, speak as the last, have your say. Speak – But don’t split no from yes. (Celan 1980, 85) From the poem “Sprich auch du” (Speak you also) in “Von Schwelle zu Schwelle” (from Threshhold to Threshhold)

Paul Celan’s “Psalm” (Celan 2003, 132) written in 1961 and included in the collection No One’s Rose [Die Niemandsrose] (1963), is, after “Death Fugue” [“Todesfuge”] (Celan 2003, 40–41), his best known and most frequently interpreted poem. The reception of “Psalm” remains a paradigmatic site of controversies about the Jewishness of Celan’s work, the legitimacy of poetry after Auschwitz, and the possibility of conceiving of a divine order after the catastrophe. Underlying the interpretations of “Psalm” is the question of the survival and afterlife, in modern literature, of the legacy of Jewish Scriptures in general and of the biblical psalms in particular. Celan’s poetry is permeated with biblical references, many of them to the Psalter. In “Psalm” this reference is the most explicit, yet also the most complex. A closer look at this complexity uncovers the source of the controversies about the poem and reveals the work’s intricate relationship to the original psalms. This relationship reveals a core aspect of Celan’s poetics: the radically modernist use of language with which he simultaneously evokes, negates, and transforms – in his own words, “carries ad absurdum” (Celan 1999, 10) – the poetic traditions he draws from. In a language that refuses to “split off the No from the Yes,” the negation of the poetic tradition from its affirmation – here the rupture with the biblical psalms from an affirmation of their continuity in his own poetry – Celan goes beyond any dialectical synthesis or mystical concidentia oppositorum. Rather, his use of polysemy, contranyms, polyglossia, repetition, and discordant temporalities in his multiple references to the original psalms conflates the two primary modes of expression in the book of Psalms: lament and praise. The striking diversity of https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-008

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(often explicitly contradictory) interpretations of Celan’s “Psalm” springs from a conflation of these two divergent poetic gestures that he performs in one and the same linguistic “place.” This article explores the occurrence and implications of the poem’s fusion of lament and praise, and closes with a reflection on Celan’s so-called Jerusalem poems, where this fusion is related to a specific “place” in more than metaphorical terms. Psalm

Psalm

Niemand knetet uns wieder aus Erde und Lehm, niemand bespricht unsern Staub. Niemand. Gelobt seist du, Niemand. Dir zulieb wollen wir blühn. Dir entgegen.

No one kneads us again out of earth and clay no-One bespeaks our dust. No one. Praise onto thee, No One. For love of you will we bloom. Towards and against You.

Ein Nichts waren wir, sind wir, werden wir bleiben, blühend: die Nichts –, die Niemandsrose. Mit dem Griffel seelenhell, dem Staubfaden himmelswüst, der Krone rot vom Purpurwort, das wir sangen über, o über dem Dorn. (Celan 2003, 132)

A nothing were we, are we, will we remain, blooming: the nothing –, the No-One’s-Rose. With the stylus/pistil soul-bright, the dust-thread heaven-waste, the crown reddened by the purple word, which we sang above, o above the thorn. (Celan 2001, 156–157)

Paul Celan’s Psalm in Postwar Thought Of the myriad interpretations of “Psalm,” I wish to invoke several exemplary and paradigmatically polarized approaches to the poem. Beyond divergent interpretations of individual words and verses, motifs, and sources ranging from the Kabbala to modern poets, the main disagreements between critics have revolved around a series of questions: How Jewish, Christian, universalist is this poem? What is, and what is not, Jewish about it? Is the poem to be understood in the

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context of Jewish Scriptures or Jewish history? Is it a poem of piety or one of blasphemy? Is it a song, or the refusal of song, and, most significant in this context, is it indeed a psalm? In his essay “The Long Life of Metaphor. An Approach to the Shoah,” from 1987, George Steiner quotes and discusses Celan’s “Psalm” at length. For Steiner, this poem is the ultimate literary response to Auschwitz in the face of a God who will not “bespeak” the dead – neither resurrect them through his creative word nor ensure their remembrance. The silence of God who has withdrawn from humanity – the “non-bespeaking” by the “no one” – renders their death “a double annihilation” and God an accused who is now “on trial” (Steiner 1987, 61). Steiner’s main reference to “Psalm” in light of the biblical genre is that Celan’s poem is an “anti-psalm exactly as matter postulates and collides with anti-matter” (Steiner 1987, 61). This expression suggests that a negative always also postulates its opposite. For an anti-psalm to exist, there must also exist a psalm that it opposes. Steiner’s formulations along these lines echo the vocabulary of a negative theology after Auschwitz. For Steiner, Celan’s “Psalm” is eminently Jewish, in that it is “the fruit of the compulsion of articulacy within Judaism,” against all odds (Steiner 1987, 61). Likewise, for John Felstiner, Celan’s poem is both “eloquent and broken” (Felstiner 1995a, 169). His discussion of the poem emphasizes this paradox, and ends, similar to Steiner’s interpretation, in an insistence on the Jewish dimension of “Psalm”: “Celan,” Felstiner writes, “is most Jewish in struggling with Jewish faith” (Felstiner 1995a, 169). In the midst of insightful explanations about key choices in his own translations, Felstiner posits that Celan’s poem “can never purely and simply line up with the hymns of lament and praise that have comforted generation unto generation” (Felstiner 1995a, 169). It is true that Celan’s “Psalm” does not “purely and simply” fit the genre of psalms; nonetheless, it relates to them in more – and more intricate – ways than either Steiner or Felstiner is willing to admit. Most interesting for this argument is the title of Felstiner’s essay on the poem: “‘Two Things I have heard.’ Psalms in the Voice of Paul Celan” (1995b). The first part of the title quotes from Psalm 62: “One thing hath God spoken, two things have I heard.” Felstiner’s essay, which, like Steiner’s commentary, emphasizes Celan’s negation of the psalmic tradition, ends on an explanation of this doubleness. Felstiner writes: “Celan’s wounds could not heal: that break between Adonai and Niemand… the saving and the death- bringing word, could not fuse. Yet, we understand this, indelibly, thanks to Paul Celan. Out of the mire we do hear new song” (Felstiner 1995b, 72). The duality thus arises from the twofold, potentially both creative and destructive, capacity of language. Contrary to Steiner and Felstiner, who both insist on the essential Jewishness of Celan’s poem as well as on its transgressive,

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blasphemous nature as anti-psalm, two more recent notable interpretations offer radically polarized readings, one in the German context, one in the Israeli. In his article “Niemandes Geschenk an uns. Paul Celans ‘Psalm’ und die Poetik des Lobpreisens” [“No One’s Gift to Us: Paul Celan’s ‘Psalm’ and the Poetics of Praise”], published in 1997, the prominent German literary critic Jochen Hörisch rejects the poem’s negativity and regards it as a pure hymn to an absent God: God’s restraint from “bespeaking” man leaves man free to create himself. Celan’s “Psalm” thereby becomes an affirmation of world, of life. Man is free of God, or, rather, in a kind of inverted negative theology, of God’s absence – as in Zimzum, the contraction of God into himself makes room for man’s self-creation and thus liberates him from divine determination. Celan’s “Psalm” overcomes suffering along with the suffering God, who Hörisch sees as a Christian God: the poem’s place is “above the Thorn,” the poem itself a hymn to God. We have reason to praise God, for he is not there. Hörisch reads the first verse in radically polyvalent ways: “No one kneads us again out of earth and clay” can, he explains, be read in four different ways. The first introduces a temporal distinction: once we were kneaded, but now, after the destruction, this can no longer occur. The second concerns the meaning of “no one”: someone who is a “no one” kneads us again: this would suggest that the creator himself is renewed. The third addresses the one who is created by God: he kneads again, but not us, not those who were destroyed; he now kneads new creatures – or creates us anew, to the point of making the old creature unrecognizable. The fourth emphasizes the ambiguity of the material from which the creature is made: God kneads us, but no longer of “clay”; he now creates us from different, presumably more precious, material. Each of the possible readings molds the poem’s negativity into a cause for rejoicing. For Hörisch, Celan’s poem is a modernist Christological theodicy: with Christ, the distinction between heaven and earth is overcome. There are thus good reasons to sing a song of praise to this new God. In this interpretation, the Shoah is never mentioned. Strikingly, the prominent Israeli Kabbala scholar Moshe Idel offers a reading of Celan’s “Psalm” in which the Shoah plays only a minor role. In the context of his critique of the use and abuse of the Kabbala in modern thought and literature, Idel, in his essay “Paul Celan’s ‘Psalm’: A Revelation towards Naught,” regards the poem as an example of a modernist text that “dissolves or even destroys even the simplest magical valences of the Sacred Scriptures” (2010, 194). Although he recognizes in the poem allusions to Jewish motifs – mystical formulas and a reference to the Golem – he concludes that, in Celan’s verses, “God is negated” and the “entire situation deals with negation” (Idel 2010, 195). For Idel, “Niemand” and naught are an expression of a radical negativity that characterizes the human condition as such. Idel is critical of what he considers

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the primary trait of German-Jewish modernists such as Franz Kafka and Gershom Scholem, a trait that he also finds in Celan, namely, their “desolateness.” This melancholy, which characterizes Celan’s poetry as a whole, represents, for Idel, “a rupture with traditional Jewish literature” (2010, 193). Moreover, Idel continues, “Celan, like Kafka, transposed the cabbalistic propensity for plenitude to create a negation” (2010, 197). However, Idel recognizes a redeeming factor in the case of Celan, in his experience of the Shoah. It is notable that, for Idel, there is a culprit more momentous than the Shoah by which to explain Celan’s desolate mindset: his clinging to the German language rather than turning to Hebrew – or remaining with the Romanian of his country of birth. This left Celan unable “to develop a strong connection to a specific community” (Idel 2010, 199). Celan’s “Psalm” is thus, for Idel, as radically negative as, for Hörisch, it is radically positive. In each case the agenda behind the interpretation can be linked to the situation of the interpreter: Idel, the Israeli critic, opposes the “lachrymose” history of Jewish diasporic culture he finds embodied in German-Jewish authors; Hörisch, the postwar German critic, recuperates Celan for a restorative German literary patrimony inflected with Christianity. The striking aspect emerging from a juxtaposition of their interpretations lies in their common, and equally reductive, dichotomizing of lament and praise, a dichotomizing barely justified in the context of the psalmist genre.

“Psalm” and Psalms What makes the striking divergence of these various readings of Celan’s “Psalm” possible is intrinsic to the poem’s relation to the biblical psalms. This relation derives primarily from Celan’s abundant use of contranymic structures – figures of speech or forms of words and sentences which are not simply ambivalent or polyvalent but which point simultaneously to two contrasting meanings. In Celan’s “Psalm,” these contrary meanings evoke respectively lament and praise as the two primary components of the biblical poems. This structure is hardly exclusive to “Psalm,” and appears in many of Celan’s poems. A line from his 1966 poem “Wenn ich nicht weiss, nicht weiss” [“When I don’t know, don’t know”] (Celan 2003, 237) transliterates the Hebrew word “ashrei,” [happy] from Psalm 84, which begins with the words Ashrei, joshvei beitecha – “Happy are they who dwell in Thy house, they are ever praising Thee.” Celan’s poem transforms this praise into “Ashrei,/a word without meaning.” As Felstiner (1995b, 65) ingeniously notes, “Ashrei” becomes the Yiddish “A shrei,” a scream. This paradigmatic contranym simultaneously invokes and reverses Psalm 84:

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How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah. (Psalm 84)

Here, the cry of the “flesh” is clearly a lament about not having shelter. Yet immediately, as if to ward off the potential blasphemy suggested in the lament, the psalm segues into a blessing, thereby ending on an expression of praise for the Lord. This structure, where an accusation implicit in the genre of lament dissolves into an affirmation of the divine and thereby ensures its theodicy, underlies numerous biblical psalms. It is this very structure that Celan’s “Psalm” targets by means of his poetic language.

Doubleness in “Psalm” In “Psalm,” lament and praise are conflated throughout the text. The identification of the Creator with “No-one” and “Naught” bears witness simultaneously to the inconceivable, unimaginable, unspeakable, anti-metaphoric tenor of the God of Israel, and to a blasphemous negation spoken in outrage about his withdrawal from history and his indifference, absence, muteness in the face of the suffering of his people turned to “dust and ashes.” This doubleness is emphasized in the meaning of “Staub” [dust], which, on one hand, represents death and destruction, but, on the other hand, carries the connotation of “Blütenstaub” [blossom’s pollen], announcing a new flowering. This metaphor is pursued in the verses “wir blühn./Dir entgegen.” The word “entgegen” signifies both “toward” and “against”: the poetic “we” thus simultaneously “blooms” toward and against God. This address “against” God suggests both that – in that place, at that hour – the “we” blooms in spite of God’s indifference and that the only force that causes its “blooming” – in the German poetic tradition, a cipher for the lyrical word and thus for poetic creation itself1 – lies in the accusatory antagonism against God. Another instance when double meaning points in opposite directions occurs in the words that, again, reflect the poem’s own gesture: “Niemand bespricht,” or no one bespeaks. In this formulation, “bespeaks” evokes an incantation, even a conjuration, a magical, life-bestowing power of speech; however, the word

1 See the famous verse by Friedrich Hölderlin, who, in his hymn “Bread and Wine,” designates poetry as “Worte wie Blumen” [Words like Flowers].

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also carries the meaning of a “speaking about” that has no direct addressee. It is necessitated by the absence of those designated by “us”: speaking of, or, rather, for the dead, this word, “bespeaks,” points to their irreversible disappearance. Moreover, the liturgic-formulaic praise of the Lord followed by “no one” – “Gelobt seist du, Niemand” – is at once an expression of, on one hand, exemplary piety and submission, and, on the other, of ultimate, ironic, even sarcastic, rebellion. Similarly, the “purple word” is both a royal color and one that is blood-soaked. In final verses a contranym sets sound and meaning against each other: the past tense of the poem’s final verb, “sang,” suggests that psalms can today no longer be sung, yet the rhythmic sequence of alliterations is adorned with a resounding “O” in the last lines, thereby rendering song present. Finally, these closing lines superimpose Jewish and Christian references in ways that point simultaneously to both traditions. The “purple word” that hovers above the crown of thorns refers both to the word of the King of the Jews and his crown of thorns and to the possible responsibility of this thorned crown in the shedding of Jewish blood. Similar to what happens in the word Ashrei, Celan’s “Psalm” thus collapses, into one, the doubleness of the psalms as lament and hymn. The poem enacts neither the pure blasphemy of an anti-psalm, as for Steiner and Felstiner, nor a pure affirmation, as for Hörisch, nor an absolute negativity, as for Idel, but rather a radicalization ad absurdum of the doubleness that is separate and sequential in the biblical psalms. Beyond creating a polysemic texture open to infinite interpretations, and beyond revealing the source of the multiple divergent interpretations, which discern only one of the meanings, Celan’s conflation of two opposing meanings in the same signifier targets the theological structure of the biblical psalms themselves. This structure, which alternates lament and praise – either between the various psalms or within one text – as if to assuage or halt the potentially sacrilegious lament, enacts a harmonization characteristic of so many canonical biblical texts. Like the comforting ending of the Book of Job, the psalm’s hymnic aspect often amounts to an anxious restoration of the divine order threatened by the lament. In Celan’s poem, lament and praise are no longer distinguishable, and praise no longer affords closure to the pain voiced in the lament. In confounding these voices, the poem undoes their mutually neutralizing effect through the language of the poem itself. Celan’s “Psalm” challenges the implicit theodicy of the original psalms even as it acknowledges their dual nature. The verse from Psalm 62 – “One thing has God spoken, Two things have I heard” – and Felstiner’s contention that Celan both emphasizes the rift between negation and affirmation and, in keeping them apart, points to the refutation of God’s single word by history, can thus be reversed: where the biblical psalms let us hear two distinct voices, we hear but one. It is a voice turned against itself, irreconcilably.

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Celan’s Jerusalem References to biblical psalms are omnipresent in Celan’s so-called Jerusalem poems, which he wrote immediately after his only visit to Israel, in October 1969. Felstiner rightly calls these poems expressions of a rare “heart-lifting moment” (1995b, 67) in Celan’s life. During his visit Celan met a childhood friend from Czernovits, Ilana Shmueli, who, in a small book entitled Sag, dass Jerusalem ist [Say That Jerusalem Is] – a quote from one of Celan’s Jerusalem poems – recalls their walks through the city. Some of the places they visited together found their way into Celan’s poems: Kikar Dania, the grave of Absalom, the gates of Jerusalem, Abu Tor, and others. In a letter to Shmueli after his visit Celan writes: “I knew that Jerusalem would be a turning point, a caesura in my life” (Celan and Shmueli 2004, 414). And, one could add, at least temporarily in his poetry. In these poems, the references to the Psalter are, indeed, altered; they no longer preclude the distinction between “yes” and “no”: some of the poems are outright songs of praise, though it is often unclear who – his companion, God, or the city of Jerusalem – is being praised. Others, like “Du gleissende” [“You, Fiery”] (Celan 2003, 361), which ends on the word “abyss,” are laments. Yet others involve both praise and lament, though, unlike in “Psalm,” the two modes of expression are clearly distinguished. And praise is given the last word. In “The Poles,” for example, the self-undermining, polysemic double enten­ dre identified in “Psalm” is explicitly invoked, yet also transcended. Die Pole

The Poles

sind in uns, unübersteigbar im Wachen, wir schlafen hinüber, vors Tor des Erbarmens,

are within us, insurmountable while awake, we sleep across, to the Gate of Mercy,

ich verliere dich an dich, das ist mein Schneetrost,

I lose you to you, that is my snow-comfort,

sag, daß Jerusalem ist,

say that Jerusalem is,

sag’s, als wäre ich dieses dein Weiß, als wärst du meins,

say it, as if I were this your whiteness, as if you were mine,

als könnten wir ohne uns wir sein,

as if without us we could be we,

ich blättre dich auf, für immer,

I open your leaves, forever,

du betest, du bettest uns frei. (Celan 2003, 362)

you bless, you bed us free. (Celan 2006, 281 (slightly altered))

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The dichotomy of “insurmountable poles” that are “within us” suggests a doubleness within a unity. However, this insuperable division is relegated to a state of sober wakefulness. It can be transcended only in a loss of analytic consciousness, in sleep. The “we” arrives before the door of the Sha’ar Harachamim, the Gate of Mercy, and here a complex unison occurs: the I “loses” the you to itself; there is thus no merging or unison, yet this separation is also a restitution of the other to its alterity. Correspondingly, the oxymoron “snow-comfort” includes, yet semantically separates, the icy snow and the consoling “comfort.” The division is momentarily lifted in the poem’s central verse, “say that Jerusalem is.” This line conjures the existence, or rather calls for the conjuration, of what is both a site and a mode of being that is defined in the following lines. Stating the existence of Jerusalem also signifies redemption. The subsequent verses, which depict neither unison nor separation but rather a mutual bestowing of “whiteness” – of clarity, purity, and wholeness – are kept in the conjunctive form. They convey that, in the present moment, at a messianic place “before” the gates of Jerusalem, redemption can be envisaged, even invoked, in the poem’s saying, but that it does not correspond to reality. And yet, it should be spoken as if the present absence did not exist. In the world of the poem, a world beyond wakefulness, in the realm of sleep, of dreams, there is possible a speaking that acknowledges the existing lack and imperfection but which nevertheless calls Jerusalem into existence. The poem’s final word, “free,” preceded by a conjunction of prayer, peace, and the eroticism evoked in the alliteration of “beten” [prayer] and “betten” [bedding], enacts the possibility of a liberation from duality. Another moment of bliss that similarly combines eros and Jerusalem occurs in “Es stand” [“There stood”] (Celan 2003, 352), from the same cycle. This poem contains direct references to the biblical psalms: to Psalm 122 – “our feet are standing within thy gates, Jerusalem” – and to Psalm 125 – “Jerusalem, mountains are around her as God is around his people.” In “Es stand” Celan writes: “Jerusalem stand um uns” [Jerusalem stood around us]. The poem, which ends with the erotically tinged “I stand in you,” may be said to oscillate between love song and hymn to Jerusalem. “Standing” here connotes uprightness, resistance, and resilience. It suggests a steadfast standing in a single, undivided place. A final example of a Jerusalem poem pointing to the biblical psalms is “Denk dir” [“You, think”] (Celan 2003, 359), which Felstiner reads as an explicit affirmation of Jerusalem. This poem, in which Celan recalls the battle of Masada, refers to Psalm 84, which concludes: “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.” Celan’s poem takes up the psalm’s last verse, partly verbatim, in one of its central verses. In Felstiner’s translation:

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“You/go from strength to strength.” In German this verse reads: “Du/erstarkst und/erstarkst.” Literally, and in the most literal translation possible of the original psalm, this means: “You strengthen and strengthen,” or “you become stronger and stronger.” This would seem to describe a decisively positive development, and this is how Felstiner initially translated the line. In a later essay, however, he refutes his own translation, after realizing that it would obliterate the direct quote from Psalms 84 (Felstiner 1995b, 70). Felstiner comes to believe that the repetition of strength associated with “homeland” must be preserved in order to convey Celan’s fully positive, praising, and “heartfelt” experience in and of Jerusalem shortly after the Six-Day War of 1967. Could it not be, however, that the change of addressee, from the historical soldier of Masada at the beginning of the poem to the address of a “you” in the present, is more significant than Felstiner thinks? In this case the formulation, besides conveying a potentially ongoing, unlimited “strengthening and strengthening,” could also mark Celan’s ambivalence – both celebration and lament – about a “homeland” that in the present moment was becoming increasingly empowered.

Bibliography Celan, Paul. Poems. Transl. Michael Hamburger. New York: Persea, 1980. Celan, Paul. Der Meridian: Endfassung, Vorstufen, Materialien. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1999. Celan, Paul. Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan. Transl. John Felstiner. New York: Norton, 2001. Celan, Paul. Die Gedichte. Ed. Barbara Wiedemann. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003. Celan, Paul, and Ilana Shmueli. Briefwechsel. Eds. Ilana Shmueli and Thomas Sparr. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004. Felstiner, John. Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995a. Felstiner, John. “‘Two Things Have I Heard’: Psalms in the Voice of Paul Celan.” Tikkun 10.3 (1995b): 65–72. Hörisch, Jochen. “Niemandes Geschenk an uns. Paul Celans ‘Psalm’ und die Poetik des Lobpreisens.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27 December 1997, 0B4. Idel, Moshe. Old World, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth-Century Thought, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Shmueli, Ilana: Sag, dass Jerusalem ist. Über Paul Celan: Oktober 1969 – April 1970. Eggingen: Isele, 2000. Steiner, George. “The Long Life of Metaphor: An Approach to ‘the Shoah.’” Encounter 68 (February 1987): 55–61.

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi

“By the Waters of Babylon”: The Amnesia of Memory Many of the scholarly commentaries on Psalms, and specifically on Ps. 137, focus on the historical-cultural context in which each was, presumably, composed.1 My dialogue with that scholarship is not only between disciplines but also between what I would call “proximity” and “belatedness” in regard to the legacy of the text that so powerfully inscribes trauma and legislates memory. As a belated reader, I approach this text through its layers of interpretation and ritual cooptation, compounded by the challenge of its darker resonances for our own place and time. By Babylon’s streams, there we sat, oh we wept, when we recalled Zion. On the poplars there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors had asked of us words of song, And our plunderers — rejoicing: ‘Sing us from Zion’s songs.’ (Psalm 137, 1–3)

The theme of this volume is “Psalms in/on Jerusalem.” Psalm 137 – or “kala’z,” as Bible scholars affectionately refer to it – is one of the two best-known and most-vocalized psalms (the other, of course, is Ps. 23) and it is explicitly written on but not in Jerusalem. This is the first “fact of composition,” which we acknowledge with the opening words that are seared into our collective consciousness, inspiring both Gospel singers in upbeat renditions (“By the Rivers of Babylon…”2) and mournful Jews in a minor key (“Al naharot bavel…”3). These words are the title of

1 See, for example, the evocative essay by Yair Zakovitch, which performs a close reading of Ps. 137 with reference to Lamentations and much of the classical library, focusing on the trauma of destruction and exile experienced by the presumed speakers of the text (Zakovitch 2001, 184–204). 2 The “Melodians” from Jamaica, 1963. Rastafarian rendition. 3 Mizrahi version: http://www.mus.co.il/chords/%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%A0%D7%94%D7% A8%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%91%D7%9C/ Mixed version: http://forward.com/opinion/ 140731/music-for-the-9th-of-av-on-jerusalem-exile-and-ho/ https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-009

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a postcard by Ephraim Moses Lilien that forms one of the visual motifs of a recent exhibit at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem (Vukosavović, 88) and graces the cover of this volume. I am of course not claiming to weigh in on authorship or provenance; rather, I will address the intratextual “facts” presented, familiar over the centuries to English speakers in the King James Version and retranslated by many hands, including, most recently, Robert Alter, whose version and commentary I use here (Alter 2007). Even as we acknowledge the seemingly incontrovertible fact that the Psalm is oriented towards Jerusalem, it is not clear where the speakers themselves are situated: “al naharot bavel,” by the waters, rivers, or streams, of Babylon, presumably; the problem comes in the ensuing clause: “sham yashavnu gam bakhinu” [there we sat down, yea we wept]. Alter lingers over the word whose repetition in the first verses raises hermeneutic questions in a text that is otherwise conspicuously laconic: “Sham, there, is twice repeated, expressing the alienation of the collective speakers from the place they find themselves, which, logically, should be ‘here’ rather than ‘there’” (Alter 2007, 473 n.2). In order to reinforce that impulse, Alter also translates “be­tokha” in verse 2 – “we hung up our harps be­tokha” – as “there”; thus, in his version, the word recurs three times in the first three verses, rendering the sense of existential displacement even more acute and ongoing. One bit of evidence that mitigates that interpretation, and fortifies the King James translation – “We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof” – is the additional “bet” in the Qumran version of Ps. 137, which reads “‘Al naharot be­vavel…” [by the waters in Babylonia]. I will examine this more closely later, but some scholars, including the curator of the Bible Lands exhibition, Filip Vukosavović, believe this could be the more authentic version, since it appears in the earliest extant scroll of the Psalm; the more general consensus is that it is a scribal error. The conclusion from this brief parsing of the first verses in their received, traditional form is that Jerusalem, even after being destroyed and its inhabitants dispersed, remains the only possible Here, and any other place is, by definition, There. Babylonia becomes engraved in our generic memory as the very figure of Exile. The “songs of Zion” are understood by both captors and captives to be connected to the Temple cult. Yair Zakovitch refers to the speakers in the poem as “ha­levi’im,” or the Levites, whose vocation was to perform the Songs of Zion (Zakovitch 2001, 187). And Alter refers to “a bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh [that] actually shows three prisoners carrying lyres marching under the surveillance of an Assyrian soldier” (Alter 2007, 474 n.3).

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This is emphasized in the next verses, which launch the memory culture that prevails to this day. Verse 3 contains, once again, a reference of historical valence, articulated in the first-person plural: “our” captors goad us into performing like circus monkeys, knowing full well that “our” songs are meant to be sung in a specific place from which “we” have been banished. “Our” pathos as a displaced people whose instruments are useless outside the context in which they were to be employed is captured in the declaration of despair in the very next verse: “Eikh nashir et shir adonai ‘al admat nekhar.” “Eikh” is both “how” – a practical or even mechanical question – and the conventional opening for lamentation: How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil? (4)

Immediately, however, the text again shifts, and pathos yields to determination: “Im eshkahekh yerushalayim tishkah yemini…”: Should I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand wither. May my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not recall you, If I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy. (5–6)

The right hand and the tongue are, of course, synecdoches for the body’s performance of written and oral communication – and, in this instance, also for plucking and singing; the oath contains the curse of disability. (It is curious that in Lilien’s drawing, it is the eyes that are covered – adding the visual to the endangered oral and written forms of transmission.) In the Psalm, the “song of the Lord” and the “song of Zion” now give way to another poetic form, the song of exile, to which the shift from first-person plural to first-person singular is crucial. Memory’s oath may be a collective imperative but it can only be uttered by every individual in every generation; “every individual assumes personal responsibility in taking this vow,” writes Zakovitch (2001, 191). It is a wonderful – and terrible – pledge to recall Jerusalem both in her glory and in her ruin. Much has been written about the feminization of Jerusalem, which is highlighted here in the plaintive address to the female other4; as in so many poems to Jerusalem, from King David through Yehuda halevi to Yehuda Amichai, “If I forget thee O Jerusalem” could be the opening words of a love poem. In Amichai’s inimitable, playfully serious inflection of the line, the primary reference

4 On this see the work of Tikva Frymer Kensky, 1992, especially “Zion, the Beloved Woman,” pp. 168–78; and DeKoven Ezrahi, 2007.

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moves from the City to the human other – male and female – in the City: “Im eshka­ kekh yerushalayim, tishkah yemini/tishkah yemini, tizkor smoli…”: If I forget thee O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget. May my right forget, and my left remember, Let my left remember, and your right close And your mouth open near the gate… (Amichai 2002, V. 2, 197).5

Beyond the ludic precincts of such poems, this vow constitutes the text for a series of mnemonic performances (most commonly for Jews before the birkat ha­mazon, the after-meal prayer; on Tisha B’av, the fast day commemorating the destruction of both temples; and under the wedding canopy, before the breaking of the glass6) that will inform the culture of Galut and keep the City alive as the primary coordinate of the Jewish imagination. Before proceeding to the rest of the Psalm, I wish to return briefly to the repeated “there” in the first verse and the added “bet” (“be­vavel”) in the Qumran version, and consider their implications for the resonances of the text in the Diaspora. There is in fact another curious deviation from the Masoretic text in the Qumran version: “yashvu” – they sat – which provides a clear distance between the subjects and the speakers of the Psalm, such that the discernable fragment of the Qumran verse reads, in translation, “By the waters in Babylon, there they sat…” Barely legible at the bottom of the fragment is a scribal “correction”: in adding the “nun” to create “yashavnu” – we sat – the scribe effectively erased the distance between speakers and subjects and created or conformed to the Masoretic text.7 But these irregularities suggest that perhaps the exiles do protest too much… Or, more likely, that the composers of the Psalm were actually differentiating themselves from the first generation of exiles. Perhaps, that is, what we are seeing is a rootedness in Exile that is officially denied but subliminally celebrated or at least embraced.

5 I have emended the translation by Assia Guttman, which has been anthologized in many English editions of Amichai’s poetry, including the most recent, edited by Robert Alter (Alter, 2015, p. 144). 6 The ritual of breaking the glass and intoning Ps. 137: 5–6 dates to Talmudic times, when the rabbis were creating a Jewish culture in the wake of the destruction in the first century C.E. of what is referred to as the Second Temple. 7 http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-314641. I wish to thank Shai Halevi, the photographer of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for his generous help in navigating the site.

“By the Waters of Babylon”: The Amnesia of Memory  

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The Rivers of Babylon authorize a poetically evocative, because officially temporary, relation to space. They are the headwaters for all profane spaces: “By the Waters of Leman I sat down and wept,” writes T.S. Eliot in the “Fire Sermon” from The Waste Land (Eliot 1922). The Waters of Leman, which may signify Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) in Switzerland or an archaic term for the bodily substances of one’s mistress, are also the “Sweet Thames.” The poet’s apostrophe to these rivers acknowledges the water’s enabling power, as he exhorts her to “run softly till I end my song.” Even the exhibition at the Israel Museum revealed this ambivalence. The “official” message, presented quite tendentiously, was that “we” were indeed miserable in Babylonia, weeping and wailing by its riverbanks and yearning to return home. The exhibition room devoted to life in Babylonia resonated with the sung lines of the first verse of Ps. 137. But the music itself was gay, performed by the Melodians, a rocksteady band from Jamaica.8 And the exhibit traced the rich life of the exiles in a town called Al Yahudu: the daily transactions of numerous families are captured in administrative and legal documents that were recorded on hundreds of Cuneiform tablets; these documents detail births, marriages, deaths and inheritance, promissory notes – all testifying to lively commerce, trade, property exchange, and cultural productivity. And the display at the end of the exhibit featured a copy of the Babylonian Talmud and an acknowledgment of the many exiles who did not return to Zion when the Persian conquest afforded them opportunity for repatriation. Even within the Psalm itself we can discern this ambivalence: the phrase “Im lo a­‘aleh et yerushalayim al rosh simhati” – If I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy – suggests a rather contented state of being (“joy”) that must be deliberately subordinated to the value of memory – something that will prevail in many of the exilic spaces that punctuate the Jewish journey. The material and textual evidence of a thriving Diaspora thus belies the official message of Ps. 137, as well as of the exhibition at the Bible Lands Museum; it certainly provides additional evidence that the Zion-Diaspora debate is ancient and ongoing, predating by thousands of years the creation of the State of Israel. Over the centuries, the Psalm continued to articulate the experience of loss and exile as well as the imperative of memory. But often an internal conflict emerged as “Babylon” stood repeatedly for one of the splendid cities of Israel-in-Exile. Even when the poet avails himself or herself of the collective memory embedded in the ancient Psalm, the most palpable references are local.

8 The “Melodians” from Jamaica, 1963. See above, n. 2.

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Two contemporary resonances of this conflict can be found in German and Hebrew poems by Paul Celan and Rony Someck, respectively. One of Celan’s earliest poems, originally entitled “Chanson Juive,” was renamed “An den Wassern Babels” [By the Waters of Babylon]: Wieder an dunkelnden Teichen murmelst du, Weide, gram. Weh oder wundersam keinem zu gleichen? Again at darkening pools You murmur, willow, grieving. Wounded or wondrous Equal to none?9

The poet both acknowledges and questions the very act of comparison (“you murmur, willow, grieving… Equal to none?”). The license for commensuration, for creating poetry, is granted by the ancient Psalm, albeit with a caveat: the willow grieves at darkening pools that always reflect that first wound. But these willows are both generic and specific to this poet’s native landscape, the landscape from which he was exiled – and in which his family was murdered by the Nazis. The resonances of Ps. 137 in the poetry of contemporary Hebrew poet Ronny Someck, who was born in Baghdad and came to Israel as a child, differ starkly from those in Celan’s poem – though they reveal the same conflict and artistic license. The poem entitled “Baghdad, February 1991” alludes topically to the First Gulf War, when Someck’s native city, in modern Babylonia, was bombing his adopted city, Tel Aviv – and being bombed in return10: Along these bombed-out streets my baby carriage was pushed. Babylonian girls pinched my cheeks and waved palm fronds Over my fine blond hair. What’s left from then became very black. Like Baghdad and Like the baby carriage we moved from the shelter During the days of waiting for another war. O Tigris, O Euphrates – the pet snakes in the first map of my life, How did you shed your skin and become vipers? (Someck 1996, 111)11 9 Unpublished ms. from private collection, quoted by Colin (1991, 68). See: DeKoven Ezrahi 2000, 294, n.18. 10 Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, was bombed by coalition forces during the First Gulf War, resulting in many civilian casualties. 11 English translation from: Snir 2013, 292.

“By the Waters of Babylon”: The Amnesia of Memory  

 159

Once again, the resonances are as old as the Psalm of exile, and in Hebrew the “Babylonian girls,” na’arot bavel, phonetically evoke the “waters – or rivers – of Babylon,” naharot bavel. But, as with the willows in Celan’s poem, the local flora (here date palms) in Someck’s poem evoke both an ancient, mythopoeic and a more proximate, private landscape. Again, war and displacement, personal and collective memory, render the landscape unheimlich. Its rivers and its girls are the signs of both the speaker’s homeland and his terror.12 This poem should make it clear that the journey from exile to redemption, or from Babylon (back) to Zion, is not linear or unambiguous. The detours and dangers are many. Indeed, each adaptation of this Psalm demonstrates, in its own way, how the collective exile and one’s own personal journey – the typological images of exile and the specific sights and smells of one’s homeland–jostle each other for prominence. Yet perhaps the most insidious element of the journey is the danger of arrival. This brings us to what I regard as the greatest challenge in a latter-day encounter with this Psalm for those who have “returned” to the city that is the capital of modern Israel: the cognitive dissonance between the text’s familiar, ceremonialized first verses and a kind of oblivion that covers the last verses. Indeed, most people who learned this Psalm in synagogue, in church, or in choir can recite it by heart – but only up to this point. Most have “forgotten” how the Psalm ends, as the sweet pledge to memory becomes a bitter curse: Recall, O Lord, the Edomites, on the day of Jerusalem, saying: ‘Raze it, raze it, to its foundation!’ Daughter of Babylon the despoiler, happy who pays you back in kind, for what you did to us. Happy who seizes and smashes your infants against the rock. (7–9)

The consistent act of amnesia that has become part of the “performance” of this Psalm – let’s call it willful misreading – must be addressed, urgently, in our time and place. Such amnesia is a form of what Harold Bloom would call “misprision.” As Bloom’s Yale colleague John Hollander put it years ago, “the layers of misreadings and rereadings are part of the poetry of the text itself in the poetic portions of the Bible. And the problems and puzzles of the psalms will remain eternal

12 For a larger discussion of this subject, see DeKoven Ezrahi, 2016, 27–43.

160 

 Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi

occasions for the reader’s negative capability as well as for the interpretive wit that turns every reader into a poet, if only momentarily” (Hollander 1987, 312). Hollander’s wonderful example of this is the story of the child who repeats a line from Ps. 23, which she hears as: “‘Good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life.’” The child, Hollander writes, was getting something more profoundly right about the line, the psalm, and poetry in general than any of her correctly parroting schoolmates. For the “mistake” personifies the “goodness and mercy” – the tov vachesed of the Hebrew… Good Mrs. Murphy following the child about like a beneficent nurse is a… viable, powerful homiletic reconstruction of what had otherwise faded into abstraction…. Losing, in mature literacy, the ability to make such mistakes can mean being deaf and blind to the power of even the KJV text, let alone that of the Hebrew. (Hollander 1987, 294)13

Hollander’s Wordsworthian championing of the child’s “ability to make mistakes” reveals an even more profound truth that is relevant to the collective misreading – or willful effacement – of the second part of Ps. 137. In their implication for deferred collective action, these last verses are, in fact, the very opposite of the tov va­hesed, the goodness and mercy – embodied by Good Mrs. Murphy. At best, the concluding verses of the Psalm known in Hebrew shorthand as “kala’z” reflect another form of childish thinking, that of the revenge fantasy – which, thankfully for all children who grow into responsible adults, is usually supplanted by wisdom, compassion and restraint. And, one can add, the “amnesiac” concluding verses may actually be a healthy sign of maturity in generations of diasporic Jews. Here is Alter’s gloss on verses 7–9, which takes into account the disempowered circumstances of those who first uttered the curse: No moral justification can be offered for this notorious concluding line. All one can do is to recall the background of outraged feeling that triggers the conclusion: The Babylonians have laid waste to Jerusalem, exiled much of its population, looted and massacred; the powerless captives, ordered – perhaps mockingly – to sing their Zion songs, respond instead with a lament that is not really a song and ends with this bloodcurdling curse pronounced on their captors, who, fortunately, do not understand the Hebrew in which it is pronounced. (Alter 2007, 475 n.9)

13 In this beautiful essay, Hollander traces the different layers of his own encounter with the Psalms, from his early childhood exposure to the incomprehensible Hebrew verses mumbled in Synagogue, through the KJ English prevalent in his American public school and on to the Latin of the Vulgate Psalter used in his college choir – circling back eventually to the Hebrew he learned more seriously in adulthood.

“By the Waters of Babylon”: The Amnesia of Memory  

 161

In the twenty-first century, however, most inhabitants of Jerusalem do understand the Hebrew. And the changed circumstances make it imperative that these verses become visible so that we can confront their insidious work on our subconscious. And yet, even at official locations – including the Bible Lands Museum, in the case that housed the large fragment of Ps. 137 from the Qumran scroll – the explanatory text instructs one only to decipher the Psalm’s first line, in the lower right-hand corner – with the added bet. In short, the text of the exhibit and of the exhibition catalogue effectively “effaces” the fact that the concluding curse is also visible atop the next column. Looking at the structural and thematic elements of the Psalm within the presumed historical context of its composition in the immediate aftermath of hurban and exile, Zakovitch identifies signs of amnesia through which the reader trained in trauma theory can reconstruct the obscured events. Perhaps the most egregious example is the slaughter of Israel’s children, which, he argues, can be deduced from the passion with which the Psalm envisions the eventual fate of Babylon’s infants (Zakovitch 2001, 202).14 As a belated reader, however, I am concerned with the latter-day effects of occlusion or effacement of those verses: the “forgotten” conclusion of the Psalm provided a kind of blessed amnesia that indeed protected us, over the generations, from the verses’ venom. Like the final chapter of another diasporic biblical text, namely, the Book of Esther, which – despite sporadic acts of violence documented by Elliot Horowitz (1994) – remained largely a fanciful tale told by a disempowered, childlike people who only dreamed of return and revenge,15 these verses become truly toxic when this Bible-saturated people “grows up,” returns

14 See also the end of his essay, where Zakovitch suggests that through the substitution of Ps. 126 on Shabbat and holy days for the recitation of Ps. 137 on the days of the week, as part of the blessing after a meal, the vision of return and renewal comes to replace, at least in part, the vision of vengeance (Zakovitch, pp. 203–4). 15 The bloody end of the Book of Esther actually ruins the rest of the book, which is not only an Orientalist fantasy but also a slapstick comedy. Erich Gruen argues that the Book of Esther reflects the comic imagination of the Jews living in the Persian Diaspora, where this improbable story is set. “Its composition came in the Persian era or early in the Hellenistic age, perhaps casting an influence on subsequent works in a comparable vein. And comic elements recur throughout,” he argues. Although one can bring the ordinary argument for Jewish humor – that these people are “smiling through tears,” that laughter serves a persecuted people “to mask a grim reality,” a kind of “compensation” – Gruen claims that these texts actually leave a different impression, “the impression of a folk unburdened by a precarious existence and comfortable with the human comedy” (Gruen 2002, 137–138).

162 

 Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi

to its childhood home, and begins to reclaim repressed memories.16 The return of the repressed that has accompanied the return to Zion helps to explain acts like that of Baruch Goldstein, who, on Purim in 1994, within the disputed territory of Hebron, literalized the murderous message hidden within the revenge fantasies of a disempowered people – by murdering twenty-nine Muslims at prayer. Once reintroduced into our memory bank, it turns out that we need hardly any imagination to conjure the smashing of Babylon’s infants against the rock. This, then, is where aesthetics, ethics, and hermeneutics coincide for the belated reader. Aesthetically, one can argue that the last verses are almost impossible to scan as poetry. (This despite the fact that in Alter’s translation these lines, like the rest of the Psalm, are graphically broken into poetic units.) The pledge to memory gives way to the wrathful oath as the poetic line strains to become prose. And something else: Alter notes, in the Art of Biblical Poetry, that the formula “happy is the man,” repeated here and elsewhere in Psalms, carries “an assured sense that the wicked will be requited with evil, the righteous with success” (Alter 1985, 114). But inherent in this promise and obscured by the formulaic language is a terrible kind of absolute “justice” connected to the memory of ancient grievances. Only the hermeneutic act that reads against the grain can expose the ultimate consequences of the return of repressed memory. Ps. 137 encapsulates the ethical danger of any exiled people endowed through their texts and rituals with “total recall” and with the idea of return as a completion of divine history – the imperative to tie up all the loose ends, in order to bring about redemption. The message of Ps. 137, hidden in “plain view” for so many generations, was never more consequential than it is in this city, in our time. As I wrote elsewhere, the modern Hebrew polity, “looping back on its own epic beginnings… stubbornly refuse[s] the blessings of a forgetting that is always also a forgiving” (DeKoven Ezrahi 2000, 21).

16 Although, as Elliot Horowitz informs us, “Purim” rage did not always remain confined to textual spaces – he brings examples, from medieval through modern times, of “reckless hostility” or “creative disrespect” directed at the Christians – this was, of course, very risky and sporadic. Horowitz cites the late-nineteenth-century historian Israel Abrahams, who wrote that “‘probably the oldest of the Purim pranks was the bonfire and burning of an effigy [of Haman,]’ mentioned… in a Geonic responsum.” Horowitz also brings examples, from medieval through modern times, of “reckless hostility” directed at Christians. He continues: “Just as it was necessary for Abrahams, a century ago, to demonstrate to those who had forgotten that Jews really did have fun on Purim, so it is appropriate now to emphasize that Jews really did vent their hostility… on that annual holiday.” Like the European Carnival, Purim came to be regarded as a time of “creative disrespect”; even if at times it ended in Jewish deaths, it was a “calculated risk of the Purim rite to be reckless” (Horowitz 1994, 23, 28, 33). On violence in the Bible, see Regina Schwartz (1997).

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 163

But Ernst Renan taught us (Renan 1882),17 and Yehuda Amichai inscribed for us, the value of amnesia in the construction of an open-ended, compassionate national memory: And who will remember? And what do you use to preserve memory? How do you preserve anything in this world? You preserve it with salt and with sugar, high heat and deep-freeze, vacuum sealers, dehydrators, mummifiers. But the best way to preserve memory is to conserve it inside forgetting so not even a single act of remembering will seep in and disturb memory’s eternal rest… Forgotten, remembered, forgotten. Open, closed, open. (Amichai 2000, 171)

Bibliography Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Poetry. New York: Basic Books, 1985. Alter, Robert The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Alter, Robert. The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. Amichai, Yehuda. “And Who Will Remember the Remembers?” nos. 7, 9. Open Closed Open. trans. Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld, New York: Harcourt, 2000, p. 171. Amichai, Yehuda, “Im eshkahekh, Yerushalayim.” Shirei Yehuda Amichai. T.A.: Schocken, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 197. Colin, Amy. Paul Celan: Holograms of Darkness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. DeKoven Ezrahi, Sidra. Booking Passage: Exile and Homecoming in the Modern Jewish Imagination. University of California Press, 2000. DeKoven Ezrahi, Sidra. “Die Ästhetik (und Ethik) des Exils” [The Aesthetics and Ethics of Exile] in Exil-Kulturen, ed. Doerte Bischoff. Munich: Text & Kritik, 2016, pp. 27–43. DeKoven Ezrahi, Sidra. “‘To What Shall I Compare Thee?’ Jerusalem as Ground Zero of the Hebrew Imagination,” PMLA [Publications of the Modern Language Association] Special Issue on ‘Cities,’ ed. Patricia Yaeger, January, 2007, 122:1, pp. 220–234. Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land(1922). http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html Bartleby.com: . (19 February 2018). Frymer Kensky, Tikva. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992, pp. 168–78. Gruen, Erich S. Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.

17 See DeKoven Ezrahi 2000, 251 n. 43.

164 

 Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi

Hollander, John. “Psalms,” Congregation: Contemporary Writers Read the Hebrew Bible. ed. David Rosenberg. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987, pp. 293–312. Horowitz, Elliott. “The Rite to be Reckless: On the Perpetration and Interpretation of Purim Violence,” Poetics Today 15:1, Spring 1994, pp. 9–54. Renan, Ernest. “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?” delivered at the Sorbonne, 1882. “What is a Nation?” tr. Martin Thom, in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 11. Schwartz, Regina. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. See also: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/741990. html Snir, Reuven (ed. and trans. ). Baghdad: The City in Verse. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2013, p. 292. Someck, Ronny. “Baghdad, February 1991,” from Gan eden la-orez [Rice Heaven]. Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan, 1996, p. 111. Vukosavović, Filip, Curator. By the Rivers of Babylon, Bible Lands Museum, Exhibition and Catalogue, Jerusalem, Feb. 1, 2015–May 15, 2016. Zakovitch, Yair. “Al naharot bavel: tehilim KL’Z- zikaron bi-tzel ha-trauma,” Teshura le-shmuel: mehkarim be-olam ha-mikra, eds. Tzipora Talshir, Yona Shamir, Daniel Sivan. Ben Gurion Univ. and Mosad Bialik, 2001, pp. 184–204.

Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

Psalm 2 Why are the nations aroused, and the peoples murmur vain things? Kings of the earth take their stand, and princes conspire together against the Lord and against His anointed. “Let us tear off their fetters, let us fling away their bonds!” He Who dwells in the heavens will laugh, the Master derides them. Then will He speak to them in His wrath, in His burning anger dismay them: “And I–I appointed My king on Zion, My holy mountain.” Let me tell as is due of the Lord. He said to me: “You are My son. I Myself today did beget you. Ask of me, and I shall give nations as your estate, and your holdings, the ends of the earth. You will smash them with a rod of iron, like a potter’s jar you Will dash them.” And now, O you kings, pay mind, be chastened, you rulers of earth. Worship the Lord in fear, and exult in trembling. With purity be armed, lest He rage and you be lost on the way. For His wrath in a moment flares up. Happy, all who shelter in Him.

Psalm 23 A David Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In grass meadows He makes me lie down, by quiet waters guides me. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-010

‫‪ 167‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫מבחר מזמורי תהלים על ירושלים‬ ‫תהלים ב‬ ‫ָל ָּמה ָרגְ ׁשּו גֹויִ ם‪,‬‬ ‫ּגּו‪-‬ריק?‬ ‫ּול ֻא ִּמים יֶ ְה ִ‬ ‫ְ‬ ‫י‪-‬א ֶרץ‪,‬‬ ‫יִ ְתיַ ְּצבּו ַמ ְל ֵכ ֶ‬ ‫נֹוסדּו‪-‬יָ ַחד‪,‬‬ ‫וְ רֹוזְ נִ ים ְ‬ ‫ל‪-‬מ ִׁשיחֹו‪.‬‬ ‫ַעל‪-‬יְ הוָ ה וְ ַע ְ‬ ‫רֹותימֹו‪,‬‬ ‫ת‪-‬מֹוס ֵ‬ ‫ְ‬ ‫“נְ נַ ְּת ָקה ֶא‬ ‫יכה ִמ ֶּמּנּו ֲעב ֵֹתימֹו!”‬ ‫וְ נַ ְׁש ִל ָ‬ ‫יֹוׁשב ַּב ָּׁש ַמיִ ם יִ ְׂש ָחק‪,‬‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫ג‪-‬למֹו‪.‬‬ ‫ֲאד ֹנָ י יִ ְל ַע ָ‬ ‫ָאז יְ ַד ֵּבר ֵא ֵלימֹו ְב ַאּפֹו‪,‬‬ ‫ּוב ֲחרֹונֹו ַיְב ֲה ֵלמֹו‪:‬‬ ‫ַ‬ ‫“וַ ֲאנִ י – נָ ַס ְכ ִּתי ַמ ְל ִּכי‬ ‫ר‪-‬ק ְד ִׁשי”‪.‬‬ ‫ל‪-‬צּיֹון‪ַ ,‬ה ָ‬ ‫ַע ִ‬ ‫ֲא ַס ְּפ ָרה ֶאל‪-‬חֹק יְ הוָ ה‪.‬‬ ‫“ּבנִ י ַא ָּתה‪.‬‬ ‫ָא ַמר ֵא ַלי‪ְ :‬‬ ‫ֲאנִ י ַהּיֹום יְ ִל ְד ִּתיָך‪.‬‬ ‫ְׁש ַאל ִמ ֶּמּנִ י‪ ,‬וְ ֶא ְּתנָ ה גֹויִ ם נַ ֲח ָל ֶתָך‪,‬‬ ‫י‪-‬א ֶרץ‪.‬‬ ‫וַ ֲא ֻחּזָ ְתָך ַא ְפ ֵס ָ‬ ‫ְּתר ֵֹעם ְּב ֵׁש ֶבט ַּב ְרזֶ ל‪,‬‬ ‫יֹוצר ְּתנַ ְּפ ֵצם”‪.‬‬ ‫ִּכ ְכ ִלי ֵ‬ ‫וְ ַע ָּתה‪ְ ,‬מ ָל ִכים‪ַ ,‬ה ְׂש ִּכילּו‪,‬‬ ‫ִהּוָ ְסרּו‪ׁ ,‬ש ְֹפ ֵטי ָא ֶרץ‪.‬‬ ‫ִע ְבדּו ֶאת‪-‬יְ הוָ ה ְּביִ ְר ָאה‪,‬‬ ‫וְ גִ ילּו ִּב ְר ָע ָדה‪.‬‬ ‫קּו‪-‬בר‪,‬‬ ‫נַ ְּׁש ַ‬ ‫אבדּו ֶד ֶרְך‪.‬‬ ‫ֶּפן‪-‬יֶ ֱאנַ ף וְ ת ֹ ְ‬ ‫י‪-‬יִב ַער ִּכ ְמ ַעט ַאּפֹו‪.‬‬ ‫ִּכ ְ‬ ‫ל‪-‬חֹוסי בֹו‪.‬‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫ַא ְׁש ֵרי‪ָּ ,‬כ‬ ‫תהלים כג‬ ‫ִמזְ מֹור ְל ָדוִ ד‪.‬‬ ‫יְ הוָ ה ר ִֹעי‪,‬‬ ‫לֹא ֶא ְח ָסר‪.‬‬ ‫יצנִ י‪,‬‬ ‫ִּבנְ אֹות ֶּד ֶׁשא יַ ְר ִּב ֵ‬ ‫ל‪-‬מי ְמנֻ חֹות יְ נַ ֲה ֵלנִ י‪.‬‬ ‫ַע ֵ‬

168 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

My life He brings back. He leads me on pathways of justice for His name’s sake. Though I walk in the vale of death’s shadow, I fear no harm, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff — it is they that console me. You set out a table before me in the face of my foes. You moisten my head with oil, my cup overflows. Let but goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for many long days. Psalm 42 To the lead player, a maskil for the Korahites. As a deer yearns for streams of water, so I yearn for You, O God. My whole being thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and see the presence of God? My tears became my bread day and night as they said to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These do I recall and pour out my heart: when I would step in the procession, when I would march to the house of God with the sound of glad song of the celebrant throng. How bent, my being, how you moan for me! Hope in God, for yet will I acclaim Him for His rescuing presence. My God, my being is bent for my plight. Therefore do I recall You from Jordan land, from the Hermons and Mount Mizar.

‫‪ 169‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫ׁשֹובב‪.‬‬ ‫נַ ְפ ִׁשי יְ ֵ‬ ‫י‪-‬צ ֶדק‬ ‫יַ נְ ֵחנִ י ְב ַמ ְעּגְ ֵל ֶ‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען ְׁשמֹו‪.‬‬ ‫י‪-‬א ֵלְך ְּבגֵ יא ַצ ְל ָמוֶ ת‪,‬‬ ‫ּגַ ם ִּכ ֵ‬ ‫א‪-‬א ָירא ָרע‪,‬‬ ‫לֹ ִ‬ ‫י‪-‬א ָּתה ִע ָּמ ִדי‪.‬‬ ‫ִּכ ַ‬ ‫ּומ ְׁש ַענְ ֶּתָך –‬ ‫ִׁש ְב ְטָך ִ‬ ‫ֵה ָּמה יְ נַ ֲח ֻמנִ י‪.‬‬ ‫ַּת ֲער ְֹך ְל ָפנַ י ֻׁש ְל ָחן‬ ‫נֶ גֶ ד צ ְֹר ָרי‪.‬‬ ‫אׁשי‪,‬‬ ‫ִּד ַּׁשנְ ָּת ַב ֶּׁש ֶמן ר ֹ ִ‬ ‫ּכֹוסי ְרוָ יָ ה‪.‬‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫ַאְך טֹוב וָ ֶח ֶסד יִ ְר ְּדפּונִ י‬ ‫ָּכל‪-‬יְ ֵמי ַחּיָ י‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ַׁש ְב ִּתי ְּב ֵבית‪-‬יְ הוָ ה‬ ‫יָמים‪.‬‬ ‫ְלא ֶֹרְך ִ‬ ‫תהלים מב‬ ‫ַל ְמנַ ֵּצ ַח‪ַ ,‬מ ְׂש ִּכיל ִל ְבנֵ י‪-‬ק ַֹרח‪.‬‬ ‫י‪-‬מיִ ם‪,‬‬ ‫ל‪-‬א ִפ ֵיק ָ‬ ‫ְּכ ַאּיָ ל ַּת ֲער ֹג ַע ֲ‬ ‫ֹלהים‪.‬‬ ‫ֵּכן נַ ְפ ִׁשי ַת ֲער ֹג ֵא ֶליָך‪ֱ ,‬א ִ‬ ‫אֹלהים‪,‬‬ ‫ָצ ְמ ָאה נַ ְפ ִׁשי ֵל ִ‬ ‫ְל ֵאל ָחי‪.‬‬ ‫ָמ ַתי ָאבֹוא וְ ֵא ָר ֶאה‬ ‫ֹלהים?‬ ‫ְּפנֵ י ֱא ִ‬ ‫יֹומם וָ ָליְ ָלה‬ ‫ה‪ּ-‬לי ִד ְמ ָע ִתי ֶל ֶחם ָ‬ ‫ָהיְ ָת ִ‬ ‫ֹלהיָך?”‬ ‫“אּיֵ ה ֱא ֶ‬ ‫ל‪-‬הּיֹום‪ַ ,‬‬ ‫ֶּב ֱאמֹר ֵא ַלי ָּכ ַ‬ ‫ֵא ֶּלה ֶאזְ ְּכ ָרה וְ ֶא ְׁש ְּפ ָכה ָע ַלי נַ ְפ ִׁשי‪:‬‬ ‫ִּכי ֶא ֱעבֹר ַּב ָּסְך‪,‬‬ ‫ֹלהים‬ ‫ד‪ּ-‬בית ֱא ִ‬ ‫ֶא ַּד ֵּדם ַע ֵ‬ ‫תֹודה ָהמֹון חֹוגֵ ג‪.‬‬ ‫קֹול‪-‬רּנָ ה וְ ָ‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫ְּב‬ ‫ּתֹוח ִחי‪ ,‬נַ ְפ ִׁשי‪ ,‬וַ ֶּת ֱה ִמי ָע ָלי!‬ ‫ה‪ּ-‬ת ְׁש ֲ‬ ‫ַמ ִ‬ ‫אֹודּנּו‬ ‫אֹלהים‪ִּ ,‬כי‪-‬עֹוד ֶ‬ ‫הֹוח ִלי ֵל ִ‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫יְ ׁשּועֹות ָּפנָ יו‪.‬‬ ‫ּתֹוחח‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהי‪ָ ,‬ע ַלי נַ ְפ ִׁשי ִת ְׁש ָ‬ ‫ֱא ַ‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬כן ֶאזְ ָּכ ְרָך ֵמ ֶא ֶרץ יַ ְר ֵּדן‪,‬‬ ‫ַע ֵ‬ ‫וְ ֶח ְרמֹונִ ים ֵמ ַהר ִמ ְצ ָער‪.‬‬

170 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

Deep unto dee calls out at the sound of Your channels. All Your breakers and waves have surged over me. By day the Lord ordains His kindness and by night His song is with me– prayer to the God of my life. I would say to the God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why in gloom do I go, hard pressed by the foe? With murder in my bones, my enemies revile me when they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” How bent, my being, how you moan for me! Hope in God, for yet will I acclaim Him, His rescuing presence and my God. Psalm 48 Song, a psalm for the Korahites. Great is the Lord and highly praised in our God’s town, His holy mountain. Lovely in heights, all the earth’s joy, Mount Zion, far end of Zaphon, the great King’s city. God in its bastions is famed as a fortress. For, look, the kings have conspired, passed onward one and all. It is they who have seen and so been astounded, were panicked, dismayed. Shuddering seized them there, pangs like a woman in labor. With the east wind You smashed the ships of Tarshish. As we heard, so we see in the town of the Lord of armies, in the town of our God. May God make it stand firm forever!  selah We witnessed, O God, Your kindness in the midst of Your temple.

‫‪ 171‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫קֹורא‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬תהֹום ֵ‬ ‫הֹום‪-‬א ְ‬ ‫ֶ‬ ‫ְּת‬ ‫ּנֹוריָך‪.‬‬ ‫ְלקֹול ִצ ֶ‬ ‫ל‪-‬מ ְׁש ָּב ֶריָך וְ גַ ֶּליָך‬ ‫ָּכ ִ‬ ‫ָע ַלי ָע ָברּו‪.‬‬ ‫יֹומם יְ ַצּוֶ ה יְ הוָ ה ַח ְסּדֹו‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ּוב ַּליְ ָלה ִׁשיר ֹה ִע ִּמי –‬ ‫ַ‬ ‫ְּת ִפ ָּלה ְל ֵאל ַחּיָ י‪.‬‬ ‫אֹומ ָרה ְל ֵאל ַס ְל ִעי‪,‬‬ ‫ְ‬ ‫“ל ָמה ְׁש ַכ ְח ָּתנִ י?‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ָל ָּמה‪-‬ק ֵֹדר ֵא ֵלְך‪ְּ ,‬ב ַל ַחץ אֹויֵב?”‬ ‫צֹור ָרי‬ ‫מֹותי‪ֵ ,‬ח ְרפּונִ י ְ‬ ‫ְּב ֶר ַצח ְּב ַע ְצ ַ‬ ‫ֹלהיָך?”‬ ‫“אּיֵ ה ֱא ֶ‬ ‫ל‪-‬הּיֹום‪ַ ,‬‬ ‫ְּב ָא ְמ ָרם ֵא ַלי ָּכ ַ‬ ‫ה‪ּ-‬ת ֱה ִמי ָע ָלי!‬ ‫ּומ ֶ‬ ‫ּתֹוח ִחי‪ ,‬נַ ְפ ִׁשי‪ַ ,‬‬ ‫ה‪ּ-‬ת ְׁש ֲ‬ ‫ַמ ִ‬ ‫אֹודּנּו‪,‬‬ ‫אֹלהים‪ִּ ,‬כי‪-‬עֹוד ֶ‬ ‫הֹוח ִילי ֵל ִ‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫אֹלהי‪.‬‬ ‫יְ ׁשּועֹת ָּפנַ י וֵ ָ‬ ‫תהלים מח‬ ‫ִׁשיר‪ִ ,‬מזְ מֹור ִל ְבנֵ י‪-‬ק ַֹרח‪.‬‬ ‫ּומ ֻה ָּלל ְמאֹד‪.‬‬ ‫ּגָ דֹול יְ הוָ ה ְ‬ ‫ר‪-‬ק ְדׁשֹו‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהינּו‪ַ ,‬ה ָ‬ ‫ְּב ִעיר ֱא ֵ‬ ‫ל‪-‬ה ָא ֶרץ‪,‬‬ ‫יְ ֵפה נֹוף‪ְ ,‬מׂשֹוׂש ָּכ ָ‬ ‫ר‪-‬צּיֹון‪ ,‬יַ ְר ְּכ ֵתי ָצפֹון‪,‬‬ ‫ַה ִ‬ ‫ִק ְריַת ֶמ ֶלְך ָרב‪.‬‬ ‫יה‬ ‫נֹות ָ‬ ‫ֹלהים ְּב ַא ְר ְמ ֶ‬ ‫ֱא ִ‬ ‫נֹודע ְל ִמ ְׂשּגָ ב‪.‬‬ ‫ַ‬ ‫נֹועדּו‪,‬‬ ‫י‪-‬הּנֵ ה‪ַ ,‬ה ְּמ ָל ִכים ֲ‬ ‫ִּכ ִ‬ ‫ָע ְברּו יַ ְח ָּדו‪.‬‬ ‫ֵה ָּמה ָראּו ֵּכן ָּת ָמהּו‪,‬‬ ‫נִ ְב ֲהלּו‪ ,‬נֶ ְח ָּפזּו‪.‬‬ ‫ְר ָע ָדה ֲא ָחזָ ַתם ָׁשם‪,‬‬ ‫ּיֹול ָדה‪.‬‬ ‫ִחיל ַּכ ֵ‬ ‫רּוח ָק ִדים‬ ‫ְּב ַ‬ ‫ְּת ַׁש ֵּבר ֳאנִ ּיֹות ַּת ְר ִׁשיׁש‪.‬‬ ‫ַּכ ֲא ֶׁשר ָׁש ַמ ְענּו‪ֵּ ,‬כן ָר ִאינּו‬ ‫ְּב ִעיר‪-‬יְ הוָ ה ְצ ָבאֹות‪ְּ ,‬ב ִעיר‬ ‫ֹלהינּו‪.‬‬ ‫ֱא ֵ‬ ‫ם!  ס ָלה‬ ‫ֶ‬ ‫ד‪-‬עֹול‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ֹלהים יְ כֹונְ נֶ ָה ַע‬ ‫ֱא ִ‬ ‫ֹלהים‪ַ ,‬ח ְס ֶּדָך‬ ‫ִּד ִּמינּו‪ֱ ,‬א ִ‬ ‫יכ ֶלָך‪.‬‬ ‫ְּב ֶק ֶרב ֵה ָ‬

172 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

Like Your name, O God, so Your praise— to the ends of the earth. With justice Your right hand is full. Let Mount Zion rejoice, let Judea’s townlets exult because of Your judgments. Go around Zion, encircle it. Count its towers. Set your mind to its ramparts, scale its bastions to recount to the last generation. For this is God, our God, forevermore. He will lead us forever. Psalm 51 For the lead player, a David psalm, upon Nathan the prophets coming to him when he had come to bed with Bathsheba. Grant me grace, God, as befits Your kindness, with Your great mercy wipe away my crimes. Thoroughly wash my transgressions away and cleanse me from my offense. For my crimes I know, and my offense is before me always. You alone have I offended, and what is eVil in Your eyes I have done. So You are just when You sentence, You are right when You judge. Look, in transgression was I conceived, and in offense my mother spawned me. Look, You desired truth in what is hidden; in what is concealed make wisdom known to me. Purify me with a hyssop, that I be clean. Wash me, that I be whiter than snow. Let me hear gladness and joy, let the bones that You crushed exult. Avert Your face from my offenses, and all my misdeeds Wipe away.

‫‪ 173‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫ֹלהים‪ֵּ ,‬כן ְּת ִה ָּל ְתָך –‬ ‫ְּכ ִׁש ְמָך‪ֱ ,‬א ִ‬ ‫י‪-‬א ֶרץ‪.‬‬ ‫ל‪-‬ק ְצוֵ ֶ‬ ‫ַע ַ‬ ‫ֶצ ֶדק ָמ ְל ָאה יְ ִמינֶ ָך‪.‬‬ ‫יִ ְׂש ַמח ַהר ִצּיֹון‪,‬‬ ‫הּודה‬ ‫ָּתגֵ ְלנָ ה ְּבנֹות יְ ָ‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען ִמ ְׁש ָּפ ֶטיָך‪.‬‬ ‫יפּוה‪.‬‬ ‫סֹּבּו ִצּיֹון‪ ,‬וְ ַה ִּק ָ‬ ‫יה‪.‬‬ ‫ִס ְפרּו ִמגְ ָּד ֶל ָ‬ ‫ִׁשיתּו ִל ְּב ֶכם ְל ֵח ָילה‪,‬‬ ‫יה‬ ‫נֹות ָ‬ ‫ַּפ ְּסגּו ַא ְר ְמ ֶ‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען ְּת ַס ְּפרּו ְלדֹור ַא ֲחרֹון‪.‬‬ ‫עֹולם וָ ֶעד‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהינּו‪ָ ,‬‬ ‫ֹלהים‪ֱ ,‬א ֵ‬ ‫ִּכי זֶ ה ֱא ִ‬ ‫הּוא יְ נַ ֲהגֵ נּו ַעל‪-‬מּות‪.‬‬ ‫תהלים נא‬ ‫ַל ְמנַ ֵּצ ַח‪ִ ,‬מזְ מֹור ְל ָדוִ ד‪,‬‬ ‫ר‪ּ-‬בא‬ ‫בֹוא‪-‬א ָליו נָ ָתן ַהּנָ ִביא ַּכ ֲא ֶׁש ָ‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫ְּב‬ ‫ת‪ׁ-‬ש ַבע‪.‬‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬ב ָ‬ ‫ֶא ַ‬ ‫ֹלהים‪ְּ ,‬כ ַח ְס ֶּדָך‪,‬‬ ‫ָחּנֵ נִ י‪ֱ ,‬א ִ‬ ‫ְּכר ֹב ַר ֲח ֶמיָך ְמ ֵחה ְפ ָׁש ָעי‪.‬‬ ‫ֶה ֶרב ַּכ ְּב ֵסנִ י ֵמ ֲעוֹנִ י‬ ‫אתי ַט ֲה ֵרנִ י‪.‬‬ ‫ּומ ַח ָּט ִ‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫י‪-‬פ ָׁש ַעי ֲאנִ י ֵא ָדע‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכ ְ‬ ‫אתי נֶ גְ ִּדי ָת ִמיד‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ַח ָּט ִ‬ ‫אתי‪,‬‬ ‫ְלָך ְל ַב ְּדָך ָח ָט ִ‬ ‫יתי‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ָה ַרע ְּב ֵעינֶ יָך ָע ִׂש ִ‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען ִּת ְצ ַּדק ְּב ָד ְב ֶרָך‪,‬‬ ‫ִּתזְ ֶּכה ְב ָׁש ְפ ֶטָך‪.‬‬ ‫חֹול ְל ִּתי‪,‬‬ ‫ן‪ּ-‬ב ָעוֹון ָ‬ ‫ֵה ְ‬ ‫ּוב ֵח ְטא יֶ ֱח ַמ ְתנִ י ִא ִּמי‪.‬‬ ‫ְ‬ ‫ן‪-‬א ֶמת ָח ַפ ְצ ָּת ַב ֻּטחֹות;‬ ‫ֵה ֱ‬ ‫יענִ י‪.‬‬ ‫תֹוד ֵ‬ ‫ּוב ָס ֻתם ָח ְכ ָמה ִ‬ ‫ְ‬ ‫ְּת ַח ְּט ֵאנִ י ְב ֵאזֹוב‪ ,‬וְ ֶא ְט ָהר‪.‬‬ ‫ּומ ֶּׁש ֶלג ַא ְל ִּבין‪.‬‬ ‫ְּת ַכ ְּב ֵסנִ י‪ִ ,‬‬ ‫יענִ י ָׂשׂשֹון וְ ִׂש ְמ ָחה‪,‬‬ ‫ַּת ְׁש ִמ ֵ‬ ‫ית‪.‬‬ ‫ָּתגֵ ְלנָ ה ֲע ָצמֹות ִּד ִּכ ָ‬ ‫ַה ְס ֵּתר ָּפנֶ יָך ֵמ ֲח ָט ָאי‪,‬‬ ‫ל‪-‬עוֹנ ַֹתי ְמ ֵחה‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ָכ ֲ‬

174 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

A pure heart create for me, God, and a firm spirit renew within me. Do not fling me from Your presence, and Your holy spirit take not from me. Give me back the gladness of Your rescue and with a noble spirit sustain me. Let me teach transgressors Your ways, and offenders will come back to You. Save me from bloodshed, O God, God of my rescue. Let my tongue sing out Your bounty. O Master, open my lips, that my mouth may tell Your praise. For You desire not that I should give sacrifice, burnt – offering You greet not with pleasure. God’s sacrifices – a broken spirit. A broken, crushed heart God spurns not. Show goodness in Your pleasure to Zion, rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then shall You desire just sacrifices, burnt-offering and whole offering, then bulls will be offered up on Your altar. Psalm 79 An Asaph psalm. God, nations have come into Your estate, they have defiled Your holy temple. They have turned Jerusalem to ruins. They have given Your servants’ corpses as food to the fowl of the heavens, the flesh of Your faithful to the beasts of the earth. They have spilled their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is none to bury them. We have become a disgrace to our neighbors, scorn and contempt to all round us. How long, O Lord, will You rage forever, Your fury burn like fire? Pour out Your wrath on the nations

‫‪ 175‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫ֹלהים‪,‬‬ ‫א‪-‬לי‪ֱ ,‬א ִ‬ ‫ֵלב ָטהֹור ְּב ָר ִ‬ ‫רּוח נָ כֹון ַח ֵּדׁש ְּב ִק ְר ִּבי‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ַ‬ ‫יכנִ י ִמ ְּל ָפנֶ יָך‪,‬‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬ת ְׁש ִל ֵ‬ ‫ַא ַ‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬ת ַּקח ִמ ֶּמּנִ י‪.‬‬ ‫רּוח ָק ְד ְׁשָך ַא ִ‬ ‫וְ ַ‬ ‫ָה ִׁש ָיבה ִּלי ְׂשׂשֹון יִ ְׁש ֶעָך‬ ‫רּוח נְ ִד ָיבה ִת ְס ְמ ֵכנִ י‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ַ‬ ‫ֲא ַל ְּמ ָדה פ ְֹׁש ִעים ְּד ָר ֶכיָך‪,‬‬ ‫וְ ַח ָּט ִאים ֵא ֶליָך יָ ׁשּובּו‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהים‪,‬‬ ‫ַה ִּצ ֵילנִ י ִמ ָּד ִמים‪ֱ ,‬א ִ‬ ‫ׁשּוע ִתי‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהי ְּת ָ‬ ‫ֱא ֵ‬ ‫ְּת ַרּנֵ ן ְלׁשֹונִ י ִצ ְד ָק ֶתָך‪.‬‬ ‫ֲאד ֹנָ י‪ְׂ ,‬ש ָפ ַתי ִּת ְפ ָּתח‪,‬‬ ‫ּופי יַ ּגִ יד ְּת ִה ָּל ֶתָך‪.‬‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫א‪-‬ת ְחּפֹץ זֶ ַבח וְ ֶא ֵּתנָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכי ל ֹ ַ‬ ‫עֹולה – לֹא ִת ְר ֶצה‪.‬‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫רּוח נִ ְׁש ָּב ָרה‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהים – ַ‬ ‫זִ ְב ֵחי ֱא ִ‬ ‫ֹלהים לֹא ִת ְבזֶ ה‪.‬‬ ‫ֵלב‪-‬נִ ְׁש ָּבר וְ נִ ְד ֶּכה ֱא ִ‬ ‫ת‪-‬צּיֹון‪,‬‬ ‫יט ָיבה ִב ְרצֹונְ ָך ֶא ִ‬ ‫ֵה ִ‬ ‫רּוׁש ָלםִ‪.‬‬ ‫ִּת ְבנֶ ה חֹומֹות יְ ָ‬ ‫י‪-‬צ ֶדק‪,‬‬ ‫ָאז ַּת ְחּפֹץ זִ ְב ֵח ֶ‬ ‫עֹולה וְ ָכ ִליל‪,‬‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ל‪-‬מזְ ַּב ֲחָך ָפ ִרים‪.‬‬ ‫ָאז יַ ֲעלּו ַע ִ‬ ‫תהלים עט‬ ‫ִמזְ מֹור ְל ָא ָסף‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהים‪ָּ ,‬באּו גֹויִ ם ְּבנַ ֲח ָל ֶתָך‪,‬‬ ‫ֱא ִ‬ ‫יכל ָק ְד ֶׁשָך‪.‬‬ ‫ִט ְּמאּו ֶאת ֵה ַ‬ ‫רּוׁש ַלםִ ְל ִעּיִ ים‪.‬‬ ‫ָׂשמּו ֶאת‪-‬יְ ָ‬ ‫נָ ְתנּו ֶאת‪-‬נִ ְב ַלת ֲע ָב ֶדיָך‬ ‫ַמ ֲא ָכל ְלעֹוף ַה ָּׁש ָמיִ ם‪,‬‬ ‫תֹו‪-‬א ֶרץ‪.‬‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ְּב ַׂשר ֲח ִס ֶידיָך ְל ַחיְ‬ ‫ָׁש ְפכּו ָד ָמם ַּכ ַּמיִ ם‬ ‫רּוׁש ָלםִ‪,‬‬ ‫ְס ִביבֹות יְ ָ‬ ‫קֹובר‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ֵאין ֵ‬ ‫ָהיִ ינּו ֶח ְר ָּפה ִל ְׁש ֵכנֵ ינּו‪,‬‬ ‫יבֹותינּו‪.‬‬ ‫ַל ַעג וָ ֶק ֶלס ִל ְס ִב ֵ‬ ‫ד‪-‬מה‪ ,‬יְ הוָ ה‪ֶּ ,‬ת ֱאנַ ף ָלנֶ ַצח‪,‬‬ ‫ַע ָ‬ ‫מֹו‪-‬אׁש ִקנְ ָא ֶתָך?‬ ‫ִּת ְב ַער ְּכ ֵ‬ ‫ְׁשפְֹך ֲח ָמ ְתָך ֶאל ַהּגֹויִ ם‬

176 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

that did not know You and on the kingdoms that did not call on Your name. For they have devoured Jacob and his habitation laid waste. Do not call to mind against us our forebears’ crimes. Quickly, may Your mercies overtake us, For we have sunk very low. Help us, our rescuing God for Your name’s glory, and save us and atone for our sins for the sake of Your name. Why should the nations say, “Where is their god?” Let it be known among the nations before our eyes– the vengeance for Your servants’ spilled blood. Let the captive’s groan come before You, by Your arm’s greatness unbind those marked for death. And give back to our neighbors sevenfold to their bosom their insults that they heaped on You, Master. But we are Your people and the flock that You tend. We acclaim You forever. From generation to generation we recount Your praise. Psalm 84 For the lead player on the gittith, for the Korahites, a psalm. How lovely Your dwellings, O Lord of armies! My being longed, even languished, for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh Sing gladness to the living God. Even the bird has found home, and the swallow a nest for itself, that puts its fledglings by Your altars, Lord of armies, my king and my God. Happy are those who dwell in Your house, they will ever praise You.

‫‪ 177‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫ֲא ֶׁשר לֹא‪-‬יְ ָדעּוָך‬ ‫וְ ַעל ַמ ְמ ָלכֹות‬ ‫ֲא ֶׁשר ְּב ִׁש ְמָך לֹא ָק ָראּו‪.‬‬ ‫ִּכי ָא ַכל ֶאת‪-‬יַ ֲעקֹב‬ ‫וְ ֶאת‪-‬נָ וֵ הּו ֵה ַׁשּמּו‪.‬‬ ‫ר‪-‬לנּו ֲעוֹנֹת ִראׁש ֹנִ ים‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬תזְ ָּכ ָ‬ ‫ַא ִ‬ ‫ַמ ֵהר‪ ,‬יְ ַק ְּדמּונּו ַר ֲח ֶמיָך‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכי ַדּלֹונּו ְמאֹד‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהי יִ ְׁש ֵענּו‬ ‫ָעזְ ֵרנּו‪ֱ ,‬א ֵ‬ ‫בֹוד‪ׁ-‬ש ֶמָך‪,‬‬ ‫ְ‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬ד ַבר ְּכ‬ ‫ַע ְ‬ ‫אתינּו‬ ‫ל‪-‬חּט ֹ ֵ‬ ‫וְ ַה ִּצ ֵילנּו וְ ַכ ֵּפר ַע ַ‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען ְׁש ֶמָך‪.‬‬ ‫יהם?”‬ ‫ֹלה ֶ‬ ‫“אּיֵ ה ֱא ֵ‬ ‫אמרּו ַהּגֹויִ ם‪ַ ,‬‬ ‫ָל ָּמה י ֹ ְ‬ ‫יִ ּוָ ַדע ַּבּגֹיִ ים ְל ֵעינֵ ינּו –‬ ‫ם‪-‬ע ָב ֶדיָך ַה ָּׁשפּוְך‪.‬‬ ‫נִ ְק ַמת ַּד ֲ‬ ‫ָּתבֹוא ְל ָפנֶ יָך ֶאנְ ַקת ָא ִסיר‪,‬‬ ‫מּותה‪.‬‬ ‫הֹותר ְּבנֵ י ְת ָ‬ ‫רֹועָך ֵ‬ ‫ְּכג ֶֹדל זְ ֲ‬ ‫ל‪-‬ח ָיקם‬ ‫וְ ָה ֵׁשב ִל ְׁש ֵכנֵ ינּו ִׁש ְב ָע ַתיִ ם ֶא ֵ‬ ‫ֶח ְר ָּפ ָתם ֲא ֶׁשר ֵח ְרפּוָך‪ֲ ,‬אד ֹנָ י‪.‬‬ ‫יתָך‪.‬‬ ‫וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו ַע ְּמָך וְ צֹאן ַמ ְר ִע ֶ‬ ‫עֹולם‪.‬‬ ‫נֹודה ְּלָך ְל ָ‬ ‫ֶ‬ ‫ְלדֹור וָ ד ֹר נְ ַס ֵּפר‬ ‫ְּת ִה ָּל ֶתָך‪.‬‬ ‫תהלים פד‬ ‫ל‪-‬הּגִ ִּתית‪ִ ,‬ל ְבנֵ י‪-‬ק ַֹרח‪ִ ,‬מזְ מֹור‪.‬‬ ‫ַל ְמנַ ֵּצ ַח ַע ַ‬ ‫נֹותיָך‪,‬‬ ‫ַמה‪ּ-‬יְ ִדידֹות ִמ ְׁש ְּכ ֶ‬ ‫יְ הוָ ה ְצ ָבאֹות!‬ ‫ם‪ּ-‬כ ְל ָתה נַ ְפ ִׁשי‪,‬‬ ‫נִ ְכ ְס ָפה‪ ,‬וְ גַ ָ‬ ‫ְל ַח ְצרֹות יְ הוָ ה‪.‬‬ ‫ּוב ָׂש ִרי‬ ‫ִל ִּבי ְ‬ ‫ל‪-‬חי‪.‬‬ ‫יְ ַרּנְ נּו ֶאל ֵא ָ‬ ‫ם‪-‬צּפֹור ָמ ְצ ָאה ַביִ ת‪,‬‬ ‫ּגַ ִ‬ ‫ְּודרֹור ֵקן ָלּה‪,‬‬ ‫חֹותיָך‪,‬‬ ‫ת‪-‬מזְ ְּב ֶ‬ ‫יה ֶא ִ‬ ‫ר‪ׁ-‬ש ָתה ֶא ְפר ֶֹח ָ‬ ‫ֲא ֶׁש ָ‬ ‫אֹלהי‪.‬‬ ‫יְ הוָ ה ְצ ָבאֹות‪ַ ,‬מ ְל ִּכי וֵ ָ‬ ‫יתָך‪,‬‬ ‫יֹוׁש ֵבי ֵב ֶ‬ ‫ַא ְׁש ֵרי ְ‬ ‫עֹוד יְ ַה ְללּוָך ֶּס ָלה‪.‬‬

178 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

Happy the folk whose strength is in You, the highways in their heart, who pass through the Valley of Baea, they make it into a spring– yes, the early rain cloaks it with blessings. They go from rampart to rampart, they appear before God in Zion. Lord, God of armies, hear my prayer. Hearken, O God of Jacob. selah Our shield, O God, see, and regard Your anointed one’s face For better one day in Your courts than a thousand I have chosen, standing on the threshold in the house of my God, than living in the tents of wickedness. For a sun and shield is the Lord, God is grace and glory. The Lord grants, He does not withhold bounty to those who go blameless. O Lord of armies, happy the man who trusts in You. Psalm 102 A prayer for the lowly when he grows faint and pours out his plea before the Lord. Lord, O hear my prayer, and let my outcry come before You. Hide not Your face from me on the day when I am in straits. Incline Your ear to me. On the day I call, quickly answer me. For my days are consumed in smoke, and my bones are scorched like a hearth. My heart is stricken and withers like grass, so I forget to eat my bread. From my loud sighing, my bones Cleave to my flesh. I resemble the wilderness jackdaw, I become like the owl of the ruins.

‫‪ 179‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫ַא ְׁש ֵרי ָא ָדם עֹוז‪-‬לֹו ָבְך‪,‬‬ ‫ְמ ִסּלֹות ִּב ְל ָב ָבם‪,‬‬ ‫ע ְֹב ֵרי ְּב ֵע ֶמק ַה ָּב ָכא‪,‬‬ ‫ַמ ְעיָ ן יְ ִׁשיתּוהּו –‬ ‫מֹורה‪.‬‬ ‫ם‪ּ-‬ב ָרכֹות יַ ְע ֶטה ֶ‬ ‫ּגַ ְ‬ ‫ל‪-‬חיִ ל‪,‬‬ ‫יֵ ְלכּו ֵמ ַחיִ ל ֶא ָ‬ ‫ֹלהים ְּב ִצּיֹון‪.‬‬ ‫ל‪-‬א ִ‬ ‫יֵ ָר ֶאה ֶא ֱ‬ ‫ֹלהים‪ְ ,‬צ ָבאֹות‪ִׁ ,‬ש ְמ ָעה ְת ִפ ָּל ִתי‪.‬‬ ‫יְ הוָ ה ֱא ִ‬ ‫ֹב‪  .‬ס ָלה‬ ‫ֶ‬ ‫ֹלהי יַ ֲעק‬ ‫ַה ֲאזִ ינָ ה‪ֱ ,‬א ֵ‬ ‫ֹלהים‪,‬‬ ‫ָמגִ ּנֵ נּו ְר ֵאה‪ֱ ,‬א ִ‬ ‫יחָך‬ ‫וְ ַה ֵּבט ְּפנֵ י ְמ ִׁש ֶ‬ ‫ִּכי טֹוב‪-‬יֹום ַּב ֲח ֵצ ֶריָך‬ ‫ֵמ ָא ֶלף ָּב ַח ְר ִּתי‪,‬‬ ‫ֹלהי‪,‬‬ ‫ּתֹופף ְּב ֵבית ֱא ַ‬ ‫ִה ְס ֵ‬ ‫י‪-‬ר ַׁשע‪.‬‬ ‫ִמּדּור ְּב ָא ֳה ֵל ֶ‬ ‫ּומגֵ ן יְ הוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכי ֶׁש ֶמׁש ָ‬ ‫ֹלהים ֵחן וְ ָכבֹוד‪.‬‬ ‫ֱא ִ‬ ‫יִ ֵּתן יְ הוָ ה‪ ,‬לֹא יִ ְמנַ ע‪-‬טֹוב‬ ‫ַלה ְֹל ִכים ְּב ָת ִמים‪.‬‬ ‫יְ הוָ ה ְצ ָבאֹות‪,‬‬ ‫ַא ְׁש ֵרי ָא ָדם ּב ֵֹט ַח ָּבְך‪.‬‬ ‫תהלים קב‬ ‫ְּת ִפ ָּלה ְל ָענִ י ִכי‪-‬יַ ֲעטֹף‬ ‫וְ ִל ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה יִ ְׁשּפְֹך ִׂשיחֹו‪.‬‬ ‫יְ הוָ ה‪ִׁ ,‬ש ְמ ָעה ְת ִפ ָּל ִתי‪,‬‬ ‫וְ ַׁשוְ ָע ִתי ֵא ֶליָך ָתבֹוא‪.‬‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬ת ְס ֵּתר ָּפנֶ יָך ִמ ֶּמּנִ י‬ ‫ַא ַ‬ ‫ר‪-‬לי‪.‬‬ ‫ְּביֹום ַצ ִ‬ ‫ה‪-‬א ַלי ָאזְ נֶ ָך‪.‬‬ ‫ַה ֵּט ֵ‬ ‫ְּביֹום ֶא ְק ָרא‪ַ ,‬מ ֵהר ֲענֵ נִ י‪.‬‬ ‫יָמי‪,‬‬ ‫י‪-‬כלּו ְב ָע ָׁשן ָ‬ ‫ִּכ ָ‬ ‫מֹוקד נִ ָחרּו‪.‬‬ ‫מֹותי ְּכ ֵ‬ ‫וְ ַע ְצ ַ‬ ‫ה‪-‬כ ֵע ֶׂשב וַ ַּיִבׁש ִל ִּבי‪,‬‬ ‫הּוּכ ָ‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫י‪ׁ-‬ש ַכ ְח ִּתי ֵמ ֲאכֹל ַל ְח ִמי‪.‬‬ ‫ִּכ ָ‬ ‫ִמּקֹול ַאנְ ָח ִתי‪,‬‬ ‫ָּד ְב ָקה ַע ְצ ִמי ִל ְב ָׂש ִרי‪.‬‬ ‫יתי ִל ְק ַאת ִמ ְד ָּבר‪,‬‬ ‫ָּד ִמ ִ‬ ‫יתי ְּככֹוס ֳח ָרבֹות‪.‬‬ ‫ָהיִ ִ‬

180 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

I lie awake and become like a lonely bird on a roof. All day long my enemies revile me, my taunters invoke me in curse. For ashes I have eaten as bread, and my drink I have mingled with tears– because of Your wrath and Your fury, for You raised me up and flung me down. My days inclined like a shadow, and I–like grass I withered. And You Lord, forever enthroned, and Your name–for all generations. You, may You rise, have mercy on Zion, for it is the hour to pity her, for the fixed time has come. For Your servants cherish her stones and on her dust they take pity. And the nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all kings of the earth, Your glory. For the Lord has rebuilt Zion, He is seen in His glory. He has turned to the prayer of the desolate and has not despised their prayer. Let this be inscribed for a generation to come, that a people yet unborn may praise Yah. For the Lord has gazed down from His holy heights, from heaven to earth He has looked to hear the groans of the captive, to set loose those doomed to die, that the name of the Lord be recounted in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem when peoples gather together and kingdoms, to serve the Lord. He humbled my strength on the highway, he cut short my days. I say, “O my God. Do not take me away in the midst of my days! Your years are for all generations. Of old You founded the earth, and the heavens–Your handiwork.

‫‪ 181‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫ָׁש ַק ְד ִּתי וָ ֶא ְהיֶ ה‬ ‫ּבֹודד ַעל‪ּ-‬גָ ג‪.‬‬ ‫ְּכ ִצּפֹור ֵ‬ ‫אֹויְבי‪,‬‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ל‪-‬הּיֹום ֵח ְרפּונִ י‬ ‫ָּכ ַ‬ ‫הֹול ַלי ִּבי נִ ְׁש ָּבעּו‪.‬‬ ‫ְמ ָ‬ ‫י‪-‬א ֶפר ַּכ ֶּל ֶחם ָא ָכ ְל ִּתי‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכ ֵ‬ ‫וְ ִׁש ֻּקוַ י ִּב ְב ִכי ָמ ָס ְכ ִּתי ‪-‬‬ ‫ִמ ְּפנֵ י‪-‬זַ ַע ְמָך וְ ִק ְצ ֶּפָך‪,‬‬ ‫יכנִ י‪.‬‬ ‫אתנִ י וַ ַּת ְׁש ִל ֵ‬ ‫ִּכי נְ ָׂש ַ‬ ‫יָמי ְּכ ֵצל נָ טּוי‪,‬‬ ‫ַ‬ ‫וַ ֲאנִ י – ָּכ ֵע ֶׂשב ִא ָיבׁש‪.‬‬ ‫עֹולם ֵּת ֵׁשב‪,‬‬ ‫וְ ַא ָּתה יְ הוָ ה‪ְ ,‬ל ָ‬ ‫וְ זִ ְכ ְרָך – ְלד ֹר וָ ד ֹר‪.‬‬ ‫ַא ָּתה ָתקּום‪ְּ ,‬ת ַר ֵחם ִצּיֹון‪,‬‬ ‫מֹועד‪.‬‬ ‫י‪-‬בא ֵ‬ ‫י‪-‬עת ְל ֶחנְ נָ ּה‪ִּ ,‬כ ָ‬ ‫ִּכ ֵ‬ ‫יה‬ ‫ת‪-‬א ָבנֶ ָ‬ ‫י‪-‬רצּו ֲע ָב ֶדיָך ֶא ֲ‬ ‫ִּכ ָ‬ ‫ת‪-‬ע ָפ ָרּה יְ חֹנֵ נּו‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ֶא ֲ‬ ‫ת‪ׁ-‬שם יְ הוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫וְ יִ ְיראּו גֹויִ ם ֶא ֵ‬ ‫בֹודָך‪.‬‬ ‫ת‪ּ-‬כ ֶ‬ ‫ל‪-‬מ ְל ֵכי ָה ָא ֶרץ ֶא ְ‬ ‫וְ ָכ ַ‬ ‫י‪-‬בנָ ה יְ הוָ ה ִצּיֹון‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכ ָ‬ ‫נִ ְר ָאה ִּב ְכבֹודֹו‪.‬‬ ‫ל‪ּ-‬ת ִפ ַּלת ָה ַע ְר ָער‬ ‫ָּפנָ ה ֶא ְ‬ ‫ת‪ּ-‬ת ִפ ָּל ָתם‪.‬‬ ‫א‪-‬בזָ ה ֶא ְ‬ ‫וְ ל ֹ ָ‬ ‫ִּת ָּכ ֶתב זֹאת ְלדֹור ַא ֲחרֹון‪,‬‬ ‫וְ ַעם נִ ְב ָרא יְ ַה ֶּלל‪-‬יָ ּה‪.‬‬ ‫י‪-‬ה ְׁש ִקיף ִמ ְּמרֹום ָק ְדׁשֹו יְ הוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכ ִ‬ ‫ל‪-‬א ֶרץ ִה ִּביט‬ ‫ִמ ָּׁש ַמיִ ם ֶא ֶ‬ ‫ִל ְׁשמ ַֹע ֶאנְ ַקת ָא ִסיר‪,‬‬ ‫מּותה‪,‬‬ ‫ְל ַפ ֵּת ַח ְּבנֵ י ְת ָ‬ ‫ְל ַס ֵּפר ְּב ִצּיֹון ֵׁשם יְ הוָ ה‬ ‫ירּוׁש ָלםִ‬ ‫ּות ִה ָּלתֹו ִּב ָ‬ ‫ְ‬ ‫ְּב ִה ָּק ֵבץ ַע ִּמים יַ ְח ָּדו‬ ‫ּומ ְמ ָלכֹות‪ַ ,‬ל ֲעבֹד ֶאת‪-‬יְ הוָ ה‪.‬‬ ‫ַ‬ ‫ִעּנָ ה ַב ֶּד ֶרְך ּכ ִֹחי‬ ‫יָמי‪.‬‬ ‫ִק ַּצר ָ‬ ‫“א ִלי‪.‬‬ ‫א ַֹמר‪ֵ ,‬‬ ‫יָמי!‬ ‫ַאל ַּת ֲע ֵלנִ י ַּב ֲח ִצי ָ‬ ‫נֹותיָך‪.‬‬ ‫ּדֹורים ְׁש ֶ‬ ‫ְּבדֹור ִ‬ ‫ְל ָפנִ ים ָה ָא ֶרץ יָ ַס ְד ָּת‪,‬‬ ‫ּומ ֲע ֵׂשה יָ ֶדיָך – ָׁש ָמיִ ם‪.‬‬ ‫ַ‬

182 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

They will perish and You will yet stand. They will all wear away like a garment. Like clothing You change them, and they pass away. But You – Your years never end. The sons of Your servants dwell safe, their seed in Your presence, unshaken.” Psalm 115 Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your name give glory for Your kindness and Your steadfast truth. Why should the nations say, “Where is their god?” when our God is in the heavens– all that He desired He has done. Their idols are silver and gold, the handiwork of man. A mouth they have but they do not speak, eyes they have but they do not see. Ears they have but they do not hear, a nose they have but they do not smell. Their hands–but they do not feel; their feet–but they do not walk; they make no sound with their throat. Like them may be those who make them, all who trust in them. O Israel, trust in the Lord, their help and their shield is He. House of Aaron, O trust in the Lord, their help and their shield is He. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord, their help and their shield is He. The Lord recalls us, may He bless, may He bless the house of Israel, may He bless the house of Aaron. May He bless those who fear the Lord, the lesser with the great. May the Lord grant you increase, Both you and your children.

‫‪ 183‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫אבדּו וְ ַא ָּתה ַת ֲעמֹד‪.‬‬ ‫ֵה ָּמה י ֹ ֵ‬ ‫וְ ֻכ ָּלם ַּכ ֶּבגֶ ד ְיִבלּו‪.‬‬ ‫יפם‪ ,‬וְ יַ ֲחֹלפּו‪.‬‬ ‫ַּכ ְּלבּוׁש ַּת ֲח ִל ֵ‬ ‫נֹותיָך לֹא יִ ָּתּמּו‪.‬‬ ‫ּוׁש ֶ‬ ‫וְ ַא ָּתה‪-‬הּוא – ְ‬ ‫י‪-‬ע ָב ֶדיָך יִ ְׁשּכֹונּו‪,‬‬ ‫ְּבנֵ ֲ‬ ‫וְ זַ ְר ָעם ְל ָפנֶ יָך‪ ,‬יִ ּכֹון”‪.‬‬ ‫תהלים קטו‬ ‫א‪-‬לנּו‬ ‫לֹא ָלנּו יְ הוָ ה‪ ,‬ל ֹ ָ‬ ‫י‪-‬ל ִׁש ְמָך ֵּתן ָּכבֹוד‬ ‫ִּכ ְ‬ ‫ל‪-‬א ִמ ֶּתָך‪.‬‬ ‫ל‪-‬ח ְס ְּדָך ַע ֲ‬ ‫ַע ַ‬ ‫אמרּו ַהּגֹויִ ם‬ ‫ָל ָּמה‪ ,‬י ֹ ְ‬ ‫יהם?״‬ ‫ֹלה ֶ‬ ‫״אּיֵ ה‪-‬נָ א ֱא ֵ‬ ‫ַ‬ ‫אֹלהינּו ַב ָּׁש ָמיִ ם ‪-‬‬ ‫וֵ ֵ‬ ‫ר‪-‬ח ֵפץ ָע ָׂשה‪.‬‬ ‫ּכֹל ֲא ֶׁש ָ‬ ‫יהם‪ֶּ ,‬כ ֶסף וְ זָ ָהב‪,‬‬ ‫ֲע ַצ ֵּב ֶ‬ ‫ַמ ֲע ֵׂשה‪ ,‬יְ ֵדי ָא ָדם‪.‬‬ ‫ה‪-‬ל ֶהם‪ ,‬וְ לֹא יְ ַד ֵּברּו‪,‬‬ ‫ֶּפ ָ‬ ‫ֵעינַ יִ ם ָל ֶהם‪ ,‬וְ לֹא יִ ְראּו‪.‬‬ ‫ָאזְ נַ יִ ם ָל ֶהם‪ ,‬וְ לֹא יִ ְׁש ָמעּו‪,‬‬ ‫ַאף ָל ֶהם‪ ,‬וְ לֹא יְ ִריחּון‪.‬‬ ‫יהם ‪ -‬וְ לֹא יְ ִמיׁשּון;‬ ‫יְ ֵד ֶ‬ ‫יהם ‪ -‬וְ לֹא יְ ַה ֵּלכּו;‬ ‫ַרגְ ֵל ֶ‬ ‫לֹא‪-‬יֶ ְהּגּו ִּבגְ רֹונָ ם‪.‬‬ ‫יהם‪,‬‬ ‫מֹוהם יִ ְהיּו ע ֵֹׂש ֶ‬ ‫ְּכ ֶ‬ ‫ּכֹל ֲא ֶׁשר‪ּ-‬ב ֵֹט ַח ָּב ֶהם‬ ‫יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‪ְּ ,‬ב ַטח ַּביהוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ּומגִ ּנָ ם הּוא‪.‬‬ ‫ֶעזְ ָרם ָ‬ ‫ֵּבית ַא ֲהר ֹן‪ִּ ,‬ב ְטחּו ַביהוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ּומגִ ּנָ ם הּוא‪.‬‬ ‫ֶעזְ ָרם ָ‬ ‫יִ ְר ֵאי יְ הוָ ה‪ִּ ,‬ב ְטחּו ַביהוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ּומגִ ּנָ ם הּוא‪.‬‬ ‫ֶעזְ ָרם ָ‬ ‫יְ הוָ ה‪ ,‬זְ ָכ ָרנּו ָיְב ֵרְך‬ ‫ת‪ּ-‬בית יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‪,‬‬ ‫ָיְב ֵרְך ֶא ֵ‬ ‫ת‪ּ-‬בית ַא ֲהר ֹן‪.‬‬ ‫ָיְב ֵרְך ֶא ֵ‬ ‫ָיְב ֵרְך‪ ,‬יִ ְר ֵאי יְ הוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ם‪-‬הּגְ ד ִֹלים‪.‬‬ ‫ַה ְּק ַטּנִ ים ִע ַ‬ ‫יכם‪,‬‬ ‫י ֵֹסף יְ הוָ ה ֲע ֵל ֶ‬ ‫יכם‪.‬‬ ‫יכם וְ ַעל ְּבנֵ ֶ‬ ‫ֲע ֵל ֶ‬

184 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

Blessed are you by the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. The heavens are heavens for the Lord, And the earth He has given to humankind. The dead do not praise the Lord Nor all who go down into silence. But we will bless Yah Now and forevermore, hallelujah. Psalm 122 A song of ascents for David. I rejoiced in those who said to me: “Let us go to the house of the Lord.” Our feet were standing in your gates, Jerusalem. Jerusalem built like a town that is joined fast together, where the tribes go up, the tribes of Yah. An ordinance it is for Israel to acclaim the name of the Lord. For there the thrones of judgement stand, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for Jerusalem’s weal. May your lovers rest tranquil! May there be well-being within your ramparts, tranquility in your palaces. For the sake of my brothers and my companions, let me speak, pray, of your weal. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, let me seek your good. Psalm 125 A song of ascents. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion never shaken, settled forever.

‫‪ 185‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫רּוכים ַא ֶּתם‪ַ ,‬ליהוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫ְּב ִ‬ ‫ע ֵֹׂשה‪ָׁ ,‬ש ַמיִ ם וָ ָא ֶרץ‪.‬‬ ‫ַה ָּׁש ַמיִ ם ָׁש ַמיִ ם‪ַ ,‬ליהוָ ה‪,‬‬ ‫י‪-‬א ָדם‪.‬‬ ‫וְ ָה ָא ֶרץ‪ ,‬נָ ַתן ִל ְבנֵ ָ‬ ‫לֹא ַה ֵּמ ִתים יְ ַה ְללּו‪-‬יָ ּה‬ ‫דּומה‪.‬‬ ‫וְ לֹא ָּכל‪-‬י ְֹר ֵדי ָ‬ ‫וַ ֲאנַ ְחנּו נְ ָב ֵרְך יָ ּה‬ ‫ד‪-‬עֹולם‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ֵמ ַע ָּתה וְ ַע‬ ‫ַה ְללּו‪-‬יָ ּה‪.‬‬ ‫תהלים קכב‬ ‫ִׁשיר ַה ַּמ ֲעלֹות ְל ָדוִ ד‪.‬‬ ‫ָׂש ַמ ְח ִּתי ְּבא ְֹמ ִרים ִלי‪:‬‬ ‫“ּבית יְ הוָ ה נֵ ֵלְך”‪.‬‬ ‫ֵ‬ ‫ע ְֹמדֹות ָהיּו ַרגְ ֵלינּו‬ ‫רּוׁש ָלםִ‪.‬‬ ‫ִּב ְׁש ָע ַריִ ְך‪ ,‬יְ ָ‬ ‫רּוׁש ַלםִ ַה ְּבנּויָ ה‬ ‫יְ ָ‬ ‫ה‪ּ-‬לּה יַ ְח ָּדו‪,‬‬ ‫ְּכ ִעיר ֶׁש ֻח ְּב ָר ָ‬ ‫ֶׁש ָּׁשם ָעלּו ְׁש ָב ִטים‪,‬‬ ‫ִׁש ְב ֵטי‪-‬יָ ּה‪.‬‬ ‫ֵעדּות ְליִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫ְלהֹדֹות ְל ֵׁשם יְ הוָ ה‪.‬‬ ‫ִּכי ָׁש ָּמה יָ ְׁשבּו ִכ ְסאֹות ְל ִמ ְׁש ָּפט‪,‬‬ ‫ִּכ ְסאֹות ְל ֵבית ָּדוִ ד‪.‬‬ ‫רּוׁש ָלםִ‪.‬‬ ‫ַׁש ֲאלּו ְׁשלֹום יְ ָ‬ ‫יִ ְׁש ָליּו א ֲֹה ָביִ ְך!‬ ‫י‪ׁ-‬שלֹום ְּב ֵח ֵילְך‪,‬‬ ‫יְ ִה ָ‬ ‫נֹותיִ ְך‪.‬‬ ‫ַׁש ְלוָ ה ְּב ַא ְר ְמ ָ‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען ַא ַחי וְ ֵר ָעי‪,‬‬ ‫ֲא ַד ְּב ָרה‪ּ-‬נָ א ָׁשלֹום ָּבְך‪.‬‬ ‫ֹלהינּו‪,‬‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען ֵּבית‪-‬יְ הוָ ה ֱא ֵ‬ ‫ֲא ַב ְק ָׁשה טֹוב ָלְך‪.‬‬ ‫תהלים קכה‬ ‫ִׁשיר ַה ַּמ ֲעלֹות‪.‬‬ ‫ַהּב ְֹט ִחים ַּביהוָ ה‬ ‫ר‪-‬צּיֹון לֹא‪-‬יִ ּמֹוט‪,‬‬ ‫ְּכ ַה ִ‬ ‫עֹולם יֵ ֵׁשב‪.‬‬ ‫ְל ָ‬

186 

 Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter)

Jerusalem, mountains around it, and the Lord is around His people now and forevermore. For the rod of wickedness will not rest on the portion of the righteous, so that the righteous not set their hands to wrongdoing. Do good, O Lord, to the good and to the upright in their hearts. And those who bend to crookedness, may the Lord take them off with the wrongdoers. Peace upon Israel! Psalm 137 By Babylon’s streams, there we sat, Oh we wept, when we recalled Zion. On the poplars there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors had asked of us words of song, and our plunderers–rejoicing: “Sing us from Zlon’s songs.” How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil? Should I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand wither. May my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not recall you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my Chief joy. Recall, O Lord, the Edomites, on the day of Jerusalem, saying: “Raze it, raze it, to its foundation!” Daughter of Babylon the despoiler, happy who pays you back in kind, for What you did to us. Happy who seizes and smashes your infants against the rock.

‫‪ 187‬‬

‫ )‪Appendix: Selected Psalms on Jerusalem (translated by Robert Alter‬‬

‫רּוׁש ַלםִ‪ָ ,‬ה ִרים ָס ִביב ָלּה‪,‬‬ ‫יְ ָ‬ ‫וַ יהוָ ה ָס ִביב ְל ַעּמֹו‬ ‫ד‪-‬עֹולם‪.‬‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ֵמ ַע ָּתה וְ ַע‬ ‫נּוח ֵׁש ֶבט ָה ֶר ַׁשע‬ ‫ִּכי לֹא יָ ַ‬ ‫יקים‬ ‫ּגֹורל ַה ַּצ ִּד ִ‬ ‫ַעל ַ‬ ‫יקים‬ ‫ְל ַמ ַען לֹא‪-‬יִ ְׁש ְלחּו ַה ַּצ ִּד ִ‬ ‫יהם‪.‬‬ ‫ְּב ַעוְ ָל ָתה יְ ֵד ֶ‬ ‫ּטֹובים‬ ‫יט ָיבה‪ ,‬יְ הוָ ה‪ַ ,‬ל ִ‬ ‫ֵה ִ‬ ‫ּבֹותם‪.‬‬ ‫יׁש ִרים ְּב ִל ָ‬ ‫וְ ִל ָ‬ ‫ּלֹותם‪,‬‬ ‫וְ ַה ַּמ ִּטים ֲע ַק ְל ַק ָ‬ ‫יכם יְ הוָ ה ֶאת‪ּ-‬פ ֲֹע ֵלי ָה ָאוֶ ן‪.‬‬ ‫יֹול ֵ‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫ָׁשלֹום ַעל‪-‬יִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל!‬ ‫תהלים קלז‬ ‫ַעל נַ ֲהרֹות ָּב ֶבל‪,‬‬ ‫ם‪ּ-‬ב ִכינּו‪,‬‬ ‫ָׁשם יָ ַׁש ְבנּו‪ּ ,‬גַ ָ‬ ‫ת‪-‬צּיֹון‪.‬‬ ‫ְּבזָ ְכ ֵרנּו ֶא ִ‬ ‫תֹוכּה‬ ‫ל‪-‬ע ָר ִבים ְּב ָ‬ ‫ַע ֲ‬ ‫ֹרֹותינּו‪.‬‬ ‫ָּת ִלינּו ִּכּנ ֵ‬ ‫ׁשֹובינּו‬ ‫ִּכי ָׁשם ְׁש ֵאלּונּו ֵ‬ ‫י‪ׁ-‬שיר‬ ‫ִּד ְב ֵר ִ‬ ‫תֹול ֵלינּו – ִׂש ְמ ָחה‪:‬‬ ‫וְ ָ‬ ‫“ׁשירּו ָלנּו ִמ ִּׁשיר ִצּיֹון”‪.‬‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫ת‪ׁ-‬שיר‪-‬יְ הוָ ה‬ ‫ֵאיְך נָ ִׁשיר ֶא ִ‬ ‫ַעל ַא ְד ַמת נֵ ָכר?‬ ‫רּוׁש ָלםִ‪,‬‬ ‫ם‪-‬א ְׁש ָּכ ֵחְך‪ ,‬יְ ָ‬ ‫ִא ֶ‬ ‫ִּת ְׁש ַּכח יְ ִמינִ י‪.‬‬ ‫ק‪-‬לׁשֹונִ י ְל ִח ִּכי‬ ‫ִּת ְד ַּב ְ‬ ‫ִאם‪-‬לֹא ֶאזְ ְּכ ֵר ִכי‪,‬‬ ‫רּוׁש ַלםִ‬ ‫ִאם‪-‬לֹא ַא ֲע ֶלה ֶאת‪-‬יְ ָ‬ ‫ַעל רֹאׁש ִׂש ְמ ָח ִתי‪.‬‬ ‫זְ כֹר‪ ,‬יְ הוָ ה‪ִ ,‬ל ְבנֵ י ֱאדֹום‪,‬‬ ‫רּוׁש ָלםִ‪ָ ,‬הא ְֹמ ִרים‪:‬‬ ‫ֵאת יֹום יְ ָ‬ ‫“ערּו‪ָ ,‬ערּו‪,‬‬ ‫ָ‬ ‫ַעד ַהיְ סֹוד ָּבּה!”‬ ‫דּודה‪,‬‬ ‫ת‪ּ-‬ב ֶבל ַה ְּׁש ָ‬ ‫ַּב ָ‬ ‫מּולְך‪,‬‬ ‫ם‪-‬לְך ֶאת‪ּ-‬גְ ֵ‬ ‫ַא ְׁש ֵרי ֶׁשיְ ַׁש ֶּל ָ‬ ‫ֶׁשּגָ ַמ ְל ְּת ָלנּו‪.‬‬ ‫אחז וְ נִ ֵּפץ‬ ‫ַא ְׁש ֵרי ֶׁשּי ֹ ֵ‬ ‫ל‪-‬ה ָּס ַלע‪.‬‬ ‫ֶאת‪-‬ע ָֹל ַליִ ְך ֶא ַ‬

Notes on Contributors Leora F. Batnitzky is Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Jewish Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Idolatry and Representation: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig Reconsidered (Princeton, 2000), Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation (Cambridge, 2006), and How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought (Princeton, 2011). Her current book project, tentatively titled “Conversion Before the Law: How Religion and Law Shape Each Other in the Modern World,” focuses on a number of contemporary legal cases concerning religious conversion in the U.S., Great Britain, Israel, and India. She is co-editor, with Ilana Pardes, of The Book of Job: Aesthetics, Ethics and Hermeneutics (de Gruyter, 2014) as well as co-editor, with Yonatan Brafman, of an anthology Jewish Legal Theories, for the Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought. She is co-editing Institutionalizing Rights and Religion, with Hanoch Dagan, to be published by Cambridge University Press and is also co-editor, with Ra’anan Boustan, of the journal Jewish Studies Quarterly. Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has written on subjects ranging from representations of the Holocaust in postwar American, Israeli and European culture to the configurations of exile and homecoming in contemporary Jewish literature. In 2007 she became a Guggenheim Fellow for her current project on “Jerusalem and the Poetics of Return.” Ronald Hendel is the Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and is the author of many articles and books on the Bible, including The Book of Genesis: A Biography (2013), Steps to a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible (2016) and How Old is the Hebrew Bible? (2018, co-authored with Jan Joosten). He is the general editor of The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition, sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature. Vivian Liska, Professor of German literature and Director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. In addition, since 2013, Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Faculty of the Humanities at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has published extensively on literary theory, German modernism, and German-Jewish authors and thinkers. She is the (co-) editor of numerous books, among them the two-volume ICLA publication Modernism (2007), which was awarded the Prize of the Modernist Studies Association in 2008 and, most recently, Kafka and the Universal (2016). She is the editor of the book series “Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts” (De Gruyter, Berlin). In 2012, she was awarded the Cross of Honor for Sciences and the Arts from the Republic of Austria. Her books include Giorgio Agamben’s Empty Messianism (2008); When Kafka Says We. Uncommon Communities in German-Jewish Literature (2008); Fremde Gemeinschaft. Deutsch-jüdische Literatur der Moderne (2011) and, most recently, German-Jewish Thought and its Afterlife. A Tenuous Legacy (2017). Ruth Kara- Ivanov Kaniel, Lecturer at Haifa University, a Research Fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Her book https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110460803-011

190 

 Notes on Contributors

“Holiness and Transgression: Mothers of the Messiah in the Jewish Myth” was published by Academic Studies Press, 2017. [Hebrew version Hakibbutz Hameuhad Press 2014]. Her new book “Human Ropes – Birth in Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis” is in print by Series in Criticism Culture and Interpretation – Bar Ilan University and Carmel (2018). Ruth’s current research deals with intersections between mysticism, gender, and psychoanalysis. Ophir Münz-Manor, an associate professor of Rabbinic Culture in the Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies at the Open University, is a specialist in Jewish liturgy and liturgical poetry from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. His studies focus on the intersections with contemporary Christian texts as well as questions of ritual, performance and gender in late antique Near Eastern cultures. Ilana Pardes is the Katharine Cornell Professor of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Director of the Center for Literary Studies at HU. She is the author of Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Harvard University Press, 1992), The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible (University of California Press, 2000), Melville’s Bibles (University of California, 2008); Agnon’s Moonstruck Lovers: The Song of Songs in Israeli Culture (The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies, University of Washington Press, 2013), The Song of Songs: A Biography (Lives of great Religious Books, Princeton University Press, 2019). She is co-editor, with Ruth Ginsburg, of New Perspective on Moses and Monotheism (Niemeyer, 2006); and co-editor, with Leora Batnitzky, of The Book of Job: Aesthetics, Ethics, Hermeneutics (De Gruyter, 2015). Yael Sela is a faculty member and Head of the Program in Music at the Open University of Israel (since 2014). Having completed her graduate studies at the University of Oxford (2010), she has held several postdoctoral research fellowships at Universities in Berlin, Philadelphia, and Jerusalem. Her research interests are in the cultural and intellectual history of music at intersections with Jewish thought and Jewish intellectual history, politics, aesthetics, and literature in early modern Germany and England. Her current research is concerned with the role of aesthetics, poetics, and the musical origins of Hebrew Scripture in Moses Mendelssohn’s biblical exegesis and political theology, as well as with the reception of these ideas in the German Aufklärung and Jewish Haskalah in Prussia during the second half of the eighteenth century. Jonathan Stavsky is Senior Lecturer of English at Tel Aviv University and Alon Early Career Fellow. A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and previous recipient of the Fulbright and Mandel postdoctoral fellowships, he is the author of a critical edition, translation, and study of the Middle English romance Le Bone Florence of Rome (University of Wales Press, 2017). In addition, he has published on the fifteenth-century reception of Chaucer’s poetry and on late-medieval configurations of the story of Susanna and the Elders. His current research project follows the development of anti-literary attitudes in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and beyond and traces their contribution to shaping the modern concept of literature. Ariel Zinder is a lecturer in the department of literature at Tel Aviv University. His research interests include Hebrew liturgical poetry, medieval Hebrew literature, literary theory and the

Notes on Contributors  

 191

interconnections between literature and religion. His PhD dissertation (submitted to the Hebrew University in 2014) is made up of a critical edition of the penitential poetry of Itzhak Ibn Giyyat (Andalusia, 11th century) and a literary-historical discussion of those poems. Currently he is working on a critical edition of Giyyat’s full oeuvre, as well as several other projects. Among these are the history of the representation of God’s voice in Hebrew poetry, and an interpretive discussion of the relation of poetry to ritual in medieval Jewish culture. In 2012 he published the book “Is it thy Voice?” – Rhetorical and Dialogical Aspects of Solomon Ibn-Gabirol’s Liturgical Poems of Redemption (the Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies, 2012, in Hebrew). Zinder is also a published poet and translator. He recently published (with co-translator Lyor Sternberg) the first Hebrew translation of Seamus Heaney’s selected poems.