Nine Talmudic Readings

Emmanuel Levinas

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780253040503
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

These nine masterful readings of the Talmud by the renowned French Jewish philosopher translate Jewish thought into the language of modern times. One of the major continental philosophers of the twentieth century, Emmanuel Levinas was also an important Talmudic commentator. Between 1963 and 1975, he delivered an enlightening and influential series of commentaries at the annual Talmudic colloquia of a group of French Jewish intellectuals in Paris. In this collection, Levinas applies a hermeneutic that simultaneously allows the classic Jewish texts to shed light on contemporary problems and lets modern problems illuminate the texts. Besides being quintessential illustrations of the art of reading, the essays express the deeply ethical vision of the human condition that makes Levinas one of the most important thinkers of our time.

FROM THE SACRED TO THE HOLY

Five New Talmudic Readings

PREFACE

THE TALKS GATHERED IN THIS volume were delivered between 1969 and 1975 at the Colloquia of French-speaking Jewish Intellectuals, organized by the French section of the World Jewish Congress. We have retained the rhythm of their original oral version in their current written form and have included as well a few reminders of the circumstances in which they were spoken. We did this also for the earlier talks, which appeared under the title Four Talmudic Readings in 1968.

This form seems suited to the presentation of passages from the Talmud, which is an oral teaching. Even in its transformation into tractates, the Talmud preserved the openness and the challenge of living speech. It cannot be summarized by the term “dialogue” which is so abused today. This discourse does not resemble any other literary genre: talmudic speech is no doubt its model and its proper, privileged place. Besides, are we dealing with a question of literature in this speech which wishes not to be written? It is a speech whose elevation adapts to—or makes use of—a certain barrenness of words, a certain conciseness of form, as if it were still gesture, delighting in allusion. It is wary of rhetoric, which, from the depth of all language, throws up its bewitching illusions and warps the woof of a text. It is a way of speaking which thus remains completely sober because of its very indifference to style, which is to say, to writing. This sobriety surpasses that of many modern interpreters who, moreover, are not always aware of the extent of this state of wakefulness. Accordingly, in none of the five “talmudic readings” published here have we deleted the few prefatory sentences that risk passing for an oratorical precaution, in which the speaker admits or declares his stage fright; actually, these sentences reveal, in diverse ways, his scruple, his humility, and the homage he renders to an utmost intelligence and subtlety.

Surely there are less cumbersome ways of approaching the Talmud. The traditional approach would, in any event, require fewer excuses. The famous “study of the Torah” is, for Jewish piety, the fulfilment of a divine will, as worthy as obedience to all the other commandments combined. It has preserved Israel throughout the ages. It is certain of its course and of its paths. These difficult and intricate paths require concentration, logical vigor, and gifts of invention. Very natural as well is the other form of reading, adopted with rigor by historians and philologists, who would lean on science—still in its infancy in this area—and reconstitute the talmudic heritage on the basis of its sources: They wait for anachronisms and contradictory moves to collide with each other in these pages, which are venerated by others but are approached by them head on.

But neither the certainty of Jewish piety nor the “certainties” of the “science of Judaism”—Wissenschaft des Judentums—guide the “talmudic readings” proposed here. We are in less of a hurry than the historians and philologists to deconstruct the traditional landscape of the text, which for more than a millennium sheltered the soul of Judaism, dispersed and at one. Despite the variety of these most ancient epochs, in which the ground and the topography of its landscape were constituted and in which its horizons were outlined, the text was already unchangeable, invested by a spirituality that found its expression, its intellectual and moral archetypes and the reflections of its light, in its forms. The marvel of a confluence and the power of the current flowing from it equal the marvel of a single, contested source. But if, in loyalty to the “lived” and received text, we have not separated out the different strata of this sedimentation of history, we have, upon entering it, felt less called upon than does traditional study to make “practical decisions” proceeding from the Law and less given to—but perhaps also less gifted in—the speculative virtuosity of the great masters, whose sublime art nonetheless constitutes in the “houses of study”—the yeshivot—a very noteworthy aesthetic.

What matters to us is to ask questions of these texts—to which Jewish wisdom is tied as if to the soil—in terms of our problems as modern men. But this does not mean an immediate right to selection and to a pretentious separation of the out-of-date from the permanent. One must first take into account the nonrhetorical character of this talmudic speaking and read it without neglecting its articulations, which may seem to be contingent but in which the essential is often hidden and in which one can almost hear its spirit breathing. It is to this preliminary task and to the very idea of such a task that our little book tries to contribute. Traditional study does not always expose the meanings that appear thus, or else it takes them for truisms that “go without saying,” carried away as it is by the dialectic that overflows them; or else it states them in a language and in a context that are not always audible to those who remain outside. We strive to speak otherwise.

A word, finally, about content. We wished in these readings to bring out the catharsis or demythification of the religious that Jewish wisdom performs. It does this in opposition to the interpretation of myths—ancient or modern—through recourse to other myths, often more obscure and more cruel, albeit more widespread, and which, by this fact, pass for being more profound, sacred, or universal. The oral Torah speaks “in spirit and in truth,” even when it seems to do violence to the verses and letters of the written Torah. From the Torah it extracts ethical meaning as the ultimate intelligibility of the human and even of the cosmic. That is why we have entitled the present book From the Sacred to the Holy, even though these words pertain, strictly speaking, only to the theme of the third reading of the series.

This preface appears in Levinas’s Du sacré au saint: cinq nouvelles lectures talmudiques (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1977), which includes the last five commentaries in the present volume.

JUDAISM AND REVOLUTION

From the Tractate Baba Metsia, pp. 83a–84a

Mishna He who hires workers and tells them to begin early and finish late cannot force them to it if beginning early and finishing late does not conform to the custom of the place.

Where the custom is that they be fed, he is obligated to feed them; where it is that they be served dessert, he must serve them dessert. Everything goes according to the custom of the place.

One day, Rabbi Johanan ben Mathia said to his son: Go hire some workers. The son included food among the conditions. When he came back, the father said: My son, even if you prepared a meal for them equal to the one King Solomon served, you would not have fulfilled your obligation toward them, for they are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As long as they have not begun to work, go and, specify: You are only entitled to bread and dry vegetables.

Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel said: It was not necessary to say it, for, in all matters, one acts according to the custom of the place.

Gemara Doesn’t this go without saying? If an employer were to pay a higher wage, it would be possible to think that he is saying to the workers: I agreed to pay you a higher salary assuming that you would begin earlier and finish later. Thus, our text teaches us that they can answer him: You have increased our salary so that we work with more care.

Resh Lakish said: The hired worker is on his own time going home; going to work is on his employer’s time, for it is written (Psalm 104:22–23): “When the sun rises, they leave and go hide in their lairs; man then goes to his work, to his labor until evening.” But shouldn’t we look at custom? In question is a new city. Shouldn’t one consider where they come from? At issue is a population of diverse origins. And, if you wish, one can say: that is in the case in which he told them he was hiring them according to the law of the Torah.

Rav Zera taught (others say it was Rav Jose): It is written: “You bring on darkness and it is night.” It is this world which is like night; “the night in which all beasts of the forest stir” (Psalm 104:20); those are the evil-doers in this world, who are comparable to the beasts of the forest. “When the sun rises, they go away and hide in their lairs” (Psalm 104:22). When the sun rises for the just, the evildoers withdraw to hell, “they go away and hide in their lairs” (it must be read “in their houses,” and it is the just who are spoken of here: there is no just man who does not have a home corresponding to his dignity). “Man then goes out to his work”: the just will receive their reward. “To his labor until evening” (Psalm 104:23): he who knew how to continue his task until evening.

One day, Rabbi Eleazar ben Rabbi Simeon met a government official responsible for catching thieves. He said to him: How can you detect them? Are they not equal to brutes? For it is said: “In it, all the beasts of the night stir.” According to others, it would have been another verse that he interpreted (Psalm 10:9): “He waits in a covert like a lion in his lair; waits to seize the lowly.” And what if you caught a just man and let an evil-doer go? The police official answered: What can I do? It is the order of the king. Then Rabbi Eleazar ben Simeon replied: Come, I will show you how you should proceed. Around four o’clock (ten o’clock), go to the tavern; if you see a wine drinker holding a glass in his hand and dozing, inform yourself. If he is a scholar, he must have risen early to study; if he is a day laborer, he must have gone to work early; if he works the night shift, he could have been making needles. He did not go to work in the daytime but he worked at night; but if he is none of the above, he is a thief and you can arrest him. When this reached the king’s ears, it was said: The reader of the message can serve as messenger. They looked for Rabbi Eleazar. And the latter arrested thieves. Hence, Rabbi Joshua bar Karhah relayed this to him: Vinegar, son of wine, how much longer will you deliver unto death the people of our God? Rabbi Eleazar conveyed this answer to him: I remove the thorns from the vineyard. The other retorted: Let the owner of the vineyard come and remove the thorns himself.

One day a laundryman met him and called him: Vinegar, son of wine! Rabbi Eleazar said: His insolence is no doubt a sign that he is an evil-doer. He gave the order to arrest him. After having calmed down, he went to set him free but this was no longer possible. He then said about him (Proverbs 21:23): “He who guards his mouth and tongue guards himself from trouble.” When they hanged him, he stood under the gallows and wept. They then said to him: Master, calm yourself. Right on the Day of Atonement, he and his son had illicit relations with the betrothed of another man. He put his hands on his own body and said: Rejoice, my innards, for if those who seem suspicious to us have come to this point, how much worse are those whose case is clear-cut? I am sure that neither worms nor decay will have power over you. But nonetheless he was not reassured. He was given a sleeping draught.…

The same thing happened to Rabbi Ishmael ben Rabbi Jose. One day, the prophet Elijah met him and said: How long will you deliver the people of our God to execution? He answered: What can I do, it is the order of the King. Elijah said to him: Your father fled to Asia; flee to Laodicea.

THE TEXT

As always when I begin my talmudic reading at this colloquium of intellectuals, I fear the presence in the room of people who know the Talmud better than I do. That is not a difficult feat but one which places me in a state of mortal sin, the sin of the student holding forth before his master. This year, in addition, one also has to contend with those who challenge Judaism. Since, in all likelihood, the latter are not the former, this makes for a lot of people to fear.

I have not indicated the title of my lesson. Maybe that of the colloquium as a whole will best suit my subject: “Judaism and Revolution.” The meaning I intend to give to the conjunction joining the two title words will emerge in the course of the commentary. Commentary or interpretation? A reading of the meaning in the text or the text in a meaning? Obedience or boldness? Safety in proceeding or a taking of risks? In any case neither paraphrase nor paradox; neither philology nor arbitrariness.

We have before us a text which it would be wrong to label medieval. The Middle Ages have a beginning and an end (395–1453). The Mishna was edited at the end of the second century of our era. Our text is thus from the end of Antiquity, and the end of Antiquity is a venerable period. One of the eminent philosophers of our time assured me one day that, by the second century of our common era, everything had already been thought. Only the details remain to be specified. What follows my text—the Gemara—is of later origin; but at the beginning of the Middle Ages, many of the fine traditions of Antiquity were still alive.

THE WORKER THAT ONE HIRES

He who hires workers and tells them to begin early and finish late cannot force them to it if beginning early and finishing late does not conform to the custom of the place.

Where the custom is that they be fed, he is obligated to feed them; where it is that they be served dessert, he must serve them dessert. Everything goes according to the custom of the place.

It is clear from the start that the Mishna affirms the rights of the other person, even if this person finds himself in the inferior position, which is dangerous to his freedom, of a worker for hire. This position is dangerous to his freedom because he runs the risk of losing his liberty without undergoing any violence; to be sure, the person is still acting willingly since he engages himself and stays within the interpersonal commerce of an exchange; but commerce is at the border line of alienation, and freedom easily turns into non-freedom. Our text teaches that not everything can be bought and not everything can be sold. The freedom to negotiate has limits which impose themselves in the name of freedom itself. It matters little that the limits formulated here are not the same as those demanded by modern trade unions. What matters is the principle of limits imposed on freedom for the greater glory of freedom. It is the spirit in which the limits are set: they concern the material conditions of life, sleep and food. Sublime materialism! The secretary who typed the translation of the page I am commenting on was not mistaken when she exclaimed: “But this is a trade union text!” A union text before the letter, certainly. For the nature of the limits imposed is fixed by custom and evolves with custom. But custom is already a resistance against the arbitrary and against violence. Its notion of a general principle is tribal and somewhat childish, but it is a notion of a general principle, the root of the universal and the Law. Sublime materialism, concerned with dessert. Food is not the fuel necessary to the human machine; food is a meal. No humanist eloquence comes to spoil this text, which really defends man. Authentic humanism, materialistic humanism. Hearts open very easily to the working class, wallets with more difficulty. What opens with the most difficulty of all are the doors of o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• A Few Words on the New Edition
• New Introduction—Levinas’s Talmudic Readings: Thirty Years Later
• Acknowledgments
• Translator’s Introduction
• Four Talmudic Readings
• From the Sacred to the Holy: Five New Talmudic Readings
• Glossary