In the previous installlment of this series we argued that Chazal's approach to finding multi-level meaning in the Torah verses relates to a basic feature fo Biblical Hebrew - its building of a matrix of meanings around the basic mishkal, so that every word both is defined and defines others in context. In other words, unlike in the European languages, the consideration of the immediate and distant context actually defines the meaning of words, not merely helps determine their set, pre-existent meaning. We continue:
One would be hard pressed to write a chemistry textbook in ancient Hebrew but it makes for truly great mystical poetry. One can say and pack a great deal of diverse meaning into a few words of the Holy Tongue.
This feature of Biblical Hebrew has been appreciated in the past but has been systematically and purposefully suppressed since the rise of European Enlightement. The Gentile rationalists were confused and put off by the magical and mystical qualities of Biblical Hebrew and Jewish maskilim were ashamed of anything that was not scientific, accurate, or European. The rise of modern Hebrew, a creation of native speakers of Yiddish, Russian and German, farther confused the issue, for they recreated this resurrected language along the lines of their native tongues.
The fact that every word is dynamically defined by its immediate context as well as all other instances of its appearance in the Bible leads us directly to an essentail feature of Rabbinic approach to exegesis. The Rabbis always sought to compare and contrast words and phrases on the assumption that similar usages of the word convey similar or identical meaning. One specific reflection of this general tendency is the concept of the gezeirah shava or banyan av, a method of imparting the same significance to the same word and then modifying it based on context. How does the context modify the meaning of the word, does one go back and forth between passages to modify them in conformity to each other, to what extent, are subject to well documented tannaitic disputes. What is important is to realize that this basic indeterminacy of word meaning practically demands the existence of Oral Law as an outside parameter to particularize meaning. “A beautiful fruit” describes the Ethrog beautifully but it is not in the nature of Biblical Hebrew to assign a specific name to a particular fruit. The context will tell. The Rabbis ( as other users of language) would collate other usages of such terms, collect internal clues, weigh and consider alternative explanations and ultimately bequeath to us the definition of the intended fruit that would have been so easy for an European language to provide but is not in the nature of the Hebrew tongue. On the other hand, our appreciation and perception of the ethrog is immeasurably richer for it including these other meanings and associations.
These concepts are best grasped thorough an example.
The Talmud in Sukka 35a attempts to establish the identity of the fruit we now called ethrog prescribed to be taken on the first day of the festival of Sukkot.
The Rabbis taught: “…grand fruit of tree” – one that the taste of the fruit and tree is the same, one would say that this is ethrog. But may be it is peppers as we taught:’ “Rabbi Meir used to say: Since it states: …and you shall plant every edible tree – do I not know that it is a tree that produces food? So what is “edible tree” – that the taste of the fruit and the tree is the same-one would say that it is peppers…”.
That is different. There it is impossible (to use peppers). How shall one perform (the mitsva)?. If he takes one pepper, it is not visible. If he takes two or three – the Torah intimates one.
Rebbi says: do not read hadar (grand) but hadir (corral). A tree that houses small and large fruit at the same time (as corral houses young and old animals at once)…Rabbi Abbahu says: do not read (hadar) grand but hadar (that dwells) – that dwells (persists) on the tree from year to year. Ben Azzai says: Do not read Hadar but hadur for in the Greek language they call water hadur (hydro). Which specie requires constant watering – one would say that it is ethrog”.
This passage is mystifying until we realize that in the Holy Tongue there are no proper names for most fruits as there are no individual and specific names for places, concepts or events. They are derived form descriptions and retain a character of description. Thus for example, grapes are usually called anavim; however, this word really means something like berries. Nouns are weak in Biblical Hebrew and are really congealed verbs, actions stopped at a single point in time. Although usually applied to grapes, this word can be found used in its generic form to signify an oval fruit or tree product of certain size and characteristics . The same is the case for the word tapuach that is used for decorations as well as fruits but now has come to signify specifically apples. A native speaker of the ancient Hebew language would use clues to determine how a word is being used or meant; to him, the word tapuach does not necessarily refer to apples and whether it does or does not will be determined by context and local and general associations.
I do not meant to claim that our verse should be interpreted as purely descriptive and that any grand fruit is acceptable. This is, in fact, how the Karaites understood this passage but they erred in approaching Bibicla Hebrew asw they would any other language. One must guard against the error of either extreme. Biblical Hebrew neither made use of specific noun-names nor did it lack the concept of proper linguistic identification. Rather, it approached the task of assigning a specific meaning to a word to the context and association of this word. When a language like this uses descriptive terms for a specie of fruit, the way to identify that specie lies in careful consideration of associations of the general term. This is exactly what are our Talmudic passage attempts to do. It is important to realize that they are simply using the internal rules of the language to ascertain its precise meaning.
The Rabbis first pointed out the contextual association in this verse between tree and fruit, likely also drawing an allusion to Breishit 1,11 (see Rashi there). Rebbi goes a bit farther afield in his search for cognates and finds the word hadir which can impart specific association or meaning that can be applied to the determination of the word hadar. R. Abbahu, on the other hand, finds an association in the sound of the word and uses it as a specifier. Ben Azzai goes the farthest and applies the same methodology to a Greek word that sounds similar to hadar and appears to carry significance that can apply in our case. In fact, Ben Azzai, in his willingness to apply this method even to foreign words, can be seen as confirming the thesis. It throws into relief the centrality of this process of searching for contextual clues and associative meaning in the process of understanding the significance of the text.
Why did G-d write his Bible in such an unwieldy tongue, one that required extended interpretation and exegesis? This is the question that we will yet take up at length. Suffices to say for now that multiplicity of association and richness and multiplicity of meaning is particularly suitable for how He communicates with men. The Jew perceives the world as having arisen from the Divine word. The characteristic of spoken word is that, unlike sight, it is a medium that is modulated in volume, tonality, inflection and inner construction. The world that leapt into being when the Almighty spoke is correspondingly multi-faceted, inter-related, polyphonic and fraught with complexity. It requires interpretation to make sense. Since our earliest childhood, our parents, neighbors, society, and later cultural heritage in the form of books and ideas provide the data and theory that enable us to make some sense of this complex world in which we find ourselves. The book that expresses such a world must correspondingly be multileveled, appear contradictory, require keys to be properly decoded and at times, be intentionally ambiguous – and so it is. Its keys lie in the Oral Law.
