The book, The Dawn of Redemption: What the Books of Ruth and Yona Teach about Alienation, Despair and Return was reviewed by Mattan Erder in the last issue of Jewish Bible Quarterly. This review touched upon and discussed several crucial issues of methodology and hashkafa in regard to how Orthodox Jews may approach Nach. It posed questions about whether it is legimate for frum interpreters to incorporate or discuss academic and Christian Bible scholarship, whether archeology and comparative linguistics, history, hermeneutics, literary criticism and other "modern" approaches have a place in the study of Nach qua "Talmud Torah", and whether the Bible should be viewed as a purely historical document or as a guide to religious life.
Because of the importance of these topics, avakesh asked R. Meir Levin to respond to the review. We present this discussion in an interview format.
Avakesh: Your book was reviewed in the Jewish Bible Quarterly. Were you pleased with the review?
RML: Yes. It was a fair and informed review that both understood the book and stated clearly what its ideological disagreements were with it.
Avakesh: Rabbi Erder wtires: "Controversy about methodology and hermeneutics has always been a prominent feature of biblical studies. Recently, there has been a vigorous debate as to whether the stories in the Bible are primarily etiological or ethical; whether it makes sense to read the Bible as a source of instruction, or if it should be viewed primarily through a historical lens. While not explicitly, and perhaps not consciously, addressing this debate, Rabbi Dr. Meir Levin's new work The Dawn of Redemption: What the Books of Ruth and Yona Teach about Alienation, Despair and Return (originally a series of articles on www.torah.org) makes a powerful statement in favor of reading the Bible as a source of guidance and instruction on the most crucial issues of life. As the title of the book and his preface indicate, Levin's primary concern is to elucidate the Bible's messages about a certain set of pressing human concerns in a way that will furnish the reader with guidance and new perspectives.
Levin's goals combine with his chosen interpretative strategies to create a blend that is unique and often refreshing. In addition, he is forthright about methodology, stating exactly what methodological choices he is making and why he makes them. Levin makes extensive use of rabbinic literature to elucidate the texts of both biblical books, although this tendency is more pronounced in his commentary to Ruth. This choice means that, in addition to his own considerable talents, Levin has placed the textual, psychological, historical and spiritual wisdom of the entire rabbinic tradition at his disposal, and his commentary is much richer for it. "
Avakesh: Do you believe that the Bible is an instructional document that educates us to how a Jew should think and by what he should be inspired?
RML: Yes, with the caveat that this is how Chazal saw it. The whole institution of Midrash is predicated on the assumption that Tanach is a repository of moral, religious and spiritual teachings. When one utilizes modern approaches, he automatically removes himself from this position and enters the interpretative world in which understanding of the environment, mentality and history of the Biblical period is what is paramount and not the message for the individual, nation and humanity.
Avakesh: So it is fine to use these approaches but it is not Talmud Torah.
RML: Let me state from the beginning that academic Bible study is scientific. Science in our day is reductionist. It aims to take every phenomena apart and through this understand how the smallest building blocks combine and function together, and it hopes that thusly, the whole will be understood as well. Judaism, on the other hand, is integrative. An yeshiva bochur can say a chiddush that explains a Shach, which then elucidates a disagreement between Rishonim, and throws light upon a Tannaitic dispute or contradictory Biblical verses.Talmud Torah means reconcling contradictions and bringing everything together. Hashem is One and His Torah is one.
That doesn't mean that scientific approaches are not OK, but it does mean that when a frum interpreter uses them, he must not allow himself (or herself) be seduced by their explanatory power and placidly accept the conclusions to which they may point. Should he choose to use these methods, he must consciously employ them toward a goal that is different from the goal to which their proponents, adherents, and academic Bible experts use them. It may not be very scientific but it looks scientific, and only in such a way is it Talmud Torah and not academic scholarship.
Avakesh: R. Erder is surprised that in your commentary to Yonah, "he also seems more willing and eager to interact with modern biblical scholarship. This results in discussions of linguistics, archaeology, and theme in which Levin engages various viewpoints that depart from those of traditional rabbinic Jews. In these discussions, Levin takes on what can best be described as an open, confident, but very Orthodox approach: he feels free to utilize the insights of modern scholars to further his understanding of the text, and equally free to reject their views and arguments when they conflict with his broader vision and worldview. "
RML: Yes, except that I wrote in the introduction to Yonah that there are much fewer Chazal's on Yonan on Ruth and I, hterefore, had more "space" to consider these issues, not that it is a different method.
Avakesh. He did write that, "he is forthright about methodology, stating exactly what methodological choices he is making and why he makes them".
RML: I think that methodology is important, no, it is everything. Before any commentator takes on the task of elucidating a book, he or she must clarify the assumptions and intepretative method to be used. Shadal does this well in this introduction to Chumash and Ishaya and so do many other commentators; even those who do not, clearly have an approach that becomes apparent if you look for it. An interpreter constantly makes choices. One will make ad hoc, eclectic and unenlightened choices, or he will make these choice in a prospectively defined fashion, fully reasoned and compatible with a pre-existent set of assumptions. That is what makes a good commentary - predictability, constancy, committment, consistent and reasoned approach.
Avakesh:...and in this case the assumptions arise out of Chazal?
RML: Out of a particular approach and understanding of Chazal.
Avakesh: Is that why you speak of Chazal as a monolith. R. Merder criticizes that. He writes: "Throughout his discussion of the book of Ruth, he refers often to the "view of the Sages" or to "the Sages' interpretation," in a manner that seems to present the entire classical rabbinic tradition as a monolith. This language has the potential to blur the significant diversity that characterizes the rabbinic works that are utilized. Texts as different from each other in their provenance and orientation as the Babylonian Talmud, Midrash Rabbah, and Zohar Hadash are all quoted equally as representing the uniform view of "the Sages." Furthermore, Levin makes almost no use of any debate or disagreement between different rabbinic views in his commentary to Ruth. In the rare cases when he does mention rabbinic disagreements, it is usually only in order to emphasize the common denominators between the various interpretations. This is one unfortunate respect in which Levin under-utilizes the rabbinic sources, there is much to learn from the disagreements and debates between the sages, and attention to those debates could uncover even more nuanced and multifaceted readings of the texts at hand. In any event, while the rabbinic sources Levin cites are certainly extensive, they are not comprehensive enough to sustain the claim that they represent the exclusive view of "the Sages." This criticism, of course, does not detract from the substance or rabbinic authenticity of Levin's insights. Rather, the issue is that some of the language used to express these insights may impose a false image of uniformity on a diverse body of literature. "
RML: Well, part of it a deliberate insistance on that the Sages do have a common point of view and that this view is central to their Weltschaung and not haphazard or dependent on the personality, social class, or some other peculiarity of an individual Sage, and also because I do believe that Sages agreed much more than they disagreed. The inclination to emphasize disagreements betrays a non-Orthodox bias, a belief that Oral Law is "made up" and that it is merely a collection of individual opinions.
Avakesh: You really think so.
RML: I do. We always speak of roots and branches and how one who is committed to the Divine origin of the Torah sees areas of agreement as more securely of Divine origin than disagreements, which are also from Hashem but in a different way. You yourself wrote about it.
I remember hearing that in his younger years. R. Y.D. Soloveitchik used to spend time during his shiurim demonstrating that disagreements in the Talmud were predicated on common assumptions and shared much more than they did not.
Avakesh: So you think that people who are allergic to the term "Sages" have an agenda.
RML: Not always. I dont think so in this case. They may just not recognize the ideological basis for this objection, which I have encountered before and from less sympathetic quarters.
Avakesh: What were you trying to accomplish with your book.
RML: Many things. I wanted to demonstrate that one can be frum and write a sophisitcated and informed commentary, one that is faithful to Chazal and inspirational to the modern man. I tried to do something different, to blaze a trail, to show how sophisticated literary techniques can be combined with inspirational message based on Chazal, how modern hermeneutical techniques can add value to the Talmud Torah aspect and not in any way detract from it. I tried to write a kind of a commentary that modern man can appreciate and by which he or she can be spiritually uplifted but that would still be based on solid scholarship and be understood and respected by scholars.
Above all, I wanted to uplift Kavod Shomayim by showing that Hashem's Word is relevant and deep even in our age.
Avakesh: R. Merder says that not everything in the book is Pshat.
RML: I learned many things while writing this book. One of them is that, in Nechama Liebowitz' words, "Pshat is what I say it means. Drash is what you say it means". The fact remains that if you start from a set of exegetical assumptions and encounter a verse that seems to contradict these assumptions, there are only two choices. You must be willing to either reconsider your assumptions or you must be willing to reconsider the meaning of the verse. If you are an academician, you may emend the verse, chas veshalom. You have no choice but to explain that verse in some other manner, which you will call "omek hapshat", allegory, poetic license or some other variety of pshat. It will be not the apparent but the real meaning of the verse, for the apparent meaning is false by the virtue of assumptions that you employ. Someone who starts from a different set of assumptions will call your interpretation drash. This is simply the nature of hermeneutics and there is no way to escape this conundrum. There is a very grey and very long transitional area between pshat and drash.
Avakesh: Thank you for this interview
RML:On the contrary, thank you for this opportunity.
