[Avodah] Classical Academia, Deconstruction, and Mesorah

[Micha Berger]

RMM asked a while back about the relationship some time ago (see
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=R#R%20TZADOKTSBP>,
2nd post onward) about post-modern literary theory and halakhah. it
started when he quoted R' Marc Shapiro:
    Furthermore, it is possible that an author is not aware of all
    the wisdom contained in his work. This idea is well established
    in literary circles, which stress that the most reasonable
    interpretation is not necessarily identical with the position of
    the author. Although the notion that an author understands his
    words better than everyone else would appear to be self-evident,
    and most intellectual historians still operate in this fashion,
    modern literary and philosophical thought argue that even the author
    does not recognize all that is found in his work, both in terms of
    backround and motivation as well as content.

I emailed RDI something recently that I think captures the issue. In
short, I think RMM was tripped up by a false dichotomy.

The classical academic approaches a text looking to see what the author's
original intent was. This is bound to be flawed, since we know less
about the tannaim than the amoraim did, live in a more different culture
from that of the tannaim than they did, and therefore are bound to make
fundamental errors. As the quote notes, even the author isn't aware of
all his own thoughts going into the text.

The post-modern approach is not to look for the meaning the text had to
the author, but the meaning the text has to the reader. A hyper-correction
to the opposite extreme. As I wrote in that previous thread that I think
it's the key to C, to Mordechai Kaplan's concept of transvaluation. It
literally asks the reader to recreate Judaism according to how he wants
it to be.

Mesorah, however, is a living tradition of a development of ideas. More
important to us than what R' Yochanan's original intent is what R' Ashi
thought that intent was, which in turn can only be understood through
the eyes of what the Rosh and the Rambam understood R' Ashi's meaning to
be, which in turn can only be understood through the eyes of the Shaagas
Aryeh and R' Chaim Brisker. It's not what the text meant to the author,
tied to understanding the historical context and weltenschaung of the
tanna. Nor is it what it means to me from a clean slate, an open field
defined only by my encounter with the text, and thus shaped in part by
personal desire and ignorance. It's entering the stream of mesorah and
following how the idea is developed.


In general, post-modernism is incompatible with mesorah. Here's one
definition of post-modernism:
    Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity
    toward metanarratives.
		    - Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition

Where a metanarrative is "global or totalizing cultural narrative schema
which orders and explains knowledge and experience." (John Stephans)
A metanarrative could be the underlying unity of all fairy tales that
leads us to a particular expectation and understanding of them.

One can see a central theme of Yahadus, or almost any religion, is to
bedavka impart a metanarrative. Questioning the metanarrative means
never really encountering the narrative.

Postmodernism bedavka asks one not to follow naaseh venishmah, to let
the framework of halachic life speak for itself. And without "ta'amu",
one will never get to "ure'u ki tTov H'".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Man is equipped with such far-reaching vision,
micha at aishdas.org        yet the smallest coin can obstruct his view.
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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