Pardes (exegesis)

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Pardes (פרד"ס) is a

Hebrew acronym
formed from the initials of the following four approaches:

  • Peshat (פְּשָׁט‎) – "surface" ("straight") or the literal (direct) meaning.[7]
  • Remez (רֶמֶז‎) – "hints" or the deep (allegoric: hidden or symbolic) meaning beyond just the literal sense. In the version of the New Zohar, Re'iah.
  • Derash (דְּרַשׁ‎) – from Hebrew darash: "inquire" ("seek") – the comparative (midrashic) meaning, as given through similar occurrences.
  • Sod (סוֹד‎) – "secret" ("mystery") or the esoteric/mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation.

Each type of Pardes interpretation examines the extended meaning of a text. As a general rule, the extended meaning never contradicts the base meaning.[8] The Peshat means the plain or contextual meaning of the text. Remez is the allegorical meaning. Derash includes the metaphorical meaning, and Sod represents the hidden meaning. There is often considerable overlap, for example when legal understandings of a verse are influenced by mystical interpretations or when a "hint" is determined by comparing a word with other instances of the same word.

Some books such as

Tolaat Yaakov, divide Pardes into Peshat, Remez, Din (law), and Sod. According to this understanding, Derash is divided into the homiletics
, which are classified under Remez, and legal interpretations, which are classified under Din.

History of the term

See also: Pardes (legend)

Pardes is a Biblical Hebrew word of Persian etymology, meaning "orchard" or "garden". In early rabbinic works, the "orchard" is used as a metaphor for divine secrets[9] or Torah study.[10]

Moses de León was the first to use PaRDeS as an acronym for these four methods of interpretation. In his responsa he writes, ". . . as I explained in my book which I called Pardes,[a] and the name Pardes by which I called it is a known concept that I disguised. The four approaches within its name are the 'four which entered into the orchard,' i.e. peshat and remez and derasha and sod,"[1] while a slightly different version appears twice in the New Zohar, "The pardes of the bible is a compound of peshata and re'ia and derasha and sod."[11][12] The original printings of the Zohar contain a slightly different version, possibly from before de Leon thought of the mnemonic: "In the words of the bible are its peshata and derasha and remez and gematriyot and razzin.[13]

Context

Exoteric and esoteric in Sod

  • Exoteric means that Scripture is read in the context of the physical world, human orientation, and human notions. The first three exegetical methods: Peshat-Simple, Remez-Hinted, and Drush-Homiletic belong to the exoteric "Nigleh-Revealed" part of Torah embodied in mainstream Rabbinic literature, such as the Talmud, Midrash, and exoteric-type Jewish commentaries on the Bible.
  • Talmudic
    passages about esotericism) and to the connected 4-fold structure of PaRDeS exegesis differently.

Both mystical and rational religious Judaism, however, together rooted in mainstream

613 Mitzvot as God's plan in Creation.[citation needed
]

The mystical view of esoteric Sod-Secret as the elite doctrines of Kabbalah also gave conceptual context to Peshat, Remez, and Drush: in the mystical unfolding of the spiritual Four Worlds, each realm corresponds to a level in PaRDeS. God's immanence is found at successively descending levels of reality. Torah descends from on High, while man ascends the levels of PaRDeS exegesis in Torah from Below. In this sense, ascending the four levels of interpretation reveals greater divinity in Torah; the exoteric and esoteric are linked in a continuous chain. While rationalists read Rabbinic Aggadah legends metaphorically, kabbalists read them as allusions to Kabbalah.

Halacha and Aggadah in Peshat, Remez, Drush

Within mainstream exoteric classic

Halacha is Jewish legal discussion and ruling, while Aggadah
is Jewish theological/narrative discussion. As two approaches in exoteric Judaism, so Peshat-Simple, Remez-Hinted and Drush-Homiletic exegeses methods, which work exoterically, can be used in either Halachic or Aggadic contexts.

Examples

Peshat

In Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 is often translated as "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." However, Rashi comments, "If you come to interpret it according to its peshat, interpret it thus: In the beginning of creation of heavens and earth."[14] According to Rashi's linguistic analysis, the word "bereishit" does not actually mean "In the beginning", but rather "In the beginning of..."[15]

Remez

In Genesis 1:1 - commandments

The first word of Genesis 1:1 is "Bereishit" ("in the beginning [of]"). According to the Vilna Gaon, all 613 commandments are hinted to in this word. For example, the Vilna Gaon says, the commandment of pidyon haben is hinted via the phrase "Ben Rishon Acharei Shloshim Yom Tifdeh" ("a first son, after 30 days should be redeemed"), and the acronym of the first letters of this phrase is "Breishit".[15]

In Genesis 1:1 - eschatology

In Jewish thought, the

Jewish Messiah
, are balanced between Divine concealment and revelation.

Genesis 1:1 is said to hint to this idea. The verse contains seven (Hebrew) words, and each of the words except Hashamayim ("Heavens") contains the letter Aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, with a gematria value of 1). The name "Aleph" hints at its etymological variants "Aluph" ("Chief/Ruler", representing the one God) and "Eleph" ("One Thousand", representing 1,000 years). Hebrew word roots generally contain three consonant letters. Of the six words in the verse containing Aleph: in the first two Aleph is positioned as third letter (concealed God in the first 2,000 years), in the next two Aleph is positioned as first letter (revealed God in the middle 2,000 years), in the last two Aleph is positioned as second letter (balance between concealed and revealed God in the last 2,000 years).[16]

Laws of witnesses

In the following exchange, the Talmud differentiates between explicit and hinted sources for the laws of conspiring witnesses (edim zomemim):

  • Ulla says: From where in the Torah is a hint of the law of conspiring witnesses?
  • Why should such a hint exist? For it is stated explicitly "You do to them what they conspired to do to the accused."![17]
  • Rather, from where in the Torah is a hint that conspiring witnesses receive a whipping [if they cannot be punished by doing to them as they conspired]?
  • As it says, "They shall vindicate the righteous one and convict the evil one. And if the evil one is deserving of lashes..."[18] Should [the fact] that they "vindicate the righteous one" [automatically mean] "they convict the evil one, and if the evil one is deserving of lashes"? [In many cases, vindicating the righteous party of a dispute does not mean that the evil party receives lashes.] Rather, [these verses are talking about a case where] witnesses convicted the righteous one, and other witnesses came and vindicated the original righteous one, and made [the first set of witnesses] into evil ones; [in that case], "if the evil one is deserving of lashes".[19]

Derash (Midrash)

In Genesis 1:1

Rashi comments that the Hebrew word Bereishit ("In the beginning") can be homiletically understood to mean "Due to the first", where "first" (reishit) is a word used elsewhere to refer to the

Jewish people. Thus, one may say that the world was created for the sake of Torah and the Jewish people.[15]

The number of mitzvot

Rabbi Simlai deduced that the Torah's commandments are 613 in number. Deuteronomy 33:4 states that "Moses commanded us the Torah". The gematria of "Torah" is 611. Adding to them the first two of the Ten Commandments (which were given to the Jews not via Moses but rather directly by God, which is known because only these two commandments are written in the first person singular), the total is 613.[20]

Sod

In Maimonides

Superior thoracic aperture
The thorax from in front. (Superior thoracic aperture visible at top.)
Superior thoracic aperture seen from above
Details
Identifiers
Latinapertura thoracis superior
Anatomical terminology

In

Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides
declares his intention to conceal from the average reader his explanations of Sod. Later on in the book, Maimonides mentions Divine secrets within Torah:

"Adam and Eve were at first created as one being, having their backs united: they were then separated, and one half was removed and brought before Adam as Eve." Note how clearly it has been stated that Adam and Eve were two in some respects, and yet they remained one, according to the words, "Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (Gen. ii. 23). The unity of the two is proved by the fact that both have the same name, for she is called ishah (woman), because she was taken out of ish (man), also by the words, "And shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh" (ii. 24). How great is the ignorance of those who do not see that all this necessarily includes some [other] idea [besides the literal meaning of the words].[21]

Adam and Eve are "one over other", i.e.

viceversa
"... and this was before their "perfect realization".

In Kabbalah

Kabbalah does not read Scripture as analogy, but as theosophical symbols of dynamic processes in the Supernal Divinity. According to this, Creation was enacted through the letters of the

Sephirot, uniting Tiferet ("The Holy One Blessed Be He") and Malkuth (Feminine Shekhinah).[citation needed
]

The teachings of

Edomite Kings of Genesis 36:31 and I Chronicles
1:43:

"These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel..."

In Kabbalah, based on exoteric

kelipot shells. Gevurah is the constricting force in Creation, allowing independent Existence, but also causing the initial vessels of Tohu to act independently and shatter. The Edomite Kings who reigned before any king in Israel, while also being historical people according to Peshat, in Kabbalah both embody and symbolise the vessels of Tohu that shattered. The verses name eight kings, the breakages in the eight emotional sephirot from Daat to Malchut. Death is the lights-souls reascending and the vessel fragments falling, animated by remnant sparks of light. Of the eighth king, only Genesis says he died, as Malchut remained partially intact. The sparks of holiness animate Creation down to Material Existence. In the highest World Atziluth, the general root-sparks number 288, read out by gematria from Genesis
1:2–3:

And the Earth was chaos and void (the World of Tohu), with darkness upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered (מרחפת-"Merachepet", the sparks animating the fragments externally) over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light..(the World of Tikun, allowing stable reception of Divine revelation)

"Merachepet" divides into 288 (רפח) sparks animating within the מת-"dead"-fallen fragments.[citation needed]

Association with paradise

Main article: Pardes (legend)

The Pardes system is often regarded as mystically linked to the word pardes (

Tanakh.[24] In the first of these passages it means "garden"; in the second and third, "park." In the apocalypses and in the Talmud, the word is used of the Garden of Eden and its heavenly prototype.[25] From this usage, comes Christianity's denotation of Paradise as the abode of the blessed.[26][27]

Pardes and other Jewish interpretive approaches

Pardes and Chabad exegesis

In a discourse,

Atzmut
essence of God receives its true revelation in the materiality of creation, the omnipresent divinity related in Hasidic thought.

Pardes and modern exegesis

The Pardes exegesis system flows from traditional belief in the text as Divine revelation;

Biblical Criticism on the Torah, incorporating some of its views within traditional belief in Mosaic revelation.[29]

Beginning with

Lower Criticism.[30] Comments of Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Caspi, Judah Ha-Hasid, and Abravenel have been used in this historical-philological form of Peshat.[30]

In the 20th century, the Conservative Judaism philosopher-theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, while accepting modern scholarship, saw existentialist revelation and Divine encounter as the foundation of legitimate Bible interpretation. His 1962 masterwork, Torah min HaShamayim BeAspaklariya shel HaDorot (English: Torah from Heaven in the Light of the Generations) is a study of classical rabbinic theology and aggadah (spiritual thought), as opposed to halakha (Jewish law) in revealing the Divinity of Torah study. It explores the views of the Rabbis in the Talmud, Midrash and among the philosophical and mystical traditions, about the nature of Torah, the revelation of God to mankind, prophecy, and the ways that Jews have used scriptural exegesis to expand and understand these core Jewish texts in a living, fluid spiritual exegesis.[31]

Similar concepts in other religions

The Pardes typology has some similarities to the contemporary Christian

fourfold allegorical scheme
.

See also

References

  1. ^ This work is lost.
  1. ^ a b ר' משה די ליאון, שו"ת לר' משה די ליאון בענייני קבלה, ישעיה תשבי, חקרי קבלה ושלוחותיה, חלק א, עמ' 64 Tishbi also published this in קבץ על יד - טו, חברת מקיצי נרדמים, which version is available on Otzar (pg. 31).
  2. ISSN 0038-7134
    .
  3. ^ Scholem, Gershom Gerhard (1972). On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. Schocken Books. p. 61.
  4. ^ Scholem, Gershom (1990). דברים בגו : פרקי מורשה ותחיה (in Hebrew). עם עובד. p. 249.
  5. ISBN 978-0-88706-831-7
    .
  6. ^ Cooper, Alan (2017). "The Four Senses of Scripture and Their Afterlife". ww.sbl-site.org. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  7. Jewish Encyclopedia
  8. ^ Rabinowitz, Louis (1963). "The Talmudic Meaning of Peshat". Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Thought. 6 (1) – via The Talmudic Meaning of Peshat, The Lookstein Center, Bar-Ilan University. Accessed 2020-09-15. {{cite journal}}: External link in |via= (help)
  9. Moreh Nevuchim 2:30; see also Saul Lieberman, Tosefta Kifshuta, Hagigah 2:3
    .
  10. ^ "Devarim Rabbah 7:4". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  11. ^ "Zohar Chadash, Sifra Tanina 102". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  12. ^ "Zohar Chadash, Tikuna Kadma'ah 25". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  13. ^ "Zohar 3:202a:3". www.sefaria.org. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  14. ^ Rashi, Breishit 1:1
  15. ^ a b c "PaRDeS".
  16. ^ This exegesis is an example of Remez, but gains further meaning in Sod by the Kabbalistic doctrine that Creation was enacted through the Hebrew letters of the Torah.
  17. ^ Deut 19:19
  18. ^ Deuteronomy 25:1–2
  19. ^ Makkos 2b
  20. ^ Talmud, Makkot 23b
  21. Guide for the Perplexed
    , book 2 section 30
  22. ^ Isaiah 2:3
  23. ^ New Oxford American Dictionary
  24. ^ Namely, in Song of Songs 4:13, Ecclesiastes 2:5, and Nehemiah 2:8
  25. ^ Compare references in Weber's Jüdische Theologie, 2d ed., 1897, pp. 344 et seq.
  26. ^ Compare Luke 23:43; II Cor. 12:4; Rev 2:7.
  27. Jewish Encyclopedia
  28. ^ On the Essence of Chasidus: A Chasidic Discourse by Rabbi Menachem M Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Kehot publications, reissued 2003. This is a bi-lingual translation of the original Hebrew Maamar Inyana Shel Toras HaHasidus-The Concept of the Torah of Hasidism, originally delivered orally in 1965, then edited by the Rebbe with footnotes
  29. ^ Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations (The Orthodox Forum Series), Shalom Carmy editor, Jason Aronson publishers, 1996. Also Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo study: On Bible Criticism and Its Counterarguments 2006
  30. ^ a b Aggadic Man: The Poetry and Rabbinic Thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, Alan Brill, Meorot Journal - A Forum of Modern Orthodox Discourse 6:1, 2006. Pages 15–16
  31. ^ An English translation by Gordon Tucker is titled Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations

External links

Jewish Encyclopedia links

Other links

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