Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Black Fire on White Fire: An Essay on Jewish Hermeneutics, from Midrash to Kabbalah Volume 10

Black Fire on White Fire: An Essay on Jewish Hermeneutics, from Midrash to Kabbalah Volume 10

Rojtman, Betty
Randall, Steven
Idel, Moslie

Paperback

Series: Contraversions: Critical Studies in Jewish Literature, Cultu, Book 10

Literary CriticismBible Studies

ISBN10: 0520203216
ISBN13: 9780520203211
Publisher: Univ Of California Pr
Published: Feb 27 1998
Pages: 205
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.64 Width: 5.44 Depth: 8.32
Language: English
Using the tools of contemporary semiotic theory to analyze classical rabbinic hermeneutics and medieval mystical exegesis, Betty Rojtman unveils a striking modernity in these early forms of textual interpretation. The metaphor from rabbinic literature that describes the writing of the Torah--black fire on white fire--becomes, in Rojtman's analysis, a figure for the differential structures that can be found throughout rabbinic discourse. Moving through the successive levels of traditional commentary, from early Midrash to modern Kabbalah, Rojtman examines the tension between the fluidity and nuance of the biblical text and the fixed commitment to ideological and theological content. To examine this strain between open text and sacred language, Rojtman scrutinizes the demonstrative, this, as a word whose significance changes with every change in context. Her analysis suggests a double-layered meaning for this, which refers to the existential world in its multiplicity but also to transcendence and the eternal presence of God.

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