![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
This article hopes to honor Richard Weisberg in the form of a דבר תרה (“word of Torah”), which, although typically a sermon upon the weekly reading of the Pentateuch, can also more broadly refer to – as here – a discourse about anything meaningfully Jewish. Beginning, and ending, with the question of whether deconstructionism is not Talmudic, it proceeds by, respecting the former, studiously avoiding (almost) anything but apophatic “answers,” except that, respecting the latter, it endeavors to blazon, by way of Richard's thoroughly Nietzschean geist concerning good versus bad readers of texts, his even more inveterately, imperative Jewish ethos.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I know well that instead of answering I have begged many questions, and for that, I beg the reader's pardon. But I would like to end, in keeping to the spirit and the letter of Song of Songs, with one reading which none can doubt, against which none can dissent. I have written this article intending to honor Richard Weisberg, and I so do. But I dedicate my humble effort instead, as he would most want it, to his precious treasure, to his best word and his most beloved world: to his wife, Cheryl.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1989), 66.
2. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, 1:10, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1989), 39.
3. Richard Weisberg, In Praise of Intransigence: The Perils of Flexibility (New York: Oxford University Press: 2014), ix.
4. Ibid., 15.
5. Ibid.
6. Peter Goodrich, “Europe in America: Grammatology, Legal Studies, and the Politics of Transmission”, Columbia Law Review 101 (2001): 2033, 2034, 2057 fn 65. In as much as my article is about the work of Richard Weisberg, I can only humbly admit that I approach Peter Goodrich's briefly and arguably too elliptically quoted thesis to a significant degree only contiguously. I refract from Peter to Richard for the sole purpose of attempting to examine the “Jewish question” concerning deconstruction (about which I am far from expert). I do not argue that any non-Jewish idea is eo ipso a bad idea. It may be that Peter is conceptually wrong to characterize grammatology as Talmudic, and yet many would agree he is practically right about the particular value of eschewing moralistic prejudgments. Is deconstruction Jewish – or is it non-Jewish, or is it un-Jewish, or … is it anti-Jewish? My article analyzes Richard Weisberg's response progressing along that inquiry's continuum.
7. Richard Weisberg, “Nietzsche's Hermeneutics,” in Nietzsche and Legal Theory: Half-Written Laws, ed. Peter Goodrich and Mariana Valverde (New York: Routledge, 2005), 161, 162.
8. Gittin 6b. Quotes from the Talmud are the bavli Soncino translation.
9. Deuteronomy 16:20. The King James Version is used throughout for the Tanakh (Jewish Bible), unless I have explicitly altered the translation.
10. Yalkut Me'am Loe'z; Itture Torah.
11. Sanhendrin, 32b.
12. Leviticus, 10:16.
13. Degel Machaneh Ephraim.
14. Compare the Jewish with the Christian philology, via Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 84. “How little Christianity educates the sense of honesty and justice can be gauged fairly well from the character of its scholars' writings: they present their conjectures as boldly as if they were dogmas and are rarely in any honest perplexity over the interpretation of a passage in the Bible.”(49)
15. See Alan D. Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation: Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction (New York: Routledge, 2014), 165: “… Nietzsche introduces two criteria into philology: honesty (Redlichkeit) and justice (Gerechtigkeit). And it is clear what the philologist must be honest and just toward is the text” [original emphasis]. Schrift's analysis informs my article profoundly. See also Alan White, “The Youngest Virtue,” in Nietzsche's Postmoralism: Essays on Nietzsche's Prelude to Philosophy's Future, ed. Richard Schacht (Cambridge University Press, 2000), 78, fn 22: “… Nietzsche … connects Redlichkeit to justice (Gerechtigkeit).”
16. A “strengen Erklärungskunst” – see notes 18 and 19 below.
17. Nietzsche, Human All Too Human: A Book For Free Spirits, trans. Marion Faber (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), 17.
18. See Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 174, 180.
19. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Prologue 7, 21.
20. See Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 167, 168.
21. Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1974) 232; Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 177.
22. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage, 1967), 173; Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 177.
23. Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 177.
24. Ibid., 178–9.
25. Nietzsche, Gay Science, 83 [emphasis added].
26. Nietzsche, The Antichrist, trans. H.L. Mencken (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 174.
27. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, III:22.
28. Nietzsche, Gay Science, 348.
29. Nietzsche, The Antichrist, 24.
30. Richard Weisberg, The Failure of the Word: The Protagonist as Lawyer in Modern Fiction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 18; Richard Weisberg, Poethics and Other Strategies of Law and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 242.
31. Weisberg, “Nietzsche's Hermeneutics,” 162.
32. Richard has by no means gratuitously, patronizingly, or condescendingly included the undeniably Christian Martin Luther King Jr. as an avatar of the praiseworthy Intransigent Person. See Weisberg, In Praise of Intransigence, 20–22. We should, however, not rest too comfortably with Dr King (or, rather, his myth) and instead explore further his no-less intransigent contemporary, Malcolm X, whose views on Christianity – and potentially violent self-defense? – are perhaps more in line with Richard's perspective: “Christian religion has been used to brainwash the black man. It has taught him to look for his heaven in the hereafter while the white man enjoys his heaven on earth. I chose to be a Black Muslim and a realist. The American whites talk but do not practice brotherhood; therefore it is my duty to fight this evil. You see, can't write up on some freedom, you must fight up on some freedom. So any man who wants his freedom must take a stand no matter what the odds. Negotiation gives nothing. Our motto is ‘By Any Means Necessary.’” See Malcolm X, February 1965: The Final Speeches (Atlanta: Pathfinder Press, 1992), 45. Malcolm X, given his rhetoric, his radicalism, his Islamism (and, yes, even his own myth too) offers challenges we should fruitfully seek to meet.
33. Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, 137. In A Nietzsche Reader, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Penguin Classics, 1978).
34. Nietzsche, Daybreak, 84.
35. Ibid.
36. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II:18.
37. Nietzsche, Gay Science, 130.
38. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, II:16.
39. Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken, 1995), 1.
40. Ibid., 1–2.
41. See Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 165, quoting Nietzsche, notebook, 1888.
42. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 38; Schrift, Nietzsche and the Question of Interpretation, 119. See also Sarah Kofman, Nietzsche and Metaphor, trans. D. Large (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1994), 135: “The goal of rigorous philology is … not to separate the text from its interpretations – which is impossible since the text is constituted by them – but to distinguish a certain type of interpretation from other interpretations, to distinguish the first interpretations, which result from spontaneous evaluations by the drives, from the second – secondary – interpretations which often mask them.”
43. Weisberg, In Praise of Intransigence, xii. This is of necessity. Jesus in belief and tradition is both Christ and Lord. Jesus is, in the New Testament and in Christianity itself, the exclusive locus and focus of divinity and the exclusive source of salvation from the eternal, infinite pains of damnation. Any attempt, whether motivated by good or bad conscience, to rescue Jesus from Christ is thus unjust and dishonest.
44. For a significant comparison of texts, from which I have drawn here, see Shaye J.D. Cohen, “Antipodal Texts: B. Eruvin 21b-22a and Mark 7:1-23 on the Tradition of the Elders and the Commandment of God,” Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, preprint (2013), http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10861156.
45. In keeping with Richard's Judeo-Classical drive, we can note that the Aramaic נטלא may be derived from the Greek ἄντλημα, a bucket for drawing water. See Bava Batra 58b; Chullin 107a.
46. Eruvin 21b.
47. Mishnah, Eduyot 5:6.
48. Mark 7:8. The King James Version is used throughout for the New Testament, unless I have explicitly altered the translation. The Gospel of Mark has in these passages direct synoptic parallels in Matthew and Luke.
49. The prophet castigates the people who fail to perform the commandments sincerely. See Rashi; Kara. See also Ibn Ezra, who takes מלמדה as “accustomed,” i.e., they err who perform the commandments as if but a habit and not seeking God's will.
50. See Redak, who explains that the people wrongly go no further than the commandment requires.
51. Isaiah 28:6.
52. Isaiah 11:2.
53. Bava Metzia 30b.
54. Mekilta to Exodus 2:19; Sifre Deuteronomy 237.
55. Pirkei Avot 3:13.
56. Mark 7:18-19.
57. Bekhorot 7b.
58. Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, ed. J.D. Caputo (New York: Fordham University Press, 1996), 6 [emphasis added]. This quote is not translated from Derrida's native French but is his own English. Derrida apologized for his self-perceived limits in the English language, in which he found it “difficult” to “improvise” while speaking in public (ibid., 5). However, citations to his original written French works were added to support and elucidate Derrida's quoted spoken English text by the editor, Professor John D. Caputo (a prominent postmodern Christian scholar).
59. Matthew 9:17.
60. Scot McKnight, “A Loyal Critic: Matthew's Polemic with Judaism in Theological Perspective,” in Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity: Issues of Polemic and Faith, eds. Craig A. Evans and Donald A. Hagner (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 65–6 [emphasis added].
61. Daybreak, 84 [original emphasis].
62. “Stiff-necked” = קשה־ערף (”hard-neck“). Exodus 32:9, passim. It is used only one time in the New Testament, Acts 7:51-52 (in the mouth of Stephen, about to be stoned to death by the Jews): “Ye stiffnecked [Σκληροτράχηλοι] and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers." This is, even among the plethora of anti-Jewish calumnies in Christian scripture, a remarkably derogatory corruption of the Hebrew Bible, e.g., Deuteronomy 10:15-16 – “Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.” In other words, whereas Jewish scripture says the fathers were so beloved that their seed was forever chosen, the New Testament damns the fathers, the ancestors of the Jews, as prophet-killers – whose descendants, logically, themselves deserve (also forever?) a quietus akin to what they had devised for Saint Stephen.
63. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, corrected ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 101, passim. See Richard Weisberg, “20 Years (or 2000?) of Story-telling on the Law: Is Justice Detectable?”, Cardozo Law Review 26 (2005): 2223, 2239: “A good reading of laws left behind by just individuals connects to future lives of active accomplishment and of justice-doing among peers. And although the founding moment of justice-doing may well involve violence, law – as much as law's end, justice – need not from then on be associated with violence of either the physical or the interpretive variety.”
64. Song of Solomon 7:13.
65. Eruvin 21b [emphasis added].
66. Human, All Too Human, 601.
67. Weisberg, In Praise of Intransigence, 16 [original emphasis]. Again, Nietzsche is instructive: “Love and hatred are not blind, but are blinded by the fire they themselves carry with them.” Human, All Too Human, 566. Cf. Malcolm X: “Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don't want to be around each other? You know. Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you. … Let me tell you something and I'll tell you why you say we hate white people. We don't hate anybody. We love our people so much they think we hate the ones who are inflicting injustice against them.” Transcript, Malcolm X: Make It Plain (documentary film), http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/malcolmx/filmmore/pt.html.
68. See Geoffrey Hartman, “The Tricksy Word: Richard Weisberg on the Merchant of Venice,” Law & Literature 23 (Spring 2011): 71.
69. “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.” Elie Wiesel, quoted in US News & World Report, 27 October 1986.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Michael Pantazakos
Michael Pantazakos is Adjunct Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He can be reached by email at: [email protected]