Desacralization and Disenchantment Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings

The sacred is in fact the half light in which the sorcery the Jewish tradition abhors flourishes... Sorcery, first cousin, perhaps even sister, of the sacred, is the mistress of appearance. She is a relative slightly fallen in status, but within the family, who profits from the connections of her brother, who is received in the best circles...
Real desacrilization would attempt positively to separate the true from appearance, maybe even to separate the true from the appearance essentially mixed with the true.
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas

In order to better understand what Levinas means by holiness, we must first distinguish it from another category with which he maintains it is often confused. He frequently reproves those scholars... who fail to differentiate the idea of holiness (la saintete) from the category of the sacred (le sacre)... we understand Levinas's use of the term "sacred" to refer critically to a primitive religious experience that suppresses our capacity for rational discernment and, instead, encourages the loss of self-awareness, and... "holy" refers... to its authentic counterpart...
Preoccupation with the sacred readily leads to idolization and bewitchment. Holiness - by which... Levinas means ethical separation - is the only proper way to access religion.
- John Caruana, "'Not Ethics, Not Ethics Alone, But the Holy:' Levinas on Ethics and Holiness"

סנהדרין ס״ז א:ט״ז-י״ז

מתני׳ המדיח זה האומר נלך ונעבוד עבודת כוכבים המכשף העושה מעשה חייב ולא האוחז את העינים ר"ע אומר משום ר' יהושע שנים לוקטין קשואין אחד לוקט פטור ואחד לוקט חייב העושה מעשה חייב האוחז את העינים פטור:

Sanhedrin 67a:16-17

MISHNA: The seducer is he who says: Let us go and worship the stars. The sorcerer, if he performs an act, is subject to penalties, but not if he merely creates illusions. Rabbi Akiba, in the name of Rabbi Joshua has said: Two people pick cucumbers: one of them is subject to penalties, the other is exempt; the one who performs the act is subject to penalties, the one that gives the illusion of it is exempt.

The Mishna... distinguishes between the sorcery that procures illusions and the one that procures profit. In the example cited, our sorcerer is not very demanding: he does not speculate on a very expensive product; he is a poor sorcerer who produces cucumbers in a field. To stay at the level of illusion does not have great consequences, but if the sorcerer picks the cucumbers, if the illusion manages to fit itself within an economic process - and modern economic life is, after all, the place of preference of the harvesting of illusory cucumbers and for the heavy profits attached to such a harvest - sorcery becomes a criminal act.
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas

סנהדרין ס״ז ב:ו׳

אמר רבי יוחנן למה נקרא שמן כשפים שמכחישין פמליא של מעלה:

Sanhedrin 67b:6

§ Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Why is sorcery called keshafim? Because it is an acronym for: Challenges the Assembly On High [shemakhḥishin pamalia shel mala].

How is degradation possible? How can holiness be confused with the sacred and turn into sorcery? How can the sacred transform itself into enchantment, into power over human beings?
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas

סנהדרין ס״ז ב:ז׳-ט׳

(דברים ד, לה) אין עוד מלבדו אמר רבי חנינא אפילו לדבר כשפים ההיא איתתא דהות קא מהדרא למשקל עפרא מתותי כרעיה דרבי חנינא אמר לה אי מסתייעת זילי עבידי אין עוד מלבדו כתיב איני והאמר רבי יוחנן למה נקרא שמן מכשפים שמכחישין פמליא של מעלה שאני רבי חנינא דנפיש זכותיה

Sanhedrin 67b:7-9

Rabbi Yohanan said: “The Holy One is God; there is none other” (Deuteronomy 4:35). Rabbi Ḥanina said: This even concerns sorcery.

The story of a certain woman who was attempting to take dust from under the feet of Rabbi Ḥanina. He said to her: If you can, go and do it. For it is written: “There is none other.” How is that possible? Didn't Rabbi Yoḥanan say: Why is sorcery called keshafim? Because it is an acronym for: Challenges the Assembly on High. Rabbi Ḥanina is different, as his merit is great.

The illumination and the reign of the Assembly on High penetrate the world only if they are received by human beings who spot this light and this power. The Absolute dispels the appearances of the absolute only for him who is fastened to the Absolute: in my full attention to the Most High, nothing can catch me by surprise.
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas

סנהדרין ס״ז ב:י״ד-י״ז

א"ל רב לרבי חייא לדידי חזי לי ההוא טייעא דשקליה לספסירא וגיידיה לגמלא וטרף ליה בטבלא וקם אמר ליה לבתר הכי דם ופרתא מי הואי אלא ההיא אחיזת עינים הוה

Sanhedrin 67b:14-17

Rav said to Rabbi Ḥiyya: I once saw an Arab cut a camel into pieces with his sword. Then he beat a drum before it and the camel came back to life. Rabbi Ḥiyya said to him: Did you find blood and dung (after the performance)? It was only an illusion ("deception of the eyes").

Of course, sorcerers have no power of the living. I recognize a whole literature of conflicts and emotional problems here, of paradoxical situations in which there is not a single teardrop, nor a single drop of warm human blood, not a single bit of real human pain. Ah, if at least a small amount of warm dung were left in the aftermath of all these dramas and crises! It was but a paper anguish.
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas

What follows now is a contrast to these challenges... What we find is separation from a world in which appearance falsifies that which appears... In this bewitched world, that is, with no exit, for one cannot escape it without neglecting responsibilities, the separation of the Pharisees is put into practice. It is an absence from the immediacy of possessing by means of prohibitions and rules, a hope of holiness in the face of a sacred that cannot be purified, Judaism as an irreducible modality of being present to the world.
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas

סנהדרין ס״ז ב:כ״ב-ס״ח א:ז׳

אמר ר' עקיבא כו': והא ר' עקיבא מר' יהושע גמיר לה והתניא כשחלה ר' אליעזר נכנסו ר' עקיבא וחביריו לבקרו הוא יושב בקינוף שלו והן יושבין בטרקלין שלו... נכנסו וישבו לפניו מרחוק ד' אמות א"ל למה באתם א"ל ללמוד תורה באנו א"ל ועד עכשיו למה לא באתם א"ל לא היה לנו פנאי אמר להן תמיה אני אם ימותו מיתת עצמן אמר לו ר' עקיבא שלי מהו אמר לו שלך קשה משלהן נטל שתי זרועותיו והניחן על לבו אמר אוי לכם שתי זרועותיי שהן כשתי ספרי תורה שנגללין הרבה תורה למדתי והרבה תורה לימדתי... ולא עוד אלא שאני שונה שלש מאות הלכות בבהרת עזה ולא היה אדם ששואלני בהן דבר מעולם ולא עוד אלא שאני שונה שלש מאות הלכות ואמרי לה שלשת אלפים הלכות בנטיעת קשואין ולא היה אדם שואלני בהן דבר מעולם חוץ מעקיבא בן יוסף פעם אחת אני והוא מהלכין היינו בדרך אמר לי רבי למדני בנטיעת קשואין אמרתי דבר אחד נתמלאה כל השדה קשואין אמר לי רבי למדתני נטיעתן למדני עקירתן אמרתי דבר אחד נתקבצו כולן למקום אחד

Sanhedrin 67b:22-68a:7

And did Rabbi Akiva learn these halakhot from Rabbi Yehoshua? But isn’t it taught in a baraita: When Rabbi Eliezer took ill, Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues came to visit him... they entered and sat before him at a distance of four cubits... Rabbi Eliezer said to them: Why have you come? They said to him: We have come to study Torah. Rabbi Eliezer said to them: And why have you not come until now? They said to him: We did not have spare time. Rabbi Eliezer said to them: I would be surprised if these Sages die their own death. Rabbi Akiva said: And I? He answered: Your lot is harsher than theirs. Rabbi Eliezer raised his two arms and placed them on his heart, and he said: Woe to you, my two arms, as they are like two Torah scrolls that are being rolled up... Moreover, I can teach three hundred halakhot with regard to a snow-white leprous mark, but no person has ever asked me anything about them. Moreover, I can teach three hundred halakhot, and some say three thousand halakhot, with regard to the planting of cucumbers by sorcery, but no person has ever asked me anything about them, besides Akiva ben Yosef. Once he and I were walking along the way, and he said to me: My teacher, teach me about the planting of cucumbers. I said one statement of sorcery, and the entire field became filled with cucumbers. He said to me: My teacher, you have taught me about planting them; teach me about uprooting them. I said one statement and they all were gathered to one place.

And here our text, in its apparent attachment to questions of the ritual "to do" and "not to do," testifies, in my opinion, to a greatness that is precisely what brings incomprehension and scorn upon the Jewish tradition. The master is about to die. What is talked about during these moments? Eternal destiny? The inner life? Not at all. "What I must do" is more important than "what am I allowed to hope for."
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas

סנהדרין ס״ח א:י׳-י״א

אלמא מרבי אליעזר גמרה גמרה מרבי אליעזר ולא סברה הדר גמרה מרבי יהושע ואסברה ניהליה

Sanhedrin 68a:10-11

Apparently, Rabbi Akiva learned the halakhot of gathering cucumbers through sorcery from Rabbi Eliezer, not from Rabbi Yehoshua. He learned it from Rabbi Eliezer but he did not understand it. Later he learned it from Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Yehoshua explained it to him.

סנהדרין ס״ח א:י״ב

היכי עביד הכי והאנן תנן העושה מעשה חייב להתלמד שאני דאמר מר (דברים יח, ט) לא תלמד לעשות לעשות אי אתה למד אבל אתה למד להבין ולהורות:

Sanhedrin 68a:12

How could Rabbi Eliezer have performed that act of sorcery? But didn’t we learn that one who performs an act of sorcery is liable? Performing sorcery not in order to use it, but in order to teach oneself is different; as the Master says, “You shall not learn to do like the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you…one who uses divination, a soothsayer, an enchanter, or a sorcerer” (Deuteronomy 18:9–10). You shall not learn in order to do, but you may learn in order to understand and teach.

This last point is crucial: everything we have learned about this world of illusions and sorcery, about the decadence of the sacred in which the false sacred (or rather, simply the sacred) maintains itself, all that must be known. The only relations the Jewish tradition grants to this sacred and its desacrilization is knowledge of these abominations...
The holiness it wants comes to it from the living God.
— Nine Talmudic Readings by Emmanuel Levinas