The Paradox of Hermeneuts

There seems to be something curious about the fact that the term Sefer (book), סְפֹר, appears between Sefir (counting), סְפֹר, and Sipur (narrative), סִפּוּר. The book per se is not merely a symbol but also a concrete artefact of our propensity to appropriate things — especially those which, in Buber’s thought, are never mere things: not only the human Thou but also the Divine Thou.

Faced with what the book expresses through what has been imprinted upon it, one can both calculate and discuss — both operations stemming from our cognitive capacity. Let us take as an example the opening verses of the Bible: Bereshit Bara Elohim. On the one hand, we perceive the external structure of the phrase as composed of three words which, together, form a single sentence. On the other hand, we also seek to understand the interiority of each word. Without delving into the intricacies of a symbolic reading, the translation is that In the beginning, God created. No book, in general, remains physically open at all times. Even in cases where physicality is indirect — such as an e-book — the platform through which we access it is not perpetually online. And even when we do access it, we do not always open the same file in question. Though this may seem arbitrary and perhaps even trivial, the inevitable closing of a book, distanced from the moment of its completion by its author, also speaks to our condition as cognitive beings.

This is why Sefer is interwoven between Sefir and Sipur — while at the same time, Sefir and Sipur as extremities indicate the limitations of Sefer itself. Only the book is physical and, therefore, necessarily limited. Numerical counting and linguistic discourse, by contrast, are abstractions so fluid that they verge on what is described in Spanish as hacer castillos en el aire — building castles in the air. Yet the book constitutes a kind of passive womb, devoid of a living spirit, which the dead letter summons in order to be imbued with meaning. The spirit — so alive that it breathes life into the book’s passive womb, fertilising it as a kind of active phallus — is both the count and the tale. This is clearly paradoxical. And at the same time, it also evokes the symbolic hermeneutics of Jewish mysticism as derived from the Bible. A book is just a book and, as such, has nothing to say if it remains confined to its own being. However, a book ceases to be merely a book when everything presented within it finds enumeration in counting and description in storytelling. Conversely, if counting seeks to quantify even that which eludes submission to mathematics, and if storytelling aims to describe that which resists submission to language, then paradoxically, the book once again becomes just a book.

Finally, when mathematics and language are brought together in harmony with the humility of the hermeneut, who recognises the limits of both himself and all that he employs, the hermeneut reflects the Most Holy, blessed be He. Thus, with the 32 Paths of Wisdom, God created all things — 10 being the Indo-Arabic numerals and 22 the Hebrew letters.