Article
Poetry and a traditional Jewish genre
What T. Carmi Taught Me
May 17, 2011
The fruit of the citrus (hadar) tree . . . :
A fruit whose taste is the same as the taste of its tree, that is, the citron.
Ben Azai says: Hadar, that is [a fruit] which remains on its tree from year to year.
Aquila of Sinope’s translation: Hadar, ydor, that which dwells over water.
(Commentary of Rabbi Cahana 27:8)
Here we have three commentaries on the words “fruit of the citrus tree”. The first midrash stresses the surprising juxtaposition of “fruit” and “tree” and concludes from it that there must be something of the fruit in the tree as well. The second plays with two meanings of the sound “hadar” and concludes that this must be a perennial fruit which “lives” on the tree from year to year. The third and most surprising midrash explains the word “hadar” by its closeness to the classical Greek word for water, ydor; Aquila of Sinope, [a 2nd-century CE translator of the Bible into Greek], notes the similarity between the words and concludes that the fruit of the citrus tree is that which requires a lot of water to grow. If we consider that the first two midrashim attempt to clarify the literal meaning of the verse, the third makes it clear to us that this is not simply an explanation but a midrash, an act of dual loyalty. Aquila does not mean to claim that the Torah is written in Greek. But since it is clear to him that the Torah is relevant to every generation, with its languages and new phenomena, there is nothing to prevent him making such a commentary, which links the ancient Hebrew to his contemporary Greek.
Once we understand the dual loyalty of the commentator in the midrash, it is only a small leap to discerning similar midrashic tendencies in the poet. Many poets, since the start of modern Hebrew poetry, have based entire works on a creative reference to Biblical sources. When we see a poem like this, in which the modern lyrical poet encounters an ancient source, we immediately find ourselves in the sphere of midrash. Like the commentator of the midrash, the poet deals in language; he too wishes to lend his interpretation to the written word, and he too is faithful not only to language and the verse but also (mainly) to his own inner truth, from which his writing emerges . . .
From great works like Bialik’s The Dead in the Wilderness and Alterman’s Poems of the Plagues of Egypt to the many midrash poems written in Israel over the last decade, we find a poetic corpus with similar emphases. The poets derive inspiration from the ancient figure and event, and write their own spirit into that figure and/or event. In certain cases, this encounter gives rise to poems which are structurally very similar to those referencing Greek or other mythologies. In other cases, the distinctive Hebrew of the modern poem distances it a little from Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus or Cavafy’s ‘Ithaca’, but still these poems are mainly based on a midrash figure or midrash event and the many layers of language serve mainly as support for their midrashic composition.
There is an alternate midrashic way, however, which may perhaps be termed “midrashic poetics” rather than merely “midrash poems.” Unlike midrash poems which are grouped together with other poems lacking any midrashic tendency, the second midrashic way directs entire collections, sometimes the entire body of the poet’s work. T. Carmi marches proudly at the head of poets embracing this second way.
Carmi’s poetry constitutes a unique type of midrash. He remains faithful to the interpretative and linguistic methods of midrash – the language of the poem is steeped in reference to tradition and ancient sources – even, and this is the important point, when the verse being interpreted is not from Genesis or even an excellent stanza of Bialik . . . This is the great power of midrashic poetics. It is not limited to Biblical events or figures, or to the language of the sources, but sends the poet out with “midrashic eyeglasses” to report on the world she sees through them.
Midrashic poetics, then is a way of hearing and of writing, it is a creative veil through which the world (not only the Jewish canon) is seen differently. Carmi’s work is exemplary . . . I would like to point to four basic characteristics of midrashic poetics as I see them with the aid of a poem, part of a cycle in which Carmi interprets the sentence “remember that you are the most beloved of all” with a separate poem written for each word in the sentence. The poems are all spoken by a woman saying goodbye to her partner who is leaving on some sort of journey:
BELOVED
Sternest of all, most suspicious of all.
A gift that is a liability,
an eternity which will come to fruition.
Believe me:
I have not many reckonings
nor few reckonings.
I do not wish to be
a debt collector, holding a bond, an abandoned creditor.
I know:
If you repeat it endlessly
It becomes a sharp bark.
Beloved. Beloved. Beloved.
So I say it
before the door locks shut
once and for all.
We have already mentioned two characteristics of midrashic poetics: first, language itself is the starting point, rather than, say, a story or figure which the language presents us with. Secondly, and following the first characteristic, the interpretation may expand beyond the language of the sources and in fact touch on any sentence, at any linguistic level, from Isaiah to an oncologist’s words. These two characteristics are true of “Beloved” as well. In addition to applying midrash to a colloquial sentence, the poems themselves refer to their own language, each poem to a single word. The word “beloved” for example is interpreted here until it achieves new meanings, including debt, difficulty and a “sharp bark”. The poet does not weave his poem around the dramatic situation of the couple, but rather weaves the couple around the words they speak.
Two further characteristics may be added. The third is a ludic aspect: in another poem Carmi stresses “one thing is clear / everyone is playing”. Further on, he demonstrates this with a play on words: “Fear is a drive. / The explosion is a code. / You have nothing / which does not impose its opposite.” This verse is entirely based on dizzying linguistic combinations which provoke a smile, compressed as they are into a single verse. On the other hand, the content is not at all amusing. Does he really mean what he says? Does he hang his entire burden on language, or is he mocking us? Is he being ironic? Such questions inevitably arise in the face of these little midrashim (as they did in response to Aquila’s Greek interpretation of hadar) and have no real answer. The poet is indeed playing, but with stones which are the foundation of human existence. This is a game one should not take lightly, although it cannot be taken entirely seriously either. The main strength of such a game, in my opinion, is precisely that subversive quality. In the guise of interpretation or definition, the interpreter-poet teaches us that by their very existence definitions must be held in doubt.
The last characteristic of midrashic poetics is the most elusive, but I will risk delineating it briefly. The main point is this: not every poet who plays with language is writing midrash. Similarly, not all sages who encountered the Torah at the time of the Mishnaic teachers wrote midrash. Along with a cognitive and structural framework of dual loyalty, there must be another, intrinsically transcendental factor. Carmi, once again, is a prime example. Together with playfulness and a fierce attraction to the many levels of colloquial language, his poems pulse with a directive towards some higher world. Sometimes this might be a world of ethical purity, at others, an expectation of redemption, or the many waters of love. I believe that this is why one may find so many midrashim in Carmi’s work which do touch on biblical language (although, as I have said, not actual figures or events, but rather verses, fragments etc.). It is not only linguistic or historical entertainment which lead Carmi in that direction. He is attracted to spiritual (not necessarily religious) powers which he can introduce into the poem using ancient language. When Carmi asks rhetorically about the Messiah, “Maybe he is trying to make / the sleeping lips / of the ATM speak?” he gathers up all the spiritual energy of the well-known verse from the Song of Songs, “And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak “ (7:10 KJV), and directs himself towards language, to his existential distress and his cancer, to the bitter game of the midrashic poet, and creates a gem. Excerpted and translated from the Poetry Place Online, November 2007
‘Midrash’ is one of those concepts which are easy to comprehend but difficult to define, especially if we try to define it in collections of poetry. I will nevertheless attempt to sketch an outline of Hebrew poetic midrash, and how T. Carmi used it. I wish to focus on the more subtle trend which steals upon us and is therefore sweetest.
What is midrash (commentary), and what is poetic-midrash? Most scholarly definitions of the term midrash stress three essential, overlapping elements: interpretation, linguistics and a creative element. The commentator (darshan) looks to a verse in order to interpret it, but also in order to create something new and relevant with it or from it, all the while paying close attention to language. The result of this complex alignment is a unique, almost dangerous creative act, based on a dual loyalty: a commentary almost fanatically faithful to the written word, but at the same time to the present time and place, to issues which preoccupy the commentator, to his personal language. The following midrash about the festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot) constitutes a small example of this:The fruit of the citrus (hadar) tree . . . :
A fruit whose taste is the same as the taste of its tree, that is, the citron.
Ben Azai says: Hadar, that is [a fruit] which remains on its tree from year to year.
Aquila of Sinope’s translation: Hadar, ydor, that which dwells over water.
(Commentary of Rabbi Cahana 27:8)
Here we have three commentaries on the words “fruit of the citrus tree”. The first midrash stresses the surprising juxtaposition of “fruit” and “tree” and concludes from it that there must be something of the fruit in the tree as well. The second plays with two meanings of the sound “hadar” and concludes that this must be a perennial fruit which “lives” on the tree from year to year. The third and most surprising midrash explains the word “hadar” by its closeness to the classical Greek word for water, ydor; Aquila of Sinope, [a 2nd-century CE translator of the Bible into Greek], notes the similarity between the words and concludes that the fruit of the citrus tree is that which requires a lot of water to grow. If we consider that the first two midrashim attempt to clarify the literal meaning of the verse, the third makes it clear to us that this is not simply an explanation but a midrash, an act of dual loyalty. Aquila does not mean to claim that the Torah is written in Greek. But since it is clear to him that the Torah is relevant to every generation, with its languages and new phenomena, there is nothing to prevent him making such a commentary, which links the ancient Hebrew to his contemporary Greek.
Once we understand the dual loyalty of the commentator in the midrash, it is only a small leap to discerning similar midrashic tendencies in the poet. Many poets, since the start of modern Hebrew poetry, have based entire works on a creative reference to Biblical sources. When we see a poem like this, in which the modern lyrical poet encounters an ancient source, we immediately find ourselves in the sphere of midrash. Like the commentator of the midrash, the poet deals in language; he too wishes to lend his interpretation to the written word, and he too is faithful not only to language and the verse but also (mainly) to his own inner truth, from which his writing emerges . . .
From great works like Bialik’s The Dead in the Wilderness and Alterman’s Poems of the Plagues of Egypt to the many midrash poems written in Israel over the last decade, we find a poetic corpus with similar emphases. The poets derive inspiration from the ancient figure and event, and write their own spirit into that figure and/or event. In certain cases, this encounter gives rise to poems which are structurally very similar to those referencing Greek or other mythologies. In other cases, the distinctive Hebrew of the modern poem distances it a little from Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus or Cavafy’s ‘Ithaca’, but still these poems are mainly based on a midrash figure or midrash event and the many layers of language serve mainly as support for their midrashic composition.
There is an alternate midrashic way, however, which may perhaps be termed “midrashic poetics” rather than merely “midrash poems.” Unlike midrash poems which are grouped together with other poems lacking any midrashic tendency, the second midrashic way directs entire collections, sometimes the entire body of the poet’s work. T. Carmi marches proudly at the head of poets embracing this second way.
Carmi’s poetry constitutes a unique type of midrash. He remains faithful to the interpretative and linguistic methods of midrash – the language of the poem is steeped in reference to tradition and ancient sources – even, and this is the important point, when the verse being interpreted is not from Genesis or even an excellent stanza of Bialik . . . This is the great power of midrashic poetics. It is not limited to Biblical events or figures, or to the language of the sources, but sends the poet out with “midrashic eyeglasses” to report on the world she sees through them.
Midrashic poetics, then is a way of hearing and of writing, it is a creative veil through which the world (not only the Jewish canon) is seen differently. Carmi’s work is exemplary . . . I would like to point to four basic characteristics of midrashic poetics as I see them with the aid of a poem, part of a cycle in which Carmi interprets the sentence “remember that you are the most beloved of all” with a separate poem written for each word in the sentence. The poems are all spoken by a woman saying goodbye to her partner who is leaving on some sort of journey:
BELOVED
Sternest of all, most suspicious of all.
A gift that is a liability,
an eternity which will come to fruition.
Believe me:
I have not many reckonings
nor few reckonings.
I do not wish to be
a debt collector, holding a bond, an abandoned creditor.
I know:
If you repeat it endlessly
It becomes a sharp bark.
Beloved. Beloved. Beloved.
So I say it
before the door locks shut
once and for all.
We have already mentioned two characteristics of midrashic poetics: first, language itself is the starting point, rather than, say, a story or figure which the language presents us with. Secondly, and following the first characteristic, the interpretation may expand beyond the language of the sources and in fact touch on any sentence, at any linguistic level, from Isaiah to an oncologist’s words. These two characteristics are true of “Beloved” as well. In addition to applying midrash to a colloquial sentence, the poems themselves refer to their own language, each poem to a single word. The word “beloved” for example is interpreted here until it achieves new meanings, including debt, difficulty and a “sharp bark”. The poet does not weave his poem around the dramatic situation of the couple, but rather weaves the couple around the words they speak.
Two further characteristics may be added. The third is a ludic aspect: in another poem Carmi stresses “one thing is clear / everyone is playing”. Further on, he demonstrates this with a play on words: “Fear is a drive. / The explosion is a code. / You have nothing / which does not impose its opposite.” This verse is entirely based on dizzying linguistic combinations which provoke a smile, compressed as they are into a single verse. On the other hand, the content is not at all amusing. Does he really mean what he says? Does he hang his entire burden on language, or is he mocking us? Is he being ironic? Such questions inevitably arise in the face of these little midrashim (as they did in response to Aquila’s Greek interpretation of hadar) and have no real answer. The poet is indeed playing, but with stones which are the foundation of human existence. This is a game one should not take lightly, although it cannot be taken entirely seriously either. The main strength of such a game, in my opinion, is precisely that subversive quality. In the guise of interpretation or definition, the interpreter-poet teaches us that by their very existence definitions must be held in doubt.
The last characteristic of midrashic poetics is the most elusive, but I will risk delineating it briefly. The main point is this: not every poet who plays with language is writing midrash. Similarly, not all sages who encountered the Torah at the time of the Mishnaic teachers wrote midrash. Along with a cognitive and structural framework of dual loyalty, there must be another, intrinsically transcendental factor. Carmi, once again, is a prime example. Together with playfulness and a fierce attraction to the many levels of colloquial language, his poems pulse with a directive towards some higher world. Sometimes this might be a world of ethical purity, at others, an expectation of redemption, or the many waters of love. I believe that this is why one may find so many midrashim in Carmi’s work which do touch on biblical language (although, as I have said, not actual figures or events, but rather verses, fragments etc.). It is not only linguistic or historical entertainment which lead Carmi in that direction. He is attracted to spiritual (not necessarily religious) powers which he can introduce into the poem using ancient language. When Carmi asks rhetorically about the Messiah, “Maybe he is trying to make / the sleeping lips / of the ATM speak?” he gathers up all the spiritual energy of the well-known verse from the Song of Songs, “And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak “ (7:10 KJV), and directs himself towards language, to his existential distress and his cancer, to the bitter game of the midrashic poet, and creates a gem. Excerpted and translated from the Poetry Place Online, November 2007
© Ariel Zinder
Translator: Rebecca Gillis
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