16 over 16: sweet sixteen & 4 the-first-time-kiss!


The gendering of sectarian heresy,
which here is Christianity,
is supported by the fact that in the Proverbs verse what one
is enjoined to keep away from is
"her ways."

Naturally,
Christians at this time
were gendering "Judaism" as feminine
in almost exactly the same way,
especially via the associations between Arianism
and "Judaizing."
And,
in general,
"heresy" is gendered in the same way.

The literal subject of the verse is the seductive "strange woman,"
whose lips drip honey, but whose aftertaste is bitter.
It is important to recognize here a major metaphorical shift.
For the prophets, the dominant metaphor is of a female Israel gone awhoring
with myriad lovers, while here,
we find Israel figured as a lustful male
tempted sorely by a seductive female.

This shift of the metaphor
of a straying Israel from female to male
is accomplished by repeatedly reading figures of sexual danger
from from Proverbs as if they were allegories
for religious temptations and dangers.

Foreign whores and seductions of collaboration,
thus rendering the errent Jews their illicit male partner.

In the rabbinic text,
the "foreign woman" of proverbs,
almost a perennial source of sexual excitement in many human cultures,
becomes the primary metaphor for all that is exotic
and thus alluring the Jews,
whether as political power or seductive
foreign cults.

Jews are faced
with the dual temptations of collaboration with the oppressors
or of assimilation into the dominant cultural forms.

Either of those seductive options
provide an escape from the sometimes unbearable tensions of diasporized Jewish existence
that is central to the text,
and it is these diversions that are thematized
as being similar to the forms of escape
that sexual = pleasure provides,
as well!

At first glance,
this claim may seem strange,
since I and others have been arguing so strenuously
that the Rabbis saw themselves as feminized?!
However, on further reflection,
there is no lustful male,
the valorized image is the virgin female.

We can find an explicit modern pendant for this theory
in Ramakrishna's exhortation to his disciples to "become woman"
in order to transcend their own sexual desire to be with women:
"A man can change his nature
by imitating another's character.
By transposing on to yourself the attributes of woman,
you gradually destroy lust and the other sensual drives.
You begin to beave like women!"
This feminine identification
was quite compatible with a marked gynophobia.
One's desire to become a woman was an attempt to transcend sexual desire.
When I speak of my duty to go deeper into voluptuous pleasures,
I never mean by that sexual desires
towards other human beings
(women) and even less
sexual commerce,
but I imagine myself man and woman in one person
in the proces of making love
to myself!

This desire
to be both woman and spirit ...
may be the only way to avoid becoming the object
of the Other's (female's) desire!
By the time we reach the end of the talmudic narrative,
we shall see that the female virgin is indeed an object of identification for the rabbis,
in much the same way that others have taught us
that the virgin performed symbolically
for contemporary Christians
such as the fourth-century
Bishop Ambrose
of Milan.

As we will see further on
through a reading of this work,
at a time contemporaneous with the Rabbis,
Ambrose also urged self-feminizations as an antidote to the perceived evils of the male psyche.
In both late ancient Christianity and Judaism, ideal male identity was secured in part via crossgender identification with female virgins.

These affinities
run very strong and deep till now:
we will unite male and female in the near future
as much as we are identifying with our religious &
human roots from the beginning
of time.

Following these small bits
of halakhic discourse, the Talmud goes on
with the stories of tricksters and martyrs that we have analyzed
in the previous stories.

I wish to go back now
and interpet a part of the talmudic martyrology
that we passed over in that reading.
Close reading of this passage will strongly support the interpretations
that we have been giving and amplify
their meanings.

Immediately after describing the punishments
of the three members of Rabbi Hanina's family,
the text explains why G d has allowed them to be so maltreated:
"Him to burning, for he used to pronounce the Holy Name literally.
How is it possible that he did such a thing?!
For we have a traditon that
Abba Shaul says that also one who pronounces the Holy Name literally
has no place in the World to Come!
He did it for the purpose of self~instruction,
for as another tradition says:

"'Do not learn to do'
[pronouncing G d's name;
Deuteronomy 18:9],
but you may learn in order to
understand and to teach."
[If that is the case],
why was he punished?
Because he used to pronounce the Holy Name literally in public,
and it says
"This is my eternal name"
[Exodus 3:15],
but the word
"eternal"
{leolam}
is spelt as if it meant
"for hiding"
{lelam}?
[Olam
- eeuwigheid
met de nabijgelegen associaties
van smeltkroes & heilige werkplaats,
daad/handeling 'g ds',
noodlot/moedwil,
JUK/yoga,
verborgenheid/onzichtbaarheid
& onbekendheid,
verborgen,
eeuwigheid/voortijd,
onheuglijke tijden,
't verborgene/verborgenheden,
'knaap & jonge vrouw'
['maagd'], jeugdige kracht/juichen/vrolijk
verheffen/dansen,
'slurpen/begeesterd' &
onmachtig,
opstelling/blijven/staan/ontstaan/bestaan
e.d.!]!

't
Gaat dus
al met al
om de essentie
van 'de mens' {YOU&ME}
in g ds aangezicht, zijn/haar
aanwezigheid/echtheid!
En
dat
is niet
[meer]
in woorden te vangen,
maar alleen maar voorzichtig,
vrijmoedig, eerlijk &
waarachtig te benaderen
met daden
van gerechtigheid
[MEER
dan in
wat voor
WOORD
dan ook]!

Vandaar die
eerbied!
blozen
engel
cool!
06 aug 2008 - bewerkt op 06 aug 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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