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Back to New Kabbalah "Articles" Dialog on Kabbalah and Postmodernism Tzimtzum and ‘Differance’:
Derrida and the Lurianic Kabbalah Revised
In one of his last meetings with Jacques Derrida, Emanauel Levinas is said to
have asked Derrida to confess that he was in fact a modern day representative
of the Lurianic Kabbalah.
I learned of this from the death-of-God theologian, Thomas J.J. Altizer, who related to me that he himself had heard it
from Hillis Miller on the occasion of Mller having introduced Altizer
to Derrida himself. Whether apocryphal or true, the story seemed to confirm
what I had suspected for quite some time, that an encounter with Derrida’s
thought is potentially an important gateway to a contemporary Kabbalistic
philosophy and theology. Many of the major themes of Derrida’s
philosophy and its relationship to the Kabbalah
emerge from a close reading of his 1968 paper on “Differance.” In order to show Derrida’s affinity to the Kabbalah I will engage in a reading of this paper, and
related writings, from a Kabbalistic point of view, and conversely begin a
reading of such Lurianic notions as “Tzimtzum” and
“Ein-sof” from the perspective of deconstructive philosophy. In the course of these readings I will have
occasion to juxtapose Derrida’s notions of “differance”
and the “trace,” his critique of “presence” and “logocentrism,”
as well as his interpretation of the Platonic notion of “khora”
with comparable Kabbalistic symbols such as Ein-sof, Tzimtzum, and din.
My ultimate purpose is not to show that Derrida is a Kabbalist, but rather to utilize his thought to deepen
our understanding of the Kabbalistic symbols.
The comparisons I will make are meant to be suggestive only, as any
thought of a fixed and final interpretation of the matters at hand, would be
completely alien to the kabbalistic and
deconstructionist notions I am considering In writing about these
topics one feels confronted with more than the usual problems associated with
presenting a group of interrelated ideas in a serial fashion. Isaac Luria, whose ideas were for the most part transmitted via
the writings of his disciples, was once asked why he himself never recorded
his teachings in writing. “It is
impossible,” he is said to have replied, “because all things are related; I
can hardly open my mouth to speak without feeling as though the sea burst and
its dams had overflowed”.[1] Derrida, on the other hand, is the author
of more books than any other well-known philosopher. Each, it seems, had a different response to
the phenomenon of the bursting dam. “Differance” Derrida
introduces the word differance
as a pivotal term in his critique of the representational theory of language,
the theory that words gain their significance by their direct association
with experiences or things. Derrida adopts the view of the early 20th
century French linguist, Saussure that “in language
there are only differences.” For Saussure, sounds, words and concepts, do not directly
“attach” themselves to their supposed references, but rather derive their
significance as a result of their difference from other sounds, words, and
concepts in a linguistic system. [2] Derrida adopts the term “differance” in order to refer to that which enables
phonemes and ultimately words to be distinguished from one another.[3]
He creates a “difference” in the
spelling of his term, “differance” by substituting
an “a” for an “e” in such a manner that this difference cannot be heard in
(French) speech and can thus only be discerned graphically. This is fitting because the difference that
Saussure had spoken of as the basis for semantic
meaning is itself inaudible. As Derrida himself puts it: “The difference
which establishes phonemes and lets them be heard remains in and of itself
inaudible in every sense of the word.”[4] Derrida asks whether we must not then “be
permitted to refer to an order which no longer belongs to sensibility.” He adds that in addition to being
non-sensible, differance is also
non-conceptual, inasmuch as concepts themselves already assume a
differentiation on the basis of (sensible) names. In
isolating the notion of differance, Derrida
believes that he has found an order that resists “one of the founding
oppositions of philosophy,” the opposition between “the sensible and the
intelligible.”[5] He says that he cannot
expose differance, he cannot tell or show us
what it is, because unlike sensible and intelligible
things differance
cannot be made present, i.e. it
cannot be placed before us as an experience. Differance makes possible the
very gesture or presentation of being present, but it itself can never be
presented. In telling us that “differance is what makes possible the presentation of
being present” he crosses out the “is” to indicate that this is just a
pointer for our understanding, and that differance certainly cannot be
said to have any “being.” Differance “exceed(s) the order of truth” but it is not
itself a “something”. The “Trace” Derrida introduces the
notion of the “trace” in order to indicate that all that we regard as present
to consciousness, all that is in the temporal present, is only significant
because it is marked by a “trace” of something else, something that is not
present. According to Derrida,
language, and particularly writing makes the
movement of signification possible only if each element that is said to be
‘present’ appearing on the stage of presence, is related to something other
than itself but retains the mark of a past element and already lets itself be
hollowed out by the mark of its relation to a future element. This trace relates no less to what is
called the future than to what is called the past, and it constitutes what is
called the present by this very relation to what it is not, to what it absolutely
is not....[6] The trace
is not only relevant to language, but to all experience as well, as any
experiential present is unavoidably marked by a past and a future that
contextualizes it and renders it meaningful.
A pure point of “presence” could have no significance whatsoever; in
fact, it could not even be regarded as an experience at all. For
Derrida the “trace” is both the “general structure of the sign,” and “the
general structure of experience as lived time,” a “retention,” in “minimal
unit of temporal experience,” replacing the “Now,” and structuring experience
via “difference.”[7] The “trace” entails that all thought and
experience is in fact inhabited (and constituted) by a “non-now” and, as
Derrida later elaborates, by a whole host of other “outside” determinations,
including the unconscious, materiality, animal nature, etc. each of which
“experience” is originally meant to exclude.
The “trace” of what is other exists in what is thought to be the self-same.[8] Differance is “Not” Derrida
tells us that “differance
is not. It is not a present being,
however excellent, unique, principal, or transcendent. It governs nothing, reigns over nothing,
and nowhere exercises any authority.
It is not announced by any capital letter. Not only is there no kingdom of differance, but
differance
instigates the subversion of every kingdom.
This makes it obviously threatening and infallibly dreaded by
everything within us that desires a kingdom, the past or future presence of a
kingdom.”[9] Yet
Derrida confesses that “in a certain aspect of itself, differance is certainly but the
historical and epochal unfolding of
Being...”[10]
However, since Being itself cannot be
thought or said except through beings, which are already differentiated, differance is
then actually, according to Derrida, “older than being.”[11] Differance
in this “aged” sense is the “play of the trace.” The trace is that which always differs and
defers, which “erases itself in presenting itself...” For Derrida the system of differences is
what is older than being itself. We thus find in Derrida a non-metaphysics, a
non-philosophy that somehow manages to provide a touch of satisfaction to our
metaphysical cravings. However,
there is no ‘name’ for the differance that is “older” than Being.[12] This is not because it is ineffable and
thus beyond naming, but rather because it “is the play which makes possible
nominal effects.” To name it would be
to provide a unique, master-name; but since nothing can be named except
within a matrix of difference, that which permits naming cannot be named or
mastered by anything outside or anterior to that matrix. The proper name of
this play that permits nominal effects would have to come outside that play,
but we know that this is an impossible demand, similar to describing in language the relationship between
language and the world. Our project of
catching hold to “that which makes naming possible” or “the relationship
between language and the world” cannot even begin, because once we have begun
we have already assumed and made use of that which we wish to name and/or
explain. Does Difference Create? As
we have seen, for Derrida, the structural view of language adopted from Saussure, dictates that concepts and even phonic
differences actually issue from the system.
As such the “signified concept” can never be present in and of itself
but only as part of an entire system of differences, each node of which has
significance only be virtue of its differential status vis a vis each
of the others. Differance, for Derrida is
therefore not a concept but “rather the very possibility of
conceptuality.” However, because differance
itself is non-full, non-present, non-simple, it cannot be conceptualized as
an origin or foundation. For Derrida, there can be no cause, or foundation
for language, even differance
itself, that eludes the play of differance. Derrida
uses the terms “constitute,” “produce,” “create” and “history” only in a
strategic sense, and it is in this strategic sense alone that differance
constitutes language “as a weave of differences.” Derrida will later deconstruct “cause,”
“constitutes,” etc. Differance is
in fact prior to and indifferent to the distinction between structural and
genetic (or historical) points of view, which are themselves terms in a system
of differences. For
Derrida, any effort to explain differance,
already makes use of differance;
if we go outside of differance
in order to explain it we no longer avail ourselves of the system of language
which differance alone provides us. There can be no
explanation of differance within language
and no explanation outside of language either, for the very notion of an
explanation is itself linguistic.
Neither can we really give “differance older
than being” a name. This is because any name we give it will already reside
within a matrix of other contrasting terms that it, differance,
presumably gives rise to. Naming difference is like being unable to name the
King, we call him by the name of one of is own subjects and treat him as if
he we were one subject amongst many. For Derrida there can be no unique or master name that fixes the
essence of differance,
but only a name that purports to name it, but which only succeeds in
diminishing it. Despite
Derrida’s disclaimers that difference is neither theological nor metaphysical
(see below) his thoughts here can provide us with certain insight into the
problem of naming a theological absolute. For the Kabbalists,
this is the problem of naming Ein-sof. Once an absolute is named it
becomes an object like everything else to be contrasted with all other
things. However, we might look at this matter from a somewhat different
perspective and say that the very naming of Ein-sof (indeed the very
naming of anything) carries with it and thus brings about the entire system
of differences, and with it the origin of all possibilities, ideas and
worlds. Ein-sof, the ageless, unknowable, unnamable place/space of
all, explodes into a plethora of finite concepts and beings once it is named,
as such naming opens the differential matrix which is both language and the
world. Differance and Negative Theology Derrida
readily acknowledges that his characterization of differance appears to have much
in common with negative theology, in that his only means of characterizing differance is
to say what it is not, “not being,”
“does not exist,” “has no
form,” etc. Differance, as it turns out, is
not everything. However,
Derrida denies that differance
has anything to do with negative theology which is always in his view
“concerned with disengaging a superessentiality
beyond the finite categories of essence and existence.” Difference has
neither being nor “hyper-being.” For Derrida differance is actually quite
neutral: as the condition for all language and thought, it is in a way more
fundamental than any theological or philosophical notion or idea: It is “the
very opening of the space in which ontotheology and
philosophy produces its system and its history, it includes onto-theology,
inscribing it and exceeding it without return.”[13] In
talking about differance
Derrida will not and cannot operate according to the rules of philosophical
and logical discourse which are after all contained by differance. Instead he proposes a certain errant and
adventurous wandering as his method: If there is a certain wandering in the tracing of differance, it
no more follows the lines of philosophical - logical discourse that of its
symmetrical and integral inverse, empirical - logical discourse. The concept of play keeps itself beyond this opposition, announcing, on the eve
of philosophy and beyond it, the unity of chance and necessity in
calculations without end.[14] Derrida
is here proposing a form of writing that is neither reducible to sensing nor
thinking, nor to philosophy nor science.
This writing is a “play” which according to Derrida, is not to be
reduced to or circumscribed to thinking, which is itself, in Derrida’s view,
conditioned by a program that assumes certain binary distinctions that he
wants to question and/or overcome. To
make a computer analogy: Derrida wishes to continue typing on the keyboard,
but he has made a shift that has disengaged him from the program, any
program; his keystrokes no longer have a pre-determined programmatic meaning
but are just a free-play on the computer, not in “Windows”, not in “DOS”,
etc. It is a play that enables him to go on a new adventure to some place
unanticipated by the programmed discourse.
Differance
is his opening to this free-play. Of
course by typing on the keyboard outside of any program he will not make
sense, he will not even be thinking, but that, in a way, is precisely where
he wants to go. The
notion of a form of discourse that is somehow prior to or outside the laws of
logic is familiar to students of mysticism. Stace,
in his classic book Mysticism and Philosophy, argues that the reason why
mystics have almost universally held there experience to be ineffable, and
beyond language, is precisely because they are attempting to express an
experience of the “one” that is prior to all multiplicity and thus outside
the realm of logic (whose laws only apply to the relations between different
things). No wonder that Derrida, by writing of a discourse that is prior to
or outside logic, immediately raises the charge of “mysticism” in both the
negative and most sublime senses of this term. Derrida and Mysticism Derrida’s own avowed
reason for eschewing the “charge” of “mysticism” is that mysticism, if it
stands for anything, stands for the proposition that the absolute, the unity
of all things, or God, can be present to a subject in a singular act of
mystical consciousness. When interviewed on this very issue he responds by
saying: “I am not mystical and there
is nothing mystical in my work. In fact my work is a deconstruction of values
which found mysticism, i.e. of presence, view, of the absence of a marque, of the unspeakable.”[15] We will deal more extensively with the
question of Derrida’s alleged mysticism in due course. Here I wish to focus
only on the question of mysticism and “presence.” The question of whether
mystical experience, and Jewish mystical experience in particular, is of an
absolute presence in Derrida’s sense of the term, is not easily answered. It should be pointed out that the vast
majority of mystics describe their experience not in terms of a vision or
perception (e.g. of the presence of God or other absolute) but rather in
terms of a complete emptying of consciousness, a complete lack of sensation,
perception, thought, etc. The
Kabbalist’s speak of their absolute, Ein-sof, as Ayin,
nothing, and the experiential or mystical process they and, especially, the
Hasidim describe is not one of experiencing the Lord’s presence, but rather
one of bitul ha-Yesh,
the nullification of the self, the transformation of Yesh
(existence) into Ayin (nothingness). The Thing is
Hopelessly Divided against Itself Derrida
holds that a simple, separate unitary anything is itself hopelessly divided
by the very operation that distinguishes it from all things. By this he means to say that because any
entity, experience or word, must implicitly contain within itself the system
of differences that constitute it as itself, it cannot be separate, self-sufficient
and unique. It is “divided” between itself and the system of differences
beyond itself that provide it with its identity. Here we have yet another
potential quarrel with the mystical experience of a singular, unitary
absolute. The key here, however, is that the unity of the mystic is simple,
but it is not separate; in short, the mystics’ “One” is completely
indistinguishable from all other things, and in fact, leads to the conviction
that on the deepest level, all things are reflected in each thing, and that,
in effect, all is one, a proposition that is not far from Derrida’s own
notion that each thing contains a trace of the entire system that renders it
meaningful. Finally,
the mystic’s “experience” of unity can be regarded as prior to the act,
moment or gesture , (whether it is called differance,
tzimtzum, creation, etc.) that gives rise to multiplicity. Indeed,
the Kabbalists hold that once multiplicity arises
through the Tzimtzum and is later reinforced with the Shevirah, the “Breaking of the Vessels,” division, alienation, and exile pervade the
world, precisely because they are distinct from one another. In
the Lurianic Kabbalah,
the world is torn asunder because the Sefirot as they were originally
emanated were distinct unto themselves, and not connected with all other
things. This condition (what the Kabbalists called
the World of Points) is, like Derrida’s conception of a unique and separate identity, is
self-contradictory and must ultimately break apart, and eventually yield to a
notion of a fully integral world in which a thing is itself only by virtue of
its containing all other things within it (the Kabbalist’s World of Tikkun). The Breaking of the Vessels is the result
of a manner of thinking and being which seeks ultimate difference and
distinctiveness. Paradoxically, it is
the very notion of difference as foundational for all thought that leads to
an overcoming of difference: in Derrida through his notion of the “trace,” of
an otherness that subsists in the core of all presumably self-same things,
and which overcomes the boundaries between them. By what appears to be a striking
coincidence, the Lurianist’s invoke virtually the
identical terminology of a “trace” (reshimu)
that remains in the void created by the divine tzimtzum.
Just as Derrida’s trace assures that difference is never complete, the
Kabbalist’s trace assures that Tzimtzum is never total, and that a
positive element remains in what would otherwise be a void of pure
distinctiveness. We will have much more to say about the “trace” in Derrida
and the Kabbalah later in this chapter. The Demise of Differance Derrida
believes that differance
provides us with a certain insight, yet he does not believe that this insight
should necessarily be considered permanent. The efficacy of the thematic of differance,
Derrida informs us, “may very well, indeed must, one day be superseded,
lending itself if not to its own replacement, at least to enmeshing itself in
a chain that in truth it never will have governed.”[16] Derrida offers this as one more reason why differance is
not theological. The thematic of differance is
neither a being, a word, nor a concept.
It is more akin to a strategy, something that Derrida does to get us
to see things in a new way; to, for example, undermine the notion that
“being” and “thought” are unquestionable rock-bottom characteristics of all
that we can do or say. But like the
Buddhist “ferry-boat” (or the ladders of the 20th century
philosopher, Wittgenstein), differance may well be discarded once its purpose has been
achieved. Derrida implicitly asks
whether the same can be said of “God” or any other theological principle,
that it has its transcendence, its possibility if being superceded, built
into its very core. Perhaps we need not be so fast to discard theology. Perhaps what is needed are theological
concepts, or a theological system that by its very nature assures that it
will itself be superseded and transcended.
Perhaps this is the very kind of absolute that emerges from Derrida’s
writing and dare I say, thought. At the time of the differance
essay, differance had some of the markings
of just such an absolute. We
must indeed consider the question of whether the Kabbalah
can indeed be regarded as a theological system that includes the possibility,
even the necessity of its own revision, transcendence and super cession. This topic, however, can only be fully
addressed via a consideration of the Lurianic
symbol of Shevirat ha-Kelim,
the Breaking of the Vessels, which will be the subject of the next chapter. Differance, Space and Time Derrida
points out that the French verb differer and the Latin verb differre have two distinct
meanings, the first involving distinction, the second, embodied in the
English word defer, involving “putting off until later” or a “taking account of
time,” which Derrida summarizes with the word temporization: Differer in this sense is to temporize, to take recourse,
consciously or unconsciously, in the
temporal and temporizing mediation of a detour that suspends the
accomplishment or fulfillment of “desire” or “will.”[17] Derrida
is here presenting a thematic in which differance is at the root and
origin of both time and space. Differance is
not only a temporalization, but is also, for
Derrida, a spacing, a spacing that permits the mere common meaning of “differance” to emerge, i.e. to be distinct, discernible,
not identical. Derrida refers to differance
as “the ‘originary constitution’ of space and
time.” The
notion that difference is the origin of both space and time brings us to a
fuller consideration of the relationship between difference and the Lurianic symbol, Tzimtzum. Tzimtzum and Differance Indeed,
by now it should be apparent to those familiar with the Lurianic
Kabbalah, that Derrida derives from his notion of “differance” much, if not all, of which the Luranists had attributed to the Tzimtzum, the contraction, concealment and judgment (din) that gives rise to finite
distinctions and which is the origin of both space and time.[18] For the kabbalists,
Tzimtzum is that which allows
finite things to be differentiated and to appear. It is the contraction/concealment within
the godhead that opens up a metaphysical place for being. Indeed, prior to
the Tzimtzum there is no “being,”
and Ein-sof is properly speaking
identified with Ayin,
nothing. There is a sense in which Tzimtzum is itself identified with and
equiprimordial to Ein-sof; for if God or Ein-sof
is the “place of the world” then Tzimtzum
is that which provides such place. The
place that Tzimtzum provides,
however, is not a physical space, but is rather more properly understood as
“spacing in general” or as that “space” which allows for the differentiation
of objects, thoughts, letters, and words. Indeed, according to Schneur Zalman
of Lyadi, the first Lubavitcher rebbe,
the letters of language are the vehicles of Tzimtzum, as they are the primary means through which a finite
world is differentiated and thus created. Tzimtzum
is thus embodied in the letters of language, and we may be perfectly justified
in speaking of the space that Tzimtzum
opens, as the space between letters and words that allows them to function as
units of sound and meaning. The Lurianists emphasized the differentiating nature of Tzimtzum, by holding that the Tzimtzum is both derived from and in
many ways identical to, the divine middah or trait of din,
judgment, which the Kabbalists understood as the
power in the universe that makes for moral, spiritual and material
distinctions. The deferring nature of Tzimtzum
is revealed in the fact that the Lurianists
regarded the Tzimtzum to be the
origin of both space and time. Space
and time come into being because the Tzimtzum
conceals Ein-sof from itself, or in
more human terms, conceals the fullness of Ein-sof from the partial divine consciousness in man. The
vehicles of this concealment are space and time, which continuously defer the presence of Ein-sof
or God. Finite things can exist, and
remain distinct from the divine plenum, because their union with Ein-sof is continually deferred by
both space and time. Were Ein-sof to become fully present, space
and time would collapse and the differential matrix that permits the
existence of finite distinct entities would be overcome. Such
differential/deferring, in Derrida’s terms, is for the Lurianists,
the necessary prerequisite for creation. As such there is according to the Kabbalists a “trace” (reshimu) of the Tzimtzum in all created things. Without such a trace, finite things would
not exist as independent letters, words, objects or ideas. Derrida
considers the two senses of differance as temporalization
(deferring) and spacing (differentiating) and asks how they can be
joined. With regard to the first of
these senses, Derrida points out that a linguistic sign, by representing that
which is not present, is actually traditionally conceived of as a deferred presence. This idea can
provide us with a certain insight into how language is the embodiment of Tzimtzum. Since language defers presence, it creates a certain distance between itself and
the thing represented, thus limiting, concealing, and contracting the presence of that thing in its very
(linguistic) reference to it. Writing and Tzimtzum In
Writing and Difference Derrida implies that writing is what fills the
void of god’s absence ; writing is
what takes place when God hides His face.[19]
Derrida is here, however, speaking about a writing without rabbinic
constraints that wanders and disseminates anarchically without any return, a
writing that is a-theological,
without foundation, without center (see “Ellipsis” where Derrida actually
writes under the name Reb Derissa”). According to Derrida, we should not mourn
the loss of foundation and center, but rather celebrate the signifiers
nomadic wandering and play, a suggestion which prompted/inspired Marc
Taylor’s Erring. In Kabbalistic
terms we might say that as a result of the Tzimtzum, there is a concealment of origin and center. What
remains is the decentered, errant language of
writing, embodied in the 22 holy letters.
Of course, for the Kabbalists, these letters
are not so errant as they are for Derrida, as they contain within themselves
the potential for a return to (a restored) origin. Derrida’s Tzimtzum: Reading Between the Blinds In
his later philosophy Derrida actually comes remarkably close to adopting the Tzimtzum
concept as his own. In Memoirs of the Blind Derrida speaks of a seeing
that is dependent upon a withdrawal or concealment of the very lines which
constitute a drawn image.[20] Such lines are akin to venetian
blinds, which permit a certain seeing by structuring the light that passes
through them. Derrida goes so far as
to compare the withdrawal of the lines and other structural elements in art
to God who withdraws, leaving behind a visible world, pointing out that were
we to see such a God without blinds we would be blinded by the intensity of
its light. Derrida
shows a particular interest in eyes that see through the tears of mourning,
pain and passion.[21]
(Compare Hasidic “Weeping.”) Meta-syntactical Status of “Differance” and Tzimtzum
According
to Derrida, “Differance is neither a word nor a
concept”[22] Derrida refers to it as
a grammatical device. It is a
device that limits self-presence, and which therefore creates a space of non-intuition. In doing so, it allows something other than
immediate experience, including the irrational and the Freudian unconscious
to enter discourse as philosophy. Derrida’s notions of Difference, the trace,
and “Arche-writing
as spacing” have much in common with the Lurianic
concept of Tzimtzum, which,
according to the Kabbalists, initiates a
concealment of self-presence, which becomes the origin of all significance
and meaning. The Tzimtzum, is in effect, the creation of a gap or void (dilug) in the
infinite self-presence of Ein-sof
that permits an aspect of Ein-sof
to be concealed from itself. It is
this concealment or un-consciousness that gives rise to the “space” of a
finite world, and which enables finite significances to be delimited and
distinguished from each other. For the
Kabbalists, Tzimtzum,
is indeed a principle of difference; the Lurianists
hold that it originates in an act of distinction and judgment. Again, like
Derrida’s differance,
Tzimtzum is largely a linguistic
act; according to the first Lubavitcher rebbe,
Schneur Zalman, it is essentially the concealment of divine being through
language. However,
Derrida, in contrast to the Kabbalists, eschews any
concept of a “self-presence” temporally or metaphysically prior to difference. As Scholem
has pointed out, for the Kabbalists, Ein-sof is in a state of “autokartic self-satisfaction” prior to the Tzimtzum. This sounds like a condition
of complete self-presence. As we have seen, for Derrida, such self-presence
is an impossibility even for God. Differance is
what makes all things, all speech, all meaning, and all “being” possible; it
is therefore only by a metaphysical slight of hand that we can speak of differance
making an opening in a pre-existing plenum such as God or Ein-sof. Differance, for Derrida, is “older than being.” In
Derrida’s terms, “prior” to Tzimtzum,
Ein-sof is nothing but an empty
place-holder, a word that attempts to perform the impossible task of being a
word outside the system of differences that makes words (and things) possible
in the first place. Indeed, it is only after the system of differences has
unfolded and its dialectic has run its course, that Ein-sof can move into position as a term denoting the plenum of
infinite meaning and value. Differences Between Differance and Tzimtzum The
Kabbalists thus place their symbols of Ein-sof, Tzimtzum, and Din, in a
metaphysical, almost causal context, that Derrida assiduously avoids. As we have seen, Derrida is very careful to
disengage difference from any hint of theology, negative or otherwise. (At
times the Kabbalists also write as if Ein-sof, Tzimtzum, etc. were pre-theological
terms and that their referents, if indeed these terms have referents, are
totally unsuited for worship and prayer).
Interestingly, Derrida himself tells us that if we were to speak of differance in conceptual terms it “would be said to
designate a constitutive, productive, and originary
causality, the process of scission and division which would produce or
constitute different things or differences.”[23] Differance for Derrida is neither active nor passive, but
remains “undecided” as between the two.
It is neither an act nor passion of a subject but is rather something
which only later gets “distributed into an active and a passive voice.”
Understood in this (conceptual) way differance is perfectly analogous to the divine attribute
of din (judgment) which the kabbalists speak of as occurring within the hidden
recesses of the godhead, and which is the origin of the Tzimtzum, distinctiveness, finitude, and thus creation. Our
task here, however, is not to completely assimilate Derrida to Luria, or vice versa, but rather to comprehend how a new
theological opening, a “gateway” to perhaps anew understanding of the Kabbalah might be opened through a juxtaposition of the
two. Kabbalah, Logocentrism and the Philosophy of Presence Derrida
is critical of what he calls “Logocentrism,” the
philosophy of presence of the world
to consciousness and of consciousness to itself. His main arguments against
the phenomenological and metaphysical traditions revolve around his criticism
of their efforts to attain epistemological certainty regarding that which is
present to the human subject. As we have seen, Derrida’s conception of the trace is introduced to undermine the
possibility of a “presence” that is not contaminated by an absence, a present
that is uncontaminated by past and future, an inside that is uncontaminated
by an outside, and a self that is uncontaminated by an other, and an intended
meaning that is uncontaminated by an indefinite possibility of other
interpretations. As we will shortly
see, even the self-evidence of Descartes “I think therefore I am” is brought
into doubt by a trace which assures that the “I think” is never fully
present, and because it is a linguistic expression, never fully independent
from a whole linguistic matrix that assures that something of the “other”
will be part of all of my thoughts and language. In
this regard, we should note that the Kabbalistic view is in Derrida’s terms
decidedly non-logocentric. While logocentrism assumes an uninterrupted chain from a
transcendental object or signified, through consciousness and experience, to
reference and expression in speech and writing,[24]
the Kabbalistic dialectic posits several breaks, distortions, emendations and
reconstructions in this supposed epistemological chain. In
the Kabbalah, the access of consciousness to the
pure being of presence is severely restricted by two negations, the Tzimtzum (concealment) and the Shevirah
(rupture). As a result of the Tzimtzum,
being is concealed as if through a number of veils which diminish and obscure
the source and light of true being. As a result of the Shevirah, being or presence
cannot be perceived or cognized except in a displaced, shattered, and chaotic
form. Indeed, as a result of the
Breaking of the Vessels, reality and being cannot be perceived at all except
through the interpretive, valuational and
redemptive praxis of humankind, expressed through the Lurianic
symbol of Tikkun. What we think
we see as being present to consciousness, including our own subjectivity, is,
for Schneur Zalman and others, an illusion.
For the Kabbalists, full presence would be
overwhelming, would overcome the distinctions between God, man, and world,
and would actually result in the end of human consciousness. For the Kabbalists,
human subjectivity is founded upon the illusion of a split between subject
and object, which amounts to the illusion of a distinction between God and
man. “Truth” is not something that can be immediately observed, but rather
must be extracted and reconstructed
from an illusory, broken experience, as described in the dialectic of Tzimtzum, Shevirah and Tikkun. Even the self, man’s personal
consciousness, is obscured in a kellipah that must be unbound and freed (as per complexes
in psychoanalysis). The
Kabbalists thus share with Derrida the notion that
there is an illusory split between subject and object, word and thing,
consciousness and world, but that these distinctions are nonetheless
necessary for all language, thought and subjectivity. For the Kabbalists this doctrine follows from their view that all
finitude is simply a concealment an contraction of the one absolute, Ein-sof. For Derrida the doctrine follows from his
view that the confirmation of linguistic words and sentences can only come
from other linguistic words an sentences and never from a confrontation with
the so-called object of language itself, which, on Derrida’s view, already a
linguistic construction. We will have much to say about this topic in later
chapters. Here I wish to propose an analogy to the phenomenon of dreams that
will perhaps grant us some insight in these seemingly strange ideas. In a
dream there is an obvious identity between (the dreamer’s) consciousness and
its object (the dream—which after all is only in the dreamer’s “mind”). There is also an identity between dream
objects and words (in dreams objects often illustrate linguistic phrases, or
suddenly become their words and vice versa—further, there is the
impossibility of others distinguishing the actual dream from the dreamer’s
linguistic report). However, in order
for a dream to be sustained, these identities must be temporarily
“forgotten,” and a distinction posited between the dreamer and his dream
world, and a further distinction between the dream and the dream report. In short, the dream rests upon an illusory
distinction between subject and object, consciousness and world, word and
thing. Once these distinctions are
overcome the dreamer awakens and the dream can no longer be sustained.
Similarly, in our waking life, consciousness, self, and language are all
predicated upon the (illusory) distinctions between subject and object,
consciousness and world, and word and thing.
Were one to actually penetrate to the “truth” behind these illusions,
one could no longer speak, think, or perceive. In Kabbalistic terms, the Tzimtzum, which posits a fundamental
rift between mind (Ein-sof) and
world is the necessary background assumption of all that is experienced and
said. For Derrida, a similar function is seved by
the signifier/signified (word-thing) distinction. Who or What Differs? Derrida
rhetorically asks “what differs? Who differs?
What is difference?” as if to tell us that the metaphysical spirit is
so ingrained within us all that even he is tempted to ask these
questions. By attempting to provide an
answer to such questions, Derrida tells us “we would immediately fall back
into what we have just disengaged ourselves from.” If we answered this
question we might be tempted to posit a being, a consciousness, or a God that
“differs” but which is itself not “constituted” by difference. This is an impossibly as being,
consciousness, God, etc. are all preceded by the differential matrix that
antecedes and constitutes language, thought, etc. For Derrida, the subject, whether human or
divine only appears within the
system of differences that is language.
The subject is, as it were, already inscribed within language and
cannot be called upon to function as language’s and difference’s “origin.”[25]
So Derrida effectively blocks the notion that ‘difference’ is a constitutie or creative act of transcendental consciousness,
absolute, mind, god or Infinite Being. In Kabbalistic terms it is not Ein-sof that performs an act of Tzimtzum, but Tzimtzum is itself prior to Ein-sof,
or rather Ein-sof, as the “place”
of the world is here equiprimordial with if not
identical to Tzimtzum. Differance is Prior to
Consciousness The
question may arise, particularly in the mind’s of those who like Descartes
tend to think of consciousness as an absolute, as to whether difference is somehow
secondary to consciousness. For Derrida, consciousness, to the extent that it
is identified as an absolute presence to oneself (as in Descartes “I think
therefore I am”) is no more primordial than presence itself, which as we have already seen is constituted by
that which it is not, i.e. by what is absent, past and future, in short by
the very system of differences that allows what is present to be significant
in any way. Similarly ‘consciousness’
has no significance except insofar as it too is already inscribed in a
linguistic/conceptual system. This is
not only the case because “consciousness” is itself a concept which is
significant only by virtue of its place in the differential linguistic
matrix, but also because the very experience or gesture to which
“consciousness” refers or for which it is made to answer, i.e. presence to
oneself, is itself already infused with absence, past, future, etc. and is
therefore, in Derrida’s view, divided and alienated from itself. Consciousness is thus hardly the
“absolutely central form of Being” that we thought it to be, but is rather an
“effect” of a system dominated by differance as opposed to presence. Derrida, like Nietzsche and Freud before
him, has unseated consciousness from the assured center of the philosophical
universe. For Nietzsche consciousness
is a function of differential forces, for Freud, it is essentially the same.[26] In each case consciousness not only
differentiates and defers, but is a function of the capacity inherent in
language to differentiate and defer (e.g. pleasure). Speaking
metaphysically here we might say that consciousness emerges out of something
even more primordial than itself, i.e. difference, spacing. Reading the Kabbalist’s ultimate through
Derrida’s notion of differance, we might say
that Ein-sof becomes the “place” as
opposed to the cause or creator of the world.
Ein-sof, through the Tzimtzum
allows being, language and thought to emerge.
We will have more to say on this topic when we consider Derrida’s
critique of the ancient Greek notion of Khora. The
Trace, the Self, and Death As
we have seen, Derrida thus introduces the notion of the trace as a summary
term for the constant interplay between presence and absence as well as
between identity and difference.
Because the present moment has no significance, and in fact cannot
even be experienced outside of its connection with a past and a future, the
present is never totally present but is “present” only as a trace that is contaminated by an
absence, i.e. the future and the past.
The trace cannot be mastered by the logic of non-contradiction. The trace marks a place where opposites,
identity and difference, presence and absence continually cross. Man
as a creature of time is defined as and by the trace. But the trace paradoxically is the erasure
of selfhood, because once man is understood to be defined by the trace, he is
no longer fully present even to himself and his ego is involved in
non-identity and absence. These ideas link
deconstruction to psychoanalysis, which also regards the self to be defined
in large part by an “absence,” i.e. the unconscious (see sections on Freud
and the Unconscious below). In the
process of attempting to represent itself, the self is other than itself, as
well as broken and fragmented. An
absence is always present, an outside always inside; in Derrida’s terms this
absence or death, through the trace, haunts both presence and the
self. Trace, Tzimtzum and
“Absence”
Derrida’s ideas regarding
the “trace” parallel important notions in the Kabbalah.
Like Derrida, the Lurianists hold that the space
and time, as well as all finite things, are constituted by an absence,
constituted by the Tzimtzum. In the Lurianic
Kabbalah, the very essence of finite being is that
it is an “absence,” i.e. a concealment and contraction of Ein-sof. The Tzimtzum
creates, or better is, the absence at the heart of finite being, as it
both provides a place, i.e. a “spacing” that permits the differentiation of
finite things, and defines the very character of finite entities. This
character is defined by the relative absence (concealment) of divine light in
much the same way that a projected
movie image is defined by the relative absence or concealment of the light
emanating from a film projector i.e. For the Kabbalists
the Tzimtzum assures that all finite presence is constituted by an
absence. Derrida’s notion of the
trace can be understood as an articulation of the nature of this absence in
the heart of temporal presence. For the Kabbalists,
the very nature of finite, temporal existence is that it is imbued both with
an absence. The Kabbalists
equated this absence (Tzimtzum) with din, the trait of God that
brings judgment and distinctions into a finite world. For
the Lurianists, time is both the vehicle and result
of the Tzimtzum. Full presence is
only possible for an atemporal God. Understood in terms suggested by Derrida,
because man is a creature of time, it is necessary that presence for the
individual will always be constituted by an absence. What I am at any given time is constituted
by what I am not (the past and the future). My very identity is constituted
by a past which is no longer and a future, which is not
yet. It is in this way that we can
understand the Lurianic suggestion that Tzimtzum,
Shevirah and Tikkun are all present
in each thing and in every moment in time.
It
follows from the very essence of Tzimtzum as the origin of both
finitude and limitation, that Tzimtzum conditions both death and ignorance. Indeed, the very subsistence of finite
things is a species of both death and ignorance. Was finitude not estranged from and
ignorant of the fullness of the living God, it could no longer function as an
independent thing. It follows, then, that a certain “unconsciousness” is
written into the very essence of finitude. Freud Derrida
suggests that both Freud ]implicitly recognized differance and placed it at the
center of his thinking, but failed to recognize the radical implications of
this notion. For Freud differance,
in the sense of deferring pleasure
is at the core of the psychic economy.
Derrida, however, proposes that the deference of pleasure spoken of by Freud is ultimately an impossible presence, an “irreparable
loss of presence,”[27]
which Derrida associates with the death instinct and the “totally other” that
disrupts every economy. This deferring
is an “expenditure without reserve” that opens itself up only to “death” and
“non-meaning” Derrida uses his critique of presence to explode the myths of
both Freud and Hegel, within whose theories pleasure or meaning is deferred to a later time when they fully
will become present. But since
such presence is itself a deferment, and thus an impossible ideal, the
economy that these theories are based on is a fiction. Pleasure will never be achieved, and the
absolute will never be realized. The
Unconscious For
Derrida the unconscious is part of the very structure of language and
thought, rather than an empirical unknown that can potentially be
revealed. According to Derrida, it is
not that a certain deferred presence remains hidden, but rather it is part of
the very structure of differance
that what has been thought of as deferred or displaced is implacably
postponed. A certain “otherness”, Derrida
tells us, is completely exempt from the possibility of ever showing
itself. This “otherness” is spoken of
metaphysically by Freud as the unconscious.
But this “unconscious” is not a hidden or potential self-presence, but
is rather constantly deferring itself; it is an irreducible delay, not a
thing that can be ultimately or eventually grasped. For Derrida, the language of
presence/absence is wholly inadequate, as is the view of the unconscious as
an agency or archive. The unconscious
better understood as part of the very structure of differance, of language. Differance and the Polar Oppositions in Philosophy For
Derrida, the polar oppositions upon which western philosophy is grounded are
understood as emerging as each term expresses or participates in the differance of
its opposite. For example, “The intelligible as differing - deferring the
sensible, as the sensible different and deferred.” [28]
A similar Kabbalistic idea is that such oppositions are reciprocal
contractions and concealments (Tzimtzumim). For example, as will be described in Chapter
X, particular, sensible instants can
be understood as contractions/concealments of ideas, while ideas are
themselves contracted and concealed instances. Creation
and the Lie One
binary opposition that has been deconstructed by postmodernist authors is the
distinction between the truth and the lie.
Jabes, for example, in The Book of
Questions writes: “Reb Jacob, who was my first
teacher, believed in the virtue of the lie because, so he said, there is no
writing without lie. And writing is
the way of God.”[29] The
Kabbalist’s, in their conception of creation as Tzimtzum (concealment) provide their own deconstruction of the
truth/lie distinction. According to
the Lurianists, Ein-sof
creates a world through an act of concealment. The vehicles of this concealment are the
letters of the Hebrew tongue and language in general. The letters are
embodied in the Torah, which becomes the blueprint of creation, which is itself
the result of a linguistic process (“And God said…”) Scripture, which is the
expression of God’s revelation and the template for creation, is also a
concealment of divine truth, and in this expression/concealment, the origin
of the lie. Creation, which, from one point of view is the manifestation,
fulfillment and perfection of divine truth, from another perspective is
alienation, and negation, illusion and deceit. According to Schneur Zalman: “Even though it appears to us that the
worlds exist, this is a total lie.”[30] We thus see, that for the Kabbalah, the lie, both as a concealment of the truth and
a permanent possibility of linguistic deceit, is necessary if there is to be
any creation or revelation whatsoever. The lie, for the Kabbalah,
exists in coincidentia oppositorum
with the truth. Language Tzimtzum, Forgetfulness, Error In
the post-modern vision, forgetfulness of truth, misunderstanding and error,
are not simply weaknesses to be overcome, but are rather essential to
communication.[31] Language, and writing
in particular, for Derrida and others, not only makes possible the
transmission of meaning and truth, it also makes certain the existence of
error, misunderstanding, mis-transmission and
loss. Language and symbolization is
absolutely necessary for science, history and knowledge, but is also the
occasion for their alienation and degradation.[32]
Interestingly, a virtually identical view is found in the Kabbalah
of Isaac Luria and his followers who held that
language is the vehicle of the Tzimtzum,
the primal act of contraction in which the infinite both reveals and conceals
itself from the world. Tzimtzum, as I have discussed in Symbols
of the Kabbalah, results in the revelation and
differentiation of finite knowledge and entities through a partial
concealment or occultation of a universal one, the infinite, Ein-sof. This
concealment/contraction, according to Schneur Zalman, occurs in and through
the letters of language. God both
reveals and conceals Himself through the letters of writing and sounds of
speech (the Written and “oral” Torah). God does this by contracting Himself into language, and thereby revealing Himself
as one thing rather than any other.
However, this limiting aspect of language also assures that revelation
and understanding can never be more than partial. Indeed, according to Lurianists,
it is a partial understanding that
allows the finite world to exist at all.
The world, according to Luria, is predicated
upon ignorance of the absolute One. One
aspect of language that underlies its potential for mis-transmission
and misunderstanding is its linearity. Language does not transmit ideas at once,
but rather presents them in serial fashion, with the sense of earlier words
and sentences being dependent upon later words, sentences and punctuation in
the series. What I am writing now
will, of course, take on new significance when placed in the context of what
follows, and as such will essentially be open to new, different (and mis-) understandings that occur as a result of the
series’ development. Nor does the
meaning of what I write become fixed at the end of a sentence, paragraph,
chapter or book. Even the final period at the end of this book does not
create closure on what I am now saying, as this sentence, and the entire
work, can and will be placed in the context of other things I and others have
written, and so on ad infinitum.
What I say here is, at least potentially, subject to re-contextualization by
everything else I subsequently write or utter, or for that matter, by
anything else that is written or uttered by others, whether in response to my words or simply on a theme that
someone will utilize to help them understand my words. The possibility of
reinterpretation and (mis)understanding is thus
infinite, inevitable and essential. Until the moment when humankind arrives
at the mythical last word, the final punctuation in the “great conversation”
that comprises the developing spirit of humankind, what has been said will
continue to be subject to re-contextualization and new understanding. As
I write these words I ‘contract’ my thought into language and at the same
time conceal, obscure, and mis-transmit what I have
to say. Isaac Luria expressed this paradox
regarding the seriality of language when in
apologizing for not putting his teachings into writing, he said that he had
so many thoughts that the dam threatened to burst every time he tried to
write them down. I cannot possibly place the entire context (emerging from my
own life and thought) that leads to this sentence into this sentence. By necessity, an enormity of thought and
background is excluded. Such exclusion makes my communication both a
revelation and concealment. Spacing
and Tzimtzum Derrida
draws our attention to the articulation of or ‘spacing’ between the elements
in a linguistic system, which he sees as necessary for syntax and language in
general. In speech such spacing is
found in the intervals between spoken words and phrases, in writing in the
actual physical spaces between letters and words and in punctuation. For Derrida such spacing is a constitutive
nothing, and as such it is again very much akin to the Tzimtzum in the Kabbalah. We can understand the Tzimtzum as God’s opening up of a metaphysical space that enables
finite things and ideas to be differentiated.
It is perhaps natural to think of the Tzimtzum as the origin of physical space and time,[33]
but, given the Kabbalistic equation between Tzimtzum and language, it is equally if not more helpful to think
of it as the origin of the spacing that permits the articulation of words and
ideas. Khora
and Ein-sof
The
term “Khora” is used by Plato in the Timaeus to refer to the ‘place’ within which the
demiurge is said to cut or engrave the images of the forms. At times Plato refers to it as the
receptacle, space, matrix or mother.
It is the progenitor of Aristole’s hyle and
Descartes extensio. At other times, however, Plato speaks of Khora in more
“negative” terms, as neither logos nor myth, being nor non-being, sensible
nor intelligible, present nor absent, active nor passive. In this trope it has no meaning or
identity; even the “receptacle” is something that appears within it. Khora receives everything but becomes nothing. For Derrida it is the impossible,
unspeakable “other.” Khora gives place, it let’s take place, without being
generous or giving in any divine or human sense. It is beyond the Good, God, and the
one. It is a barren characterless,
no-thing. We might say that it is the
possibility of this or that, the potential that some thing might take
place. It is, I suppose, that which
we could not imagine away even if we were capable of imagining away all time
or space and even all being and nothingness; it is the potential deep within
the recesses of whatever is or is not that something might or might not be,
that there could or could not be anything whatsoever. It is that
there is any state of affairs whatsoever, and the place within which such
states of affairs, including nothing are formed. In contemplating Khora, we realize that the real
miracle of creation is not that there is one state of affairs or another,
e.g. the universe or its destruction, but rather that there is any state of
affairs at all. Khora is thus akin to Derrida’s “differance”[34]
and perhaps even more primitive then even differance. The Kabbalists
posited Ein-sof as similarly
transcending being and nothingness, as Ein-sof
is said to empty itself, contract itself to realize the tehiru (void) within which all
the worlds arise. We can keep going in a circle here. Is Khora more primal than value? It seems that with value we already have a
state of affairs, making Khora more fundamental, but in actuality we can generate
arguments for the primacy of values, language, states of affairs or being. Derrida
speaks of Khora as a the “desert” and “difference” that “gives place” to all, and
which is “older” or more primordial than any religion. This ‘desert,’ like the Kabbalist’s Ein-sof
and Tzimtzum, provides the opening
for and ‘gives place’ to that which it withdraws from. Its main characteristic is “retreat,
abstraction, and subtraction.”[35]
It is the origin of the messianic, which is an “opening up to the future.” Khora is also that which is completely without being but
which provides place for all singularities and is completely tolerant of and
even identical to difference. As
Caputo puts it it
is “a placeless place of absolute spacing.” Difference, Khora
and the Orange Peel Projection In order to comprehend the notion or gestures of Khora and differance we
can make use of an analogy that we will have several occasions to turn to in
this book; that of a two-dimensional representation of a three dimensional
space. A two-dimensional cartographic
projection, i.e. map of the world, enables us to pare down our view of
reality to that of a more limited and manageable world-picture. Picture in
this instance a so-called “equal areas projection,” an “orange-peel” map of
the world, which has been utilized as one of the many imperfect means of
representing a three dimensional globe on a two-dimensional plane. This particular model sacrifices the
continuity of the great oceans in order to retain a measure of accuracy with
respect to the sizes of land masses and the convergence of global lines of
longitude at the poles. The problem,
of course, is that this form of representation entails that there are vast
gaps in between the world’s segments (generally conveniently placed in the
oceans), which have absolutely no interpretation on the map itself. These gaps may give the viewer an eerie
sense of an abyss of non-being encroaching upon the world from both the north
and south poles. They, in effect,
provide a place for a map without in any way being part of the map
itself. These gaps are necessary for
our representational system but do not have any significance within it. Strictly speaking, like Plato’s ‘Khora’ and Derrida’s ‘difference’ they cannot be said
to be being or non-being, a place or not a place; they are necessary for the
map, but not part of the map. This is
not unique to the ‘orange-peel’ projection; the same observations that we
have made about the gaps in our orange-peel projection can be made about the
border or edge of the page in a Mercator or other
projection. One is here reminded of
the biblical phrase “God is the place of the world.” Providing Place The
borders, gaps, edges of our maps or other representational systems can thus
be said to provide a place for our
representations without themselves being a place within our map or
representational system. These
borders, gaps, edges are, of course, a place in our world but are not in the world that is represented in a given
map. Now in order to make our analogy
apply to khora,
differance,
and Ein-sof, we must move from a finite
representation of a world, to the infinite
reality of all possible universes.
Just as our borders, gaps, edges provide for the possible
representation of finite states of affairs, without themselves being
representations, khora,
differance,
Ein-sof, (or God as the place of the world) provide a ‘place’ (or for the
possibility) for all states of affairs to be or not be without themselves
being or indicating any state of affairs.
If we ask how it is that states of affairs are possible at all, we might
answer: Because Khora/Ein-sof provides place. Kabbalistically this providing of place, void (or in Kabbalistic
terms, the tehiru
or clal)
without which all worlds and possibilities are formed, is itself spoken of as
an event in the life of Ein-sof, as
if prior to the Tzimtzum there is a
state of affairs, something like Ein-sof
existing in perfect equanimous repose. However, this way of speaking is
misleading, as according to the Kabbalists, Ein-sof and Tzimtzum are metaphors or conditions that have no interpretation
within our cosmos. To return to our
cartographic analogy, Ein-sof’s
contraction to provide place is at a level akin to the (human) act of
providing a place, i.e. a flat piece of paper, for the making of the
map. That act is incomprehensible within
the context of the map itself, just as Ein-sof’s “providing of place”
is incomprehensible from within the context of any models we can generate
about the world. Derrida
implies that this “providing place” that he attributes to ‘khora’ and ‘differance’ is
nothing generous, nothing akin to an act of chesed. It simply “gives place” in the same sense
that “it rains,” an occurrence without any attribute of thought or
intentionality, as thought and intention are ideas that must first have a
“place” within which they can be differentiated from other ideas. Note on Difference, Khora and Cartography We
might say that the whole problem of differance, khora, and the
“place” for the world only arises within discourse, i.e. once we
have begun to conceptualize and speak.
It is a function of our representational efforts that the problems of khora and differance even
arise. However, as we can neither philosophize nor even think without
engaging in some form of representation, we cannot think without giving rise
to khora and differance. We would like to be able to think and even
speak of a world independent of our efforts at representing it, but this is
plainly impossible (in perhaps the strongest sense of impossibility). So for
all intents and purposes, the account of the world involving differance, Khora, Tzimtzum, Ein-sof, etc. is about the world
itself. The problem of differance, khora, and Tzimtzum arises because of problems
that are inherent in all forms of representation, all forms of discourse; any
gesture towards representation raises the question of difference,
contraction, concealment, loss of meaning etc. John
Caputo on Differance and God John
Caputo, in his important book, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida,[36]
considers the question of whether differance
can be assimilated by theology. Caputo
follows Derrida in rejecting the notion that at bottom differance is indeed the God of
the negative theologians, and ultimately the creator God and God of
Genesis. Yet he considers the
possibility that though differance may not be the God of the Bible it is divine
nonetheless: “all the God one wants, or needs, or can imagine.” In this light, Derrida’s differance
becomes the open-endedness, the resistance to closure, the potential reinterpretability
and hence creativity that is inscribed in all things, or better, within which
all things are inscribed. Differance is
thus what keeps all things open to “novelty, innovation, renovation.” It is “the possibility of the face of the
earth being renewed.”[37] This possibility, this ‘drive of life,’
Caputo tells us, is actually something worth being grateful for, and may
indeed correspond to the one conception of God that even Nietzsche thought
made some sense. It is not a thinking
being with intentions, but just the play of possibility. Caputo
speaks of “an asymptotic point of contact toward which religious faith and
the thought of the trace tend to touch.”[38]
The trace and differance
not only begin to look numinous, but religious faith becomes inscribed in,
and thus welcomes, the indeterminacy and relativity of meaning, which for
some constitute atheism and/or the death of God. The Kabbalist Azriel spoke of Ein-sof as the point where faith
and unbelief meet. Caputo’s position can be understood as a contemporary
explication of Azriel’s view. Caputo
here arrives at a position that is not quite in accord with the one with
which he began. From the start, Caputo
is adamant that differance
is not God, not something to worship, not something to thank; however, here
he makes at least a quarter turn and speaks of differance as the innovative,
experimenting, gift-giving spirit in all things.[39] Difference, as Caputo understands it, turns out to be
something very similar to Ein-sof,
which the Kabbalist’s describe as an ‘it’ not a He, present in all things,
the nothingness (Ayin)
which is both at the source of all things separate being (Tzimtzum), their deconstruction (Shevirah) and
renewal (Tikkun). The changing, creative character of Ein-sof,
and the infinite reinterpretability that creates an openness to new
possibilities and creative change is evident
in Chayyim Vital’s
descriptions of the transformations of the worlds: The worlds change each and every hour, and there is
no hour which is similar to another... and in accordance with these changes
are the aspects of the sayings of the book of the Zohar
changing, and all are the words of the living God.[40] With
this you'll understand how the worlds change (with) the garments of Ein-sof, and, according to these
changes, the statements in Sefer haZohar change.[41] Interestingly,
Caputo wants to push differance
beyond the notion of a cosmic impersonal gift of open possibility to
something that stands closer to the Jewish prophetic tradition. Derrida is concerned with a particular kind
of possibility effected by differance, and this is the possibility that opens up to
those, who because of their ‘difference,’ are social, political, sexual and
national ‘outsiders.’ It is almost as
if the play of possibilities conditioned by differance has special favor
for those who are ‘different:’ the outsider, the marginalized, and as Derrida
almost seems to intimate, “the widowed and the orphaned, the crippled,”
etc. That differance should somehow favor
the “different” does not simply arise from a semantic connection, but is
something of a logical point: when possibilities are opened, the alienated
and estranged are indeed afforded an opportunity.[42]
Comment on this article: Dialog on Kabbalah and Postmodernism The Lurianic Kabbalah is treated in detail in Sanford Drob's Symbols of the Kabbalah
and Kabbalistic
Metaphors . If you entered this site via a search engine,
and there are no "flash contents" on the left hand side of your
screen, the site will function better if you click here and go directly to www.newkabbalah.com
and follow the instructions at the bottom of your screen to either enter the
site or load Flash 4, if you do not already have it. All material on New Kabbalah
website (c) Sanford L. Drob, 2001-4.
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