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© 2009 John D. Brey.

Truly El Shaddai is the many-breasted-one. His Torah can feed and support numerous wholly independent spirits of thought simultaneously. The Torah text can support the Jewish interpretation, say for instance the Talmud, as well as the Christian interpretation found in the New Testament.

Unfortunately, there’s the slight problem that the Masoretic version of the Torah text attempts to codify only the most basic Jewish interpretation as though that's the whole, or perhaps the primary, spiritual content of the Torah. Christians then turn around and use the Masoretic text for translations of the Torah when using the Masoretic text obliterates much of the freedom that's the inherent and most sovereign property of the unpunctuated text.

At best, the Masoretes’ interpretation locks in the p'shat meaning of the text (the plain meaning) as though that's the fundamental purpose of the text. ------- To get at the derash (deep interpretation) or the sod (secret interpretation) . . . we’ve to pass through the p'shat, or plain meaning, therein uncovering the mammary cornucopia where the milk, or manna, of life is provided us. We've to pull back the wool (the p'shat meaning) to get to El Shaddai's teat.

Woe to the sinners who look upon the Torah as simply tales pertaining to things of the world, seeing thus only the outer garment. But the righteous whose gaze penetrates to the very Torah, happy are they. Just as wine must be in a jar to keep, so the Torah must be contained in an outer garment. That garment is made up of tales and stories; but we, we are bound to penetrate beyond.

The Zohar assures us that the p'shat interpretation of the Torah is an idol and a ruse designed to deter all but those circumcised of heart. ------ The believer who can't see deeper than p'shat is ignorant. The one who doesn't care to look is arrogant. The one who locks the text into the p’shat mode is vile.

No sacred Torah scroll has the punctuation that’s placed on the Masoretic text. The attempt to nail down the text with punctuation is contrary to the will and purpose of the Author of the text. ---- It's an attempt to limit what the text can say according to human traditions, and not divine imperative. Adding punctuation to the text requires that human pre-text, based on human tradition, be superimposed over the divine revelation God has provide for all mankind.

As early as the ninth century, Natronai ii. b. Hilai, who was Gaon or spiritual head of the College in Sora (859-869), in reply to the question whether it is lawful to put the points to the Synagogal Scroll of the Pentateuch, distinctly declared that "since the Law, as given to Moses on Sinai, had no points, and the points are not Sinaitic [i.e. sacred], having been invented by the sages, and put down as signs for the reader; and moreover since it is prohibited to us to make any additions from our own cogitations, lest we transgress the command `Ye shall not add,' &c. (Deut. iv. 2); hence we must not put the points to the Scroll of the Law."

Elias Levita, Being an Exposition of the Massoretic Notes on the Hebrew Bible (p.11).

Since the Masoretes were traditional Jews, their choice of punctuation imposed Jewish tradition on the holy text of the divine scroll. ------- Their addition of punctuation to the scroll said in affect, that the holy Torah was a "Jewish" production, belonging primarily to Jews, rather than a divine product belonging to all mankind (if mediated exclusively through inspired Jewish prophets). By adding their punctuation, the Masoretes were showing that they felt the holy Torah was authored by Jews, and could thus be manipulated by Jews, in total opposition to the idea that God is the Author of the Torah scroll; and thus only God could add punctuation (if that were His intention).

By creating the Masoretic text, the Masoretes were saying that contrary to the truth of the matter, which is that Jews were merely God's amanuensis, they wrote what He dictated, they are in fact the authors and producers and the sole target audience of the holy Torah.

* * *

In point of fact the signature text of the Torah given to Moses by God is “fixed” so that nothing whatsoever is to be added or subtracted from the naked consonants as they were given by God (Deut. 4:2). . . Nevertheless, this "written" Torah is not the "whole" Torah; it's only a cipher-text requiring the "Oral" Torah in order to be decipherable. The holy Torah is made up of a written cipher (represented by the tablets and the scroll), and an Oral interpretive element given to Moses in conjunction with the "written" text.

The Oral interpretive element is passed on verbally; it's memorized (archived in the "heart" leb, rather than stone or lambskin) so that the "written" Torah becomes something like a "fence" around the Living Torah. ------- It protects the Living Torah as though it were a fence erected to keep out intruders (intrusive interpretations), who (which) would damage the Living Torah with false readings of His intent.

The Oral Torah is the password which allows the sheep of God to pass through the shamar provided by the written text. Within this concept, the most evident attempt to harm the Living Torah would be manifest in any suggestion that the "written" Torah functions wholesale - as the whole Torah, or that the Living Torah can come out from behind the written Torah simply by reading the written Torah. ------ Anyone taking this stance is showing they don't know the Living Torah. They don't have the password (Oral Torah) which allows them through the text, and thus they tell us that the Presence has come out from behind the text by their mere reading of the text.

In the ancient Jewish procedure, the Oral Torah is the memorized password (passed secretly mouth to ear) which allows the Jew to enter "into" the Presence of the Living Torah (which is in effect passing through the written text.) --- If the Jew possesses the memorized password (Oral Torah) he can pass through the fence of the written Torah, in which case he will be in the very Presence of the Living Torah.

In a bastardization of authentic Judaism, the Oral Torah is thought to come from behind the fence of the written text, and make itself Present outside, or on the surface, of the protective boundaries of the written text. In other words, no password is needed to enter into the Living Torah. One needn't pass through the text into the Presence of God. One need only stand outside the boundaries of the text and "read" aloud and God will come from behind the fence (shamar) He’s constructed and Present Himself to readers one and all.

In this heretical and profane form of Judaism, God is actually thought to come out from behind the protective fence, rather than drawing circumcised Jews into His Presence behind the protection of the text.

We can know for certain that the "written" text of the Torah is a mere cipher . . . and that it cannot be used apart from an "oral" presupposition, since the sacred letters of the "written" Torah have no punctuation, no periods (sof pasuq), no commas , no semicolons, no vowels (niqudot. . . the text is subject to multiple interpretations based on the key used to unlock a particular meaning. The text in this state appears vulnerable to those who would read into it false con-cepts contrary to the Will and Purpose of its Author.

But the vulnerability is a ruse designed to draw in that ram who would attempt to shepherd the sheep of God already safely behind the fence. The ram will be caught in the thicket of the written text and destroyed by the Living God.

* * *

For fear of being snagged by the thorns of a thicket fence, we’d not be tempted to take anything in the written Torah at "face" value until we’d gotten behind the text . . . in which case we could know that our Oral Torah (our password to a deeper meaning) was in fact authenticated by the Spirit of God.

If it's our intention to get to the safety behind the surface narrative of the text, then a simple example of that sort of maneuver could be produced by acknowledging that typologically speaking, David was the true shepherd of God, while Absalom was the false shepherd. The Presence authenticates our presumption that the surface narrative is a mere ploy, when we realize that in that surface narrative, Absalom, i.e. the ram who would attempt to rule over the sheep of David (David being the true shepherd of God), is caught in a "thicket" in his attempt to attack David and David's sheep.

When we're aware that the surface narrative of the Torah text (the "written" Torah) is a "thicket" (Heb. shamar) placed around the Living Torah, the true Shepherd, then we're inclined to look at every case where a falsehood, or false shepherd, is caught in a "thicket," on the surface narrative, as one more example of what will happen to anyone trying to get into the sheepfold of the true Shepherd, apart from knowing the legitimate password.

If the written Torah is indeed the "thicket" protecting the true Shepherd of God, then God is not going to come out of the "thicket" to correct, or show His face, to the false sheep and rams. He's going to follow the type of David, and wait for the false shepherd to attempt to engage Him in His own place of safety "behind" and "underneath" the shroud, or thorny-thicket, which adorn Him as something like a crowning example of His most intimate modus operandi.

* * *
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information (referred to as plaintext) using an algorithm (called cipher) to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key.

Wikipedia.com.

The "un-pointed" (no vowels added) Hebrew text is a "cipher-text" which cannot even function until a presupposition is applied to it. It's a miraculous thing when that cipher-text is given by God Himself. . . . For then, only God can share the key with which to unlock the true underground streams of life. The streams are always flowing. They cannot be dammed without damning the text.

The un-pointed Hebrew text is a cipher-text . . . literally an algorithm . . . and the Spirit of God is the key which must be brought to bear on the text if a person is to unlock the spiritual meaning of the text.

The Masoretic text destroys the very nature of the algorithm by applying a finite rationalistic presupposition (a human traditional reading) to the cipher text itself. Once this rationalistic reading is "added," the true functioning of the cipher-text is rendered inoperative by the pointed-ness of the vowels used to nail down a rational and traditional meaning from the text. [1]

The Masoretic interpretation is not necessarily a wrong interpretation. But to place that interpretation on top of the sacred text, as though it were the primary, or sole, message, is vile. The Masoretic interpretation is not "the key," but "a key" to the written Torah. At best, it’s a product of a Jewish spirit interacting with the sacred text.

When that Jewish spirit suggests that it is the only spirit, so that it might as well be incorporated into the sacred text (implying that there is only one meaning), then the text is crucified in its Living ability to evolve and speak to persons other than one class of Jews. The Masoretes are in affect telling the soul of the scroll (the Living Torah behind the text) what it must say if Jews are expected to obey.

Stated kerygmatically, the Masoretic vowel points nail down the consonantal text to one constricted Jewish interpretation. The Living Torah is told that if He doesn’t like being confined to such a degree, then come out from behind the text, or down off the page, and remove the vowel points (nails) and we will worship you accordingly.

* * *

In Emanuel Tov's book, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Tov, a proponent of the Masoretic text, corrects the record concerning the violence perpetrated by the Masoretic text. He explains that originally the Masoretic text was only consonants. And that the purpose of the addition of the vocalization, the vowel points, was: " . . . to remove doubts regarding the reading of the text when this allowed for more than one interpretation (p. 40)."

On the next page, Tov states: "The authors of the biblical texts [the pointed Masoretic texts] intended a certain reading of the consonantal framework, but since this reading was not recorded, traditions of reading the biblical texts developed which were not necessarily identical with the `original intention' of the texts. It is not clear whether one or more different reading traditions were in vogue from the very beginning. In principle, the existence in antiquity of multiple consonantal texts differing from each other would preclude a unified reading tradition, and would allow for the assumption of different reading traditions (p. 41)."

What is not stated in this paragraph is that we don't need "multiple consonantal texts" to produce different reading traditions so long as the vowel points are not added to the text. Without vowel points, multiple readings are not the problem at all, they are the solution. Without vowel points, it’s absurd to speak of the “original intention” of the text, since the text is subject to as many intentions as the consonantal text can legitimately deliver up. God can speak to anyone His Spirit moves simply by bringing a different pre-text to the sacred text. To speak of an “original intention” is to consider the Living Torah DOA (which it is in the dead letter). [2]

When the holy Sages debated interpretations, they were not trying to fuse their variation into one “original intention” (as though proper intercourse creates fusion rather than diffusion). They were engaged in a productive encounter which gave birth to live offspring. The two interpretations created a third, and not the fusion of the two.

The Masoretic text attempts to stop productive intercourse between the two Torahs (written and Oral), as though the addition of the vowel points represents the “original” and “singular” statement of the text. It becomes the equivalent of a prophylactic barrier to giving live birth. It seeks fusion rather than diffusion. It attempts to make all interpretations identical to the Pharisaical reading. And to do this the Masoretes are willing to disobey Moses by silencing the unruly voice of the Living Torah by placing Jewish presuppositions onto the sacred text.

* * *

If perchance, Jesus is the Oral Torah, the Living voice of the Torah, the Breath of Life . . . then the violence perpetrated when points are added to the text is simply another muddle-headed account of the Pharisaical attempt at protecting the Torah by silencing voices contrary to the Pharisaical reading.

The Masoretic text stifles multiple interpretations. It silences the Living voice of the Torah in the belief that only one cast of characters (the dead ones) should get to speak for the Torah.

Consequently the Masoretic text allows Jews to refute the New Testament simply by claiming that it’s a misinterpretation of the Masoretic text (which in many places it may be).

In other words, the Masoretic text can be seen as a ploy used against simplistic Christians. Add vowel points to what is otherwise a "cipher text" subject to various interpretations, depending on the nature of the "key" used to interpret the text. Then object when an interpretation using a different "key" (say the belief that Jesus is the Author of the cipher text) is applied to the already locked-in meaning of the text.

Jews have been claiming that Christianity is a "misinterpretation" of the Torah since the formulation of the Masoretic text. But it can be stated with all legitimacy that at best, Christianity is a mis-interpretation of the Pharisaical interpretation of the Torah codified in the Masoretic text.

Christians should surely note that the "interpretation" codified according to the Pharisaical interpretation of the text (the Masoretic version with points added to codify the Pharisee's interpretation) is the same interpretation of the Torah which led to Jesus of Nazareth being pointedly nailed down in the first place. The Masoretic interpretation of the Torah text says that Christians are wrong about Jesus being the Torah in the flesh, because they have codified the Torah to justify the precise reading of the text used to crucify Jesus of Nazareth.

* * *

The "sacred" text that made possible all the various translations and interpretations of Torah passages, say for instance Genesis chapter 4, was delivered to Moses on Sinai without the punctuation which was added to the text much later. ---- With no "accents" (ta'amin), which represent something like our English punctuation, the signature text of Genesis  4:1 would have looked like this (in Hebrew letters):

themanknewevehiswifeandsheconceivedandbearcain

. . . But the signature text was even more undefined than this. In the line above, the vowels still exist whereas the signature Hebrew text had only consonants, no vowels. ---- It would have actually looked more like this:

thmnknwvhswfndshcncvdndbrcn

A string of pure consonants like this represent a "cipher-text." ---- A "cipher-text" forms a message indecipherable to anyone but a person possessing the "key" necessary to unlock the meaning hidden in the un-deciphered text. The text delivered to Moses was not designed to be read by just anyone. It could only be read by someone possessing the "key" necessary to unlock the text. (The "key" would be knowledge of how the text should be read.)

God commanded that no "key" ever be placed directly on the cipher-text in such a way as to suggest that it was the "only" or even the "primary" key to unlocking the meaning of the text. It was strictly forbidden to add anything to the pure string of Hebrew consonants which made up the sacred text of the Torah.

The act of interpreting the sacred text was given to only a small cadre of specially chosen men to whom the oral "tradition" was passed by means of the "lips" or the "mouth" of someone already knowledgeable concerning this oral "tradition." It was strictly forbidden for the oral "tradition" to ever be written, or passed on in any way except word of mouth. Nothing was more anathema than the thought of placing the oral "tradition" onto the written text of the Torah; that would be an abomination punishable by death.

The written text of the Torah was to remain forever a cipher-text subject to various interpretations based on the key used to unlock its meaning. God was concerned that the text never have a strict meaning nailed down, so that when He came personally, with the Living Breath which would unlock new meaning from the text, the text would still be receptive. . . It's clear from Paul and the Apostles that God passes the "revelation" of the key to the written Torah only to those in whom His Spirit has been passed through the intimacy of His breath . . . never through written text itself.

Those who receive the breath of God can interpret the written text of the Torah, but they're never authorized to produce a new written Torah by transferring their interpretation onto the text of the written Torah. The fluid relationship between the written word and the breath of revelation is never to be transgressed. And every instance of this transgression is a type, or trope, of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

The nation which nailed Jesus down to the wood in order to silence his spoken interpretation of the text are themselves products of the very "tradition" which decided where to place the periods (sof pasuq) and vowels (niqudot) in the version of Genesis 4:1-2 which justified the nailing down of Jesus of Nazareth; the tradition that went against tradition by destroying the cipher-text of the written Torah.

In defending his right to interpret the written Torah against the profane "tradition" which was nailed down to the text (in opposition to the text), Jesus of Nazareth was condemning the tradition, which broke tradition, in order to overlay God's sacred cipher-text with a traditional reading which somewhere along the line transgressed the prohibition against destroying the freedom of the cipher-text with points and addendums which by God's design could never be imposed on the written text itself.

In Deuteronomy 31:19-23 God tells Moses that the nation of Israel has corrupted herself and that He knows what is in their heart to do (hinting at Golgotha). Because they're predisposed to this great corruption and error, God tells Moses to write down a song, give it to Israel, and make them sing it, "so that it may be a witness for me against them":

For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant. And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.

Moses delivers the song to the nation of Israel and they're told to learn and memorize it so that when it's used as the cantillation [3] through which the Torah text is deciphered it will lead them into the trap that is the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

Knowing that Israel is consigned to use this bastardized cantillation as the key to deciphering the Torah text, Moses places the text in the footstool beneath the throne of the Ark of the Covenant where it will be seen to be the enemy of the one sitting on the throne (Psalms 110:1). When God tells the Lord that He will make His enemies the footstool for his feet, He's speaking specifically of the version of the Torah that's placed in the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. 31:24-26). 

Because He knows the predisposition of the nation of Israel's heart, God gives them a funeral dirge (the Song of Moses) as the oral cantillation through which they will decipher the Torah text. They will read the text under this pretense (so to say) until the veil is removed from their eyes and ears at the glorious appearing of their Lord, and Messiah.

* * *

For those unfamiliar with the workings of the Hebrew language, all the verbiage in the world about the criminality of attempting to nail down the Torah with pointy addendums will mean practically nothing. ----- Better simply to give an example of precisely what the Pharisaical editors were able to accomplish by codifying their own personal "interpretation" in the guise of the Masoretic text.

The King James Version of Genesis 4:1-2 (based on the Masoretic text) goes this way:

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep. But Cain was a tiller of soil.

The whole tenor and flow of the verse is based on the addition of the punctuation which simply doesn't exist in the consonantal text, the sacred text, the text given by God: without punctuation. ------ Furthermore, something extremely disturbing is apparent to anyone even vaguely familiar with the Gospels. Based on the application of the periods in the verses, the text is made to suggest that "with the help of the Lord Eve bore Cain"?

Yet in diametrical opposition to the Masoretic interpretation of Genesis 4: 1-2, Jesus claims that the “Devil,” and not YHVH, fathered his Pharisaical Jewish antagonists (John 8:44), whom he equates with the death of Abel (Matt. 23:35). ---- In other words Jesus unambiguously associates the Pharisees with Cain and the Devil . . . and paints himself as Abel, the “Spirit” (Hebrew “hebel” translated “Abel”) of YHVH. The Masoretic version of the story is clearly contrary to the message of the Gospel?

If we assume that the redactors and editors of Genesis 4:1-2 approach the un-pointed text (no punctuation yet) with an intention of reading the Gospel account into the text, then they, like the Pharisees, are free to add the punctuation according to the Spirit of their exegetical pre-text.

Ignoring everything but the consonantal text of Genesis 4:1-2, it can be read as follows without in any way abusing the sense of the consonantal text:

And the man came to know Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. ----- And then she said: "Now I have produced a man with YHVH " and bore his brother Abel. Abel was a shepherd. And Cain plowed through the dirt.

This is a legitimate interpretation of the text based on the Christian presupposition that Cain is fathered by the serpent who plows through the dirt, while Abel is born when Eve conceives without the services of Adam's serpent.

* * *

Christians are aware that Jesus equated his enemies with Cain, and called them murderers like Cain, but they may not appreciate the irony of the fact that since Jesus considered himself the Living "spirit" or "breath" of the Torah (i.e. he's born the Hebrew "hebel" of YHVH) then he would be justified in considering himself "hebel" (translated “Abel”) . . . so that anyone seeking his murder would naturally be associated with Cain. I.e. anyone attempting to murder the "spirit"of the Torah must be associated with the murderer “Cain” in the Torah.

Professor Ismar Schorsch, who served as Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary for twenty years, justifies and clarifies the relationship between this line of reasoning, and the critique of the Masoretic text, in his Torah Commentaries, Canon Without Closure:

Christianity turns on the doctrine of incarnation as formulated famously by the Gospel of John: "So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us, and we saw his glory as befits the Father's only Son full of grace and truth." It is a doctrine that Jews tend to identify as uniquely Christian. Whereas both Judaism and Christianity equally acknowledged that at creation "the Word dwelt with God" as both wisdom and instrument, Judaism refrained from ever endowing it with human form.

But Professor Schorsch doesn't end with the Jewish refrain from endowing the Word with human form. He goes on, immediately after the above quote, to say: “Though valid, the distinction does not preclude the appearance in Judaism of the doctrine [of incarnation]. For Judaism, the Word became incarnate as Book.” ---- Professor Schorsch shows that this concept of incarnation of the Word in Book form is a well-known concept. He uses the Talmud, as well as other Jewish text, and various Jewish rituals and practices to show that for Judaism, the Word is incarnate as Book.

Yet if Judaism makes the "Book" the incarnation of the living Word formerly "with God," but now with man, then it's scary to think of what it means for Jewish exegetes to attempt to make the incarnation of the Word in the written Torah, the Book, say only what they want it to say at the "pointed" end of a "period" or a vowel point!

Furthermore, the very word “incarnate” speaks of “flesh and blood” rather than letters and text, so that Judaism is denying the Oral Torah, which must be archived in flesh and blood, and claiming “incarnation” in the written text of the Torah, the Book. . . The “breath” (associated with flesh and blood) of YHVH (hebel, Abel), is nailed down, in, on, the Book, when it’s patently clear that the very concept of an “incarnate” book speaks of the violent doctrine which supposes that what can only be passed on through a Word living in flesh and blood, through “breath” or “spirit” . . . i.e., through Abel, can instead be nailed down in the dead letter without doing damage to the Living God.

. . . because it was "unwritten," the Oral Torah became an ingenious instrument of change that facilitated evolution even as it sustained continuity. The tragedy of Jewish fundamentalism is that it turned the Oral Torah into a second Written Torah and thereby robbed Judaism of any capacity to transform itself.

Ismar Schorsch, Canon Without Closure: Torah Commentaries, p. 252.

The finally definitive move for the Rabbis was to transfer all Logos and Sophia talk to the Torah alone, thus effectively accomplishing two powerful discursive moves at once: consolidating their own power as the sole religious virtuosi and leaders of `the Jews,’ and protecting one version of monotheistic thinking from the problematic of division within the godhead. For the Rabbis, Torah supersedes Logos, just as for John [the apostle], Logos supersedes Torah. Or, to put it into more fully johaninine terms, if for John the Logos Incarnate in Jesus replaces the Logos revealed in the Book, for the Rabbis the Logos Incarnate in the Book displaces the Logos that subsists anywhere else but in the Book.

Border Lines, Daniel Boyarin, Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture, Berkeley.






NOTES:

1. In his book, Alef, Mem, Tau, (p.63), Professor Elliot R. Wolfson situates the written text of Torah within the timeless nature of divine revelation and thereby speaks of the necessity of the finite text manifesting "inherently timeless," i.e. "infinite" interpretations: "Cordovero's linkage of innovative explications of Torah and the evolving nature of time underscores the intricate connection in kabbalistic lore between phenomenological hermeneutics and the ontology of time. Paradoxically, the idea of an infinite Torah entails that the text is inherently timeless, for that which is infinite cannot be contained in any temporal frame, which is by necessity finite, yet the meaning of a text that is inherently timeless is manifest only in and through an endless chain of interpretations that unfolds persistently in time, indeed, in its most basic hermeneutical sense, time is the unremitting recitation of the timeless text."
2. In Moshe Idel's book on kabbalistic interpretation, Absorbing Perfections, p. 365, Idel says: "If we take into consideration that in ancient times the scroll of the Torah was written with consecutive letters not separated into words -- a fact that allows modern scholars of the Bible plenty of room for exegetical imagination -- the later Torah, as it has come down to us, is based on a separation between the words. Thus the ancient manner of writing the text created allowed [sic] numerous readings of the same sequence of letters. This transition has been projected onto the more primordial plane by many Kabbalists . . . ." ----- Idel quotes Abraham Abulafia as suggesting that the current reading of the letters is based on a separation related to "nature"and the attribute of judgment. Though in the future God will reveal his secrets, and the natural and philosophical wisdom, related to the current separation of the words, will be abolished, and a new separation of the letters will be revealed. The Christian kabbalist Johann Reuchlin is quoted suggesting that although Moses knew how to properly divine and divide the words, he "did not explain to the vulgar the art either of ordering and varying the order of the letters or of sweetly interpreting Sacred Scripture to elevate the mind, even though he had by then received that art from the Divine Majesty." ----- Later in the same chapter (Tzerufei `Otiyyot), Idel quotes HYDA' saying, "He arranged the letters in front of Him, according to the words describing death and the levirate and other issues. Without sin there would have been no death, and He would not have arranged the letters into words telling another issue. This is the reason the scroll of the Torah is neither vocalized nor divided into verses, nor does it have cantillation marks, thus hinting at the original state of the Torah, [consisting in] a heap of unarranged letters. And the purpose of His intention is that when the king messiah will come and death will be engulfed forever, there will be no room in the Torah for anything related to death, uncleanness, and the like, then the Holy One, blessed be He, will annul the words of the scroll of the Torah, and He will join a letter of one word to a letter of another word in order to create a word that will point to another matter. . . the Holy One, blessed be He, will teach its reading according to the arrangement of the measure of the letters that HE will be joining to each other to form one word, and He will teach us the [new] division and the joining of the words." ----- Throughout the chapter (Tzerufei `Otiyyot), Idel shows that by the reasoning of these, and other kabbalists, the un-pointed Torah text is a cipher-text capable of being read in a myriad of manners. He quotes a number of kabbalist suggesting that the archangel (p. 380) or other angels played a role in arriving at the combination of letters that was originally received by the children of Israel (this jibes with Acts chapter 7 and Galatians chapter 3, where Israel is said to be confined to worshipping angels after the golden calf fiasco. Paul speaks clearly and often about angels acting as the mediators, when in fact God is one). ---- Nachmanides (Ramban) teaches these things in his Torah Commentary where he says, "It would appear that the Torah `written with letters of black fire upon a background of white fire' was in this form we have mentioned, namely, that the writing was contiguous, without break of words, which made it possible for it to be read by way of Divine Names and also by way of our normal reading which makes explicit the Torah and the commandment. It was given to Moses our teacher using the division of words which expresses the commandment, and orally it was transmitted to him in the rendition which consists of the Divine Names. Thus masters of the Cabala write the letters of the Great Name I have mentioned [namely, the Name containing the seventy-two letters] all close to each other, and then these are divided into words consisting of three letters and many other divisions, as is the practice among the masters of the Cabala" (p. 15). ---- In Professor Elliot R. Wolfson's, Pathwings, p. 181, he says, "If we accept the postmodern insistence on the indeterminacy of meaning, to some degree buttressed by the polysemy attested in classical rabbinic hermeneutics, then we want to avoid positing a univocal reading of any given text. Indeed, what transforms a book into text is the possibility of multiple readings. To proffer a particular reading, therefore, is to follow one path of interpretation to the exclusion of the others all the while acknowledging that other are equally valid."
3. To this day, cantillation is used in relationship to the deciphering of the Torah. Wikipedia says: "Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) to complement the letters and vowel points. These marks are known in English as accents and in Hebrew as טעמי המקרא ta`amei ha-mikra or just טעמים te`amim. (Some of these signs were also sometimes used in medieval manuscripts of the Mishnah.) The musical motifs associated with the signs are known in Hebrew as niggun or neginot (not to be confused with Hasidic nigun) and in Yiddish as טראָפ trop: the equivalent word trope is sometimes used in English with the same meaning. A primary purpose of the cantillation signs is to guide the chanting of the sacred texts during public worship. Very roughly speaking, each word of text has a cantillation mark at its primary accent and associated with that mark is a musical phrase that tells how to sing that word. The reality is more complex, with some words having two or no marks and the musical meaning of some marks dependent upon context. There are different sets of musical phrases associated with different sections of the Bible. The music varies with different Jewish traditions and individual cantorial styles. The cantillation signs also provide information on the syntactical structure of the text and some say they are a commentary on the text itself, highlighting important ideas musically. The tropes are not random strings but follow a set and describable grammar. The very word ta'am means "taste" or "sense", the point being that the pauses and intonation denoted by the accents (with or without formal musical rendition)
bring out the sense of the passage."