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The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious

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THE MURMURING DEEP


The great works of Life and Literature are those which are read and reread generation by generation. On occasion the dialogue between the generations takes a dramatic turn and a new way and world are opened up. This is what happens for many readers when they are given the interpretative investigations of Biblical Literature by Avivah Zornberg. In her readings of the texts there are whole new worlds of suggestion and surprise which yoke together what might at first seem the most unlikely and contradictory sources and worlds.



In her previous two book explorations of the Biblical text Avivah Zornberg made use of the traditional framework of weekly Torah (Parsha) readings. In this volume she develops her reading through focusing on and elaborating the stories of individual personalities. She does this with her now familiar yet still strikingly original method of combining traditional Jewish religious sources with challenging contemporary psychoanalytical, anthropological, and most movingly , literary sources.



In the course of this she reveals hidden unconscious meanings, depths in the text which even the most experienced reader will often be startled and inspired by. Zornberg is capable of both great profundity and great poetic feeling. Her associative readings not simply inspire but they are capable of moving us personally, speaking to our own present psychological and emotional situation. It is her capacity to read and inspire the Soul which I believe has more than anything else given her the great following she has among those who seriously read and study Biblical texts.



The twelve essays in this volume are divided into three sections, The first focuses on relations `Between God and Self' (Seduced into Eden: The Beginning of Desire (Adam) Despondent Intoxication( Noah) Jonah:A Fantasy of Flight) Esther "Mere Anarchy is Loosed upon the World.) The second focuses on `The Stranger Within' ( In the Vale of Soul- Making Abraham's Journey) Abraham Bound and Unbound: The Akedah) Her own Foreigner Rebecca's Pregnancy ) Blindness and Blessing: Isaac Trembles Twice) The third focuses on relations Between Self and Other (And I Did Not Know.. The Secret of Prayer) The Pit and the Rope Recovering Joseph) `What if Joseph Hates Us? Closing the `Book) (Law and Narrative in the Book of Ruth).



In the first section of the work she describes what she calls `complex issues of communication' involving `the human desire to know and control the Other, to evade uncertainty and affirm mastery.''But acknowledging God means acknowledging the Other within oneself, as well as the enigmatic human other.' In the second section `Abraham, Isaac and Rebecca live through moments when consciousness brushes against its limits.' In the third section `Jacob, Joseph and Ruth seek to affirm connections with others across minefields of betrayal and abjection.'



Each of the chapters is a challenge and demands not simply reading, but rereading for full understanding. This is not a book to be read through as a whole swiftly but rather to be taken chapter by chapter and then reread again. In this sense it mirrors the whole Midrashic interpretative - literature choice selections of which it so richly incorporates. It is not necessary to agree with each of the interpretations but rather to open oneself to them, be challenged by them, learn from them, argue with them perhaps, and also be inspired by them.



Like the Yaakov whose vale of struggle for soul- making she so tellingly depicts Zornberg gives us a sense of struggling for meaning line- by- line, of trying to find and make in each sentence a kind of meaning which will resonate in more than one dimension for its readers.

This work is a classic will be required reading for all future scholars of Biblical interpretation. As importantly perhaps, it will serve for the general reader a vitally interesting exploration of the human condition.
A truly must read.

Anyone who has sat in on Dr. Avivah Zorenberg's classes will appreciate and enjoy this latest book. Organized by themes of communication both internal and external, Dr. Zorenberg combines classic literature, Midrashic interpretation and psychology to create a complete and complex picture of the heritage created by the forefathers, and places it in a thoroughly modern and engaging context.

Zornberg has moved to a new level: These concise essays overflow with profound psychological and religious insight, interpretative virtuosity and human depth