Overview: Kitvei Kodesh
Jewish texts as sacred texts.
Holiness or "kedushah" in Judaism comes
from access to God. The Temple in Jerusalem was called the "mikdash"
(holy place), and inside it was a court called the "kodesh"
(the holy [area]), and inside the kodesh was the "kodesh hakodashim",
the Holy of Holies wherein the Ark of the Covenant was kept. And inside the Ark
of the covenant was…a text: the ten Commandments, inscribed, using the Biblical
metaphor, with God's own finger. Insofar as Jewish texts reflect the revealed
will of God, Jews have treated the texts themselves, like the stone tablets of
the covenant, as sources of holiness.
Holiness of a Jewish text inheres both in the form and the
content of the text. Books are handled with great delicacy; the Rabbis forbade
touching the parchment of Biblical books with bare hands. The Torah is
"dressed" in wrappings and ornaments reminiscent of royalty. As a
sign of respect, Jews traditionally face the Torah as it is carried in
procession among the people. Different books possess different levels of
sanctity, and Jewish custom even prescribes which books may be stacked on top
of others.
The Torah, as the pre-eminent sacred text, is considered
perfect. Each and every letter of the Torah is invested with meaning, and that
meaning is attributed to its Author. Rabbinic mythology even claims that there
is meaning in the crowns on the letters (Babylonian Talmud Menachot 59b). Part
of the Torah's holiness comes from this perception that the presence or absence
of apparently inconsequential words can bear meaning. Through time, this kind
of close reading, and the concomitant attribution of sanctity, was applied to
the Mishnah and to the Siddur as well.
Of course, the greatest expression of the sanctity of Jewish
texts is the fact that their injunctions have been seen as commanding certain
behaviors, and that, accounting for differences between communities, Jews have
seen those commands as normative. Some Jewish scholars have divided Jewish
literature into two main realms, Halakhah (lit. going, or path), which
is understood broadly as Jewish behavior, and Aggadah (lit. telling),
which is understood as the meaning attributed to those behaviors. It is not the
case that Halakhah has a greater sanctity than Aggadah, for the two are
understood as mutually reinforcing. New meanings reinforce the behavior, and
adherence to the behavior and belief in the attributed meaning strengthen the
sense of sanctity in the text.
When texts are treated with normative force, and when even
the least significant nuances are imbued with meaning, reading becomes a
different kind of activity. Indeed, Jews seldom refer to "reading"
Torah except in the sense of reciting the Torah liturgically. Sacred texts
aren't "read," they are studied. Studying Torah is a slow process
that can involve tracking the thread of ideas across and back through
generations of texts, as if the footnotes and connections can retrace and
uncover the sanctity of God's own speech in the text. Torah study, and here
Torah is defined in its broadest sense to include all of the conversation that
study of the written Torah has generated, is of value not only because it leads
to observing Torah, but in and of itself. Indeed, Torah study, the sages say,
merits its own rewards, including long life, protection from danger and
suffering, and forgiveness for sins. But the greatest reward for Torah study is
the study itself, engaging in the process of uncovering the sanctity that the
texts carry in their words and ideas.
