Table Of ContentSpeaking Infinities
JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS
Published in association with
the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
of the University of Pennsylvania
Series Editors: Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, Steven Weitzman
A complete list of books in the series
is available from the publisher.
SPEAKING INFINITIES
God and Language
in the Teachings of
Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritsh
Ariel Evan Mayse
University of Pennsylvania Press
PhiladelPhia
Copyright © 2020 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for
purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book
may be reproduced in any form by any means without written
permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www . upenn . edu / pennpress
Printed in the United States of Ameri ca on acid- free paper
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mayse, Ariel Evan, author.
Title: Speaking infinities : God and language in the teachings of Rabbi Dov
Ber of Mezritsh / Ariel Evan Mayse.
Other titles: Jewish culture and contexts.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press,
[2020] | Series: Jewish culture and contexts | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019049767 | ISBN 9780812252187 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Dov Baer, of Mezhirech, –1772. | Hasidism. | Language
and langauges—Religious aspects—Judaism. | Mysticism—Judaism.
Classification: LCC BM198.2 .M395 2020 | DDC 296.7/12—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049767
For Adina,
with eternal love
unfolding across the
infinite journey of our words
Contemplate your voice and thoughts. Come to realize that
they are nothing but divine vitality and spirit.
— Rabbi Shlomo of Lutsk
Heavy silence w ill crouch like a bull
on all the words.
And it w ill be as hard for me to part
from the names of t hings
as from the things themselves.
— Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky
Contents
Preface ix
A Note on Transliteration and Style xiii
Introduction 1
PART I. FOUNDATIONS
Chapter 1. The Life of the Maggid 23
Chapter 2. Sacred Words 45
Chapter 3. From Speech to Silence 71
PART II. THE DIVINE WORD
Chapter 4. Letters, Creation, and the Divine Mind 99
Chapter 5. The Nature of Torah and Revelation 129
PART III. THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE
Chapter 6. Study and the Sacred Text 161
Chapter 7. The Languages of Prayer 199
viii Contents
Epilogue. Moving Mountains 227
Appendix. The Sources: A Bibliographic Excursus 235
Notes 255
Bibliography 303
Index 335
Acknowle dgments 343
Preface
Dov Ber of Mezritsh is a figure shrouded in mystery. Although he is widely
regarded as one of the most impor tant and creative Jewish thinkers of the
eigh teenth c entury, his theology is exceptionally difficult and complex. Schol-
ars and historians of religion have long attempted to make sense of his
laconic homilies and penetrate his obtuse mystical symbolism. They have
strug gled to piece together his biography and better understand his place in
the development of Hasidism. Indeed, interest in Dov Ber extends far be-
yond the walls of the acad emy. A wide range of Jewish seekers, thinkers,
and phi los o phers have turned to Dov Ber’s sophisticated devotional teach-
ings as holding the seeds for a renewal of con temporary Jewish life. Present-
day Hasidic leaders have been captivated by his mysterious teachings, seeing
them as a remedy for a religious movement that has lost much of its spiri-
tual momentum. His writings and indeed his outsize religious personality
have had an enormous impact on the most impor tant renewal movement of
Jewish modernity.
This book argues that Dov Ber’s reflections on the nature of language and
the power of human speech rest at the heart of his allure. Abraham Joshua
Heschel, a modern Jewish mystic who drank deeply from the wellsprings
of Hasidism, argued that restoring the power and dignity of language was
the key to h uman flourishing a fter the unspeakable tragedies of the twentieth
century. “The renewal of man,” claimed Heschel, “involves a renewal of
language.”1 The noted phi los o pher Charles Taylor has suggested that the
experience of modernity demands that we “return to, while reexamining,
Aristotle’s definition of the human being as ‘Zwon echon logon’.”2 Reclaiming
our identity as “speaking beings,” individuals for whom the word is constitu-
tive as well as communicative, is a crucial step in reckoning with the nature
of what it can mean to be h uman.
Dov Ber’s theory of language gives con temporary readers an opportu-
nity to grasp the power of words as that which makes us human. He holds
x Preface
a vision of God as dwelling in the heart and mind of the mystic, embodied
in the faculty of language and expressed through our words. Language tears
away the veil that divides the mystic from God, but it accomplishes something
more. Dov Ber’s teachings are attentive to a sublime kind of intentional inte-
riority, portraying the inner religious journey as a quest to unite human lan-
guage with the ineffable echoes of divine silence. The language of our
worship, argues Dov Ber, may break the chains of silence that shackle the
Divine, giving life to the word and speaking God into being.
The pre sent book was written with several diff er ent audiences in mind.
For scholars interested in the development of Jewish mysticism— and Jewish
thought and theology more generally— Speaking Infinities offers a novel
interpretation of the vital religious thinker at the helm of early Hasidism.
I am also seeking to reach a broader scholarly audience. To do so I have tried
to make the difficult concepts at the core of Dov Ber’s kabbalistic theology
accessible to all t hose who wish to ponder the enduring enigma of the rela-
tionship of mind, language, and the life of the spirit. These are the motifs
that undergird this book and guide its narrative. I hope that Speaking In-
finities will hold much for those invested in the questions of language and
what it means to be human in a world in which words have been devalued
to the absurd.
Speaking Infinities grew forth from my experiences as a teacher in a wide
variety of academic and religious settings. I strug gle to make the often-
recondite concepts of Jewish mysticism accessible to a diverse range of stu-
dents engaged in the life of the mind. Teaching these Jewish sources as a
humanist requires me to step beyond the bound aries of Jewish thought,
showing students that mystical texts both ancient and modern may speak to
the deepest questions of existential meaning. Humanities faculty are tasked
with creating a space for the moral, ethical, and spiritual reflection that is a
critical component of the quest for self- formation at the heart of liberal
education. Embracing this role is, I believe, all the more impor tant at re-
search universities without divinity schools. We must help our students
cultivate reverence for the im mense power of language and reflect on the
abyss that rises up when the word is misused.
Like all teachers, I strug gle with the limits of language as a finite me-
dium of communication. My time in the classroom is sown with frequent
pauses, allowing students to gaze beyond the surface in an effort to consider
the pulsing heart of the text. Together we enter the quiet liminal zone of
interpretation, an echo chamber that surrounds its words as white spaces
