Donald Traxler's Poetry

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Photo: Author Self-portrait

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

105,000 Visits, and One Very Busy Pirate

Hello again, dear readers. It has only taken seven days to go from 104,000 visits to 105,000. What I call "visits" are actually page-views, and we normally get about two thousand of them per month. To get one thousand in just seven days is pretty extraordinary, and the main reason for this head-spinning pace is pirate activity.

The blog has experienced at least some activity of this type almost from the very beginning. It was certainly happening by late 2017, when I finished my translations of Lalla's poetry. What I am seeing now, though, is different in scale and intensity (perhaps because they know that they have major competition in at least one other country. All I know is that some person or group is working very, very hard, almost 24/7. I hope they make a good profit on their theft, because that will be the amount of damages for which I will sue them.

My own work continues apace. My series "Notes on the Zohar" is now up to six parts. It's a huge project, though, and at my age I may need to rethink the size of it.

As usual, thanks to all of you for your continued interest and enthusiasm.

Monday, January 25, 2021

Notes on the Zohar VI

Most of the Zohar (Sefer ha-Zohar, Book of the Brightness), is written as a commentary on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible/Tanakh). But it is a commentary like no other, written from a level of imagination, intuition, and mysticism that is truly astonishing.

We find, in my opinion, a great example of this intuitional level on the lower half of page 63 in my Soncino edition (page 15a in the Mantua edition): "There was indeed a 'brightness' (Zohar). The Most Mysterious struck its void, and caused this point to shine. This "beginning" then extended, and made for itself a palace for its honour and glory." And closer to the bottom of the same page: "The Zohar is that from which were created all the creative utterances through the extension of the point of this mysterious brightness." Higher on the page we are told that: "Beyond that point there is no knowable, and therefore it is called Reshith (beginning) . . ."

Another tradition, that called Advaita Vedanta, would tell us that the "brightness," the "beginning," before which there is "no knowable," can only be Consciousness, and that there is only Consciousness. The word "consciousness" does not appear anywhere in the Bible. Here, in the form of "brightness" and "beginning," the Zohar supplies that deficiency.

About three-quarters of the way down p. 64 (Mantua 15a-15b), we find something else that is remarkable: another reference to Hebrew vowel-points, anachronistic at the time of Simeon Bar Yohai. The three vowel points mentioned, "holem," "shureq," and "hireq," are even called by the names by which we still know them. Since pointed biblical texts only came into common use after about 800 CE, this shows that not only the Prologue, but also the rest of the Zohar, dates from the medieval period.

Saturday, January 23, 2021

Tryambic

Friday, January 22, 2021

He Stands on a Beach

He stands on a beach

that is no beach,

in the light of a sun

that is no sun,

where space has no reach,

and time, there is none.

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Notes on the Zohar V

As we continue reading the Prologue, many more rabbinical characters are introduced: Rab Hamnuna the Venerable, R. Yudai, R. Hiya, R. Jose, R. Eleazar (son of R. Simeon), R. Abba, Rabbi Simeon the son of Lakunya, R. Phineas, and possibly more that I have missed.

Each of these Rabbis gives one or more expositions of biblical verses. These expositions are exceedingly fanciful, and they themselves tend to become stories, so that the whole Prologue is a kind of Canterbury Tales of biblical exegesis.

I wanted to skip some of these fanciful expositions to get sooner to the end of the Prologue, but they have their charm and their magic, and I had to read every one of them.

It is well that I did, because on page 57 of my Soncino edition (13b of the Mantua edition), I found something quite interesting: a reference to the "slender stroke underneath the Yod" in the Divine Name. This, of course, would only be present in a pointed Hebrew text. The masoretes did most of their work between about 600 and 800 CE, at which time pointed biblical texts came into prominence. This reference to pointing would have been anachronistic in the early centuries CE, supposedly the time when Simeon ben Yohai lived. We can be sure, therefore that this Prologue is of medieval origin.

The Prologue ends quite abruptly and without warning, as though the author had had a heart attack and died. My theory is that the Prologue was written after the rest of the Zohar, and that the author died before he could finish it. If the author was Mosés de León, we know that his wife outlived him.

Quatrains of St. Jerome III - Truth-wagon (The Chariot)

Our truth-wagon is bogged down

in a fetid swamp

where lies abound

and credulous Fox-pups hunt the hounds.