Hermeneutic Strategy of Rabbinic Literature

Abstract

This work is devoted to the development of dialogical hermeneutics. As a special field of research, hermeneutics was formed as a result of the efforts of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The first source of hermeneutics is Aristotle’s treatise “On Interpretation”, which formulates the special type of speech—‘logos apophantikos’—that aligns speech with the identification of thinking and being. However, this approach is challenged by the hermeneutics of the sophists, for whom speech is a command, a prayer, a question, an answer, or a narrative. The second source of hermeneutics is the predominantly Protestant tradition of interpreting biblical texts. This paper examines the hermeneutic strategies of Jewish classical texts, which differ significantly from the Christian tradition of understanding text. Jewish classical texts, from Tanakh and Talmud to Jewish mysticism and philosophy, are more focused not on propositions, but on commands, prayers, questions, answers, dialogue, and narrative. Thus, the hermeneutic strategy of Jewish texts converges with investigations of the Greek sophists. Particular emphasis is placed on the medieval Jewish philosophy. The paper examines three works: “Emunot ve-deot” by Saadia Gaon, “Kuzari” by Halevi, and “Guide of the Perplexed” by Maimonides. In this regard, we discuss the system of dual argumentation, the relation between halakha and aggadah, and the strategy of concealment and revelation in language—approaches that in many ways present an alternative to the hermeneutics of understanding. The Study of rabbinic tradition leads us to the development of dialogical hermeneutics that forms the methodological foundation of humanistic culture.

1. Introduction—A New Hermeneutic Strategy Is Required for Studying Rabbinic Literature: Statement of the Question

The classical rabbinic literature opens to us an opportunity to reconsider hermeneutics as a whole. While the Jewish philosophical literature of the modern and contemporary periods, despite its own specific features, fits well within the forms and styles of other philosophical trends of their respective eras (Dvorkin 2019), medieval Jewish thought requires special study of its literary form by itself—its appeal to the reader, interaction with sources, and so forth. Such study is necessary because these forms possess significant features and differences from those accepted in other cultures. This particular literary form presents a problem that extends beyond medieval Jewish philosophy and encompasses all rabbinic literature and, from a broader perspective, culture as a whole.

What foundation can a researcher rely upon when analyzing works of the Jewish intellectual tradition? What is their significance? How are they structured? What thoughts, sayings, and actions accompany them? We can combine all these questions into one: what is the most productive hermeneutic strategy for analyzing rabbinic intellectual literature? In attempts to find such a strategy, we encounter serious difficulties. Traditional hermeneutics, as developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are hermeneutics of understanding—but is understanding the only option when reading rabbinic texts? It is difficult to imagine anyone who could say of themselves, “I understand the Torah”, “I understand the Talmud”, or “I understand rabbinic texts”. It is also noteworthy that hermeneutics as a philosophical discipline traces back to Aristotle, yet his treatise “On Interpretation” is concerned with anything but the problem of understanding. According to Aristotle, our thoughts correspond by their very nature to the objects, while speech differs from them. The task of his hermeneutics is apparently to the reproduction of thinking.

Hermeneutics in its modern form was developed within the framework of Christian biblical exegesis, and for the study of rabbinic literature—which represents an undoubted alternative to Christian exegesis—it requires adjustment. Neither the Talmud nor the rabbinic literature created under its influence aims at understanding or any unambiguous interpretation of biblical texts. This entire literary tradition is oriented toward behavioral practice, the fulfillment of commandments, the prayer, and the problematization of moral values. It contains an infinite number of narrative fragments and dialogues, questions, and parables, and is almost devoid of Aristotelian propositions. In studying all of this, the hermeneutics of understanding offers limited insight. We must add that in the rabbis’ view, their literature is not some outdated branch diverging from culture’s main paths; on the contrary, it represents the main line, while Christian exegesis is rather the branch. Therefore, despite attention paid to Christian hermeneutics’ achievements, the primary line of interpretation proceeds through other means.

For all these reasons, when studying the Jewish intellectual tradition, we must first of all seek new hermeneutical strategies. It is evident, however, that these strategies will also prove productive when considering other intellectual processes and the full variety of forms of speech.

2. From the Hermeneutics of Understanding to the Hermeneutics of Dialogue

2.1. The Origins and Paths of the Hermeneutics of Understanding (Protestant Criticism, Heidegger, and Gadamer)

When the theologian from Strasbourg Johann Dannhauer (1603–1666) declared hermeneutics as an important science, he relied on Aristotle’s fundamental treatise “On Interpretation” (Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας), which proclaims λόγος ἀποφαντικὸς (propositional speech) as the main form of scientific speech. Meanwhile, this treatise was more of a pretext to the emergence of a new science than an actual source of its content. Hermeneutics, as it unfolded in the 17th–20th centuries, was aimed at interpreting the biblical text, fiction, and later, culture as such, and loosely connected with Aristotle. The most important stimulus for its development was Luther’s principle of “sola scriptura”, which makes the Holy Scripture the immediate primary source of faith and thus turns the reading of the text into a religious mission. As researchers note, Luther did not propose any special new method of interpretation but only freed the text from the dogmatic authority of the Catholic Church (Jaeger 1974). Meanwhile, the question of the criteria of truth of a particular interpretation arose. It became especially acute when epistemology moved to the most central positions in philosophy. The question—how do I know what I know—became unescapable. Knowledge ceased to be perceived as a direct emanation of material or spiritual reality. Especially after Kant, it became clear that even a simple perception of the world requires special efforts. Understanding and interpreting the text differs significantly from the forms and methods of cognition of nature. Here, there can be no talk of a priori synthetic judgments. Hence, the development and understanding of special methods and interpretative strategies became an urgent task of philosophy. As is known, the central core in the formation of philosophical hermeneutics became the works of Schleiermacher and Dilthey. To what extent did these works connect modern hermeneutics with Aristotelian hermeneutics?

To answer this question, it is enough to cite Dilthey’s statement from the introductory chapter of his work on the history of hermeneutics:

“The science of hermeneutics actually begins with Protestantism”.

(Dilthey 1996, p. 33. Transl. by Theodore Nordenhaug)

For dozens of pages, Dilthey talks about the formation of hermeneutics from Flacius (1520–1575) to Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and hardly mentions Aristotle. In the entire immense literature of the 17th to 19th centuries, hermeneutics was a new method of interpreting the Holy Scriptures. While the connection with Aristotle remains important, he is perceived more as a kind of model of precision and clarity in the interpretation of the text rather than as a philosophical basis for hermeneutic thought. The turn to Aristotle only occurs within the framework of philosophical hermeneutics of the 20th century in Heidegger and Gadamer (Panagiotis 2022). Guillaume Fagniez defines this turn as “ontological radicalization”. If for Dilthey, hermeneutics as a method of the humanities is a self-understanding of life, then for Heidegger, hermeneutics transforms into a self-interpretation of being. Heidegger decisively overcomes Dilthey’s hermeneutics and gives it an ontological sense (Fagniez 2014, pp. 195–96). As Nelson notes, Heidegger’s move from Dilthey’s hermeneutics of life to the hermeneutics of being occurred at the very beginning of his philosophical activity, i.e., even before meeting Gadamer (Nelson 2018, p. 157). This subsequently provoked criticism from Dilthey’s student Misch (Ibid., p. 158).

It is precisely along this path that Gadamer follows Heidegger. To illustrate this turn, we will give a story about the beginning of Gadamer’s acquaintance with the philosophy of Aristotle, which led him to move from neo-Kantianism to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology (Gadamer 1987, pp. 46–47).

As is known, Gadamer was initially a student at the University of Marburg, the most important center of neo-Kantianism. In 1922, his supervisor Paul Natorp gave him Heidegger’s manuscript on the philosophy of Aristotle to read, which Heidegger had given to Natorp shortly before. The manuscript made such a strong impression on Gadamer that already in 1923, he became Heidegger’s student in Freiburg. Fundamental ontology became the main basis of the Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics.

To further explore the foundations of Gadamer’s and Heidegger’s hermeneutics of understanding, we need to look in more detail at Aristotle’s hermeneutic teaching, its origins, as well as alternative hermeneutics.

2.2. Aristotle’s Hermeneutics

According to Aristotle, speech and writing serve as symbolic representations of thinking, which forms likeness of existing things. Thought accurately reproduces objects and remains identical in the souls of all humans, while speech represents thinking imprecisely and varies among different humans (Aristotle, On Interpretation, 16a3). The primary subject of Aristotle’s hermeneutics—propositional speech (λόγος ἀποφαντικὸς)—being by definition, either true or false, uniquely reproduces the thought that corresponds to the object. This makes proposition the principal form of true knowledge. However, Aristotle states the following:

Aristotle. On Interpretation 17a1-7 (Translated by E. M. Edghill, Dagens Nyheter.) Yet every sentence is not a proposition (ἀποφαντικὸς); only such are propositions as have in them either truth or falsity. Thus a prayer is a sentence, but is neither true nor false. Let us therefore dismiss all other types of sentence but the proposition, for this last concerns our present inquiry, whereas the investigation of the others belongs rather to the study of rhetoric or of poetry.

(Aristotle 2001)

Aristotle’s example of prayer as non-apophantic speech not only delineates the boundaries of his hermeneutics but also contains the reference to alternative hermeneutics that are addressed in the Poetics:

Aristotle. Poetics (Transl. Ingram Bywater). 1456b [9—19] As regards the Diction, one subject for inquiry under this head is the turns given to the language when spoken; e. g. the difference between command (ἐντολὴ) and prayer (εὐχὴ), (10) simple statement (διήγησις)1 and threat (ἀπειλὴ), question (ἐρώτησις) and answer (ἀπόκρισις), and so forth. The theory of such matters, however, belongs to Elocution and the professors of that art. Whether the poet knows these things or not, his art as a poet is never seriously criticized on that account. (15) What fault can one see in Homer’s ‘Sing of the wrath, Goddess’?—which Protagoras has criticized as being a command where a prayer was meant, since to bid one do or not do, he tells us, is a command. Let us pass over this, then, as appertaining to another art, and not to that of poetry.

(Aristotle 2001)

In Aristotle’s surviving works, we do not find a detailed study of the speech forms enumerated here. However, if we follow his reference and turn to the surviving fragments of Protagoras, Gorgias, and other sophists, we will discover not only the outlines of an alternative hermeneutics, but also its corresponding philosophical foundations.

2.3. Hermeneutics of Sophists as a Real Alternative to the Platonic–Aristotelian Tradition

Who was Protagoras? Was he merely an unscrupulous debater who taught eloquence to young people for money? In his book on Protagoras, Edward Schiappa presents a markedly different picture (Schiappa 2003). Protagoras was a significant philosopher whose many works formed the foundation of the Socratic tradition. However, Protagoras developed a philosophy that differed substantially from those of Plato and Aristotle. Diogenes Laërtius provides the following account:

“Protagoras was the first to maintain that there are two sides to every question, opposed to each other, and he even argued in this fashion, being the first to do so. Furthermore he began a work thus: “Man is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not”. <…> He too first introduced the method of discussion which is called Socratic <…> and he was the first to use in discussion the argument of Antisthenes which strives to prove that contradiction is impossible, and the first to point out how to attack and refute any proposition laid down”.

(Diogenes 1925, IX, chp. 8: pp. 463–67)

Protagoras positions humanity above being and non-being. While he highly values speech, he maintains that its function extends beyond merely describing being. Protagoras develops precisely those forms of discourse that Aristotle later rejected. Diogenes Laertius writes:

“He was the first to mark off the parts of discourse into four, namely, wish (εὐχωλή), question (ἐρώτησις), answer (ἀπόκρισις), command (ἐντολή); others divide it [disourse] into seven parts, narration (διήγησις), question, answer, command, rehearsal, wish, summoning; these he called the basic forms of speech”.

(Ibid., p. 467)

It is crucial to note that the sophists’ embrace of all forms of speech stems from their alternative to Aristotle’s conception of the relationship between being, thinking, and language. An illustration of this position can be found in Gorgias’s famous tripartite argument:

Nothing exists. If anything exists, it is incomprehensible. If it is comprehensible, it is incommunicable (Baird 2017, p. 91).

This passage demonstrates that the sophists systematically distinguish between thinking, being, and speech, which leads them to regard all forms of discourse as equally valuable. This position directly opposes Aristotle’s ontological doctrine2.

2.4. Returning to Gadamer

In his works, Gadamer repeatedly addressed the connection between hermeneutics and Aristotelian philosophy. One chapter of Truth and Method is entitled “The Hermeneutic Relevance of Aristotle” (Gadamer 1989, pp. 310–19). According to Gadamer, Aristotle’s “Hermeneutics” forms the foundation of his ethics, in which the relationship between “the moral being of man and moral knowledge” is established (Ibid., p. 311). Moral knowledge—prudence (φρόνησις)—is formed by analogy with scientific knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) and thus realizes the ontological basis of ethics. Although phronesis does not strictly follow the requirements of Aristotelian hermeneutics, it corresponds to them as a model, thereby ensuring the ontological orientation of speech.

Here we observe that Gadamer constructs his hermeneutics under the direct influence of Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle. Nevertheless, Gadamer’s goal differs somewhat from Heidegger’s: he is engaged in creating philosophical hermeneutics rather than a fundamental ontology. Gadamer acknowledges that Aristotle recognizes the existence of alternative forms of speech—“the petition, the command, the question”—which, as Gadamer notes, “are not concerned simply with revealing that which is existent, that is, with being true” (Gadamer 1976, p. 120).

While Gadamer agrees with the importance of these speech forms, he does not examine them specifically from a hermeneutic perspective. Ultimately, even in relation to these forms, his hermeneutic strategy remains focused on the logos apophantikos.

One might ask: why does Gadamer confine himself to a hermeneutics that follows the logos apophantikos and does not attempt to construct a hermeneutics of other speech forms? The answer to this question lies precisely in his intellectual journey from Marburg to Freiburg. Logos apophantikos is the speech about being and thus constitutes the fundamental premise of Heidegger’s fundamental ontology.

2.5. The Hermeneutics of Understanding and Its Ontological Foundations (Heidegger and Gadamer as Founders of the Hermeneutics of Understanding)

As already indicated, Aristotle’s philosophy—including the treatise On Interpretation—was of considerable interest to Heidegger in the early stages of his work. He repeatedly addressed this topic in his university seminars; however, Being and Time contains no direct discussion of the treatise. This omission can be attributed in part to the fact that Heidegger’s interest in Aristotle’s hermeneutics lies not in itself, but in its potential to justify Heidegger’s own developing philosophical project. As Thomas Sheehan notes:

“Heidegger, on the other hand, is interested in the treatise only insofar as it can tell him something basic about ‘truth,’ both as an ontic condition (aletheia as on hos alethes) and as a human performance (aletheuein as a power of psyche)”.

(Sheehan 1988, p. 69)

While Heidegger’s intentions can be partially inferred from supplementary texts, his core position is articulated quite explicitly in Being and Time itself. In §§31–34, he explores the ontological foundations of Aristotle’s hermeneutics, or rather, reinterprets them through the lens of his own fundamental ontology. Although Aristotle is mentioned only in passing, Heidegger’s own philosophical intentions are made clear. Section 31 is titled “Das Da-sein als Verstehen” (Da-sein as Understanding):

“Verstehen ist das existenziale Sein des eigenen Seinkönnens des Daseins selbst, so zwar, daß dieses Sein an ihm selbst das Woran des mit ihm selbst Seins erschließt”.

(Heidegger 1967, p. 144)

“Understanding is the existential being of the own most potentiality of being of Da-sein in such a way that this being discloses in the self what its very being is about”.

(Heidegger 1996, p. 135)

What does it mean to say that “Understanding is the existential being of the own most potentiality of being of Da-sein”? Does this imply that understanding is actualized being? Let us recall Parmenides:

“τωὐτὸν δ᾿ ἐστὶ νοεῖν τε καὶ οὕνεκέν ἐστι νόημα/The same thing is for conceiving as is the cause of the thought conceived”.

(Parmenides Fr. VIII 34: Diels and Kranz 1903, p. 238; Coxon 2009, pp. 74–75)

Of course, Heidegger is no longer speaking of the being of beings, as Parmenides and Aristotle did, but rather of one’s own existence. It thus follows that one’s own being here (Dasein) is actualized through understanding. Entities lacking thinking also lack actual being. Furthermore, even a human being deprived of understanding may be said to lack a full presence as Dasein. Hence, understanding constitutes an ontological characteristic of Dasein: in understanding being discloses itself to itself.

Understanding, then, is a form of ontological reflexivity—a “self-understanding of understanding”. As Jean Grondin notes, “This self-understanding of understanding he calls Auslegung, interpretation (presented as a clearing up of understanding)” (Grondin 2016, p. 300). Interpretation, in this sense, is intrinsically reflexive. According to Grondin, this self-referential structure forms the basis of the hermeneutic circle as a distinctive interpretive procedure.

It is thus no surprise that the following section of Being and Time (§32: Verstehen und Auslegung/“Understanding and Interpretation”) already signals, in its title, a reference to Aristotelian hermeneutics—particularly given that the Latin title of the treatise is De Interpretatione. In this light, Aristotle’s interpretation can be seen as an interpretation of being itself. The subsequent development—being’s expression in speech—is addressed in §33 of the book. Its theme is Aussage (statement), which lies at the heart of Aristotle’s hermeneutics. However, Heidegger reinterprets Aussage in a distinctively ontological manner:

Aussage bedeutet primär Aufzeigung. Wir halten damit den ursprünglichen Sinn von λόγος als ἀποφανσις fest: Seiendes von ihm selbst her sehen lassen.

(Heidegger 1967, p. 154)

“Primarily, statement means pointing out. Whis this we adhere to the primordial meaning of logos as apophansis: to let beings be seen from themselves”.

(Heidegger 1996, p. 144)

The reference to λόγος as ἀποφαντικὸς takes us directly back to Aristotle’s hermeneutics. Yet Heidegger does not cite it explicitly—and the reason is clear. He is not reconstructing Aristotle’s hermeneutics but rather developing his own hermeneutics of understanding, which fundamentally diverges from Aristotle’s. For Aristotle, λόγος ἀποφαντικὸς is a specific kind of discourse among others. For Heidegger, speech as such is an expression of understanding of being itself.

Aristotle’s hermeneutics is certainly ontologically oriented. Discourse about the essence (λόγος τῆς οὐσίας, Aristotle 1a3) underpins his doctrine of categories (Anton 1968), which in turn, forms the basis of the entire philosophical system. Yet for Aristotle, logos apophantikos remains only one type of discourse among many—not a command, a plea, or a narrative. Heidegger, on the other hand, treats the statement as the paradigmatic form of discourse, thereby elevating it to a model of speech as such. In the same paragraph, Heidegger writes:

“Aussage bedeutet Mitteilung, Heraussage”.

(Heidegger 1967, p. 155)

“Statement means communication, speaking forth”.

(Heidegger 1996, p. 145)

It is evident that Heidegger significantly extends Aristotle’s thought, transforming Aussage into speech as such. He is well aware that Aristotle’s theoretical hermeneutics deals primarily with ontological speaking about being (proposition). It serves as the basis for knowledge (ἐπιστήμη), whereas speech in general expresses practical knowledge (φρόνησις).

Yet for Heidegger, all knowledge serves as comprehension of the facticity of being. While Aristotle’s logos apophantikos reveals being as either true or false, according to Heidegger, speech reveals truth as the unconcealment (aletheia) of being.

Thus, it becomes clear why Gadamer, following Heidegger, developed the hermeneutics of understanding as a disclosure of being. His appeal to Aristotle’s logos apophantikos is, thus, grounded not in original Aristotle’s hermeneutics, but in Heidegger’s reinterpretation of it. This aligns with the trajectory of the development of hermeneutics in Europe since the 16th century, which was increasingly focused on interpretation of biblical and, subsequently, other texts. Yet language activity—particularly in biblical texts—goes beyond mere understanding. It includes commanding, questioning, creating, and hiding. It is not always aimed at disclosed; often it strives to preserve the hidden. Reducing all this to logos, apophantikos leads to the distortion of meaning.

It follows that we need to find a hermeneutics other than Gadamer’s, one that would give forms of speech (alternative to logos apophantikos) the important role in interpretation of text. Perhaps this is the path that hermeneutics might have taken had he not moved from Marburg to Freiburg in 1923. One might even suggest that Gadamer himself would have been open to such a possibility.

2.6. Gadamer and Alternative Hermeneutics

Although Gadamer operates within the framework of Heidegger’s ontological philosophy, he also exhibits a notable openness to the expansion of hermeneutics into the domain of dialogue. As Jean Grondin observes, Gadamer’s position is twofold. On the one hand, he seeks to escape from “a paralyzing language of metaphysics” (Grondin 2024, p. 145), on the other hand, it is precisely the metaphysical elements of Heidegger’s system that provide the robust theoretical foundation for his own hermeneutics. Indeed, “in 1993, he posited an equivalence between hermeneutics, phenomenology, and metaphysics” (Grondin 2024, p. 145). The natural alternative to ontology is contained in the dialogical principle, and Gadamer expresses the idea of dialogue as conversation. Yet the aim of this conversation remains the clarification of being (ibid., p. 146). Gadamer’s dialogism, differs significantly from the philosophy of dialogue. Even when approaching the forms of speech that deviate from propositional structures, Gadamer consistently seeks an ontological grounding in them.

A revealing example of this appears in his essay Language and Understanding, where he reflects on non-propositional speech acts:

“In any case, the statement is not the only form of speech that exists. Aristotle speaks of it in the context of his theory of statements, and it is clear what else one must think of: for example, prayer and request, curse and command. One must even consider one of the most puzzling intermediate phenomena: the question, whose peculiar nature evidently includes the fact that it is closer to the statement than any of these other linguistic phenomena and yet evidently does not permit logic in the sense of propositional logic. Perhaps there is a logic of questions. Such a logic could include the fact that the answer to a question necessarily gives rise to new questions. Perhaps there is also a logic of requests, e.g., that the first request is never the last request. But should that be called ‘logic,’?”.

(Gadamer 1993, p. 193, translation is mine—I.D)

Here, Gadamer acknowledges a broader spectrum of speech beyond the proposition—including imperatives, questions, and other performative forms. Yet even as he identifies these alternative linguistic modes, his reflection remains framed by the ontological trend inherited from Heidegger. Rather than exploring these forms for their own pragmatic or rhetorical qualities, Gadamer considers their integration into the metaphysical structure of understanding.

Although Gadamer refers to a “logic of requests” and a “logic of questions”, it may be more appropriate—within the framework of his analysis—to speak instead of hermeneutics: the hermeneutics of command, the hermeneutics of prayer, the hermeneutics of question and answer, and the hermeneutics of narrative. All of these can be aggregated under a broader category: the hermeneutics of dialogue. Twentieth-century philosophy and literary theory have made significant contributions toward articulating such hermeneutics. Dialogue, after all, is more than just reflection. One need only to recall Wilhelm Dilthey’s student Georg Misch, Hermann Cohen’s intellectual heir Mikhail Bakhtin, and Husserl’s successor Paul Ricoeur. This genealogy indicates that dialogical hermeneutics ought to be extended not only to all forms of the literature but to culture as a whole.

Although hermeneutics of command, prayer, question-and-answer, or storytelling are not fully developed yet, this does not imply that dialogical hermeneutics is unfeasible. After all, Heidegger himself perceived hermeneutics as a kind of pre-philosophy that underlys philosophy proper (Scharff 2018, p. 143). As he states:

“In the analysis, our looking will be directed rather to what goes on in philosophy before it becomes what it is”.

(Heidegger 1999, 63: 46/59)

From this starting point, it becomes possible—even if paradoxically for Heidegger—to envision a philosophy of dialogue in place of ontology, formulated as a distinct hermeneutic project.

2.7. A Few Words on the Hermeneutics of Dialogue

It is not surprising that the philosophy of dialogue did not emerge from Husserl’s phenomenology or Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Dialogue, by its very nature, constitutes a movement toward the other—a transcendental dimension excluded by the constraints of phenomenological reduction. The primary source of dialogical philosophy lies instead in the neo-Kantianism of Hermann Cohen.

In the twentieth century, the philosophy and hermeneutics of dialogue attracted thinkers from a wide range of intellectual traditions, including Ferdinand Ebner, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Vladimir Bibler (Dvorkin 2020a). Emmanuel Levinas, though a student of both Husserl and Heidegger, made a decisive contribution to the development of dialogical thought in his own right.

What is particularly striking, however, is that two phenomena lying far outside the bounds of classical philosophy—the teachings of the Sophists and rabbinic literature—also made foundational contributions to the hermeneutics of dialogue. Despite their vast historical and conceptual distance from one another, a comparative study of these traditions proves especially fruitful. Their unique, non-systematic dialogical practices provide compelling evidence for the validity of dialogical hermeneutics.

Indeed, numerous cultural domains—literature, art, religion—gain new vitality when viewed through the lens of dialogical hermeneutics. The appeal to dialogue opens up interpretive possibilities that go beyond traditional metaphysical or monological frameworks, offering a more dynamic and responsive understanding of the meaning that emerges between interlocutors.

3. The Diversity of Forms of Speech in the Biblical and Rabbinic Literature in the Context of the Philosophy of Dialogue

3.1. On the Hermeneutics of the Rabbinic Literature

Turning to the biblical literature in search of dialogic hermeneutics is a kind of return to the roots. Hermeneutics was born from the experience of interpreting the Bible. At the same time, the experience of reading the Bible and rabbinic literature is not limited to understanding. In this regard, turning to the forms of speech considered by the sophists is more appropriate than relying on the logos apophantikos of Aristotle. Of course, we are not talking about any connection between the Jewish sages and the Greek sophists. Nevertheless, the reconstruction of the hermeneutics of the sophists can help in the study of Jewish classical texts. Examining the forms of speech of the rabbinic intellectual tradition will help us expand the horizons of culture and explore dialogic hermeneutics in a broad sense.

3.2. Hermeneutics of Commands (Halakhic Hermeneutics)

The are many Divine commandments in the text of the Pentateuch: “Thou shalt not kill“ “ Thou shalt not steal”, “Remember the Sabbath day”, “Honour thy father and thy mother“ (Ex. 20:8–12, Deut. 12–17)3. Despite the importance of understanding these commands, they are given in the text not for comprehension, but for action. However, hardly anyone will doubt their richness of content and deep meaningfulness. But, if not in truth as in Aristotle’s hermeneutics, and not in understanding as in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, then what is the hermeneutic content of these imperatives? From the point of view of the philosophy of dialogue (Dvorkin 2020a), a command is an allocution of the first-person speaker to the present (or upcoming) second person, which contains a description of some hidden action, expressed in the third person, which he must perform or, conversely, not perform. A command is a speech directed to the future, about which, according to Aristotle, judgment is impossible. It does not describe any being but creates something new. Considering that the simplest form of a command is expressed by infinitive, we can assume that commands form the basis of the verb system and, therefore, speech as such. In the biblical text, imperative speech becomes the most important substantive core, and it is not surprising that in the Talmud, it becomes the basis of discourse. Talmudic sages, such as Hillel, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Ishmael, and others, develop a whole system of hermeneutics of commandments (halakha) (Ravitsky 2009). It is precisely the Talmudic hermeneutics of imperative speech that becomes the most important intellectual foundation of Judaism. Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah presents the entire Jewish tradition, including its intellectual part, as an expanded system of commandments. In the Guide of the Perplexed he emphasizes, that the laws that cannot be rationally comprehended (hukim), represent the special form of wisdom (Maimonides, in particular, refers to the text of Deut. 4, 6:

“Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people”.

(Twersky 1980, p. 385)

The commandments contain wisdom that is not limited to understanding. The focus of much of the rabbinic tradition on the commandments provides justification for the Israeli scholar Avinoam Rozenak and his colleagues to speak of a halakhic philosophy (Rozenak 2007, 2008). It is clear that the basis of halakhic philosophy must be the halakhic hermeneutics of commands.

3.3. The Hermeneutics of Prayer

Closely related to the hermeneutics of commands is the hermeneutics of prayer4. Franz Rosenzweig also emphasized the necessity of a distinct logical organon for liturgy:

“For this third Part, therefore, liturgy will assume a similar rank as a system of logic, that is to say an organon of mathematics in the first Part, of grammar for the second”.

(Rosenzweig 2005, p. 312)

In prayer, too, a speaker addresses the forthcoming; however, it is God who appears as the forthcoming. A believer addresses God with praise, supplication, and requests for actions, events, or assistance. The content of prayer centers on hidden and unknowable. Unlike commands, prayer cannot demand; it can only ask, hope, and await. In this sense, the hidden resides within speaker’s heart and serves as expression of his innermost desires.

Prayer is not merely an articulation of wishes; it is an extremely rich and meaningful literary form. Liturgy figures prominently in biblical texts—within the Pentateuch, the prophetic books, and especially the Psalms. It constitutes a semantic field as rich and nuanced as any other form of speech, and thus, it urgently demands hermeneutic investigation.

By its very nature, liturgy is closely aligned with lyric poetry5. Prayer expresses, in its most intense form, the personal relationships of I–Thou and We–Thou. Paradoxically, this requires an expanded third-person reference—He, She, It.

The invocation of hidden within the present turns liturgical literature into a vital domain for the search of meaning. Hymns from all traditions, including the biblical Psalms, are arguably among the oldest sources of philosophical reflection. Yet liturgy, at its core, is not directed at understanding, but at experience. Post-biblical liturgical traditions, based on biblical foundations, developed into a form of mystical literature. This applies both to early (e.g., Sifrut Heikhalot) and later mysticism such as the Zohar and Kabbalistic texts.

The connection between mysticism and liturgy also explains the poetic character of mystical texts and opens the way for developing the hermeneutics of mysticism. Medieval religious poetry followed a similar trajectory, combining an appeal to the second person with a search for a hidden third person.

3.4. Hermeneutics of Questions and Answers

In their hermeneutical orientation, questions are very close to commands and prayer. They are also addressed by the speaker to the present regarding the hidden. Their difference is that they do not imply actions as a reaction, but rather utterances-answers. As we noted above, Gadamer is aware of the irreducibility of a question to a statement. Understanding, obviously, is only the first stage of the reaction to a question. A question, as a rule, does not imply silent understanding, but an answer. Having understood the question, we find ourselves in a new semantic dimension. The question creates a hermeneutical tension, within the field of which dialogical speech unfolds in its entirety. The biblical text invites the reader to ask questions. “Ask about former times” ((Deut. 4, 32), etc.). On this subject, the Talmud says that the creation of the world is told only to one student who has a question: “One asks, two do not ask” (Chagigah 11b). While in the biblical text, questions are presented implicitly; in the Talmud and Midrashic literature, the hermeneutics of questions and answers comes to the fore (Jacobs 1961, pp. 82–83). Talmudic discussion is conducted not with the goal of understanding, and not even with the goal of establishing the truth. Questions are asked in order to problematize the material. Answers are given not in order to answer, but to deepen the question. Objections and disputes arise not from disagreement, but from the need to find an additional facet to the subject.

Rabbi Yochanan is inconsolable after the death of Resh Lakisha because he has lost a strong debater. He is dissatisfied with Eleazar ben Pedath because Rabbi Eleazar al-ways agrees with him (Baba Mezia 84a):

“Are you as the son Lakisha? He complained: when I stated a law, the son of Lakisha used to raise twenty-four objections, to which I gave twenty-four answers, which consequently led to a fuller comprehension of the law; whlst you say, "A Baraitha has been taugth wich supports you:" do I not know myself that my dicta are right?”.

(The Babylonian Talmud 1959, p. 482, transl. H. Freedman)

Talmudic dispute leads to the constant revelation of the hidden and the concealment of the obvious.

3.5. The Hermeneutics of Narrative

As we noted above, in addition to commands, prayer, questions, and answers, Diagenes uses narration as a form of speech. Of course, the content of narration is not apophansis. A narration cannot be true or false unless it is trivial. Commentators on Jewish texts clearly recognize the special significance of narration, which cannot be reduced to either a command or a message. Rashi’s commentary on Gen. 24:42 is widely known:

“Rabbi Acha said: The ordinary conversation of the servants of the Patriarchs is more beloved to the Omnipresent than the Torah of their sons, for the section dealing with Eliezer is repeated in the Torah, whereas many fundamentals of the Torah were given only through allusions”. [Gen. Rabbah 60:8]

(Rosenberg n.d.)

Jewish sages, not without irony, emphasize the importance of the narrative part of the Bible, which, in contrast to the imperative (halakha), is called aggadah (story, narrative). What is the meaning of the narrative, which is also usually underlies fiction? First of all, it should be noted that, unlike all the forms of speech listed above, a story has integrity and autonomy. In a story, the speaker, both present and hidden, introduced not situationally through context, but directly in the text itself. In command and in prayer, the speaker and the present remain outside the scope of speech. In a story, everything must be said explicitly, and the hidden must remain hidden. At the same time, a story differs significantly from apophantic utterance speech. A biblical narrative never tells us anything about truth or falsity of any doctrines. In the biblical text, systematic intellectual constructions are almost absent. No part of the Tanakh contains any theory of the divine, nor does it set forth any ethical or metaphysical doctrine. In the Bible, which from the first to the last words tells us about God and man, there is neither theology nor anthropology. This anti-systematic tendency of the biblical text and the subsequent Jewish classical literature leads us to the idea of a radical difference between the Torah and philosophy. Indeed, philosophy and science that inherits it require systematicity and argumentation. Obviously, the Bible contains neither one nor the other. Does this mean that the Bible does not contain fundamental ideas and concepts that determine thinking? The intellectual history of mankind itself refutes such an assumption. Intense biblical thought plays a decisive role in the formation of the intellectual horizon of modern civilization. All this testifies to the fact that the biblical narrative has great hermeneutical depth and is capable of conveying what may be inaccessible to apophantic speech.

What a narrative and a proposition have in common is that both are a form of communication, i.e., an element of dialogue. However, in the proposition, the dialogue remains outside the brackets, as a kind of context, while the narrative itself is an element of the dialogue. We can say that the proposition is an answer to an unasked question. The story involves all contexts within its narrative action. Its interrogative tension must be clear from its text. If this tension is not made explicit, it becomes part of the narrative intrigue. The content hidden in the story leads us to another story. Thus, biblical and Talmudic stories are intertextual by nature (Boyarin 1990). This in turn results in the special hermeneutic structure of the Jewish commentary. It is aimed not at understanding or clarifying the text, but at problematizing it. Thus, the classic commentary on the Torah, Siftei Hachaim, is occupied with a reconstruction of the questions that Rashi had in mind in his commentary. This approach to commentary turns it into a special literary genre, whose focus goes far beyond the explanation of the commented text. The text of the Torah, according to Rashi, says: “Darsheni—comment on me!” (Rashi on Gen. 1:1; 25:22; 37:20). Thus, the third person hidden in the text is not so much the subject of the narrative as the entry point to a new textual reality. This makes the interaction of different forms of speech an integral part of the hermeneutic structure of the Jewish text. Its narrative part naturally passes into the philosophical, mystical, liturgical, halachic parts.

3.6. The Hermeneutics of Midrash

This is perhaps/probably the nature of midrash, which essentially is a concentrated dialogue. Midrash questions some text or a certain reality and extracts a problem from them. Creating a hermeneutics of midrash is an even more difficult task than previously discussed forms of discourse. Here we cannot rely on the sophists or on European scholars of the 20th century. And yet, some work has been conducted in this area. As I mentioned, Louis Jacobs made interesting attempts at literary analysis of the Talmudic sugya (issue, Jacobs 1961). For this, he used a combination of traditional forms of Talmudic reasoning with elements of Aristotelian logic. Daniel Boyarin used methods of modern literary criticism in reading the literature of the Talmud and Midrash (Boyarin 1990). In 2010, a collection of articles on Talmudic logic was published, which presented different views on the hermeneutics of Jewish texts (Schuman 2010). These works show the urgent need to develop a special hermeneutics of Jewish classical texts. What can it rely/be based on? From the above, it is clear that simply using Aristotle’s hermeneutics is not enough. The study of midrash as concentrated intertextuality in Boyarin’s book seems to be a step in the right direction. Perhaps it is in midrash that hermeneutics, which I, Heinemann defined as creative philology (Heinemann 1949), is expressed in its purest form. Midrash combines different forms of speech—question, answer, prayer and lamentation, halakha, and aggadah. This combination is the most important property of the Oral Torah and probably dialogic speech as such. The relationship between aggadah and halakha has been repeatedly noted by both scholars and commentators on Jewish texts. In his article Halacha and aggadah, Bialik says that aggadah is to halakha what the soul is to the body. This view must be recognized as simplistic. It is caused by Bialik’s pragmatic task of imagining midrash as a kind of fiction (Bialik 2000). However, we can take up Bialik’s ideas and go further. The hermeneutic focus of Jewish narrative on halakha turns it into a constant premise for action, and the aggadic context of halakha turns the commandments into a constant source of thought. Thus, the connection between halacha and aggadah leads to the interaction of the main aspects of human existence—thinking, speech, and action. Different hermeneutics work in close interaction in the classical rabbinic literature, which gives us a right to suggest not a multitude of hermeneutics, but a single dialogical hermeneutics. To illustrate the methods of dialogical hermeneutics, let us consider the example of one midrash from the tractate Hagigah. From many thousands of possible examples, we choose the simplest one, but one that shows how creative philology or even philosophy of the Babylonian Talmud works. Thus, the basis of the Talmudic reasoning is the commandment from the book of Exodus (23, 17):

:’שָׁלשׁ פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה יֵרָאֶה כָּל זְכוּרְךָ אֶל פְּנֵי הָאָדֹן ה

“Three times in the a year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God”.

We are talking about the commandment of pilgrimage to the Temple. Its formulation appears clear, but the introductory part of the Talmud Mishna (Chagigah 1, 1) specifies:

,הַכֹּל חַיָּבִין בָּרְאִיָּה, חוּץ מֵחֵרֵשׁ, שׁוֹטֶה וְקָטָן, וְטֻמְטוּם, וְאַנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס, וְנָשִׁים, וַעֲבָדִים שֶׁאֵינָם מְשֻׁחְרָרִים

הַחִגֵּר, וְהַסּוּמָא, וְהַחוֹלֶה, וְהַזָּקֵן

All are bound to appear [at the Temple], except a deaf man [heresh], an imbecile and a minor, a person of unknown sex [tumtum], a hermaphrodite, women, unfreed slaves, the lame, the blind, the sick, the aged…”6

The Mishnah takes the word “All” (הכל) from the biblical text and outlines the circle of people who are obliged to fulfill this commandment. At first glance, the meaning appears straightforward. Perhaps some clarification is needed regarding categories, such as the tumtum and the androgynos, but overall, the commandment seems clearly formulated and appears not to require further commentary. How, then, does the main part of the Talmud, the Gemara, respond to this formulation?

What does [the word] ALL come to include? It comes to include one who is half a slave and half a freedman. But according to Ravina, who says: One who is half a slave and half a freedman is exempt from appearing [at the Temple], what does [the word] ALL come to include? (Chagigah 2a).

So, the Gemara does not deal at all with clarifying the meaning of the commandment. It finds a problem and asks a question. The Talmudic school of Hillel begins the discussion. The word “All” followed by a long list of those who are not included in this “All” is surprising. Why is it said “All” if the Mishnah itself implies that not all? The matter is further complicated by the fact that the word “All” denotes a certain integrity—all, everything, etc. In other words, all is not everything in general, but a certain closed group that possesses wholeness. According to the Gemara, the word “all” requires disclosure of the boundary of the group of persons obligated to fulfill the commandment. It is around this issue that the further dispute unfolds, which the Gemara reproduces. The first option, rejected by the Ravina, is that the boundary is determined by the one who is “half slave, half free”. Then the text of the Gemara cites a number of borderline individuals—lame on the first day and recovered on the second, blind in one eye and sighted in the other. Each of these options is rejected because of its incompleteness. It is not enough to appear on the second day; one must appear on all days. One eye is not enough, since vision must be two-sided. They look with two eyes, and one must look (appear) with two eyes. Here we see that the Talmudic text is not concerned with clarifying the commandment, or answering the question, but with exploring the problem. What is this problem? It is such that no philosopher in the world would consider it insignificant—what is the Whole, what is All? However, the Talmudic sages do not speak the language of philosophy. Their language works completely differently, their thought is aimed at particular individual cases, which, nevertheless, touch upon fundamental general questions (Dolgopolski 2021). But why is all this necessary? Is it possible to discover something new in this way? Yes, it is! Leading us along the borderline subjects describing the phenomenon of wholeness, the Talmudic narrative leads us to a real gem. Having rejected the “incorrect” examples of borderline nature, the text of the Gemara returns to the one who is “half slave, half free”. The free man is obliged to show up, the slave is not obliged to show up. The half slave, half free man is also not obliged to show up… Here the school of Shammai intervenes in the dispute and makes a sharp intellectual turn. A man should not be half slave, half free! This is unacceptable. After all, as a slave he cannot marry a free woman, and as a free man he cannot marry a slave woman. But it is said (Isaiah 45:18) that God “created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited”. The owner is obliged to free him “for the sake of correcting the world” and give him freedom for half of his value. Thus, the “half slave, half free” man is obliged to appear, but being completely free. It unexpectedly turns out that the text of the Mishnah, speaking about the commandment to appear in the Temple, reveals to us not only the composition of those who must come, but also their characteristics. They must appear whole, i.e., not only with two legs, with two eyes, but also free! It turns out that the commandment is given not only to those who must come to the Temple, but also to the owner, who must free the enslaved half of his slave. Let the slave not come, but the half slave, half free will become completely free and have to come. This Talmudic reasoning ends with the fact that “the school of Hillel returned and began to teach like the school of Shammai”. Thus, our reasoning begins with the formulation of the commandment from the Torah, then repeats it in the Mishnah, focusing on the description of the circle of people obliged to fulfill the commandment. This issue becomes the subject of discussion that unfolds on two levels. On the First level, the school of Hillel argues with the school of Shammai. On the second, then the sages of the school of Hillel argue with each other. In their reasoning, the school of Hillel increasingly clarifies their question, but cannot find the answer. At a certain point, the school of Shammai intervenes in the dispute, discovering that the text of the Mishnah indirectly touches on a completely different commandment, which is not formulated explicitly—the commandment to correct the world and free the half-slave, half-free man. Does this commandment have any bearing on the issue under discussion? Undoubtedly yes, since the school of Hillel agreed with the school of Shammai and began to teach as they did. There is a very important and profound content behind this entire discussion. The appearance in the Temple before the face of God presupposes the wholeness and freedom of a man. Thus, the pilgrimage itself is an act of redemption in the most immediate sense. But the Talmudic text does not philosophize, does not explain, does not interpret in the context of the hermeneutics of understanding. It problematizes, poses questions, argues, and finds new unexpected answers. Such is the hermeneutic strategy of the Babylonian Talmud.

4. The Hermeneutics of Medieval Jewish Philosophy

4.1. Dual Argumentation: The Example of Saadia Gaon

While the rabbinic literature as a whole does not aim to resemble the classical literature of other nations—being connected to it only through historical context and general laws of literary creativity—medieval Jewish philosophy is embedded in a broader intellectual framework and, from the very beginning, aspires to universality. Thus, to a greater extent than halakhic texts or rabbinic commentary, it aligns with the hermeneutic forms commonly found in non-Jewish literary traditions. This makes it a valuable starting point for discussing the hermeneutics of dialogue in general.

Let us begin with a remarkable feature of medieval Jewish philosophical literature, which is also present, to some extent, in other traditions: the system of dual argumentation. Philosophical knowledge is derived from the internal logic of concepts, while rabbinic knowledge is grounded in the text of the Torah. By its very nature, medieval Jewish philosophy must combine both of these sources.

An example can be found in The Book of Beliefs and Opinions by Rav Saadia Gaon. In the sixth section of the book, which deals with the structure of the human soul, he examines the question of whether reward and punishment for human actions are physical or spiritual:

“Furthermore let me explain that the soul and the body constitute one agent, as it is remarked at the very beginning of man’s creation: Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2: 7). Similarly they both either rewarded or punished together. Now the reason why thou findest many persons confused in regard to this subject, one of them believing that reward and punishment apply to the soul only, while another thinks they apply solely to the body”.

(Saadya Gaon 1948, pp. 250–51)

That body and soul constitute a single whole is a standard position in medieval philosophy, rooted in Aristotelian thought. From this premise, Saadia Gaon draws an important conclusion: that reward and punishment must also be applied jointly to the body and to the soul. To support this claim, he cites a verse from the Book of Genesis, emphasizing that the Creator of the body is also the Creator of the soul. Therefore, the unity of divine action implies the unity of human constitution. The book contains many hundreds of such examples.

One might ask why the author finds it necessary to articulate his ideas in this dual fashion. After all, the unity of body and soul already follows from their philosophical definition. It is tempting to assume that referencing biblical texts merely facilitates the reader’s understanding of philosophical ideas—or that the two modes of argumentation support and clarify each other. Yet this assumption must be rejected. On the contrary, these two lines of reasoning often seem to complicate and problematize one another, thereby increasing the intellectual demands placed on reader. Even so, this hypothesis also appears insufficient.

Each of the lines of the text follows its own logic, so here one can rather speak of a conscious polyphony of the text. When we read the text carefully, it becomes evident that the two modes of argumentation address different aspects of the issue. The philosophical aspect pertains to the unity of the soul and body, whereas the religious aspect relates to the nature of punishment for sin. In this way, by combining two layers of thought, the text also combines two distinct methods of reasoning.

Double argumentation is not a unique phenomenon of Saadia Gaon, nor even in the entire Jewish literary tradition. Nevertheless, this example is extremely important for us, as it directly challenges the tradition of straightforward, unambiguous interpretation of text. Double interpretation constitutes the first step in dialogic hermeneutics, since dialogue involves perceiving an object from multiple points of view. The example given above is the simplest case. The philosophical texts of Halevi and Maimonides, which we will examine below, are considerably more complex, yet they too are founded on double argumentation. For this reason, the phenomenon of double argumentation itself warrants further study.

A compelling explanation of this phenomenon is offered by H. Cohen, who describes the “dual form” of prophetic texts. According to Cohen, the first layer reflects the mythological consciousness of the people, which is then subjected to critical reflection and thereby demythologized (Cohen 1972, p. 73). In our case, however, the dynamic is reversed: the foundation is an intellectual construction, which is subsequently supplemented by a prophetic text. This supplementation gives rise to new meanings and opens new dimensions within the text.

4.2. The Literary Character of a Philosophical Text: The Example of Yehuda ha-Levi’s Kuzari

In his book, Persecution and the Art of Writing, Leo Strauss consistently emphasizes the literary character of both the Guide for the Perplexed and the Kuzari. The literary nature of a philosophical text points to the particular hermeneutics required for its interpretation. According to Strauss, “one has to translate the ‘relative’ statements of the characters, i.e., the statements made by them according to their peculiar moral and intellectual qualities and their peculiar intentions in a peculiar conversational situation” (Strauss 1988, pp. 100–101).

We will explore the hermeneutic structure of the Guide in the next section, but for now, let us consider the literary character of Yehuda ha-Levi’s Kuzari. This will allow us to apply methods of non-apophantical hermeneutics to medieval Jewish philosophy. The first point to note is that the entire text of the Kuzari, from beginning to end, is a continuous narrative—a kind of philosophical novel. The story begins with an event in the life of the Khazar king: a voice in a dream tells him, “your intentions are pleasing to God, but your deeds are not pleasing” (I:1)7. This leads to his meeting with the Jewish sage (haver). Their ensuing conversation results in the king’s conversion to Judaism, after which the haver instructs him on Jewish conceptions of God, humanity, and more. Eventually, the haver departs for the Land of Israel to settle there permanently.

The story revolves around two central characters who undergo transformative experiences through their encounter. The narrative maintains thematic and structural continuity and is clearly subordinated to the unified plan and task. In addition to the frame story, the treatise contains several embedded parables that help bind the work together. Notable among these are the story of the Indian king (I:19, 21, 22, 109) and the story of the doctor and his medicine (I:79, 97; III:7, 11, 19). Interestingly, these two parables symbolically represent the main characters: the Khazar king and the Jewish sage. The historical frame thus serves as an ideal form for the work’s main objective—a “defense of the humiliated faith”. However, this defense is not addressed to adherents or opponents of Judaism, but to a completely neutral character—the pagan Khazar king. Still, we must not be misled: the book’s true audience is Jewish readers. The chosen form and plot are particularly well suited to the context of internal apologetics. In the eyes of educated Jews, Judaism needs to be justified from the standpoint of universal, human reason. This shapes the mental addressee of the text: the reader of the Kuzari must imagine himself as an alien—a Khazar king—in order to choose Judaism anew and see it as the most suitable faith.

This is where the dialogical genre of the work arises. The doubting Jewish reader is invited to engage in an internal dialogue, in which the most compelling arguments are presented.

However, although the dialogue spans the entire treatise, its character changes significantly between the first part and the subsequent ones. The first part begins with the dream, which reveals a discrepancy between the Khazar king’s intentions and actions. Both are initially outside the hermeneutics of understanding; what the king needs is an interpretation of behavior—a hermeneutics of actions and commandments. His early interlocutors, who ask him to understand and believe in their teachings, fail to convince him. However, the doctrinal description of the teachings of the philosopher, Christian, and Muslim is an important introduction to the main conversation. The book opens with a dispute over religious doctrines. The Khazar king expects a similar doctrinal statement from the Jewish sage: “Would it not be better if you, a Jew, said that you believe in the Creator of the world?” (I:12). But the haver replies, “I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt” (I:11). Gradually, the Khazar king begins to understand that the difference between these faiths lies not in the doctrine but in hermeneutics. The haver’s faith is based on actions and relationships, not on abstract concepts or teachings.

The introductory dialogue with representatives of different faiths turns out to be the very important part of the book. The text often returns to previously expressed doctrines, emphasizing that Judaism differs from them primarily not in doctrine, but in the mode of relationships. The Kuzari understands this well, as his inquiry arises not from theoretical speculation but from the practical tension between intentions and actions. Ultimately, he comes to the need to reconcile them with each other, which leads him to convert to Judaism.

The second part of the book briefly recaps the events of the first and proceeds in a completely new hermeneutic mode. Here, the conversation takes the form of a dialogue between a teacher and a student. The Khazar king embraced Judaism and now seeks knowledge of the Torah. The haver begins to share what he initially refused to explain: the attributes of God and His relationship to the material world. At first glance, this appears to return to the hermeneutics of understanding from which the text originally departed. But here, understanding is grounded in the covenant and a received commandment—in other words, understanding arises from commandments. If we read the rest of Kuzari’s text from this position, we see that it is largely the dialogue between tradition and rationality, i.e., between commandment and prophecy on the one hand and reason and philosophy on the other. The first part of the book shows that the former is the necessary condition for the latter, and the subsequent parts form polyphony of dual argumentation described earlier.

4.3. The Hermeneutics of Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed

Leo Strauss speaks of the literary character of the Guide (Strauss 1988, p. 38) and sees the explanation of this literary quality in the presence of a hidden subtext in the work, in its use of a special language understandable only to selected readers. According to Strauss, the Guide is not a philosophical book, but a Jewish one. This means that its task is not to expound any philosophical doctrine, but to give an interpretation of the Jewish Law, and not the revealed, but the secret, esoteric part of it. Therefore, the Guide is specially formulated in such a way that only a select few, most advanced readers can understand it. Strauss reveals the difference between the halachic teaching of Rambam in the Mishneh Torah and his aggadic teaching in Moreh Nevukhim. According to Leo Strauss, aggadah is nothing other than the study of the secrets of halakha (the true science of the Law). This formulation of the question is a great merit of Strauss, but as I will show, his research leads to conclusions that are much more powerful than those made by Strauss himself.

First of all, let us analyze the text of the Guide from the standpoint of its literary form. The entire huge treatise is written as a kind of a letter to one student, Rabbi Joseph, whose lessons had to be interrupted due to his departure. Obviously, this is more an element of literary form than an actual motive. In the text of the treatise, apart from the dedication, Rabbi Joseph is not mentioned. However, the fact that the work is aimed at conveying the teaching to one capable student is a very important factor of the hermeneutical strategy of the entire treatise. Secrets of the Torah cannot be taught to more than one student. The text of the Guide initially appears to be very unsystematic and difficult to follow. This is undoubtedly a deliberate complexity, one that serves the author’s goals. The text begins with a poetic introduction and contains numerous parables and fragments of dialogue, but on the whole, it is constructed as an extended treatise with a complex structure. Its purpose is stated at the outset in a negative form: As the author notes:

“It is not the purpose of this Treatise to make its totality understandable to the vulgar or to beginners in speculation, nor to teach those who have not engaged in any study other than the science of the Law—I mean the legalistic study of the Law. For the purpose of this Treatise and of all those like it is the science of the Law in its true sense”.

(Maimonides 1963, p. 5)

But if the Guide is not intended for beginners, who is its proper audience? After all, not the learned philosophers either! From the dedication, it is clear that the ideal reader is someone who combines the knowledge of the Torah and halacha with a solid philosophical education. The contradiction between these areas leaves him in a state of confusion and bewilderment, and this book was written precisely for such a person. However, from the further text, it is clear that the book has an important socio-political meaning and concerns the system of relations in society The intended reader is one thing, but the actual audience—that is, the community of Torah followers, which includes both outstanding scholars and those who cannot always distinguish between the inner meaning and the external use of words—is something else entirely. This is confirmed by the formulation of the book’s second purpose:

“The explanation of very obscure parables occurring in the books of the prophets”.

(Maimonides 1963, p. 6)

Here in the introduction, Maimonides explains how prophetic allegorical language is structured.

“Know that the key to the understanding of all that the prophets, peace be on them, have said, and to the knowledge of its truth, is an understanding of the parables, of their import, and of the meaning of the words occurring in them”.

(Maimonides 1963, pp. 10–11)

Interesting that to explain how prophetic allegorical language is structured, Maimonidas in turn uses the allegory:

“The Sage has said: A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings [maskiyyoth] of silver. <…> that a saying uttered with a view to two meanings is like an apple of gold overlaid with silver filigree-work having very small holes. Now see how marvelously this dictum describes a well-constructed parable. For he says that in a saying that has two meanings—he means an external and an internal one—the external meaning ought to be as beautiful as silver, while its internal meaning ought to be more beautiful than the external one, the former being in comparison to the latter as gold is to silver”.

(Maimonides 1963, pp. 11–12)

Maimonides compares the external, popular meaning of a prophetic allegory to silver (kesef—material gain), while the inner meaning represents gold—that is, metaphysical content that reveals the true sense. Thus, the key to understanding8 lies in the structure of the dual narrative of the prophetic text. Here, in the introduction, its structure is described.

“Do you not see the following fact? God, may His mention be exalted, wished us to be perfected and the state of our societies to be improved by His laws regarding actions. Now this can come about only after the adoption of intellectual beliefs, the first of which being His apprehension, may He be exalted, according to our capacity. This, in its turn, cannot come about except through divine science, and this divine science cannot become actual except after a study of natural science”.

(Maimonides 1963, pp. 8–9)

In other words, the sequence of mastering the prophetic text includes the science of nature (Maaseh Bereshit), the science of God himself (Maaseh Merkava, Divine Science), practical commandments, and their meaning. This is how the prophetic text, i.e., the Torah, is structured according to Maimonides, but his own treatise is structured in exactly the same way. Its first part is devoted to hermeneutics proper. It is constructed as a dictionary of concepts, where Maimonides consistently analyzes the basic terms of the biblical text which are used to describe God—“image, likeness, figure, shape, to see, to look, to vision…” (Maimonides 1963, pp. 21, 26, 27). It turns out that each of these words represents a dual structure. Its external level is addressed to the general public, where the commandments of action and religious principles needed by society are formulated, expressed in the most down-to-earth way possible for the perception of the crowd. However, in the process of studying the Torah, each person gradually immerses himself in its inner content—the secrets of the Torah, which can be understood only as a result of individual comprehension. These secrets contain exactly the three areas that Maimonides speaks of—physics (Maaseh Bereshit), metaphysics (Maaseh Merkova), and the true science of the Law (the meaning of the commandments). Thus, according to Maimonides, the Torah forms the special hermeneutic space—from the theme of the creation of the world, to the revelation of God and to the formulation of the commandments of action and moral principles. The text of the Guide unfolds according to the same plan. The first part contains a hermeneutic introduction describing the principles of prophetic language. The second part examines the problems of Maaseh Bereshit (II: 1–31) with the accompanying theory of prophecy (II: 32–48), which is the basis of the hermeneutics formulated in the first part. The third part deals with Maaseh Merkava (III: 1–24) and the True Science of the Law (III: 25–54). As a result, the entire text of the treatise in its genre is a grandiose guide addressed to the people of Israel, to humanity, but ultimately to an individual thinking person.

The duality of the text of the Guide of the Perplexed, discovered by Leo Strauss, has a deep hermeneutic nature; it is not limited to the desire to convey its ideas to a narrow circle of intellectuals and hide them from the uncomprehending crowd. As Maimonides himself explains, this duality relates primarily to the Torah itself and is a property of the prophetic language that we discussed above. Maimonides’ hermeneutic key is the key to the hermeneutics of the prophetic text. Let us try to analyze the paths of this hermeneutics as a form of non-apophantic speech. The function of concealment of meaning, which Leo Strauss speaks of, undoubtedly has a social significance, since the text of the Guide is addressed to sages. However, the prophetic text of the Torah is addressed to the entire Jewish people. It is clear that concealment of meaning in it has a significance that is not limited to only social boundaries. In fact, Maimonides himself speaks about this in detail. The hermeneutics of presenting/hiding is aimed at teaching the Torah to its general reader, i.e., it has the pedagogical orientation. The hermeneutic method of Rambam, in accordance with the point of view of Leo Strauss, is a combination of revelation and concealment.

“Since the internal meaning, being hidden, is a secret, the explanation of each such word or parable is the revelation of a secret”.

(Strauss 1988, p. 41)

Here I would like to stop for a moment and think about what the treasure Leo Strauss gave us, although perhaps he himself did not fully appreciate its significance. Maimonides constructs hermeneutics in which revelation is both disclosure and concealment. The hiding of meaning is combined with its presenting; the hermeneutics of understanding is the reverse side of the hermeneutics of ignorance. Thus, Maimonides’ hermeneutic key as not only the key of understanding, but also the key of concealment. This is how Maimonides interprets the nature of the prophetic text. In his view, concealment is not only the sociological, but the hermeneutic strategy as well. It is significant that not only the text of the Pentateuch and the Prophets, but also the literature of the Talmud and Midrash, and Maimonides’ own writing follow this hermeneutics of dynamics of hiding/presenting, that is a fundamental aspect of the dialogical hermeneutics. This dynamic of the relationship of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons is very clearly visible from their designation in medieval Jewish grammar, where they are called the speaker, the present (forthcoming), and the hidden. Several studies of mine on the philosophy of dialogue are devoted to this topic (Dvorkin 2022). This work opens up the new aspect of the dialogical hermeneutics in connection with the hermeneutics of the commands, prayers, questions, answers, narration, etc. As Maimonides himself emphasizes, the purpose of the entire movement from Maaseh Bereshit to Maaseh Merkava and further to the True Doctrine of the Commandments is for us “to be perfected and the state of our societies to be improved by His laws regarding actions”. In other words, the concealing nature of aggadah is aimed at revealing the inner meaning of halakha. The hidden transcendent God is comprehended, according to Maimonides, through actions and through the awareness of one’s ignorance. Hence, the dynamics of aggadah and halakha in Rambam expresses the dynamics of concealment and revelation of the Divine. This hiding/presenting, according to Rambam, is accomplished in two ways. The first is the comprehension of God through negative attributes. However, any apophatic approach faces a serious obstacle in the form of the text of the Torah itself, which nevertheless tells us a lot about God. Maimonides’ amazing hermeneutical move is that, according to him, any representation of God in the prophetic language is simultaneously his concealment, i.e., the apophatic hermeneutical procedure. According to Rambam, a person’s assumption that he knows something about God is a deliberate delusion and a characteristic of pagans who perceive God as imaginable. Therefore, the hermeneutic strategy of the prophetic text, according to Maimonides, is not in understanding, but on the contrary, in the awareness of misunderstanding of the properties of God. Such an apophatic strategy of misunderstanding subsequently had a significant influence on the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa. However, in Maimonides, it has the systematic character.

Another side of the hermeneutic strategy of the Guide is its focus on the attributes of action. This is the meaning of the commandments or the teaching about the true law. According to Maimonides, actions are the more elevated form of knowledge of God than faith in his positive attributes. The hermeneutics of commands, as well as the hermeneutics of ignorance, are aimed at the hidden. Thus, the study of the Torah and the observance of its commandments contain, according to Maimonides, a kind of dialectic of aggadah and halakha, which complement each other.

Exploring the hermeneutics of concealment in Rambam, Leo Strauss provided us with the truly new hermeneutic key. However, Leo Strauss interprets Maimonides’ hermeneutics in a limited sociological perspective. He refers to the laws prohibiting the disclosure of the secrets of the Torah and sees in this a social plan that could change under new historical conditions. Therefore, Leo Strauss encounters a discrepancy between Rambam’s presentation of the laws in Mishneh Torah and his explanation of the meaning of the laws in Moreh Nevukhim. Leo Strauss explains this discrepancy by sociological reasons, but it can obviously have hermeneutical reasons as well.

While paying tribute to Leo Strauss’s intuition, I must, nevertheless, refer to my teacher in the field of Maimonides’ philosophy, Yitzhak Twersky. He argued with Leo Strauss all his life, proving the unity of the halachic and philosophical teachings of Rambam. In his main book (Twersky 1980, pp. 356–514), he shows how the halachic teaching of Rambam interacts with his philosophical teaching. In such interpretation, Maimonides turns out to be a teacher of humanity, and not just a solitary thinker in a complex relationship with society. It was this Maimonides who discovered the duality of the language of the Torah, allowing it to combine lofty ideas with the commandments of practical life. He influenced the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa, Leibniz, Kant, Cohen, Rosenzweig, Levinas, and many others, and continues to influence modern thought.

5. Conclusions—Paths of Modern Philosophy in the Context of Dialogic Hermeneutics

We have discussed the hermeneutics of proposition (logos apophantikos) of Aristotle, the hermeneutics of understanding of Heidegger and Gadamer, the hermeneutics of the sophists, the hermeneutics of the Talmud, and medieval Jewish philosophy. In addition, throughout the 20th century, many outstanding researchers, such as Cohen, Rosenzweig, Bakhtin, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Levinas, and others, developed their methods and approaches to hermeneutics. The experience of addressing all these examples provides material for the study of the dialogic hermeneutics as such.

The hermeneutics of prayer, of commands, of questions and answers, of narration, and so on, as listed in this work, are certainly not separate disciplines. Rather, they are all examples of the hermeneutics of dialogue. The fact that elements of such a hermeneutics emerged in traditions as distant as pre-Socratic philosophy and the rabbinical literature testifies to the existence of fundamental foundations that transcend separate intellectual traditions. These examples demonstrate that the ontological foundations of philosophy—whether in Aristotle or in Heidegger—are insufficient for the construction of universal hermeneutics. The Sophists recognized this in antiquity, and the authors of the biblical texts, along with their Jewish interpreters, have realized it in their own distinctive ways throughout history.

It is, therefore, no coincidence that some philosophers of dialogue have devoted considerable attention to the study of hermeneutics of classical Jewish texts. Cohen and Rosenzweig devoted many works to the problem of interpreting the biblical text, Buber studied the Bible and Hasidic literature, Levinas wrote commentaries on the Talmud. Yet the main achievement of these thinkers is the creation of a philosophy of dialogue in general. Hermeneutic strategies developed on the basis of Jewish classical texts allow us to consider hermeneutics from a much broader perspective than that provided by the classical hermeneutics of understanding. This, among other things, allows us to take a fresh look at the great European literature, which was formed under the influence of ancient and biblical texts. Upon closer examination, we realize that even the hermeneutics of understanding is insufficient here. Can one simply say “I understand Hamlet, Don Quixote, or The Brothers Karamazov”? The appeal to the rabbinical literature in this work is not limited to the interpretation of this literature alone, but is aimed at finding an alternative hermeneutic strategy. After all, the whole of Western hermeneutics grew out of the desire to interpret the root text of the Jewish literature, the Bible. The fact that within Jewish traditional scholarship, different hermeneutical strategies were formed than within Christianity is not surprising. What is more interesting is that the hermeneutical alternative that the Jewish literature offers may be useful not only for it. I want to emphasize that at stake is not only the fate of the Jewish attitude to the literature, but more broadly, the fate of the literature as such. “It is about the liberation of Thought from the shackles of being, to which, according to Parmenides, it is firmly bound by fate (Moira)” (Parmenides. Fr. VIII 38: Diels and Kranz 1903, p. 238; Coxon 2009, p. 76). This is not only a matter of the philosophy of the Pre-Socratics, to whom we turned in search of expanding the hermeneutic horizon of Aristotelian logic and metaphysics. It seems to me that the question is even deeper. At stake is the fate of our times. It is no accident that Heidegger needed to substantiate his fundamental ontology by turning to Aristotle and the Pre-Socratics. In this work, I try to work the same field but use a different route. In this context, the rapprochement of the Jewish sages with the Greek philosophers, who strongly denied ontology, is not accidental. The goal of both was to create an effective alternative to ontology. The movement that began in this direction in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, aimed at a new reading of ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek sources, and opened up powerful intellectual perspectives that have not yet been fully realized. Both the Biblical text and ancient Greek philosophy invite us to continue the study of hermeneutics. In this context, exploring the Sophists’ alternative approaches to language as opposed to Aristotle’s, and the study of the Jewish intellectual literature from different periods can contribute to the opening of new horizons in the dialogic hermeneutics.