The Traveller's Last Journey DEDICATED TO SHAI MAROM Z"L

Tazriah-Metzorah

T

This is not an attempt at discovery or elucidation; this is an effort and representation of exegesis qua methodology, written from the perspective of one who does not know, and perhaps who will fail to know too.

It is written as a dialogue between the lone traveller and the written text.

“I” is the traveller, and “T” is the text.

T: A woman becomes impregnated…

I: Why do you tell me this now?

T: What is “now”?

I: “Now” is a point of linear textual reference (aka after Shmini), but is also a conceptual differential (e.g. the difference between dietary ritual and quasi-medical ritual). But I mean more than these, I mean “What is now?” too.

T: Now you are confusing yourself, whereas I am never confused.

I: Are you telling me this after diet, indicating a difference in focus between consumption and creation, or between animal and man, or between Aaron and women, or between that which pertains to the bold versus the passive, or between what is true by myself versus between others, or between Homo sapien qua master of nature versus puppet of nature?

T: All these things and more and all, why do you ask questions whose answers you could easily recall?

I: But if this is true, I am right to compare any and all to discover each and every possibility? Is nothing not?

T: Perhaps instead of asking about my now, you need to know which things can be true, and which can be false, and which are neither and both.

I: I see now my confusion, but the challenge I unwittingly set myself is too long and the hour is too late. Might I instead recast my question in the light you purchased for me…

T: That is not a question, merely a request for partnership and a fear of isolation (like a madman before a mirror).

I: So…

T: A woman becomes pregnant…

I: Before you said, “Impregnated”.

T: The imprecision alludes to the imperfection of our author’s translations, but more importantly, I wanted to show you a meaning of which can be false. It would have been false to say “becomes satiated”.

I: In any case… What can be learned from the difference in subjectivity (i.e. the difference in concept across carriages of your train), and can you show me this difference in another such difference? Perhaps Lot and his daughters.

T: Do you know how to cast nets?

I: If you are the singularity that you are (i.e. if true then true), then might not any geometrist (sic) measure the angle of your triangle, deduce the laws of 180 degrees, and thence test their conclusions by comparison (to triangles, to squares, to the logos of irrational fractals that draw limits)?

T: Your ask about tautologies, would it not be more fruitful to discover the limits of the obvious (rather than the binary fact of their coherence)?

I: Only now do I understand the lesson you offered me (ie. regarding translations and truth-hood). The fruits of an infinite tree are infinite, but in being so, the gardener risks poisoning themselves with conceivable and imaginable and other such creatures born of possibility and creativity. If I am to finesse my agricultural prowess, I must (first) not only identify a point of conceivability, (second)  and imagine any-some of its attributes or characteristics; (third) I must also make tangible and specific the range of application, and (fourth) compare to another known factor or law within that domain (of application) to learn the point at which the imagined conceivability is certainly false. We discover through proving falsehood, the truth is ever-possible and does not stand by its own aesthetic except by virtue of fervour or faith or delusion.

T: Do you understand now what was my first challenge?

I: To know the right question?

T: To know that I am the text, not its judge. I am not your partner, nor brother nor mother nor comforting embrace when bereaved by the world (which after all is merely my echo).

I: Can I not love you?

T: Can you not love another like yourself? For that was I written.

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By Pala
The Traveller's Last Journey DEDICATED TO SHAI MAROM Z"L

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