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OPENNESS AND COMMITMENT: Hans-Georg
Gadamer and the Teaching of Jewish Texts
Jon A. Levisohn
Online Publication Date: 01 March 2001
To cite this Article: Levisohn, Jon A. (2001) 'OPENNESS AND COMMITMENT:
Hans-Georg Gadamer and the Teaching of Jewish Texts', Journal of Jewish
Education, 67:1, 20 - 35
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OPENNESS AND COMMITMENT:
Hans-Georg Gadamer and the Teaching of Jewish Texts
JON A. LEVISOHN
INTRODUCTION
Among the foremost goals of Jewish education is the teaching of Jewish texts, and the
fostering of the abilities among students to
enable them to read the texts themselves, and
to read them well. Teaching texts involves
certain interpretive judgments, about which
texts to include and which to exclude, about
which interpretations of those texts to integrate and which to set aside, and about the
image of interpretive competence which we
hold as an ideal. These issues are, at least in
part, subject to philosophical deliberation;
empirical inquiry has much to contribute, but
ultimately the decisions that we make must be
made on normative, rather than empirical,
grounds.
One way to enter into these broad philosophical questions is to do so through the
particular prism of a leading theorist. This
paper takes up this strategy, considering the
issues in light of a central figure in the contemporary discussion of hermeneutics, HansGeorg Gadamer.
Gadamer was born in Marburg, Germany,
in 1900, and spent his academic career at
various German universities, ending up at
Heidelberg in 1949.1 He retired in 1968, only
a few years after the publication of his major
work, WahrheitundMethode, in 1960. Translated as Truth and Method (Gadamer 1989/
1960; hereafter TM), this work has been enormously influential in the field of hermeneutics
Jon A. Levisohn is a doctoral candidate in Philosophy of
Education at Stanford University.
andbeyond, and since his retirement, Gadamer
has experienced a second career as a "travelling scholar,"2 participating actively in philosophical debates, publishing widely, and travelling around the world to teach and discuss
his work.3
In Truth and Method, Gadamer sets out a
description of how interpretation works that
stands in opposition to the view that, to that
point, had dominated philosophical discussion of literary and historical interpretation.
The prior view, following in the tradition of
Droysen and the Historical School, held that
good interpretation involves the systematic
effort to eliminate the subjective influences of
the interpreter, in orderto reproduce the original meaning of a text.4 Gadamer's stand in
opposition to this conservative view has led
some to misread him as throwing open the
doors to subjectivity in interpretation. This
position — that the interpreter has free rein to
play with the text — is associated with the
radical camp in hermeneutics, represented by
Derrida and Foucault. 5 But this is not
Gadamer's view. A more attentive reading
makes it clear that he preserves a place for
normativity in interpretation—the sense that
our best interpretations are not just our own
whimsical creations, but rather that they represent responsible readings of the text — and
that he is concerned primarily with providing
an explanation of how this works. Indeed,
much of his later work is concerned to show
how radical subjectivist hermeneutics fails to
account for important features of interpretation as it is actually practiced.
This paper is not, of course, the place to
offer a comprehensive critique or defense of
20
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GADAMER AND THE TEACHING OF TEXTS
Gadamer's view. Instead, my initial objective
is to offer an introductory reading of his view,
addressed to the non-specialist. Then, following that presentation (Part One), and some
subsequent clarifications (Part Two), I want to
offer some reflections about the connections
between Gadamer's hermeneutics and Jewish
education. Those reflections will come in two
flavors. In a section that I have called "Jewish
Education in Light of Gadamer" (Part Three),
I will describe three ways in which Gadamer's
view parallels the process of interpretation of
Jewish texts within a normative Jewish context (such as that providedby a Jewish school).
If these arguments are sound — if Gadamer
can indeed help us to think about Jewish
education — this suggests a kind of descriptive accuracy to his view. Furthermore, it
implies something else: that the project of
Jewish educational interpretation is not fundamentally different from other kinds of academic or scholarly interpretation, despite
claims to the contrary (e.g., Alter, 1974;
Yerushalmi, 1982).6
But following that section is another set of
reflections, entitled "Gadamer in Light of
Jewish Education" (Part Four) in which some
of the weaknesses of his view are thrown into
relief. Gadamer's view is not Torah min haShamayim, and thinking about real world
interpretive processes helps us to see some of
the problems and tensions within his view. So
it should be clear that this paper will not, and
cannot, offer a tidy theoretical solution to the
various problems in the teaching of Jewish
texts. What I hope to do, rather, is to introduce
a philosophical framework which helps articulate some of those issues, which helps
draw out the complications and nuances, and
which helps us to see the philosophical implications of the interpretive choices that we
make.
PART ONE: GADAMER'S VIEW
In one crucial section of Truth and Method,
21
Gadamer lays out his own view of interpretation in contrast with two alternative views in
a particularly helpful way.7 In order to do so,
he uses a rhetorical device, presenting three
competing views of the nature of hermeneutic
experience as parallels to three kinds of human relationships — relationships between
one person, an /, and another person, a Thou.
It might seem strange to compare interpreting
a text to relating to another person, but the
comparison highlights the way in which
Gadamer conceives of interpretation as a kind
of dialogue. In what sense can a text be in
dialogue with an interpreter? Here it is important to note that, for Gadamer, the text as
object of interpretation is never taken in isolation, but always stands at the same time within
a tradition of which that text is a constitutive
part. To interpret a text is to be in dialogue
with a tradition; andby virtue of that dialogue,
the tradition is not something we merely
accept or reject but something to which we
belong."
The first kind of inter-personal relationship that Gadamer describes is when we consider another person to be an It rather than a
Thou (see Appendix A). That is, we sometimes relate to the Thou as an object, a thing
that is subject to predictable laws. We sometimes avoid engaging with other human beings as people, as individuals, and instead try
to discover typical behavior and the psychological or sociological laws that govern that
behavior. Now, there maybe times when this
approach is defensible — for example when
we are conducting social scientific research
for noble purposes.9 But it can certainly be
morally problematic, for when we do this, we
treat people as means towards other ends
rather than as ends in themselves, and by.
doing so, we may rob them of their autonomy
and individuality.
In the second form of relationship, we do
manage to see the other as a Thou, as an
individual person rather than just a data
point—but we still do not fully acknowledge
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22
JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCATION
our connection to the person. In this interaction, the other person is not merely taken to be
an object whose behavior is subject to prediction; instead, the/genuinely desires to understand the Thou. But there is still something
missing, because the first person is unable to
listen with an open mind. So the first person
claims to understand the second person, but by
doing so, he loses out on the possibility of
genuine dialogue. Instead, what one gets is a
kind of pre-digestion of the claim of the other
person.
For Gadamer, the key element in this second form of inter-personal encounter is that
"by understanding [the other], by claiming to
know him, one robs his claims of their legitimacy" (TM, p. 360). How can trying to understand another person be a bad thing? The
problem lies with the claim of complete understanding of the other person, complete
explanation of his position. This attempt robs
the claims of the other of legitimacy — the
claim is "co-opted and pre-empted" (TM,
p. 359) —by saying, in effect, I know why you
said what you said, and therefore I know what
you really meant. Imagine, as an example, a
particular kind of doctor-patient relationship:
the doctor is respectful of the patient's individuality, but she is not really interested in the
truth of what the patient says. She's not interested in the patient as a real person; the only
reason to listen to the patient is to figure out
the cause of the symptoms. There's no real
inter-personal connection, and no dialogue.
The thirdkindof human relationship makes
up for the deficiencies in the first two. The /
acknowledges the individuality of the other
person, and allows for the possibility of hearing something new. In other words, this kind
of interpersonal relationship is characterized
not merely by how we conceptualize the other
person, but more importantly, by the fundamental openness of our own stance. And
according to Gadamer, together with this kind
of openness comes mutual involvement and
mutual responsibility; each side has made an
open-ended commitment to hearing what the
other has to say.10 Here, then, we find the
pinnacle of interpersonal encounter: genuine
openness, genuine belonging and commitment, genuine dialogue.
Some of this terrain may be familiar from
other philosophers, especially Martin Buber.
But where Buber uses these insights into the
dynamics of human relationships to construct
his theology, Gadamer uses them for the purpose of his hermeneutics. So, turning now to
the three kinds of hermeneutic experience, the
parallel to the./»-.!tf level of human relationship
is to treat the text as an It and not as a Thou.u
What does this mean? The key is to notice the
role of generalization and prediction: when
we treat the Thou as an //, we drain the Thou
of its particular features in order to consider
the Thou as nothing other than an instance of
a general rule. An extreme structuralist approach, for example, would take a particular
poem as, first and foremost, an instance of a
general linguistic structure. Or, a determinist
view of history would take an historical event
to be significant only in terms of the way that
it confirms the "laws of history." In this way,
all meaning and significance of 'theparticular
text, or particular event, is lost. We could
even say that the text loses its voice. Instead,
the text is merely a datum, as disconnected
from the interpreter as the electron is disconnected from the physicist who observes it.12
In the parallel to the second level of human
relationship, the interpreter does not simply
take the text as an instantiation of a general
principle but considers the text itself, as a
unique historical artifact worthy of inquiry.
The Thou is taken as a genuine Thou, not
merely as an //. We care about understanding
this particular text or this particular historical event, not just constructing some global
theory of literature or history. So far, so good.
However, this second conception of the
hermeneutic experience does not yet suffi-
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GADAMER AND THE TEA CHING OF TEXTS
ciently engage the claims of the text itself, in
genuine dialogue. Instead, it seeks to understand the text in its historical context, to
articulate the claims of the text in terms of an
explanation of why this text, or this author,
would make such claims. Gadamer calls this
conception "historical consciousness."
Significantly, lurking behind this conception is what Gadamer calls the "ideal of perfect enlightenment," the notion that an inquirer can methodically free herself from all
of her prejudices in order to achieve pure
objectivity. According to this conception, the
goal of an interpretation is to construct the
correct explanation of what a text means in
terms of what the original author really meant
to say and why he meant to say it. Note that,
according to this conception, the author or the
text may be understood as historically contingent, as a product of a particular time and
place, but the explanation of the text is considered to be a fixed, trans-historical object,
waiting to be discovered and reproduced.13
Finally, the parallel to the third level of
human relationship is Gadamer's own view,
what he calls "historically effected consciousness." This third form approaches a text with
openness, acknowledges atext as possessinga
"claim to validity... in such a way that it has
something to say to me" (TM, p. 361). That is,
good interpretation allows for the possibility
that the claims of the text — claims which
have "asserted [themselves] in [their] own
separate validity" — may "provoke" me, may
help me to see that my own beliefs and assumptions are wrong (TM, p. 299).
The easiest way to think about this contrast
between the second conception and the third is
to consider the case of philosophical texts. For
some, the history of philosophy is simply a
history of errors, and the only possible interest
that one could take in such texts is historical:
for example, why did Plato say what he said,
and howwas it understoodat the time. But this
is not a satisfactory way of dealing with the
23
major texts of the philosophical tradition.
Instead, we engage philosophical texts in
genuine dialogue, taking their claims seriously, making the best arguments possible on
their behalf in order to make them intelligible,
and to allow them to challenge our own conceptions. This does not mean that we simply
accept Plato's arguments, of course, because
often our own conceptions withstand the challenge. (Nor does it mean that we can do
without historical scholarship, which clarifies ambiguous terms and elucidates contextdependent meanings.) But in the course of the
encounter, our views are changed. Gadamer,
in fact, would suggest that our own views are
developed, through the process of interpretive
dialogue, in a way that they could never have
developed on their own (TM, p. xxii).
Significantly, Gadamer critiques the second conception, "historical consciousness,"
as a foolhardy attempt to rely on a critical
methodology, a way of insulating the interpreter and the interpretation from historical
contingency. For Gadamer, interpreting from
within a particular tradition is not a philosophical embarrassment, and does not represent a failure; in fact, it is the only option open
to us. He writes: "to be situated within a
tradition does not limit the freedom of knowledge but makes it possible" (TM, p. 361).
Only when we are embedded in a tradition do
we have the kind of interests that motivate us
to inquire into the meanings of a text. So what
he calls "historical consciousness" fails to
apply its historicism to its own stance, so to
speak, because it fails to examine its own
assumptions and does not allow them to be
challenged. It is, therefore, never really open.
PART TWO: SOME
CLARIFICATIONS OF
GADAMER'S VIEW
It should be clear, by this point, that the
object of interpretation is not a single, fixed
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24
JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCA TION
meaning of the text. What, then, is the goal of
interpretation, in Gadamer's view? Thisquestion is particularly important for thinking
about the teaching of texts, but it has to be
answered on three different levels. On the first
level, the goal of interpretation is to clarify the
meaning of the text from the perspective of a
particular historical situation. That is, while
there can never be one correct reading of a text
based on the correct reproduction of the original meaning, there can, on the other hand, be
interpretations which capture some of the
meaning of the text given the set of assumptions of a particular interpreter living at a
particular time. So the first goal of interpretation is to get at some of these meanings; this
is what it means to interpret responsibly.
On a second level, the goal of interpretation is to bring our assumptions and beliefs,
both about the text and general beliefs as well,
into a situation where they will be challenged
and transformed. Gadamer writes: "How then
can we foreground [our assumptions]? It is
impossible to make ourselves aware of a prejudice while it is operating unnoticed, but only
when it is, so to speak, provoked. The encounter with a traditionary text can provide this
provocation" (TM, p. 299).
But then, on athird level, Gadamer argues
that the goal of interpretation is a deepening
of the kind of openness that should characterize the interpretive encounter in the first place.
Gadamer writes:
The henneneutical consciousness culminates
not in methodological sureness of itself, but in
the same readiness for experience that distinguishes the experienced man from the man
captivated by dogma (TM, p. 362).
So at this level, what is primary for Gadamer
is not the knowledge that is achieved by
interpretive inquiry, but the openness that is
both the prerequisite for interpretation and (as
is now seen) its "culmination." The conclu-
sion or pinnacle of interpretation is not really
a conclusion at all, but in some sense a gateway, opening up towards further inquiry, further experience, and further insight.14
But if interpretation culminates in something intensely personal, and if the meaning
of the text is historically contingent, does this
not suggest that all interpretation is subjective? In other words, if my meaning — the
meaning that / find in the text — is different
than your meaning, what possible objective
standard or criterion can be found to adjudicate between the two? Indeed, Bernstein argues that this concern is what motivates theorists in the "conservative" camp (Bernstein,
1985). But Gadamer believes he can have it
both ways. He's intensely critical of any reliance on methodology — what he sometimes
calls "objectivism"— in which the interpreter believes that strict adherence to some
scholarly method will eliminate all traces of
historical influence on his interpretation.15
Yet, in contrast to fashionable denigrations of
objectivity, Gadamer's work is also replete
with affirmations of the possibility of achieving a correct interpretation of a text, and
denials that interpretation is arbitrary.16 Indeed, Truth and Method is equally about the
illegitimacy of method in interpretation and
about the legitimacy of truth; perhaps a better
title would have been "Truth without
Method."17
At this point, we may find ourselves confused by the ways in which the historical
situation of the interpreter is supposed to
affect the interpretation, even as, at the same
time, it apparently does not undermine the
truth of interpretation. On the one hand, the
interpreter cannot avoid the historical
situatedness of her own interpretation. Because of this, she must not deceive herself into
thinking that her object is the transhistorical
meaning of the text, for this will lead her into
the historicist trap of explaining away the
truth claims of the text rather than encounter-
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GADAMER AND THE TEA CHING OF TEXTS
ing them herself. On the other hand, we also
know that her interpretation cannot merely
relyuponherarbitraryprejudices,forGadamer
is not willing to abandon normativity in interpretation. How is this supposed to work?
In one place, Gadamer asks us to consider
an example of historical interpretation: the
way in which the history of certain Eskimo
tribes will be written differently in fifty years
from the way in which it is written today (TM,
p. xxxii). The reason for this is not, primarily,
because we will have collected more artifacts,
or because we will have a better understanding of environmental factors, or because we
will have more knowledge of the patterns of
cultural interaction. All of these things maybe
true, but in the end, the human sciences are
not progressive or cumulative in this way. The
primary reason that historical interpretations
come to be outdated has to do with the ongoing
development of our interests and our questions. It is simply impossible to eliminate
these questions and interests altogether, in
order to write a 'plain' history that would
approximate the 'real' interpretation of that
history, and that would be appropriate for all
historical epochs.18
These questions and interests are just one
part of the contribution of the interpreter to the
interpretation. This contribution — what
Heidegger calls "fore-meaning"19—includes
also the entire totality of our linguistic environment, which determines what it is that we
can say and think, and also our specific preconceptions of the meaning of the text. But in
bringing these fore-meanings to the text,
Gadamer believes that we do not merely impose them. The encounter is, again, rather like
a dialogue. Thus, we discover that our preconception is inadequate "in the experience of
being pulled up short by the text" (TM,
p. 268); the text itself seems to tell us that our
understanding is wrong.20 What is significant
here is the way in which preconceptions can
go hand in hand with openness: on the one
25
hand, one approaches a text with an hypothesis about its meaning, but on the other hand,
one is open to the text to disconfirm that
hypothesis. In terms of the earlier discussion,
one assumes from the outset that the text
makes a truth claim that has validity — i.e., a
claim that coheres with those beliefs that one
holds to be true — while remaining open to
the possibility that its claim may differ from,
and in fact may challenge, one's own beliefs.21
Finally, then, we should ask the looming
question: how do we know when we've got the
correct interpretation of a text? There's no
methodological guarantee, to be sure, but in
two places in Truth and Method Gadamer
does talk about criteria—a criterion of objectivity in the process of interpretation, and a
criterion of objectivity in the outcome of interpretation. The first criterion is openness and
questioning: when one is open to what the text
has to say, one is willing not only to question
the text but also to question one's own beliefs
(TM, pp. 268-9). All genuine interpretation
takes place in the context of openness, and
conversely, if one is not open, then one cannot
achieve a correct interpretation. The second
criterion involves the outcome of interpretation, rather than the process: that outcome is
"harmony."22 What is harmonized is the interpretation and the text itself, as the hermeneutic
circle is traversed. Correct interpretations are
harmonious, while incorrect interpretations
are characterized by disunity, disconfirmation,
the over-prominence of the interpretation distinct from the text itself. We might desire
more; we might hope to translate these criteria
into methodological guidelines; but ultimately
that desire cannot be fulfilled.
PART THREE: JEWISH EDUCATION
IN THE LIGHT OF GADAMER
At this point, it is time to consider how
Gadamer's theory of interpretation help us to
think about what it is that we do in Jewish
education. In this section, I will try to articu-
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26
JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCATION
late three ways in which Gadamer's view is
generative for thinking about the teaching of
texts within a normative Jewish context.
First, Gadamer's notion of tradition provides a theoretical framework which both
validates and informs an approach to Jewish
texts within a normative Jewish context, an
approach which often seems to stand in tension with scientific or scholarly or critical
approaches. This does not deny that a critical
approach to Jewish texts may have a place in
Jewish education; I will return to this point
later on. However, by showing how the process of interpretation always takes place within
a tradition, and always represents a dialogic
interaction with that tradition, Gadamer helps
make sense of reading traditional texts in
traditional ways. Why should we teach the
sometimes dated, sometimes difficult interpretations of an eleventh century French exegete? Because it is undeniable that Rashi's
commentary has shaped the way that Jews
have read Torah up to our own day.
To take another example, a similar approach holds, at least to a certain extent, in
thinking about the teaching of Mishnah. A
critical study of Mishnah may very well have
its place; we may certainly want to ask what
the Mishnah, itself, seems to be saying. But we
also want to ask how the Mishnah has been
read within the tradition, and this will lead u s
first and foremost to the views expressed in the
Talmud. If we use the interpretive criterion of
"original intent," some of these views may
seem difficult, and perhaps philosophically
unjustifiable. But if our interest is that of
investigating (and teaching) the Mishnah together with its interpretive history — what
Gadamer calls the "history of effect" — then
we are led to the conclusion that engaging
with the text within a Jewish context requires
engaging with the way that the tradition has
read this text through time. To do otherwise is
to lack awareness of our own historical moment, to pretend that we can achieve a non-
historical, non-prejudiced, de-contextualized
interpretation.23
Remember, here, that the interpreter is
always embedded within atradition, but never
merely accepts that tradition. That is, the
tradition is both the partner in dialogue and
the environment that makes dialogue possible. So it may be that we want to engage the
interpretive history of the Mishnah in dialogue, a dialogue in which we challenge the
tradition — and allow ourselves to be challenged —on the question of the correct way to
read the Mishnah. This is the force of
Gadamer's focus on normativity in interpretation. For while our interpretations are conditioned by our tradition and by our historical
moment, they are determined by neither. In
contrast to those for whom recourse to "interpretive communities" provides the last word
in matters of interpretation (e.g., Fish, 1980),
Gadamer's view preserves the sense in which,
even within those communities, we evaluate — and cannot fail to evaluate — interpretations as better and worse.
A second important theme in Gadamer is
his model of dialogue itself. Engaging with
someone — or, as Gadamer helps us to see,
with some thing — in dialogue entails confronting that person as an interlocutor whose
assertions are to be taken seriously. That is, we
begin from an assumption that the person is
saying something correct, or at least claiming
to say something correct; we are open to that
possibility. That claim then functions as a
question for us; it challenges us. We may
accept the claim or reject it, but we may not
ignore it, so that even //we reject it, we are
changed by the encounter with it, by the
demand to provide a response. Dialogue is
therefore predicated not only upon openness
but also upon mutual commitment; without
such a commitment, a person whose beliefs
are challenged will simply walk away.
This is, I think, the kind of commitment
that we have towards foundational aspects of
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GADAMERAND THE TEACHING OF TEXTS
27
general culture. Not everyone agrees, of course,
Third, and finally, recall Gadamer's view
on what those foundational aspects are. But of interpretation — or, of the hermeneutic
consider the role of Shakespeare in our cul- experience — as the kind of experience which
ture; consider the way that colleges teach terminates not only in understanding of the
courses on Shakespeare, and students attend text but in readiness for further and richer
them, because they believe that an educated experience, as one's understanding becomes
person ought to engage with these texts. Even richer and more mature. The previous paraif they don't end up taking the course, and graph focused on openness as a characteristic
even if they sleep through the lectures, the of interpretation itself, but Gadamer also has
very suggestion represents a kind of commit- a view about the way that engaging in interment to the texts, a promise (which may go pretive dialogue opens one up still further,
unfulfilled) to engage in dialogue. They prob- transforms one, develops one's capacity to
ably don'tbelieve that Shakespeare possesses encounter certain aspects of experience more
some kind of propositional knowledge which deeply. The caricature of Jewish study holds
they want to have, and which is available on that it closes off possibilities for participating
the basis of critical historical scholarship; and in the world. Seen through a Gadamerian
they almost certainly don't believe that the perspective, however, engagingin dialogue —
goal of reading Shakespeare is merely to play even with one's own tradition— represents
with the text. But, to the extent that they an opening up of possibilities through the way
participate in this kind of commitment, they that one's assumptions are challenged and
may indeed hold open the possibility that the one's horizons are broadened. In a larger
text has something to say to them, that it is sense than previously discussed, this reprerelevant to their lives.
sents the goal of the teaching of Jewish texts:
This is the relationship that we want Jew- opening up students to the possibilities of
ish students to have towards the Jewish tradi- further experience — with Jewish texts and
tion, and towards its texts. That is, these twin with Jewish life.
aspects of dialogue — openness and commitment —maybe seen as normative goals in the
PART FOUR: GADAMER IN THE
teaching of Jewish texts. Students ought to
LIGHT OF JEWISH EDUCATION
confront the text as making a claim upon
Just as Gadamer's view of interpretation is
them, and must have an openness to that
generative
for thinking about the teaching of
claim — though not, of course, an unquesJewish
texts,
it is also the case that comparing
tioning acceptance of that claim, any more
his
theory
to
the real-world educational situthan one unquestioningly accepts the stateation
highlights
some weaknesses of, or tenments of a partner in dialogue. This kind of
sions
within,
the
position. In what follows, I
openness implies, in turn, a commitment to
will
outline
three
of these tensions.
the text, a commitment to the process of
First, there is the question of defining a
ongoing dialogue with this particular partner. Beyond the transmission of information, tradition, for at times there seems to be an
beyond the fostering of technical skills of assumption that the tradition — the tradition
interpretation (such as historical methodol- of the text and its interpretation, in which we
ogy or linguistic proficiency), Jewish educa- are embedded— is fundamentally unitary
tion aims for a kind of interpretive compe- and coherent. But this seems questionable.
tence characterized by openness and commit- Consider Torah. In fact, the interpretive history of Torah is, like everything else, varied,
ment.
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JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCATION
plural, and non-linear. Even if we restrict
ourselves to considering just one religious or
cultural tradition, is it correct to see this
tradition — including rationalists and mystics, halakhists and theologians — as an integrated whole? Furthermore, and more importantly, in the modern period one must consider a new tradition, namely the historicocritical tradition itself. After all, there is certainly a strong sense in which academic schol arship on the Bible represents its own tradition stretching back for two centuries, with its
own set of questions and interests. To be sure,
aspects of this tradition of interpretation stand
in tension with traditional Jewish interpretation —and yet, in various subtle ways, we are
heirs to both of them.
One way to try and deal with the multiplicity of traditions is to suggest that, in fact, a
Gadamerian view can accommodate them by
pointing to the unification of traditions within
the historical situation of the interpreter herself. That is, there may be several traditions of
interpretation in the world, but it is still descriptively correct that any one individual
interpreter is heir to everything that contributed to her historical situation, and that her
interpretation is carried out—and may achieve
insight and capture meaning—in the context
of her "tradition" in this sense. Butthis doesn't
solve the problem. On the one hand, this
interpretation of Gadamer gains something
by softening his rhetoric of a unitary tradition.
But on the other hand, it will still have a
problem dealing with the basic tensions between those traditions. How is it possible to
account for the interpretive practice of one
individual who operates within two traditions? And how, then, are we to conceive of
the interpretive practice of a community which
tries to do so? Even more interestingly, how
can we account for the ways in which those
two traditions subtly influence each other in
the hermeneutic experience of the individual
interpreter?
Without considering these challenges, we
run the risk of simply assuming that the
tradition in which we are embedded is exclusively, for lack of a better word, the "traditional" one. This can lead to the kind of
interpretive conservatism of which Gadamer
has sometimes been accused.24 But to do so
would represent exactly the kind of avoidance
of one's historical situation that Gadamer
decries. The historical situation that we find
ourselves in, and which conditions our interpretations, is as obviously a product of modernity as it is a product of the Jewish tradition.
What this suggests, for the teaching of
Jewish texts, is that we need to confront our
historical situation more straightforwardly,
and to recognize the ways in which our community is embedded within a complicated
mixture of traditions. One of these is the
Jewish tradition, to be sure, but we are also
heirs to certain Enlightenment criteria about
prioritizing "plain" readings of the text, for
example. And those criteria influence the
ways that we select from among the various
interpretive approaches that make up the Jewish tradition. This means, for example, that
we cannot be quite so sanguine about teaching
Talmud as the interpretive tradition of the
Mishnah; we must also consider the ways in
which Talmudic readings of the Mishnah
stand in tension with plain readings. Or consider again the case of Rashi' s commentary on
Torah, and especially the question of "Mah
kasheh le-Rashi? made famous by Nechama
Leibowitz. By asking, "What troubles Rashi
[about the text?", not only do we generate a
deeper understanding of his interpretive technique but we place ourselves in the position of
probing the interpretive merits of that technique relative to others. And while Leibowitz'
approach may be masterfully constructed to
facilitate engagement rather than skepticism
(Deitcher, 2000), it also seems fair to say that
her approach is unavoidably a product of the
conditions of modernity. Finally, and more
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GADAMERAND THE TEACHING OF TEXTS
generally, we cannot assume that the traditional curriculum is as appropriate for us as it
may have been in the past. For example, when
we teach Rabbinic literature, should we teach
the Babylonian Talmud exclusively, or are
there particular reasons — reasons generated
by our own interpretive situations — to teach
the Talmud of the Land of Israel, or perhaps
the Tosefta? Obviously, this does not amount
to a rejection of the traditional curriculum,
but it does suggest that our curricular choices
require stronger and more nuanced justifications, justifications which confront our historical situation as modern Jews rather than
standing in self-conscious opposition to it.
The second point, related to the first, involves the question of the assumptions or preconditions that we bring to our interpretations
of a text. Some of these pre-conditions have to
do with the entire linguistic background in
which we operate, while others have to do
with our prior hypotheses about the meaning
of a specific text to be interpreted. But other
assumptions, such as the questions and interests that we bring to the text, are products of
our historical context and, therefore, of the
traditions in which we are embedded. On
Gadamer's view, this latter set of assumptions
is supposed to be public property, since others
share our cultural moment.
But if we think about actual interpretive
situations, such as those that educators face,
we might wonder whether Gadamer is sensitive enough to the diversity of assumptions
that people can bring to a text — even among
people who apparently share a faith tradition.
Perhaps such rigid homogeneity once obtained, but in our culture and our ideologically
diverse Jewish community, we cannot assume
that it does. To take an obvious example, a
passage in Torah that is traditionally understood to be the source for normative law will
be taken in different ways by others. And lest
we think that this is only a problem faced in
those institutions that attempt to bridge de-
29
nominations, it should not be hard to recognize that, even within denominations, similarities of observance may mask profound
interpretive discrepancies. If this is so —if we
question the possibility of interpretive agreement — this raises again the problem of how
we are to approach the text within an educational context. For Jewish educators, this issue is not simply an academic one about
interpretive normativity; it's a very real one
about what kinds of approaches to the text
ought to be fostered among students. What
Gadamer helps us to see is that appeals to
pluralism can only go so far before they must
confront interpretive diversity head on, precisely because schools are the places where
students are embedded in the interpretive
traditions which enable interpretation in the
first place.
Third, and finally: it is clear that for
Gadamer, every text — in fact, every object of
interpretation, including works of art — is
supposed to make a truth claim.25 As noted,
the paradigm for this are philosophical texts:
we should readPlato not merely as a representative of a particular time and place, but also
and more importantly as presenting a view of,
for example, the well-ordered republic, with
which an interpreter must engage. But what if
we turn to Torah? What is the truth claim of
the text?26
If one is to think of Torah in terms of the
claims that it makes, the claims with which an
interpreter is confronted, the first kind of
claim that comes to mind is mitzvah, commandment. The Torah seems to be making
practical demands upon its reader, making
claims regarding performances rather than
regardingtheology. But immediately one hesitates, for that kind of claim assumes a particular conception of commandment based on
Rabbinic interpretation. In addition, it seems
equally correct to say, for us, that the claim of
the text is something like an existential one —
a claim about what it is like to experience
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JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCATION
history in a particular way — or perhaps a
literary claim. As a fourth alternative, the text
at times makes a set of historical claims, about
when and where certain events occurred. It
therefore seems that one can endorse the
theoretical framework which asks the interpreter to engage in genuine dialogue with the
text, to see the text as making a claim, while
at the same time recognizing that it may not be
obvious what kind of claim that is.
This question is the question of genre. A
philosophical text makes a philosophical claim,
a literary text makes a literary claim, an
historical text makes an historical claim (TM,
p. 163). But genre itself is a category that is
proposed by the interpreter, and may never be
as smooth as Gadamer seems to hope. What
this tension within Gadamer suggests is that a
heightened awareness of the workings of
genre — a kind of meta-cognitive reflection
on how the text does whatever it is that we
interpret the text as doing27 — ought to be a
fundamental component of our approach to
the teaching of texts, as a way of accessing
those "fore-meanings" which form the context for (thougli, again, do not determine) our
prioritization of interpretations. The challenge for Jewish educators is to articulate their
(or their communities') understanding of the
genre of the traditionary text, and of their own
historical situations, so that the truth claims of
the text can amount to more than just vague
admonitions.
CONCLUSION
It should be clear that we should not expect
any philosophical viewto solve the theoretical
problems of Jewish education. But the intended effect of this paper is to suggest that the
insight that Gadamer brings to thinking about
the interpretation of texts may help us to think:
more deeply about what we do, and about the
interpretive choices that we make. In this
respect, even the problems embedded within
Gadamer's view are generative, for they point
towards a series of philosophical questions
about the teaching of Jewish texts. And the
consideration of these questions — about the
multiplicity of, and interactions among, interpretive traditions; about the role of the assumptions that we bring to the text; and about
the possibility and variety of truth claims —
will contribute to the improvement of our
educational practice.
In Gadamer's own terms:
We should leain to understand ourselves better
and recognize that in all understanding, whether
we are expressly aware of it or not, the efficacy
of history is at work (TM, p. 301).
It may very well be that the "efficacy of
history" is at work in all understanding,
whether we are aware of it or not. But at the
same time, if we hope to understand ourselves
better— and, by extension, achieve better
understanding of the interpretations of our
texts — then we ought to do what we can to
raise this effect to consciousness. We should
certainly do no less for our students.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For their comments on earlier drafts—not
all of which I was wise enough to incorporate— I wish to acknowledge Mara Benjamin, Jennifer Glaser, Rami Wernik, and
especially Richard Palmer.
ENDNOTES
'In the 1920s, Gadamer was a student of Martin
Heidegger, who remained the most significant
influence on his thought. Given Heidegger's wellknown Nazi sympathies (for a helpful review
essay, see Sheehan, 1993), what do we know about
Gadamer's activities during the Nazi period? In
general, the facts are not in dispute: Gadamer was
not a Nazi, but was also not a hero. During the Nazi
period, Gadamer did not speak out publicly— but
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GADAMER AND THE TEACHING OF TEXTS
also did not join the party. He did willingly accept
an academic position made available when Richard Kroner, a friend, was dismissed for being a
Jew— but he also took Kroner in as a house guest.
He continued to teach and conduct his research
during the war years in a university system compromised by the elimination of Jews and the
fostering of fascism— but he maintained contact
with Jews during the war, and following its conclusion, worked on behalf of their re-integration into
the German university system. Gadamer's own
description of the Nazi period appears in Gadamer
1997 (and see also his contribution to a symposium on Heidegger and Nazism in Gadamer, 1989).
Richard Wolin has recently written a harshly
critical account (Wolin, 2000), but Richard Palmer
critiques Wolin's interpretation of the facts and of
the political significance of Gadamer's philosophical work (Palmer, unpublished).
2
Gadamer, 1997, p. 18.
3
The secondary literature on Gadamer is vast.
For an accessible book-length source on Gadamer,
see Wamke, 1987. For an influential account in
which Gadamer figures as a central figure, see
Bernstein, 1985. For a collection of critical essays,
together with Gadamer's replies, see Hahn, 1997.
4
It can equally be said that Gadamer develops
his position in opposition to the tradition of
Scheiermacher and Dilthey, theorists who attempted (but, in Gadamer's view, failed) to come
to terms with subjectivity in interpretation.
5
Gallagher, 1992 offers a four-fold taxonomy of
hermeneutical
approaches,
including
(i) conservative, (ii) moderate, (iii) radical, and
(iv) critical. For a critical review of Gallagher, see
Kerdeman, 1998.
This kind of claim has the potential to be
misunderstood. It should be clear that there are
important differences between various contexts of
interpretation; in fact, understanding those differences is essential if we are to understand the
interpretive processes at work. Rather, the claim is
that there is no sharp and clear divide between
these spheres. See Gadamer, 1987/1963, p. 114.
'These passages appear at TM, pp. 358-362, at
the end of the section entitled, "The Concept of
Experience (Erfahrung) and the Essence of the
Hermeneutic Experience." The value and centrality of this section is noted by Gadamer himself, in
31
his Foreword to the Second Edition: "The section
on experience (Part Two, U.3.B) takes on a systematic and key position in my investigations.
There the experience of the Thou throws light on
the concept of historically effected experience"
(TM, p. xxxv).
8
See TM, pp. 262 ff, in which Gadamer argues
that belonging to a tradition is a condition of any
historical interest whatsoever.
'For example, one can certainly make a strong
case that social scientific inquiry, which aims to
improve the lives of humans, is justified in (temporarily) considering people as mere data points.
And in fact, while Gadamer is sometimes read as
an opponent of naturalistic social science, his
attitude is not exclusively negative. He writes:
"[My work] does not in the slightest prevent the
methods of modern natural science from being
applicable to the social world....Therefore I did
not remotely intend to deny the necessity of methodical work within the human sciences" (TM, p.
xxix). See also Gadamer, 1976, p. 26 ff.
10
"To reach an understanding in a dialogue is
not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and
successfully asserting one's own point of view, but
being transformed into a communion in which we
do not remain what we were" (TM, p. 379). Note,
however, that this kind of openness operates alongside a set of expectations or anticipations; indeed,
if we did not have such anticipations (of what the
other person is going to say, of what makes sense
in a particular situation, of the meaning of a text),
we would not need to be open to the possibility that
we are wrong! So the openness that Gadamer is
talking about is not a know-nothing absence of
beliefs and opinions, and in the case of interpersonal relationships, it is not an absence of selfhood.
"hi my discussion of this passage, I will simply
follow Gadamer's lead and chart the parallels
between the three forms of interpersonal experience and the three forms of hermeneutic experience. But it should be noted that there is a significant tension dormant within the analogy, and
within Gadamer's text. Very briefly, consider the
fact that the three forms of interpersonal relationship are all familiar to us; they all exist in the
world. And of the three, the third is "highest." But
of the three forms of hermeneutic experience,
Gadamer's implicit argument is that, as a matter of
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JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCATION
descriptive accuracy, only the third is an adequats
characterization of what actually occurs in inteipretation. In one sense, therefore, the third form is
the "highest" of the three — but it is more correct
to see it as the only correct description. On my
reading, Gadamer is insufficiently sensitive to this
tension embedded within his analogy.
"Gadamer, in general, adopts the neo-Kantian
Verstehen tradition of separating the physical sciences, which search for laws, from the human
sciences, which search for understanding. However, at another level, interpretation is fundamental to all human experience. His position on physical science underwent some revision in light of
post-Kuhnian philosophy of science; see for example TM, p. 283 n. 209.
13
Clearly, Gadamer is thinking here of nineteenth-century historicism, which may be understood as his central philosophical target. But it is
worth acknowledging that any straightforward
theory of authorial intent would suffer from this
same flaws. And indeed, Gadamer elsewhere is
critical of such theoretical stances: "the sense of a
text in general reaches far beyond what its author
originally intended" (TM, p. 372). Similarly, this
suggestion that the object of interpretation ought to
be to recover the meaning of the text to the original
audience suffers from the same malady, "the real
meaning of a text...does not depend on the contingencies of the author and his original audience"
(TM, p. 296). Such an interpretive stance denies
the truth claims of the text itself, substituting
instead an explanation of why the text says what it
say.
14
This may sound reminiscent of Dewey's view
about education and growth, where the goal is;
simply more growth. However, unlike Dewey,
Gadamer tends to focus on the negative quality of
experience, the way in which experience is marked
by the disturbance of expectations and disruption
of prior assumptions.
"Consider the following passage: "In relying,
on its critical method, historical objectivism conceals the fact that historical consciousness is itself
situated in the web of historical effects.... Historical
objectivism resembles statistics, which are such
excellent means of propaganda because they let
the "facts" speak and hence simulate an objectivity that in reality depends on the legitimacy of the
questions asked" (TM, p. 300-301).
"For example: "Because the important thing is
communicating the text's true meaning, interpreting it is already subject to the norm of the subject
matter" (TM, p. 394), or "Being bound by a
situation [that is, the fact that all interpretation
must necessarily take place within an historical
hermeneutical situation] does not mean that the
claim to correctness that every interpretation must
make is dissolved into the subjective or the occasional" (TM, p. 397). Elsewhere, he makes it clear
that his goal, in his account of the human sciences,
is to put forward "an entirely different notion of
knowledge and truth" (Gadamer, 1987/1963, p.
92). Are these examples of hyperbole? Perhaps.
And in any case, we should certainly be wary of
importing incompatible notions of truth and correctness which make these claims look patently
inconsistent. Yet, it seems clear that Gadamer is
demanding that we attend to the ways in which
interpretations are evaluated according to their
responsiveness to the text.
"Richard Palmer (in a private communication)
objects to this formulation, arguing that the relationship between truth and method in Gadamer is
a complicated one. Instead, Palmer would emphasize the utility of method, within certain bounded
spheres. His point is well taken; compare my notes
9 and 12.
ls
Similarly, Gadamer writes elsewhere that
"when we read Mommsen's History of Rome, we
know who alone could have written it, that is, we
can identify the political situation in which this
historian organized the voices of the past in a
meaningful way" (Gadamer, 1976, p. 6).
"In TM, Gadamer's main discussion of
Heidegger is at pp. 265 ff. But it may be the case
that Gadamer would have been better served by
articulating that relationship between his "prejudices" and Heidegger's "fore-structure" more
clearly. Heidegger's fore-structure has three parts:
the fore-having, the entire linguistic environment;
the fore-sight, the particular aspect of the object
which is brought into view (which is clearly related to the questions that one asks about the
object); and the fore-conception, the provisional
hypothesis about the meaning of the object with
which one starts (Heidegger, 1962/1927, pp. 188
ff.) Gadamer writes as if all three of these aspects
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GADAMER AND THE TEACHING OF TEXTS
operate in the same fashion; they are all part of our
"prejudices," a product of our historical contingency and embeddedness within tradition. But it
may be that they operate quite differently. The
fore-having can never be questioned because it can
never be brought into consciousness; on the other
hand, as a product of culture, it is clearly not
subjective either. The fore-conception, on the other
hand, clearly can be questioned, and is most
susceptible to confirmation or especially
disconfirmation by examination of the object itself. That leaves the fore-sight, which one may
associate with Gadamer's "questions and interests." These too are susceptible to conscious
change— we can become feminist or Marxist
interpreters — but the criteria for doing so are the
hardest to articulate.
20
Elsewhere, Gadamer writes dramatically that
"a person trying to understand something will not
resign himself from the start to relying on his own
accidental fore-meanings, ignoring consistently
and stubbornly as possible the actual meaning of
the text until the latter becomes so persistently
audible that it breaks through what the interpreter
imagines it to be" (TM, p. 269). Note, however,
that the counter-factual syntax of the sentence
makes it unclear whether Gadamer actually thinks
that the meaning of the text ever does "break
through" and coerce the interpreter in this way.
21
In another passage, Gadamer identifies no
fewer than four contributors to the meaning of a
text. He writes: "Every age has to understand a
transmitted text in its own way, for the text belongs
to the whole tradition whose content interests the
age and in which it seeks to understand itself. The
real meaning of a text, as it speaks to the interpreter, does not depend on the contingencies of the
author and his original audience. It certainly is not
identical with them, for it is always co-determined
also by the historical situation of the interpreter
and hence by the totality of the objective course of
history" (TM, p. 296). That is, the "real meaning"
is, in a sense, a product of (a) the author, (b) the
original audience, (c) the historical situation of the
interpreter, and (d) the total history of the tradition
of interpretation.
22
"The harmony of all the details with the
whole is the criterion of correct understanding"
(TM, p. 291). Harmony, too, reappears in various
33
guises: as unity (TM, p. 267 and elsewhere), as
confirmation of the interpretation by the text (TM,
p. 267), and most interestingly, as the "disappearance" of the interpretation (TM, pp. 398-400).
"Compare Levenson's argument about the ways
that interpretive contexts affect how we teach
Bible even in higher education: "There is no neutral ground on which to locate [the study of the]
Hebrew Bible. Each model favors one
context...over another. None can claim pure objectivity. Every act of periodicization or categorization implies a normative claim" (Levenson,
1986, p. 44).
24
This is the basic objection of Jiirgen Habermas,
with whom Gadamer engaged in a series of debates
in the 1970s. Habermas believes that Gadamer is
far too solicitous of tradition, and far too hesitant
to criticize it (Habermas, 1992/1970). This is
certainly an important critique, but Gadamer is
primarily concerned not with prescribing our interpretive practices but with describing them. He is
simply trying to tell us what happens all (or most
of) the time, unreflectively. Furthermore, there is
room within Gadamer's conception for reforms of
the status quo. As he writes elsewhere, "the confrontation of our historical tradition is always a
critical challenge of this tradition" (Gadamer,
1987/1963, p. 87). On the Gadamer-Habermas
debate, see Teigas, 1995.
"While Gadamer generally refers to "truth
claims," he infrequently offers different formulations, such as (the somewhat more flexible) "meaning claim" (Gadamer, 1987/1963, p. 87).
"One might wonder whether Gadamer has in
mind this kind of text at all. But in fact, it is clear
that he does. Part of the thrust of his view is to
challenge the assumptions of the historico-critical
method of research in the Bible; what Gadamer
hopes to articulate is the sense in which what the
Bible weans, to us as inheritors of the text and the
tradition of its interpretation, is not adequately
captured by, for example, research into the historical account of its composition. And more directly,
Gadamer has a suggestion for how to consider the
Bible: he holds that both a Jewish and a Christian
interpretation of the Bible presuppose a concern
with "the question of God" (TM, pp. 331-332). But
is this helpful? In what sense does Torah, for a Jew,
provide an answer to "the question of God?"
34
JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCA TION
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"Sam Wineburg suggests something similar,
on the basis of his empirical research into the ways
that expert historians read historical texts
(Wineburg, 1991).
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Philosophical
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Gadamer, Hans-Georg. "Back from Syracuse."
Critical Inquiry 15:2 (1989).
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. "Reflections on my philosophical journey." Translated by Richard
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Gadamer, Library of Living Philosophers,
Vol. XXIV, edited by Lewis E. Hahn. Chicago: Open Court, 1997.
Gallagher, Shaun. Hermeneutics and education.
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Continuum, 1992. Originally published in
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Kerdeman, Deborah. "Hermeneutics and education: Understanding, control, and agency."
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GADAMERAND THE TEACHING OF TEXTS
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Appendix A. Gadamer's Analogy (TM.pp. 358-362)
Three types of human relationship:
Three types of interpretation:
Level 1:1-It
Level 1: Text as an It
• treats the other person as an object, not as subject
• lack ofrespectfortheotherperson's individuality
• expects the other person to act in accordance with
patterns or laws
• goal is to discover typical behavior or to control typical
behavior
• lack of concern for the specific texts in its particularity
• interpretation of text merely as instance of a general
pattern or rule
• interpreter is detached from text and detached from
historical situation
• example: some kinds of structuralism
• example: social scientific research
Level 2:1-Thou (a)
Level 2: Text as an Historical Thou
• other person is treated as a full subject
• genuine desire to understand the person
• but: no real listening; no connection to person; onesided conversation
• claim of complete understanding of the other; robs
claims of legitimacy
• example: doctor-patient relationship
• text has significance of its own
• text is understood as making a claim, but not one that is
relevant to the interpreter
• text is explained by recourse to historical
circumstances, rather having truth claims listened to
(and evaluated)
Level 3:1-Thou (b)
Level 3: Text as Partner in Dialogue
•
•
•
•
• unavoidable prior assumptions drawn from the tradition
and historical situation
• but: openness to the possibility that those assumptions
will be undermined by the text's claims
• Gadamer's label: "historically effected consciousness"
acknowledges individuality of other
openness to the possibility of hearing something new
commitment to the process of dialogue
result is (potentially) transformation into something
new
• ideal interpretation is product of elimination of all
subjective bias
• example: historicism