Pardes (exegesis)


Pardes is a Kabbalistic theory of Biblical exegesis first advanced by Moses de León, adapting the popular "fourfold" method of medieval Christianity.
The term, sometimes also rendered PaRDeS, means "orchard" when taken literally, but is used in this context as a Hebrew acronym formed from the initials of the following four approaches:
  • Peshat – "surface" or the literal meaning.
  • Remez – "hints" or the deep meaning beyond just the literal sense. In the version of the New Zohar, Re'iah.
  • Derash – from Hebrew darash: "inquire" – the comparative meaning, as given through similar occurrences.
  • Sod – "secret" or the esoteric/mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation.
Each type of Pardes interpretation examines the extended meaning of a text. As a general rule, the extended meaning never contradicts the base meaning. The Peshat means the plain or contextual meaning of the text. Remez is the allegorical meaning. Derash includes the metaphorical meaning, and Sod represents the hidden meaning. There is often considerable overlap, for example, when legal understandings of a verse are influenced by mystical interpretations or when a "hint" is determined by comparing a word with other instances of the same word.
Some books, such the Tolaat Yaakov of Meir ben Ezekiel ibn Gabbai, divide Pardes into Peshat, Remez, Din, and Sod. According to this understanding, Derash is divided into the homiletics, and legal interpretations.

History of the term

Pardes is a Biblical Hebrew word of Persian etymology, meaning "orchard" or "garden". In early rabbinic works, the "orchard" is used as a metaphor for divine secrets or Torah study.
Moses de León was the first to use Pardes as an acronym for these four methods of interpretation. In his responsa he writes, "s I explained in my book which I called Pardes, and the name Pardes by which I called it is a known concept that I disguised. The four approaches within its name are the 'four which entered into the orchard,' i.e. peshat and remez and derasha and sod," while a slightly different version appears twice in the New Zohar: "The pardes of the bible is a compound of peshata and re'ia and derasha and sod." The original printings of the Zohar contain a slightly different version, possibly from before de Leon thought of the mnemonic: "In the words of the bible are its peshata and derasha and remez and gematriyot and razzin.

Context

Exoteric and esoteric in ''Sod''

  • Exoteric means that Scripture is read in the context of the physical world, human orientation, and human notions. The first three exegetical methods: Peshat-Simple, Remez-Hinted, and Drush-Homiletic belong to the exoteric "Nigleh-Revealed" part of Torah embodied in mainstream Rabbinic literature, such as the Talmud, Midrash, and exoteric-type Jewish commentaries on the Bible.
  • Esoteric means that the surface meaning of Scripture, as with esoteric texts in general, while it may also be true, is not the real truth to which Scripture refers. Instead, the surface meaning hides/covers/conceals its real intention. The real truth is the secret hidden within the deceptive covering. The fourth level of exegesis, Sod-Secret, belongs to the esoteric "Nistar-Hidden" interpretations of Scripture found alternatively in Jewish mysticism-Kabbalah or in Jewish philosophy-Metaphysics. Religious adherents of Kabbalah and of Rationalism fought over their alternative claims to know the esoteric meaning. In Medieval Jewish Rationalism, the hidden truth within Scripture was human-centred Divine transcendence philosophical depths. In Kabbalistic mysticism, it was God's Persona-centred Divine immanence emanations. Therefore, each tradition interpreted classic Rabbinic references to Pardes, Maaseh Bereishit/Maaseh Merkabah and to the connected 4-fold structure of PaRDeS exegesis differently.
Both mystical and rational religious Judaism, however, together rooted in mainstream Rabbinic literature and Mitzvot observance, accepted common truth in Peshat, Remez, and Drush levels of Judaism. In this way, Jewish religious esotericism is inseparable from exoteric Judaism. Their esoteric meanings did not deny the truth of exotericism, but rather reinforced the need for exoteric Halacha Jewish law and practical observance of the 613 Mitzvot as God's plan in Creation.
The mystical view of esoteric Sod-Secret as the elite doctrines of Kabbalah also gave conceptual context to Peshat, Remez, and Drush: in the mystical unfolding of the spiritual Four Worlds, each realm corresponds to a level in PaRDeS. God's immanence is found at successively descending levels of reality. Torah descends from on High, while man ascends the levels of PaRDeS exegesis in Torah from Below. In this sense, ascending the four levels of interpretation reveals greater divinity in Torah; the exoteric and esoteric are linked in a continuous chain. While rationalists metaphorically read Rabbinic Aggadah legends, kabbalists read them as allusions to Kabbalah.

Halacha and Aggadah in ''Peshat'', ''Remez'', ''Drush''

Within mainstream exoteric classic Rabbinic literature, such as the Talmud and Midrashim, Halacha is Jewish legal discussion and ruling, while Aggadah is Jewish theological/narrative discussion. As two approaches in exoteric Judaism, the Peshat-Simple, Remez-Hinted, and Drush-Homiletic exegesis methods, which work exoterically, can be used in either Halachic or Aggadic contexts.

Examples

Peshat

In Genesis 1:1

is often translated as "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." However, Rashi comments, "If you come to interpret it according to its peshat, interpret it thus: In the beginning of creation of heavens and earth." According to Rashi's linguistic analysis, the word "bereishit" does not mean "In the beginning", but rather "In the beginning of..."

Remez

In Genesis 1:1 - commandments

The first word of Genesis 1:1 is "Bereishit". According to the Vilna Gaon, all 613 commandments are hinted to in this word. For example, the Vilna Gaon says, the commandment of pidyon haben is hinted via the phrase "Ben Rishon Acharei Shloshim Yom Tifdeh", and the acronym of the first letters of this phrase is "Breishit".

In Genesis 1:1 - eschatology

In Jewish thought, the Year 6000 idea relates the 6 days of Creation to 6000 years the world is expected to exist. The first 2000 "hidden" years began at Creation and lasted until Abraham. The next 2000 years "of revelation" include Israelite Patriarchs, the Giving of the Torah at Sinai, and the two Temples in Jerusalem. The final 2000 years, of preparation for the Jewish Messiah, are balanced between Divine concealment and revelation.
Genesis 1:1 is said to hint to this idea. The verse contains seven words, and each of the words except Hashamayim contains the letter Aleph. The name "Aleph" hints at its etymological variants "Aluph" and "Eleph". Hebrew word roots generally contain three consonant letters. Of the six words in the verse containing Aleph: in the first two Aleph is positioned as third letter, in the next two Aleph is positioned as first letter, in the last two Aleph is positioned as second letter.

Laws of witnesses

In the following exchange, the Talmud differentiates between explicit and hinted sources for the laws of conspiring witnesses :
  • Ulla says: From where in the Torah is a hint of the law of conspiring witnesses?
  • Why should such a hint exist? For it is stated explicitly "You do to them what they conspired to do to the accused."!
  • Rather, from where in the Torah is a hint that conspiring witnesses receive a whipping ?
  • As it says, "They shall vindicate the righteous one and convict the evil one. And if the evil one is deserving of lashes..." Should that they "vindicate the righteous one" "they convict the evil one, and if the evil one is deserving of lashes"? Rather, witnesses convicted the righteous one, and other witnesses came and vindicated the original righteous one, and made into evil ones; , "if the evil one is deserving of lashes".

    Derash (Midrash)

In Genesis 1:1

Rashi comments that the Hebrew word Bereishit can be homiletically understood to mean "Due to the first", where "first" is a word used elsewhere to refer to the Torah and to the Jewish people. Thus, one may say that the world was created for the sake of Torah and the Jewish people.

The number of mitzvot

Rabbi Simlai deduced that the Torah's commandments are 613 in number. Deuteronomy 33:4 states that "Moses commanded us the Torah". The gematria of "Torah" is 611. Adding to them the first two of the Ten Commandments, the total is 613.

Sod

In Maimonides

In Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides declares his intention to conceal from the average reader his explanations of Sod. Later on in the book, Maimonides mentions Divine secrets within Torah:

"Adam and Eve were at first created as one being, having their backs united: they were then separated, and one half was removed and brought before Adam as Eve." Note how clearly it has been stated that Adam and Eve were two in some respects, and yet they remained one, according to the words, "Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh". The unity of the two is proved by the fact that both have the same name, for she is called ishah, because she was taken out of ish, also by the words, "And shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh". How great is the ignorance of those who do not see that all this necessarily includes some idea .

Adam and Eve are "one over other", i.e. thorax of Adam was the "interconnection" of the thorax of Eve, "opposite and up-down together in unity-viceversa"... and this was before their "perfect realization".
Eve was literally the paradigma of earth while male is cleaving of supernal World; Eve gives the sin because she thinks to have power over all world and considering spirituality far from the humanity. So also Adam "separated the fruit physically and in thought": the Bereshit Rabbah teaches that wine is the fruit of knowledge... Shabbat is the highest day of Creation and this day is the connection and unity between God and the Jew: Kiddush is the sanctification about which the spiritual salvation can be lived as messianic taste before the final redemption, that is the tikkun of messianic era.