Pardes (Jewish Exegesis)

Pardes () is a Kabbalistic theory of Biblical exegesis first advanced by Moses de León,ר' משה די ליאון, שו"ת לר' משה די ליאון בענייני קבלה, ישעיה תשבי, חקרי קבלה ושלוחותיה, חלק א, עמ' 64

Tishbi also published this in קבץ על יד - טו, חברת מקיצי נרדמים, which version is available on Otzar (pg. 31). 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" ("straight") or the literal (direct) meaning.
*Remez () – "hints" or the deep (allegoric: hidden or symbolic) meaning beyond just the literal sense. In the version of the New Zohar, Re'iah.
* Derash () – from Hebrew ''darash'': "inquire" ("seek") – the comparative (midrashic) meaning, as given through similar occurrences.
*Sod () – "secret" ("mystery") 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'' (law), and Sod. According to this understanding, ''Derash'' is divided into the homiletics (classified under Remez), and legal interpretations (classified under Din).

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, " 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 (legend), ''Maaseh Bereishit/Maaseh Merkabah'' ( Talmudic passages about esotericism) 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

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" ("in the beginning f). 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" ("a first son, after 30 days should be redeemed"), 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 (followed by the Sabbath) to 6000 years the world is expected to exist (before a 1000-year messianic era). 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 (Hebrew) words, and each of the words except ''Hashamayim'' ("Heavens") contains the letter Aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, with a gematria value of 1). The name "Aleph" hints at its etymological variants "Aluph" ("Chief/Ruler", representing the one God) and "Eleph" ("One Thousand", representing 1,000 years). 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 (concealed God in the first 2,000 years), in the next two Aleph is positioned as first letter (revealed God in the middle 2,000 years), in the last two Aleph is positioned as second letter (balance between concealed and revealed God in the last 2,000 years).

Laws of witnesses

In the following exchange, the Talmud differentiates between explicit and hinted sources for the laws of conspiring witnesses (''edim zomemim''):
* 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 f they cannot be punished by doing to them as they conspired
* As it says, "They shall vindicate the righteous one and convict the evil one. And if the evil one is deserving of lashes..." Should he factthat they "vindicate the righteous one" utomatically mean"they convict the evil one, and if the evil one is deserving of lashes"? n many cases, vindicating the righteous party of a dispute does not mean that the evil party receives lashes.Rather, hese verses are talking about a case wherewitnesses convicted the righteous one, and other witnesses came and vindicated the original righteous one, and made he first set of witnessesinto evil ones; n that case "if the evil one is deserving of lashes".

Derash (Midrash)

In Genesis 1:1

Rashi comments that the Hebrew word ''Bereishit'' ("In the beginning") can be homiletically understood to mean "Due to the first", where "first" (''reishit'') 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 (which were given to the Jews not via Moses but rather directly by God, which is known because only these two commandments are written in the first person singular), 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" (Gen. ii. 23). The unity of the two is proved by the fact that both have the same name, for she is called ishah (woman), because she was taken out of ish (man), also by the words, "And shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh" (ii. 24). How great is the ignorance of those who do not see that all this necessarily includes some theridea esides the literal meaning of the words

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.

In Kabbalah

Kabbalah does not read Scripture as analogy, but as theosophical symbols of dynamic processes in the Supernal Divinity. According to this, Creation was enacted through the letters of the Hebrew language, particularly Divine Names. The Midrash describes God "looking into the Torah to Create the World", which Kabbalah extended into a linguistic mysticism. United with the Infinite Divine, the text of the Torah becomes one long Name of God, or alternatively, God's revealed Being as represented in this World. Kabbalists endeavoured to perceive the unlimited Divinity in the Torah of the Tree of life, through the exoteric Torah of the Tree of Knowledge, the two representing transcendent and immanent revelations of God in the Sephirot, uniting Tiferet ("The Holy One Blessed Be He") and Malkuth (Feminine Shekhinah).

The teachings of Isaac Luria, which form the basis of modern esoteric Kabbalah, read the mythological doctrine of '' Shevirat HaKeilim'' ("Shattering of the vessels in God's Persona) from the account of the Edomite Kings of Genesis 36:31 and I Chronicles 1:43:

"These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel..."

In Kabbalah, based on exoteric Midrash, the Hebrew Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, embody the sephirot of ''Chesed-Kindness'', ''Gevurah-Strength'' and ''Tiferet-Beauty''. Kindness and Judgement are polar forces and Beauty harmonises. The imbalances emerged in Ishmael and Esau, while the harmony fathered the 12 tribes of Israel. Ishmael and Esau are considered the spiritual roots of the Nations, deriving from the initial unrectified spiritual Realm of Tohu-Chaos, whose pristine Divine potential was too high to be contained in Existence, shattering its vessels which fell down into exile. The Israelites relate to the lower Realm of Tikun-Rectification. The Messianic Era for all people will embody both advantages of the high lights of Tohu in the rectified vessels of Tikun, when "all Nations will ascend the mountain of God". Edom, the progeny of Esau, corresponds to unrectified Gevurah-Strength, the waste of which vitalises the kelipot shells. Gevurah is the constricting force in Creation, allowing independent Existence, but also causing the initial vessels of Tohu to act independently and shatter. The Edomite Kings who reigned before any king in Israel, while also being historical people according to ''Peshat'', in Kabbalah both embody and symbolise the vessels of Tohu that shattered. The verses name eight kings, the breakages in the eight emotional sephirot from Daat to Malchut. Death is the lights-souls reascending and the vessel fragments falling, animated by remnant sparks of light. Of the eighth king, only Genesis says he died, as Malchut remained partially intact. The sparks of holiness animate Creation down to Material Existence. In the highest World Atziluth, the general root-sparks number 288, read out by gematria from Genesis 1:2–3:

And the Earth was chaos and void (the World of Tohu), with darkness upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered (מרחפת-"''Merachepet''", the sparks animating the fragments externally) over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light..(the World of Tikun, allowing stable reception of Divine revelation)

"''Merachepet''" divides into 288 (רפח) sparks animating within the מת-"dead"-fallen fragments.

Association with paradise

The Pardes system is often regarded as mystically linked to the word ''pardes'' (Hebrew פָּרְדֵּס), meaning orchard. "Pardes" is etymologically related to the English word "paradise", and the Quranic Firdaus (Arabic فِردَوس) among various other forms, in that they all share a common origin in an Old Iranian root, attested in the Avestan language as ''pairi.daêza-''.''New Oxford American Dictionary'' It occurs only three times in the Tanakh