Manejo Integrado de la Cochinilla (Dysmicoccus Brevipes) en piña

the middle of nothing is everything, the middle of everything nothing but the beginning that ends the ending that begins the ending that begins

all suffering in suffering the suffering of suffering, returning to the place it has never been

Before ’alef comes beit—in a nutshell, the wisdom of kabbalah. The parabolic utterance finds expression in what is presumably an older mythologoumenon preserved in Sefer ha-Bahir, long thought to be one of the earliest sources that contains, albeit in rudimentary fashion, the panoply of theosophic symbols ex- pounded by kabbalists through the generations.1

First, I will provide a translation of the passage that has served as the basis for my reflections and, then, I will analyze its content philosophically, linking the salient images employed therein to other statements in the bahiric anthol- ogy. The intent is to elucidate the hermeneutical dilemma of the beginning: How does the beginning begin without having already begun? However, if the beginning cannot begin without having already begun, in what sense is it a be- ginning? The mythic saying of the Bahir, which may well tell us something originary about kabbalistic epistemology, relates in the first instance to this on- tological problem.

R. Refumai said and expounded:

“Why is ’alef at the head? For it2_{preceded everything, even Torah.}

And why is beit next to it? Because it was first.3

And why does it have a tail? To show the place whence it was, and there are some who say that from there the world is sustained.

Why is gimmel third? For it is third and to indicate that it bestows kindness (gomelet fesed).”4

But did R. Aqiva not say, “Why is gimmel third? Because it bestows (gomelet), grows (megaddelet), and sustains (meqayyemet), as it says ‘The child grew up and was weaned’ (wa-yigddal ha-yeled wa-yiggamal) (Gen. 21:8).”

He said to him, “This is [the intent of ] my very words, for [the gimmel] grew and bestowed kindness (gamal fesed), its dwelling was with him, and it was a ‘confidant with him’ (Prov. 8:30).”

Why is there a tail at the bottom of gimmel?

He said to them, “The gimmel has a head on top and it resembles a pipe. Just as the pipe draws from what is above and discharges to what is below, so gimmel draws by way of the head and discharges by way of the tail, and that is gimmel.”5

Preserved in this text is what I presume to be an ancient mytholo- goumenon according to which the array of divine powers can be represented by the first three letters of the Hebrew alphabet.6 _{’Alef is the foundation, “at}

the head,” ba-ro’sh,7_{but not the beginning, tefillah, for the beginning is beit,}

which is second. And what of gimmel? It is third, exemplifying a threefold character, bestowing, growing, and sustaining. At last, we come to a letter that coincides with its numerical value, for ’alef is first but not the beginning, and beit the beginning that is second.8_{Does the first not begin? how is the begin-}

ning not first?

Addressing the history of Western thought in an essay published in 1954, Heidegger contrasted “beginning” (Beginn) and “origin” (Anfang):

The beginning is, rather, the veil that conceals the origin—indeed an un- avoidable veil. If that is the situation, then oblivion shows itself in a differ- ent light. The origin keeps itself concealed in the beginning.9

It lies beyond the scope of this study to conduct a systematic investiga- tion of the terms Beginn and Anfang (to which one would also have to add Ursprung) in Heidegger’s thought.10_{Suffice it for our purposes to focus on the}

other. Before continuing with this analysis let me acknowledge that I am ex- tracting Heidegger’s terminology from its original context, which concerned the history of Western philosophy. This is a legitimate move, however, since Heidegger himself plainly and repeatedly affirmed a parallelism between the history of being and the history of thought.11

How, then, can we formulate the difference between beginning and ori- gin? Beginning is the advent of something that begins at a discrete juncture in the past and that will be brought to a conclusion at some time in the fu- ture. A pattern of causal sequentiality is presumed and grafted unto the ag- gregate of experiences believed to take shape within the plane of horizontal temporality. What occurs at the onset, however, becomes increasingly less sig- nificant in the unraveling of the event to be appropriated as temporally sig- nificant. As Heidegger puts it in another context, “being a beginning (Beginn) involves being left behind in the course of the process. The beginning is there just to be abandoned and passed over. The beginning is always surpassed and left behind in the haste of going further.”12

Origin, by contrast, is not an occurrence that commences and terminates at a specific time and place; it is the ground “from which something arises or springs forth.”13_{It is the point of departure “from and by which something is}

what it is and as it is. What something is, as it is, we call its essence or nature. The origin (Ursprung) of something is the source of its nature.”14_{Essence and}

nature must not be understood in a static sense (logocentrically, one might say). On the contrary, the origin comes to be in the course of the event and it is thus fully clear only at the end. Reflecting on the Greek word arche, in which one should hear the resonance of origin (Ursprung) and incipience (An- fang), Heidegger notes that it is “that from which something emerges, but that from which something emerges retains, in what emerges and its emerg- ing, the determination of motion and the determination of that toward which emergence is such.”15_{The origin, therefore, “is a way-making (Bahnung) for}

the mode and compass of emergence. Way-making goes before and yet, as the incipient (Anfängliche), remains behind by itself. . . . In this we perceive that from whence there is emergence is the same as that back toward which eva- sion returns.”16_{On the way there are perspectives, but solely in the end is the}

indeterminacy determined, and only then can we speak of destiny, of having been sent-forth in historical resoluteness to chart the circular extension of pri- mordial temporality, that is, time in its originary sense as the expectation of what is recollected in the recollection of what is expected.17

Beginning and origin, therefore, have diametrically opposite trajectories: beginning is what stands behind us; origin what stands before us. The origin invades the future by awaiting us in the past, advancing beyond all that is to

come by returning to where it has been.18_{To see what lies ahead one must be}

mindful of what is at the head. Beginning is a veil that shrouds what has come before, and thus origin keeps itself concealed in the beginning.

Suprisingly, in the words of Heidegger, I have found a key to unlock the bahiric symbolism. The beginning, we can say, is beit, ’alef the origin. Beit, ac- cordingly, is a veil that conceals ’alef, but can what is hidden be veiled?19_How

does the (un)veiling of the veiled take place? Through the agency of the third, gimmel, the conduit that draws from ’alef and disseminates to beit.20_{For the}

moment, we must concentrate on origin and beginning, and thus return to ’alef and beit, laying gimmel aside.

If we are to maintain the distinction between “origin” and “beginning,” the origin cannot begin nor can the beginning originate. To render this in the bahiric idiom, what is “at the head,” ba-ro’sh, is not the “beginning,” tefillah, even though there is no way to the head but through the beginning. To know ’alef, we start with beit, for before ’alef there is nothing but beit. That is why Torah begins with beit and not ’alef, the beginning that is before the origin that precedes it.21_{The beginning is second and thus points to that which}

comes before. Thus, we are told, the function of the scribal tail on the back- side of the beit is “to show the place whence it was, and there are some that say that from there the world is sustained.”22_{The beit—a trace of what was}

before it was after23_{—reverts back to ’alef, the source that sustains the world}

through bestowing, a quality that is attributed to gimmel on account of its et- ymological link to gomel.24_{The secret open of ’alef is manifest in the open se-}

cret of gimmel.25

To begin, then, we start with beit, the beginning that is second. Ironically, the first discourse about beit that appears in the redacted form of Bahir begins somewhere in the middle of a conversation that has already begun, we know not when:

And why does it26_{begin (matfil) with beit? Just as [the word] berakhah}

begins.

How do we know the Torah is called berakhah? As it says, “And the sea27_is

full of the Lord’s blessing” (u-male’ birkat yhwh yam) (Deut. 33:23), and the [word] yam is nothing other than Torah, as it says “and broader than the sea” (u-refavah minni-yam) (Job 11:9).

What is [the meaning of ] “full of the Lord’s blessing” (male’ birkat yhwh)? In every place, beit is blessing (berakhah),28_{as it is said “In the begin-}

ning” (bere’shit), and the [word] “beginning” (re’shit) is nothing other than wisdom (fokhmah), and wisdom is nothing other than blessing, as

it is said “And God blessed Solomon,”29_{“And the Lord gave wisdom to}

Solomon” (1 Kings 5:26).

To what may this be compared? To a king who married his daughter to his son, and he gave her to him as a gift, and said to him, “Do with her as you please!”

What can we heed (mai mashma’)? That berakhah is from the word berekh, as it says, “to me every knee shall bend” (ki li tikhra‘ kol berekh) (Isa. 45:23), the place to which every knee bows down.

To what may these be compared? To ones who seek to see the face of the king but they do not know the whereabouts of the king. They ask about the house of the king initially (sho’alim beito shel melekh tefillah), and af- terward they ask about the king. Therefore, “to me every knee shall bend,” even the supernal ones, “every tongue shall pledge loyalty” (ibid.).30

Torah begins with beit, for the word for “blessing,” berakhah, begins with beit, and Torah is blessing, for blessing is associated with yam, the “sea,” and the sea is symbolic of Torah, for Torah is the fullness of divine blessing, male’ birkat yhwh, that is, the fullness (male’) that is the blessing of the Lord (birkat yhwh), the beginning (re’shit) that is the wisdom (fokhmah) given to Solomon. The bestowal of wisdom is compared parabolically to the gifting of the daughter as a conjugal offering to the son by their mutual father.31_{From this}

parable the reader is encouraged to heed the connection between berakhah, “blessing,” and berekh, “knee.” How so? The “blessing” is the “place to which every knee bows down.” But what is this place? To understand we need an- other parable: Before one asks about the king, one must first ask about the dwelling of the king, sho’alim beito shel melekh tefillah. The house about which one initially inquires (sho’alim tefillah) is the beginning (tefillah) that shelters but also exposes the king.32_{To this house prayers are directed in bend-}

ing the knee and pledging the tongue.

The blessing is the dwelling, the sheltering-exposing; the question of its whereabouts marks the beginning of the path. Here philological attunement is most expedient: The word tefillah stems from the root f_{ll, to perforate, to}

make a hole, to be an opening. At the beginning, in the beginning, is the opening. What can we say of this opening? That it opens and as a conse- quence—or is it cause—it is opened. But what is (en)closed in the opening that can be further opened? An opening, no doubt, but how might an open- ing be opened if it is already opened? To open the open, the open must be en- closed, for the opening of opening is enclosure, the circumference that encir-

cles the center, the limit from without that delimits the limit within. Begin- ning, the beit with which Torah begins (matf_{il), is the opening that encloses}

the enclosing that opens, the questioning utterance that silences the silence of ’alef by exposing the shelter of the sheltered exposure.

Why is beit closed on every side and open in front?33_{To teach you that it is}

the house of the world (beit ‘olam). Thus, the Holy One, blessed be he, is the place of the world but the world is not his place.34_{Do not read beit but}

bayit, as it is written “Through wisdom a house is built” (Prov. 24:3).35

The shape of beit—closed on three sides and open in front—attests that wisdom/Torah is beit ‘olam, that is, the enframing opening of the world.36

Borrowing another insight of Heidegger, nature may be viewed as the clear- ing that allows beings to appear.37 _{More profoundly, Heidegger notes that}

phusis, “nature,” signifies the juncture (Fügung) of openness and self-conceal- ment. “The occurring of openness allows for self-concealing to occur within its own occurring of openness; self-concealment can only occur, however, if it allows the occurring of openness to ‘be’ this openness.” To understand this co- incidence of opposites one must be able to elucidate what the “enigma of the essential ambivalence of phusis conceals,” and this would be tantamount to naming the “essence of the beginning.”38

To think the essence of the beginning in bahiric terms is to ruminate over beit, enclosed opening of opened enclosure. The author of the aforecited text considered the question from the perspective of the shape of the letter. Beit is enclosed on three sides but open in front, signifying that it is beit ‘olam, the dwelling within which temporal beings come to be in passing-away and pass away in coming-to-be. The measure of this dwelling in the stream of coming- to-be and passing-away is determined by and from wisdom, gnostically con- ceived as a potency of God, but its way is open, for in front there is empty space and new possibilities abound. From the kabbalistic perspective this is the intent of the rabbinic dictum that God is the place of the world but the world is not his place. That is, all things in time-space are God even if God is not all things in time-space.39_{The notion of world implicit in the hoary myth}

is dependent on the paradox of determinate indeterminacy,40_{that is, a struc-}

ture that is at once closed and open, formed and formless.41_{This is the eso-}

teric significance of the orthography of beit, the mark that inscribes the be- ginning that is second. The inscription, however, is concomitantly an erasure, for the beit that begins Torah veils the ’alef whence it originates. The role of

Torah as preserving the concealment of that which must be concealed is al- luded to in the following bahiric text:

R. Bun said, “Why is it written ‘From eternity (me-‘olam) I was fashioned, out of the origin (me-ro’sh), before the earth’ (Prov. 8:23). What is ‘from eternity’ (me-‘olam)? The matter that must be hidden (lehe‘alem) from the entire world, as it is written ‘he also puts the world in their hearts’ (Eccles. 3:11), do not read ‘the world’ (ha-‘olam) but ‘concealment’ (he‘elem).42_The

Torah said, ‘I was first (qiddamti) in order to be the origin of the world (ro’sh

le-‘olam), as it says ‘From eternity I was fashioned, out of the origin.’”43

Based on a play of words upheld in an older midrashic reading of the word le-‘olam, “everlastingly,” in Exodus 3:15 as le‘alem, “to conceal,”44_the

author of the above passage connects ha-‘olam and he‘elem. Insofar as ‘olam connotes both temporal perpetuity and spatial extension, an intrinsic link is forged between three ostensibly disparate concepts, worldhood, eternity, and concealment. The rallying point of the three concepts is Torah, which is iden- tified with the wisdom that is the subject of the verse “From eternity I was fashioned, out of the origin, before the earth” (Prov. 8:23). The expressions me-‘olam, “from eternity,” and “by means of the origin,” me-ro’sh, are synony- mous. The intent of the verse, therefore, is to affirm that Torah derives from the origin (ro’sh, which is the ’alef) that precedes the beginning (beit). Only if we appreciate this will we be in a position to comprehend the significance of the assertion that me-‘olam should be interpreted as lehe‘alem, “to be hidden.” In proclaiming its primordiality, Torah is asserting, albeit cryptically, that it conceals the “matter that must be hidden from the entire world,” which is the head, illimitable origin, whence it springs forth. This, too, is the esoteric sense of the statement attributed to Torah, “I was first in order to be the origin of the world.” The phrase that I translated as “origin of the world” is ro’sh le- ‘olam. I opted for a more literal rendering, but this obscures the intended meaning. The word le-‘olam must be vocalized as le‘alem, “to conceal.” Once that is understood then the expression assumes an altogether different va- lence. Ro’sh le-‘olam should be read as ro’sh le‘alem, that is, “the origin that one must conceal.” Torah, which declares itself as the first (qiddamti) of all enti- ties,45_{hides the origin before its beginning. Here we recall the comment of}

Heidegger cited above, “The origin keeps itself concealed in the beginning.” More of this beginning is disclosed in another unit that I consider ex- pressive of the older layer of tradition:

R. Amora sat and expounded, “Why is it written ‘And the sea is full of the Lord’s blessing, take possession on the west and south’ (Deut. 33:23)? In every place beit is blessed, for it is the fullness (ha-male’), as it says ‘And the sea is full of the Lord’s blessing’ (u-male’ birkat yhwh). From there he gives drink to the needy and from the fullness he took counsel at the beginning (tefillah).”

To what may this be compared? To a king who wanted to build his palace with hard granite. He cut out rocks and carved stones, and there emerged for him a well of abundant living water. The king said, “Since I have flowing water, I will plant a garden and I will delight in it (’eshta‘ashe‘a

bo), the whole world and I, as it is written ‘I was with him as a confidant, a

source of delight (sha‘ashu‘im) every day’ (Prov. 8:30).”

The Torah said, “For two thousand years I was delighting in his lap (be-heiqo sha‘ashu‘im), as it says, ‘every day’ (yom yom), and his day (yomo) is one thousand years, as it says ‘For in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday’ (Ps. 90:4).”46_{From here forward it is temporarily (le-‘ittim), as it}

says “in every time” (Prov. 8:30), but the remainder (ha-she’ar) everlastingly (le-‘olam), as it says “my glory I will hold in for you” (Isa. 48:9).

What is “my glory” (tehillati)? As it is written, “a praise (tehillah) of David, I will extol you” (Ps. 145:1).

What is the praise? For “I will extol you” (’aromimkha). And what is