What Is Poetry: A. Presenting the Problem (Column 107)

That Avidan whom you mentioned wrote a poem whose words are roughly (or exactly): A poem is whatever I decide is a poem.

In one of the previous posts about attitudes toward women, I referred you in a comment to the song by Eli Mohar and Yoni Rechter, At Eye Level, and your response was (roughly or exactly) that the song contains no clear treatment of the woman’s place (the traditional versus the modern one).

And it seems to me that this is one of the characteristics of a poem. A good poem photographs an image or a moment that arouses thought/feeling (not learning) in many readers. The poem is not supposed to express a judgment about a phenomenon in one direction. (And of course so too with prose, except that prose is supposed to create a discussion among different perspectives and present an overall picture that addresses all the details, whereas poetry is not.)

The point is that even the Bible—certainly in its narrative parts, though not only there—falls under the category of poetry in this sense. For example, when there are different descriptions of the creation of the world or of the end of the confrontation between Hezekiah and the kingdom of Assyria, the Bible does not purport to present a picture that clarifies how to deal with the gaps.

And indeed it seems to me—from a number of things you have written—that your attitude toward the Bible and its figures is a reserved one for this reason.

I’ve heard that even the concepts of “time” and “light” don’t really have a clear-cut definition, and many other terms in physics as well. Why should it be different in the humanities?

If I’m not mistaken, in your book Two Wagons and More (in several notes) you did not agree with Quine at all.
Has the first mishnah not budged from its place?

Indeed, quite a few years.

Meanwhile I was reminded of Monsieur Jourdain from Molière’s The Bourgeois Gentleman. When he learns about the difference between prose and poetry, he exclaims: “Good heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it at all.”

I think that maybe this is a characteristic of poems, but not an essential characteristic, and certainly not the fundamental one. A poem sometimes describes nothing at all, not even one aspect of the subject, but at most awakens feelings/experiences/insights in the reader. But it is true that such awakening is not “learning” (as you wrote). That is one of my aims in this discussion: to clarify what I said about Hasidism.

First, time and light are not concepts but physical objects (in my view, time too is such a thing). Therefore the role of definition here is not similar to its role with respect to a poem or any literary structure. When you stand in front of light, it is self-evident to you that this is light. When you measure time, you know exactly what you are measuring.
Second, basic concepts are never defined linearly, as I wrote here. But statements about them in physics are unambiguous and empirically testable. That creates clarification of them, albeit not linearly but circularly.

I don’t remember that. Can you point me to it?

There is here a willingness to give from among your strongest tools: the power of a comprehensive, reasoned, and as precise as possible definition of a concept. “He who has a generous eye will be blessed.”

I would like to propose a definition for poetry. First, a preface: every concept has two main aspects: its experience (our intimate acquaintance with it), and the form in which it is expressed outwardly (usually in a “name” or “term,” though there are concepts expressed in other ways, such as emotions).

For example: “heat” is familiar to us in both these respects; when we felt it with our senses and at the same time learned the name of that experience (parents making a frightened or pained face and saying “hot, ouch, hot”), we internalized how that concept “appears” from within and how it is expressed outwardly.
This is an easy example, because it deals with a relatively coarse concept. But it seems that the principle is also true of more abstract concepts (for example, the concept of “right and left” is also acquired by attaching a term to an experience).

For this reason, concepts can have different levels of precision and clarity, according to the fit between the experience and the expression. The more specific the expression is to a particular experience, the clearer and more precise the concept becomes; and the more the expression serves a broad set of experiences—or conversely, when one experience is given several names and expressions—ambiguity arises in the concept.

It seems to me that poetry uses unclear concepts (mainly through strange associations and dissociations), and thereby leaves part of the creation to the reader. He is asked to sharpen the concepts presented to him (that is, to assign a given term to a single experience), and thus to give the text a more concrete meaning in his own eyes.
Of course, each reader will translate the concepts according to his abilities and desires, and it is quite possible that the poem will be understood in several different ways by different readers.

Shalom aleichem.
It is worth discussing whether he did not know that he was speaking prose, or whether he knew but did not know that it was called prose. I think the distinction between these two possibilities is not sharp, since terminology usually helps in understanding concepts. On this matter, see the interesting discussion I opened on Otzar HaChochma: http://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?whichpage=1&topic_id=1083983&forum_id=1364

I think the characteristics you mentioned are expressions of something more fundamental, which I will clarify later. As for your distinction itself, see the thread on Otzar HaChochma that I linked to in my reply to Hillel Ben Shahar above.

There is a complexity in seeking a definition that you have not sufficiently addressed. A definition is a kind of axiom, some assumption that cannot be put to the test or disputed; it is not the product of a logical process or empirical tests. Especially since poetry is something of a spiritual subject, bordering on the “sciences of nonsense,” expecting a clear definition is a bit excessive.
For example, you refuse (and rightly so, in my opinion) to accept “postmodernist” definitions of poetry, such as “whatever I regard as poetry,” and the like. But you have no real refutation of that definition; you just disagree intuitively. And therefore when you define (in the next post, with God’s help and without making a vow) what poetry is, you will ignore many texts that are defined—in ordinary language—as poetry, and you will claim that the masses are mistaken, and so on. In short, there is really nothing to discuss regarding definitions, unless you are asking what is called poetry in street language—and you probably won’t get an answer to that. The only possibility I see is to ask why the Torah/Bible calls something poetry.
In short, one simply creates a definition and is not really bound by anything, and one can always argue that what is called poetry today is a mistake due to superficiality and misunderstanding, and so on (just as many concepts are distorted nowadays; cf. “God”).

I would characterize poetry (intuitively, as above) by: a. concise and precise language (unless the author sold his soul for a mess of pottage to the structure of the poem and its rhymes, etc., as Judah Halevi criticizes Arabic poetry in the Kuzari); b. more concealed than revealed (in prose the author details and explains, whereas in poetry he only points in a direction, touches and does not touch); c. connected to a and b—the interpretation of poetry is many-faceted, and it is even possible that the poet intended all of them.
These characteristics certainly fit the fact that the Torah is called poetry.

An interesting and enlightening discussion, thank you very much!

In my opinion the difference between poetry and prose is a very significant one. Prose deals with the contents themselves, with the body of the matter. Poetry, by contrast, deals with itself; that is, its purpose is not to convey some message, but it itself, and the form of its sentences, is the message itself.

Recently I was thinking about a similar topic, the difference between a painting and a caricature—or why we need caricature at all. The answer is simple (for those with synthetic thinking): painting deals with reproducing reality (that too is broad, but for the sake of the discussion it is enough). Caricature, by contrast, is essentially about the distortions. Through his work, the artist constructs a moral or insight that underlies the drawing itself. Of course one can also absorb information through the drawing, but that is a second stage.

What does the rabbi say?

Nonsense* 😉

Actually, it seems to me that the rabbi’s poem will succeed, certainly in a place where this thing does:

I order a taxi, take one more turn around the house
Check that I haven’t forgotten anything
Passport in my pocket, in another second I’m already in the sky
Oh how pleased I am right now

Flight five three two five
I’m already excited
Suddenly you come up to me
Hi, hello, window seat
Would you like to switch, you quietly ask
I’m not sure
So come on, let’s switch for now
Laughing, you steal a smile from me
The pilot announces
In another second we’re already in the sky
Fasten your seatbelts

Flight five…
The plane lands, we’re still holding hands
Collecting our suitcases, maybe
Go ahead and order a taxi, you smile at the sky
A love like this is surely no mistake

Fasten your seatbelts

An interesting test case—there is a Hebrew translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey into prose (by Aroeti), and there are translations that preserve the poetry. The obvious difference is that the poetic translations preserve the meter while Aroeti does not, and that is in fact also the reason Aroeti switched to prose—he thought that preserving the meter while also translating accurately was too difficult a task. Even so, it seems to me that the reader feels there is a big difference between the two translations (even if one were to divide Aroeti’s lines in a quasi-poetic way). Of course, the content is identical, so that is not what makes the difference.

Hello Yochai.
It is hard for me to respond to prophecies (what I am going to do, and what I will certainly say). So I suggest we postpone the discussion until after the next posts and then talk.
One important point that is very essential to the discussion, and I am debating whether to introduce it now or leave it for the end, is the question of definition. You are very mistaken in your understanding of the concept of definition. In your remarks you refer to a mathematical definition, which is arbitrary and given to us (that is how it is usually presented. Immediately Elon will show up here and protest vigorously, with some degree of justice). But I am speaking about defining concepts, where there is right and wrong. If there is a concept that we use and understand, its definition needs to hit upon its true meaning. Here a definition is open to criticism and judgment as right or wrong.
In the first sense (the mathematical one), you can define a democratic state as a state that is close to the sea. That is of course your right, and no one should argue with you as long as you are consistent.
But in the second sense this is nonsense, because it does not capture the meaning of the concept “democratic state” as we use it.
I am looking for a definition of poetry in the second sense. And if I tell people that they are mistaken (and I do not think I will do that), it will only be in the sense that they are mistaken in understanding themselves; that is, they themselves should admit the mistake after I explain it to them, and understand that indeed they did not define correctly the concept they themselves are using.
What seems strange to me is that after you explained that definition is an arbitrary matter with no right or wrong, you yourself then propose a definition of poetry. Why do you think your subjective language interests anyone? Certainly if you do not claim anything on the basis of that definition (as is done in mathematics. There the definitions acquire meaning and importance because one builds theorems on them). If your intention was to define what the Torah/Bible calls poetry, that does not seem very interesting to me, nor is it my concern here.
As for your definition itself, which apparently aspired to be of the second type (and therefore neutralizes your first criticism), I still have more to say. I will get to it, with God’s help.

I agree partially (actually more than partially. A very יפה distinction in my opinion). I will clarify in the forthcoming installments.

The question is whether in English one should write Harta or Hartha?

By the way, this could certainly be a poem. Here he describes a situation, but as I noted in the post, a poem need not be fictional. So I would not dismiss it out of hand.

Indeed an illuminating example, the opposite of what they did to me in that thread. Perhaps we will return to it after the next installments, because it seems to me to challenge my claims somewhat.

“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite” (Paul Dirac).
While searching for the wording of that quote I came across another quote on the same issue:
The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into the heavens while the mathematician tries to get the heavens into his head.” ― G.K. Chesterton

If one needs to elaborate, the intention in both sayings is that poetry is not meant to convey information but to sharpen feelings that accompany the content (of course now it remains to be examined whether these sayings belong to the first domain or the second). The sharpening of feelings is created through accompaniment by music, rhymes, rhythm, embedding familiar expressions, or using expressions out of context (which borders on other forms of artistic text).

Hello Michi. Following your response regarding definitions: what makes a definition correct or successful? That it accurately reflects common language? That if we held an election it would win?
For example, I do not see Homer’s writings as poetry but as a story in a certain meter, so would you argue that I am wrong because in human language it is called poetry?
Perhaps I simply do not grasp the concept of definition as you do; I would be very grateful if you could clarify it.

What makes the definition of a physical concept correct? Its fit with reality. The same applies here. Sometimes common language reflects reality and sometimes the people are mistaken. One indication is that people themselves can sometimes understand that they were mistaken after it is explained to them. But I will answer all this in detail in the coming installments, and there is no point in anticipating what comes later.

I liked it. But of course these are not constructive definitions, only characteristics at most.
As for the second paragraph of your remarks, I definitely agree, and I will expand on it in later installments. I think that in the short discussion so far several formulations have already come up that are really quite close to my proposal, and I am glad that for other people this comes more easily than it did for me. But as I said, I will try to do this later in a more systematic and orderly way (if only for the methodological lesson).

It seems to me that written poetry serves as a notation for spoken poetry. And the difference between spoken poetry and ordinary speech is the music, and especially the rhythm. Therefore, when writing rhymes, there is no need to divide into lines, as in the introductions of the Rishonim to the Pentateuch and the like. But when there are no rhymes, one needs the visual line-break to signal a break in the reading rhythm. 

It turns out that the distinction is between the psychological effects of oral poetry and those of ordinary speech. 

Therefore Master Yoda is half a poet, and so too, mutatis mutandis, Hillel the Elder. And all the mishnayot are something like this in part, unlike the halakhot of Maimonides. That begins orally and this in writing.

Thank you very much for the interesting topic you raised in the post!

I would like to offer an alternative approach (perhaps not especially original…) to the definition of concepts in general.
In my view, the idea (perhaps rooted in the Aristotelian tradition) that there are essential properties that make a concept what it is somewhat works against us here.
It may be that concepts are defined in a somewhat pluralistic way.
That is: there is a very large heap of characteristics, some of greater weight and some of less, some directly connected to one another and some only indirectly; and even when only some of the characteristics are present, one can still see this as some instance of the concept.
For example, let us take a simpler case. Even for a concept like “chair” it is very difficult to give a rigid definition. Every definition we offer seems to miss some chairs. There are chairs without four legs; chairs not made of wood; chairs not intended for sitting at all (but created merely for decoration, for example); and chairs not artificially made at all.
The alternative I am proposing is this: if a critical mass of properties from a rather large pool of properties is present (when the mass is critical is another question…), then we have before us a chair. Thus, there may be two objects for which it would be very hard to show common properties, and yet we would still call them both chairs.

Likewise with poetry. Each of the many characteristics mentioned in the article can be part of the large pool of characteristics of poetry, and there need not necessarily be a direct connection between one characteristic and another (though there is necessarily an indirect connection—they are connected through a third characteristic).
Thus it is possible that we call a short story written in short, vocalized lines a poem mainly because of its external form, while at the same time we call a completely different text poetry mainly because it is customarily accompanied by a melody, or because its meaning is vague and allusive, or because it was written by a poet, or for a thousand and one other reasons that do not always have a direct connection between them.

Ah, and one last important thing: it may be that the solution I am proposing is the easy one; perhaps it even stems from ‘intellectual laziness.’ But none of that still rules out the possibility that it is the correct solution. In short, sometimes דווקא the easier and simpler explanations are the correct ones…

I looked again and saw that the remarks are not quite so sharp. My apologies.
In the second edition, page 49 in the note, and page 437 note 69 (and from what I understood, you had to assume not like him in order to justify your claims there).

Hello Rabbi Michael,
It would be worthwhile to look at the books of Korotio and Aryeh Shirao regarding definitions; I hope you will find an answer there. If possible, I will post it here.
Second, regarding postmodernism: Baruch Kurzweil, Victor Fark, and other scholars explained that after World War II a great crisis occurred, such that the age has difficulty expressing itself, and consequently art and philosophy (for example, Derrida’s obscurity) become opaque and meaningless.
By the way, this was one of Kurzweil’s main claims against Zach and his generation. He argued against them that it is impossible to create art for art’s sake, because in the end it is emptied of all content and becomes enslaved to externals. One can see this quite tangibly: the poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg, Shlonsky, and Alterman is much clearer than that of Zach and his generation.

As far as I understand, I tend to agree at least partially. I will elaborate later.

I completely accept what you say. Even in medicine (and certainly in psychiatry) it is common to propose such measures for various illnesses (if seven out of ten conditions are met). But usually these are not definitions but characterizations. In medicine too, these criteria do not define the illness; they merely indicate its existence. Usually, when there is a concept with a meaning, even if it appears in several forms, there is one underlying meaning behind them. The complexity is usually on the level of the appearances, not in the definition of the concept itself.
Therefore one cannot define poetry through: either it is a ballad or an epic or a lyric poem or a Shakespearean play. Nor can you say that poetry is anything fragmented, or rhymed, or metrical, or set to melody, in varying proportions of those components. Those are not definitions of poetry. At most you can say that all these are appearances of poetry, but that is not the definition of the concept. Therefore the assumption is that behind these appearances there is a concept that should be defined.
It is worth discussing whether this is always correct. For example, the concept of democracy is commonly thought to have several characteristics: separation of powers, civil rights, voting rights, freedom, etc. But here we are not dealing with several forms of appearance, but with a combination of several characteristics that together constitute the definition of the concept. True, we may be willing to recognize a state as democratic even if some of the characteristics appear in a lower degree—so there is some flexibility. But even here, in my opinion, the definition is fairly sharp.

Thanks, but I have a bit of trouble with riddle-like writing.

Two more interesting cases I thought of:

1.
Joshua 12. Here we have a grocery list (well, not a grocery list, but a list) that received line breaks and thereby became poetry (unless we understand that the lineation really does not reflect poetry). True, Homer too has lists (the catalogue of ships is especially well known), but there it is part of an epic and not an independent poetic passage that is nothing but a list.
I do not think the author was merely joking, like Muad’Dib above, but that he really saw this as poetry. It seems to me we can learn from this about the subjectivity of poetry: at that time, such a thing was considered poetry. But we need not go so far as emptying the concept of content such that poetry is whatever I decide. Presumably the author’s contemporaries saw this as poetry because it stirred something in them. If we define poetry (also) by what it arouses in the reader (let us suppose for the sake of argument a definition like: a passage that uses some stylistic means in order to arouse powerful emotions), then clearly the definition will be reader-dependent, but it still remains a definition with content.

2. Rav Kook’s poem on the laws of Hanukkah (and similar pieces).
Here it seems to me that most readers, then as now, would not really see this as a poem. It makes use of stylistic devices found in poetry, but it itself is not a poem. It seems that poets invent all kinds of techniques to help them write something worthy of being called poetry, so those techniques do indeed become an important characteristic of poetry and something that greatly contributes to poeticity—but those same techniques can also be used to write other things, something one might call ‘a poem by external appearance.’

I agree partially with these remarks, and I estimate they will enter into the picture I describe later. We can return to them after I finish and see what they mean.

Is there a problem with defining poetry according to the writer’s purpose?
For example, a text written with the aim of arousing emotion in the reader (as opposed to expressing an opinion or conveying new information).
That is probably not a precise definition, but I think that is the direction.

Do you mean what I wrote above, or poetry in general in the postmodern style?

No. I meant what you wrote. I didn’t understand a word.

There is no principled problem. The question is whether it is correct. In my opinion, it is partially correct.

Thank you very much.
I hadn’t thought of that.
If possible, after you present your view next week, I would ask you to address Rav Kook’s beautiful text that appears right here below the vine. “The deficiency . . .”
It is a beautiful passage with wonderful words that certainly pluck at my heartstrings every time I see it.
But it is not poetry.
By contrast, the words “Human being, ascend upward, ascend… and they will find you at once” (by Bini Landau), which Rav Kook wrote, are definitely poetry.
(In my humble opinion, of course—everyone according to his own feelings.)
It would be interesting whether your definition will be able to distinguish between them.
Thanks again

If the concept of ars poetica has been raised here, perhaps it would be fitting to bring a few Hasidic passages that deal with the Hasidic “teachings” themselves:

It is brought in Hekhal Yitzhak, parashat Yitro, “Father, this is what is written in the Torah”:
I heard what happened with the holy Rabbi, Rabbi Meir of Premishlan, of blessed memory, who said a Torah teaching at his table interpreting a certain verse in a way that would draw salvations and blessings to Israel. Indeed, his interpretation of the verse was very forced, and one of those present was a Torah scholar who found it difficult: why did that holy rabbi need to force the interpretation of the verse so much? Better that he leave the verse in its plain sense and bless Israel with salvations and blessings as he wished. Then the holy rabbi sensed this and answered him: It is stated in Yoreh De’ah, siman 240, סעיף 11: “If one sees that his father is not acting properly, he should not say to him, ‘You have transgressed the words of the Torah,’ but rather he should say, ‘Father, this is what is written in the Torah,’ and he will understand.” Now since the Creator, blessed be He, is our Father and our King, it is not proper to say anything to Him directly; rather, one must interpret the blessings within the verse in the Torah, and then say: Father, this is what is written in the Torah.

Noam Elimelech, Bemidbar, parashat Mattot:
In another way: “And Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes … this is the thing that the Lord has commanded” (30:2). It is stated in the Gemara (see Sifrei Mattot ch. 2): all the prophets prophesied with “Thus says…,” but Moses was added to them in that he prophesied with the phrase “This is the thing.” To understand the difference between them, and what practical difference it makes in which language they prophesied*—it seems that the way of the great righteous man, in whom the spirit of God speaks because of his great holiness,* is that one who hears his words imagines that just as his holy words are spoken, so they are written in the holy Torah, and he brings verses that support the words of the righteous man, and he says regarding the words of the righteous man, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded”—that is, these words of the righteous man are the very things spoken by the mouth of the Lord. And there are other righteous men who are not on so high a level, so that all who hear them would imagine that their words are written in the Torah; rather, they testify about their words that they are upright and true words and the words of the living God, but they do not find them written in the Torah.* And this is “all the prophets prophesied with ‘Thus’”: that is, they testified concerning their words, saying, “Thus it is proper and right.” Added to them was Moses, who prophesied with the phrase “This is the thing”: that is, they would say of his words, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded,” meaning that the spirit of God spoke in him to such a degree that all testified that his words were words of Torah and that they are written there.* And this is “And Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying: This is the thing”—that is, as above, that they should speak Torah with cleaving to God to the children of Israel, saying “This is the thing,” meaning that the children of Israel should say of their words, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded.” Understand this.* (By the way, the asterisks are in the original; there is an amusing discussion about them, but this is not the place.)

Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Bemidbar, parashat Chukat (he is speaking mainly about an allusion by gematria):
He further alludes in “Therefore those who speak in parables say, ‘Come to Heshbon’” [Numbers 21:27]: sometimes in the mystical intentions some secret is written in gematria, and when the word does not add up to that number, it says “with the kolel,” and sometimes “with the letters,” and we must understand this. But in my humble opinion it seems to be by way of parable. Why a parable? Because the speaker understands that they cannot understand the matter as it is, unless he explains it to them in terms of something familiar to them, and from that they will grasp the matter and it will enter their hearts. So too here: in truth, the Ari, of blessed memory, and all the righteous of the generation who open an opening in the holy Torah to understand something and state a gematria for it, understood by their holy spirit the root of that matter, that that secret is in that thing. But in order to clothe the matter before the listeners, they need to express it in terms of gematria; therefore they always say according to what it amounts to, or with the words and vowels, in order to clothe the matters so that they can understand that this secret is alluded to there. This, one may say, is hinted in the verse, for so is the number of the secret. Thus he said: “Therefore”—that is, concerning some secret, when men of renown want to reveal it, “those who speak in parables say”—that is, those who expound the Torah in the mode of parable, as above—“Come to Heshbon,” meaning that they bring it into numerical reckoning and gematria in order to make them understand the secret of that matter, how that secret is hinted there. But in truth they understood it from the light of the matter itself that shines to them from the blessed Lord in His great kindness, enabling them to understand that that secret is in that matter, and the enlightened will understand.

Another vort I heard, and I searched for its source but have not yet found it:
The Kotzker Rebbe interpreted: “When you go out to war against your enemies”—when you fight against the evil inclination, “and the Lord your God delivers him into your hand,” the Torah is placed into your hand so that you may interpret it as you wish in every way. But in a “voluntary war,” when there is no spiritual benefit from the vort, “the verse speaks of”—the vort has to be “written in the Torah,” and not inserted with a “shoehorn”… (literally “shoe spoon,” a Yiddish expression for a Torah interpretation that works only with great strain.)

Another “story” whose exact details I tried to verify, but have not yet found:
A disciple of the Toldot Adam of Biala met Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky. Rabbi Y. asked him to say a Torah teaching from his rabbi, but that the Torah be real Torah, not “Hasidic Torah.” The Hasid decided to be witty and said to him: it is written in the verse, “Joseph is a fruitful son, a fruitful son by a spring.” And the meaning is: by what merit did Joseph gain “grace”? By guarding his eyes. Rabbi Y. smiled and rebuked him: but I told you to say serious Torah! The Hasid said to him: but this teaching is written in the Midrash! Rabbi Y. turned pale and was very distressed that he had disparaged something written in the Midrash.

Another interesting passage, which I already brought above, from Chatam Sofer on Shabbat 140b:
And by way of jest, according to what it seems to me, this custom arose among us of innovating far too many novelties, each person building an altar for himself, this one thus and that one thus. Perhaps we can find merit for ourselves in that the great sages of old, of blessed memory, decreed this, for they saw that forgetfulness was increasing in the world, to our great sorrow, and it was impossible to preserve one’s learning. But through the novelties on every page and folio, one thereby remembers everything, and “a surprising matter is remembered,” and experience testifies to us about this, and I know it in myself. So even if the novelty is not all that correct, it still helps against forgetfulness, as above. And perhaps this is the meaning of the Talmud: “We are like a finger in a pit when it comes to forgetfulness,” and the other adds, “And we are like a finger in wax when it comes to reasoning,” which on the face of it is not connected to the first statement. But according to the above it is fine: at first we were like a finger in a pit regarding forgetfulness; still, one could help by means of novelties. But now we are like a finger in wax regarding reasoning as well—so what more can be done? And it is known that olive oil restores one’s learning of seventy years, as explained at the end of Horayot; thus that young student says, “I do not have oil”—that is, memory, which is called by the name of olive oil. “Let us draw with notched water,” meaning by the doctrine of the notches known in our time—sharp and incisive—and understand this well.

You can raise this again after the next posts, and then we can address it.

I have a great deal to say about those passages, especially since if Hasidism is not useful and does not teach, then so too with ars-Hasidut, since it too is itself said in the manner of Hasidism. But here there are actually several claims worth addressing, and this is not the place to elaborate.

With God’s help, 4 Tevet 5778

Prof. Ron Kleinman, from the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University, notes (in his article “On the Torah as Poetry,” the weekly sheet of Bar-Ilan University, issue 152b, Simchat Torah, 5757) the exposition of Rabbah: “Even though his fathers left him a Torah scroll, it is a commandment for a person to write one of his own, as it is said: ‘And now write for yourselves this song’” (Sanhedrin 21b), from which it emerges that the entire Torah is perceived as poetry.

He proposes two characteristics of poetry that are found in the Torah:

(a)
‘Speech is monotonic, one-toned. Poetry, by contrast, is multiform and built on constant variation in tones. The glory of poetry lies in its ascending and descending scales. All its beauty lies in its departure from routine, from the monotonous sounds that constantly pass by our ears.

And indeed such is the way of the world: a person is not made to sing in the course of everyday routine. Poetry breaks forth precisely at special times, at moving or joyous events, when a person rises above routine… The Torah is therefore called poetry because of its capacity and power to elevate a person out of the world of matter, a limited and gray world, into the world of spirit, an infinite world, a world of freedom from the chains of impulse and habit.’

(b)
‘Poetry differs from speech also in that speech is a collection of chopped-up words, separated from one another, whereas the way of poetry is that it flows and joins the words into a single unit. More than that, speech will always be heard from the mouth of a single person… “Two voices are not heard together”… By contrast, in poetry—the more voices sing together in harmony, the greater the beauty and charm of the poetry…

It seems that there is a close link between seeing poetry as harmony and its function as praise and thanksgiving. Only when one comes to the realization that all the events and details in the world join together in one harmonious song… This is the special quality of the Torah of Israel, that all its commandments, with all their principles, details, and fine points—all were given by one God. Moreover, all the events of nature and history are directed by the Creator with intentional purpose and interwoven with one another in a kind of single harmonious song.’

And he concludes with the words of Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of the Arukh HaShulchan (in his introduction to Choshen Mishpat), who sees harmony even in the multiplicity of opinions and disputes: ‘And all the disputes of the Tannaim and Amoraim and Geonim and decisors are, in truth, for one who understands the matter properly, the words of the living God, and all of them have a place in the halakhah… Indeed, this is the glory of our holy and pure Torah, and the whole Torah is called poetry, and the glory of song is when the voices differ from one another—this is the essence of pleasantness’…’

***

It seems that the Torah is called ‘poetry’ because it creates harmony within a person himself and in his relations with the world and society. In the proper balance that the Torah creates among needs and values that complement one another, when each and every person and each and every value receives within the Torah (which, in the Maharal’s words, is ‘the order of the world’) its proper place and measure—the world is transformed from a storm of envy and competition into a unified, harmonious world.

With blessings, S. Tz. Lavinger

I have not read the article, but the quotations from it brought here are really not impressive at all, and I do not agree with them whatsoever. Is there no poetry that is torn, stormy, and battered? Is there only uplifting poetry? And conversely, is there no prose text that uplifts? (Have you ever read Martin Luther King’s speech? Or is that too poetry?) What marvelous order and harmony are there in the poetry of Yona Wallach? Or perhaps that is not poetry? Does Kant’s doctrine not bring fuller order and harmony to our thought? All this seems to me to be, at most, little homiletic flourishes for a sheva berakhot or a bar mitzvah, not a serious claim.

With God’s help, Friday eve of Vayigash 5778

To Rabbi M. A.—greetings,

The literal meaning of “Kant” is “song,” and likewise the Latin name of Song of Songs is “Canticanticorum”; however, the Torah, being a divine Torah, does this with greater depth and greater thoroughness. Great cultural works sharpen various feelings and values, and in this way they can serve as a tool that prepares the heart for a deeper understanding of the complete balance that appears in the Torah, “which, in the Maharal’s words, is the order of the world.”

With blessings for a peaceful Sabbath, S. Tz. Lavinger

Shatzal
Amazing
Have you ever thought of continuing to write Lights of the Response?

Unfortunately, only people from the humanities know the answer. Not sure they’ll cooperate.

The rabbi’s poem too is composed of a collection of sentences that have meaning. One should also examine the more extreme case of a collection of words arranged in a sentence with no meaning at all, and beyond that also examine a collection of vowels and consonants that do not even form words with meaning.

Just a small note, to Shatzal:
According to the plain meaning, the command “And now write for yourselves this song” does not refer to writing the entire Torah, but to writing the Song of Ha’azinu. So according to the plain meaning, the Torah is not “poetry” (as the commentators on the plain sense wrote there on the Torah).

And even according to the homiletic reading, there is no necessity to say that the Torah is called poetry; it depends how one understands that derashah. Here is a quotation from the notes in Torah Temimah (by Rabbi Baruch Epstein, son of the Arukh HaShulchan):

Torah Temimah, notes to Deuteronomy chapter 31, note 26:
And behold, it is not explained where the obligation to write the whole Torah is hinted at in the phrase “this song,” which according to the plain sense refers to the Song of Ha’azinu. And Maimonides in chapter 7, halakhah 2 of the laws of a Torah scroll wrote as follows: “It is a positive commandment for every individual to write a Torah scroll for himself, as it is said, ‘And now write for yourselves this song,’ meaning: write for yourselves a Torah that contains this song, for one does not write the Torah in separate sections.” End quote. Now as to what he wrote, “because one does not write sections,” there is no doubt that by this he meant to exclude an interpretation that the verse intends only that one write the Song of Ha’azinu and nothing more. To that he says that it is impossible to interpret it so, because one does not write the Torah in separate sections; so how could he write the section of Ha’azinu alone? And thus the commentators explained his view. See Tur, Yoreh De’ah, siman 270.

And as is well known, the Sha’agat Aryeh discussed this at length.
Even so, I do not agree with the claim of the Torah Temimah that you brought. If the Torah wanted us to write the whole Torah, why did it not command us to write the Torah, but rather “the song”? Therefore even according to this view, it seems to me that the Torah is called poetry, or at least expresses itself best in the mode of poetry. Though one could push back and say that really they wanted us to write only the song, and writing the Torah is only because of the constraint.
By the way, if you look at the whole passage there, you will see that the words Torah and song almost alternate in the verses:
(19) “Now therefore write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be for Me a witness against the children of Israel.”
(20) “For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves and grown fat, then will they turn unto other gods and serve them, and provoke Me, and break My covenant.”
(21) “And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed; for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I swore.”
(22) “Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.”
(23) “And He gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said: Be strong and of a good courage; for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I swore unto them; and I will be with thee.”
(24) “And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this Torah in a book, until they were finished,”
(25) “that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying:”
(26) “Take this book of the Torah, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.”
(27) “For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck; behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death?”
(28) “Assemble unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.”
(29) “For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the end of days; because ye will do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him through the work of your hands.”
(30) “And Moses spoke in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished.”

Thus, for example, Moses writes the song (22) and finishes writing the Torah (24).

By way of derash I would say that he wrote the song, and so that it should not be writing separate sections, he completed it by writing the Torah.
(This is for the next edition of Kedushat Levi… 🙂 )

First, that is not the interpretation of the Torah Temimah, but his quotation from Maimonides, no? And Torat Chaim also interpreted it that way (while the Netziv in Meromei Sadeh and Ha’amek Davar dwelt at length in wondering about Maimonides and interpreted it differently). So the rabbi is rejecting Maimonides’ words.

And regarding the matter itself: I know that it is commonly interpreted that the Torah is called poetry. I only wanted to say that an article trying to find the definition of “poetry” should not base itself on one halakhic-homiletic statement that called the Torah poetry for a particular purpose. It is not representative.

Second, I really did not understand why you determined that the concepts Torah and song alternate. Verse 22 and verse 24 do not refer to the same text!
Verse 22 connects to verse 19 and commands the study, repetition, and writing of the Song of Witness, which predicts what will happen if the covenant is broken. The term “song” refers only to the passage of Ha’azinu (in the words of Nachmanides: “According to the plain meaning, He commands both Moses and Joshua to write it… and the meaning of ‘this song’ is the song that I am about to tell you now, namely Ha’azinu. And He calls it a song because Israel will always recite it in song and melody, and so it was written as poetry, for songs are written with pauses in the places of the melody”).

Verse 24 connects to verses 9–10, which you did not bring here, and speaks about writing the Torah that will be read at the assembly ceremony—meaning a different and longer text than the Song of Ha’azinu. Here it is: “And Moses wrote this Torah and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying: At the end of every seven years, at the set time of the year of release, at the feast of booths…”

I really do not understand why you claimed that the concepts alternate.

The Torah Temimah interprets Maimonides in a non-necessary way. As I wrote, the question is whether the Torah intended that we write the Torah, but phrased it as writing the song and relied on the fact that we do not write separate sections, so that in practice we would write the whole Torah; or whether its intention was that we write the song, and writing the Torah is only because of the constraint. As I recall, the Sha’agat Aryeh raises both those possibilities. The Torah Temimah interpreted that the intention is to write the whole Torah, in the first way. And from this it follows that the Torah chose to instruct us to write the Torah in the language of writing a song. Therefore, even if the song is Ha’azinu, it still requires explanation why the Torah did not instruct us to write the whole Torah. It is likely because it sees in song something essential to the whole Torah, and perhaps even called the Torah itself a song.
I noted in my remarks that in verses 22 and 24 we are speaking about writing the song, and immediately afterward about completing the writing of the Torah. This mixing hints that the Torah is called poetry, and in my opinion this is where they derived that interpretation from. And even without Maimonides, the plain sense of the Sages is that they understood the Torah to be called poetry without any connection to writing separate sections (and they already challenged this from mezuzah and tefillin; and simply speaking, where the Torah itself instructs writing a section there is no prohibition. And from here again, the meaning of “song” here is the entire Torah).

Perhaps like this:
Poetry is a text that expresses its message not only through the simple meaning of its words.
I am aware of several problems with this definition, and one can “dirty it up” with sub-definitions, interpretations, and various reservations, but as a starting point it seems to me not bad.

Definitely not bad, in my opinion (it almost seems as though you peeked at my series on Otzar HaChochma 🙂 )
I will expand on it later.

There he will be able to elaborate on the meaning of the name Kant, a subject very closely related to our concern (and along the way make a few mistakes in Latin as well)?

I really didn’t peek..
This definition is very short and concise, but it is too broad (too many texts pass the filter). On the other hand, it is clear that what gets caught in the sieve simply is poetry (=texts whose message is expressed not only by the simple meaning of the words).
What seems correct to me is that there is some kind of continuum here—the more there are elements in addition to the simple meaning of the words, the more “poeticity” the text has.
So of course there is a gray area, but there is also black and white.

Precise (including the difficulty and the solution). See later. [The similarity to my formulation is almost perfect]

With God’s help

1) In the “sciences of nonsense,” as you put it—when one tries to establish a claim, one examines books not intended for a broad audience but those based on summaries of articles that built orderly arguments, as you are trying to do. (Certainly not only two Israeli scholars.) This flattening is equivalent to someone saying: “Maimonides says there is no prayer without intention, therefore prayer is important, from this all Hasidism is true and the Lithuanians are wrong.” Rather, the claim has to be detailed down to its finest threads. When you say “poetry,” you mean contemporary poetry, supposedly postmodern. But did poetry for people in the eighteenth century not exist in an objective form? Do definitions in science not change according to findings? Are findings in the humanities not objective if they are based on a large sampling of people’s judgments, or on cognitive science?
2) The examples you bring from poets are by Anglo-Saxon poets from the nineteenth century and earlier. They are not a very representative sample. If you had bothered to delve into the history of poetry, you would have found that the definition “expressed not only through simple words” is not new at all and was proposed in a more precise version by Ezra Pound, who said that poetry is “language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.” Likewise, Avidan had another definition of poetry (though I think he is a charlatan): “Poetry is everything that survives translation,” in response to Robert Frost, who wrote that poetry is everything that gets lost in translation. (Not especially sophisticated definitions, but they do not serve the anti-postmodern agenda the way “a poem is whatever I decide is a poem” does.) Returning to Pound’s words: as you wrote, a poem is something that expresses something other than the written words, and a good poem will try to gather as many things as possible that differ from the thing itself. For an imagist like Pound, it is enough to set the different connotations one beside the other, but it is clear to us that the intention is to place them in a certain order and context that will create, through cognition, what is called catharsis, pleasure, etc. Therefore, the more “universal” a poem is in the matters it addresses, and the more “correctly” arranged it is—that is, the more it causes catharsis—the better it is (and the two are sometimes connected).
3) All the nonsense about “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” is irrelevant. It basically amounts to saying: “I want an exact definition and they don’t.” And again, this is based on a bestseller from Steimatzky.
4) Ars poetica is not necessarily interested in defining poetry more than in other poetic topics. Would you expect a painting that depicts a painter to say something beyond a painting by Kandinsky? (The answer is found in the book Trends in Modern Poetry by Zandbank as well.)
5) Biblical poetry can be assigned to a subgenre of poetry, namely epic poetry, which has unique characteristics. And still, Pound’s definition would hold.
6) The distinction regarding physical concepts is of course correct. But on the one hand this parallels mathematics, because it deals with something wholly abstract, and on the other hand it parallels physics because there is a cognitive element. How can one know that someone is proficient in physics? By the equations he solves, not by the fact that he speaks in general terms about relativity. The same applies here. Someone can know that a musical work, for example, is great because he can perform it, interpret it, and even create similar things. As Goethe said: “Creation is the highest form of knowledge.” Therefore, even if you do not understand why a literary work has certain qualities, that is not relevant, because Bialik (for example), who can create things better or worse than that work and knows how to place it on a scale of quality. Everything is a poem, but not everything is a good poem. Similar to the fact that every engagement with equations is mathematics, but not every engagement is “good mathematics.” The rigor of proof is ostensibly low in the above case, but history shows in the end that the best survives (in most cases). Likewise, biology too lacks such rigor, and even physics in comparison with mathematics, as far as I know.

A final note:
The view that “the sciences of nonsense” do not positively affect science or human culture may stem from one of two things: systematic withdrawal from the world, like the ultra-Orthodox, or not having studied Western culture in an orderly way. The rabbi knows that even Kant is considered by scientists to belong to the “sciences of nonsense.” I believe this is not the rabbi’s view. Without literature, music, sociology, there is no philosophy; and without philosophy, there are no sciences. There are too many examples to mention of the connections among all these. This is not condescension; it is simply to say that analytical and practical artistic training over many years is required in order truly to understand Beethoven or Picasso. Just as a secular person cannot begin to interpret the words of the Rishonim without understanding what is written on a page of Gemara. Western culture is a religion, or a culture, into which one sometimes needs a whole lifetime to plunge.

One beside the other, those* etc. . . Mistakes in Hebrew. There is no editing option.

Hello, and thank you for your remarks. I will try to address the points one by one.
1. In the natural sciences, when one tries to establish a general claim about some field (and to do so without resorting to the details), one may turn to popular encyclopedias that summarize the detailed scientific work and get an impression. That is what a layman is supposed to do when quickly investigating a question that interests him; and indeed this is not what someone who works in the field professionally (such as an academic researcher) is supposed to do. Therefore a reasonable a priori assumption is that the encyclopedia entry would summarize what researchers of poetry have done regarding the definition of poetry, and there is no reason to begin rummaging through all the professional literature. That is not practical, and usually should not be necessary. Of course there is a risk in such an approach, because perhaps for some reason there is some systematic work in the professional literature that for some reason never made it into the encyclopedias (that is the risk the layman takes). The interesting question is why this happens in poetry and not in quantum theory. Is quantum theory less complicated? Is there less motivation to make it accessible? Does it interest fewer people? It seems to me that none of these possibilities is correct. So why really is there no entry on poetry and no definition of poetry in the Hebrew Encyclopedia? Let me just note that part of the duty of academics (whether from the sciences of nonsense or from real sciences) is also to make their knowledge and insights accessible to the broader public (assuming they have such insights). The fact that there is no such information says something about their work and about the quality of their fundamental conclusions. And the attack that sends the layman dismissively to search in the lofty and hidden professional literature is merely a fig leaf meant to cover over that resounding failure. We have already learned from Rabbi Chaim that lack of explanation usually testifies to lack of understanding.
The statements here about definitions changing between periods and in light of findings are irrelevant to the discussion. I expect present-day definitions and I do not find them. The question whether today’s definitions fit those of the eighteenth century is a second-order question, and I am not there yet. Once we see contemporary definitions, we can discuss that too.
2. The examples I brought were quotations from another participant in the discussion. I accept that they are not a representative sample, nor were they meant to be. They were meant to illustrate, not to map. The definitions you brought do not strike me as more systematic; they really are a kind of aphorisms or metaphors that hint at an answer. I am looking for systematic treatment, and I do not find it in your quotations either.
And by the way, perhaps you do not know, but there are translations of poems in the world. A philosophically interesting question is whether the translation is a new poem or not, but general definitions like Frost’s that you cited suffer from the same lack of system I spoke about (you are basically assuming that the poem is an absolute function of the language, and I really do not think that is so). That definition has some connection to characteristics of poetry, but that only sharpens the fact that there is no systematicity and no commitment here. Sciences of nonsense, as we already said? And I have not even yet remarked that Frost can define poetry as what does not survive translation while at the same time Avidan defines it as what does survive translation. Indeed, a pity that I was not sufficiently expert in the professional literature; then I could have learned that contradiction and become knowledgeable in it. As is known to those who are not secluded like me and who know the basic rules of logic, from a contradiction one may infer any conclusion whatsoever. In other words, a body of knowledge that contains a contradiction says nothing.
And what am I supposed to do with a definition like Pound’s: “words to the edge of meaning”? That may be an ars-poetic poem, but not a definition of poetry. It is quite possible that he also presented an analysis and proposed a meaning for that amusing aphorism, but that in itself certainly does not fulfill the function of a definition. If that is the counterexample, then I am not convinced that searching in the professional literature would have brought me to the promised land. But maybe it would, who knows?!
3. The statement here is not clear to me. I understood only one thing from it: that it tries to claim something without an argument. What it claims, and why there are no arguments, I did not merit to understand. I understood that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a Steimatzky bestseller and is therefore disqualified (because it is not part of the professional literature to whose shining light I presumably was not privileged to be exposed). I will only repeat that in my view, what is in this Steimatzky bestseller is worth, in my estimation, as much as what you would find in many learned and obscure writings of which you speak.
At the margins I would note that disdain for popular or non-professional literature is characteristic of the sciences of nonsense, since otherwise they could not express their intellectual superiority (which in my experience does not exist among physicists, for example. They usually point out mistakes in popular literature, but do not slander and dismiss it merely for being popular). My sister studied criminology at university, and she told me that quite a few courses began by defining what science is. I told her that with us in physics no course dealt with that. Note this carefully. As someone involved in not a few fields from almost all the faculties, and who also lectures about them in academic and other forums, I must tell you that in my experience it is hardest for a layman to give a lecture and receive a hearing in the faculties of the sciences of nonsense. Precisely there, because of lack of confidence (quite justified, of course), they insist on the unsupported superiority of the professionals. What is self-evident among physicists requires defensive struggle among people in the humanities. The more nonsensical the field, the more its practitioners demand respect for the discipline. Just think for a moment whom public and media discourse refers to plainly as “a professional”: a physicist/mathematician, or a psychologist/social worker?
4. Who said otherwise?! Did you see in my remarks criticism of ars poetica?! If so, check your reading comprehension. On the contrary, the criticism is of the systematic scholars who are supposed to provide definitions and not leave the field to ars-poetic poetry. It does what it is supposed to do, and I truly do not expect to find academic definitions there (just as in an ars-poetic or other painting by Kandinsky I would not find definitions of painting). The problem is that the definitions one can find for poetry (at least for an ignoramus and layman like me, as above) are almost entirely found in ars poetica because of the lacuna that is the very subject of discussion here; anyone looking for definitions is forced to find them there.
6. I did not understand your remarks about the abilities of performers and the analogies to physics. Did I dispute that a painter can characterize a good painting? (Though not only he can.) To what in my remarks are these things addressed?
You wrote that everything is a poem but not everything is a good poem. And behold, we are back to the evasions about which I am speaking here. If everything is a poem, then there is no poem and no poetry. Is this the insight I was supposed to derive from studying the professional literature, and in my sins I missed it?
The analogy to every engagement with equations being mathematics but not good mathematics is, of course, nonsense. You restricted mathematics here to equations (which is not true, of course—and by the way, that you could indeed have found in the Hebrew Encyclopedia, which I could not do with poetry). So from the outset the truly analogous sentence to your words is not correct here: every engagement is mathematics, only there is good mathematics and less good mathematics. Such a sentence is indeed an empty description of mathematics. But in your formulation there actually is a definition (wrong, as stated, but that is not important for the present discussion): engagement with equations is mathematics. So what is the analogous formulation regarding poetry, about which you write that everything is poetry? That is exactly what I am weeping over—that there is no characterization and no definition of poetry, unlike mathematics and physics. This strange analogy only proves my point.
You speak here about the inability to set criteria for the quality of a work, and about the fact that this inability does not mean there is no distinction between better and worse quality. First, I was not talking about the ability to assess qualities, and I do not know why you entered that discussion here. On the contrary, I completely agree that there are different levels of quality in art. Second, allow me to remind you that Pirsig himself said precisely this before you did (yes, that nobody from that bestseller in the bookstore of nobodies), and it seems to me he did so not badly at all (to an uncultured layman like me). That is the subject of his whole book. By the way, you did not need to read him to know this. It was enough to read my own remarks where I brought this.

And in conclusion, regarding your final note: I do not think I am withdrawn (and I think even less that I am ultra-Orthodox). Moreover, contrary to what your remarks imply, I think I know reasonably well the culture into which you are calling me to plunge. Even so, with all due respect, I disagree with you regarding the influence of art on philosophy. In my opinion, even if there are influences, in many cases they are bad ones (the mixing of literature and philosophy is very problematic and often leads to vagueness and lack of understanding, and in fact to the degradation of philosophy). As it happens, in philosophy—unlike, say, classical music—I am involved not a little, and I am even willing to say that I have a good acquaintance with it. But I do not know why you entered this discussion, for I do not recall having said anything about the absence of such influence in my remarks.
Likewise, I also completely agree that in order to appreciate a good book or a good musical work, some training is desirable (in a very broad sense, of course—not necessarily formal and systematic studies). Did I say otherwise?
To sum up: beyond the fact that most of what you dealt with did not touch my remarks, and beyond the fact that you put words in my mouth that I did not say, it seems to me that in your closing lines you are placing me in some stereotypical category, by determining that if I have a critical attitude toward what is done in some field, then I must apparently be closed-off and ultra-Orthodox. That strikes me as a bit strange in a message whose main point is that familiarity is required before judging.

By the way, just to lower expectations: I do not intend in the next installments to perform hocus-pocus and present a definition that our cousins in the nonsense disciplines never thought of. My main intention is to demonstrate a systematic way to handle a complex and vague topic and to conceptualize insights that all of us have (and I assume the experts do too), something that is sometimes not all that common among our cousins in the sciences of nonsense.

Well, I have gone on at length in response, since the gentleman went on at some length and also succeeded in irritating me. As it is said: a person should always incite the good inclination against the evil inclination…

Hello,
Thank you for the quick response.
1) First of all, you claimed that your intention was to carry out a systematic inquiry, not a layman’s inquiry. So I addressed your words in that spirit (and assumed that the preface was part of the inquiry). Second, I meant to say that one must make an honest intellectual effort to consider the words of others, and that even if they deal, in your view, in the “sciences of nonsense” (why the letter tav?), they are presumably not fools, and they have devoted the best years of their lives to the topic—which was not felt here. On the basis of one particular edition of an encyclopedia in an obscure language, and books by two scholars in the field aimed at the general public, meaning written provocatively in order to be read, you decided that researchers in the humanities cannot define what poetry is. It may indeed be that there is no sufficient definition; I only noted that the effort was not sufficient. As evidence, there are many definitions of poetry in the English equivalents. According to the Oxford Dictionary:
Literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of "distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature.
This may, for you, be a jumble of nonsense. But for someone from the humanities, this perhaps refers to Jakobson’s linguistic functions. These are things not said explicitly, but it is clear to me that the writers thought through these possibilities and tried to create a differentiating definition.
Another example is from the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm.
Etc.
Therefore, we have removed the claim that in poetry one cannot find a definition in a dictionary or encyclopedia, unlike the sciences (though of course it may still be an unsatisfactory definition). Regarding the other things: a) What does it mean that there is a definition of quantum physics in a dictionary? Can a serious researcher in the field say that this is a good definition? I doubt it. b) Literature, like philosophy, is a highly verbal discipline. Therefore even if you look in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, you will not find a fully satisfactory definition of anything. Take the term “metaphysics.” You will find an entry according to Kant, according to Plato, etc. Therefore we cannot always strive, in things that are wholly abstract, for an absolutely concrete definition, but only for better classification. Therefore changes of definitions over time are indeed relevant, except perhaps for Hegelian philosophical matters, which I suspect you do not much like.
2) One commenter wrote: “Poetry is a text that expresses its message not only through the simple meaning of its words.” And you replied: “Not bad at all.” To that I referred with Pound’s quotation: “Poetry is language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree” (corrected). This claim was meant to reinforce the previous one, not add to it: in order to conduct a real inquiry one must know what others before me have said. I do not find any difference between the commenter’s statement, which you praised, and Pound’s statement. Also, I do not think Frost’s or Avidan’s definitions contribute much to us; I merely tried to show that you focused on one very specific side of Avidan. And not, for example, on his view that a poem is anything that survives translation, i.e. relating to word-meaning that is universal. In continuation of what I said earlier concerning Pound.
3) Here I really did not bother to explain. What I meant to say is that the section about the book adds nothing to your argument. It may be that my tone of disdain stems from my “nonsense-science” nature. But bestsellers from Steimatzky, including Sapiens and the like, mostly repeat basic knowledge in simplistic fashion. For example, the idea that the Greeks insisted that everything have a sharp definition—is this not obvious to anyone who has read Aristotle? What does this renew for someone engaged in the field? P.S. I do not reject books in a similar style in fields where systematic research has nothing to say—for example “spiritual development.” I believe that Deepak Chopra and his friends also have something to say, admittedly in a vague way, but it is nice. I agree with you about the state of the humanities in Israel (and perhaps in the world). Yet one must still distinguish between the practitioners of a field and the field itself. I notice that you do not distinguish between the humanities and the social sciences. a) Do you really think psychologists are unnecessary in the world? That they really sit on a couch and babble? On what do you base this? b) Are empirical studies in the social sciences, such as cognition, nonsense? It is purely by accident that correlations of 0.9 emerge in numerous parallel studies? c) Who is a physicist? Does someone who finished Fake College in physics and works in high-tech understand research better than the head of a psychology department? The nature of a scientific theory is measured, among other things, by its ability to generate accurate predictions. If as a criminologist I can identify potential criminals and assess their degree of rehabilitation by means of a certain theory, then it is “scientific,” and one indeed has to learn how to conduct research appropriately for it. And no, a physicist would not know how to conduct that research without guidance. d) It is not clear to me why you exempt philosophy and Torah from the discussion, since to most people who hold your view they belong in the same category. And Prof. Bergman writes in the introduction to History of Philosophy, relying on Kant, that we never reach final conclusions in philosophy.
4) Accepted. I did not read carefully enough.
6) This is not an evasion. As I noted in the previous section, one cannot give sharp definitions for concepts that do not precisely reflect concrete reality, only classify them. Likewise, how can you say that you distinguish between a good poem and a bad poem, or at least that you do not deny such a distinction, and at the same time say that there is no definition of poetry?! That is a contradiction. You need a criterion. Also, in one of the comments you wrote: “First, time and light are not concepts but physical objects (in my view, time too is such a thing). Therefore the role of definition here is not like its role with respect to a poem or any literary structure. When you stand in front of light it is self-evident to you that this is light. When you measure time you know exactly what you are measuring.” I first responded that mathematics too differs from physics in this sense (or so it seems to me). And I did not write that the definition of mathematics is engagement with equations, but that every engagement with equations is doing mathematics (not only that). Is that not true? In any case, here is an example of a supposedly scientific field that also does not necessarily deal with the concrete, though it has practical implications. For example, I can talk about Freud as giving meaningless descriptions, but in practice I will treat people and measure the quality of treatment according to that. On the other hand, I said, art and the humanities are similar to physics in that sound is indeed a physical object. Music and literature deal with sounds, and visual art deals with forms. Not everyone “sees the light,” that is, discerns the subtleties of the sonic or formal object, and for that very long training is needed. Once a person has not undergone that training, which resembles craftsmanship more than a mental exercise, he cannot be included in the discourse because his mode of communication is different. For example, I cannot communicate with mathematicians on mathematical matters, even if I have several nice definitions for equations. Therefore with poetry, it is hard to explain why a certain definition is good if you are not sensitive to the objects it deals with—sound, meter, cross-cultural relations, and so forth. And logical analysis will not help, just as understanding which sound leads to which sound will not enable an in-depth analysis of a musical work. That is what I meant by plunging into Western culture: developing sensitivity to the physical objects of aesthetics, and internalizing their effects on people’s character traits and on human progress. Let us take two examples. There are truly countless examples. But let us take a charlatan like Noam Chomsky. He is only a linguist; he does not know how to solve equations at all. Yet perhaps without him we would not be at our current level of progress in computer languages. And what about scientists who were inspired by writers like Jules Verne, or social theories of Max Weber that influenced the entire structure of society? Did Max Weber, who dealt in the “sciences of nonsense,” not contribute more to humanity than a student at Fake College for physics?

On second thought, my final remark was not in place and was not relevant to anything. My sincere apologies.
.

Hello. It seems to me we are converging quite a bit.
1. In philosophical terminology, systematicity means a form of logical thinking based on orderly conceptual analysis. It does not necessarily mean a literature review. When people there speak of a “systematic introduction,” they mean a demonstration of a mode of thinking, not a review of all the opinions, approaches, and precedents. That is what I meant here as well. I certainly did not do academic work here; all in all I wrote an internet column in an hour or two.
I did not claim that everyone is stupid, but rather that their research commitment, logical rigor, and disciplinarity are problematic. There is a lot of empty verbiage there that does not say much (and this I do say from acquaintance).
From this, please understand that my claim that poetry is not found in the encyclopedia or dictionary did not concern all the dictionaries and encyclopedias in the world, but rather in Israel—and especially the most important encyclopedia here, edited by the finest experts in the various fields (that is the sample before the Hebrew reader).
By the way, even the two definitions you brought, without seeing all the elaboration, seem to me really quite unsatisfactory.
You keep returning again and again to the need for agreement in definition, and I disagree with you on this. What is required is some agreed-upon framework, and within it there can be different nuances.
2. Indeed I praised that commenter, because he expressed, off the cuff, an intuition that seems very apt to me. And yet from the conclusion of a scholar who deals with this professionally and systematically, I would expect more. Especially from a scholar whose words you chose to bring as the most apt definition you found. And I would add that unlike that commenter’s statement, which can indeed be considered something close to a definition, the sentence you brought from Pound, as I already noted, is not a definition but an aphorism or a metaphor. In my lay opinion, it is also not precise unless you pile further interpretations onto it (which a satisfactory definition should not require).
3. In my view Pirsig’s book is actually successful and good, and it raises a point that even if many felt it, very few paid attention to its importance. About Harari and his books I am entirely in agreement with you (and I also wrote this here), but not because he is a bestseller, rather despite the fact that he is a bestseller. He is full of errors and frightfully superficial. I really cannot say that about Pirsig. So to see Harari as a measure of the quality of all bestsellers seems to me a bit hasty.
Unlike you, I do not reject such books even in fields where research does deal with the topic. That is the policy I described in my previous letter. In my opinion it is not right and stems from insecurity (justified, as mentioned) in those fields.
I will not elaborate here on my view of psychologists, but your description is fairly close to my position. What I am saying is that as a discipline psychology is not worth much. In the overwhelming majority of cases the treatment is not based on findings but on the therapists’ intuitions, and the successes usually stem from that rather than from the discipline. On these matters I actually did little studies of my own (not quantitative ones. I simply read and questioned a few different psychologists). Just look at the differences in interpretation and in methods regarding the very same things, all while everyone boasts of successes. And if we are talking about the precise predictions of criminology and psychology, I judge you favorably and assume you were joking.
6. Here is a typical mistake. Judgment does not require criteria, unlike scientific judgment. Had you read Pirsig carefully, you would have seen that this is precisely his point. There are works of differing quality, and we have a way of judging them, despite the fact that (in his view) there are no criteria that determine that quality. Criteria are a conceptualization of the modes of judgment, not the judgment itself. Thus both a layman and an expert can judge a painting or a poem even if they cannot state the criteria by which this is done. My claim is that there is value in conceptualizing the criteria, even though one can judge without them. See also the next installment that went up today.
The next part of your remarks here touches on the distinction between the thing and its description (scientific or otherwise). See in Wikipedia (careful, popular text!) about Mary’s room and John Searle’s Chinese room. I accept the claim that someone who is not immersed in the discipline and does not know the terminology and the connotations does not always understand the nuances and the meaning of what is being said there. Still, I would like to hear the definitions and then decide that I do not understand. So far I have hardly seen any definitions, even incomprehensible ones. These matters also came up regarding my criticism of Hasidism in the previous installment (which was the catalyst for these installments). I wrote about this myself in installment 57:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%9B%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%93%D7%99%D7%92%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%AA%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%81%D7%81%D7%81%D7%98%D7%95%D7%A8-57/
So on that point we have no disagreement.
As for your remark about the inspiration one receives from literature, that is exactly the difference between receiving inspiration from something and actually learning from it. See the previous installments on Hasidism and the comments following them.

With God’s help, 8 Tevet 5778

To Aharon—greetings,

Indeed, the plain meaning of the verse is as Nachmanides says, that the song is the Song of Ha’azinu, in his words: “And the meaning of ‘this song’ is the song that I am about to tell you now, namely ‘Ha’azinu’; and He calls it a song because Israel will always recite it in song and melody, and so it is written as poetry, for songs are written with pauses in the places of the melody.” That is the basic definition of poetry.

But Rabbah’s halakhic exposition, which determines that the Torah’s statement “And now write for yourselves this song” includes a commandment to write the entire Torah, also says—according to the interpretation of Maimonides that you cited—that the song cannot be written by itself, only as part of the complete Torah; and one who says “I have only song”—even song he does not have. The Torah is not complete without its connection to the song, and the song is not complete without its connection to the Torah.

From here the way is paved to the explanation proposed by Prof. Ron Kleinman, that the whole Torah has an aspect of poetry, both in that it elevates man and in that it brings harmony, both in a person’s soul and in the world and society.

It should be noted that there is a degree of tension between Prof. Kleinman’s two definitions. And as Rabbi M. A. noted, a powerful expression of emotion involves a storm of the soul, a storm opposed to harmonious balance.

However, in the poetry of Scripture we see a process leading from storm to harmony. Thus in the Song at the Sea there is expression of the difficult moments in which Israel stands before a mighty enemy who says, “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my desire shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.” But the song leads the singers to immediate salvation and to future hope: “Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance, the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.” And so too in the other songs, whose beginnings are suffering and whose endings are hope for salvation.

Such is the path of the song of faith: even in times of suffering and soul-torment there remains faith and hope for salvation, and even in times of joy there rises the memory of the bitterness along the way. Indeed, the whole Torah creates in a person a process of optimistic progress toward a more complete and better state.

With blessings, S. Tz. Lavinger

And a note regarding Kant’s harmony (to Rabbi M. A.)—

I briefly hinted in my comment on Friday eve that great cultural works sharpen values. Kant greatly sharpened the aspiration to objectivity and the commitment to truth. But he exaggerated this to the point of negating emotional involvement in the decision-making process. Not to mention the claim that one may not deviate from the truth even in a case of danger to life. There is here an intensification of the value of truth—but no harmonious balance.

Harmonious balance I find דווקא in the guidance of Kant’s contemporary, the Rebbe and halakhic authority Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, who on the one hand intensifies the importance of feeling in the performance of the commandments, in his picturesque phrase: “The kindling constitutes the commandment,” and on the other hand does not neglect the value of precise practical halakhic observance: “The placing constitutes the commandment.”

Rabbi Yohanan teaches us: “One who reads without melody and studies without song—of them Scripture says: ‘I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances whereby they should not live’” (Megillah 32a).

Whatever Rabbi Yohanan’s statement may mean, there is here a clear declaration that the whole Torah must be read with melody and studied with song, and without the musical soundtrack, something is lacking in the understanding of Torah and in its connection to the human soul. In this respect, the whole Torah has characteristics of poetry in its plain sense.

With blessings, S. Tz. Lavinger

With God’s help, 8 Tevet 5778

To sing—it is like living, as Naomi Shemer teaches us in her song “To sing is like being the Jordan.”

Life begins with great aspirations and great hope: “You begin high up in the north, young, cool, rushing and impudent. You hear birds in the thicket, and every one of them is a bird of paradise.”

Life continues in the attempt to keep flowing onward with strength despite the difficulties and the grayness of routine: “On the banks wild grass grows, but onward, onward, onward goes the pride of your waters, your waters flow like the Jordan.”

And life wanes and comes to an end—“Your end is to expire like the Jordan, to be gathered slowly into the Sea of Death, in the lowest place on earth.” But the spirit does not perish. Poetry passes the aspirations and ideals on to the next generation: “for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed.”

And the next generation begins anew to flow, full of fresh hope, hope breathed into it by the power of song: “But from the snow-capped mountains, in great rejoicing behind you, your songs go bubbling forth—for to sing is like being the Jordan!”

With blessings, S. Tz. Lavinger

With God’s help, 9 Tevet 5778

The Torah’s instruction to write the song—in its narrow sense, the Song of Ha’azinu; and in its broader sense, the whole Torah—is meant so that it may be taught to the children of Israel: “put it in their mouths, that this song may be for Me a witness against the children of Israel… and this song shall testify before them as a witness, for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed…” (Deuteronomy 31:19–21).

Because of rhythm, melody, and unique style—the words of the song are engraved in the listener’s heart and remembered for a long time, far beyond the memory capacity for words of prose, as Naomi Shemer describes in her song “A Song Is Born”: “And it will be like an inflammation in the throat, because until your final day, you will hum it and sing it off-key, until your lips wear out saying: enough, enough, enough, enough.”

And from the purpose of the song, to be a witness among the children of Israel, the Gemara in Nedarim 38a derived—as explained by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (Deuteronomy 31:19)—that the commandment “write for yourselves this song” does not concern only the song itself, but instructs us to write the whole Torah… for, as the Ran explains there: “And if it referred only to the song, what testimony would there be?” The song only brings to general awareness that fulfilling the role given us by God determines our fate for good or ill, but that role itself is learned only through knowledge of the whole Torah.’

Further on (31:22), Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that just as song without Torah is not enough—so too Torah without song is not enough: ‘It is not sufficient to cultivate knowledge of the commandments and understanding of them; one must also teach the “song,” one must cultivate the living consciousness of Israel’s unique status and exalted mission among humanity, which is to be realized through these commandments.’

The Torah that contains song, and the song connected to Torah—internalize in the heart of the individual and the nation its divine mission!

With blessings, S. Tz. Lavinger

Naomi Shemer thus finds in poetry two functions: (a) expression of the poet’s feelings—the great hope in the springtime of life, perseverance on the way despite difficulties, and the insight into the finitude of life. (b) the attempt to overcome the finitude of life through the song that will continue to bubble forth even after its author’s life, and will pass on his feelings, aspirations, pains, and consolations to future generations.

With blessings, S. Tz. Lavinger

A saying attributed to the sages of Spain, to Ibn Ezra, and sometimes to Aristotle: “The best of poetry is its falsehood.”
“Were poetry empty of falsehood, it would not be poetry,” wrote Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra. For factual information is just information. A poem is a text beyond information. Not a matter-of-fact text. Therefore the best of poetry is its falsehood: the use of figurative expressions, metaphors, and so on.

https://www.e-vrit.co.il/Product/18988/%D7%94%D7%95__20?fbclid=IwAR1A0y_gBkm1cVASHOzsecNHFcqoDgAkDyaWtZ55jbihn8AxiP8L46RcFgc