Rabbi Michael Feuer is Educational Director of Bet Midrash Sulam Yaakov and co-author of the upcoming work of biblical

fiction The Lamp of Darkness. He can be reached at mike@ravmike.com. PaRDeS History as Spirit in Action Ever since Thucydides rejection of inherited narrative in favor of empirical observation, facts have been the gold standard in the Western conception of history. Homer may have been a great poet, but to Thucydides he was a lousy historian. Give me the facts, he asserts, and I will give you the truth because truth is about the literal, not the literary. Though facts will never lose their relevance, in our day the ability to teach history as it really was is crumbling under the weight of unlimited information and the unavoidable subjectivity in how we filter. In the age of Wikipedia, it is not possible to claim to tell the whole story anymore. This reality evokes reactions among teachers ranging from a willful ignorance of the problem, to rejection of all facts outside of traditional narratives, to the denial of any coherence to be found in history whatsoever. Through the Tanach and rabbinic literature, Am Yisrael has carried forward a very different conception of history. Rather than an attempt to verify an external truth, it is a vision of history as an unfolding of inner truth. In order to articulate this truth facts are necessary, but not sufficient - it embraces the twin tools of the literal and the literary in telling the story of our past. And when attempting to understand its significance, we know that history can never be divorced from the goals of cultivating consciousness and dynamic identity in the present. Further, we believe in the future. When the prophet Jeremiah expressed his desire for redemption though the phrase renew our days as of old, he taught that our story of the past must provide inspiration toward actualizing its truth through building the world that is to come. As teachers, we must ask whether we aim to give our students information about the past or knowledge of it. If facts are points of data, then knowledge consists of these points, together with the values and beliefs we use to assign them significance and integrate them into a coherent whole a story. If teaching history means providing facts, then its events will remain in the past, unable to shape the present or to guide our behavior toward a constructive future. But if we want to bring history into the realm of knowledge, then we must tell a story of the past that provides these facts with meaning. But how to tell such a story? Clearly it must be rooted in fact, but just because it is factual, a story does not necessarily articulate an essential truth of human experience. Conversely, if a story is a vehicle for such an essential truth, what happens if the facts are uncertain? And if we open the door to such questions of where the truth lies, how do we avoid the traps of moral relativism and subjectivity? When struggling with this question of where to locate truth in the study of history, Cambridge historian E.H. Carr offered the following insight. The absolute in history is not something in the past from which we start; it is not something in the present, since all present thinking is necessarily relative. It is something still incomplete and in process of becoming something in the future towards which we move, which begins to take shape only as we move towards it, and in the light of which, as we move forward, we gradually shape our interpretation of the past. This is the secular truth behind the religious myth that the meaning of history will be revealed in the Day of Judgment. (What Is History, p.121)

The truth of history cannot lie solely in present analysis of the facts of the past, because we know that our present identity is not neutral. In order to tell a true story our very definition of objectivity must shift. Instead of seeking an unobtainable, objective view of past events, we must bring ourselves and our students to consciousness of the beliefs which shape our present identity. Before we look for truth in history, we must make explicit the standards by which we judge things to be true. Once we have come to consciousness of our present identity, we can begin to build a history of how that consciousness came to be. A map for integrating the literal and literary aspects of truth, and joining stories of our past with the development of consciousness can be found in the four-dimensional framework of meaning which we are enjoined to seek in the text of the Torah pshat, remez, drash,and sod (PaRDeS.) PaRDeS can be engaged as a framework for Jewish consciousness as it has emerged in its historical context - rooted in mythic truths, embodied in facts and their narrative and ultimately experienced as a present self that prays for the future. In text, the PaRDeS structure guides meaning as it moves out of text and into reader. In history, it maps the shift of unfolding creation from objective existence to subjective experience. Here is a taste of what such a structure might look like. It begins, as everything must, in pshat. In text, pshat is the surface meaning, the point of contact between reader and text. Despite the post-modern challenges to unity of textual meaning, the point of contact remains the same for every reader. In the development of personal consciousness it is the childlike simplicity which precedes self-awareness. In chronology it is the phase of pre-history, the dreamtime. History implies an awareness of self in the flow of time, and we do not know exactly when Am Yisrael lifted its head, looked down and said, I am because I was. We have many stories about it, though. Take the story of the revelation at Sinai, the birth of Am Yisrael: at this level of textual meaning, this pshat consciousness, and this stage of Jewish chronology, there can be no talk about the historicity of Sinai. Objective observation is not yet a frame of reference because it is the product of analysis from without and we are inside the story; by definition it lies outside the realm of pshat. At this stage of PaRDeS, the stories of the Torah can be taught as living spiritual archetypes to be engaged in their present relevance, though their narrative may lie in the mythic past. Sinai is where Am Yisrael received the source code to unite these archetypes, and embody them through commandments toward their full realization. The rest of our history is the rich tapestry of how we have manifested this source code in all the environments of the world. The next stage is remez. In text, remez is meaning bounded by the body of the text itself. In the development of consciousness it is the coming to awareness of self without critical comparison to other; that innerness which gives prophets and soldiers the courage to be consumed by their passions. In chronology, it begins with the conquest of the Land of Israel. Before he crosses over the Jordan, Yehoshua is told that what waits on the other side is an embodiment of the revelation at Sinai. At the end of his life, Yehoshua evokes Am Yisraels memory of their past in order to transform their experience into a story which can serve as the whole context for their national life (ch.24 ). At this level of textual meaning, this self-referential consciousness and this stage of Jewish chronology, the meaning

of Sinai beyond the borders of national consciousness is not yet a question. To question its truth would be to question the basis of reality itself. The exposure to meaningful perspectives which transcend local experience would only come with the destruction and return that mark the end of the First Temple period, and the end of the phase of remez. This transition from self-referential consciousness to critical awareness is the evolution from living within our story to learning to tell it. This complex process is canonized in the Tanach and is the fertile ground from which both classical exegesis and critical analysis grow. From here we move into drash. In text, drash is the search for meaning in total context. The text no longer bounds meaning, but rather serves as anchor, trigger and organizing principle for the readers understanding. In the development of consciousness it is the knowing of self in relationship to other. In chronology, we enter the age of encounter. Ezra and Nechemia mark the beginning of this phase by building walls physical, textual and halachic. These walls serve as the system boundary for a new phase of Am Yisraels development - the process of compare and contrast. Such analysis requires an identity strong enough to integrate insights gained through knowing other without losing sense of self. From the drash perspective, our understanding of the story of Sinai must be constantly deepened and expanded in order to fit the breadth of human experience, just as our consciousness expands with exposure to other. The Sages characterize this period as one of prolonged subjugation, in which Am Yisrael must pass through the four kingdoms of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. But they also read our passage through these kingdoms into the opening lines of the Torah (Bereshit Rabba 2:4). In so doing they reimagine exile as an essential component of creation, thereby transforming its meaning. We are not living an exclusively national experience - we are on an evolutionary journey toward consciousness which incorporates the whole worlds experience. This phase of history provides a rich context for the exploration of the nature of identity and relationship; the question of where one locates its endpoint offers the opportunity to imagine how one understands the relationship between identity and leaving exile. The final phase is sod. In literal translation sod means secret. This level of meaning lies wholly within the reader as an inner understanding, because communication relies on language, which itself is rooted in the shared structures developed through pshat, remez and drash. In the development of consciousness, sod is the awareness of self coming to be through the meeting with other, rather than self as an atomized being. In chronology, it is where the past meets the present. From the perspective of sod, Sinai is no longer a fact to be critically dissected, a story in which we live, or even a context for how we know the world. It is an inner understanding which we touch, whose reality is experienced in our ability to shape the world in its image. The subjectivity of sod seems to enhance the problem of relativism, but in reality it can address it. The Torah presents a story of absolute truth, but it does so knowing that individuals live a subjective experience. Where is the hope then for its articulation? In the image of Sinai as a mountain ringed by a people, each one with their particular perspective on a unified experience collective experience can

mute the subjectivity of existence. One of the primary tasks in tracing the story of Am Yisrael through time is to identify the vessels which hold together collective experience. Throughout exile, Am Yisrael was shaped by the struggles of humanity, all the while striving under terrible pressure to maintain a clear sense of self. Leaving exile calls for a new model of identity, a shift toward building of vessels to hold the complex and even contradictory facets of truth experienced throughout our journey. Living redemption requires a profound commitment to the reality and importance of the present. This serves as a solid foundation for a fearless examination of the past from which present identity emerges, all in light of our hope for that which is yet to come. The birth pangs of modernity shattered many of the walls that Ezra and Nechemia built for Am Yisrael, provoking a crisis of identity unparalleled since the end of the Second Temple period. The postmodern era has added a healthy dose of subjectivity, calling truth into question to a degree unfelt since the closing of the age of prophecy. Uncertain heirs of a rich history, we are struggling to articulate our story in a fashion which can guide our fragmented communities toward a future worthy of our past. If our present identity is assumed to be absolute, we can only tell a story of the past which justifies our present. If we deny the importance of a coherent, shared identity then we will have no basis for telling a story which can shape the future. So how do we begin to use this map and integrate facts and narrative into a story which can challenge present identity to grow in a healthy manner. One starting point is to pose the simple question where does Jewish history begin? This serves as a frame for exploring the definition of history itself, and any assumptions our students have about its purpose. Choosing a foundational story from the Torah, like the Binding of Yitzchak, and tracing how it is used to shape identity at various time periods is also an illuminating process. Finally, if we want the story of our history to serve as a basis for personal growth and healthy identity, we must encourage in our students the capacity to project vision into the future and to dream. The Sages tell us that it was Ezra the Scribe who gave us the first work of Jewish historiography the Book of Chronicles. There is a message for every student of history in this book. Ezra lived in a time of reconstruction, and his writing of Chronicles was more than an account of the past it was an attempt to set the present on a solid foundation. But his efforts were also guided by the understanding that our present is only well served by our past if it imbues us with a longing for the future. Thus, when the Sages finished the task of canonization, they chose Ezras words to conclude the Tanach. They understood that telling our story ends off where we begin to live it. Our story of the past ends with an invitation to our future, Whoever is among you of all his people the Lord his Gd be with him, and let him go up!