Ouaknin, Marc-Alain.  _The Burnt Book:  Reading the Talmud_
Translated by Llewellyn Brown.  Princeton:  Princeton 
University Press, 1995. xxii+336pp.  Notes, glossary, 
bibliography, illustrations, and index.  $35.00 (cloth) 
ISBN 0-691-03729-9

	Reviewed for H-Judaic by 
	Joseph Kanofsky, Boston University

Burnt Books, Dead Hasidim, and Living Texts

	"Dearest Max, my last request; Everything I leave behind me. . .to
be burned unread."  Fortunately, Franz Kafka's instruction to his friend
and literary executor, Max Brod, went unheeded.
	There is something that attracts the Jewish book to the flames. 
For Marc-Alain Ouaknin, the burnt book recalls the immolations of Talmud
at the hands of church authorities in Paris in 1242, in Rome in 1552, and
burnings of Jewish books in our century; but that is not all.  It also
recalls the sixteenth chapter of the Babylonian Talmud, tractate
_Shabbat_, which asks, "Which books, when burning in a fire on the
sabbath, may be rescued?"  It even recalls something deeper:  the burnt
book is not merely a destruction of the text; but also its life:  like
Kafka, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (d.1810) instructed his chief disciple to
burn his writings.  One of the books actually was burnt (though copies
were kept), and it came to assume a special place in Hasidic literature as
_Sefer ha-Nisraf_, the Burnt Book.
	Ouaknin has given us a fresh insight into the process of Jewish
Reading in _The Burnt Book:  Reading the Talmud_, a volume which is of
benefit to the novice in Jewish classical texts as well as to the seasoned
scholar. Ouaknin begins with a basic outline of the text and textual
principles of Judaism's oral tradition (which is now a written one), from
Mishna to Gemara to legal codifications, with explanations of the
tradition's major figures, trends, and textual styles.  He then attempts
to return from the themes discussed in the talmudic texts to the original
problem faced by the rabbis, namely, of a legal system in various states
of exile.  As he asks the question, "What is the Talmudic project?"
Ouaknin maintains that this original issue has been ignored; forgotten as
close textual study of Talmud cained ascendancy.
	He takes as his point of departure a passage from tractate
_Shabbat_, then blends an eclectic mix of explication, scholarship,
mystical exegesis, and meditative reflection in a tour-de-force of
contemporary French Judaic and literary studies, from Levinas and Jabes to
Derrida and Blanchot.  Through it all, he maintains his distinctly
traditional, even orthodox Jewish consciousness as he brings the "Genius
of Rogachov," R' Yosef Rozin, and R' Schneur Zalman of Lyadi, the "Master
of the Tanya," into the orbit of his discussion. 
	Accordingly, a scholar of contemporary critical theory can feast
on a banquet of talmudic _shakla ve-tarya_ to rival any dialogues she has
engaged up to this point; while conversely, a knowledgeable student of the
Talmud (one who might pick up Ouaknin's book) will find an explication of
familiar talmudic hermeneutical and dialogic structures charted through
literary theory unrivaled since Susan Handelman's _Slayers of Moses_.
	Ouaknin argues that in its effacement, of which burning is merely
the coarsest example, the Talmud acquires meaning.  Thus, the burnt book
indicates our interpreting the text, born of reading and understanding.
	Ouaknin's postculturalist reading covers eroticism, death,
postculturalism, and messianism amid its analysis of the role played by
study of text throughout exilic Jewish cultural history.  For example, he
remarks that Exodus 25, wherein the travels of the ark are described,
teaches that the ark and the law it contains are in a state of
ever-readiness for travel.  The text is in perpetual movement, perpetual
becoming.  "Meaning," he writes, "is never there where it is given."  He
calls Jewish modes of reading "atopian," "nowhere," which provides an
interesting if divergent explanation from George Steiner's recently
published essay, "Our Homeland, the Text" (In _No Passion Spent_). 
	"Toyte," or "Dead" hasidim are the followers of Rabbi Nachman of
Bratslav, who until today reread the tales authored by their master,
finding in them the infinite interpretive possibilities of holy writ. 
They rejected the notion of a successor to their beloved teacher, who
before his death told them, "Don't worry, my fire will burn until the
coming of the messiah!"
	On the last page, Ouaknin expands on the effacement of messianism
in Nachman's ambivalent redemptive thinking:  "To exaggerate a little: 
The messiah is made for not coming. . .and yet, he is awaited."  Or, as
Kafka put it, "The messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary. 
He will not come on the last day, but on the very last." 


********************************************
This review is the exclusive property of H-Net and H-Judaic.  H-Judaic
acknowledges the generous support of Florida Atlantic University.
Book Review Editor: Henry Abramson  habramso@acc.fau.edu