The Experiment Is Not Over! Reflections on the New Book by A.B. Kovelman Those Who Entered Pardes

Abstract

The article analyzes the monograph by A. B. Kovelman Those Who Entered Pardes, published in the Chase collection of the Knizhniki publishing house. The leitmotif of the experiment connects the beginning and the end of the study and permeates through the seven chapters of the book framed by the introduction and conclusion. The weaving of motley themes following a certain idea and the creation of a composition from a variety of elements reveal the Talmudic method of “masefet”, which allows the reader to gain their footing through the continuity of “their own” and “the alien”. This book is not just about culture, metaphor and its literalization, or idioms and codes that permeate through the Judeo-Christian cultural dialogue. At the center of the research is the question: where are we standing and what is under our feet, the desert or Jacob’s ladder?

Keywords

• talmud
• method
• postmodernism
• metaphor
• judeo-christian dialogue
• torah
• judaica