THE HIDDEN ORDER OF INTIMACY

A broad review of the biblical book of Leviticus.

Noted Torah scholar Zornberg, who won the National Jewish Book Award for The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, takes readers on a densely detailed, challenging tour of the traditional and mystical readings of Leviticus, drawing especially from the Midrash and other Jewish writings and interpretations through history. This is not a linear review of Leviticus nor a text-based commentary. Instead, the author “reads Leviticus through the prism of midrashic narratives that connect the surface with the depths of this text.” This approach allows readers to interface with Leviticus through the thoughtful and timeless opinions of rabbis and Torah scholars of the distant past. Simultaneously, Zornberg brings in more modern and secular voices as well, including Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Freud, Foucault, George Eliot, Keats, Franz Rosenzweig, Kafka, Borges, and Louise Glück. Assuming that her readers are familiar with the scriptural background, Zornberg spends very little time on reviewing the text itself. In lieu of a line-by-line analysis, she uses specific liturgical readings from Leviticus as springboards for exploring later commentary. One of the common themes the author identifies is the continued guilt caused by the Golden Calf rebellion. As she ably conveys, most of Leviticus stems from this unatonable moment of idolatry. “The national experience of shame is related to the memory of the Golden Calf,” which “haunts the people, in the way that something neither dead nor alive haunts the present moment.” The trauma of rebellion leads to a communal commitment to holiness, marked by such characteristics as an abhorrence of blasphemy, an emphasis on caring for the poor, and an obsession with cleanliness of the body and home. Though this book is an impressive scholarly reference, it will be confusingly inaccessible to readers without a prior working knowledge of midrashic scholarship and Hebrew.

A work of depth and cultural value that will have limited appeal beyond religious scholars.