Torah Signs

By: Jonathan Seidel

Emojis and Torah: signs and symbolism

Texting has reduced to sending symbols over writing words. Yet while this may be revolutionary to the western world it is normative in eastern areas. Its frequency to communication can shed light on how we read and interpret the Torah.  

Writing out phrase takes time. Emojis are faster and easier than righting out a word. Though words have been shortened and conjugated for faster sending and replying. Emojis add emphasis. Sending a a thumbs up versus the letter k bolsters the description. Emojis also convey emotions better than words. As pictures they can portray the feelings or the magnitude of them in a single symbol. Not widely used but they can unpack much of the communicative lingo through pictographs. Wishing to show someone you care about them prints a big red heart instead of writing out I love you. The sentence takes more time but the picture has a little more spunk and delivery than just words. The Emoji shows you care a little more to do so. Since Emojis aren’t normative, adding one imbues flavour into your message. It is informal and spicy. A method of depicting rather than writing. Only to add flare to the message’s strength. 

For westerners it is a cool adage. A fun aspect to employ. Yet it is but reality for the easterner. Eastern languages do not use letters like westerners do. The letters are are less and the pictures are greater. Yet they are not pictures like emojis but symbols. An alphabet is letters that make sounds combined to describe a thing. Symbols are the thing. For example the word “fire” is a combination of four letters united to mean the combustion manifested in light. Chinese uses a single symbol to refer to the combustion manifested in light. In a sense in Chinese symbols refer to meanings while letters refer to sounds. Chinese is not syllabic like English but rather logographic. The purpose of Chinese writing is to elucidate meaning through symbolic cohesion. Bringing together different symbols together to means words. In the same way if a bunch of emojis were placed in a sentence and then interpreted based on their cohesion. If the symbols were sounded out that would be more Japanese but to read them in unison would be Chinese. 

A great example would be the emoji of fire and truck together means fire truck. Instead of writing out the word to imagine the item, the symbols combined imagines the item. Emojis are the reemergence of pictographs a parent of logographs. Pictographs are the successor to hieroglyphics. Originally symbols were few and drawings were more exact. Pictographs were still symbols but less artistic. A stick figure instead of a portrait. Logographs were the the next in line for the dynasty. Lines drawn together to mean the object. The stick figure had lost its shape and now lines drawn in a certain shape would refer to the object. Unlike Emojis, hieroglyphics  tell stories. They aren’t necessarily for simple deduction though pictographs and logographs are. Yet one has to know what the pictures mean. A symbol of lines not only is easier to draw but has more latitude maybe tilting this means parrot while horizontal means blue jay. Though if the symbolic strucutre is built in a certain way there is only so many sequences. Letters and syllabic orientation allows for a more extensive classification. It allows for more fluidity for trade across cultures. You do not need to know the symbolic code only the sounds. 

It is not a question of speaking the language but writing it. Though speaking is part of it. The symbolic system even with lines is choreographed. It has a method that must be known by that culture. For oral communities that is great. Yet for literate communities it is more difficult. The word is not how it sounds. It is wound up in a cursive of intersecting lines. To be taught how to write is to know the ins and outs of the language. The alphabetic culture must only know the basics to begin. He can then work from there. He can sound out things. He may not know the word but he can sound it out to another for help. In a logographic community, the symbol itself must be shown. The symbol is only known by virtue of its education. To be well versed in the symbolic community is to have learned each and every symbol. Each object is designated while every object is tamed by the alphabet. A few lines can crack the alphabet but not the logographs. Without a thorough detail or key to examine what corresponds to what, the reader is at a loss. Even hearing the language raises eyebrows as there is no phonetic identification with the lines.   

Logographs are ancient and alphabets are also ancient. Yet unlike logographs, alphabets have evolved. To be fair Chinese has adapted over the years but not to the same degree that French or English has. The evolution from Phoenician to Hebrew or Greek to Latin is a sizeable shift. Yet in many ways even from Hebrew to Greek which are two different directions of writing there is familiarity. Letters are similar aleph is alpha, bet is beta and gimmel is gamma. English has a different order but Alef-bet and alphabet or A-B are similar G comes later, again the sounds are similar and they measure the sound. Someone would need to know the alphabet of Spanish or French to understand. Pronunciations are confusing until the sounds are settled in their formation then lettering can easily be translated as it is sounded out. Still it is difficult to read Shakespearean English or even Latin before that. Despite the similarities there is still a huge gap while for logographs there have been shifts but understanding the code makes it easier. A well versed Chinese speaker can understand antiquity Chinese while the older forms would need characterisation and interpretation. 

In this regard, since books have been written in Hebrew or Latin for many years deciphering them ought not to be too difficult. Given their alphabet style translations of uncovered relics from antiquity have been translated. The works of Geniza found as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Since the language matches other contemporary scrolls and the letters sound similar it isn’t too difficult to surmise. The way these texts are read is how we read them today. They are written or published like modern documents and we read them like a fiction novel or a legal statute. They’re works of Middle Hebrew or Aramaic or even Arabic. They just need to be interpreted and easily defined thereafter. Despite its archaic model aligning it with other texts as well as transmissions from earlier interpreters made it easier to understand. There is a code for the alphabet but such a code is much less elusive and compact than the logographs. It is less secretive since it syllabic. Just need to know what the sound makes and how it fits contextually. With symbols it is unclear because there is no word that can be even related to a different language or context. 

While this straightforward model is useful for most readings it is a falsehood to place on ancient writing. At least ancient writing of the second millennium. The second millennium was the height of logographs and the birth of the alphabet. Syllabic language only became more widespread with trade and education. Yet in its infancy it was an “insufficient language”. Meaning that it was used in the same way the logographs were used. While relying on phonetics, the alphabet preferred letters compounding into words over symbolic drawings. If the language at least literacy was to be for the people on the most basic of level they needed knowledge of its structure. Syllabic literacy opened the possibility for the commoners to engage with the text. The simplicity of speaking and recognising the spelling and the object simultaneously. The alphabet played a big role in trade but it also demonstrated a horizontal society. One that encouraged scribes and sages to educate the masses on reading their texts. Despite these texts being holy, nevertheless the regular folk were permitted at times even obligated to read these texts. Encouraged to engage in the sacred literacy.

At the same time, the alphabet had yet to fully develop as well as dismiss its predecessors' charm. Logographs and parent formats were symbolic exchanges. The alphabet didn’t forget its heritage and computed itself into a coded format. While using letters it still maintained its symbolic aspect. It was symbolic in its sentences and choice of words instead of its picturesque style. In a sense, the poetry of the text using the same words specific conjugations and fragments were to enjoin a specific moniker. The sacred text was hinting at something. It was intentionally written as a dubious or incidental statement to connect to the masses or preceding texts. An interwoven web or symbols supplied by scribal genius and caution. The narrational poetry was seduced by its syllabic orchestration. It may have letters but it was still a symbol just an elongated one. A statement or sentence that referred to a deeper point. A word or conjoined words that manifested profound meaning. As a symbolic model it was constrained to the community. A language that extended from the elites to the folk. An entry of cultural cohesion literate on the most basic of levels. 

The symbolic emblem was an intentional thread to the sacred text. The symbol was a sign for the oral community. The community lived by oral transmission. It understood life by education. Yet its authority rested in the symbolic fragments. In the modern confusion of ancient texts. The narrational prose sucks the reader into the glory of mythic enjoyment. The heritage produced in a beautiful symphony. The law entrenched between stories and behind them. The narrational necessity for a law was more than just itself. It was a part of grandeur legislation. The short line in the sacred text was just a signifier for its place in the oral community. The sacred text was a holder for the law. It was the reference guide for the legal aspect. The lifestyle was bookmarked by textual viability. Only through the code could the text be understood. Before language fully developed into a statuary process, it was symbolic in its syllabic character. It remained a code in its infancy. Brilliantly, it followed the oral framework. A need for legitimacy and authenticity. Scribal integrity was veiling the exuberance of oral daily routine behind the narration or a single law. A blessing in disguise. 

As language developed and codes became more structured, law became a literary power. It was about what was said on parchment or on paper not what was hidden behind the text. Not what was alluded to. Alluding to something was of the past now logic took its place. Analogy and other weapons assisted the development of law in its literate composition. Its semantic explanation was coherent for all whether a local or a foreigner. An imperial citizen would be able to understand the rule and the universalism would be able to permeate the entire kingdom. The ways of signs remained afloat out east but in the west it was a dying breed. Some tried to hang on others gave up hope and adopted the rules of their oppressors. Some seduced into this model validated their heritage under this guise while others resisted it with their entire being. Unfortunately for the dissenters they were outlasted and outmatched. They were the minority. The power of language and the punishment of exile made the oral community that much more difficult to maintain. The fears of extinction and the disastrous circumstances caused literacy to take shape quite strongly quickly. 

The Torah is a troubled text if read like a modernist or even a medievalist. Read the Torah like reading the Mishnah or better yet like reading an ancient Phoenician document. The Torah is misunderstood because it is read like a fiction novel or a constitution. Reading oral law as if it is a makeshift invention when the entirety of the second millennium was an oral society. Until the eighth century Judaism was heavily oral. The Mishnah itself is an oral document. It is written cryptically and esoterically because it is a sign system that the Talmud elucidates. The Talmud is not adding to the Mishnah but unveiling its further details. While using different argumentation, the Talmud is applying the oral compendium to print. This is what the oral community would look like. While not as cohesive it is at least in practice a system run on custom. Up until Ashkenaz, custom was the lay of the land. Following received traditions spoken orally and practiced fully. The Mishnah is a magnification of the law that was present in society. Referring to it through the rabbinic compilation. A redacted measure necessary during the persecutions and struggling observance but still a system of signs.     

The Mishnah is a highly legal version of the Torah. While different in many regards their exegetical methods and cryptic style capture much similarity. It is the Mishnah not the Midrash that demonsrates its clearest similarity to the Torah. Almost as if it was the oral version to the written version of the Torah. Two good examples to glean from the text are eye for an eye and lighting a fire on shabbat. Eye for an eye is seen as this unjust archaic memento. Yet such a semantic reading is a falsehood in an oral society. It is a signifier for a more expansive law. Since the law is not only exceptionally vague, it lacks any qualifiers or situational divergence. No mention if it is accidental or if the assailant had one eye or was blind. The lack of detail is due to its narrational presence. The law exists but its literacy is symbolised by the tale of midah kneged midah. Secondly is the lighting on shabbat. While rabbinic sources say there are forty laws of work only one is mentioned because it is the only one important for the narrative. As a counter to the golden calf that emerged from the fire and how Moses destroyed it in fire, no fire or creation on Shabbat. It is mentioned after the law against work as the signifier for the other thirty nine known intimately by the oral community.      

The Torah was written in age of oral centrality. For good measure, the law was the lifeblood of identity and the hallmark of routine. While heteronomously imposed, it was the wisdom of God not an emperor A personal deity not a foreign ruler. The codified rulebook of the universalists sought to dominate and disseminate their will. Such is not the model of an oral society. A culture bred to live by habit and consistency. To know the law is to go out and see it. To uphold the law is to listen to one’s parent and teacher. Observe and mimic those around you. As long as it is for God. As it will be clear if they are disobeying with an idol in their hand bowing to its tiny figure. Those who look up wear their strings and race to synagogue daily are those to emulate. Their passion for their God and their tradition. A common language fused in the common culture. It is the code to tradition webbed in its generational transmission. Reverence for heritage is impassioned in religious fervour. Tribal cohesion in a prayer quorum. All is referenced in the sacred text. A text that cryptically edges its letters but poetically embraces its significance. 

The divine word is but the anchor to tradition. Josiah’s restoration rested on the consistent cheer for divine obedience in Deuteronomy. The oral community is best shaped by its recognition of the text and its respect for it. Completing the daily tasks with the demand of the textual obligation. The duty signified in the divine relationship embodied by the biblical heroes. A symbol erected beneath the valuational prose enriching the routine of the observer.