CONTENTS

Acknowledgments 11

Introduction 13

Chapter One: Theology, Negative Theology and Radical Negative Theology 17

Negative Theology in the Greek Philosophic Tradition 18

The Origins of Theological Apophatic Discourse in Greek Philosophy 19

Negative Theology in Islam 22

Negative Theology in Christianity 27

Negative Theology: From Christianity to Modernity 32

From Negative Theology to the Radical Negative Theology of “The Death of God” 38

Light from the Cracks: Post-Modern Theology 40

Hebraic Negative Theology: Monotheistic Abstraction and the Hidden Face of God 45

Monotheistic Abstraction 46

The Theology of the Hiding of the Face of God 54

Radical Negative Theology and Eros 64

Conclusion 65

Chapter Two: Poetry and Theology, Poetry and Mysticism 67

Poetry and Theology (Theopoetics): The Act of Poetry as a Theistic Act 67

Poetry and Mysticism 73

Mysticism in Poetry: Universalism and Particularism 73

Mystical Poetry: Characteristics 76

Why “Theology” in the Poetry of Rivka Miriam and Yonadav Kaplun 78

The Research Discourse on Theology in Hebrew Poetry 80

Chapter Three: Presence and Absence – Theology in the Poetry of Rivka Miriam 83

Introduction 83

The Research Relating to Rivka Miriam's Poetry 84

The Research on Rivka Miriam's Holocaust Poetry 85

The Research on Intertextual Aspects in Rivka's Miriam's Poetry 87

The Research on Mysticism and Eroticism in Rivka's Miriam's Poetry 88

Theological Trends in Rivka Miriam's Poetry 89

The Revelation of God as Nothing and Absent: From Presence to Abstract Presence 90

God that is Old and Weak, God that is Empty 96

Sensual Nothingness 97

The Point of Nothingness: The Connection Between Man and Woman 99

Standing Before the Absence: The Researcher as an Analogy 100

“In the Heart of the Stone, Said the Researcher / There is a Hole”: The Hole and the “Chora” as Anti-Place, Alternative Female Theology 103

Loss of Self 107

Loss of Self as a Basis for Unification with the Sublime and Internalization of the Voice of God 107

Loss of Self: The Search for the God of the Individual and the God of All 109

Loss of Self: Neglect as a Connection 110

Loss of Self: Coercion as a Creative Force and as a Basis for Closeness with God 111

Intertextual Strategies: Challenging and Preserving the Tradition 113

Syntactic Dissonance, Intertextual Subversion and the Canonical Status of Prayer 113

Great, Mighty and Aweful: A Tradition of Erasure and Interpretation 115

“I Have Gotten a Man with the Help of God” – Collage: A Strategy for Acceptance 116

The Use of Traditional Language Against Tradition 118

The Dead Eyes of Uncle Leyvish: Prayer that is a Trauma 121

The Absence of Decisiveness as a Way of Preserving Tradition 122

“In Their Love They Erased the Meaning of all Words”: Erasure as a Way of Preserving Tradition 124

Criticism and Opportunity: Feminist Readings in Holy Tradition 125

“By Himself”: Critical Feminist Theology 125

Disruption and Grotesqueness: Feministic Subversion 128

“The Rabbi Swung as a Merciful Mother”: The Motherly Image of the Rabbi 130

Tradition in the Face of the Terror of the Holocaust 134

“And I Deepened in the Dead”: The Consciousness of God as Nothing that Arises from the Internalization of the Death of the People 134

An Erotic Meeting with Death: The Prose of the Father and the Poetry of the Daughter 139

The Continuation of Tradition as a Broken Tradition 146

“Hear O’ Israel” and the Eye Half Shut 149

The Decline of Metaphysics 151

The Recognition of Heaven as Nothingness 151

The Absence of Metaphysics: Tradition in Crisis and a Serious Game of Hide and Seek 154

The Internalization of the Consciousness of Metaphysical Emptiness 155

The Absence of Metaphysics: The Crisis of Tradition and the Consciousness of Being an Emissary 157

Retrospectivity: Return to Revelation 158

“Whoever Bit Me at Night”: A Look from a Distance at the Erotic and Violent Elements of Revelation 160

Looking Back: Loss within Loss 162

Looking Back: The Encounter of God with Child 163

Looking Back on the Weak God: Intimacy and Closeness Instead of Attraction and Violence 164

“I Have Spread Before Me the Names of My God”: Retrospective as God’s Request 166

“God of Playfulness”: The Birth of Presence Out of Amusement, a Return to a One-Time Revelation Experience 168

Intimacy and Sex as a Space for Revelation 171

From Eroticism to Sexuality and From Monogamy to Polyandry 172

Intimacy with Nothingness 175

Disconnection between Man and God as an Expression of Connection 180

Simplicity as a Strategy for Meeting God 184

The Simple Presence of the Ancient God 185

The Burning Bush as the Simplicity of Our Body: The Body as a Space of Revelation 186

“To Call All by the Name of Simplicity” 188

The Theology of Rivka Miriam’s Poetry: Conclusion 189

Chapter Four: “Then You Were Greatly Magnified, When You Marveled to Disguise / The Empty Void with the Illusion That We Know Something”: Theology in the Poetry of Yonadav Kaplun 192

Introduction 192

Research on the Poetry of Yonadav Kaplun 193

Theological Trends in Kaplun's Poetry 196

Missing Out as an Opportunity for a Meeting between Man and God 198

Revelation from the Low and the Contemptible 201

The Divine Reveals Himself in Shades of Darkness: Revelation of the Inside and Revelation of the Outside 205

“In the Dark Courtyard the Steps of My God” 205

Revelation of Darkness: Disappearance and Light 207

“I Will Have a Home”: Between Home and Revelation 208

The Language of Poetry, the Language of Revelation 212

Disillusionment with the Language of Purity of Religious Consciousness 212

The Muteness of Poetry and the Muteness of Revelation 213

The Journey to the Divine is the Journey of Separation from His Names 215

A Secret Language Between Man and God 218

The Flight of the Word in Front of God 220

Writing, Revelation and Sexuality 221

Sexual Potency, Poetic Potency and Presence Before God 222

Exposed Sexuality as a Replacement of Romantic-Cosmic Symbolism in Meeting with God 224

“And I Embrace the Last Worshiper”: Awareness of Passion – Religious Renewal 226

Divine Revelation in the Concrete 227

New Prayer in the Abandoned Border Areas 228

Religiosity and Passion 230

“I Will Break and Give Birth”: The Revelation of God, the Revelation of Man 232

Passion on the Way to the Western Wall 234

The Internalization of the Burning of Faith: Passion, Marital Intimacy and the Renewal of Faith 238

Sexual Dream: A Connection between Man and God 241

“One Time”: Sexuality and Standing Before God – a Retrospective 242

“A Void More Precious Than Anything”: Heresy and Secularism – Opportunity for Faith 248

Transcendence beyond Time and Place: Breaking the Religious Boundaries 250

Disenchantment and Change: The Believing Heretic 252

Revealing the Mechanisms of Language as a Response to the Theological Challenge of the Disconnection between the Signifier and the Signified 258

The Disillusionment of the Believing Heretic 259

The Prayer of the Heretic 262

“Spanish Poem”: Mythological and Historical Foundation for the Position of the Believing Heretic 264

God – A Thing or an Illusion? 271

“Perhaps,” “The Castor Song,” “Probably” 271

“Days When the Sun is a Flashlight”: God Reveals Himself in History 273

“God – A Thing or an Illusion?” 275

“When You Marveled to Disguise the Empty Void with the Illusion That We Know Something” 276

A Person in the World: Another Day in the Fear of Death in the Face of the Eternal Evasive 278

Revelation and Reflection 279

“[I] Create God in the Fall” 280

“I am like your God, Live only as Long as You Live” 281

Sarcasm, Hesitation and Reflection before the Temple Gate 281

A Reflection on the Idea of God’s Creation by Man 284

Me and “God’s Broad Black Shoulders”: Human and God Relationships in Three Pictures 285

“Six Last Songs”: Faith from the Liminal Position 289

Theology in the Poetry of Yonadav Kaplun: Conclusion 291

Chapter Five: The Poetry of Rivka Miriam and Yonadav Kaplun in the Realm of the New Hebrew Theological Poetry 295

The Weak God and Resistance to Tradition 296

Prophets in the Decline of the Gods: The Persona of the Prophet in Hebrew Poetry – From a Redeemer to the Signifier of the Missing 300

Existent and Non-Existent 302

The God of the Low, the Disgusted, the Banal and the Day to Day 306

Sexuality and Closeness to God 312

Sanctuary: The Empty Room, The Huge Stump 314

“The Past Moves within the Present”: The Boundaries of the Self and Time 317

“Blessed be Thou, my Lord, In Your Net the Child has been Caught”: Childhood and Death as a Basis for Mystical Poetry 320

Sabbath Candles Lighting – A Meaningful Theological Junction: A Masculine and Feminine Perspective 322

Candle Lighting – A Male Perspective: Mother, Woman, a Subject of Longing and the Presence of Religiousness 323

The Sabbath Candles – A Feminine Perspective: Coping with Trauma and Lighting up the Profane 325

Conclusion 329

Bibliography 335

Index 365