Reading Without Vowels
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Exodus 14:30 NASB
Saved – A language without vowels is a language in a state of constant interpretation. Every time it is read, vowels must be inserted. That means every act of reading is a personal decision. “What vowels do I use this time?” When you think about it, God’s word in the Hebrew Bible is probably the most malleable message any divinity has ever given. Every word requires personal insertion. It isn’t just the “white fire” (that space around the letters of a scroll that provide the “frame” for viewing the black letters) that provides a mystical element to the text. It’s the invisible vowels themselves, added each time the text is read. The Masoretes did more than simply preserve the Tanakh. By inventing vowel pointing, they changed the basic format of the text. They standardized the reading. Personal decision about what vowels were inserted was no longer an issue, and in the process, perhaps the text became more sterile, less personal, and less demanding. Now we could treat the Scriptures as a document for academic study rather than a challenge for personal involvement.
As an example, let’s consider the debate about this particular verse. Rabbi Akiva suggested a rather astonishing interpretation of the text, based strictly on the way the words could be read.
“Rabbi Akiva expounded: They have said, was it for our sake that God was concerned with our redemption? He was concerned with Himself. God redeemed Himself, not us, for it was said: ‘whom you have redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a people and its God.’”[1]
“Rabbi Akiva’s disciple Rabbi Meir followed his teacher in teaching this bold concept: ‘Thus the Lord delivered [vayyosha’] Israel that day’ (Exodus 14:30)—‘[the Hebrew consonants can be read as if it were] written thus the Lord was delivered [vayyivvasha’]—when Israel is redeemed, God is, as it were, also redeemed.’ In another context, Rabbi Meir expressed the same thought: ‘Redemption is mine and yours, and I, as it were, was redeemed with you,’ as it is said: ‘whom you have redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a people and its God.’”[2]
Abraham Heschel’s book, God in Search of Man, extends implications of this reading. In another book, Heschel comments:
“From time immemorial the people has perceived the salvation of Israel as a human need, a national need, through which, to be sure, God’s name would be magnified in the world. But now Rabbi Akiva taught that Israel’s salvation is a divine need, and God’s needs take precedence over human needs. There is yet more: according to the classical theology, salvation was conditional on Israel’s merit, but folded into Rabbi Akiva’s doctrine is the idea that salvation is the concern and need of the Holy and Blessed One, in all the divine glory, and thus would have come even in the absence of merit.”[3]
Zornberg reminds us, “. . . total certainty can never be achieved in human affairs. Meaning cannot be finally arrested, stopped in its tracks. It is affected by sociological conditions, even by the very fact of reading.”[4]
“The reader of this text, or of any text, comes with a grid of prejudices and expectations that inform his reading.”[5]
Reading is interpretation. The Hebrew text is merely scaffolding. The meaning must be added in the same way that a builder adds walls, windows, ceilings, and doors to the framework. Where those are placed is a matter of decision. What you read, even in translation, isn’t the only way to read the text. Perhaps God intentionally communicated in Hebrew because it demands personal involvement. Such a pity that we have converted this open-architecture Scripture into fixed typeset.
Topical Index: saved, yāšaʿ, Himself, vowels, Exodus 14:30
[1] Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, p. 106.
[2] Ibid., p. 107.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers, p. 53.
[5] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (Schocken Books, New York: 2001), p. 144.
