Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

B o o k
Filling In the Blanks
Edeet Ravel
Lovers: A Midrash. NuAge Editions $12.95
Reviewed by Laurie Aikman
"I held the note in my hand and stared at it.
The unlikely, decorative script filled me with
unbearable desire. It seemed to me that if I
could only decipher the sinuous markings
on the page, I would be able to unlock the
secret of my longing." So muses one of the
characters—a Jewish agriculturalist in love
with an Arab student in Jerusalem—in
Edeet Ravel's sparsely lyrical Lovers: A
Midrash. This haunting prose poem novel
is essentially an exploration of the complex
interrelationships between interpretation,
knowledge, communication and desire.
Ravel, who.teaches Hebrew literature at
McGill University, was inspired in her writing
by the ancient Hebrew tradition of
scriptural interpretation known as "midrash."
Richard Cooper explains in the afterword
that midrash "is simply the Hebrew word
for interpretation or explanation." He
describes it as an "interpretative strategy"
that involves telling stories to explain other
stories, specifically the stories of scripture.
Another Hebrew scholar, Lawrence
Kushner, has defined midrash as "the writing
that sprouts up in the spaces between
the consecrated words of Scripture." Perhaps
the most evocative and playful metaphor
for midrash was provided by Ravel herself
in a CBC "Saturday Spotlight" interview
with Shelly Pomerance in December, 1994:
"It was a kind of group writing. You'd have
a group of people in a room, each one
building an interpretation on the interpretation
of the other. It was a kind of ancient
jam session in interpretation."
These definitions provide important
clues as to how midrash functions in Ravel's
text, and how Ravel's text functions as
midrash. The book is divided into six sections.
The first, third and fifth sections,
entitled respectively "Departure," "Absence,"
and "Return," describe the timeless world
of six Hebrew sages, all men, who gather to
discuss Scripture and midrash in the House
of Study. The verbal "jam session" in which
these men engage is a reminder that interpretation
is communal, that it is a process
of discussion and dialogue, rather than any
fixed truth. The road that leads to the
House of Study, however, also leads away
from it, and the movement described by
the titles of these chapters is that of one of
the scholars, Rav Huna's son.
Each of the other three sections is a contemporary
midrash on six verses of the
"Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon," one
of the most highly erotic and mysterious
books of the Hebrew Scriptures. Again, the
titles of the chapters are spatial in nature:
"New York," "London," and "Jerusalem."
"New York" and "Jerusalem" are stories of
love, jealousy and desire narrated by
women. "London" is a series of responses
to the personal advertisement of "[two]
impecunious ugly sisters looking for beaux
who will wine and dine [them]." In these
sections, part of the "Song of Songs"—an
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