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ingly aligned with Samson's appears fated if not fatal, a personal
destiny foreshadowed in the scriptural.
Biblical scholarship assigns the authorship of Exodus to numer–
ous hands. One author, known as "J," gets credit for the original
strand which was then expanded, embroidered upon and normal–
ized by later redactors. Harold Bloom, in a leap of inspired scholar–
ship, claims to recognize the voice of the original author whenever it
appears, rather as Coleridge said he would know a line of Words–
worth if he came upon it in the middle of the desert. The author
known as "J" - so uncanny, so singular, so much a visitation (as was
Shakespeare) - disturbs Bloom deeply. The disturbance impels
Bloom to question his renowned theory of literary influence and,
more crucially, to investigate "J's" version of Yahweh, which varies
significantly from that of normative Judaism. This wholehearted ex–
cursion into the nature of original divinity transforms literary
scholarship into a kind of poetry and partakes of the sublime.
"Two pictures, divided by an old piano - Ruth in
The Song ojthe
Lark,
my grandfather in his
yarmulke"
dominate Cynthia Ozick's ex–
amination of the Book of Ruth. Ozick locates herself in this tableau
as a young girl, trying on the one hand to fathom the orthodox figure
in the photograph, and on the other hand drawn to the flowery field
with a young woman identified by her mother as "Ruth gleaning in
the fields of Boaz." The grandfather remains forever frozen in his
Kiev study, no new information forthcoming. But Ruth may be con–
sidered as a woman who made an extraordinary choice; her charac–
ter may be fleshed out when the writer's imagination engages the
overtones and implications of the brief, biblical account. Using
Ozick's emblematic tableau, the author plays a melody on that medi–
ating keyboard, a song of personal choice, of the nature of singular–
ity, of historical action and personal need and messianic promise.
Where Lopate, Ozick and Bloom appropriate their topics in
ways that heighten both the text and their own vocations, David
Shapiro allows Proverbs to set his tone . In place of the poet's wonted
passion there is a worldly, measured, proverbial calm. By acknow–
ledging a strength in Proverbs that goes beyond his own experience,
Shapiro can harmonize his own past, his impulses, and the dif–
ficulties of the text. Geoffrey Hartman's essay on Numbers and
Mark Mirsky's exploration of the Book of Daniel also have this quiet
strength, buttressed by their own Hebrew scholarship. Mirsky in–
corporates an account of a lesson with Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchick
