Games of Inheritance

YITZHAK LEWIS is an assistant professor of humanities at Duke Kunshan University, China. He is the author of A Permanent Beginning: R. Nachman of Braslav and Jewish Literary Modernity.

• Acknowledgments Introduction: A Game of Inheritance The Judaic From Kabbalah to Tradition (the Structure of the Argument) Methodological Notes Section I: Kabbalah Chapter 1: Kabbalistic Stories Kabbalistic Methodologies Encountering Scholem Chapter 2: The Ideal Author A Vindication of the Author What is an Author? Another Creation Story Cabal and Complot A Comment on Literature and Conspiracy Chapter 3: The Ideal Reader Borges’ Parable of the Cave The Narrator and the Kabbalist Kabbalah and Tradition Section II: Tradition Chapter 4: The Trouble with Tradition Literary Tradition Jewish Tradition National Tradition Tradition in the Historical Sense The Postwar Question of Tradition Chapter 5: What is Jewish Tradition? First Rejection: The Essential Second Rejection: The Original Third Rejection: The Rupture The Departure from Tradition Veblen, An Imbalanced Analogy Veblen, An Evolving Analogy Chapter 6: Tradition and Local Color Between Jewish and Israeli Literature “The Memory of Israel is in Agnon” Between Tradition and Local Color Bring on the Camels Section III: Authorship Chapter 7: Authorship and its Metaphors Hasidism The Sphere of In-Between Kafka and his Precursors A New Metaphor for Authorship Conclusion: Borges and his Kafkaesque Precursors NotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgmentsixIntroduction: A Game of Inheritance 1The Judaic 4From Kabbalah to Tradition (the Structure of the Argument) 7Methodological Notes 10Part I Kabbalah1 Kabbalistic Stories 15Kabbalistic Methodologies 17Encountering Scholem 222 The Ideal Author 29A Vindication of the Author 31What is an Author? 33Another Creation Story 37Cabal and Complot 39A Comment on Literatureand Conspiracy 423 The Ideal Reader 51Borges’s Parable of the Cave 54The Narrator and the Kabbalist 59Kabbalah and Tradition 68Part II Tradition4 The Troublewith Tradition 73Literary Tradition 75Jewish Tradition 78National Tradition 79Tradition in the Historical Sense 82The Postwar Question of Tradition 875 What Is Jewish Tradition? 91First Rejection: The Essential 93Second Rejection: The Original 95Third Rejection: The Rupture 96The Departure from Tradition 98Veblen, an Imbalanced Analogy 104Veblen, an Evolving Analogy 1086 Tradition and Local Color 113Between Jewish and Israeli Literature115“The Memory of Israel Is in Agnon” 118Between Tradition and Local Color 123Bring on the Camels 126Part III Authorship7 Authorship and Its Metaphors135Hasidism 138The Sphere of In-Between142Kafka and His Precursors 144A New Metaphorfor Authorship 148Conclusion: Borges and His Kafkaesque Precursors 155A Sidenote on Another Precursor 157Jewish LiteratureafterBorges 158Notes 161Bibliography 195Index 000

"Lewis' study of what he calls the Judaic 'web of allusions' in Jorge Luis Borges' writing opens new interpretative possibilities implied in the positing of a marrano gesture at the dead center of twentieth-century Latin American literature. Lewis' endeavor engages with a Borgesian literary politics on the other side of national allegories or any kind of identity postulation. Borgesian dissidence establishes a horizon of and for literature that still today remains unthought in the Latin American and Spanish archive." - Alberto Moreiras (author of Uncanny Rest: For Antiphilosophy) "Games of Inheritance dares scholars to shift their thinking from questions of accuracy and influence in Borges's engagement with the Jewish textual tradition and focus instead on Borges's imagined invention of 'the Judaic.' Lewis's speculative and novel claim will inspire scholars both inside and outside Jewish studies, Latin American studies, and comparative literature to move beyond biography in order to rethink Borges under the sign of a modern 'kabbalistic prophet.'" - Kitty Millet (author of Kabbalah and Literature)