Ritual Hermeneutics
Ritual hermeneutic is a method of interpreting ritual through hermeneutic or defining the meaning of a ritual through a process of hermeneutic. This process is very precarious when we confine the materials within the infrastructure of P’shat. This is because “ritual” is often associated with festival or more esoteric practices such as ceremony or prayer. Therefore, “ritual hermeneutic” would be better suited for higher hermeneutic levels. However, because we have a “ritual practice” in P’shat materials we must interpret from P’shat. We might say that there is a “P’shat Ritual Hermeneutic” as opposed to the other levels of PaRDeS hermeneutic levels. The highest and most capable hermeneutic for interpreting ritual, festival and prayer processes would be Sod. However, because our present material is P’shat we must strip the ritual of all of it Sod apparel. Therefore, we must deduce that “ritual hermeneutic” is subject to the applicable PaRDeS hermeneutic. In other words, when we see a ritual within a particular text we must determine the level of hermeneutic and therein confine the ritual to the specific level of hermeneutic. Ritual Hermeneutic interprets the ritual within the confines of the materials in which we find it. Our present ritual, the Pesach Seder must be confined to the level of P’shat because we are reading P’shat materials. Therefore, we must use the “Ritual Hermeneutics” of the genre we are dealing with to decode the festival in its context.
We will have more on this hermeneutic and Pesach very soon…