Edmond Jabès: Rabbi-Poet of the Book

Abstract

This article serves as an introduction to the writings of Jewish poet Edmond Jabès. Whereas the Christian metaphor of “fulfilment” has influenced Western interpretive practice, the Jewish metaphor of “exile” runs as a counter-history to the dominant Christian tradition. Jabès points to a wandering, nomadic truth that knows absence and the desert, sustained by an open, indeterminate Book rather than a closed, completed Book. This “exilic hermeneuric” is central to Jabès' writings.