Mastering Metaphor

Iain McGilchrist in his work, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, has argued the division of the hemispheres of the brain is not an equal one. There is an imbalance of power. Originally the right was uplifted over the left, but in the course of time the left has slowly ascended over the right. Clarifying the confusion as to who is the master and who is the emissary can be used to explain our personal and collective cognitive histories. To approach this question, we must first drill deeper into the gendered right/left relationships in the Torah’s account of Creation.

As we have already discussed, from a kabbalistic standpoint the mind within the mind was meant to rule over the heart within the mind. This relationship could be described as Adom (Adam) transferring the Divine message to Chava (Eve). Moreover, this Divine message comes via a kind of ‘transcendental’ intuition (chochmah) regarding the true nature of Reality (in the sense of the Divine name representing Reality or Being i.e. ‘God tells Adom/Adam’). The problem arose when the transcription of that message shifted into the sphere of our logico-linguistic modeling in the left brain–that is say, when it was (mis)-interpreted by Chava (Eve).

What this suggests is that our right brain has to be prioritized over the left. We directly access experience in our right mind through our faculty of intuition (chochmah) and it is rebuilt (binah ‘understanding’ relates to boneh ‘building’) as re/presentation. Re/presentation is indirect. The reconstruction of the original experience as it was lived (note that chochmah corresponds to the level of the soul known as chayah meaning ‘living one’) fails to capture it alive. One of the main reasons for this comes from the inadequate re/presentation that is offered through conceptual thinking. It is not that we lack the proper concepts but that concepts themselves are poor containers for the lived experience. Serious concerns surround any project that involves the disassembly of a thing as to whether or not that thing will be put back together again in the correct manner–especially when we are dealing with a ‘living’ thing. Once killed, resurrection may be exceedingly difficult.

If however the left brain or binah (logico-linguistic modeling) is a faithful emissary (shaliach) of his or her Master (Rebbe), then the emissary is considered to be the equivalent of the master. This equality existed in the Edenic reality prior to episode of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adom (Adam) and Chava (Eve) were shavim b’kumatan meaning of ‘equal stature.’ This kabbalistic expression on its face suggests that they were the same height. Metaphorically speaking, in our cognitive parallel this would imply that the left brain (Chava/Eve) could reach the same level as the right, that our re/presentation would furnish us with ‘full coverage’ of the original image gleaned from our intuition. The models of the mind would be able to net in the constellation of concepts the fullness of the original and re/produce it. This form of re/production, with no loss of accuracy or detail from the original–the quest for the perfect copy–would be the ultimate task of the maternal understanding (binah). Very crudely speaking ‘she’ is a copying machine. Chavah (Eve), after all, was initially supposed to be named chayah (living one)–the soul level which we mentioned above in relation to chochmah (intuition). In other words, the spouses would be from the same soul root. In that case then Chavah (Eve), rather than introducing death into the world (a form of information entropy due to the limits of conceptual thinking straightjacketed by the protocols of logico-linguistic bureaucracy), would have been celebrated as em kol chai “the mother of all life.” Mothering all life would trope re/production as a re/meditation of life wherein the simulacra becomes indistinguishable from the original. Virtual reality and reality merge into one.

What was the punishment of Chava (Eve) that came as a result of eating from the Tree? For starters it made re-production difficult. ‘Conception’ psychically and somatically is now painful. The final part of the exilic disfunction introduced into the human condition was pronounced in the last phrase in Genesis 3:16: “…and he will rule over you” meaning that Adom (Adam) will rule over Chavah (Eve). This is a symmetry breaking in the world. The right (Adom/Adam) will exercise mastery over the left (Chavah/Eve). Direct intuition trumps our ability to re/conceive that vision. When they were of the same status, a picture was equal to a word. Now, a picture is worth a 1000 words or more. And even with that currency exchange we still feel shortchanged with the ‘written description’ and want to see the picture. Reading about an event, speaking about it, thinking about it does not make us feel like we were really there. Best case, we might feel that we got an approximation of what it was really like or that we were virtually there. The left brain cannot measure up to the right brain.

One of the fundamental conditions of exile is when there is a diminished stature accorded to the feminine in society (even the ‘societies of the mind’ to riff on the title of Marvin Minsky’s book). Upon further examination, the verse from Genesis above reveals something profound about the nature of metaphor. All conceptual thought and perhaps all language is ‘metaphoric’ in that there is no natural resemblance between a thing and the word that names it. Words are ordinarily not thought of as a rebus. With the exception of Hebrew (which the kabbalists understand to be a special case) contrived languages bear no resemblance between signifier and signified. The signifier is a vehicle for transporting the signified into conscious thought. It is meta (between) + phero (to carry)–to carry over or to transfer over. Binah [בינה] has a hint of this in that the word bein [בין] or ‘between’ is found in it. Left brain thinking is metaphoric. The metaphor is the pregnancy in the matrix of understanding that ‘transfers’ the message of the mentality of ‘father’ (the right brain or chochmah).

In this sense, the expression “and he will rule over you’ (v’hu yimshal bach והוא ימשל בך) means not only that the right ‘rules’ over the ‘left’ but that the ‘right’ becomes ‘metaphorized’ in the left. This is because the word for ‘rule’ yimshal [ימשל] in the Hebrew of the verse also means ‘mashal’ [משל] a metaphor.  So this one word carries the dual significance of both ‘rule’ (a means of mastery) and ‘metaphor.’ Amazingly, one of the most important texts on the subject of metaphor in the academic world is the late philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s book aptly titled The Rule of Metaphor. This title (chosen by the translator because of a passage in Aristotle’s Poetics 1459a 5-7 where is states: ‘…the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor [emphasis mine]’ perfectly summarizes the dual meaning of the Hebrew word yimshal in our verse. Exercising mastery over the production of metaphors allows the silence of Adom (Adam) to speak through the matrix of Chava (Eve).

Two additional insights: first, in this verse the word “v’hu” [והוא] ‘and he’ adds up to 18 which equals the Hebrew word Chai or ‘life’ and second, the last word bach [בך] means not so much ruling over as ruling ‘within you.’ The insemination of semantic content rules within her, the left brain or the mentality of mother (binah). Finally ‘bach’ or ‘within her’ is equivalent to 22 (kaf = 20 and beit = 2) which eludes to the 22 Hebrew letters. Life (He) rules/metaphorizes within her (the 22 Hebrew letters associated with the logico-linguistic centers in the left hemisphere of the brain. Executive function in this sense involves the masterful control of metaphor for proper inter-cranial communication.

For Part Six, our mental imaging will continue and address the rehabilitation of our concept of ‘feminine’ and of metaphor.

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