The Portal of Unity and Faith Word from: Alieza

I have this vision of a Chassidic text I once read, which perfectly mirrored post-modern literary theory with a hint of Lacanian mystical ecstasy. A couple years ago I wrote a senior thesis on it. I reveled in the find: it described the gap between sign and signifier, and the act of God's first words dividing the world, building boundaries in the Real. I was in love.

Alas this week, when I wanted to retrace my reading, the perfection of nostalgia had slipped through my fingers. I originally read the chapter in English, a translation obviously meant to simplify the kabalistic world for an American reader looking for a quick fix of spirituality. After 2 days of pouring over a whole Hebrew book that bears the same title, I am about to give up hope of recovering that text.

For years I talked of it, thought of it as a constant, as this marvelous description out in the world that I could access whenever I needed. Wading through this old unclear printing something has been stolen, a sense of the stability. To share these ideas with my Israeli classmates I need the Hebrew text, a stable object in the world I can offer as proof, an objective citation I can dangle between our subjectivities.

I feel sort of abandoned. But the Chassidic writer himself would have told me- all version of the text are only illusions.