THE TEXTS discussed in this chapter focus principally on the question of suffering and whether the pain of hostility is a necessary component of human life or can be avoided by good behaviour. By asking implicitly whether God is to be criticized for failing to prevent suffering, they exemplify the liturgical critique of God's management of the world.

EXTRACT 27. The Flight into Study

This passage, which is apparently detached from the preceding material, is described in a midrashic source1 as a formal introduction to early-morning Torah study, suggesting that it duplicates the Torah blessings in Extract 18. If so, this new attempt to study is undermined by the way in which the previous anthology was compromised by inaccuracy and finally dissolved into prayer. The morning blessings introduced with Extract 21, for instance, were transformed into prayer by their relevance to the here and now. However, they also raised issues that led to the present theological impasse, from which this passage seems to offer an escape by returning to study. The speaker is thus drawn into a pattern of repeated attempts to break out of the vicious circle of suffering and the impossibility of perfect study.

This problem has haunted the speaker since the start of the morning and there is now no alternative but to attempt to escape the paradox by means of a shift of both texture and content. The speaker can be seen here manoeuvring between genres, abandoning petitionary prayer for study for the second time in the morning. This approach is flawed, as has already been seen, however, since if the subject of study synchronizes with the speaker's preoccupations it may be transformed imperceptibly into prayer and lead to a further impasse, a tendency particularly evident in Extract 21. Here the speaker turns again towards study to avoid the painful issues raised by worship, but the fears once more prove impossible to suppress and instead become central concerns, leaving the speaker in

The flight into study (Le’olam yehe adam yere shamayim)

double flight from the implications of both prayer and study, while simultaneously regarding both as places of refuge.