τα εργα

When I started thinking about the Midrash of Love a question attacked me: How is it possible to write a Midrash without a previous conversation, and because the conversation is all about translating I thought my enterprise was apparently much bigger than anything I saw before, I presumed that this Midrash should be written in a time line, therefore additions would be made all along the way. It is interesting I decided to start my Midrash with "he shall summon freedom" because once the freedom has been summoned and we've been granted entire responsibility for the world imminent chaos ensued.

I could only think about this while I made love to him, justly deciding that negatively speaking I created him out of a Midrashic character. The prophet tells us revealing things about this freedom, pointing out the words of God in that as much as the freedom would have been granted to us gratuitiously had we listened, now the conditions have changed. The freedom will be bequeathed to us by the sword and the plague. We will be thrown into the abyss. And only he shall summon freedom.

I said previously philosophy is an act of love, and philosophizing is the work of love. The modern thinker has an unsatiable need to love, therefore he allegedly endeavours to acquire a language to construct, to found and therefore to have the possibility to love. Freedom is only a foundation for the abyss, for blindness. In seeking meaning and therefore being entirely modern the philosopher is denying this freedom by writing a different narrative, a narrative of both thing and world. This denial of freedom is the quest for a foundation, and once this foundation is construed the philosopher will be able to love. He does not want to be free, because this causes him vertigo and blindness, he wants to love without a negation, he wants to love with the beloved clearly drawn before his eyes. But in wanting to see the philosopher is also sinning before God and is therefore condemned to the obscurity of twilight, and perhaps only the beloved can see because he's been set free. Philosophy wants to deny the foundation by eloquently speaking about it and seeking refuge in the vicious power of language, but as soon as he achieves it he realized he's found the Kafkian Archimedean point, to be found only in order to use it against himself.

The good as ultimate commodity resembles the liberal theory, it is boring. Therefore the philosopher can only affirm his essence by means of art, by reflecting about art without being an artist. His reflections conduce him to think that he must withdrawn in order to become Greek-godly even when this is scorned by the prophet. The philosopher then turns to seek evil, in which he finds the art he is seeking, the art of life. In the callous smile of evil the philosopher achieves the view of the prophet... that of postponing the present by the narrative of the future, but because it is modernity this future is simply a narrative and therefore a mode of cognition like Midrash, art, philosophy and science. Evil means for the philosopher life whereas good means only truth, and in his search for meaning he is a lot more content with the view of redeemed life than with that of a redeeming truth which has ceased to interest him.

In trying to achieve life out of the sources of philosophy, the philosopher turns into a philosopher of death, because mortality is the only source of philosophy and this lacking in vitality is the only motivation for creativity. Had the philosopher hearkened to the prophet he would be safely grounded in his idlesome conformism, and a social conformist can never make a philosopher. Life is the only motivation behind this philosophy, even when turning towards death could be the only way to achieve this life. The philosopher thinks his death over and over, whereas the prophet has only gospels. The good news do not satisfy the philosophical mind, and to my demise my Midrash of Love can be written only by the Greeks, because Jerusalem has lost the power to charm the stupefied humanity and in order to build her anew one must journey along the Greeks in order to find the throughway to philosophy so that the exit to revelation can be located anew. The philosopher can never learn to act in Athens, he can only learn about the value of the good in an Archimedean way, only in order to reject it and use this negation against himself.

The work of love is the thinker's solitude, in which the free beloved sees the light and the loving philosopher is bound to his condition. But as long as the thinker isn't lonely, as long as he can discuss and experience he can overcome even his own philosophy and throw himself into life even if that means death in earthly terms. The choice of philosophy is irreversible, and the struggle against the prophet runs along this thread. The philosopher is trying to unearthen the real world but the prophet is warning him that he won't be able to live in it. But the philosopher insists and he finds himself chained to the abyss, because the reafirmation of his individual freedom requires a source of truth, which to the philosopher is already impossible and in his interpretation of meaning he has died himself to life, but in that sense he's become deaf to the prophet therefore bound to see everything by himself without an audience, and in fact he's the real survivor.

To tell the Midrash of Love is a metaphysics of the experience, in which the philosopher uncalls himself for his quest and in doing so experiences the negation that feeds him life. Midrash is the work of the lover and philosophy is the result of the beloved's care, of the beloved's ignorance and poignant questioning. The philosopher doesn't want to philosophize, but he's left with no other option. Because the beloved is not always present to construct together worlds anew to protect both from the mighty waters. The beloved is a free citizen and the philosopher is the slave. Philosophy is the prayer of Kafka, Benjamin and Arendt - attentiveness. The philosopher isn't satisfied with it, he wants to capture the photograph of our earthly life and redeem it before us. Freedom lives in a prayerless world, that the philosopher rejects. He wants lively discussions and dialogues, because he knows God created the world by acts of speech and not by translations, but he is unable to speak. In a sense he is only granted to love alone, and in doing so all philosophy is already antidemocratic and elitist. On account of that the philosopher wants to think, but he cannot do so alone therefore he calls upon himself the three freedoms; he envies the prophets. He needs the beloved to write the Midrash of Love, but the beloved doesn't need him because he's himself already free, therefore thoughtless, irresponsible and evil. The lover loves his evil because it reminds him of good, there's a presence but no real essence. The philosopher loves art because in Greek it is acting and creating, but he is unable to do so for as long as he is loving in philosophy, he must radically think instead. But it is this illusion of love what creates the narrative, the philosopher and the philosophy. This is the work of love, to unearthen language, as to be able to love not the beloved alone but in general. The beloved is jealous and chains himself to protect his love from the waters, he cheats Eve and turns all knowledge again into falsehood and deceive, by answering questions no one asked. The lover runs after the beloved in motionless silence, the beloved answers in impossibilities.

Both have chosen themselves for philosophy, the former criminally and the latter consequentially. Their love's work is writing the Midrash of Love which becomes impossible in translation, speech is necessary, but their love's work is in itself the Midrash of Love.