Remember playing Mad Libs as a kid? Or maybe you still do. Mad Libs are like a game: a piece of writing with words taken out so that someone can fill in the blanks with prompted words, thus creating a wacky and often nonsensical (and potty-mouthed) whole story. Here is an example:
This week’s parasha, Parashat Vayetzei, reminds me of Mad Libs, and it all has to do with a very special something called a hapax legomena. Here’s what happens:
Jacob is fleeing from his home because his brother, Esau, may want to hurt/kill him. Also, Jacob is off looking for a wife. The journey is long and so he comes to a place to rest for the night:
He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and messengers (aka angels) of God were going up and down on it.1
Notice that word I bolded: stairway. In Hebrew that word is written as sullam סֻלָּם֙ and it occurs only once in the entire Hebrew Bible. This is what we call a hapax legomena: a word that only exists once in a certain literary context.
According to the Hebrew Bible Dictionary which we lovingly call the BDB, this word, sullam, is related to the word salal סָלַל meaning “to lift up, or cast up.”
And it translated variously as:
“Stairway” (yes, as in the Stairway to Heaven) by JPS
“Steps” by the New Life Version
“Ladder” by the King James Version
the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (what a name) notes that it could also mean, “Ramp”
So what does it mean? How do you define a word – or in our case, translate a word – when we only have it once and in its original language. What if a sullam is not in fact a stairway, steps, a ladder, or a ramp? What if a sullam is instead like a current of wind that whooshes angels up and down from heaven (Beam me up, God-dy)? What if a sullam is an elevator or system of pulleys like are used to wash windows on skyscrapers? What if a sullam is the original beanstalk or like a divine fireman’s poll made of fire? What if sullam is something else entirely that we could never even begin to imagine? How do we know what sullam means? Poor sullam, a little word so misunderstood and alone. Do you think it feels frustrated that we don’t know its exact meaning, or is it just laughing as we textually flail? Is it proud of its obscurity – more a concept than a tangible thing?
Might we stop here and just say that a sullam is anything that connects heaven and Earth? A category.
The reason we even have a chance at translating the exact meaning of sullam (without knowing or speculating about the root word) is because of its context. It is something that is set on the ground and reaches the sky. It is something angels can go up and down on. Context is the key: the context and narrative flow are what make definitions of sullam work or not. Does any word have any intrinsic meaning or does meaning only come in relation to other words, like a closed loop? Uh oh! Let’s not turn down the path of post-structural-nothing-means-anything-everything-is-deferred-meaning-ahhh. Instead, let’s bring this abstract concept into our lives: what is a hapax legomena of daily life? Something that truly happens only once. Something we don’t understand except for it’s context.
In a way, each human being is a hapax legomena: completely unique and made sense of by our relationships to our surroundings. Depending on how you think about what happens after death, you might say we, too, only happen once. And if we had asked Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), she may have said something like this:
Nothing Twice
by Wislawa Szymborska
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.
One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
Maybe it’s better that we don’t know exactly what a sullam is. We know enough, don’t we? Isn’t the wiggle room for imagination fun and exciting? Doesn’t leaving it untranslated open up a world of ideas? Ought we too be a little slower to define ourselves – translate our buzzing being into specific categories? Let’s leave a little more room for possibility. A sullam has the potential to be a majestic trampoline whose bounce reaches up to the heavens. Where can your own potential take you if you loosen the grip of your own definition?
Genesis 28:11-12