Sep. 6th, 2011

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In 1966, an American Hasidic Jew, a medical doctor by profession, Abraham Ettelson, published... an 80-page pamphlet entitled ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ Decoded. It demonstrates that Through the Looking-Glass is a cryptogram for the Talmud, that the subtext of Carroll’s tale is made up of references, not even allegorical but cryptic, that are both literal and coded, to the Jewish ritual and what Ettelson calls ‘the Jewish way’:

It will no doubt come as a surprise to the reader to learn that ‘Jabberwocky’ is the code name for the Baal Shem Tov of Medzhbish, in the Province of Kamenetz Podolsk in the Ukraine, on the Bug River! He was also known as the Rov of Podolia. It may also come as a surprise to discover that the first stanza of the poem beginning with ‘Twas brillig, etc., etc.,’ is not ‘nonsense writing’ at all, but contains within it one-half of the Hebrew script alphabet.

In the course of his commentary on ‘Jabberwocky’ he interprets the title of the poem by dividing the word into equal parts, ‘Jabber’ and ‘wocky’ and reading each in the mirror, which gives ‘Rebbaj Ykcow’, Rabbi Jacob, who, of course, is the Baal Shem Tov...

Jean-Jacques Lecercle 'Philosophy of Nonsense'

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