A couple of posts back I wrote about the complex depth of Jewish Mysticism, in general, and Chabad Chasidism in particular, as reflected in Prof. Elliot Wolfson's rather challenging style of delivery. I now feel compelled to compare his style to that of Prof. Don Seeman as exemplified in this lecture:
Indeed, Seeman himself (beginning at approx. 38:40) draws attention to an essential difference between what I will call their respective "styles of reading". According to Seeman, Wolfson readings emphasize "the coincidence of opposites and the sense of paradox", Seeman goes on to explain how he disagrees with this reading. "In my reading... there is actually very little focus on paradox, what there is - is a focus on the sense that opposites are often both true, which is then absorbed [or rationalised] in a kind of Lithuanian manner - 'two dinim'; this is true in this context and that's true in that context..." Thus, two contradictory statements within Chabad literature are usually to be interpreted as both being true.
