A BREATH OF LIFE AND THE JEWISH RELATION WITH WORDS AND SILENCE

Abstract

Clarice Lispector, daughter of Ukrainian Jews who were exiled in Brazil in 1921, kept traits of her family’s culture and tradition, despite not having lived in her birthplace. This cultural heritage refers to a worldview brought by her family, present in the Yiddish language and in the Ashkenazi culture. Therefore, in this paper we aim to identify, through a literature review, connections between Clarice’s posthumous work, A Breath of Life (1978) and Jewish culture, focusing on the relationship between words and silence. In an attempt to unravel the possible affinities between Clarice's work and the Hasidic world, we initially highlight the
ancestral relationship that the author has with the mystical Jews of the region in Ukraine where she was born, drawing on the contributions of the biographer Benjamin Moser (2013) and the notes of her friend and assistant, Olga Borelli (1981). In regard to the themes of Jewish culture, its mystical currents and the processing of Hasidic enchantment, we made use of religious books such as the Hebrew Bible (2006) and the Zohar, the Book of Splendor (2006), as well as scholars such as J. Guinsburg (1971), Martin Buber (2003), and Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger (2005). Lastly, we discuss the distinct significance that words hold in Jewish mysticism, emphasizing their creative capacity and ability to reveal what is hidden, and thus, identify common elements with some themes developed in Clarice's work, for whom the exploration of the limits of language was a recurring topic.