In my flesh shall I see God: Franz Kafka's 'In der Strafkolonie,' the alphabet, the Covenant, and Isaac Luria's tikkun olam

The purpose of this paper is to take to its logical conclusion the argument that the work of Franz Kafka may be appropriately evaluated in terms of kabbalah, Jewish mystical thinking. This assertion was made in 1922, but extensive critical analysis involving the specific significance of a variety of kabbalistic theories, texts and thinkers is still lacking. This study examines exactly such sources, concentrating their application on the novella "In der Strafkolonie ." "In the Penal Colony" is uniquely qualified to serve to test this critical approach because the condemned men in the penal colony die as a result of having their sentences engraved on their bodies, and in kabbalistic thinking, God creates the cosmos by use of letters---indeed, in some traditions, by reading from a Torah written on His arm. This dissertation explores this conjunction of apparent cruelty and creation.;Analysis is accomplished first through examination of the Sefer Yetzirah, the earliest mystical book where this mode of creation is mooted, and through the mystical text Zohar. The medieval German Pietists and the Zohar each posit that God may be contacted through specialized prayer, highlighting the significance of language for both God and man. This belief reaches its most extreme application in the position of Abraham Abulafia: that knowledge of the letters spelling the Divine Name could make man his own Messiah. Crucial to Abulafia's argument is that the Divine Name is cut into the body through circumcision---the Covenant---providing clear parallels with the engraving performed in "Penal Colony." The final kabbalist studied is Isaac Luria, who taught that a miscalculation of God's as He was creating resulted in a flawed universe---the Shattering of the Vessels of the Sefirot---and as God Himself could not undo the damage, it became man's responsibility to help Him repair the cosmic letters. I argue that this work of restoration---tikkun olam---is both accomplished by the inscribing of the men in the penal colony and fully demonstrated in the officer's death. Thus Kafka's work---far from being a horror story---is a parable of the salvation of God and man accomplished through the manipulation of letters.