Encounters of Consequence: Jewish Philosophy in the Twentieth Century and Beyond 9781618110138

Citation preview

ENCOUNTERS of CONSEQUENCE: JEWISH PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND BEYOND

By Michael Oppenheim

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Oppenheim, Michael D., 1946Encounters of consequence : Jewish philosophy in the twentieth century and beyond / By Michael Oppenheim. p. cm. -- (Judaism and jewish life) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-934843-67-3 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy, Jewish--History--20th century. 2. Jewish philosophers--History--20th century. 3. Philosophy, Modern--20th century. I. Title. B5800.O765 2009 181’.06--dc22 2009039464 Copyright © Academic Studies Press, 2009 All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-934843-76-3, hardback Book design by Adell Medovoy On the cover; clockwise from top: Etching by William Aurbach-Levy© Photograph of Emmanuel Levinas by Bracha Ettinger© 1991. Photograph of Franz Rosenzweig Photograph of Eliezer Schweid Photograph of Joseph Soloveitchik by Rabbi Irwin Albert© circa 1979.

Published by Academic Studies Press in 2009 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

CONTENTS v

Preface

I. Challenges and Responses

1. Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy



2. Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?



3 34

II. Philosophers of Encounter Franz Rosenzweig

3. Death and the Fear of Death in Franz Rosenzweig’s



The Star of Redemption



4.The Halevi Book



5. Into Life: Rosenzweig’s Essays on God, Man and the



World





49 67

86

Martin Buber

6.The Meaning of Hasidism: Martin Buber and Gershom



Scholem



111

7. Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self: Martin Buber



and Joseph Campbell

135

Emmanuel Levinas

8. Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas: A Midrash



or Thought-Experiment

158

iii



9.Welcoming the Other:The Philosophical Foundation for



Pluralism in the Works of Charles Davis and



Emmanuel Levinas

185

III. Jewish Philosophers in the Late Twentieth Century

10. Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard: Reflections



on “The Lonely Man of Faith”



11. Eliezer Schweid:The First Israeli Philosopher



12. Can We Still Stay With Him?:Two Jewish



Theologians Confront the Holocaust (Emil



Fackenheim and Arthur Cohen)



221

243

273

13.Theology and Community:The Work of Emil



Fackenheim





14. Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope



15. Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

299

315 343

Bibliography

377

Index

393



iv

PREFACE The

two terms, “encounters” and “consequence,” echo

throughout this volume, tying the individual investigations of twentieth century Jewish philosophy together. Jewish philosophy has always been nurtured by the encounter between the Jewish tradition and otherness. The epochs of significant contact between Jewish communities and other cultures are coterminous with the flourishing of Jewish philosophy. The Emancipation, that engagement of Jews with all aspects of European culture and society beginning in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, is the point of departure for modern Jewish philosophy. For many scholars of Jewish philosophy, the discipline is characterized in terms of the outside philosophic systems that Jewish philosophers use to explore and explain the Jewish tradition to both Jews and non-Jews living in a period of Jewish participation in the wider society. One of the central arguments of the present volume is that the Jewish philosophic wrestling with otherness is of consequence not only for Jews, but also potentially and often in actuality for the outside culture. Significant meetings are transformative, and those between Jewish philosophy and modernity and post-modernity are mutually transformative. Philosophic conversations since the Emancipation have introduced challenges and new perspectives to Judaism, but they have also revealed Judaism’s ability to critique and contribute to the self-understanding of the wider society. The articles in this collection can be aligned according to two axes of examination, axes which often intersect. On the one hand,

v

P R E F A C E

modern Jewish philosophers have been preoccupied with such issues as: the nature of Judaism and Jewish identity, the quests for meaning and continuity, the value of remaining a Jew, the relevance of Jewish law, as well as the challenges of secularism, modern history (including the Holocaust), feminism and religious pluralism. The second axis surveys specific twentieth century Jewish philosophers, including: Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, Emil Fackenheim, Gershom Scholem, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Eliezer Schweid, Arthur Cohen and Irving Greenberg. The Jewish philosophers are often brought together in dialogue in order to explore the enumerated issues by looking at the strengths and weaknesses of opposing philosophical positions. For example, the inquiry that compares Buber’s and Scholem’s views of Hasidism, concludes that their controversy actually concerns the viability of Jewish belief in our time. The discussion of Fackenheim, Cohen, and Wiesel focuses on the Holocaust’s impact upon Judaism. Interactions between Jewish and non-Jewish philosophers are also highlighted. The investigation of religious pluralism initiates a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and the important Catholic thinker, Charles Davis. Soloveitchik’s famous essay on Jewish faith is explored in conjunction with the concerns of that singularly influential nineteenth century Christian existentialist, Soren Kierkegaard. A major portion of the volume is dedicated to the insights of Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas. These three Jewish philosophers exemplify the power of Jewish philosophy to respond and contribute to the wider culture. Their understanding of the centrality of relationships to other persons in the development of every individual, incorporates the modern emphasis on personal experience while it critiques the dominant

vi

portrayal of humans in terms of autonomy and autarchy. In response to the modern view that individuals are sufficient unto themselves for creating lives of meaning and purpose, these philosophers draw upon the Jewish tradition to insist that authenticity requires a life of responsibility to the neighbor and commitment to one’s community. Finally, answering the modern criticism that argues that religion is an obstacle to human relationships and individual fulfillment, Rosenzweig, Buber, and Levinas hold that interhuman encounters of consequence require a transcendent grounding. The first section, “Challenges and Responses,” brings together two chapters that articulate themes pervading the work as a whole. “Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy,” begins with the argument that there is a body of issues that stand at the core of the modern Jewish philosophical endeavor. The chapter defines and documents these issues where modern Jewish philosophy has responded to the wide-ranging demands of modernity, starting with the Emancipation and continuing through the twentieth century.The topics include: the “essence” of Judaism, the nature of Jewish identity, Judaism’s role in the modern world, the struggle for continuity with the past, the legitimacy of change, and the viability of Jewish faith (amunah) in light of the intellectual suspicion of religion and the unprecedented mixture of terror and hope Jewish life has faced during this period. A wide-ranging list of Jewish philosophers appear as they struggled with these issues. Some of the obvious thematic lacunae in this early discussion, at least in retrospect, are addressed in later chapters, primarily, the important subjects of religious pluralism and feminist Judaism.1 “Does Judaism Have Universal Significance,” supplements the first inquiry, focusing not on the Jewish philosophical response, but

vii

P R E F A C E

on the possible or actual impact of Jewish thought on wider Western – and world – philosophy and culture. A quotation from Abraham Heschel is the keystone of the edifice: “The task of Jewish philosophy today, is not only to describe the essence but also to set forth the universal relevance of Judaism, the bearings of its demands upon the chance of man to remain human.”2 This is a poignant statement, coming two decades after the Holocaust. It expresses Heschel’s belief that the ethical concern of Jewish philosophy could help to remedy the horrific human failure manifested by that event. Jewish philosophy is more than the application of some Western conception of “Philosophy” to the examination of particularly Jewish issues. Rather, it is one current within the multiple streams of philosophic traditions of the world. Its specific texture arises out of the unique Jewish experience, and its contribution significantly adds to the worldwide philosophic wrestling with such perennial issues as: the nature of the human, the universe, the true, and the beautiful, as well as what constitutes authentic existence, communal life, and relations with others. Some of the features of Judaism’s contribution to philosophy are soon to be elaborated. The second section, “Philosophers of Encounter,” highlights the three renowned Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century: Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas. Out of the many possible ways of exploring the contributions of modern Jewish philosophy, it is their work that I have found to be the most compelling. These thinkers provide an inexhaustible resource for addressing what Heschel saw as Jewish philosophy’s primary task.They do this through a shared philosophic anthropology that emphasizes the social and ethical dimensions of existence. For them, the authentically human appears in our relationships to others, relationships which,

viii

whether portrayed in terms of mutuality or asymmetry, are first of all characterized by responsibility for the other. The chapters on Rosenzweig explore his most important writings, first of all the Star of Redemption, and following that his work on Jehuda Halevi as well as some of his central essays. “Death and the Fear of Death in Franz Rosenzweig’s The Star of Redemption” traces one theme throughout the “books” and “parts” of Rosenzweig’s masterpiece. The topic of death frames his fascinating text, starting with the debilitating fear that suspends the individual’s participation in the everyday world and ending when trust in the meaningfulness of one’s life opens the door to participation again. Since the Star was written in the midst of the devastation of World War I, it stands as a particularly significant affirmation of the ongoing dialogue with God and love for the neighbor.This chapter provides a helpful introduction to both the Star and Rosenzweig’s overall oeuvre. The chapter “The Halevi Book,” continues the presentation of Rosenzweig’s principal writings. Rosenzweig’s book on the poems of the great medieval poet and philosopher Jehuda Halevi, uses the genre of commentary to launch an extensive philosophical critique of the ways that the divine, the world, and humans are usually understood. This practical application of his revolutionary “new thinking,” which takes time and human relationships seriously, expands the normally constricted realm of religious meaning until it encompasses all of life; translating standard religious topics such as God, the soul, redemption, and miracle, into living queries about love, suffering, death, art, and truth. “Into Life” is a review of a group of Rosenzweig’s lectures and essays collected in the book, Franz Rosenzweig: God, Man, and the World.3 They share a number of characteristic Rosenzweig traits:

ix

P R E F A C E

brilliant, powerful, enigmatic, transforming the theological into the existential and revealing the miraculous within the everyday. This is especially true of the last essay produced by him, “A Note on Anthropomorphisms.” For Rosenzweig, the anthropomorphisms woven throughout the biblical text vividly reflect the human side of the meeting with the divine, their presence both reminder of and guarantee for the possibilities of such revelatory events today. Martin Buber, the famous Jewish philosopher, as well as friend and co-worker of Rosenzweig, is the subject of the next two chapters. However, reflecting his own commitment to dialogue, each explores this philosopher in the context of a conversation. The first, “The Meaning of Hasidism: Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem,” unravels the deeper meanings of the controversy concerning their two very different portrayals of this influential movement of Jewish mysticism. Thus what at first clothes itself as an argument between Buber and the eminent historian of Jewish mysticism about presenting a historically accurate account of the Jewish mystical movement, Hasidism, is shown to mask an underlying disagreement about the shape of Judaism’s future. While Buber believes that the language of God as Person first presented in the biblical narrative is still meaningful today, Scholem contends that it has been replaced by a mystic symbolism pointing to the mystery hidden in everyday life. Joseph Campbell, the religious scholar whose work was deeply influenced by Carl Jung, is Buber’s next dialogue partner, in “Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self: Martin Buber and Joseph Campbell.” The thinkers are juxtaposed in order to diagram two contrasting views of human development. Buber insists that the decisive events in a person’s life occur in dialogue with others, and thus that these distinct relationships shape the character of a person.

x

Campbell’s vision of human development focuses on the individual’s turning away from the social world to discover meaning through the universal archetypes that lie within the self. The chapter investigates the ways that these views can be seen to underlie some important autobiographical narratives. Two treatments of the late twentieth century Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, also utilize a comparative methodology. Levinas has often acknowledged his indebtedness to Rosenzweig, and the first chapter “Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas: A Midrash or Thought-Experiment,” introduces such common theses as: the critique of philosophy, the life with others, the importance of speech, and love’s power to withstand the threat of death.The second chapter, “Welcoming the Other: The Philosophical Foundations for Pluralism in the Works of Charles Davis and Emmanuel Levinas,” explores two views of religious pluralism that appear in the thought of Levinas and the Catholic thinker, Charles Davis. Davis holds that pluralism should be rooted in the common acknowledgement of the mystery of the transcendent, which necessarily eclipses and exceeds the individual language and symbolism of every religious tradition. Levinas finds transcendent powers precisely within the language of particular traditions, thus insisting upon alterity rather than the common as the key to authentic pluralism. The examination concludes with a plea for recognizing the exciting possibilities within the plurality of views of pluralism. The third section, “Jewish Philosophers in the Late Twentieth Century,” includes reflections on influential twentieth century Jewish thinkers who represent a wide spectrum of philosophical and religious positions: Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Eliezer Schweid, Emil Fackenheim, Arthur Cohen, Irving Greenberg, as well as feminist

xi

P R E F A C E

Jewish philosophy as a whole. “Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard: Reflections on ‘The Lonely Man of Faith,’” continues the genre of comparison or dialogue, in this case, between one of the most important Orthodox Jewish thinkers of this century and that provocative nineteenth century Danish philosopher. The point of departure is Soloveitchik’s hallmark short work. Much as Kierkegaard did in his time, Soloveitchik seeks to present the unique struggle for authenticity of the person of faith, who stands in the face of the divine but outside of the world of power, success and victory. The logic of Soloveitchik’s narrative of the two biblical Adam stories allows him to portray the existential depth of faith, but the question is raised whether it leaves somewhat impoverished the religious possibilities of life within community. “Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher,” provides an overview of the prodigious work of this first sabra (native-born) Israeli philosopher. Schweid’s oeuvre is characterized by the conviction that the regenerative task of Zionism was not fulfilled with the creation of the state of Israel. For him, Zionism’s goal is to provide both the individual and the Jewish people with the requisite national platform for social and intellectual creativity. He envisions a conversation between the diverse Jewish communities in Israel as the means to successfully meet modernity’s unprecedented challenges to individual meaning and to Judaism overall. The issue of the Holocaust has rightfully had a prominent place in Jewish philosophy in the last decades. Emil Fackenheim is undoubtedly the most renowned Jewish philosopher to struggle with that caesura. “Can We Still Stay with Him?: Two Jewish Theologians Confront the Holocaust,” juxtaposes the reflections of Fackenheim and Arthur Cohen, both of whom found that the earlier theological frameworks

xii

that provided structure and direction for Jewish religious life were unable to survive the debilitating meaninglessness of the Holocaust. Fackenheim sought a partial healing through midrashim about a divine voice and a fragmentary divine saving arising from the ashes of that event, while Cohen wove a post-modern Kabbalistic derived tapestry. The question addressed to both of them, through the voice of Elie Wiesel, is whether that traditional Jewish language of lament, protest, and hope was indeed silenced. “Theology and Community: The Work of Emil Fackenheim” traces the progression and major themes of Fackenheim’s writings. While the Holocaust soon emerged as one dimension of his concern, the other was the overall encounter between Judaism and modern reflection. Particularly important is his enumeration of the ways that modern Jewish life and thought interrogate some of Western philosophy’s most cherished presuppositions. “Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope,” explores this highly original Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, and educator. His innovative reflections on the Holocaust, the state of Israel, the position of modern Orthodoxy, and the emergence of religious pluralism and feminism exhibit a tremendous willingness to explore new forms of Jewish thought and life. This openness is nourished on a confidence in Judaism’s ability to flourish in these unprecedented times. “Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response,” addresses a dynamic and creative stream of Jewish philosophy that emerged toward the end of the last century and has led into the next.There is also a significant critical dimension to feminist philosophy and feminist Jewish philosophy, which contests a number of problematic assumptions embedded in the history of Jewish philosophy. One of the distinctive features of this dialogue with feminist Jewish philosophy is the awareness that there are three streams (India, China, the West) and

xiii

P R E F A C E

many tributaries that constitute the worldwide philosophic discipline. The dialogue highlights feminist concerns with justice, gender, embodiment and relationships, and suggests ways that the meeting can be mutually transformative. The sections and chapters that follow this Preface are both finished and unfinished. The focus on underlying issues along with the theme of humans in relationship transverse the present work. Adding the subjects of religious pluralism and feminism to the earlier list of Jewish philosophical issues also reveals a wider understanding of the role of relationships, among cultures, and between the sexes. There are two other subjects that should at least be put into play to broaden the perspective once again. Modern Jewish philosophers have begun to make significant forays into the fields of peace studies (or alternatively the issue of religion and violence) and environmental studies.4 Responding in similar ways to those questions that first arose in the wake of the confrontation with modernity, they are beginning to mine the special resources of Judaism to construct positions that are both innovative and authentically Jewish. In the words of one of the earliest Jewish philosophical reflections, Pirke Avot 2:16; “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” As Rosenzweig understood so well, the words we speak and write are not solely our own, they emerge out of lives with others. To acknowledge everyone would necessitate a biographical narrative, about being a husband, father, colleague, teacher, student and friend. Still, some names I cannot fail to mention. I want to thank my wife Sarah, and sons David and Aaron for their unfailing support. David continues to be my first reader and a most insightful editor. Colleagues

xiv

at Concordia University and especially in the Department of Religion have given me a second home, a place of comfort and aid, a place for honest and wide-ranging conversations. I want to particularly recognize my dear friend and collaborator over the whole period of these writings, Barbara Galli. I appreciate the exciting and dedicated environment that my students have created and much of what appears here comes out of our mutual inquiries. I also continue to draw upon the inspiration and wisdom of my teachers and would like to especially note my Ph.D. supervisor of long ago at U.C.S.B., Walter Capps, and my teacher for a short time in Jerusalem in 1973, David Hartman. I would like to thank those who were directly responsible for the appearance of this book as well as to acknowledge the earlier venues where the majority of these chapters appeared. The book-project emerged out of a conversation with Simcha Fishbane, a friend and a series editor for Academic Series Press. The Director of the Press, Igor Nemirovsky has been very supportive from the beginning. I especially appreciate the help of Sara Libby Robinson, Associate Editor. The publication of Encounters of Consequence was also aided by a grant from the Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies at Concordia University. Listed below are the chapters that earlier appeared in journals and books, and I would like to thank the original publishers for their permission to republish them in this volume. The list follows the order of the present book chapters. Some of the texts have been slightly revised, for the sake of the consistency of this book and also, hopefully, to increase their lucidity. “Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy,” in Truth and Compassion: Essays on Judaism and Religion in Memory of Rabbi Dr. Solomon Frank, ed. Howard Joseph, Jack Lightstone and Michael

xv

P R E F A C E

Oppenheim (Waterloo [ON], Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 1983), 91-109. “Does Judaism Have Universal Significance,” Viewpoints: The Canadian Jewish Monthly 7/2 (March 1983): 7-8. “Death and Man’s Fear of Death in Franz Rosenzweig’s The Star of Redemption,” Judaism 27/4 (Fall 1978): 458-67. “The Halevi Book,” Modern Judaism 19 (1999): 83-93. “Into Life,” Foreword to Franz Rosenzweig: God, Man and the World (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1998), xi-xxxiv. “The Meaning of Hasidut: Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem,” The Journal of the American Academy of Religion 44/3 (1981): 409-23. “Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas: A Midrash or Thought-Experiment,” Judaism 42/2 (Spring 1995): 177-92. “Welcoming the Other: The Philosophical Foundations for Pluralism in the Works of Charles Davis and Emmanuel Levinas,” in The Promise of Critical Theology: Essays in Honour of Charles Davis, ed. Marc Lalonde (Waterloo [ON]: Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 1995), 93-116. “Kierkegaard and Soloveitchik,” Judaism 37/1 (Winter 1988): 29-49.

xvi

“Eliezer Schweid,” in Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, ed. Steven Katz (Washington [D.C.]: B’nai B’rith Books, 1993), 301-24. “Can We Still Stay with Him?: Two Jewish Theologians Confront the Holocaust,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 16/4 (1987): 40519. “Theology and Community: The Work of Emil Fackenheim,” Religious Studies Review 13/3 (1987): 206-10. “Irving Greenberg and a Jewish Dialectic of Hope,” Judaism 49/2 (Spring 2000): 187-203. “Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response,” Nashim (Fall 2007): 209-32.

xvii

P R E F A C E

Notes Religious pluralism and Jewish feminism are also addressed in a

1

number of chapters in my Speaking/Writing of God: Jewish Reflections on the Life with Others (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997). Also see the article, Michael Oppenheim, “Feminism, Jewish Philosophy, and Religious Pluralism,” Modern Judaism 16 (1996): 147-60. Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Harper

2

Torchbooks, 1966), 421. Franz Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World: Lectures and Essays, ed.

3

and trans. Barbara E. Galli (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1998). In terms of the latter, see for example, Martin Yaffe, ed., Judaism and

4

Environmental Ethics (Lanham [MD]: Lexington Books, 2001).

xviii

With gratitude to my teachers, colleagues and students

v

vi

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

S

E

C

T

I

O

N

O

N

E

CHALLENGES RESPONSES

and

1

C H A L L E N G E S

2

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

I Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

The study of modern Jewish philosophy is a very complex pursuit. The cast of characters, as it were, is not large, especially in comparison with modern Protestant and Catholic philosophy. However, the central figures encompass a great diversity of positions. There are philosophers who take their point of departure from the following standpoints: eighteenth-century Rationalism, nineteenth-century Idealism, Romanticism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Jewish mysticism, and secularist currents that range all the way to “God is Dead” theology.These classifications are, obviously, inexact; but they do have value in indicating the diversity and richness that is present in modern Jewish philosophy.The student of this area must at some time wonder whether it is presumptuous to speak of modern Jewish philosophy at all. Not only is there the aforementioned diversity, but there is very little discussion among the philosophers. One cannot point to the whole of modern Jewish philosophy as a tradition of thinkers who were strongly influenced by their predecessors and sought either to develop or reject the systems or doctrines that had been handed down. Most of the major Jewish philosophers do not evaluate the positions of their predecessors or endeavor to place themselves in the “stream” of modern Jewish philosophy. Yet, the common core of questions that modern Jewish philosophers address provides the tradition of modern Jewish

3

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

philosophy with a unity and integrity. These questions arise from the philosophers’ struggle with modernity, identification with the Jewish experience, and commitment to the Jewish community.1 Modern Jewish philosophers have not repudiated the Emancipation, the Jewish entrance into the stream of Western culture in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. While noting the problems that beset modern life, they have affirmed that there is meaning and value in the modern world. Modern Jewish philosophy has taken seriously the self-understanding of modern persons that has been influenced by religious pluralism, modern philosophy of religion, biblical scholarship, the disciplines of history, psychology, and sociology, and the natural sciences. However, one must speak of an encounter with modernity, because modern Jewish philosophers have not allowed their self-understanding as modern persons to wipe away their consciousness of themselves as Jews. These thinkers identify with a body of literature, values, and ways of life that have come together to form an ongoing religious tradition. This identification with the Jewish experience has made them intensely aware of the necessity of discovering or creating a continuity between the Jewish past and present. Finally, modern Jewish philosophy brings together a group of people who possess a deep commitment to a particular community. Modern Jewish philosophers have a basis and a history that extends beyond their own life spans. They are conscious of being part of a people defined by the Call to Abraham, Exodus, Sinai, Exile, etc. Many of their questions arise from their community’s paradoxfilled life within the course of modern history. Thus, the stance of modern Jewish philosophers in both present and past, as well as their commitment to the Jewish community, has forced them to struggle with a common core of questions.

4

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

While many philosophers, historians, and general commentators on Jewish history have isolated one or more questions that they found to be central to modern Jewish philosophy, a careful enumeration of these questions is not to be found. The following list of some of the underlying issues in modern Jewish philosophy is offered as a beginning.The overriding concerns here are to enumerate the major issues and to characterize them briefly. On both of these accounts the listing is only provisional. First, there are probably other issues that should be included, and it may be better in particular cases to divide one issue into two, or to compress two into one. Second, in defining issues one is doing more than just collecting already “given” facts. Every definition, as the philosopher knows, is a midrash, that is, an interpretation. Philosophers differ not only in how they answer particular questions, but, more fundamentally, in how they perceive and formulate the questions which they wish to address. Thus, there can be no presuppositionless or unbiased formulation of the questions, and legitimate differences about definitions must be expected. The attempt has been made to formulate the questions in as open a way as possible, so that common features in various definitions will be recognized. Finally, in order to further clarify the issues, some characteristic solutions offered by Jewish philosophers are brought forward. The issues selected reflect the two dimensions of Judaism’s encounter with modernity that have preoccupied modern Jewish philosophers.The writings of these philosophers are permeated with discussions about the integrity, continuity, and meaningfulness of Jewish communal life, and about the possibility of the modern Jew retaining religious belief. In reaction to these concerns, the list of issues is divided into two groups. The first group gathers together

5

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

those issues that appear in the literature of Jewish philosophy from the beginning of the process of Emancipation in Western and Central Europe. The era of Emancipation began with the breakup of the autonomous Jewish communities and the weakening of the power of the Rabbis over such areas as education, law, and even religious worship. Eventually, the Jewish communities were transformed into voluntary organizations. This process was completed in Western and Central Europe by 1880, at the time when Jews finally acquired the rights of citizenship in the countries in which they resided. These changes dramatically challenged the Jewish community and its institutions. In response to the new social and political situation of the Jews, Jewish philosophers sought to answer such questions as the following: “What is Judaism?” and “What does it mean to be a modern Jew?”; “Why is Judaism still important for the individual Jew as well as the wider society?”; “How can continuity with the past be maintained?”; and “What types of changes in religious practice are legitimate?” Modern Jewish philosophers also recognized that belief in the biblical God who created the world and directs history was being radically challenged. The challenges arose from two sides. First, Jewish philosophers responded to the general critique of religious belief that arose from such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Second, they understood that the tragedies of modern Jewish history had brought many Jews to seriously question God’s power over human affairs. The event of the Holocaust brought this question to the fore and made it almost unavoidable. In addition, the establishment of the modern state of Israel forced Jewish thinkers to re-examine the issue of God’s presence in history.

6

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

MODERN JUDAISM – THE COMMUNITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 1. The Essence (or Character) of Judaism2 The question of the essence of Judaism has often been raised by Jewish philosophers in modern times. Those who have struggled with this question have sought to isolate one element or a small group of elements from the totality of Jewish life in the past. Once a philosopher determines the essence of Judaism, the claim is then made that throughout the ages and in spite of all the transformations that Judaism has undergone, the essence has both remained the same and provided Judaism with its raison d’être. The preoccupation of Jewish thinkers with this question reflects, among other things, their understanding of the historical dimension of Judaism, that is, its life as a “cumulative tradition,” and the pivotal position that an inquiry into the essence or nature of Judaism takes in arriving at solutions to other related questions, such as questions of continuity and identity. The first modern Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, was also the first to seek a solution to this question. In Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism, Mendelssohn held that the essence of Judaism is its “divine legislation – Laws, commandments, statutes, rules of conduct, instruction in God’s will and in what they [the Jews] are to do to attain temporal and eternal salvation.”3 This divine legislation had been revealed to the Jewish people at Sinai, and it continued to be both the foundation of Jewish life and the unique possession of the Jewish people. Mendelssohn regarded as constituents of Judaism those eternal truths about God and humans that are necessary for salvation. However, he contended that these were the heritage of all persons and accessible to all through reason. Beginning with Mendelssohn’s younger contemporary, Saul

7

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Ascher, most Jewish philosophers in Western and Central Europe turned away from the view that Jewish Law, Halakhah, was the essence of Judaism. They described Judaism as a religious tradition and proposed that particular religious beliefs or moral ideals should be understood as its essence. Ascher saw religious doctrines or “dogmas as the essence of Judaism,” for he believed that “only they can preserve Judaism in its purity, at times when the law is or has to be neglected.”4 The stream of liberal Jewish philosophers, which began with Ascher, continued to the twentieth century. Leo Baeck, for example, in the book appropriately titled The Essence of Judaism, wrote that Judaism’s predominant aspect from the very beginning was its ethical character, the importance it attached to the moral law. Ethics constitute its essence. Monotheism is the result of a realization of the absolute character of the moral law; moral consciousness teaches about God.5

Baeck believed that these essential teachings of Judaism were the “religious legacy” of the prophets. Jewish thinkers in Eastern Europe, who lived in a vastly different social, political, and intellectual environment from the Jews of the West, usually understood Judaism as more than a religious tradition. They spoke of it as the total spiritual or cultural expression of the Jewish people. This approach to the character or essence of Judaism is well represented by Mordecai Kaplan, the twentieth century American Jewish philosopher. Kaplan indicated both the importance of the quest for the essence of Judaism as well as his solution to that quest in the title of his work of 1934, Judaism as a Civilization. He

8

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

proclaimed that Judaism “includes the nexus of a history, literature, language, social organization, folk sanctions, standards of conduct, social and spiritual ideals, aesthetic values, which in their totality form a civilization.”6 Thus, Kaplan continued to take part in the enterprise to define an essence of Judaism, although he saw it as a mistake to isolate one element out of the total “nexus” of elements that constitutes Judaism, since Judaism was for him a living and evolving civilization. 2. Identity The familiar question, “Who is a Jew?” and the somewhat wider question, “What does it mean to be a Jew?”7 emerge out of the struggle for Jewish identity. The issue of Jewish identity comes to life whenever Jews engage in significant personal, social, and intellectual contact with other cultures and religious traditions. In the absence of either contact with others or internal schism the question of identity does not arise. In modern times the identity issue has been crucial from the beginning of the Jewish emancipation. Most modern Jewish philosophers have addressed the question of Jewish identity in such a way that neither Jewish particularity nor the thrust of Emancipation are repudiated. In other words, Jewish philosophers affirm the uniqueness, separateness, or distinctiveness of the Jewish people and reject full assimilation into the wider culture. On the other hand, they do not define Jewish identity in such a way that Jews will have to renounce all participation in the wider culture. The traditional definition of who is a Jew, a definition based on birth,8 has been retained in discussions of Jewish identity. However, the wider question of the meaning of being a Jew has elicited many different types of responses. Emil Fackenheim in his essay, “In

9

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Praise of Abraham, Our Father,” offered a modern adaptation of the traditional understanding of Jewish identity, an adaptation that recognizes that “Jewishness” no longer has an exclusively religious meaning. He writes: A Jew is anyone who by his descent is subject to Jewish fate (the “covenant”); whether he responds to Jewish fate with Jewish faith (whether he is “obedient” or “stiff-necked”) does not affect, though it is related to, his Jewishness.9

Discussions of what it means to be a Jew parallel the usual answers to the question of the essence of Judaism. Jewish philosophers have described the meaning of being a Jew in terms of subscribing to particular religious beliefs or observing specific practices, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, participating in the life of the Jewish nation or civilization. The contemporary Israeli philosopher, Eliezer Schweid, in his book, Israel at the Crossroads, proposed that there were actually three “directions” that Jewish philosophers have taken to the question of Jewish identity: religious, national, and cultural. Schweid found that the common denominator of the different religious definitions of what it means to be a Jew was a “belief in a God who is revealed to Israel and a way of life to which one is obligated according to that belief.”10 National definitions focus on the “consciousness of unity against a background of common origin and common fate.”11 The cultural direction, which is usually an outgrowth of the national definition, describes the Jew’s participation in the Jewish culture through his or her ties to its past and a commitment to its future.

10

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

Schweid’s own attempt to address this question, in Judaism and the Solitary Jew,12 brings together elements from all three of the “directions.” He begins by examining the questions “Who am I?” and “From where do I come?” He regards these questions as the foundation of any inquiry into identity. Those constituent elements that appear in answer to the above questions include the individual’s relationships to the family, people, history and culture of that people, and origins of that people. According to Schweid, the fact that religion is interwoven with all of these elements is distinctive to the issue of Jewish identity. For example, Judaism powerfully shapes the ways that members of the family understand their relationships to other members, and it stands as the foundation for the coming together of the Jewish people as a people. Martin Buber offered a dynamic portrait of Jewish identity by describing the unique nature of the Jewish people. Buber discovered that definitions of Jewish identity since the Emancipation have taken an understanding of the Jewish people as a starting point. Those philosophers who characterized Jewish identity in terms of religious beliefs or practices often described the Jewish people as a religious community. In this case, it is held by these thinkers that individual Jews were open to God’s revelation, but the recognition of the life of the Jewish people in history was missing. On the other hand, those who offered national definitions of Jewish identity sought to portray the Jewish people in history, but they ignored the element of revelation, or the covenant between God and the people of Israel. Buber described the Jewish people as both a nation and a religious community. He understood the meaning of being a Jew in terms of the individual’s participation in the unique destiny of that people:

11

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Israel receives its decisive religious experience as a people…The community of Israel experiences history and revelation as one phenomenon, history as revelation and revelation as history. In the hour of its experience of faith the group becomes a people…The unity of nationality and faith which constitutes the uniqueness of Israel is our destiny.13

Finally, while contemporary approaches to the problem of Jewish identity continue to reflect the earlier discussions, two radically new elements have both intensified the quest for the meaning of being a modern Jew and have introduced further dimensions to the discussion. These events, the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel, will be examined at another point. 3. Value The question of value has both a communal and a personal dimension. Jewish philosophers have found themselves asked, both by those within and outside their community, “Does Judaism have a role to play in the modern world?” and “Why should someone remain a Jew?” There is a pronounced apologetic thrust to the modern Jewish philosophical endeavour. Jewish philosophers have understood – from the time of Moses Mendelssohn’s forced reply to Lavater’s challenge that he either renounce Judaism or prove its superiority to Christianity – that Judaism is under attack by exponents of other religious traditions as well as by atheistic philosophers. In addition, they have recognized that the ongoing secularization of Western society provides a hostile environment for all religious traditions.

12

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

The major works of modern Jewish philosophy have constantly affirmed that Judaism had an important role to play in the modern world. Abraham Heschel contended, in fact, that this was an essential task of modern Jewish philosophy when he wrote:“The task of Jewish philosophy today, is not only to describe the essence but also to set forth the universal relevance of Judaism, the bearings of its demands upon the chance of man to remain human.”14 There are three factors behind the endeavor of Jewish philosophers to affirm the universal relevance of Judaism, that is, its role in the modern world. First, as explained above, Jewish philosophers have recognized that Judaism was under attack. Second, they believed that by describing Judaism’s role in the modern world they could help the individual and the community in their encounter with modernity. Philosophy could reinforce the individual’s will to remain Jewish, and it could help the community to overcome the forces of assimilation and fragmentation. Third, the very fact that Jewish thinkers engaged in the enterprise of Jewish philosophy implied that they saw an important relationship between Judaism and the modern world. Jewish philosophers “translated” the Jewish experience into the categories of the wider culture. They saw that this process of translation would be valuable for both the Jewish community and for the outside world. Through their work the community could be revitalized and the non-Jewish world could gain the benefit of Judaism’s enduring spiritual and intellectual resources. While Jewish philosophers have agreed that the “teachings” of Judaism had significance for non-Jews as well as Jews, the nature of these teachings has been depicted in very different ways. For example, many of the Jewish philosophers of the nineteenth century were influenced by German Idealism and responded, in particular, to

13

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

the thought of Schelling and Hegel. Such philosophers as Solomon Formstecher and Samuel Hirsch utilized Idealist categories in their explanation of Judaism, but they saw that Judaism broke with the current philosophy over one detail. In the face of an all-encompassing philosophical system that undermined the reality of human freedom, these philosophers found that Judaism’s significance for modern persons lay in its message of human freedom and the corresponding importance of the individual’s moral action.15 On the other hand, against the backdrop of twentieth century society’s glorification of knowledge, power, and social success, Joseph Soloveitchik wrote about the “loneliness” of the religious life. In his essay, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” Soloveitchik sketched a portrait of the Jewish understanding of the religious life. He held that while Judaism did not disparage human dignity and power, it understood that these were not the final telos. The religious person believes that to live authentically she or he must at times stand alone before God and “be confronted and defeated by a Higher and Truer Being.”16 In this way Soloveitchik depicted Judaism’s understanding of what it means to be human, an understanding that could stand as a corrective to the prevailing views about the nature of persons. Often the inquiry into the issue of value takes its point of departure from the philosopher’s view of the essence or character of Judaism. For example, Hermann Cohen in Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism17 declared that Judaism was a religion of reason. Cohen meant by this that Judaism is an authentic stream through which one of the highest rational expressions, i.e., religion, is manifested. In defining Judaism in this way he, at the same time, answered the value question in the affirmative. Cohen held that all expressions of reason, whether philosophy, science, or religion, have

14

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

eternal validity. Judaism’s particular importance in the modern world was underscored by Cohen when he pointed out its continuous task of teaching and guarding the monotheistic and messianic concepts of the “Religion of Reason.” Franz Rosenzweig provides another important illustration of the apologetic thrust in Jewish philosophy. Rosenzweig, who early in his life was on the road to conversion to Christianity, expressed both his personal commitment to Judaism and his understanding of its value in the modern world in his The Star of Redemption.18 Rosenzweig even regarded this book as his “armor” against the stings of Christianity and philosophy.19 In the Star Rosenzweig gave philosophic answer to both the communal and personal dimensions of the question of the value of Judaism. He wrote that there are two covenants with God through which His plan for history is being realized. Both the Jewish community and the Christian community participate in the plan of divine redemption. The role of the Jewish community is to withstand the attacks of others and the vicissitudes of history by witnessing to the element of eternal life that God has placed in its midst. Rosenzweig hoped to give support to the individual’s determination to remain a Jew by describing the living reality of the Jewish people’s covenant with God. Obviously, the power of Rosenzweig’s answers is contingent on the questioner’s religious stance, just as Cohen’s efforts are based on a particular view of the relationship between reason and religion. However, Rosenzweig’s combination of commitment to Judaism and philosophic exposition represents one of modern Jewish philosophy’s most dynamic answers to the question(s) of the value of Judaism. Finally, in the twentieth century some philosophers have rejected the attempt to justify the value of Judaism or the continued existence

15

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

of the Jewish people. Mordecai Kaplan in Judaism as a Civilization held that the Jewish civilization has the same right to exist as any other great civilization, and he refused to justify this right of existence by speaking of its value or mission to the nations. He wrote, “as a civilization, Judaism possesses the prerogative of being justly an end in itself.”20 However, Kaplan still saw that one must give answer to the question of the Jew remaining a Jew, to the personal dimension of the value question. He argued that only by participating in the civilization into which one is born can the individual achieve a thisworldly “salvation,” that is, integrity and authenticity. 4. Continuity The effort to maintain or to re-establish continuity with the religious life and values of the Jewish past has permeated the work of the modern Jewish philosopher. It has been understood that the dramatic changes and challenges that were ushered in from the period of the Emancipation brought the perplexing question of continuity in their wake. Franz Rosenzweig believed that one of his major tasks as a Jewish philosopher was to foster the community’s trust in itself, its belief and confidence in its ability to participate in the on-going Jewish tradition. He wrote in the essay “The Builders” that the feeling of being in continuity with the Jewish past, “the feeling of being our fathers’ children, our grandchildren’s ancestors,” was nothing less than “the very basis of our communal and individual life.”21 At least two factors are fundamental to the endeavour of the modern Jewish philosopher to address the question of continuity. First, in exploring the issue of continuity one must also take up the question of the essence or character of Judaism. Obviously, the issue of

16

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

continuity can only be treated if one already has some understanding of that with which one desires continuity. If, for example, one agrees with Leo Baeck’s position concerning the essence of Judaism, then the effort to achieve continuity will focus on the ethical teachings of the prophets, rather than on some other feature of the past that lies at the periphery of Judaism. The second factor is the philosopher’s understanding of the nature of the barrier that stands between the present community and its past. The more radical the gap between past and present, the more radical must be one’s efforts to find continuity with that past. Thus, the philosopher’s understanding of the extent of the gap determines whether continuity is to be achieved through passively accepting something that has been handed down, creatively working with the past heritage, or radically transforming the fragments or sherds from the past. The dynamic between one’s conception of the barrier and the endeavor to achieve continuity is forcefully brought out in the following examples. Martin Buber in the essay “Renewal of Judaism” suggested that “Judaism can no longer be preserved by mere continuation,” that is, by passively taking up what had been handed down.22 For Buber the modern world was so different from the past that the Jewish heritage was quickly losing its meaning and relevance. Since “mere continuation” would lead to a dead end, Buber called for a renewal that could only be accomplished through active “intervention and transformation.”23 In Judaism as a Civilization Mordecai Kaplan perceived the barrier in an extreme way. He wrote: “The differences between the world from which the Jew has emerged and that in which he now lives are so sharp and manifold that they almost baffle description.”24 Kaplan demanded nothing less than a “reconstruction” of Judaism as a consequence of his portrait of this rupture between past and present. Finally, Hannah

17

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Arendt in Men in Dark Times described the modern paradox that for many Jews “the past spoke directly only through things that had not been handed down, whose seeming closeness to the present was thus due precisely to their exotic character, which ruled out all claims to a binding authority.”25 To establish her view she turned to the work of Gershom Scholem, the great historian of Jewish mysticism. Arendt held that Scholem saw that the break between past and present was so drastic that he made the: strange decision to approach Judaism via the Cabala, that is, that part of Hebrew literature which is untransmitted and untransmissible in terms of Jewish tradition, in which it has always had the odor of something downright disreputable.26

In order to further indicate the dynamic between a philosopher’s perception of the break with the Jewish past and the nature of the quest to establish continuity with that past, a selection of the philosophers previously mentioned will be reintroduced at this point. For illustrative purposes the break or barrier between past and present can be pictured as a pane of glass. The glass is transparent at the top and completely opaque at the bottom. As one looks from the top to the bottom of the pane, the glass becomes less and less transparent, more and more frosted. A number of philosophers’ positions can be delineated in terms of their ability to look backward from their standpoint in the present, through the glass, to the Jewish tradition of the past.We will begin with those who, looking through the top of the glass, have no difficulty in seeing the past. An ultra-Orthodox thinker would hold that the so-called break between past and present is really

18

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

an illusion, and, thus, that there ought to be no changes in Jewish life in our times. Of course, since the encounter with modernity is a foundation of modern Jewish philosophy, there are no ultraOrthodox modern Jewish philosophers. Moses Mendelssohn might be a good representative of the next position. At the point where he would look at the past, the pane of glass would be just beginning to become frosted. Mendelssohn held that there were certainly some differences between the past Jewish environment and the present. Still, for him it was not difficult to have a continuity with the past, for one lived as the “fathers” did by accepting the totality of that “divine legislation” which was given to Moses on Sinai. Thus, the Halakhah, which Mendelssohn regarded as the essence of Judaism, continued to give direction to one’s way of life, just as it always had. Looking through the pane of glass further down, Leo Baeck’s vision of the relation between the Jewish past and present could be appropriately described. For Baeck many of the past patterns of life had become obscured and this resulted in a different conception of modern Judaism than that which was offered by Mendelssohn. According to Baeck, the modern Jew could no longer find meaning in taking up the totality of Jewish law, but he did not see this as disastrous. The core of Judaism had always been the moral ideals of the prophets, and since these ideals could still be appropriated and lived out by the present community, a firm continuity with the past was possible. At the next standpoint, since the past is even further obscured, philosophers no longer hold that there is something left intact from the past that need only be preserved. Martin Buber is a good example of this position. As we saw, Buber said that continuity with the past can only be founded on the creative endeavors of the present generation. The things that had been passed down could not merely

19

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

be preserved, they had to be transformed. At the next stage, Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the rupture between past and present can be grasped. She held that this gap was so great that only those things that had never been central in the past could be recast into a new foundation for the present. By radically overturning the past hierarchy of Jewish values and styles of life one could come upon something that, when brought into the new context of the present, would serve as a paradoxical link with the past. Finally, at the bottom of the pane of glass, where there is no possibility of seeing anything by looking back from the present, stand those who believe that Judaism died when it came into contact with the modern world. Of course, there are no examples of modern Jewish philosophers who have taken this standpoint on the question of continuity. There is one further dimension to the issue of continuity that should be examined. Some Jewish philosophers have sought to formulate a criterion of selection that could provide a true continuity with the past. Thus, rather than isolating a “one thing” that brings forth continuity, these thinkers have tried to create a principle of selection that would guarantee that what is maintained from the past is truly alive for the present and future generations. In the essay “Herut”27 Martin Buber struggled with the problem of formulating a criterion or method of selection to aid the modern Jew in finding a truly living and vibrant foundation for Jewish life. Buber stated that a legitimate method of selection consisted of two steps. First, the individual must examine every aspect of the Jewish past. The modern Jew must divest himself or herself of all prejudices about what might be essential and inessential in Judaism and thus be open to all of the possible richness of the tradition. Second, the individual should take from the past and transmit into

20

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

the present and future everything that can be both appropriated and transformed into a force or power in one’s own life. Thus, the category of “inner power” is offered by Buber as the criterion of selection and transmission. 5. Legitimacy/Authority The legitimacy/authority issue is a component of the wider issue of continuity. However, in light of the significance of the specific focus here – Halakhah and the fundamental religious institutions and beliefs tied to it – and the importance that Halakhah has had for the Jewish past and present, the legitimacy/authority issue merits special treatment. The subject of Halakhah appears in all of the major works within modern Jewish philosophy. While some philosophers have called for fundamental changes within Halakhah, all have understood that changes could not be made without looking into two related questions. First, in what manner can proposed changes be given legitimacy? Second, which people have the authority to determine what is legitimate and what is not? Samson Hirsch in The Nineteen Letters held that the validity of Halakhah should not be challenged. For Hirsch, as well as Moses Mendelssohn, no fundamental changes should or could be made to the divine commandments. There could be some adaptation, just as Judaism had always adapted to changing conditions. Whatever adaptations or interpretations that might be made had to be determined by the traditional rabbinic authorities. Thus, for Hirsch, wholesale “reform” of Halakhah was illegitimate, and only the consensus of authorized rabbis of a generation had the authority to deal with questions of Jewish law. In referring to the call for reform of Halakhah by other thinkers, Hirsch wrote:

21

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

The only object of such “reform,” however, must be the fulfillment of Judaism by Jews in our time, the fulfillment of the eternal idea in harmony with the conditions set by the time. It must be the education and progress of time to the high plane of the Torah, not the lowering of the Torah to the level of the age.28

A different approach was taken by Franz Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig accepted Martin Buber’s category of “inner power” and applied it to Halakhic matters. In “The Builders” Rosenzweig proposed that whatever elements of Halakhah could be appropriated by the modern Jew and transformed into “inner power” were both binding and legitimate.The modern Jew has the task of “keeping” all of those laws through which the divine voice can be heard, and rejecting whatever fails to show itself as a vehicle for that voice. Rosenzweig added the further stipulation that one must be open to the possibility of finding new paths toward the divine within the Jewish tradition and thus of adding to the body of Halakhah. In proposing the category of “inner power” as the criterion of legitimacy, Rosenzweig saw that every Jew stands as an authority in this matter. He wrote that, as a consequence of this criterion, “no one can take another person to task, though he can and should teach him; because only I know what I can do; only my ear can hear the voice of my own being which I have to reckon with.”29 In Judaism as a Civilization Mordecai Kaplan presented one of the most distinctive and interesting approaches to Halakhah. As discussed above, Kaplan held that the radical gap between the Jewish past and present demanded that Judaism be reconstructed. One of the consequences of this understanding of Judaism is the substitution

22

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

of the word minhagim, customs or folkways, for the word mitzvoth, commandments. Kaplan affirmed that Judaism must retain its distinctive ways of life even though the modern Jew can no longer believe that these ways come from God. Jews who viewed the commandments as customs would not dismiss them even if the divine sanction was absent. In addition to establishing a harmony between the Jew’s understanding of Halakhah and one’s scientific understanding of the universe, Kaplan believed that this standpoint would allow Jewish law to be seen in a more positive and dynamic way. Finally, addressing the question of a criterion for deciding what changes in Halakhah were necessary, Kaplan offered the following suggestion: In the last resort, one’s Jewish selective sense must be the final arbiter. There need be no fears about anarchy resulting from diversity in the practice of folkways. Diversity is a danger when we are dealing with law. But, on the assumption that Jews would accept the miswot not as laws, but as folkways, spontaneity would not only help to foster the miswot but would also give rise to an unforced uniformity which would be all the more valuable because it was not prescribed.30

Finally, it is important to note that despite the great variety of positions that are taken by modern Jewish philosophers concerning the role of Halakhah in the present, almost all believe that it does indeed have significance for the modern Jew. For example, although Hermann Cohen was sympathetic to the vast reform of Jewish law suggested by some thinkers, he still thought that the concept of Law and some specific laws had to be maintained as a

23

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

bare minimum. In his discussion of “The Law” in Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism Cohen affirmed that “the continuation of the religion of the Jewish monotheism is therefore bound to the continuation of the law.”31 JEWISH FAITH – MODERNITY AND HISTORY 1. Teshuvah or The Second Immediacy32 Some challenges that modernity has hurled at religion seem to have destroyed the possibility of religious faith.These challenges have arisen out of many sources: modern philosophy of religion, biblical criticism, the disciplines of history, psychology, and sociology. The modern Jew, as well as the modern religious person in other traditions, seems incapable of taking an unreflective or unquestioning religious stance toward God and Torah. The “first immediacy” refers to those traditional beliefs about God and Torah that were held within the context of pre-modern society. Although religious people have always had what one might call “moments of doubt,” it is only in modern times that sustained questioning by such thinkers as Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud has brought the individual to radically doubt both the reality and the value of her or his religious belief. Religious belief is not something that one just takes for granted in this age. Emil Fackenheim, who explores this issue in many of his writings, sees the modern challenge to faith as something unprecedented in religious history. In the book God’s Presence in History, Fackenheim characterizes the threat as “subjective reductionism,” that is, a “stance of critical reflection which dissipates every supposed divine Presence into mere feeling and appearance.”33 However, some modern Jewish philosophers have answered this challenge by stating that although a faith that is identical with the

24

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

faith of one’s “fathers” is impossible, a “second immediacy,” that is, a self-conscious and questioning faith, is still possible. Philosophers such as Mordecai Kaplan and Gershom Scholem have held that if the modern challenge to faith is taken seriously, there is no honest way to retain belief. In Judaism as a Civilization Kaplan finds that he must “reconstruct” Judaism because the traditional views about God, Torah, and salvation have been destroyed. Scholem’s essay “Reflections on Jewish Theology”34 includes the contention that Jewish philosophers have repudiated the naïve realism of the biblical view of the God who speaks to humans and who directs history. He observes that even the so-called existentialist Jewish philosophers have abandoned the biblical understandings of creation, revelation, and redemption. On the other hand, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Heschel, and others affirm that a “second immediacy” is truly possible. Rosenzweig maintains that whatever doubts one may have about the reality of God or the efficacy of Torah to bridge the gap between the divine and the human, these doubts are dissipated in the immediacy of living out the commandments. He writes of this immediacy: Psychological analysis finds the solution to all enigmas in self-delusion, and historical sociology finds it in mass delusion…We know it differently, not always and not in all things, but again and again. For we know it only when – we do.35

Abraham Heschel’s book God in Search of Man is nothing less than an instrument designed to lead one to a “leap” of faith. Heschel endeavors to sensitize the modern person to the possibilities of

25

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

recognizing God beyond the mystery that permeates nature and behind the power that inflames the words of the biblical prophets. Thus, for both Rosenzweig and Heschel, religious faith can withstand the unprecedented challenge of modernity. 2. God’s Presence in History In reaction to such unique events as the destruction of European Jewry and the creation of the state of Israel, contemporary Jewish thinkers have been forced to address the question of God’s presence in history. While the issue of “the second immediacy” points to the confrontation between Jewish belief and the modern secular world, the issue of God’s presence in history refers to the challenge that modern history poses for Jewish belief. Modern Jewish philosophers have asked whether the religious person could reaffirm the meaning of modern history and God’s direction in the present in light of the radically evil and destructive event of the Holocaust. Yet, on the other hand, the founding of the state of Israel after two thousand years has appeared to many as a proof of God’s concern and guidance in the present. Richard Rubenstein was one of the first Jewish philosophers to recognize the importance of the Holocaust for modern Jewish thought. In the autobiographical essay “The Making of a Rabbi” he wrote: I am convinced that the problem of God and the death camps is the central problem for Jewish theology in the twentieth century. The one preeminent measure of the adequacy of all contemporary Jewish theologies is the seriousness with which they deal with this supreme problem of Jewish history.36

26

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

In response to the Holocaust, Rubenstein concluded that our age witnessed the “death” of the traditional Jewish concept of God. Of all contemporary Jewish philosophers, Emil Fackenheim has been the most persistent in wrestling with this issue. In his book God’s Presence in History, Fackenheim indicates that the attempt to find meaning in the present is, in fact, a life and death struggle for the preservation of Judaism in the modern world. Fackenheim explains: “For the God of Israel cannot be God of either past or future unless He is still God of the present.”37 Fackenheim contends that the basis for belief in the God who acted in the past (biblical history) and who will act in the future (the Messianic age) is gone, if God has nothing to do with the present period. The God who spoke in the Bible was a God of history. This does not mean that He is responsible for whatever happens or that His plan is always clear. Yet, to say that God directs history is to say that at no time does He completely turn His back on the world. Thus, the religious person must somehow affirm that there is meaning in the present. In light of the threat that the Holocaust poses for Jewish faith, Fackenheim refuses to follow in Martin Buber’s steps when Buber says that there are times when God is silent. He admits that Buber’s image of the silent God is able to sustain Jewish faith in its confrontation with secularism, but he also believes that it “fails to sustain us in our confrontation with the Nazi holocaust.”38 Fackenheim continues, “if all present access to the God of history is wholly lost, the God of history is Himself lost.”39 However, Fackenheim believes that one can glimpse a fragment of meaning, and he refers to this in his controversial statement that there is a “Voice of Auschwitz [which] manifests a divine Presence.”40 Jewish philosophers have recognized that it is necessary, both as

27

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

individual Jews and as leaders of the Jewish community, to struggle with the religious dimensions of the existence of the state of Israel. However, as with the event of the Holocaust, they acknowledge that only fragmentary responses are possible in reflecting upon the relationship between Israel and God’s direction of history. In the book Israel: An Echo of Eternity Abraham Heschel hints at the religious significance of Israel, while concluding that “no single answer can exhaust its meaning.”41 Heschel writes: We have not even begun to fathom the meaning of this great event. We do not fully grasp its message for us as a community and as individuals. It has not penetrated our capacity for representing its meaning in our daily lives… For all who read the Hebrew Bible with biblical eyes the State of Israel is a solemn intimation of God’s trace in history. It is not fulfillment of the promise, it is not the answer to all the bitter issues. Its spiritual significance, however, is radiant.42

The Jewish philosopher has not turned his or her back on the compelling issues of modern Jewish life in order to contemplate the questions that scholars, rather than living people, hold dear. Modern Jewish philosophers have tried to follow in the task that Maimonides set for himself through the title of his great work, The Guide to the Perplexed. The title of the magnum opus of Nachum Krochmal, Guide to the Perplexed of Our Time, thus characterizes the work of more than one person. In the encounters with Emancipation, modernity, and the course of modern history, Jewish philosophers have struggled to affirm the meaning of Jewish existence.

28

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

It should be obvious that the issues identified above are not just Jewish issues. All the major religious traditions of the world have, more or less, been thrust into the modern world and into encounter with each other. In addition to giving guidance to those within the Jewish community, modern Jewish philosophers should be of help to philosophers in other religious traditions. In most cases Jewish philosophers have struggled with the modern challenges to religious life and religious belief in a more extreme way than have those in other traditions. The radical manner in which the Emancipation thrust the Jewish community into the modern world forced Jewish thinkers to take stock of that world in an unprecedented way. The paradoxical and sometimes terrifying course of modern Jewish history has accentuated the challenges to religious belief. The establishment of the modern state of Israel has been mentioned in connection with the issue of God’s presence in history. However, this does not exhaust its influence on the issues that have been examined in this chapter. The impact of Israel’s existence on such issues as identity, continuity, and value has yet to be fully explored by modern Jewish philosophers. The state of Israel is a revolutionary novum which has brought out new dimensions within these issues and has made some earlier solutions obsolete. The dynamic quality of modern Jewish philosophy is inescapable. The preceding pages have been filled with such words as encounter, challenge, struggle, and confrontation. This choice of words is neither accidental nor a stylistic eccentricity; it truly reflects the state of modern Jewish philosophy. In light of its being virtually ignored by both modern philosophers of religion and scholars of Jewish studies, modern Jewish philosophy remains an unexplored mine of richness and diversity for those who wish to plumb the depths of modern Jewish life.

29

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Notes 1

Prof. David Hartman of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in the

Summer of 1973, spoke of the modern Jewish philosopher in terms of the affirmation of the modern world, identification with the Jewish heritage, and commitment to the Jewish community. Like their non-Jewish counterparts, many contemporary Jewish

2

philosophers have abandoned the earlier quest for essences in general, and the essence of Judaism in particular. Although the goal of finding one element or a common core of elements is now thought to be ill-conceived, Jewish thinkers still endeavor to elucidate the character of Judaism. 3

Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: or On Religious Power and Judaism

(New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 61. The book was originally published in 1783. 4

Saul Ascher, Leviathan oder über Religion in Rücksicht des Judentums,

172-73, cited by Ellen Littmann, “Saul Ascher: The First Theorist of Progressive Judaism,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 5 (London: East and West Library, 1960), 114. 5

Leo Baeck, The Essence of Judaism (New York: Schocken Books,

1970), 59. The book was originally published in 1905. 6

Mordecai Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization (New York: Schocken

Books, 1972), 178. The book was originally published in 1934. 7

The question “What does it mean to he a Jew?” requires an answer

that includes more than just the issue of identity. This question about meaning alludes to the issues of value and continuity. 8

According to Halakhah, if an individual is born to a Jewish mother,

then he/she is Jewish. Modern Jewish philosophy has not examined the issue of identity in connection with converts to Judaism. It seems that

30

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

the infrequency of such conversion has resulted in this not being a “live” issue. 9

Emil Fackenheim, “In Praise of Abraham, Our Father,” Quest for

Past and Future (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), 64. This essay was first published in 1948. 10

Eliezer Schweid, Israel at the Crossroads (Philadelphia: The Jewish

Publication Society, 1973), 22. 11

Ibid., 23.

12

Eliezer Schweid, Judaism and the Solitary Jew (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv:

Am Oved Publishers, 1974), 31-112. 13

Martin Buber, ‘‘The Jew in the World,” in The Zionist Idea, ed.

Arthur Hertzberg (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 455. The essay was originally published in 1934. 14

Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Harper and

Row, 1955), 421. 15

For a presentation of the philosophies of Solomon Formstecher

and Samuel Hirsch, see Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964), 308-21. 16

Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” Tradition 7/2

(Summer, 1965): 24. 17

Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism

(New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1972). The book was originally published in 1919. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (New York: Holt,

18

Rinehart, and Winston, 1970).The book was originally published in 1921. 19

From a letter by Rosenzweig. The letter is included in Nahum

Glatzer, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), 107. 20

Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, 181.

31

C H A L L E N G E S 21

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Franz Rosenzweig, “The Builders,” in On Jewish Learning, ed. N.

N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 91. The essay, which was originally a letter to Martin Buber, was first published in 1923. 22

Martin Buber, “Renewal of Judaism,” in On Judaism, ed. Nahum

Glatzer (New York: Schocken Books, 1972), 36. This lecture was first delivered in 1911. 23

Ibid.

24

Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, 511.

25

Hannah Arendt. Men in Dark Times (New York: Harcourt, Brace

and World. Inc., 1968), 195. The essay was first published in 1968. 26

Ibid.

27

Martin Buber, “Herut,” in Glatzer, On Judaism. This essay was first

published in 1919. 28

Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Nineteen Letters, ed. Jacob Breuer

(New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1969), 113. The book was originally published in 1836. 29

Rosenzweig, “The Builders,” 91.

Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, 439. According to Kaplan, the word

30

minhagim was to be substituted for the word mitzvoth in the case of those commandments that refer to the relationship between humans and God. 31

Cohen, Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, 366.

32

Emil Fackenheim first used the term “second immediacy,” which

he borrowed and adapted from the work of Soren Kierkegaard, in the essay “Two Types of Reform,” in Quest for Past and Future. The essay was first published in 1961. 33

Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History (New York: Harper and

Row, 1970), 43. Gershom Scholem, “Reflections on Jewish Theology,” On Jews and

34

Judaism in Crisis, ed. Werner Dannhauser (New York: Schocken Books, 1976). This lecture was first delivered in 1974.

32

Some Underlying Issues of Modern Jewish Philosophy

Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought, 245.

35

Richard L. Rubenstein, “The Making of a Rabbi,” After Auschwitz

36

(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1966), 233. Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History, 31.

37

Ibid., 78.

38

Ibid., 79.

39

Ibid., 88.

40

Abraham Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity (New York: Farrar,

41

Strauss, and Giroux, 1967), 219. Ibid., 219-20.

42

33

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

II Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?

There has been an intense and widespread response by the Jewish community in North America to the reemergence of antiSemitic movements and the proliferation of acts of violence against individual Jews. The threat of anti-Semitism to the continued existence of the Jewish people is well-understood by most Jewish communities today. There is, however, another urgent challenge to the continued existence of the Jewish people which has not been identified or understood. Coming from the inside, this threat is much more subtle – in fact it concerns how Jews themselves understand their tradition. As the observations below will indicate, there are three dimensions of contemporary North American Jewish life that can legitimately be understood as threatening the long-term survival of the Jewish people. In particular, Judaism’s future vitality is threatened by those who, whether consciously or unconsciously, deny or ignore its significance for the future of all humanity. As a comprehensive way of life and orientation to the world, Judaism includes a general portrait of the nature of persons and what they ought to be doing on this earth. Jewish life is molded by duties and responsibilities that are obligatory only for Jews as well as by views about humans’ relationships to others and to God. These truths are misunderstood and cheapened if they are merely regarded as relevant for Jews. Their far-reaching relevance is particularly clear

34

Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?

in relation to the present spiritual crisis in the West. Modern Western persons are haunted by despair and fear.They doubt their own powers to act morally and cringe at possibilities of what the future may hold for their children and for the human race as a whole. In this context, affirmations about the potentiality for good that is synonymous with being a full person and about the ultimate meaningfulness of life – affirmations that pervade the Jewish tradition – can offer all people a basis for hope and for action. The following observations gather into three headings a number of social and intellectual trends within contemporary Jewish life in North America. While they bring to the surface feelings, beliefs, and standpoints that evidence a renunciation of Judaism’s universal significance, there are other observations that might equally make this point. First, many Jews within the Orthodox community exhibit a compartmentalization or a bifurcation in their intellectual life. While they value both the study of Torah and the study of secular subjects, they are unconvinced that there is any positive relationship between these two areas of learning. Second, there is a pervasive feeling among many groups of North American Jews that the only important task for the Jewish community is to combat the threats to its physical survival. At times Jewish concern seems to revolve completely around the three axes of the Holocaust with its allimportant “lessons,” the rising tide of anti-Semitism and the dangers that menace the existence of the state of Israel. Third, increasing numbers of North American Jews are interpreting the history and life of the Jewish people in exclusively ethnic terms. As an ethnic community they are proud of their heritage, but they do not see the need to speak into the wider world. The split or bifurcation in the life of many Jews between their

35

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

activities as students of Torah and as students of modern science and literature is, of course, not new. However, the impact of this split is particularly great at this time, because it reinforces views that lie at the foundation of the Jewish community’s preoccupation with ethnicity and the threats to its physical survival. Many Jews regard the study of Torah and the study of derekh eretz, that is, modern scientific and humanistic literature, as each being completely independent and self-sufficient. They refuse to allow the possibility of a creative collision between the two foci. This implies that either the spiritual and intellectual dimensions of Jewish life can renew themselves without input from the outside culture, or that spiritual and intellectual renewal can wait for a later time. However, both of these implications are problematic. Jewish life has often flourished in the past precisely because of the new vitality that resulted from its interaction with forces from the outside culture. In addition, the belief that the major concern for this time is the mere preservation of Judaism, rather than renewal, leaves the way open for Jewish life to unwittingly drift into a period of contraction and decline. In light of both the horror of just a few decades ago as well as the increase of anti-Semitic acts of violence in the recent months, one cannot be surprised at or too critical of the second trend isolated here, the community’s intense concern with threats to its physical survival. However, dedication to the community’s physical survival must not be allowed to overshadow the crucial and more demanding issue of the quality of Jewish life that we are working to protect. The Jewish community’s intense interest in the Holocaust has many sources. The emphasis on physical survival is certainly one of these. In this light, the Holocaust offers lessons about the requirements for vigilance against danger, the need for institutions

36

Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?

of defense, etc. It is obvious that Jews today feel a great need to speak about the Holocaust. If this speaking is juxtaposed against over two decades of silence that followed that event, then this need to speak and to remember can be recognized as both natural and necessary. However, all of the Jewish community’s tasks cannot be met by focusing on the Holocaust. The remembering cannot provide the community with its raison d’être, nor can it guarantee that Jewish life will have integrity or authenticity. Witnessing to the heroism and sacrifices of the past will not long sustain a community unless there are other sources of meaning or purpose. Neither the negativity of terror and death nor the faith and acts of heroism of those who died give a reason for continuing to be Jewish. Yet, if there is already a contact with the transcendent, that is, with the Power that lies at the basis of the community, then the heroism can be sustaining and the terror and death will no longer have the power to threaten the present. While it is an act of self-delusion for Jews to completely ignore what happened so short a time ago, facing this event does not guarantee authentic Jewish life. The focus on the Holocaust has, at times, taken the same role for the Jewish community that the subject of death has for contemporary philosophy. For some modern existentialists death is the only event that breaks out of or transcends the everyday world, and there is a belief among these thinkers that a true encounter with the fact of death necessarily leads to an authentic way of life. Many Jews, who also seek that which transcends the everyday, have turned to the Holocaust to find meaning and authenticity. However, the Jew of today will satisfy this quest only by maintaining bridges to the vital sources of the Jewish past and a vision of Judaism’s future role in the human search for redemption.

37

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

The third axis of the concern of the Jewish community, in addition to the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, is the modern state of Israel. On the whole, the subject of Israel reinforces the community’s anxiety about survival. Most discussions about Israel focus on the military or economic dimensions of its struggle for survival. However, the subject of Israel does have the potentiality to liberate the community from its usual concerns. For some Jews, the existence of the state of Israel forces them to raise important questions about the nature of Judaism as well as its relationship to the wider world. These questions are explored, for example, when Jews ask whether Israel is an authentically Jewish state, or what it might mean for Israel to be such. In particular, Jews have asked whether the covenantal demand to establish justice may not at times run counter to some efforts to achieve national security. Still, in the face of the great threats to Israel’s continued existence, these inquiries are, understandably, infrequent. The final trend, the attempts by Jews to define their community in exclusively ethnic terms, is increasingly widespread. This trend, of course, is deeply tied to intellectual currents within North America as a whole. The 1970s marked a period when pride in one’s roots and in one’s particular culture replaced the earlier feeling that what was important about people was only that which they had in common with others. The emphasis on ethnicity has allowed Jews to ignore the question of Judaism’s role in the future of human life. If each group has its own history, values, and ways of life, then for the Jew to believe that there is something that Judaism must offer to others may seem presumptuous. Even more importantly, the “pure” commitment to the past simply because it is one’s particular past necessarily limits the ways

38

Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?

that Jews will understand and appropriate their tradition. Modern Jews who recognize only this ethnic imperative to hold on to their traditions will have difficulties with those times in Jewish history when Jews challenged their traditions because they believed that God’s covenant with the Jewish people demanded more than the mere preservation of the past. At the most, the “pure” commitment to the past prevents Jews from understanding the full implications of covenantal existence. The trends discussed above are particularly significant because they reflect the attitudes of Jews who are deeply concerned with the Jewish tradition. Even among many of these Jews there is a loss of confidence in the power of Judaism to live and flourish in the present social and intellectual climate. While the fact of Judaism’s long history is regarded by Jews everywhere as a wondrous or even miraculous testimony to its past vitality, there is little confidence that Judaism will fare as well in the future. The future is not sought out as a challenge that can reinvigorate the Jewish tradition, but as a proving ground on which something disastrous may occur. These trends reflect an underlying belief that Judaism stands unrelated to and unconcerned with the highest of human endeavors, the quest for meaning and truth. Only if Judaism is unrelated to this quest can one propose that Torah and derekh eretz can forever be separated, or offer purely ethnic definitions of Judaism, or see the matter of Judaism’s universal significance as irrelevant. However, to sever the tie between Jewish life and ultimate human concerns not only betrays the core of Jewish existence in the past, it threatens Jewish survival in the future. Jews will not cease to search for answers to life’s fundamental questions, and unless Judaism continues to address these questions, individuals who are crucial to its development and

39

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

survival will be lost to the community. The task of Jewish philosophy today, is not only to describe the essence but also to set forth the universal relevance of Judaism, the bearings of its demands upon the chance of man to remain human. 1

(Abraham Heschel)

A number of modern Jewish philosophers have eloquently affirmed Judaism’s universal significance. They have spoken of its power to enlighten and direct people in the present period of crisis as well as in the more distant future. The insights of some of these thinkers are incisive, because they were also fully aware of the challenges and the dangers of the modern world. Two philosophers,Abraham Heschel and Emil Fackenheim, have addressed themselves to the issue of Judaism’s universal significance with particular intensity. Abraham Heschel’s diagnosis of modern spiritual stagnation and his conviction that Judaism could speak directly to that situation is tremendously relevant to the issue being pursued in this discussion. Heschel believed that modern persons had lost their sense of the mystery, beauty, and sublimity of the universe. In addition to these dimensions of the world, Heschel understood that God’s call to us, God’s search for each of us, was completely unheeded by his contemporaries. In order to sensitize modern persons to those dimensions of the universe that they hardly suspect, Heschel offered portraits from Jewish experience in both the past and the present. He described the sense of justice that echoed in the urgent cry of Israel’s prophets, the holiness that pervaded Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and the sparks of eternity that are revealed in the Jew’s sanctification of the Sabbath. Heschel wrote about Judaism’s

40

Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?

proclamation of the sanctity and wonder of life, the uniqueness and challenge of every moment, the duty and capacity to do good, and God’s continual plea for our help. Although there was a dramatic shift in Emil Fackenheim’s theological reflections in 1966 or 1967, he has always asserted that Judaism had an important role to play in the human quest for authentic ways of life. Fackenheim’s later thought has taken the event of the Holocaust as its focal point. His writings of this period mirror some of those concerns of the community that were described above. He gives voice to the modern Jew’s situation through his passionate quest to find some fragments of meaning in the Holocaust, as well as his conclusion that the Jewish community is obligated to respond to that event by strengthening its will to survive. Yet, in contrast to those who maintain that by learning the political “lessons” of the Holocaust the Jewish community can guarantee its future, Fackenheim finds that the imperative of Jewish survival must be understood within the context of the on-going history of God’s covenant with the Jewish people. Fackenheim also believes that the Holocaust has significance for all persons as well as for the Jewish people. The Holocaust presents the Jewish community with the imperative to testify to the world about the necessity both of rejecting modern idolatry and hate, and of affirming the obligation for humankind to regain its humanity. Contemporary Jewish philosophers have found that Judaism’s teachings about the nature of being human represent those elements of the tradition that are of paramount importance for this period of time. According to these philosophers, Judaism affirms the sanctity of life as a whole and the dignity of human life in particular. Every person has a God-given dignity which is

41

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

confirmed by acting creatively and responsibly. A basic theme in current scientific, literary, and philosophical discussions is that selfdeception pervades human existence. According to modern Jewish philosophers, however, Judaism asserts that people can act morally and that they even have the power to transcend themselves. Each of us has the capacity to overcome egoism and to undertake sacrifices for the welfare of others. Contemporary Jewish philosophers maintain that it is impossible to describe what it means to be human without referring to the life with others. Judaism insists that the individual who is isolated from others is only a partial person. Authentic existence is established through the dialogue between persons. Even the pursuit of truth cannot be achieved outside of relationships with others. The social dimension of the definition of the person implies that the individual cannot be fully realized as long as others are denied dignity and justice. The individual is therefore obligated to work for a society of truth and justice. Modern Jewish philosophy stands in diametrical opposition to those modern critics of religion who contend that the concept of God alienates humans from themselves. Jewish philosophers assert that we are only fully human in relationship to God. The relationship to God is the foundation for the dialogue between persons and it is also the natural culmination of this dialogue. Jewish thinkers have also stated that while the encounter with God stands at the apex of human existence, this experience does not result in the individual becoming isolated from other persons. The meeting between persons and God quickly leads the individual back to the social world and the responsibility for others. In addition, modern Jewish philosophers emphasize that God’s concern for each of us,

42

Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?

which is the prerequisite for the relationship between the human and the divine partner, is confirmed in the Bible and exemplified by the whole history of the covenant between God and the people of Israel. Despite the attempts by contemporary Jewish philosophers to provide the Jewish community with a new confidence in itself and a direction for the future, the community has not responded to these philosophers. There are two primary reasons for this attitude. First, preservation, and not renewal, is seen by many as the only pressing requirement. This view is the result of the perception that the community is under physical and spiritual attack, and that all efforts should be directed toward combating physical assaults and preserving, that is, collecting and isolating, the heritage of the past. Shunned are the insights that preservation without renewal is a dead end and that transformation often increases the possibilities for continuity with the past and security in the future. Second, modern Jewish philosophy has been ignored and sometimes even regarded with suspicion, because these philosophers have shown a willingness to “translate” the Jewish experience into words and categories that often come from outside of the Jewish tradition. They recognize that the collision between the Jewish experience and modern philosophy, history, literature, and science will result in new ways of looking into and thinking about Judaism, but they do not draw back from this challenge. The general standpoint taken by many Jews toward Jewish philosophy underscores what is truly needed today: a renewal of confidence and a renewal of vision. It is important for Jews to be unafraid of looking outside the present borders of Jewish experience and ways of life. They must regain the certainty that Torah, that ever

43

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

growing body of Jewish values and expressions, is related to and has an important role in the human search for truth. Connections can be uncovered and created. However, the connections that are needed are not the simple links that are often found in apologetic sermons. The deeper connections between Jewish experience and general human experience come as a result of real dialogue between the Jewish community and the other communities. Jews must also have the confidence that while dialogue will probably bring some changes – true dialogue often leads to the transformation of both partners – these changes need not be a barrier to the Jewish past. If Jews are aware of the immense riches that are still to be discovered in the Jewish past, new perspectives on the past should be gratefully welcomed. New dimensions of Judaism were opened up, for example, by such acts as Bahya ibn Pakuda’s dialogue with Neoplatonism and Maimonides’ dialogue with Aristotelianism. As a final note, it is important to emphasize that the challenges of modernity should not be underestimated. Jews must dialogue with others in ways that do not ignore the areas of real disagreement with prevailing social, political, and intellectual currents. At this time many proclaim the end of biblical values and a new age for human life. However, the new age that is called for is sometimes one devoid of trust and respect for one’s neighbor. Spokesmen for the new age have proclaimed, for example, that power is a good in its own right, that the inquiry into life’s meaning is itself a meaningless endeavor, and that faith in our basic humanity is an illusion. Jews must be able and willing to draw upon the Jewish experience and say “No!” to these destructive views. Judaism stands diametrically opposed to these positions. The fact that there are sometimes violent clashes

44

Does Judaism Have Universal Significance?

between the Jewish tradition and the secular city does not prove that Jews should be either silent or introverted. It means that the message of Judaism is urgently needed. Judaism has universal significance. It has an essential role to play in the modern world. To say “No!” is a legitimate step in dialogue. However, to say nothing at all is to renounce both Judaism’s and our combined hope for the future.

45

C H A L L E N G E S

A N D

R E S P O N S E S

Notes 1

Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Harper

Torchbooks, 1966), 421.

46

Death and the Fear of Death

III

Death and the Fear of Death in Franz Rosenzweig’s The Star of Redemption

Nahum Glatzer, in the “Foreword” to the English translation of Franz Rosenzweig’s The Star of Redemption, writes that the famous introductory paragraphs, including those written by Rosenzweig under the heading “Concerning Death,” were added at a very late stage in the preparation of the manuscript.1 He suggests that the many commentators who have taken these paragraphs as a key to the very complex book may have grasped onto something peripheral rather than something central. Similarly, he points out that the last paragraph of the Star, which ends with the words “into life,” was decided upon only at a late stage. The goal of this paper is to indicate that this textual analysis leads us in the wrong direction. The theme of death is omnipresent in the Star, weaving itself throughout the intricacies of Rosenzweig’s book, and is firmly tied to the major foci of Rosenzweig’s endeavor: the critique of philosophy, the analysis of the nature of humans both before and after their contact with God, the description of the religious person’s life before God and the life with others, and, finally, God’s activities as Revealer and Redeemer. However, there is a need to look once again at Glatzer’s analysis of Rosenzweig’s manuscripts before we commence the investigation of the theme of death in the Star. A brief reflection on the art of writing might allay some fears that, even when the philosophical

49

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

demonstration in this paper has been completed, Glatzer’s comment will remain unanswered. Many authors can probably draw upon their own experiences to reach a different conclusion concerning Rosenzweig’s act of completing his work. It often happens that an introduction is the last written piece in a manuscript mosaic. It is only after the author works through the whole book that persistent themes become fully clear (or are, as it were, forced upon him or her) and one gains the power to write – with one quick and bold stroke – a few words that truly set the tone for all that follows. After reading the mosaic of chapters and books that make up Rosenzweig’s work, it is not hard to visualize this process taking place in his mind, when, at the end, he gives the Star its unique and powerful frame, beginning with words about death and ending with “into life.” Philosophy and the Fear of Death The major element in the critique of philosophy which comprises much of Part I of The Star of Redemption is Rosenzweig’s treatment of the fear of death. The Star begins with the statement, “All cognition of the All originates in death, in the fear of death.”2 Further, he writes that this fear cannot be escaped or evaded, since death is “the somber presupposition of all life.”3 The fear that death will someday swallow up the individual and all of her or his creations brings the individual to seek an answer or remedy for death, first turning to philosophy. Rosenzweig holds that a single line of thought characterizes the philosophic endeavor, from its origins in Greek times to its modern culmination with Hegel, since the concern with death has colored all of its history. Philosophy has always been idealistic. It has sought a “one thing” that forms the basis of everything else in the universe. It reduces the many to a One or All. Philosophy maintains that the

50

Death and the Fear of Death

“essential I,” the only real and permanent part of the person, is identical with God and with the world. An answer to death thus follows: death is only an illusion.What is ultimately real in the individual cannot die since it continues to be part of the All of the universe regardless of what happens to the body. Thus, death only liberates the higher self from its temporal enslavement to the body. Criticizing philosophy’s solution, Rosenzweig argues that the fear and trembling that persons feel in the face of death does not go away with such sophistries, no matter how old they are. The sting of death remains, because the individual does not want to know about his or her “essence,” but about oneself in the only way that matters, as a distinct individual of body and soul. The individual does not even know what it means to be, except as a person of body and soul. It is as a full person that one enjoys life and is threatened by death. The fact that the individual’s fear of death remains, indicates to Rosenzweig that philosophy’s abstract portrayal of life is in error. He writes eloquently that the abiding fear of death “condemns the compassionate lie of philosophy as cruel lying.”4 For Rosenzweig, the feeling of angst which the individual experiences when faced with the knowledge of death reveals much about human existence. Death discloses, first of all, the fact of the finitude and contingency of life. The terrifying nature of death is omnipresent, so that the individual needs no other reminder that her or his life must someday end and that, at any moment, an unexpected event might confirm this understanding of the fragility of existence. Death proves that each person enters into life as a being isolated from all other living things. Human life is singular, for the individual knows that death cannot be shared.5 One of the most important insights that the fear of death generates is the understanding that life,

51

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

itself, has no ultimate meaning or purpose. The final victory of death calls into question the meaningfulness of life.The fact of death denies any value to life, because it threatens to wipe away completely all that the individual has become and has accomplished. The individual concludes that, since meaning is not immanent in life, if there is to be some purpose to existence it must be bestowed upon it. Finally, the discovery that, in the face of death, the individual does not merely succumb, but works to endow the fleeting moments of life with permanence and direction, suggests something fundamental about persons. Humans are beings who refuse to accept death as the final arbiter of life. Thus, the fear of death both brings to light the question of life’s meaningfulness and points to the self ’s ultimate yearning for “a life which is above the creaturely level.”6 The individual who remains faithful to the picture of reality sketched by the fear of death and who is not soothed by philosophy’s illusory answers is left alone with this terrifying knowledge. In the Star, Rosenzweig goes back into history to find a time and a place in which this understanding of the human condition was portrayed in all of its starkness, and finds it in the ancient Greek figure of the tragic hero. The tragic hero embodies the way of life of what may be called the “natural man,” that is, the person untouched by God’s revelation. The hero endeavors to live authentically in the world, but in every case she or he remains an isolated figure who can not find meaning in life. Two qualities characterize the tragic hero: the inability to speak and the encounter with death. When one thinks of Greek drama, says Rosenzweig, one remembers that the hero is revealed not through speech with others, but by the soliloquy, that inner monologue of the individual expressed in words, so that even if other actors on the stage can not listen to the hero, at least the

52

Death and the Fear of Death

audience can discover what is going on. The tragic hero keeps silent, and with this “breaks down the bridges which connect him with God and the world.”7 The solitary battle is against death. Mistrusting the world, and alone with oneself, “death, one’s own death, has become the sovereign event of his life.”8 However, Rosenzweig does not believe that the Greek conception of the tragic hero displays the full range of human potentialities. He does not look for reason to complete this picture, but, again, turns to the area of human passions in order to learn about persons and their life in the world. In Part II of the Star, Rosenzweig proposes that the passion called love is surely as pervasive as is the fear of death, and, by exploring the nature and implications of love, a fuller understanding of human life results.9 Love and Speech The experience of love in relation to other persons and to God at first reinforces death’s lesson that the individual is not one with all things in the world. The deep desire to be with the other, and the grief that comes when the individual is cut off from his or her beloved, unveil the illusion in philosophy’s contention that the individual is identical with the other.The individual’s striving to be in the presence of God makes no sense if “in reality” one is with God.10 Faced with the either/or of the passion of love or of philosophy’s affirmations, the individual knows that the experience of love is too powerful to be denied. In the Star, the experience of love discloses the highest possibilities of human existence, indicating, among other things, the solution for human loneliness and fear of death. In the experience of love, the individual learns that he or she is more than an

53

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

isolated self. Rosenzweig holds that “love is man’s momentary selftransformation.”11 Through this passion, the individual finds that life cannot be satisfactorily lived or understood without speaking of one’s beloved. One discovers that in order to give all that she or he has to the other person, even the self is sometimes denied. In the giving and sharing that punctuate the life of love, the individual knows that the portrait of humans as egotistic, isolated selves is not the highest or the most accurate understanding of existence. Rosenzweig holds that love is an experience that cannot be fully understood in terms of the purely human realm. Love is both fully human and fully divine.12 The revealing and sharing of human love mirror the same processes in God’s love, His revelation, for persons. In God’s love, one finds that life has become transformed. Like all love, God’s love is not primarily a promise of something in the future, but a power that fills the present.The presentness of God’s turning toward the individual is completely enveloping. Within this fully alive present, the individual discovers that God has banished anxiety about what the past might have brought or fear of what the future might bring. Even death has lost its power to deny life’s meaning. Love overcomes death; that is, it is “strong as death,” because it demonstrates that life has a dimension beyond the creaturely level. Love indicates that every person has the opportunity of living in God’s present, in eternity.13 We have seen that Rosenzweig does not include the experience of love in his description of the “natural man,” exemplified by the Greek tragic hero. This individual was so hypnotized by the fear of death that he or she could not fully turn to others. It is only God’s prior turning toward the individual that brings release from the cords of death and estrangement.14 Revelation, which introduces

54

Death and the Fear of Death

the healing power of God’s love to the individual, awakens the possibility of loving and receiving love from others. Rosenzweig explains revelation’s transformation by using the word orientation.15 Revelation allows persons to encounter the world in a new way.The world is neither alien nor fraught with danger, but is the stage upon which one meets and works with God and with other persons. The way in which revelation brings orientation will become clear in the process of analyzing Rosenzweig’s understanding of God’s turning toward humans. There are two aspects to the word revelation as it is found in Rosenzweig’s work. Revelation is, first, a public event in the past, and, second, a personal experience in the present. As an event in history, God’s two revelations form the basis for the two religious communities, the Jewish one and the Christian one. At particular points in the past God revealed Himself to assemblies of people.Those who belonged to, or later became part of, one or the other of these assemblies found that the world had been placed in a new context. God’s revelation, which introduced the eternal into the temporal, provided the community with a scheme or pattern. All of time was seen to revolve around the one point in the past and the anticipated event in the future. Second, revelation is meaningful to persons, Rosenzweig holds, because it is experienced in the present. In this way the present is tied to the past, and the individual becomes part of the community of those who once stood, and continue to stand, before God. The personal is verified as eternal truth: birth and rebirth, station and mission, located Here and decisive Now of life…Where revelation occurred and the bridge was

55

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

erected from heaven to earth, from the eternal to the personal, there both the Here and Now are fixed at one and the same time. Both space and time are structured out of revelation. But verification occurs in the very own, in the individual life.16

The personal dimension of revelation, in addition to binding the individual to the community’s historical experiences, tradition, and perceptions of the world, provides a sense of the meaningfulness of his or her particular life. It is not enough that persons are given general outlines of world history; they must feel that they have a significant part to play within that history. Rosenzweig recognizes that, indeed, religious persons believe that each individual has a particular task. One finds oneself, in all of her or his individuality and distinctiveness, addressed by God and asked to act in the world. Acknowledging that not fate, but God, directs history, the individual learns that in the process of living she or he discovers what must be done.17 God’s revelation of His love thus gives the individual something that could never be bestowed upon oneself, trust. Humans cannot bring themselves to trust the world and others, as we have seen, for as they stand unrelated to God, their deepest understanding of the world is founded on the fear of death.When one experiences God’s revelation the insights provided by this fear are no longer seen as accurate. Through revelation, persons become conscious that the Power that lies behind all things is a being who cares. The awareness of God is translated into the belief that the world and history can be trusted, for He who directs the universe is both the Creator and Revealer. Seen in another way, in revelation one experiences love, and knows that life as lover and beloved defines the self in a deeper way

56

Death and the Fear of Death

than the fear of death had done.There is a discovery that, as a partner in dialogue, the person is more true to himself or herself than as a mute, isolated ego. In the life of dialogue the individual is conscious of being a person who is both distinct from, and related to, others. One learns that she or he is an “I” who needs a “Thou.” Revelation is, thus, the presupposition for authenticity in existence, for Rosenzweig holds that, without dialogue and without relationship to others, the individual would never become an authentic self. He summarizes his understanding of the radical transformation brought about through God’s love as follows: “under the love of God, the mute self came of age as eloquent soul.”18 Eternity and Life in the World The concluding section of the Star, Part III, focuses on redemption. At first glance, the theme of death seems to be absent here. However, after an examination of the following summary of Rosenzweig’s discussion of redemption, it will become clear that, once again, he addresses the fear of death in a significant way. In the Star, one of the ways of affecting the transition from revelation to redemption is through investigating the ramifications of using love as a simile for revelation. Rosenzweig’s portrayal of the developments that necessarily follow upon revelation demonstrates that he took seriously all of the movements within love. Since love expresses the reality of God’s turning toward persons, then this “turning” is not something that is to be experienced just once. In a relationship of love, the beloved constantly wants to feel the love of the partner. Love has to be renewed all of the time; and, for Rosenzweig, God’s revelation is daily experienced anew by the religious person.

57

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

The momentariness of love that demands that it be renewed daily also means that the experience of revelation is not sufficient unto itself. The pure momentariness and spontaneity of love needs to be given stability, to be shared with others, and to be decisive for the way that one lives in the world. Similarly, the personal experience of God’s love is not enough to satisfy the soul, which longs for some outward form to express its experience. The soul will not allow this paramount experience to be something passing, or an event that is secluded from the rest of life; it yearns, for a love eternal such as can never spring from the everlasting presentness of sensation. This eternity no longer grows in the I and Thou, but longs to be founded in the presence of all the world.19

For Rosenzweig, the individual’s life in the presence of God is given stability and a foundation in the world through participation in the religious community. Although all life in the world is caught up in the process of coming-to-be and passing-away, that is, in a stream of time that is permeated by change and death, Rosenzweig holds that the Jewish and Christian religious communities bring at least a hint of eternity, here defined in terms of permanence, into life. Rosenzweig’s “meta-historical,” i.e., a-historical picture of Jewish life is by now familiar to most people who have any interest in modern Jewish thought. Jewish life, although sometimes confronted by dangers and challenges,20 is untouched by time.The people itself is the basis of Judaism’s foundation in eternity. The beginning of the people came with God’s covenant with Abraham, and the successive generations, the “bearers” of this covenant, constitute Judaism’s communion with

58

Death and the Fear of Death

eternity. Using the metaphor of an eternal fire to describe the Jewish community’s meta-historical character, Rosenzweig writes: The fire of the core must burn incessantly. Its flame must eternally feed upon itself. It requires no fuel from without. Time has no power over it and must roll past. It must produce its own time and reproduce itself forever. It must make its life everlasting in the succession of generations, each producing the generation to come, and bearing witness to those gone by.21

The Jewish liturgical year reflects this life with the eternal, a life in which the sparks of redemption, or the consummation of life, are found in the present. Rosenzweig enumerates three areas in life in which the religious person experiences eternity in the depth of today. The individual’s experience of God’s turning toward her or him provides the first. In turning back to the world, in turning towards one’s neighbor and in fulfilling one’s tasks before God, eternity is again perceived. And, finally, within the context of the religious community and its liturgy, life is punctuated by experiences of the eternal that are repeated throughout the year.Thus, Rosenzweig understands that the individual need not postpone the hope of finding eternity until the far-off future of God’s final act of redemption, because the eternal is continually discovered in the midst of life itself: Eternity is a future which, without ceasing to be future, is nonetheless present. Eternity is a Today which is, however, conscious of being more than Today.22

59

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

The basic contention of this exploration has been that Rosenzweig’s concern with the fear of death underlies the full expanse of the Star. Yet, a legitimate question about this judgment arises when one turns to the conclusion of the Star with its mystical portrayal of that final act of redemption which is beyond human experiences of eternity in the present and beyond the world itself. In this crowning act by God, the world and humans disappear. They disappear into God! Rosenzweig writes that God “frees Himself from having anything confront Him that is not he Himself,”23 and that “All merges into His totality.”24 Now, it might be objected that this picture of the end is no more satisfactory than the philosopher’s speech about the All in All that was discussed earlier. Again, the individual is lost into an all-encompassing, infinite One. If this was not a good solution to the problem of death when it was first offered by philosophy, one wonders why Rosenzweig, at the end, gives us the same formula.25 An answer to this question can be pieced together from the Star in the following way. When philosophy initially sought to resolve the fear of death with its “All in All” it took the individual out of life. It answered death’s challenge to life’s meaningfulness by reaffirming death’s implication that human life in the world has no real value. Philosophy suggests that the essential I or ego is not destroyed or affected by death, because only the body is torn away with death. However, Rosenzweig saw that if the abstract, essential I is untouched by death, then it is also untouched or unmoved by life. It is the person of body and soul, sometimes rephrased as the individual of first and last name,26 who enters into the world of decision and action, of dialogue and responsibility. If only the abstract I or ego is real, then life in the world is repudiated. Rosenzweig, in fact, depicts

60

Death and the Fear of Death

philosophy’s resolution of the fear of death as a type of suicide and concludes that philosophy’s act of taking the individual out of life denies life as surely as does the challenge of death. Rosenzweig’s understanding of the significance of living in the world remains as opposed to philosophy’s jargon about the “essential I” as was first seen. He endeavors to meet the challenge of death, not through a premature suicide, but through plunging persons back into the world in the deepest possible way. For Rosenzweig, only by living with God and with others is death vanquished and authenticity bestowed upon human existence in the world. As we have seen, the foundation for the victory over death is established when God’s love, His revealing Himself to persons, provides the individual with a trust in life and an orientation toward the world. Rosenzweig’s suggestion about the final All in All comes only after these foundations have been carefully laid. By the time that God’s last act is being discussed Rosenzweig believes that death is no longer a problem for the individual. Consequently, the picture of God’s All in All is to be understood as a mere hinting about “last things” for those who want to see further, beyond the world and life itself. In response to the somewhat impossible demand for a glimpse of the end, Rosenzweig writes that, ultimately, there will be God alone. He does not expect this vision to be disturbing to his readers. For, he might ask, how can the individual who has been transformed from an egotistic self into a loving soul, who wants, most of all, to be in God’s presence, really be concerned with ultimately remaining a separate and distinct ego? The preceding discussion of the fear of death in connection with the treatment of redemption in the Star provides the context for examining the concluding lines of Rosenzweig’s work:

61

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

To walk humbly with thy God – nothing more is demanded there than a wholly present trust. But trust is a big word. It is the seed whence grow faith, hope, and love, and the fruit which ripens out of them. It is the very simplest and just for that the most difficult. It dares at every moment to say Truly to the truth. To walk humbly with thy God - words are written over the gate, the gate which leads out of the mysterious-miraculous light of the divine sanctuary in which no man can remain alive. Whither, then, do the wings of the gate open? Thou knowest it not? INTO LIFE.27

Rosenzweig thus intended that the Star thrust the individual back into life. The great hindrance to living fully in the world, the fear of death, is overcome as one learns to trust in life. The Star endeavors to demonstrate that this trust is no illusion, since it is founded on the deepest of human experiences. Through the I and Thou of God’s revelation the individual learns of the love and concern that envelop his or her life before God. Moving into the world, one finds that the dialogue with God is not an isolated event; God’s love opens each person to the I and Thou of others. Rosenzweig did not believe that this portrait of the contours of the religious person’s understanding of life was something original. The Star is an examination of the traditional religious categories of Creation, Revelation, and Redemption. Some of the insights that pervade the book are unique to Rosenzweig; however, in focusing the Star on these traditional categories, he implies that this portrait of the religious life should be familiar to the religious person. Whether

62

Death and the Fear of Death

the Star offers a satisfactory answer to the fear of death is a question which each person must answer for oneself. In the light of the last eight years of Rosenzweig’s own life, when his physical powers were constantly being curtailed by an on-going paralysis, it is clear that his own courage in the face of death verified his love of, and trust in, life.28

63

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Notes Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (Boston: Beacon Press,

1

1972), xvii. Ibid., 3.

2

Ibid., 5.

3

Ibid.

4

Ibid., 4.

5

Ibid., 155.

6

Ibid., 77.

7

Ibid., 76-77.

8

Emil Fackenheim, Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy

9

(New York: Basic Books, 1973), 215-16, questions Martin Heidegger’s portrayal of the human condition in Being and Time, which presents the individual’s consciousness of being-toward-death as the fundamental criterion of authenticity. In a very interesting discussion, Fackenheim suggests that Heidegger’s position is deeply influenced by Christianity. Fackenheim contends that, on the other hand, the portrait of humans that views the interaction between persons as an essential feature of existence is a more Jewish view of authenticity. Although Fackenheim does not refer to Rosenzweig in this context, the latter’s treatment of love as an experience as elemental as the fear of death is in basic agreement with Fackenheim’s position in regard to the importance of the life between persons. For an extended comparison of Rosenzweig’s and Heidegger’s understandings of death, see the highly regarded article by Karl Lowith, “M. Heidegger and F. Rosenzweig or Temporality and Eternity,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research III (1942): 53-77. 10

64

Franz Rosenzweig, Kleinere Schriften (Berlin: Schocken Verlag,

Death and the Fear of Death

1935), 363. Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 163.

11

Ibid., 199.

12

Ibid., 202.

13

Joseph Tewes, Zum Existenzbegriff Franz Rosenzweigs (Meisenheim

14

am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1970), 119, noted a disagreement between Rosenzweig and Martin Buber in connection with the relationship between the experience of God and the life with other persons. Buber holds that only after the exchange of “I” and “Thou” between persons is the way prepared for the dialogue with God. Rosenzweig believes that the dialogue with God is the precondition for an authentic life with others. Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 187. In a letter written before

15

he started the Star, Rosenzweig acknowledged the influence of Eugen Rosenstock in first describing the importance of revelation’s impact upon the individual as “orientation.” See Rosenzweig, Kleinere Schriften, 358. Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 394.

16

Ibid., 392 ff.

17

Ibid., 198.

18

Ibid., 204.

19

Rosenzweig’s description of Judaism’s eternal character in the Star

20

should not obscure his extensive efforts in adult education and in the translation of important sources of Judaism, all of which were aimed at reviving the German-Jewish community of his time. For an account of these efforts, see Nahum Glatzer, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1970). Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 298.

21

Ibid., 224.

22

Ibid., 383.

23

Ibid., 238.

24

65

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Nathan Rotenstreich raises this question in Jewish Philosophy in

25

Modem Times (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 204-5. Franz Rosenzweig, Understanding the Sick and the Healthy, Nahum

26

Glatzer (ed.), (New York: The Noonday Press, 1953), 20. This small book, which is Rosenzweig’s own non-philosophical version of the Star, reaffirms his concern with the problem of death and the fear of death. See, for example, 89-91. Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 424.

27

The story of Rosenzweig’s last years is told through his own words

28

and the words of those who knew him in Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought, 144-76.

66

The Halevi Book

IV The Halevi Book

I can no longer write a book.

(Franz Rosenzweig, 1920)

There is no “religious sphere.”

(Franz Rosenzweig, 1924)

The Notes to my Jehuda Halevi contain instructive examples of the practical application of the new thinking.

(Franz Rosenzweig, 1925)

The recent appearance of Barbara Galli’s Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi: Translating, Translations, and Translators, will hopefully focus attention on the most significant of Rosenzweig’s later writings. Rosenzweig’s Jehuda Halevi: Ninety-Two Hymns and Poems is a “book,” the purpose of which is both self-evident and radically complex. On the surface the Jehuda Halevi is a translation of the religious poems of the medieval Jewish poet and philosopher named in the title, with selected commentary, that is, an “Afterword” and “Notes” by the distinguished twentieth-century German-Jewish philosopher. However, while this is an accurate description of the text, it is even more a misleading one. As the English translator and commentator on the work, Galli convincingly argues that in order to understand what Rosenzweig was offering in the Jehuda Halevi one must put his effort in the context of his life and writings.1

67

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

The place of the Jehuda Halevi in the life of Franz Rosenzweig necessarily indicates that the prima facie is not the final. By 1922, the time that Rosenzweig had started working on Halevi’s poems, he had learned and felt the first effects of his dire medical condition, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and was equally aware of the prognosis of paralysis and a rather imminent death. An important event in that year was the birth of his son, Rafael, in September. Rosenzweig considered having children a fundamental step in the development of the family, and thus, a full Jewish life. The prognosis that he had only months to live meant that some of these hopes would be left unfulfilled. In terms of his career, Rosenzweig had rejected the easy path, “defined for me by my talent,”2 of a university professorship, and he was in the process of realizing his commitment to Jewish education as creator and director of an adult education facility, the Freies Judisches Lehrhaus in Frankfurt. Further, his well-received book Hegel and the State had appeared, as had the first edition of his The Star of Redemption the preceding year. Although the latter book had not been well understood, the author knew that its philosophically revolutionary voice would not forever remain silent. Following the birth of his son, a determined career path, the publication of two important texts, and the prognosis that threatened all, why did Rosenzweig decide to translate the Halevi poems? Was he cutting short his own work to prepare for the end, or was he going further? Given all the essays, articles, and letters that he produced after 1922, there is no doubt that the first option is too limited. In a sense, as we will see, he was both going further and preparing for his death. The fact that Rosenzweig continued to spend those last years – the gift of which stretched longer than either he or his doctors had anticipated – on the poems provides a first indication of the value that

68

The Halevi Book

this work had for him. A second, expanded edition of Jehuda Halevi appeared in 1927. Another clue, the investigation of which by Barbara Galli puts all Rosenzweig critics and readers in her debt, appears in his essay of 1925, “The New Thinking.” In this essay, which Rosenzweig allowed to be published only once as an introduction to the Star, he affirmed that the Jehuda Halevi was indeed a “going further.” He wrote, “The Notes to my Jehuda Halevi contain instructive examples of the practical application of the new thinking.”3 The wide range of meanings contained in the phrase,“instructive examples of the practical application of the new thinking”is illuminated with deep care and insight by Galli.4 Before reviewing the matter, it will be beneficial first to turn to the contents of the Halevi itself. There are (following the 1927 edition) ninety-two poems of Jehuda Halevi, with an “Afterword” and “Notes” by Rosenzweig.The poems are thematically arranged by Rosenzweig into four sections: God, Soul, People, and Zion. The “Afterword” focuses on the nature of translating in general and of translating the Bible and Halevi’s poetry in particular. The “Notes” look again and again at the dynamics of the relationship between God and the individual – through the eyes of Jehuda Halevi. They present a phenomenology of the religious soul, identifying so many different moments in the soul’s (that is, the individual’s) life before God, other humans, and its unique destiny. In the “Notes,” there are reflections on prayer, miracles, reward – in both this world and the next, life and death, and God as Creator, Revealer, and Redeemer, and as the Far and the Near One. The commentary on the “People” poems examines the nature of Israel’s task and its relation to other peoples. The “Notes” end with reflections on the Messiah and a vivid portrayal of Halevi’s longing for Zion.

69

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

The New Thinking Whatever the import of the book, these contents appear to assign it to the category of religious books. It includes religious poems, indisputably labeled as such, since many have a central place in the daily and yearly round of the synagogue’s liturgy, to which are added Rosenzweig’s contributions, amounting to a commentary on religious poetry or a series of religious reflections. Yet, early on in his “Afterword” Rosenzweig warns us that “there is no ‘religious sphere.’”5 In considering the meaning of this statement, one might speculate that Rosenzweig objects to the word sphere. However, the reason that this warning is germane to the issue of the nature of the Jehuda Halevi, is that Rosenzweig’s opposition is actually to the word religion. His resistance to that word was confirmed through his defiant boast that it never once appeared in his Star.6 In insisting that there is no religious sphere, that the Halevi was a practical application of his “new thinking,” and that the word religion had no place in the Star, Rosenzweig is issuing a challenge. The challenge is to the way that, in his time and in ours, religion and philosophy – and, following from this, God, the world, and the nature of humans – are understood. In the same way that the Star presents a system of philosophy, and as the “new thinking” is a new type of philosophical thinking, so the Halevi is a philosophical text. Precisely because of, and not despite the fact, that the Halevi poems are about God, the soul, the (Jewish) people, and Zion, is this true. Rosenzweig prefers the word life to the word religion. The Star ends with the words “into life,” because to reflect upon the interactions among or, more properly, meetings between God, the world, and humans, is to explore all the dimensions of life. If philosophy is that wisdom about what we can know, what is the good, the nature of the

70

The Halevi Book

beautiful, and for what we can hope, how could it exclude the subjects that are the foci of Halevi’s poems? The “Notes” elucidate the features of the poems that passionately explore – but could it authentically be done differently? – those perennial philosophical, and thus living, questions: questions of love, of names, of experience, of despair, of faith, of independence or dependence, of creation, of revelation, of redemption, of eternity, of suffering, and of death. Are love, faith, despair, suffering, and death “religious” issues? Or to put it another way: Can questions about meaning, suffering, faith, and experience be tackled forthrightly unless one utilizes such terms as God, the soul, miracle, and redemption? For Rosenzweig, certainly they cannot! The “Notes” are filled with examples of the way in which Rosenzweig uses and explains what are usually seen as “religious” terms, categories, and issues to speak of the fullness of the human being. In this sense, they are the practical demonstration, as it were, of what Rosenzweig meant in “The New Thinking” when he wrote that: “Theological problems must be translated into human terms.”7 For example, the issue in Halevi’s poems of understanding God as both close to us and far away is translated as (that is, shown to be) a discussion concerning human purpose. Rosenzweig writes, “The Far-and-Near helps the poet also to solve the problem of the purpose of the world, about which the philosophy of religion of that time toiled.”8 That there are names that refer both to God’s closeness and His farness is not some theological contrivance or emotional overstatement. The name or names that refer to God’s closeness and distance inform us about the dual nature of everything that exists. In Rosenzweig’s words, references to God’s nearness remind us that every created thing “is simply wholly there, has being, self-being, is a purpose in itself.” On the other hand, the names that evoke God’s

71

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

farness teach us that each being “is also there for the sake of something else, in the final resort for the sake of everything else.”9 Thus, these two-fold names for God instruct us about each thing’s existence as something in- and for-itself and as something that is part of, and is given over to, the totality of existence. In a similar vein, the discussion of God as Creator and as Revealer is translated into the language of suffering. According to Rosenzweig, the “great truth of Revelation” is that “suffering is a gift from God.”10 Yet, each person has the right to question or even to refuse the comfort of this insight when it is seen or offered as a theological formula. The afflicted person is justified in defiantly insisting, in protesting, “suffering is suffering and nothing else.” However, that is not the end of the matter. True consolation, that is, “the word of God,” arises out of the depths of the human being; out of the human cry that draws upon God’s intimate contact as both Creator and Revealer. Thus, what might at first be described as Rosenzweig’s phenomenology of the religious soul or of religious experience, he wants us to understand as a phenomenology, from out of poetry/ liturgy, of human life. This raises another question about the book, even if the issue of “religious” vocabulary and subject matter appears to be adequately addressed. Why use the “pretext” of notes to Halevi’s poems to present this philosophical phenomenology or anthropology? Could Rosenzweig not just say what he means in a real book of philosophy? Prior to his work on Halevi’s poems, but after finishing the Star, Rosenzweig wrote in a letter of 1920 to a friend of his fiancé, “I can no longer write a ‘book,’ everything now turns into a letter, since I need to see the ‘other.’”11 It was in 1925, after the appearance of the first edition of Jehuda Halevi (1924), that he wrote about the

72

The Halevi Book

“Notes” as “instructive examples of the practical application of the new thinking.” Rosenzweig’s commitment to reexamine the way that philosophy is pursued is the crux of the essay, “The New Thinking.” He writes there that the “new thinking,” or “speech-thinking,”“needs another person, and takes time seriously – actually, these two things are identical.”12 The “Notes” thus represent a manner of doing philosophy. They demonstrate one way that philosophical thinking can fulfill the requirement of needing another. The “Notes” are in this sense Rosenzweig’s thinking through of fundamental issues of human life by way of the fecund verses of the medieval poet/philosopher. Rosenzweig details and explores the joy, cries, longing, and lament of Halevi, seeing in Halevi’s struggles the embodiment and archetype for humankind. The “Notes” guide us to still other persons.13 For example, there are those dear references to his friend Hermann Cohen. Fittingly, Rosenzweig provides no citations from any of Cohen’s significant books but rather looks to him as a person. We see a sincerely concerned Cohen, protesting Rosenzweig’s comment about the belated date of the Messiah’s coming.14 Rosenzweig uses this story to demonstrate, to show in practice, that a belief that cannot elicit action and emotion is “an empty theologumenon, a mere ‘idea,’ idle babble.”15 The reader is transported into the context of wider dialogues and discussions, which underscore the element of time.We are put in the midst of Halevi’s conversation with the Bible and with oral Torah, of the dialogue in history between God and the people of Israel. Rosenzweig’s commentary – part of that book which is not a book – exemplifies speech-thinking and Rosenzweig’s love of letters, because it continually addresses the reader. It prods, directs, and puzzles

73

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

us. In the end, it demands that the reader enter more directly into the poetry. For, as Rosenzweig writes, one of the paramount purposes of the commentary is to transform the passive reader and consumer into nothing less than a “guest and friend of the poem.”16 Rosenzweig has distinguished speech-thinking from the mathematical and logical models of thinking and writing. Consistent with his view, the “Notes” are not systematic in the incredibly rigorous way that Spinoza’s Ethics is, or in the ways that the works of Kant or Hegel, and even the Star, are. Of course, the nature of systems differ and even the link of philosophy and system is only an experimental or historically contingent affair. In the modern period, philosophers have repeatedly played with the form of their writing. This is as true for Spinoza’s Ethics as for Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The exploration of form is powerfully seen in such eminent modern philosophers as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Buber, and Derrida. God, Soul, People, Zion The “Notes” are one possible application of speech-thinking. As we have seen, the form is especially well suited to demonstrate that the act of thinking needs an other. Though the “Notes” shift their focus and build upon each other, generally they still follow the order of themes that Rosenzweig used to classify the poems: God, Soul, People, Zion. Is there a system in this sequence? Although the author does not address this question, I would like to offer some brief suggestions of my own.17 Why start with God? Rosenzweig’s philosophical anthropology is built upon the insight that only in relation to the divine can the human be understood, or as he puts it, in the relationship between “The Incomparable One” and “the very comparable.”18 He gives us

74

The Halevi Book

one example of what this means; the human person is one “who can realize his own particular will only through subordinating it to His.”19 Thus, it is in relationship to God that the full person or answering/addressing individual first emerges; the complex person of love and fear, weakness and strength, mystery and revelation, longing and fulfillment. The priority of the topic “God,” is also demonstrated through the experiences embodied in Halevi’s poems. Rosenzweig unveils the intense concern, first apparent in the poet, that usually lies hidden behind such “theological questions” as: “Does God or does the human being take the first step?”20 and What is at stake in “monotheism”?21 The poem “Here I am” is the transition to the “Soul” section. Thus, God’s word of love, announced in the first section, finds its response in the awakened soul, which is the center of the second. Here Rosenzweig moves from poems to Bible to later Jewish literature in order to demonstrate that the term soul is indispensable in reflecting upon our lives. He states that the soul is not a thing; “She moves, can be moved, between two poles, illusion and truth, world and service, masks and countenance.”22 We also find powerful, albeit brief, discussions concerning prayer, reward, illusion and truth, and the world. The “People” section of the “Poems” and “Notes” follows the awakening call of God and responsive devotion of the individual, just as the depiction of the two historical communities of revelation – Judaism and Christianity – in Part 3 of the Star followed the dialogue of lover and beloved in Part 2. Rosenzweig begins the “Notes” with “God” and “Soul,” that is, with the present experience of revelation, for he believes that, “the experience of today confirms and repeats the historical revelation.”23 Although the third section develops earlier

75

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

insights, particularly about God’s promises and redemption, it appears that its basic purpose is to remind us that the covenant between the Jew and God is experienced and fulfilled through the Jewish people. Rosenzweig explores biblical events that punctuate the dialogue between God and the people, as well as their ardent celebration in Jewish liturgy. The final portion of “Poems”–“Notes” is dedicated to “Zion.” Certainly the reason for having these poems at the end is obvious, for it was the poet’s longing for Zion that dominated the last part of his life. Rosenzweig shares with us his awe of the poet’s passion and determination, and through Halevi’s as well as Rosenzweig’s eyes, we come to feel the tension between the human ties to life as it is here and now and the desire for a radical break that yearns for the messianic age. Rosenzweig’s claim that the “Notes” are examples of a new way of doing philosophy must face a final obstacle. This is the question whether such shifting subjects taken up in the text as Jehuda Halevi himself, the Bible, and the Jewish people are too “particular” for philosophical discourse.To put it another way, can the reflection upon such subjects as these lead to conclusions that are appropriate to that sphere of knowledge which seeks answers that are true everywhere and at all times to questions about existence? This question about particularity underscores not the weakness but the strength of Rosenzweig’s work as a philosophic text. Consequently, Rosenzweig addresses the question of philosophical discourse throughout. In fact, we have already taken up one feature of this issue, Rosenzweig’s view that the person in relationship to God is not somehow outside the ordinary/universal, as modern philosophy assumes, but represents human beings at their fullest.

76

The Halevi Book

Rosenzweig’s “Notes,” as well as his whole philosophic corpus, insist that universality is not the most important or most relevant criterion of truth. He makes this point in “The New Thinking,” and we can rightly see the practical application of this lesson in the “Notes.” In the former we read of a “messianic theory of knowledge that values truths according to what it cost to verify them, and according to the bond they create among men.”24 The discussion of true and false Messiahs is the forum for illustration of this theory in the “Notes.” It is only because Jews have been willing to stake all, to “bleed as sacrifices on the altar of the eternity of the people,”25 that the truth of redemption is made real. The ability of this truth to elicit drastic sacrifices over many generations testifies to its validity. In “The New Thinking,” such truths, “the higher and the highest truths,” are given preference over the dry universal ones of logic and mathematics, with which Rosenzweig finds, “people are apt to agree without making more than a minimum use of their brains.”26 Even given this view, is the focus on one man – Jehuda Halevi, one text - the Bible, and one people – Israel, philosophically justified? By now, Rosenzweig’s response can be anticipated. We learn about persons not by generalizing and universalizing about “the human condition,” but through an intense portrait of a single person, one of depth and emotion. Rosenzweig makes us Halevi’s contemporaries, his guests and friends, for through his poems we experience and examine the gamut of events and feelings that flow through every life. Halevi’s songs also provide the opportunity to question the presuppositions of our time that filter out some of life’s richness.27 It is the “plain of experience” that brings us to see part of the Bible’s indispensable philosophic relevance.28 Unlike many a philosophical ethic that shuns everyday life to ascend to the “purer

77

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

heights,” Rosenzweig contends that the Bible deliberately descends into these “lowlands.” Even here it carves its special path, diverging from the customary morality that defines life as the indiscriminate “sum of accumulated experience.” According to Rosenzweig, the Bible observes human existence through the prism of two poles, the given and the promised. It is only by being aware that we stand between Creation and Redemption that the everyday can be understood.This is the awareness, put in another way, that life is given by the Creator and that we are pointed toward, or “promised,” something later. The nature of this in-between state is molded by our responsibilities to others, that standing before God of one “who finds support for his life in the commitment to human duty.”29 For Rosenzweig, the Jewish people is both a particular people and the metaphor for all humans. A Jewish life that is separate from those of other peoples comes through very clearly in the “Notes,”30 as it does in Halevi’s poems. Yet, while Rosenzweig sees distinctive elements of Jewish history/destiny and duty, he also recognizes many of these elements as examples of all humans’ history/destiny and duty. There is a telling example of this broader view in a note about Halevi’s poem that portrays a “conversation between God and his banished doves, as Israel is called in…Song of Songs.”31 In both poem and note there are references to the Jewish experiences in Egypt and Babylonia, but these references elicit a lesson about all persons. From this history we learn about “the full two-voiced divine-human reality,”32 of the human being’s “sorrow” and God’s promises. Another illustration can be found in Rosenzweig’s treatment of Halevi’s “The Universe.” The poem’s notes take up what he sees as the distinctive Jewish attitude toward the world. Rosenzweig holds that the Jew appreciates, but it is not overwhelmed by, God’s works in

78

The Halevi Book

nature. In his words:“He [Halevi] is a Jew and therefore not in danger of singing Halleleujah hastily.”33 Still, Rosenzweig’s comments do not find their conclusion until humanity is included: It is this understood consciousness of suffering alone that gives him [the poet] the right to accept God’s world.Yet. The suffering one alone has the permission to praise God in his works. But all men suffer. That is why humanity has that right.34

Rosenzweig recognizes that if philosophic reflections were both to begin and end with all persons, reality as we know and experience it would have to be ignored. However, I believe that Rosenzweig hints at another way to understand the relationship between the particular and the universal. Galli’s interest and excitement, which I have experienced both from reading her chapter and speaking with her over time, about Rosenzweig’s view that there is “only one language” has very much affected me.35 Her developed treatment of this intriguing but complicated topic is extremely well presented. As with most of what Rosenzweig provides for us, there is always more to understand and unfold. I would like to look at one sentence in the “Afterword:” “one should translate so that the day of that harmony of languages, which can grow only in each individual language, not in the empty space ‘between’ them, may come.”36 This is a statement about the particular and universal, a very surprising and paradoxical one. Rosenzweig speaks of the harmony of the many languages as something that develops in each particular one. It does not come about above or outside the specific historical

79

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

languages, resulting in some newly fashioned one. Through translation, and Rosenzweig sees speaking as a form of translating, the “spirit” of each translated language has an impact or influence on the language into which the translation is being made. As translating/ speaking goes on, the fullness of each language that comes from being affected by every other language, brings an inner harmony among them. Each harmony itself must necessarily be specific or unique. At the end, there is only one language, which has a multiple of indispensable, distinctive expressions. Is this statement about language applicable to the relationship of the Jewish people and other peoples? If it is, then it entails the idea that every people is distinctive. However, the fullness of each comes from interacting – speaking and translating – with all others. In the end, Jewish life will have been influenced by the spirit of all other peoples and languages, just as each people will be enriched by the speaking/translating contact with the Jewish people. Seen from this angle, there is the seed in Rosenzweig’s discussion of translation of a vivid, revolutionary, transformative and responsible notion of a speaking, that is, a dialogical pluralism that envisions a harmony of every, within each one. The idea is vivid, because it does not abstract out of each language or people’s experience. Rosenzweig’s position is revolutionary, because, unlike most views of harmony, the distinctive or particular is not regarded as something negative or limited. It is rather transformative, because only through speaking/ translating with others does the depth or destiny of each single language unfold. Most important, this dialogical pluralism is responsible. For Rosenzweig believes that there is a duty to translate, that is to speak with others. Although the “task of translating [/speaking]” has a “can” and “may,” most importantly, it is ruled by a “shall.”37

80

The Halevi Book

Rosenzweig’s “Notes” are intensely personal, and for that reason also profoundly philosophical.As Galli shows, Rosenzweig had a deep relationship with Halevi. In plunging into the poems, Rosenzweig was delving into himself and what lay innermost inside him. Only this identification with his self can explain the fact that he worked on this project so ardently during a time when he knew each day was a rare gift. Two topics especially may evidence the importance of the Jehuda Halevi. First, as some critics, especially Israeli critics,38 have discovered, the translation-commentary effort appears to have effected a change in Rosenzweig’s attitude toward Zionism. In the “Notes,” Rosenzweig shares in the poet’s longing for Zion and identifies this as one of the central features of Jewish existence. His exposure to the depth of Halevi’s passion brought Rosenzweig to move away from the anti-Zionism that was implicit in the Star. Rosenzweig’s engagement with his own death also permeates the text. In the 1925 letter to his cousin Hans Ehrenberg, Rosenzweig wrote that: “I have repeatedly dealt, in my notes to Judah ha-Levi, with the view of the world from the vantage point near the gate [that stands between this world and the next].”39 I feel that the many discussions of death from out of the resources of Halevi’s poems enabled Rosenzweig to confront his own. Halevi knew that the journey to Zion represented both the greatest goal of his life and its conclusion. Rosenzweig’s work on the poems furthered his struggle with suffering, his quest to find meaning, his affirmation of life, at the same time as it fostered his acceptance of death. In taking up the “Notes” the reader is left with no doubt about the wisdom of Rosenzweig’s statement that:“the objective truth is unveiled, precisely because it is uttered entirely subjectively.”40 Despite the challenges that Rosenzweig’s text presents and the

81

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

insights that it proffers, Rosenzweig’s last book,“my Jehuda Halevi,” has been ignored by critics, as Galli documents in her first chapter. This translation into English, in addition to adding another spirit to that language, should represent a significant step in the text becoming our Halevi. It will take the dedicated efforts of many thinkers, each from out of her or his history/destiny, to evaluate as well as to heighten its luminosity for us. In the coming years we may find that Jehuda Halevi rightly appears next to that other Star in the overlapping galaxies that are modern Jewish philosophy and modern philosophy.

82

The Halevi Book

Notes

1

See Galli’s first chapter, “Placing the Halevi Book, Rosenzweig, and

the Star,” Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 289-32l. 2

Nahum N. Glatzer, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New

York: Schocken Books, 1970), 95. Rosenzweig, “The New Thinking,” in Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 201.

3 4

See chapter 4, “The ‘Notes’ as Application of The New Thinking,”

Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 399-433. Galli delineates eight different features of the “Notes” that mark it as true application of the new thinking. 5

Ibid., 173.

6

Franz Rosenzweig, “Das neue Denken,” Kleinere Schriflen (Berlin,

Schocken Verlag, 1937), 374. 7

Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 201.

8

Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 207.

9

Ibid.

10

Ibid., 213.

11

Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 90-91.

12

Ibid., 200.

13

Rosenzweig’s close friend, Martin Buber, is one of the others

whom the book both depended on and addressed. Rosenzweig wrote the book’s dedication to Buber and, as Galli shows, he believed that the whole project came to fruition only because of Buber. See Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 296. 14

Ibid., 259.

15

Ibid.

83

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

16

Ibid., 184.

17

Galli incisively devotes a great amount of attention to the

importance of the overall form of the Jehuda Halevi, that is, the three parts: translation of the poems, “Afterword,” and “Notes.” She writes: “I contend that Rosenzweig’s ordering of the sections of his book…was a conscious and deliberate demonstration in itself of the speech-thinking method.” See “The Form of the Halevi Book,” Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 318-21. 18

Ibid., 191.

19

Ibid.

20

Ibid., 194.

21

Ibid., 201.

22

Ibid., 224.

23

Ibid., 187.

24

Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 206.

25

Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 259.

26

Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 206. Rosenzweig’s statement concerning

the truths of mathematics and logic does not mean that he dismissed their force and appropriateness. Mathematics and logic have an important place in the first part of the Star. 27

Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 220ff.

28

Ibid., 221.

29

Ibid., 191. Levinas’ deeply acknowledged debt to Rosenzweig can

be recognized in such statements.

84

30

Ibid., 246.

31

Ibid., 250.

32

Ibid., 252.

33

Ibid., 203.

34

Ibid., 204.

The Halevi Book

Galli’s treatment of this topic is in chap. 2 of her “Rosenzweig’s

35

Philosophy of Translation,” Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 322-59. Among the other threads she unravels is that the oneness of all languages is based on the view that “each language holds in germ the capacity to speak the revelatory word of God” and that “each language bring[s] to bloom its own capacity to speak the One Word of Truth,” 326. Ibid., 171.

36

Ibid.

37

See Michael Oppenheim, “The Relevance of Rosenzweig in the

38

Eyes of His Israeli Critics,” Modern Judaism, 7, 2 (May 1987), 193-206. Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 151.

39

Galli, Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi, 253.

40

85

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

V Into Life: Rosenzweig’s Essays on God, Man, and the World

The five short lectures/writings of Franz Rosenzweig (18861929) included here1 should be welcomed by both the novice and the veteran student of this great German-Jewish philosopher. Those new to Rosenzweig or even to the field of modern Jewish philosophy will find in these writings - along with the essay of 1925, “The New Thinking,” which is the nucleus of a companion volume – a good entrée into the demanding but exhilarating work of this philosopher. Those who have already sampled of Rosenzweig’s thought will discover new expressions of the central themes that punctuate his overall oeuvre as well as gain some insight into his later thought and development. Collectively, these Rosenzweig compositions form a coherent and powerful whole. The volume begins with the notes for a group of lectures of 1920, “Faith and Knowledge,” given in Cassel. They are followed by a three-part lecture series of 1922,“The Science of God,” “The Science of Man,” and “The Science of the World,” that were meant to explain The Star of Redemption to Rosenzweig’s audience at the Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus in Frankfort. The concluding element is Rosenzweig’s “Anthropomorphisms.” This incomparable essay was written and published in 1928, just one year before his death. These smaller writings have not appeared in English before. They have been translated by Barbara Galli, who is undoubtedly

86

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

the most accomplished English translator of Rosenzweig today. The translations are the fruit of her years of dedication to studying, translating, and illuminating the work of Rosenzweig. In addition, Galli explores the educational setting of the three-part series of lectures as well as provides an extended analysis of its contents in her introduction, “Rosenzweig’s Lehrhaus Lectures on the Science of God, Man, and the World.” Although there are many important insights and ideas in these works by Rosenzweig, in this “Foreword” I will focus on what binds them so clearly together. This is Rosenzweig’s description of what it means to live a full human life, or in the words that complete his Star, “INTO LIFE.” As we will soon see, his narrative has two basic ingredients: the life with God, and the life with humans. For Rosenzweig, the two are intimately tied. Although scholars have provided many diverse readings of Rosenzweig’s works, especially the Star, there are two reigning notions held by all. They are that Rosenzweig is a very difficult philosopher and that the reader is always richly rewarded for the serious efforts that his texts demand.Time has not lessened the challenge that, according to his friend Ernst Simon, greeted Rosenzweig’s contemporaries when they opened the Star.2 If Rosenzweig’s polished essays, on the whole, are less complex than his Star, this is not fully true in the case of the various lecture notes. There are many intricate ideas and images not fully worked out in the notes. The reader may wish that she or he could have access to a verbatim transcript of the lectures, but, again relying on a contemporary report, this time by Nahum Glatzer, it might not help very much.3 Still, their value as a first guide to fundamental features of Rosenzweig’s thought, remains as long as the reader is satisfied with gaining a solid overall impression and not

87

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

obsessed with the goal of understanding everything at first glance. If experienced students of Rosenzweig have become accustomed to struggling in order to unravel Rosenzweig’s thoughts, they will not be disappointed at the beauty and brilliance in these five selections that they have also come to expect. Single lines are the work of a master: His image in us does not give us human form (that we have), but rather the divine traits of our humanity.4 Only he who has the future as reality media in vita, who has learned to die at any moment (the dead on vacation), only he is alive and needs care little about the skeptic’s doubts.5

There are also his skillful dances with images and ideas where every step is true. Examples of this are his play with debit and credit,6 and with the Jew’s resistance to pronouncing God’s name.The former concerns the initial energy that the soul owes (debit) to God, which is then sustained and extended (credit) in life with others. The point of the latter is succinctly put: “The Jewish name of God becomes inexpressible. By this it outdistances all expressible ones.”7 These are just small samples of Rosenzweig’s unrivaled skill to unleash the power of words. The relationships between these works and others, especially The Star of Redemption and “The New Thinking,” will only be lightly touched upon by me, leaving much for future scholarship.8 The subject of such relationships, and the possible development in Rosenzweig’s work, is very important.9 In terms of the latter, it would be surprising

88

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

if there were no changes in his overall thought from that period (roughly 1917-1919) of the germ cell of the Star – the Urzelle, the postcard drafts and the final version of that magnum opus, to the time (1920-1928) of the selections collected here,10 and other writings including “The New Thinking” and the editions of his Jehuda Halevi book.11 The works of the first period reflect his decision to remain a Jew and to explore the meaning of being Jewish in the modern world. Those of the latter period are the product of his decisions to leave academia, marry and start a family, and to provide a Jewish foundation for his contemporaries.This effort included directing and lecturing at the Lehrhaus and translating the Bible and Halevi’s poems. Faith and Knowledge The title of the 1920 lecture notes,“Faith and Knowledge,” rather than a more customary “Religion and Philosophy,” underscores an enduring feature of the works collected here. Rosenzweig insists that the domains usually associated with these two terms are too narrow, compartmentalized, and isolated. He is driven to inquire about what concerns “everyone;” the interweaving of both faith and knowledge. The word “repellent” in conjunction with the terms “Philosophy” and “Religion” is not an exaggeration for Rosenzweig. His writings are often contrasting one or both of these to “life.” For example, the Star begins by depicting philosophy as a premature dying and his booklet [Büchliein] of 1921, Understanding the Sick and the Healthy, details the treatment necessary for a patient, struck with the disease of philosophy, to return to living. The essay “The New Thinking” proposes a method more sensitive to time and other persons than traditional philosophy. Rosenzweig’s opposition to “religion” is also well documented. It is behind his claim that the word “religion”

89

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

never once appeared in the Star.12 Additionally, the “Afterword” to his Jehuda Halevi remarks that the Bible (the particular focus is actually Bible translation) knows nothing of a “religious sphere” because it “engages in all spheres of life.”13 Substantiating the claim that faith is as integral to life as knowledge – in fact Rosenzweig holds that knowledge presupposes faith – is certainly one of the primary objects of this presentation.14 He demonstrates this by showing that the fullness of life requires an understanding that is grounded in faith. Put in another way, the categories of faith and the experiences of faith disclose fundamental features of life. Rosenzweig retrieves the categories of creation, revelation, and redemption from the theological crypt to disclose their place in our everyday experiences. The pair birth/death is one of these realms. Death is inevitable, the recognized “law” of life that hangs over everything. Its counter-pole is birth, which Rosenzweig sees as always unpredictable, inexplicable. Birth is the miracle of our life,15 that new creation that grounds what we know, that is, death. In a similar way, Rosenzweig demonstrates that revelation, that divine irruption into the present, is presupposed by our notions of natural development. Faith’s category of redemption, the redemption from death, Rosenzweig sees as unveiled in the human and more than human event of marriage. Love, the strength of marriage, does not deny or ignore death. Rather it sustains despite or in the face of death. The final case that Rosenzweig explores is that of the living deed. These are those deeds where “we have the feeling of doing something beyond ourselves,”16 which are not just the outcome of what went before, of laws and forces easy to chart. In their case the actor himself or herself is changed by the action. For Rosenzweig,

90

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

the “archetype” of this deed is the birth of the child, where the man and the woman become something they were not before: father and mother. He believes that such acts disclose one of life’s mysteries, which is that for our most important actions it is not enough to try, to intend, to force.They require “pure hope and patience,”17 which is his definition of true prayer. If it is generally true that this first series of lectures, “Faith and Knowledge,” reiterates themes in the Star, it seems to me that the treatment of death is distinctive, if not unique. Certainly, death as the counterpoint to life pervades many of Rosenzweig’s writings.18 Here, however, life and its most important features are viewed almost from the vantage point of death. Life is defined as if it were a respite from death. He writes: “Only he who has brought consciousness of death into his life and guards it there not as the limit of life, but ‘media in vita,’ – only he really is alive, only his life is eternal – redeemed by the power of death.”19 The theme of death is woven throughout his treatments of birth, marriage, and the deed. In terms of the latter we see: Every deed can be a beginning of the end. In each it can be given to the human being that he may prove… whether he has learned to be free in life from life, in each deed he can prove whether life has taught him – how to die.20

Despite its eloquence and depth this treatment of death marks one of the few elements that might “date” Rosenzweig’s work, that is, that bring to the fore the distance that stands between his time and ours. In these lectures death is seen as something natural, as part

91

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

of everyday life. He does not uncover its other side: death as the exceptional, the invading, disruptive, that is, death not as a slow, natural occurrence, but as violent termination at the hand of another. As a consequence of a terrifying abyss within modern Jewish and world history, the latter understanding of death is inescapable, reverberating and haunting more than ever today. The “Sciences” The three-lecture series on God, man, and the world follows the order that these subjects appeared in the Star. The presentations recapture the leading insights of the second volume of that work, in its “books:” “Creation,” “Revelation,” “Redemption.” There are few if any traces here of the first volume of the Star, a sometimes abstract section that wrestles with German Idealism. In perhaps conscious contrast to it, and more like his Understanding the Sick and the Healthy, the lectures are filled with concrete images and emphasize what the author saw as living questions. The attempt to ground these lectures in everyday life and perhaps to present his ideas in a form less intimidating to his audience than that of the Star is seen in their points of departure. Rosenzweig begins the first of the series with a question and answer from the mouths of a mother and of a child and the two others with what he terms children’s stories. In the end the wisdom of the child or the children is uncovered, while the position of the mother in the first lecture is also respected. As the initial lecture professes, Rosenzweig wants to look at living issues. Earlier, in a letter of 1920, Rosenzweig wrote to his former professor, Friedrich Meinecke, about his decision to leave academia in order to pursue, not the phantom questions of scholars,

92

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

but the inquiries of “men.”21 Here he remarks about “fruitful doubt,” and of “a burning” and “driving question.” For him such questions are, respectively, the questions of God’s existence, of humans’ freedom, and of the world’s reality. “The Science of God,” which is by far the most extensively detailed of the treatments, quickly establishes a major theme in all of the lectures in its insistence that speaking about the relationship to God brings one to examine the range and depth of life rather than the esoteric and exceptional. Rosenzweig rephrases this into a contention, the demonstration of which becomes the self-given task of this first science, that “one cannot live without experiencing God.”22 Who is this God who so pervasively affects human existence? Rosenzweig answers by drawing upon the sacred texts, vocabulary, and history of Judaism. Although this is not a surprising occurrence, it is important to note. As a Jewish philosopher Rosenzweig uses these texts, words, and history to illuminate our experience of not the Jewish, but everyone’s – God, humans, world. In another place he indicates that there are other ways of portraying these basic elements.23 Still, he maintains that the human and the world cannot be understood without the language of God, and for the Jew the sources of this language are obvious. Rosenzweig’s emphasis on that which truly matters to the human being in us is well illustrated by his discussion of monotheism. When his listeners consider God, the first thing that enters their mind is probably the idea of monotheism, that God is one. Rosenzweig explains that monotheism could not just be a matter of numbers for Judaism. A person does not die for the sake of the number “one.”24 God’s Echad, the Hebrew for “unity” – as well as for “one” – is that which “transformed the world and still does so.”25 It does so because

93

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

it points not only to God but to our world. However, since unity is not found in life, neither on the plane of individual existence nor “world history,” the Jewish devotion to God places them outside history, “at the end of the world.”26 The world’s unity is something still to come (redemption), which Jews express in terms of that time when God’s name shall be one. The question of the relationship between God’s name and humans’ names brings Rosenzweig to look at the origin of this shared characteristic. Is it that humans give God a name, creating God? Is God’s (anthropomorphic) existence then just a philosophic, psychological, or mystic projection? Rosenzweig answers this by saying that we are in God’s image, thus, theomorphic. We do not invent God; God makes us into full persons. “He is however the I that makes us into You, who changes us ourselves from our mere I-myself into a You.”27 In the words of the Star, God transforms the isolated self into a living soul.28 For Rosenzweig, God is like us, because it is through His powers that ours are awakened.We are elevated by God’s call to be His “you.” Rosenzweig raises the question of the “how” of God’s existence. This is the famous “how” that comes to the fore when God as both eternal and in the world stand side by side.As always, Rosenzweig does not see this primarily as a matter of God’s being, but a question about God’s relationship to us and our existence. In “The New Thinking” he explained one part of his method in terms of transforming theological questions into “human terms.”29 His answer is that there is a self-contradiction in God. This is what allowed the Eternal One to create a world. We experience this contradiction deeply in the opposition between much of our experience of everyday life and God’s “promise of the end.” Our experience does not prove God,

94

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

but gives us a basis upon which to reproach God, to appeal to God’s “essence” or “His eternity” from out of our awareness of His “ruling” or “temporality.”30 Rosenzweig details further now what he meant by “one cannot live without experiencing God.” He writes that: Great suffering, great joy, great evil and great lovingkindness, the most extreme ugliness and the highest beauty. All these high and low points of life cannot be explained from life itself.31 God is “sensed” in the depth of life. Our unity and direction, our being awakened all point outside the contradictions and suffering of life. But as sensed, God cannot be known or proved in the abstract or from the outside. Rosenzweig ends his treatment by bringing up the notion common to much of his work, that of verification.32 By living through the high and low points, the contradictions, sufferings, realizations, and failures, which all are held up through the promise, one learns to believe. This living belief brings together the active and passive. It combines “the letting-happen and the making-happen, passivity and activity” together with God.33 “The Science of Man” begins by posing the question about human freedom, but Rosenzweig quickly shifts to the wider and more productive subject of the nature of human existence. The key to this nature he finds in our “addressability,” that is, not by examining one’s purported freedom, but through the recognition that in being called by one’s name by another does a person learn about what it means to be a self. Yet, this tie to others does not answer who the individual is in his or her uniqueness; it binds the person in a whole

95

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

nexus of relations. The uniqueness of the individual and of one’s direction comes from the divine “You,” from God. God orients through the imperative, the “must,” and henceforth “becomes the ally”34 through the course of one’s life.The insight that one does not give oneself direction, that, in fact, the concentration on the self is an obstacle to living fully is put into words by Rosenzweig as: “This ‘with’ [God], this ‘and’ [God], now has the power to place me outside my center and yet to let me free.” I will not at all be an arbitrary x. “But I am also no longer my center. I have my place.”35 Once called and transformed by God, the direction and power to live with others is present. As noted earlier, Rosenzweig teases with notions of debt and credit to express this matrix of divine and human relations.36 One’s debt is to God, whereas the life with humans is a matter of entering into more and more relations, of the reciprocal getting and giving credit/strength to fulfill one’s tasks from them. This is summed up for his audience as: “God, I, and the others (the world), that’s how life looks now.”37 The relationship to the world Rosenzweig puts in terms of “you” (plural). Living is not a matter of appropriating and using things or of being at the mercy of outside forces, all of which are “its.” Life in the world is punctuated with relationships with other humans, relations that extend from those of “hand in hand” to “fist against fist.”38 Rosenzweig ends by examining the notion of election. Although the individual must be personally touched by God, as we have seen, this aloneness is not the goal.The individual must live in a community and, as the Star indicates, the two true communities for Rosenzweig are the Jewish and the Christian. In community one lives in time but with eternity. One is grounded in the double direction of one’s

96

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

individual and communal task. This task leads out to everyone; “We are chosen, out of all humans, languages, peoples, for all humans, languages, peoples.”39 The initial question for Rosenzweig’s lectures on “The Science of the World” concerns the objectivity or reality of the world, or at least our particular conception of the world.This series is the least directly concerned with the overriding topic of “into life.” He takes up the place of art and justice, the spiritual and technological in the world, but concludes that these human ways of ordering and transforming do not coincide with the world itself. The most important feature of the world is that it is already there; it is created. The lesson here is that the world (and humans as part of that) is “dependent on something beyond itself.”40 On Anthropomorphisms41 Many years after he could no longer speak or even write unaided, Rosenzweig composed a small essay that comments on an article on anthropomorphism that had recently appeared in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Distilled to a minimum in its small size, “On Anthropomorphisms” formulates some of the most important lessons that Rosenzweig’s overall work grants to us. In order to substantiate this claim, I will refer primarily to “The New Thinking,” which Rosenzweig alludes to at the conclusion of his essay.42 Rosenzweig’s exploration of biblical anthropomorphisms has the primary goal of demonstrating the validity, significance, and vitality of these biblical features. For him, they are not antiquated characterizations of God’s attributes, but living accounts of the ways that God is encountered by humans. As such, they are the foundation for the relationship to God that is so pivotal to his understanding of

97

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

the nature of human existence, or what I have termed his portrayal of “into life.” The leitmotif or the lens for the essay is the word trust. Rosenzweig testifies to the significance of biblical anthropomorphisms by enumerating all the types of trust that they call upon and nurture. He discusses trust in speech or language, experience, community, God, and in humans themselves. The issue of the trustworthiness of speech or language is brought up very early in this essay, when Rosenzweig questions the assumption of the author of the Encyclopedia article that anthropomorphisms were the unfortunate result of the “inadequacy of language” in expressing the spiritual or transcendent. He argues that genuine experiences and not phantoms lie behind the anthropomorphisms. These metaphors reflect with striking precision the ways that God is met by humans. By means of words about God seeing, calling, responding, and even stretching out His (or Her)43 hand to touch the penitent, the anthropomorphisms communicate the situation and experience, or the existential matrix, out of which humans speak. As he explains in terms of one of the Psalms: every single declaration [about God] is only one end of a line at whose other end stands the one praying, calling full of fear for help and who sees how God draws near to him and storms down upon his afflicters.44

Thus, anthropomorphisms are not a consequence of the limits of language; they indicate, rather, its richness. In “The New Thinking” Rosenzweig struck a similar chord. He affirmed that “the method of speech replaces the method of thinking maintained in all earlier philosophies.”45 For the view that

98

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

language is a faulty, inadequate instrument is one which Rosenzweig found endemic to more than just the author of the Encyclopedia article. Actually, it haunted the writings of philosophers from the Greek times until the present. Philosophy consistently trusted logic and mathematics over speech as instruments for arriving at and communicating truth. Thus, the defense of the meaningfulness of biblical anthropomorphisms was vital to Rosenzweig’s wider philosophic agenda. It would be difficult for him to affirm a trust in speech and language, if these biblical words, written so long ago and repeated over millennia during moments of joy and trial, were now to be jettisoned as meaningless. The issue of trust in experience and, in particular, in what he designates as theological experience, dominates this essay on anthropomorphisms. Rosenzweig writes of “the courage to trust that the really experienced experiences of God also come really and immediately from God.”46 In terms of the argument itself, it is not sufficient for Rosenzweig to ground biblical anthropomorphisms in experience; in meetings between humans and God, he must contest the view that is triumphant in the modern West that such meetings are illusions. He accomplishes this in a two-staged process.47 First, he insists that there are three classes of experience and not just one all-purpose model. One type is objective “experiences of the world.”Another type is “experiences between human beings” that are a “mixture” of the objective and something else. Although Rosenzweig does not explain this, from an analysis of similar discussions in other texts it appears that this something else is that which, in the relationship between persons, cannot just be enumerated or reported to a third person.48 The final type, divine/human meetings, have no objective content.

99

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

The second step in Rosenzweig’s argument that the experiences of God are not illusions is accomplished by comparing theological experience with interhuman meetings. Just as meetings between humans have nonobjective dimensions, so do these. However, unlike interhuman exchanges, they have no objective content. In putting the matter this way he indicates that theological experiences are not some kind of esoteric, totally sui generis category. Our life with others provides a sense of the nature of these experiences as well as reminding us that not everything can be reduced to the objective order. The essay’s contentions that there are three classes of experience and that the experiences within these realms can be trusted echo also throughout “The New Thinking.” In opposition to philosophy, which Rosenzweig characterized as fundamentally reductive, the method of “new thinking” does not try to collapse the experiences of God, humans, and world into each other. By taking “each separately,” he insisted, “we have exact knowledge, the immediate knowledge of experience, of what God, man, and the world are.”Yet, underlying everything remains that trust in experience. In his words, “faith in experience might constitute the formulable element in the new thinking.”49 In the essay, trust in the meaningfulness of the biblical anthropomorphisms, that is, in the way they testify to authentic meetings between God and humans, also grounds the Jew’s trust in her or his community. The anthropomorphisms in the Bible record God’s call that constituted the Jewish community, the revelation of a particular way of life given at Sinai, and God’s ongoing concern and direction for the Jewish people. What meaning would there be in living as Jews if this testimony could no longer be accepted as valid? Perhaps this link between the biblical metaphors and the Jewish

100

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

community is the reason that he provocatively declared that the anthropomorphisms stood on the same plane with the Law and the Prophets.50 As long as the axial encounters with God are kept alive, both as memories and as the pattern/guarantor for new meetings, the continuity of Jewish existence is assured. One of the primary foci of the essay “The New Thinking” is life within community. Rosenzweig critiques the modern notion of the autonomous individual who lives exclusively out of his or her own resources. In Rosenzweig’s view, it is life within community that provides orientation to the world. In “The New Thinking” two communities, the Jewish and the Christian, are treated, for Rosenzweig believes that only these provide full portraits of God, humans, and world and introduce the eternal into the present. Further, through their ritual they allow humans to act out the elemental relationships: “In their God, their world and their man, the secret of God, of the world and of man, which can only be experienced but not expressed in the course of life, can be expressed.”51 The last two features of that trust embodied in Rosenzweig’s essay are mutually supportive: a trust in God’s power and concern to meet humans, and one in the human ability to recognize and respond to such approaches. Rosenzweig puts these together and labels them as the double assumption of the Bible.The assumption of the Bible is that, first, there is no dimension of our lives into which God cannot penetrate. They elicit from us a “boundless trust in his unboundable powers: that always, at every moment” meet us wherever we are.52 God’s will and capacity to search out every person is graphically presented through these metaphors. They leave the reader and recipient of Torah with the knowledge that God’s concern for His creature is everlasting as is His strength limitless; there is no darkness,

101

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

within or without, into which God’s gaze does not penetrate, nor is there a silence into which His voice does not call. The second part of the biblical assumption refers to a trust in humans; that “the creature is capable of what he should be…of fully understanding and recognizing God’s…turning toward him.”53 Rosenzweig understands that the ability to recognize God’s call and, perhaps, to respond, is not something to be taken for granted. Many of the challenges to faith in the modern period, in particular, those that explain away the possibility of revelation, directly undermine one’s confidence in these abilities. The earlier discussed confidence in experience is similar to this trust in the capacity of humans, but Rosenzweig gives special attention to it, because he seems to find that the biblical anthropomorphisms target it directly. Every example of such metaphors thus demonstrates, not only that God can be everywhere, but that humans have recognized, and still can, each of God’s searchings for them. Although all three categories of creation, revelation, and redemption are used in “The New Thinking” to depict the wider relationships between God, world, and man, it is revelation that is the pivot of Rosenzweig’s approach. The experience of God’s turning toward humans grounds the belief in creation and the hope for redemption. This experience, in turn, requires that twosided confidence, in God’s power to meet and in humans’ power to acknowledge such meetings, that Rosenzweig found expressed in the anthropomorphisms of the Bible. Thus, the biblical anthropomorphisms that many persons regard as archaic, insignificant, and inaccessible, are, for Rosenzweig, the very embodiment and guarantor of some of the most profound dimensions of human life. The issue of the meaningfulness of the

102

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

anthropomorphisms is directly tied to the confidence that we can have in, the trustworthiness of: speech, experience, community, God, and ourselves. Through the indivisible link between the anthropomorphisms and trust, this essay places itself at the core of Rosenzweig’s writings, especially the Star. The Star is, more than anything else, an extended panegyric about trust. It begins with death’s threat to trust and ends by pointing the individual into life, sustained by the prophet Micah’s words that all that is needed is “to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with Thy God.”54 Rosenzweig’s treatment of biblical anthropomorphisms also reveals the significance of the notion of God as Person in his thought. Anthropomorphisms would indeed be only a literary device, perhaps due to the limitations of speech and thought, unless God must necessarily be encountered as Person. If God is a ground of being, a force imminent in nature or humans, a void, and so on, then “It” does not have concern, seek out, or speak. Experiences of God could only with the most inexcusable latitude be spoken of as meetings and these would be meetings to which no other experience offers a parallel. In this case, the whole concrete life of humans with the divine upon which Judaism is based is lost – the words, experiences, the understandings of tradition, of God, and of human nature. Anthropomorphisms, however, are more than devices for Rosenzweig, because God is encountered as Person. As the essay insists, this is not a statement about God’s nature or essence. Anthropomorphisms point to the existential matrix that surrounds experience. We do not know what God is in-Himself, but we do know how God has been and still is encountered. How important is this notion that God is encountered as Person? Again, only as

103

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

important to Rosenzweig as the categories of creation, revelation, and redemption.We can trust, in ourselves, in our experience, speech, and community, because we have met and still meet this God of the Bible as someone who can be trusted. After all of this analysis, have we unlocked the secret of the appeal of the anthropomorphisms for Rosenzweig? Much of their attraction for him, and for many of us today, is heard in their proclamation about God’s ability and willingness to meet us. Throughout the essay Rosenzweig celebrates, as it were, in these metaphors. He is fascinated by their simplicity, concreteness, and limitless variety. Why? The lack of self-consciousness and simplicity bespeak the Bible’s confidence in God. The concreteness and variety are the highest demonstrations that God can be found everywhere. If Rosenzweig almost revels in the multiplicity of the metaphors, God sees, hears, speaks, finds, and so forth, it is because through each one of these we have biblical assurance of God’s power and love. If this is the case, then no amount of anthropomorphic language is too much; every example must be treasured. Their appeal resides in the special word in Rosenzweig’s essay that rivals that of trust in terms of its prominence, the word “today” (heute). Actually, there is no rivalry between them; they stand together as a present trust and as a trust in the present. Rosenzweig writes of “the living experience that is open to everybody today,”55 and “the meeting with creation or creature, today as ever.”56 Although the essay is purportedly about a feature of the biblical literature, it is in fact about the possibility of encounters with the divine today. The Bible is not of interest to Rosenzweig because of some “historical value,”57 but because it teaches of how God is encountered today. The legacy of Rosenzweig, which can be explored from so many

104

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

perspectives, is, at least in part, found in the two-dimensional secret contained in his treatment of anthropomorphisms. What characterizes Rosenzweig’s overall thought, the element that he shares with Martin Buber and Abraham Heschel and which was passed on to such contemporary thinkers as Eliezer Schweid and Emil Fackenheim, is just this firm trust that the God who spoke in the past, speaks and is heard in the present. This trust in God’s desire to call and in the human’s ability to respond is reconfirmed every time we face the biblical text, hear the biblical word, through the concrete, simple, but overpowering language of God’s encounters. The Bible is the basis for the ability to speak to and write about God. For the words used to express the encounter with God are both fully ours, reflecting genuine experience, and more than ours, speaking through the biblical text. The “Anthropomorphisms” is the capstone of the Rosenzweig selections presented in this volume. Its affirmation that God’s word is continually present completes the work of the lectures. “Faith and Knowledge” explored the way that faith both grounds and nourishes knowledge, and the “Sciences” detailed the existential meaning of creation, revelation, and redemption. Rosenzweig’s insight, guidance, and support end here. If he were addressing us today, he would probably conclude by saying that it is now up to his readers to be more than mere recipients, to become…those who can verify.

105

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Notes 1

This essay was originally the “Foreword” to Barbara Galli’s book

of translations of some of Rosenzweig’s most important essays: Franz Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World: Lectures and Essays, ed. Barbara E. Galli (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998). 2

Akiva Ernst Simon, “What Does Franz Rosenzweig Tell Us Today?”

(in Hebrew), Daat 6 (Winter 1981): 8l. 3

Glatzer notes that despite Rosenzweig’s efforts, his presentation

was just too difficult for the audience. This comment is quoted at the conclusion of Galli’s “Introduction,” Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 28-29. 4

Ibid., 47. In my discussion of Rosenzweig’s work I have not

altered his exclusive use of male pronouns to refer to God. In Michael Oppenheim, Speaking/Writing of God: Jewish Philosophical Reflections on the Life with Others (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 86-90, I argue that Rosenzweig’s own principles lead us today to utilize both male and female pronouns and metaphors. 5

Franz Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 111.

6

Ibid., 75-76.

7

Ibid., 45.

8

Important connections between the Star and the three “Sciences”

are detailed in Galli’s essay. 9

In terms of possible development, Ehud Luz has convincingly argued

that Rosenzweig’s more positive attitude toward Zionism emerged as he began to work on the poems on Jehuda Halevi. See Ehud Luz, “Zionism and Messianism in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig” (in Hebrew), Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2, 3 (Nisan 1983): 472-89.

106

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s 10

I am not trying to suggest that the dates for the two periods are

precisely drawn or that there is some type of major watershed between 1919 and 1920. 11

Rosenzweig translated and wrote commentaries to the poems of

Jehuda Halevi.These appeared in two editions, of 1924 and 1927. Barbara Galli has also translated and explored these writings. During this time, Rosenzweig wrote other essays and worked on a translation of the first books of the Bible with Martin Buber. 12

Franz Rosenzweig, “Das neue Denken,” Kleinere Schriften (Berlin:

Schocken Verlag, 1937), 374. Rosenzweig scorns the word “religion” in other places in the essay, including the statement that God created the world and not religion, 389. 13

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 173.

14

Rosenzweig also distinguishes the two, finding that knowledge

concerns the details about a person, whereas with faith, one believes in another, focusing on that other’s name. In Buber’s famous treatment of “two types of faith” of 1950, what he sees as the Jewish emunah (faith, trust in someone) is closer to Rosenzweig’s characterization of belief and the Christian pistis (faith, belief in something, e.g. an idea) is somewhat similar to Rosenzweig’s discussion of knowledge. See Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), 72. 15

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 100.

16

Ibid., 113.

17

Ibid., 115.

18

See Chapter 3,“Death and The Fear of Death in Franz Rosenzweig’s

The Star of Redemption,” in the present book. 19

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 110.

20

Ibid., 117.

21

Nahum Glatzer, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New

107

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

York: Schocken Books, 1970), 97. 22

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 39.

23

Rosenzweig writes that whereas he uses “old Jewish words” in the

Star, the Christian and the “pagan” would utilize a different vocabulary. See Rosenzweig, “Das neue Denken,” 391. 24

The truth of God’s Ehad should be seen in the context of what

Rosenzweig described as his “messianic theory of knowledge.” For this theory, which “values truths according to what it has cost to verify them,” the highest truths are “those that cannot be verified until generations upon generations have given up their lives to that end.” Rosenzweig speaks of this in “The New Thinking,” in Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 206. 25

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 41.

26

Ibid., 42.

27

Ibid., 46.

28

The transformation from self to soul is the dominant theme of

the second book, titled “Revelation or the Ever-Renewed Birth of the Soul,” in Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 156-204. 29

Rosenzweig, “The New Thinking,” 201.

30

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 56-57.

31

Ibid., 59.

32 In the Star Rosenzweig declares that life (or the living individual) “verifies the personally vouchsafed truth imparted to it as its portion in eternal truth,” 416. Also see endnote #24.

108

33

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 61.

34

Ibid., 74.

35

Ibid.

36

Emmanuel Levinas, a philosopher who often spoke of his

I n t o L i f e : R o s e n z w e i g ’s E s s a y s

indebtedness to Rosenzweig, beautifully utilizes the metaphors of debit and credit in describing the relationship to God in “Loving the Torah More Than God,” Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1990), 145. 37

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 76.

38

Ibid.

39

Ibid., 79.

40

Ibid., 95.

41

Much of the treatment that follows has been taken and amended

from the lengthy analysis of this essay in Chapter 2 of my Speaking/ Writing Of God, 28-52. 42

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 144-45.

43

See endnote #4.

44

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 139.

45

Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 198.

46

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 142.

47

Ibid., 137-38.

48 See Rosenzweig’s discussion about what can be “objectively stated” concerning both the relationship to God and interhuman relations in his letter, “Divine and Human,” included in Glatzer, Franz Rosenzweig, 243. 49

Rosenzweig, “The New Thinking,” 193, 207.

50

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 143. His statement, namely,

“We are indebted to this certainty [“that everything that we experience of God comes from Him Himself ”] next to the Law and the Prophets, for our continued existence as Jews,” 109, can be seen in another way. The Law (Torah) and Prophets (Neviim) are two of the three sections, the other being the Writings (Ketuvim) that make up the whole Hebrew Bible (the Tanach).

109

P H I L O S O P H E R S

110

O F

E N C O U N T E R

51

Rosenzweig, “The New Thinking,” 203.

52

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 140-41.

53

Ibid., 144.

54

Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 424.

55

Rosenzweig, God, Man, and the World, 140.

56

Ibid.

57

Ibid.

The Meaning of Hasidism

VI The Meaning of Hasidism: Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem

The effort to maintain or to reestablish continuity with the religious life and values of the Jewish past has permeated the writings of modern Jewish thinkers. Many modern Jews have understood that the dramatic changes and challenges that were ushered in during the period of the Emancipation resulted in a radical gap between the past and present. Two of the most influential Jewish thinkers, Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem, held that the barrier between past and present demanded a radical reexamination of Jewish history. They held that continuity could be established only by looking at those areas of the Jewish past that were dismissed or rejected by earlier scholars. They ultimately concluded that Jewish mysticism embodies the most creative elements of Jewish religious experience and is the most accessible of all past expressions of Jewish life.Yet, despite these common conclusions, Buber’s and Scholem’s understandings of the nature and meaning of Jewish mysticism are quite divergent. These differences are particularly acute when their views of Hasidism, the latest phase of Jewish mysticism, are examined. In light of the central role given to Jewish mysticism by both of these scholars, their conflicting portraits of Hasidism have great significance for understanding the efforts of modern Jewish thinkers to understand and to appropriate their past. In the following pages it will be demonstrated that one way of

111

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

interpreting the disagreement about Hasidism is to focus on Buber’s and Scholem’s conflicting views about the concept of God that activated that movement.1 Buber holds that the power of Hasidic life emerged from the relationship between humans and the God who is both Creator of the universe and partner in dialogue. Hasidism revealed the redemptive quality given to human life once it is touched by the I and Thou of God, and Buber sees this as the treasured heritage that Hasidism offers to the modern Jew as well as to humanity in general. In contrast, Scholem affirms that it is precisely Hasidism’s pantheistic or acosmic view of God that permits it to speak to the Jewish – and the broader human – situation in the modern world. Kabbalah and Hasidism In exploring the conflicting portraits of Hasidism presented by Buber and Scholem, the question of the influence of Kabbalah (the “tradition” of Jewish mysticism that traces its origins to the thirteenth century in Provence and Spain) on Hasidism is of major importance. For Buber, Hasidism is a “protest against Kabbalah,” which “pursues Kabbalah” only “peripherally.”2 However, Scholem accentuates the continuity between Kabbalah and this latest phase of Jewish mysticism. He writes that “the mystical ideology of the movement [Hasidism] is derived from the Kabbalistic heritage, but its ideas are popularized, with an inevitable tendency towards terminological inexactitude.”3 Even the hotly debated problem of which literary sources provide the most accurate picture of Hasidism can be reduced to the more general question of the relationship between Kabbalah and Hasidism. Both Buber and Scholem seem to agree that the “theoretical writings” of the movement, i.e., sermons, commentaries on biblical literature, and tracts on particular areas of religious life,

112

The Meaning of Hasidism

share significant terminological similarities with Kabbalistic writings.4 Yet, Buber claims that one can penetrate to the inner life of Hasidism only by way of its extensive collections of legends about its Zaddikim or “masters.”5 In working his way through these legends Buber found that they do not speak with the voice of Kabbalah. Buber’s attitude toward Kabbalah,which pervades his later writings,6 is shaped by his recognition of its gnostic character. He believes that Kabbalah, which is described as an “anti-dualistic” gnosis, destroys the lived dialogue of I and Thou between the individual and God. According to Buber, the gnostic nature of Kabbalah, and gnosticism in general, stress the individual’s “knowing relationship to the divine” rather than the relationship of call and response between God and persons. Consequently, God is no longer regarded as an actor in the human world. God becomes a mere object, the “object of an ecstatic contemplation and action.”7 The “Kabbalistic-gnostic schemata” and “gnostic theologema,” which are essential expressions of Kabbalah, reinforce the importance that Kabbalah attaches both to speculations about the interior mysteries of God and to the efforts of practitioners to travel up through these spheres to the highest levels of the divine.8 While it is difficult to present an exact accounting of Buber’s view of the Kabbalistic conception of God, the matter is central to our overall concern. Buber does not explicitly state that the Kabbalah repudiates the concept of the personal God which he found so powerfully portrayed in the Bible. Yet, he certainly realized that Kabbalah had tendencies to replace the biblical conception of God with a more acosmic one. In his later work there are passages that suggest that Kabbalism remained true to the concept of the personal God. Buber writes, for example, that, despite the prima facie similarities between Kabbalism and other traditions of mysticism

113

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

that dissolve the “Person” of God into a “super-personal, inactive Godhead,”9 Kabbalah retains the “limitless, the absolute Person,” that is, the “Godhead” or “Being” which “speaks the ‘I’ of revelation.”10 However, Buber’s affirmation is not very convincing. One has the feeling that Buber refuses to acknowledge something that he all but concludes on many other occasions, that is, that on the whole the Kabbalah is not concerned with the God who turns toward humans with the “I” of revelation.11 In this vein Buber writes that Gnosticism – and in this context it appears that Kabbalah represents gnosticism for him – offers an ultimate portrait of the self in which nothing is allowed to remain over against it, including the “I” of God: The gnostic redemption comes from the liberation of the world-soul in the self. In the manifold variants is hidden the same primal motif of the knowing majesty of the self in the all. It also has a love: which pretends to sleep with the universe.12

Thus, as a result of Buber’s recognition of the gnostic dimension of Kabbalah, he sees in it the danger that, at the very least, the “Person” of God is swallowed up into a universal, impersonal principle that is immanent both in the self and the world. In turning to Buber’s presentation of Hasidism, we will see that Hasidism’s greatness lies in its ability to overcome the gnosis of Kabbalah with its attendant danger. The Hasidic “protest against,” “break” with, or “transformation” of Kabbalism occurs precisely at the place where Kabbalism is inclined to lose the “I” of God within the “knowing majesty of the self.” Stated in another way, Buber regarded the protest of Hasidism as the protest of “devotio” against “gnosis.” He writes: “In Hasidism devotio

114

The Meaning of Hasidism

has absorbed and overcome gnosis. This must happen ever again if the bridge over the chasm of being is not to fall in.”13 Hasidism guards against the tendency to break down the distinction between the living God and his human partner by praising the simple person rather than enshrining the “knower.” The simple person lives fully in the world and dialogues with God in the lived everyday. This individual recognizes that at every moment she or he is called by God to help in the task of redeeming the world. Thus, for Buber there is a great distance between Kabbalah and Hasidism, because only the latter leaves in all of its purity “the greatest of all values: the reciprocal relationship between the human and the divine, the reality of the I and the You which does not cease at the rim of eternity.”14 In contrast to Buber, Scholem does not hesitate to describe the concept of God that is peculiar to Kabbalah. He agrees with Buber’s description of the gnostic character of Kabbalah,15 but goes on to affirm that its conception of the hidden God, the Eyn-Sof, has a definite “impersonal” stamp. Scholem writes, “It is clear that with this postulate of an impersonal basic reality in God…Kabbalism abandons the personalistic basis of the Biblical conception of God.”16 Against the backdrop of Scholem’s understanding of the basic continuity between Kabbalah and Hasidism, one is not surprised to see that he breaks radically with Buber concerning Hasidism’s conception of God. In Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism he writes that, since Hasidism simply popularized the earlier Kabbalistic doctrines, it reaffirmed “the old idea of the immanence of God in all that exists,”17 and “ideas of a mystical life with God and in God.”18 According to Scholem, the boldness and enthusiasm that accompany the “pantheistic, or rather acosmistic, interpretation of the universe,” which is especially distinctive of one of the schools of Hasidism,

115

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Habad, is also common to the movement as a whole.19 He writes of Habad that “the secrets of the divine realm are presented in the guise of mystical psychology,” and that “it is by descending into the depths of his own self that man…discovers that God is ‘all in all’ and there is ‘nothing but Him.’”20 The foregoing discussion of Buber’s and Scholem’s presentations of Hasidism disclosed their radical disagreement about the concept of God that characterized the movement. This disagreement, in turn, reflects a wider dispute, one that goes beyond the question of the nature of Hasidism.The differing portraits of this mystical movement parallel divergent philosophical approaches to the dynamics of religious consciousness. Buber’s life-long interest in Hasidism did not confine itself to the effort to historically reconstruct the movement. In fact, he has written that he had “not aimed at presenting a historically or hermeneutically comprehensive presentation of Hasidism.”21 From the beginning of Buber’s fascination with Hasidism his studies were tightly intertwined with his attempt to formulate a more general philosophy of religion. Stated more precisely, his philosophy of religion, which underwent considerable change at first, acted as a “filter” through which Hasidism was made to pass.22 By the time he had developed his basic insights about the relationship with God – insights which were unfolded in his famous work I and Thou – he had come to see Hasidism as the greatest example of this philosophy. In this light, Buber wrote that Hasidism was “solely concerned with the happenings between man and God.”23 Hasidism confirmed his belief that the deepest dimensions of the religious life are opened to those who allow themselves to be addressed by, and in turn respond to, the “I” of the revealing God. Further, in I and Thou Buber found

116

The Meaning of Hasidism

it imperative to point out the error of any mystic vision of God that culminates in a pantheistic or other type of theory of divine immanence.24 In turn, he wrote that Hasidism “had nothing to do with pantheism which destroys or stunts the greatest of all values: the reciprocal relationship between the human and the divine.”25 Scholem’s study of Hasidism is deeply motivated by the hope of reconstructing a historically accurate picture of the theology and life of the movement.Yet, it is wrong to suppose that Scholem’s concerns are fully satisfied with this goal. His interest in Hasidism is tied to his work in all areas of Jewish mysticism and to his quest to understand the phenomenon of mysticism in general.While it would be rash, and probably erroneous as well, to suggest that his own conceptions of the nature of religious life act as a filter for his study of Hasidism, there certainly are parallels between his conclusions about the character of Hasidic teachings and his views about the essential features of mystical thought in general. In Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism Scholem elucidates a theory of “the conditions and circumstances under which mysticism arises in the historical development of religion and particularly in that of the great monotheistic systems.”26 The historical development of religion is sketched by way of a three-stage dialectic of “the religious consciousness.”27 At the first stage, the “mythical epoch,” the world is pictured as “being full of gods whom man encounters at every step and whose presence can be experienced without recourse to ecstatic meditation.”28 As religious consciousness passes beyond “childhood” to its “classical form,” monotheistic religions emerge which are founded on the realization that there is a gulf between humans and God. Here “religion signifies the creation of a vast abyss, conceived as absolute, between God, the infinite and transcendental Being, and

117

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Man, the finite creature.”29 At the third, mystic stage, a way is found beyond the earlier gulf. Scholem writes: Mysticism does not deny or overlook the abyss; on the contrary, it begins by realizing its existence, but from there it proceeds to a quest for the secret that will close it in, the hidden path that will span it…Thus the soul becomes its scene and the soul’s path through the abysmal multiplicity of things to the experience of the Divine Reality, now conceived as the primordial unity of all things, becomes its main preoccupation.30

The movement of religious consciousness in Scholem’s philosophic sketch is depicted as both progressive and dialectical.31 The final stage brings together all of the elements of the earlier, superseded periods and unites these in a higher synthesis. Thus, with the last stage, the “world of mythology and that of revelation meet in the soul of man.”32 Since mystic consciousness supplants the classical understanding, Scholem is proposing that the particular view of God embodied in mysticism is the fulfillment, as it were, of the more primitive concept of God that has as its presupposition the absolute distinction between God and humans. Consequently, with the rise of Jewish mysticism the idea of the hidden God, or Eyn-Sof, replaces the earlier view that God is an “I” who stands apart from persons and yet who addresses them. Mystic consciousness, which recognizes that the human soul can experience “the primordial unity of all things,” therefore represents a higher grasp of ultimate reality than the classical monotheistic belief in a personal God. Finally, as we have seen, Hasidism gives full expression to this mystical conception of God.

118

The Meaning of Hasidism

The status of the concept of a personal God has been traced in three areas of the dispute between Buber and Scholem. First, the question of the acceptance or rejection by Hasidism of the Kabbalistic view of God was the core of their disagreement about the extent of Kabbalistic influence on Hasidism. Second, these two scholars’ reconstructions of the nature of Hasidic teachings focused on the understanding of God that characterized this movement. For Buber, Hasidism gives pure expression to the belief that God is both an “I” who is distinct from persons and a “Thou” who is a partner in dialogue. On the other hand, after studying the theoretical writings of the early Hasidic leaders, Scholem confidently affirmed that the pantheistic or acosmic view of God that developed in Kabbalah found an enthusiastic reception in Hasidism. Third, the question of the nature of God was also at the forefront of these thinkers’ conflicting philosophical judgments about the development of religious consciousness. Buber asserted that it is erroneous to believe that one can go “beyond” an understanding of God as Person. In fundamental contrast to this, Scholem has presented a diagram of the three-stage development of religious consciousness. Within the diagram, the way of life which is built upon the belief in the personal God is not the ultimate expression of the religious life. With the third, mystic stage, the earlier separation of God from humans is overcome and incorporated into the experience of “the primordial unity of all things.” Modern Jewish Belief The disagreement between Buber and Scholem extended to their views about the appropriate or relevant forms that Jewish faith will take in the future. They both held that Jewish mysticism was one of the highest expressions of Jewish religious life and that it

119

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

still contains some of the most powerful forces of Jewish spirituality. However, their divergent portraits of the nature of modern Jewish belief mirror their opposing understandings of the concept of God that animated Hasidism. Buber often displays his annoyance with those who seek to criticize his portrait of Hasidism by referring to texts that he seems to have significantly transformed or entirely ignored. As stated previously, Buber readily admits that a full historical reconstruction of the movement is not his intent. His annoyance stems from his limited interest in the historical question, in contrast to his overwhelming preoccupation with the present obstacles to, and future possibilities of, Jewish life. From the beginning of his studies of Hasidism, he recognized that the movement had a profound grasp of the perennial core of Jewish faith. In an essay of 1918, “My Way to Hasidism,” Buber wrote that with his first contact with the teachings of the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Israel Baal-Shem, he “experienced the Hasidic soul,” which he identified with “the primally Jewish.”33 Although Buber’s understanding of this “primally Jewish” essence in Hasidism underwent some changes early in his studies, his latest formulation, which we have already detailed, was reaffirmed by him over many decades. Buber declared that Hasidism gave fundamental expression to the life of dialogue between God and persons. The individual who lives in this manner finds fulfillment not through an escape from the world and a merging with the impersonal One, but through responding to the personal God who is encountered in the world. For Buber this is also the basic teaching of Judaism itself: The great deed of Israel is not that it taught the one real God, who is the origin and goal of all being, but that it

120

The Meaning of Hasidism

pointed out that this God can be addressed by man in reality, that man can say Thou to Him, that he can stand face to face with Him, that he can have intercourse with Him.34

Many of Buber’s writings on Hasidism reflect his belief that Hasidism is a key to the possibility of a renewal of Judaism. He asserted that “no renewal of Judaism is possible that does not bear in itself the elements of Hasidism.”35 Three considerations brought Buber to this conclusion. First, as we have seen, he identified Hasidism with the essence of Jewish faith. Second, he believed that it was a dynamic voice of the Jewish spirit in the past. Buber wrote in this connection that Hasidism was “the last great flowering of the Jewish will to serve God in this world and to consecrate everyday life to him.”36 Third, although the movement lost its energy after the first decades of its explosive vision, Buber held that its spirit and message are still accessible to the Jew of today. These aspects of Hasidism are summarized in the following statement: In fact, nowhere in the last centuries has the soulforce of Judaism so manifested itself as in Hasidism. The old power lives in it...Still bound to the medieval in its outward appearance, Hasidic Judaism is already open to regeneration in its inner truth, and the degeneration of this great religious movement can only halt but not stop entirely the process in the history of the spirit that began with it.37

There are hints in the above quotation that Buber believed that the significance of Hasidism extended beyond its relationship to

121

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Judaism’s future renaissance. Although there are many dimensions to Hasidism’s connection with humans’ spiritual history according to Buber, he most often accentuates its teaching of the “hallowing of the everyday.”38 He means by this that the Hasidim, the followers of Hasidism, were able to bring a fervor and a religious intensity to all of their actions.They felt no absolute barrier between the sacred and the profane act, for they knew that at every moment the individual has the potentiality of liberating “the sparks of God that glimmer in all beings and all things.”39 Buber explains Hasidism’s message of the power of persons to participate in God’s redemption of the world as follows: If you direct the undiminished power of your fervor to God’s world-destiny, if you do what you must do at this moment – no matter what it may be! – with your whole strength and with kavvanah, with holy intent, you will bring about the union between God and Shekhinah [“the Divine Presence which resides in this world”], eternity and time.40

Buber has diagnosed the spiritual malaise of the West as stemming from the mistaken belief that there is a “radical separation between the sacred and the profane,” coupled with the fact that “the sacred has become in many cases a concept empty of reality.”41 Moderns limited the sphere of the sacred to a very small part of life and then spiritualized the sacred until it became synonymous with “the spiritual,” that is, with the possession of lofty ideas. In the end,“one no longer knows the holy face to face.”42 However, Buber believes that the crisis of modern life can begin to be remedied by reintroducing

122

The Meaning of Hasidism

the inner message of Hasidism to the world. Hasidism portrayed a way of life in which the individual had full “intercourse with God in the lived everyday, [through] the accepting and dedicating of what is happening here and now.”43 While Scholem’s theological reflections are not as well known as those of Buber, they represent an equally important dimension of modern Jewish thought. Scholem does not specifically treat Hasidism’s relationship to the central features of Jewish spirituality. Although stating that “there is no single positive element of Jewish religion which is altogether lacking in Hasidism,”44 Scholem’s understanding of it is apparent only in the wider context of his interest in the history of Kabbalah. Scholem’s study of Kabbalah (again, Hasidism is a stage of Kabbalah for him) first sprang out of his concern to understand what had “kept Judaism alive” in the past.45 While doubting whether “traditional Jewish forms” would survive as they had come from the past,46 he believed that Kabbalah had a “living center” which could give expression to new forms in the future.47 Scholem recognized that there might be other avenues of Jewish survival, but he continued to believe that Kabbalah presented at least part of the answer. Scholem justified Kabbalah’s claim upon Judaism’s future by pointing to three aspects of its relationship to the core of Jewish life in the past. First, as we have seen, Kabbalah represents the third stage in the development of Jewish religious consciousness. It is the dialectical culmination of the earlier mythic and classical expressions in Judaism. Second, the Kabbalah disclosed the full implications of spiritual insights that were only partially revealed in biblical and rabbinic literature. In an essay that examined the Jewish concepts of revelation and tradition, Scholem wrote the following:

123

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

The Kabbalists were in no sense of the word heretics. Rather they strove to penetrate, more deeply than their predecessors, into the meaning of Jewish concepts… The Kabbalists sought to unlock the innermost core of the Torah, to decode the text, so to speak…In a way, they have merely drawn the final consequence from the assumption of the Talmudists concerning revelation and tradition as religious categories.48

Third, Kabbalah sought to satisfy some of the fundamental needs of spiritual life which had been ignored by the other streams of Judaism. Scholem praised Kabbalah for reintroducing into Judaism the mythical and pantheistic dimensions of the life of the spirit.49 Further, Scholem states that, unlike Jewish philosophy, the mystical tradition “did not turn its back upon the primitive side of life, that all-important region where mortals are afraid of life and in fear of death.”50 According to Scholem, Kabbalah is able to stand up to the transformation from medieval to modern times in virtue of its unique grasp of the world. Kabbalah presented a world that is a “corpus symbolicum.”51 It was able to indicate through symbols that there is a divine depth that lies in the midst of the everyday. Scholem suggests that “the Kabbalists were symbolists” who “had a fundamental feeling that there is a mystery – a secret – in the world.”52 Their attempt to refer to the sanctity and mystery of life can still be appropriated today as a foundation from which future Jewish expressions may emerge. Scholem writes: The particular forms of symbolical thought in which the fundamental attitude of the Kabbalah found its expression,

124

The Meaning of Hasidism

may mean little or nothing to us (though even today we cannot escape, at times, from their powerful appeal). But the attempt to discover the hidden life beneath the external shapes of reality and to make visible that abyss in which the symbolic nature of all that exists reveals itself: this attempt is as important for us today as it was for those ancient mystics. For as long as nature and man are conceived as His creations, and that is the indispensable condition of highly developed religious life, the quest for the hidden life of the transcendent element in such creation will always form one of the most important preoccupations of the human mind.53

Scholem’s conception of Kabbalah, both its nature and its role in the past and future of Judaism, has important implications for the conception of God that was and is to be the basis of Jewish life. In declaring that Kabbalah is central to the problem of Judaism’s continuity with its past, he has found that the idea of a personal God is nothing less than archaic. Just as the latest expressions of Jewish mysticism do not refer to this understanding of God, so the modern Jew need not. Scholem wrote, for example, that the modern Jew can no longer believe in the biblical conception of a God who creates the world, directs history, and speaks with humans.54 This is not meant to suggest that Judaism should espouse some type of crass atheism, but that the God-concept should be treated as a symbol that points to, among other things, the sanctity of life and the importance of moral strivings. Scholem finds that any attempt to go beyond this symbolic understanding of God, that is, the attempt to invest “God with human attributes,” leads to a sterile paradox.55

125

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Finally, in addition to the judgment that depicts “kabbalah as one of the possibilities for Jewish survival in history,”56 Scholem sees the prospect that Kabbalah might play an important role in modern life as a whole. Kabbalah has a message for modern persons, even if its particular forms are not fully accessible today. The Kabbalists’ attitude toward the world can be viewed as a corrective to modern persons’ fragmentary life of private symbols, on the one hand, and public rationalism and shallow technology, on the other hand. In contrast to the desperate attempt to find meaning through private, incommunicable symbols, the Kabbalists “displayed a symbolic dimension to the whole world,”57 and thus brought persons to experience something other than their own lonely, subjective world. Further, while technology seems to eradicate any spiritual depth from human life or the universe, the Kabbalists proclaim that there is “mystery – a secret – in the world”58 and thus that there is a sacred dimension to all that exists. Two Conceptions of God The line of argument of this inquiry has illuminated the serious ramifications of the controversy between Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem that takes its point of departure from the question of the Kabbalistic influence on Hasidism and quickly leads to their conflicting portraits of the understanding of God that underlies this Jewish mystical movement. The disagreement about Hasidism reflected the more fundamental differences about the development and expression of human religious consciousness and about the role of belief in a personal God in the future development of both Jewish faith and Western spiritual life. For Buber, the future of Judaism as well as the authenticity of

126

The Meaning of Hasidism

modern life in the world depend upon the ability of persons to listen and to respond to the God who is both “the boundless and nameless as well as the father who teaches His children to address Him.”59 Buber believed that the highest development of the religious life was embodied in the stance of the simple person who relates to God, with “biblical immediacy,” “the purely personal being of the praying man to the being of God, which is not purely personal but which stands personally over against the praying man.”60 It was the “deed” of Israel to teach of this possibility, and, even though Kabbalah was inclined to replace the life of dialogue with meditational exercises of the self looking into itself, Hasidism was once again to state Judaism’s message in all of its power and purity. Scholem contested at every level these views of Buber. He held that Hasidism had not repudiated the Kabbalistic understanding of the impersonal God that dwells both beyond and within all that exists. Hasidism, in fact, espoused this acosmic conception of God with an intensity that went beyond earlier Kabbalistic formulations. In this way Hasidism revealed itself as a legitimate heir of Kabbalah. For Scholem, Kabbalah is both an original source within Judaism and the culmination of the more naive and classical expressions of the Jewish spirit, expressions found in the Bible and in rabbinic literature. Finally, Scholem held that Kabbalah’s teachings may contain the seeds of the next flowering of Jewish life. As the Jew entered the stream of modern life he or she had to leave much behind. The challenges of science, of historical criticism, and of modern philosophy have unalterably cut him or her off from the immediacy of biblical and rabbinic faith. Yet the Kabbalistic portrait of the world is still translatable today. Its message is that there is a depth dimension to human life in the world, a dimension that will forever elude all purely

127

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

rational attempts to know and control life. Thus, while Kabbalah has the power to speak to the modern Jew and to modern civilization, it stands radically opposed to the secularism that knows only rational needs and powers. Scholem stated that, if the Kabbalah’s vision of the symbolic nature of existence were ever lost, humans would be spiritually at an end. However, he felt that persons would never totally abandon the “mystery” that dwells in the midst of life.61 As a final note to the present inquiry, in the essay “Reflections On Jewish Theology,”62 Scholem seems to recognize that there is at least a prima facie conflict between his understanding of the modern Jew’s conception of God and the position taken by that “existentialist” stream of modern Jewish philosophy which includes such thinkers as Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Abraham Heschel. However, Scholem argues that this existentialist tradition has also repudiated the naive realism of the biblical concept of the God who speaks to persons and who directs history. He observes, for example, that all of these thinkers have taken over mystical terminology in order to describe revelation. In appropriating mystical concepts they have, according to Scholem, tacitly acknowledged that the naive biblical understanding of God could not withstand the onslaughts of scientific and historical criticism.63 While Scholem’s critique of modern Jewish theology is insightful, the conflict between himself and those who belong to the stream of Jewish existentialism is still a real one. Scholem is correct in suggesting that, by utilizing the mystical conception of revelation, many modern thinkers have escaped from having to affirm that there are real acts of revelation in history. However, at least some of the existentialists have continued to struggle with the meaning of belief in a personal God who acts in history. The best example of this is found in Emil

128

The Meaning of Hasidism

Fackenheim’s recent works. In such writings as God’s Presence in History and The Jewish Return Into History, Fackenheim has endeavored to explore the events of the Holocaust and the establishment of the modern state of Israel in terms of God’s acting and revealing Himself in history.64 Thus, despite Scholem’s statements to the contrary, the debate continues over the significance of the concept of a personal God in modern Jewish thought and life.

129

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Notes An analysis of the differences between Buber’s and Scholem’s

1

understandings of the relationship between language and mysticism is presented in David Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 1979), 81-92. Biale does not explore Scholem’s views about the conception of God as person nor the controversy between Buber and Scholem from this point of view. Martin Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism (NewYork: Harper

2

and Row, 1960), 178. Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York:

3

Schocken Books, 1941), 344. Buber, Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 173-74; Gershom Scholem

4

The Messianic Idea in Judaism: And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 233-35. Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters (New York:

5

Schocken Books, 1947), v-vii. Buber’s attitude toward Kabbalah, and mysticism in general, undergoes

6

an important change in the second decade of the present century. Scholem notes Buber’s older and more positive evaluation of Kabbalah in his essay on Buber in The Messianic Idea in Judaism, 231-32. Martin Buber, “Replies to My Critics,” in The Philosophy of Martin

7

Buber, ed. Paul Schilpp and Maurice Friedman (La Salle [IL]: Open Court, 1967), 734. Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 173-81, 253. A short

8

analysis and critique of Buber’s attitude toward gnosticism is given by Hugo Bergman, “Martin Buber and Mysticism,” in Schilpp and Friedman, The Philosophy of Martin Buber, 306-8.

130

The Meaning of Hasidism

Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 194.

9

Ibid., 196.

10

As stated above, it is difficult to present Buber’s understanding of

11

the Kabbalistic conception of God. The difficulty for our study results from ambiguities in Buber’s later work, rather than from the changes his writings undergo over the decades. It seems that when he discusses the relationship between Kabbalah and Hasidism, he acknowledges the impersonal character of the Kabbalistic conception of God. For him, Hasidism radically breaks with Kabbalah precisely at this point! However, when he turns to elucidate the Kabbalistic view of the Godhead without reference to Hasidism, he is not willing to admit that the “I” of revelation is missing. It is as if Buber refuses to state, even if he suspects it, that a phase of Judaism could abandon the life of dialogue. See Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 176-81, 190-99, 252-54. Ibid., 244.

12

Ibid., 254.

13

Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, 3.

14

A discussion of Scholem’s understanding of gnosticism is presented

15

in the chapter “Myth” in Biale, Gershom Scholem, 129-47. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 12.

16

Ibid., 336.

17

Ibid., 339.

18

Ibid., 341.

19

Ibid.

20

Buber, “Replies to My Critics,” 731.

21

Buber writes of himself as the “filter” in “Replies to My Critics,” 731.

22

Buber, Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 62.

23

24

Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,

1970), 131-43.

131

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, 3.

25

Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 6.

26

Ibid., 7.

27

Ibid.

28

Ibid.

29

Ibid., 8.

30

The influence of Hegel’s treatment of the history of religious

31

consciousness on Scholem’s diagram is very clear. In both discussions there is a three-stage dialectic: Hegel – religion of nature, religions of spiritual individuality, absolute religion; Scholem – mythological stage, classical (monotheistic) stage, mysticism. Of special interest is the correspondence between the last two stages in Hegel’s and Scholem’s schemes.The second stage presents a God who is separated from humans by an abyss, while the culminating stage reveals the harmony, if not the full identity, between the human spirit and the spirit of God. Scholem diverges from Hegel in setting out these stages as part of the inner development that occurs within some religious traditions. For Hegel, the stages bring all religions into a single hierarchical system. Scholem is thus part of a whole tradition of Jewish scholars and philosophers who were influenced by this German Idealist. The parallels between Hegel and Scholem were first brought to my attention by the work of Nathan Rotenstreich, The Recurring Pattern: Studies in Anti-Judaism in Modern Thought (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963), 69-70. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 8.

32

Martin Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, ed., Maurice Friedman

33

(New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 59. Buber, Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 91.

34

Martin Buber, The Legend of the Baal-Shem (New York: Harper and

35

132

The Meaning of Hasidism

Brothers, 1955), xiii. Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, 11.

36

Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, 48-49.

37

Ibid., 27.

38

Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, 3.

39

Ibid., 4.

40

Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, 39.

41

Ibid.

42

Buber, “Replies to My Critics,” 736.

43

Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 329-30.

44

Gershom Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays,

45

ed., Werner Dannhauser (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), 20. An autobiographical account of Scholem’s early studies in Kabbalah is given in Gershom Scholem, “How I Came to the Kabbalah,” Commentary 69 (1980): 39-53. Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, 22.

46

Ibid., 46-47.

47

Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, 292-93.

48

Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 8, 22, 38.

49

Ibid., 35.

50

Ibid., 28.

51

Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, 48.

52

Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 38-39.

53

Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, 281.

54

Ibid.

55

Ibid., 47.

56

Ibid., 48.

57

Ibid.

58

Buber, Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 92-93.

59

133

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Buber, “Replies to My Critics,” 734.

60

Scholem, On Jews and Judaism in Crisis, 47-48.

61

Ibid., 261-97.

62

Ibid., 270-74.

63

Fackenheim’s endeavor to understand the Holocaust and the

64

founding of the modern state of Israel in terms of God’s action in history is briefly analyzed in Michael Oppenheim, review of The Jewish Return Into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem, by Emil Fackenheim. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 8 (1979): 202-3.

134

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

VII

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self: Martin Buber and Joseph Campbell

No instrument for gaining insight into the complex process of becoming a self compares with the literary genre of autobiography. While this judgment has been understood by the authors of autobiographies for centuries, and it thus stands as one of the perennial reasons for authoring the story of one’s own life, literary critics have only lately focused on this dimension of autobiography. Critics have recently begun to explore the intricate relationship between the writing of the autobiography and the concept of the self that both informs and is created in the telling of one’s history. In this investigation we will focus on a particular set of opposing models of the self that appear in autobiographies. We will explore these models as ideal types in order to suggest some very distinctive ways that the writers of autobiography have viewed both the process and the goal of becoming a self. The two models of authentic selfhood to be explored are adapted from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces1 and Martin Buber’s I and Thou.2 Campbell explores the becoming of the self in terms of the individual’s inward journey. The protagonist or hero begins the process of self-discovery by turning away from the everyday world and plunging into the depths of the mysterious psyche. Once the hidden truths about being a self have been unearthed, the hero

135

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

returns to the world with his or her treasure. Martin Buber understands the process of becoming authentic in terms of the dynamics between an I and particular Thous or Yous. The process commences with the infant’s interactions with the environment but reaches a crucial stage at the point when the individual becomes conscious of himself or herself as a distinct creature in the universe. From the time of the emergence of self-consciousness, the becoming of the self is realized by the individual turning in a total and open way to others. Selfhood is thus created in the ever new and ever unique meeting with this particular other. While the characteristics and parameters of each of these ideal models of authentic selfhood are clear, in reality it will be impossible to find autobiographical examples that exhibit such characteristics with absolute consistency. Still, in carefully examining two significant modern autobiographies of religious persons, ParamahansaYogananda and Macolm X, the differences in ways of understanding the process and goal of becoming a self will be very apparent.Yogananda exhibits a concept of the authentic self that is in basic harmony with Campbell’s account, and Malcolm X’s life story exhibits a powerful affinity for Buber’s portrait. The specific term “autobiography” does not appear until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Of course, there were many designations that existed prior to this time, such as confessions and memoirs, that had been applied to the literature later classified under the category of autobiography. Even more recent is the critical interest in autobiography.This interest was very weak, judging by the number of published articles and books, until the last two decades, when there has been a flood of critical writings on this genre. What is of most significance about this recent development is that the autos,

136

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

which both hides behind and is revealed in the life story, has been the critics’ central concern.They have understood that there is something very special in autobiography for understanding that ephemeral thing which we call the self. The attention given to the self and its development over time by literary critics, historians, psychologists, and philosophers is thus one of the primary causes for the recent writings about this literary genre. In an essay that surveys the history of the criticism of autobiography, James Olney emphasized this point. He wrote: The heart of the explanation for the special appeal of autobiography to students of literature in recent times: it is a fascination with the self and its profound, its endless mysteries and, accompanying that fascination, an anxiety about the self, an anxiety about the dimness and vulnerability of that entity that no one has ever seen or touched or tasted.3

Since the focus on autobiography as the portrait of the becoming of the self is so new, there is little detailed theoretical work on this particular theme. Most writings on autobiography have focused on such areas as its historical, psychological, and social origins, the nature and limits of the literary genre, the ways in which a number of particular autobiographies express the life of a national or ethnic group, and some common themes that appear by putting together a few exemplary autobiographies. The one critic who has indicated a consistent and profound concern for the relationship between self-concepts and autobiography is Karl Weintraub. In his book, The Value of the Individual, and his classic

137

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

essay, “Autobiography and Historical Consciousness,” Weintraub has explored different models of the self as these appear in the history of autobiography.4 His insights into various ways that an individual’s life in the world or in time is presented in autobiographies are especially relevant for our topic. In his article, Weintraub proposed that there was a fundamental distinction in autobiographies between those that portray the self as unfolding in time and those that see the self as developing in time. Whereas the first understanding of the self is based on a “conception of man as a being...definable in terms of his ‘nature’ and his formal essences,” the second view insists that the self is “to be circumscribed most significantly by his history at each and every point of time.”5 In the former case there is a belief that an “inherent ‘logic’” guides the self. Consequently, the essential concern of the writer is to sketch the progress of the self towards its given and unalterable telos. Events that occur to the individual are valued as “catalytic” episodes that empower and direct the self toward the inner goal. Weintraub’s particular concern with the history of autobiography and the relationship between this history and the concept of the self brought him to propose that a second view of the self as developing in time arose only in the modern period. Goethe is the first individual who possessed a full understanding of the uniqueness of each individual life. In this other conception of the self, the individual does not move by an inner logic from a perception of a definite goal to its later realization, as it were, from acorn to oak tree. The self, rather, develops or becomes through its unique life in and encounters with the world. Weintraub believed that this sense of the uniqueness of each particular life is reflected in Goethe’s understanding that had he been born, for example, a few years earlier or later, his life and his

138

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

self would necessarily be different than they were. The view of the self that accentuates its development holds that: what the person becomes is thus a remarkable personal fusion of what was initially given, what his world brings to him, what he selects from this, how he builds this into his makeup, and how he in turn affects the world.6

When the individual’s life in the world is conceived in terms of unfolding, there may also be the accompanying conception that there is but one basic model for all people. If this is present, the belief in the existence of a universal model of the human dramatically influences the form and process of the story of the self. In this case, “the history of autobiography is simply the story of the ever-repeated attempt to seek and to attain the one form of Man.”7 If, on the other hand, “personal variegation” is championed over any universal concept of the self, then the uniqueness of the confrontations of the self and world will be reflected throughout the autobiographical story. Weintraub found that until the beginning of the eighteenth century – again Goethe is the watershed – individuals sought out various models to give pattern to their life. The new emphasis on the individuality of the self was only achieved after a strong sense of the historical dimension of all human life had slowly developed in the West from the period of the Renaissance. With the crystallization of this sense of the historical dimension of persons it came to be understood that each “self represents one unique and unrepeatable form of being human,” and that the true life task was to “‘fulfill,’ to actualize this very specific individuality.”8

139

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Joseph Campbell and Martin Buber Many of the general characteristics that Weintraub attributes to the two views of the process of becoming a self are exemplified in the specific models of the authentic self that are developed by Joseph Campbell and Martin Buber. In addition, Campbell’s work uncovers some of the problems and limitations in Weintraub’s historical and somewhat evolutionary scheme. Campbell acknowledges throughout his work that his view of the self and its development is deeply indebted to religious and spiritual understandings of Buddhism and Hinduism. Yet, he believes that the model of the inner journey is certainly as modern and relevant to contemporary Western individuals as other, opposing, understandings. The description of the hero’s journey in The Hero With a Thousand Faces is not meant to correspond with the life of any particular person. Campbell has examined religious myths and rituals as well as folk tales and fairy tales to uncover a universal map or guide to self-development. The influence of the eminent psychologist Carl Jung is obvious in both this method and in the overall understanding of the human that Campbell presents. He has found that there is a three-stage movement, which he describes as “the nuclear unit of the monomyth,” that includes separation, initiation, and return.9 Although this pattern is presented in myths as an outward journey, the discovery of the true nature of the self and the universe are actually the consequence of an inner exploration. The journey within begins with the individual’s separation from the world. Separation occurs only after the individual has matured within the world, or in the society. The hero is the individual who initially feels totally at home in a particular society and is able to master the problems and trials that beset normal life. However, at one

140

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

point in life he or she begins to feel that there is something more to living than just taking part in the social world. There is a feeling that one is being called by some unknown force to go beyond or behind the seeming order of the everyday in order to discover the true nature of reality. The quest for truth thus starts when the hero withdraws or separates himself or herself from the world and begins to explore the hidden and terrifying depths of the unconscious. In stepping over the threshold from the conscious world to the unconscious realm, the hero confronts those inner forces that society usually covers up.The hero must face her or his particular expressions of such universal human forces as lust, power, and the fear of death. If the hero is able to understand that these expressions of the self are actually the individual’s own “ogres” that must be overcome, then the one universal truth that is the basis for all reality is discovered. The stage of initiation commences with the battle against the illusions of the self and finds its completion in the knowledge that the self, as it is understood in the world, is itself an illusion. The full knowledge of the illusory character of the self in turn annihilates the self. In mythic language this is described as “atonement with the Father.” The Father is a symbol of the creative principle of the universe, and the hero becomes at-one with the Father with the realization that there is no distinction between the essence of the self and the essence of the world. The last phase of the journey, return, stands for the attempt of the individual to enter once again into the social world and to teach others about her or his liberating knowledge. Since the highest truth, which the hero has experienced, cannot be expressed in everyday language, it can only be pointed to by constructing a new myth. In the book I and Thou Martin Buber also describes the process of

141

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

becoming an authentic self. While Buber does not distinguish distinct stages in this process, he does identify a beginning point. The child develops through interaction with others, but this interaction is not at the level of the full encounter of I and Thou. The element of selfconsciousness is missing. However, at some point in life, the person is all at once struck by the individuality of the self. The detachment of the I from the other at that moment allows the self-conscious I to intimately address and be addressed by others. At its highest, life in the world is a life of encounters. These encounters are not merely important, they are the essence of what it means to fully live, according to Buber. In the relation between I and Thou, both partners turn with “their whole being” to the other. There is both mutuality and reciprocity in these meetings. One person does not just give – information, love, etc. – and the other receive. Both partners are open to the possibility that something new might arise from the encounter, that is, they are open to the possibility of being radically transformed. One does not know in advance what will happen in the meeting, nor know beforehand all that she or he is and can be. The individual is made through relationships with particular others, and thus all is not in one’s own hands. In addition, since the life of dialogue only ends with death, this process has no last stage and does not culminate in a finalized self-knowledge. Although there are no stages to the life of dialogue, there is a dynamic of turning to others and turning to the self. This turning to the self is not one of self-discovery and it is not something that has value in itself. Buber describes this turning within as concentration or purification.10 At this point the individual withdraws from others and looks into the self. The self tries to bring together its different experiences and powers into a unified whole. Once this is done, the

142

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

individual is then ready to go out into the world again. At various moments the individual may feel the necessity of this brief withdrawal; but it must be understood, according to Buber, that withdrawal is only to make possible deeper encounters in the future. For Buber there are three types of others, which he designates as the three “spheres in which the world of relation arises.”11 First, in the “life with nature,” there is only the recognition of the other as something distinct and alive. Second, the paradigm of the I-Thou event is found in the life with other persons. Here the full mutuality of relation is evident, especially through the instrument of language. The life of dialogue begins in this “sphere.” Through the mutuality of address and response the individual learns about the true nature of the self and the world. One realizes that the universe of things, experiences, causality, and necessity can be seen through by means of the life of dialogue. One finds that the real self is not an object among objects. The person has the possibility of raising herself or himself above egotistic forces and truly caring for another. The life of dialogue also indicates that the self is not an obstacle to the highest way of life. The goal of living is not to annihilate the self, but to live fully and freely in the human world. The third “sphere” or stage for relation is that between the individual and artistic/spiritual creations. In these cases it is difficult to describe the dialogue or mutuality that occurs, but Buber insists that there is real communication and transformation through a person’s meeting with such things as musical performances, sculpture, poetry, paintings, and even Doric columns. Beyond the three spheres of relation is the encounter with God. According to Buber, the life with other persons, in particular, is the preparation for the life with God. Even more than that, Buber

143

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

holds that the life with other persons eventually points to a Power that is beyond the human. In the midst of the dialogue between persons, it is as if the word “God” necessarily appears. For Buber the experience of revelation or the meeting with God has three aspects. First, one is aware that there is a Presence. Second, one grasps that life has meaning and purpose, even though no statement or dogma can contain this fundamental awareness. Third, one is directed from the relation with God back into the world. The “verification,” as it were, and realization of the relationship to God takes place in the world of humans. Among other things, this demands that one see the social world not as an illusion to be repudiated, but a dimension to be completed.12 The correlation is very evident between Weintraub’s general descriptions of the individual’s life in time as either the unfolding or development of the self and Campbell’s and Buber’s portraits of the becoming of the self in terms of the inward journey and the life of dialogue. When the process of becoming a full person is understood as an unfolding or an inward journey, the individual is conscious of a life task from the beginning and the life history is the story of the progress of the self toward the goal. Events in the world or within the individual are primarily important as catalytic moments that reaffirm or renew the given life task. In addition, Campbell’s portrait insists that there is a single model for all individuals, and thus that the particular history of the individual is submerged into the universal story of “everyman.” Buber’s description of the life of dialogue stands as one specific way of presenting Weintraub’s insights concerning the individual’s development in the world. Since for Buber the development of the individual is determined by the encounters at distinct moments of

144

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

one’s life with particular things in nature, with people, with spiritual creations, and with God, the absolute uniqueness of a person’s life is powerfully underscored.There is no “inherent logic” of development or model that is given at the beginning of life. Buber writes, for example, that the meaning of the individual’s life, the meaning created through encounters with people and with God, is lived out by “each person in the uniqueness of his being and in the uniqueness of his life.”13 There are, of course, emphases in Campbell’s and Buber’s portraits that reflect their overall philosophies about the nature of being human, philosophies that need not be necessarily tied to Weintraub’s theories. Campbell’s understanding of the inner journey as the individual’s communion with the realm of the unconscious exemplifies only one way of presenting the universal model for humanity and the process through which that model is realized.With Buber, his particular theories about the two worlds of “I and Thou” and “I and It” forcefully color his understanding of the individual’s life in the world, emphasizing and interpreting events in ways not inherent in Weintraub’s presentation.The relevance of Campbell’s and Buber’s views for understanding autobiographies can only emerge by examining specific examples of that genre. In the following pages we will explore the life stories of Yogananda and Malcolm X in order to test this relevance. While a complete correspondence between ideal types and individual lives cannot be expected, we will see in what ways the two views reveal new dimensions and interesting oppositions in the lives of these great men. Paramahansa Yogananda and Malcolm X Paramahansa Yogananda was born with the name Mukunda Lal Ghos on January 5, 1893 in Gorakhpur in northeastern India. His

145

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

autobiography, Autobiography of a Yogi, written in 1945, begins with a few of his faint memories about his previous incarnations.14 The statements about previous incarnations touch on a leitmotiv present throughout the autobiography. Yogananda had a life task which was first described many years before his birth. The task of bringing the wisdom and yogic technique of Kriya Yoga to the West, that is, to America, was recognized by the first teacher of that technique, Babaji. Babaji spoke of this mission to his disciple, Lahiri Mahasaya, who in turn communicated the message to Yogananda’s guru, Sri Yukteswar. Yogananda showed a passionate concern for spiritual matters and exhibited extraordinary powers even as a very young boy. He also felt a deep sense that he was someday to be a yogi.The first major event in his life was the death of his mother, when he was eleven. He experienced an “irreparable rift” by this death, but was consoled by a message and a gift that his mother left for him.The message was that Lahiri Mahasaya had told his mother while she was pregnant with Yogananda that “thy son will be a yogi. As a spiritual engine, he will carry many souls to God’s kingdom.”15 A silver amulet accompanied the message and it was given to help the young boy towards his life task. Yogananda spent many of his early years visiting India’s spiritual masters, looking for the teacher who would become his own guru. When he first saw Sri Yukteswar he knew that his search was over and at the same time, the amulet given to him by his mother mysteriously disappeared.Yogananda recognized his master from visions he previously had. He vividly described this meeting in the autobiography: “O my own, you have come to me!” My guru uttered the words again and again in Bengali, his voice tremulous with joy.“How many years I have waited for you.”We entered a

146

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from the heart of master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes.This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!16

Sri Yukteswar directed him to study toward a university degree and also initiated him as a monk in 1915. These were among the preparatory steps that Yogananda was directed to take that eventually led to his going to America in 1920. In America Yogananda taught the method of yogic discipline of his guru and founded a number of Self-Realization Temples. He returned to India in 1935, but after a few years again set out for Europe and America. The most intense period of Yogananda’s life occurred while he was staying at the retreat or hermitage of his guru, before leaving for the West. A feeling for the power and significance of this relationship is well illustrated through his recollection of one of the meetings with his guru. He writes: We looked into each other’s eyes, where tears were shining. A blissful wave engulfed me; I was conscious that the Lord, in the form of my guru, was expanding the limited ardors of my heart to vast reaches of cosmic love.17

The Autobiography of aYogi demonstrates many of the characteristics that Weintraub discussed in terms of the portrait of the self as

147

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

unfolding in time. It also reveals the concept of the self and the self ’s journey that Campbell described. There is a consistent theme in Yogananda’s writing that his mission in life was given even before his birth and that his various experiences and encounters in the world had their worth determined by their instrumentality for achieving the goal. In addition, an understanding of the universal truth that lies behind this particular life creates the impression that it is the story of one man, but that this story is essentially the same for all persons. Yogananda moved steadily toward the realization of the truth that the phenomenal self or the worldly self is only a transient cover for the one divine nature. Campbell’s views of the self are in harmony with much of Yogananda’s spiritual theories. Campbell acknowledged his particular dependence on Buddhist thought, but his writings are also colored by an understanding of the metaphysics of Hinduism. Although Campbell describes the goal of the individual’s inward journey as self-annihilation, it is clear that Yogananda would still agree with many of Campbell’s presuppositions. For both, the experience of the inward journey toward liberation from the world of maya, or the false everyday world, is the essential story of becoming an authentic self.Yogananda came to fully understand this view of ultimate reality through his last encounter with his guru. His resurrected guru spoke to him after death and said: “I shall chide you no more.” His divine voice was grave, yet with an undercurrent of laughter. “You and I shall smile together, so long as our two forms appear different in the maya-dream of God. Finally we shall merge as one in the Cosmic Beloved; our smiles shall be His smile, our

148

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

unified song of joy vibrating throughout eternity to be broadcast to God-tuned souls!”18

Malcolm X was born with the name Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925. The story of his life, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, was actually put together by Alex Haley from taped conversations with Malcolm X.19 The most outstanding characteristic of the autobiography is the dramatic and surprising transformations that punctuated this life. His early childhood security was suddenly and terrifyingly destroyed when Malcolm’s father was killed, and his family disbanded by workers for the state social agency. As a young man he was often on the move; from Mason, Michigan, to Boston and eventually to Harlem, New York. In Harlem he earned the nickname of “Detroit Red” and his reputation as a “street-wise” hustler. At the age of twenty, after five years of “hustling,” he was caught committing a burglary and sentenced to eight to ten years in state prison. In prison Malcolm learned about Elijah Muhammad and the Black Muslims from his brother Reginald. He read extensively about this movement and about religion in general while in prison, and was eventually released in 1952. Malcolm became a minister of the New York temple of the Black Muslims and had his name changed to Malcolm X in 1954. He broke with Elijah Muhammad at the end of 1963, when he realized that the leader of the movement had betrayed his people through his way of life. Malcolm X’s final transformation occurred in 1964, when he went on a pilgrimage, a hajj, to Mecca. In Mecca he learned the truth of the all-encompassing brotherhood of Islam. His life ended, by assassination, in February 1965. The two crises or turning points that reveal the whole character of his life occurred while he was in prison and then when he made

149

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

the hajj to Mecca. The meeting with his brother in prison followed by a prayer experience transformed his life from one of hustling to that of service to his people combined with a search for truth. He writes of this experience: Many a time, I have looked back, trying to assess, just for myself, my first reactions to all this. Every instinct of the ghetto jungle streets, every hustling fox and criminal wolf instinct in me, which would have scoffed at and rejected anything else, was struck numb. It was as though all of that life merely was back there, without any remaining effect, or influence. I remember how, some time later, reading the Bible in the Norfolk Prison Colony library, I came upon, then I read, over and over, how Paul on the road to Damascus, upon hearing the voice of Christ, was so smitten that he was knocked off his horse, in a daze. I do not now, and I did not then, liken myself to Paul. But I do understand his experience.20

The second turning point, at Mecca, was understood by Malcolm X to be as total and as unprecedented as the first. In Mecca he encountered individuals and representatives of the whole people of Islam that taught him that race prejudice could be overcome by a life truly related to others and to God. He described this in a letter: During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) –

150

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

while praying to the same God ­– with fellow Muslims, and whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the “white” Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) – because of their belief in one God had removed the “white” from their minds, the “white” from their behavior, and the “white” from their attitude.21

There is a strong sense of the integrity or authenticity of this man that pervades the autobiography.22 Despite the many transformations that occur in Malcolm X’s life, transformations of an often surprising and radical nature, the reader is not haunted by a feeling of the accidental nature of what happens to him. The continuity that pervades the transformations is based on Malcolm X’s fundamental and unshakeable quest for truth. This element of continuity is first understood by Malcolm X himself in the wake of the religious experiences at Mecca. In the autobiography, he prefaces a letter he sent to some friends explaining this last transformation: Even I was myself astounded. But there was precedent in my life for this letter. My whole life had been a chronology of – changes.23

[In the letter itself he wrote:]

151

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to re-arrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.24

Weintraub’s description of the author’s life as a development in time and Buber’s theories of the life of dialogue are clearly and consistently revealed in the autobiography of Malcolm X. In harmony with Weintraub, Malcolm X’s life exhibits a constant development that is the outcome of his ever new encounters in the world. There is no predetermined goal, nor an inner logic. Rather, there is a pervasive sense of having a life task that is defined in terms of fulfilling one’s deepest potentialities, searching for truth, and serving others. The uniqueness of his life is the result of the interaction of this particular person with this particular history. Malcolm X expressed this theme quite distinctly when he wrote: But people are always speculating – why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.25

152

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

In addition, it is legitimate to add that the crisis points in Malcolm X’s life are best understood as dialogues with others. This is apparent during the time of his discussions with his brother and the prayer experiences that followed, as well as during the time of his pilgrimage to Mecca. In the latter event, in particular, Buber’s insights about the dialogue between an I and a Thou are well illustrated in Malcolm X’s discussions and communal religious experiences. As Buber understood, the open and unlimited dialogue among people introduces the possibility of a new understanding of the self and of the truth.This understanding for Malcolm X was that “sincere and true brotherhood” could be practiced by people of all colors. Nothing in Malcolm X’s prior experience had prepared him for this insight, and only the deepest exchange of I and Thou with other persons enabled him to recognize and to dedicate his life to this new truth. Despite the distinct differences – one almost wants to say the diametrical opposition – between Campbell’s views and those of Buber, there seems to be a particular problem when the autobiographies of Yogananda and Malcolm X are portrayed as “opposites.” The key issue concerns Yogananda’s intense relationship with his guru, Sri Yukteswar. It appears, at first sight, unsupportable to suggest that in light of the many, deep interactions between Yogananda and his guru, his life follows Campbell’s pattern of the inward journey. However, a careful examination of the differences between Yogananda’s relationship with his guru and Malcolm X’s encounters at Mecca will both confirm the above interpretation of their life stories and introduce a significant issue that distinguishes Campbell’s descriptions of the process of becoming a self from that of Buber.26 Sri Yukteswar’s intense relationship to Yogananda is one of the outstanding features of the latter’s autobiography. Yet, the paradigm of

153

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

inward journey rather than of dialogue is appropriate to understand that relationship. Yogananda’s guru performs the role of a catalyst for Yogananda’s inward journeys rather than the role of partner in dialogue. First, Sri Yukteswar is presented in the autobiography as having a very clear notion, even before the two met, of the goal and even the process of his disciple’s spiritual development. Lahiri Mahasaya, the master of Yogananda’s guru, had told Sri Yukteswar about the life of the latter’s disciple.The feeling that Yogananda’s guru knows his disciple’s essential steps before they occur is extremely strong in the autobiography. Second, the guru knows the fundamental truth for all persons, including his disciple, and his task is to bring Yogananda to the understanding and embodiment of this truth.While there are singular elements in the meetings of the two yogis, the overall relationship and its goal are not unique.27 These two features of the relationship are evidenced by the flavor of the autobiography. Yogananda’s life exhibits many changes, but these changes follow an inner logic, and a sense of radical surprise is entirely lacking. Malcolm X often expressed his astonishment at the changes in his life’s direction. At Mecca he speaks with a number of individuals, with participants in religious rituals, and with a large group of pilgrims. Through these encounters something entirely new and unsuspected happens to him. He leaves Mecca a transformed person, but the reader is not left with the feeling that this must be the final transformation. Only the assassination of Malcolm X ends his relationships with others and the life-changes that are the outcome of these encounters. The uniqueness of such encounters and the particular moments that they occur to the author are shown to be of central importance in understanding the man that Malcolm X became.28

154

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

The power of autobiographies to present very distinctive stories of the becoming of the self is disclosed in the autobiographies of Yogananda and Malcolm X. In these two works Campbell’s model of the process of becoming a full person through the inward journey and Buber’s model of the life of dialogue are eloquently incarnated. The authors of the autobiographies portray two different ways of understanding the process and goal of becoming a self as well as different ways of encountering the world and other people. There are other autobiographical writings that equally demonstrate the relevance of these models. Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, and Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness also stand in contrast to each other through their self-portraits and their life stories. There are also important autobiographies that seem to incorporate elements from both Campbell’s and Buber’s theories. Mohandas Gandhi’s An Autobiography stands as a good representative of the development of a life that has affinities for both models. The significance of the two models discussed in this paper transcends their ability to help us classify one or another autobiography. Rather, it is shown in the insights provided into the potentialities of autobiography to tell the story of the emergence of the self in striking and distinctive ways.

155

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Notes Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Cleveland: The

1

World Publishing Company, 1967). Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).

2

James Olney,“Autobiography and the Cultural Moment:A Thematic,

3

Historical, and Bibliographical Introduction,” in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. J. Olney (Princeton [N.J.]: Princeton University Press, 1980), 23. Karl J. Weintraub, The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance

4

in Autobiography (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978) and Karl Weintraub, “Autobiography and Historical Consciousness,” Critical Inquiry, 1, 4 (1975). Weintraub, “Autobiography and Historical Consciousness,” 829.

5

Ibid., 833.

6

Ibid., 834.

7

Ibid., 839.

8

Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, 30.

9

Buber, I and Thou, 134, 152.

10

Ibid., 56.

11

Ibid., 158-60.

12

Ibid., 159.

13

Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Los Angeles: Self-

14

Realization Fellowship, 1979). Ibid., 20.

15

Ibid., 107.

16

Ibid., 165.

17

Ibid., 495.

18

156

Autobiography and the Becoming of the Self

Malcolm X,TheAutobiography of Malcolm X (NewYork:Grove Press,1966).

19

Ibid., 163.

20

Ibid., 340.

21

The intricate and complex relationship between autobiography and

22

an individual’s life is discussed by James Olney. He uses the example of Malcolm X and his autobiography to make the point that in speaking and making judgments about the autobiography we are also making judgments about the ‘moral character’ of the individual who authors it. See Olney, “Autobiography and the Cultural Moment,” 24. Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 339.

23

Ibid., 340.

24

Ibid., 150.

25

Campbell and Buber also propose radically different metaphysical

26

views about the ultimate nature of humans, the world, and God. Although beyond the scope of this paper, it is interesting and important to explore the implications of these views on the ways that the individual portrays the self and its life in the world. Some of the dynamics of the relationship between guru and disciple

27

are discussed in Herbert Fingarette’s treatment of the “enlightenedagonist.” Fingarette speaks of the “mediating role” of the individual who both loves and remains unattached. See Herbert Fingarette, The Self in Transformation: Psychoanalysis, Philosophy and the Life of the Spirit (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 245-48. There is one characteristic of Buber’s model, the mutuality of the

28

dialogue and the possible transformation of both dialogic partners, that should be discussed here. This point is, however, difficult to determine. The nature of autobiography, that is, that it is one individual’s story about her or his own life, accounts for the complexities encountered in deciding the applicability of this characteristic.

157

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

VIII

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas: A Midrash or Thought-Experiment1

There is much excitement at this time in response to the challenging, but tremendously potent work of the Lithuanian-born modern Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas. While he has had a European audience for many decades, it is only in the last few years that more than a few scholars in North America have wrestled with his provocative and ground-breaking philosophic writings. Recently, English-language collections of his essays, as well as essays by critics, have appeared. These collections reflect the prominence that scholars are attributing to Levinas, and, in making his thought more accessible, they also will contribute to this development. Emmanuel Levinas was born in Kovno, Lithuania, in 1906, and received his early education in both Hebrew and Russian at home. During the First World War the family moved to the Ukraine, and Levinas was admitted to a Russian gymnasium there in 1916. In 1920, the family left the Soviet Union and returned to Kovno, where Levinas’ education continued at a Hebrew gymnasium. In 1923, he left to attend the University of Strasbourg in France where he began to study philosophy. His work in that field included study with the famous thinkers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in Germany. Levinas fought in the French army during World War II, but was caught by the Germans and taken to Germany as a

158

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

Jewish prisoner of war. Although he was not held in one of the death-camps, he has written that “the presentiment and memory of the Nazi horror”2 dominated his reflections on his life history. After the war, he returned to France. He was an administrator and director of a school for the Alliance Israélite Universelle, while also holding a number of university positions. In 1973 he was appointed to the Sorbonne. In order to acquaint more readers with the significance of Levinas’ work, as well as to help to place his thought in the context of modern Jewish philosophy, I would like to offer some reflections in the form of a narrative that juxtaposes Levinas’ writings with those of the pivotal modern Jewish philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig. Obviously, such a juxtaposition gives a distinctive coloring to an inquiry into Levinas. In addition, there are multiple views of the nature of Rosenzweig’s work itself. However, I believe that this “midrash” will act as a supplement to other inquiries into the teachings of Levinas, particularly those that examine him primarily in terms of post-modern philosophic themes. I have termed my narrative reflections a “midrash” in order to highlight the selective nature of this inquiry. It is not an attempt to list all of the themes or views that Rosenzweig and Levinas share, but to probe certain issues that strike me as relevant and rewarding in the context of contemporary discussions in a variety of disciplines about philosophy, language, and the nature of the human. The point of departure for this narrative, as well as its continual element of orientation, is a notion of the person which philosophers have termed “Cartesian.” It has its foundation in René Descartes’ “cogito,” the famous dictum that, “I think, therefore I am.” The Cartesian self is a human portrait that accentuates the rational and

159

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

autonomous features of life. However, this is not just the notion of the thinking-I, but of the I for which self-consciousness, as well as self-realization through the individual’s acts of free choice, are taken to be fundamental. The Critique of Philosophy Rosenzweig and Levinas are highly critical of what they hold is a single philosophic tradition emerging in ancient Greece and continuing through nineteenth century German lands, or, in their terms, from “Iona to Jena” and beyond. This tradition took the Cartesian self as its true content. They criticize it not just in the vein that this philosophic endeavor misses something, that is, that it does not see either what lies beyond or beneath the panorama of this philosophic vision. They contend that it has ignored or, better, has also not heard, a cry that has its origin outside of the insular totality of the Cartesian self ’s world. The nature of this cry and its ramifications for giving orientation to a person are central foci for Rosenzweig and Levinas. They speak of the way that encountering other persons saves the self from the dead-end, or the violence, of self-enclosed totality. For Rosenzweig and Levinas, there is a natural, but, nevertheless, inauthentic concern or obsession of the self with itself. Rosenzweig utilized the ancient Greek figure of the tragic hero to express this potentiality of human life, a potentiality which he believed had, in some sense, been overcome.3 This tragic figure lives a life of isolation and self-containment which culminates in his or her selfdestruction.The hero is driven, from within, by a distinctive character and remains unrelated to anyone outside. This self trusts only in itself and, consequently, remains essentially speechless. Rosenzweig

160

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

characterized the hero’s speech with others as frigid, but also noted that, for Greek drama, even this limited form of dialogue was less important than the solitary act of soliloquy. The sovereign event of this character’s life, that is, the event that fully expresses the nature of the Greek hero and provides whatever meaning there is to that life, is the destined encounter with death. Throughout his works, Levinas demands that the self be torn from its natural obsession with itself. Prior to being forced to respond to the other, the individual takes himself or herself as the primary value, merely playing with, living on, and enjoying, that with which he or she comes into contact. The consequences of this combination of self-absorption and manipulation are many; one of them is ennui. Levinas defined this as an “enchainment to itself, where the ego… ceaselessly seeks after the distraction of games and sleep.”4 Both Rosenzweig and Levinas portray the individual as seeking to incorporate all that is different from the self, all alterity, into a single, total system of thought and life that is coterminous with himself or herself. Levinas noted that a fundamental critique of this totality bound his work to Rosenzweig’s when, in his major book, Totality and Infinity, he wrote, that “[w]e were impressed by the opposition to the idea of totality in Franz Rosenzweig’s Stern der Erlösung, a work too often present in this book to be cited.”5 For the two authors, not only is the self the originator of this idea, but the traditional philosophic endeavor constitutes its clearest expression. In the first book of his Star of Redemption, Rosenzweig provides a critique of the idea of totality, which he depicts in terms of the cognition of the All. He holds that cognition of the All is the individual’s response to the threat of death, that is, the threat that one’s particular life will cease. The history of philosophy is animated by an

161

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

answer to this fear. From Greek times to its modern culmination with Hegel, philosophy has sought a “one thing” that forms the basis of everything else in the universe. Since philosophy is fundamentally idealistic, according to Rosenzweig, this one thing has been the thinking-I. Philosophy maintains that the thinking-I is the essential I, that is, the only real and permanent part of the person, and that this essence is identical with both God and world. It concludes that death is an illusion, because what is ultimately real in the individual cannot die. The essential I continues to be part of the All of the universe, regardless of what happens to the body. In ‘‘The New Thinking,” an essay which Rosenzweig allowed to appear as the introduction to a later edition of the Star, the interrelationship of self, philosophy, and totality reappears. However, it is not the threat of death that animates his depiction of philosophy’s identification of self with das All. Rather, Rosenzweig speaks of philosophy’s fundamental reductive method, which insists on collapsing the human experience of persons, the world, and God back into the self. He once again states that what emerges in the modern period under the label “Idealism” is a perennial philosophic theme.6 The connections between self, philosophy, and totality are even more prominent in Levinas’ work. In broad outline, Levinas holds that philosophy, as “ontology,” expresses a fundamental feature of humans; the urge toward totality. By this he means that philosophy, through the exposition of that which exists or “Being,” incorporates all that is different from the self, “alterity,” into a single, universal system. Most forcefully in Totality and Infinity, Levinas insists that, despite first impressions, the basic absorption of everything into the self, or the solitude of the self, is not broken even through the act of knowing. Through knowledge, a system of interrelationships binds all things

162

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

together into an identity with the self. For him, Western philosophy, from Parmenides to Hegel, can be properly characterized as monist. The totalizing spirit of this endeavor necessarily brought it to deny all that lay outside of the self, that is, all transcendence. Levinas’ work draws much of its energy and eloquence from an ethical protest against the political ramifications of, or correspondence with, the ego-centricism of traditional philosophy. His opposition to the philosophy of being is his rejection of a system of thought that he believed supported and justified the chauvinism, arrogance, and violence of the West. He speaks of this philosophical underpinning as the philosophy of power. He sees it as resulting in an idea of the State, as well as real states embodying it, where opposition and difference are systematically, but usually quietly, crushed. The “tyranny of the State”7 is reflected in the domination and murder committed by Europe against the “other,” whether that “other” consisted of communities close by or peoples in distant lands. The notion that traditional philosophy is at an end is shared by Rosenzweig and Levinas, as well as many other thinkers today. Rosenzweig contrasted the “old thinking” of traditional philosophy to the “new thinking” of the “speaking-thinker.” The former builds mathematical and logical systems out of “reason,” while the latter uses speech as his or her medium and gives prominence to both time and other persons. Rosenzweig designated the old thinking as “logical,” while the latter he saw as “grammatical.” A central focus of an important essay that Levinas wrote on Rosenzweig is the idea that philosophy has reached a dead-end.Their treatments of this theme mirror each other so closely that, in the first pages of the essay, it is extremely difficult to disentangle Levinas’ views from his presentation of Rosenzweig’s position. Levinas holds

163

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

that the end of philosophy is the end of thinkers who stay within themselves, that is, who think as an isolated and isolating occupation. Rather, philosophers must turn to life, to the recognition that they are persons who live with other persons. While this is still a form of thinking, not just individual, idiosyncratic rantings, it is a thinking built upon life, a thinking that can “escape the totalitarianism of philosophy”8 that focuses on the self. Thus, both philosophers share the view that a wider notion of reason must be the basis for a new type of philosophy. In addition, they see language as the new organon for this endeavor. Levinas writes that “if the face to face founds language…then language does not only serve reason, but is reason.”9 He means by this that reason should not be understood as impersonal structures or laws. Reason or human rationality is constituted by, or arises out of, the dynamics of social interaction. The view that traditional philosophy has come to an end is vividly reflected in the variety of genres utilized by these two men. Although philosophers have experimented with writing forms throughout the modern period – Kierkegaard and Nietzsche stand as notable examples – none, perhaps, went further than Rosenzweig. After his two-volume dissertation on the political philosophy of Hegel and the Star, Rosenzweig recognized that he could no longer write books. Even his Star is a strange piece; the central section was composed as letters (love letters?) to the wife of his friend, Eugen Rosenstock. Rosenzweig said that he needed to “see the other” in order to write. Most of his later work consists of long letters and some essays. His small book, Understanding the Sick and the Healthy, is in the form of letters from a doctor describing the treatment of a patient struck down by a special case of paralysis, apoplexia philosophica. The writing

164

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

to which Rosenzweig dedicated much of his time, over all of his last years, was a translation and notes on the poems of the medieval Jewish poet and philosopher, Jehuda Halevi.The “notes” to poetry were seen by him as the “practical application” of the new philosophic method of speech-thinking. In his commentary on these powerful religious poems, Rosenzweig addresses both the poet and his own readers. Levinas has often reflected upon the startling style of his writing. It follows upon his understanding of the betrayal by both philosophy and most writing of our responsibility for other persons.While many of his books and essays utilize some of the structures and terms of Phenomenology, there are frequent twists or interruptions. Levinas speaks of ethical language as the interruption of Phenomenology.10 The repetition that hammers, but never flattens, is well illustrated by the following sentence: The most passive, unassumable, passivity, the subjectivity or the very subjection of the subject, is due to my being obsessed with responsibility for the oppressed who is other than myself.11

Some of his phenomenological descriptions of the caress are fully poetic in their power and sensuality. Equally important are those philosophic excursions by way of interpretation of Talmudic texts. Meeting the Other It is only through the encounter with the other that meaning is created and stagnation and death are overcome. Not only is life hollow without other persons, but the “new” would be an impossible category if there were only that which the self can give birth to

165

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

from within itself. Rosenzweig affirms this insight in a number of different contexts. He holds that the isolated self, that self of the tragic hero, becomes an eloquent, speech-filled soul only through the transforming love that arises from a relationship with God and one’s neighbor. He believes that a person becomes fully human through the transforming powers, the divine powers, inherent in language. For example, it is upon hearing one’s name that the self becomes visible, even to itself. Levinas is equally expressive about the way that relationship brings health to the isolated self. He tries to construct an understanding of the individual human that is not just a duplication of the Cartesian story of the ego. It is not self-consciousness that brings authenticity, according to Levinas, but, rather, it is “my inescapable and incontrovertible answerability to the other that makes me an individual ‘I.’”12 He refers to discourse as a “traumatism of astonishment,” that ruptures the self and introduces the new.13 Levinas agrees with Rosenzweig that the deepest things in life, those which found the possibility for our existence, are gifts from others. The confidence that one has in truth as well as the sense of the meaningfulness of one’s own life derive from meeting others and being responsible for others. Similarly, according to Levinas, the uniqueness of the self is confirmed by the realization that there are responsibilities that only I can fulfill. However, there are noteworthy variations in the two thinkers’ treatments of the need to step beyond the self or have the self transformed. In most places, the setting aside of the self or ego is not the focal point of Rosenzweig’s interest. Rather, the interhuman phenomena of speech and love hold his attention, and the transcending of the ego which results from these events is of secondary interest.

166

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

The self is forgotten through participating in the life of speaking to others and loving others. With Levinas, the issue of the overcoming of the self is fully emergent. He sees an intense conflict between the individual’s natural love of the self and the demand of ethics. For example, he has written that, for ethical thought, “the self, as [the] primacy of what is mine, is hateful.”14 Levinas, perhaps, believes that the ramifications of self-absorption/projection are more dire than does Rosenzweig. Reflecting this concern, Levinas utilizes more forceful language, as it were, to describe this process. For him, the overturning of the ego requires a rupture or tearing open of the self. There is a philosophic step or presupposition that precedes the rupture of the self and the encounter with the other. This is the recognition that, to be a self is to be separate from all totalities. The view that the recognition of a distinct self – which includes a sense of boundaries and, also, of a limited autonomy – is a foundation for the development of the self through relationship, is something that Rosenzweig and Levinas share with some current clinical psychological theory.15 The first book of the Star has the principal purpose of combating the monism of Idealism by insisting on the separateness and autonomy of the philosophic elements, “God, man, and world.” Rosenzweig writes that “the premise of separate existence” is necessary in order that we can see the ways that these separate elements are spanned.16 For him, our life is made up of experiences of such spanning. The necessity for an understanding of the person that respects the integrity of both the human and particular humans, is argued in an additional way in the Star. Early on in his discussion, Rosenzweig proposes a “metaethical” theory of “man.” This position treats the

167

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

human on its own terms, liberating a philosophic anthropology from the domination of any universal (ethical) system. The importance of “separation” for Levinas’ argument is well illustrated by three early section-headings in Totality and Infinity: “Separation and Discourse,” “Separation and the Absolute,” and “Separation as Life.” In these sections, Levinas gives special attention to features of the individual’s life that rest upon the premise of separation: the experience of time, the idea of infinity, and the solitude of enjoyment. He also utilizes the term “atheism” to refer to the self ’s autonomy. By this he means an understanding of the human individual as someone who stands outside of the divine totality or other systematic wholes. To be human is to be there for another, to say, as Abraham said, “Here I am.” It is important to emphasize that, for Rosenzweig and Levinas, the transforming encounter in human life is neither with nature, nor with a text, but with persons. Although giving different weight to these interpersonal phenomena, they explore this encounter in terms of the powers of language and the role of the body. Rosenzweig and Levinas also share an understanding that the fullest expositions of the interhuman realm require17 the use of religious midrash, that is, the utilization of religious language or terms such as God, commandment, neighbor. Thus, both Rosenzweig and Levinas describe the overcoming of the individual’s innate isolation and self-obsession through life with others. Further, what makes life with other persons possible is the divine action prior to or behind, as it were, these relations. For Rosenzweig, God’s revelation to all, but particularly to Jews and Christians, is experienced in the divine/human powers of speech and love. For Levinas, God’s concern for the other that gives substance

168

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

and form to all human interaction is felt immediately in the turning of one person to another. More pointedly, thus, for them, there is no authentic ethics that arises naturally out of the individual’s reason, for this is suspect. Every actual ethics, the realm of relations between humans, is founded upon God’s revelation. This is, for Rosenzweig, God’s revelation that is already immanent within our speech and acts of love. With Levinas, the commandment not to kill is God’s shattering message that bursts through the face-to-face encounter. Rosenzweig and Levinas hold that language or speech is the key to understanding the interhuman realm. With Rosenzweig there is an excitement, an amazement about the powers of language as living speech or parole, and not as mere structure, that carries through all of his work. He believed that language was as natural and as necessary to human life as oxygen was to living things. He did not regard language as some ill-shaped foreign implement, but the medium into which individuals are born and through which they live and grow. Without language there is no human life. For Rosenzweig, the study of language was the study of all the social processes that surround speech.The speech-act thus uncovered as well as developed the basic trust that persons have for one another, as well as the ways that individuals draw out or create each other. He spoke of the transcending of self-concern through the call of another and of the maturation that appears when responsibility is given and accepted. Of all of the activities of speech, Rosenzweig was most fascinated by the function of names, that is, proper names. For example, he said of his popular version of the Star, Understanding the Sick and the Healthy, that the whole book was simply about names. The calling

169

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

of a person’s name by another was the paradigm of transformation, according to him. Through such a call, the two persons are tied together and plunged into the world. In the call, the caller wills to put herself or himself into relation through question or through request. The life of the one called is also obviously transformed, because some type of response cannot be avoided. Rosenzweig’s love of language brought him to see its liberating powers. Freedom was not lost, in his view, by a request; rather, it was created. For him, new possibilities arise as a consequence of being called, and the free life is the one where such interactions or opportunities continually arise. He had no ear for a discussion of freedom that limited the individual’s life to the expression of the self ’s own determinations and choices. Although I want to discuss the use of religious categories a little later on, the theme of the divine character of language naturally arises here. Rosenzweig saw language as nothing less than a divine gift. Its potency or creativeness is an extension of God’s first act. For Rosenzweig, God is revealed in words, and redeems humans through the process of our address and response. In this sense, all language is revelation. He found that the biblical love poem, The Song of Songs, was a proof-text for his insight into the divine nature of speech. The Song is the story of the exchange of “I” and “Thou” between God and humans, just because it is fully a sensual love-poem. Rosenzweig believed that in such language the dichotomy between transcendence and immanence evaporates. He could not separate the words of love between persons, from lover to beloved or friend to friend or neighbor to neighbor, from the words of love that are initiated by God. Rosenzweig had a deep trust in language. He was more interested in all the ways that language works than in the few times

170

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

when it seems either to fail or to distort. While it is misleading to think that Rosenzweig did not recognize that language can be manipulated or distorted, I find that his primary concern was to testify to its power.18 There are some strong parallels between Levinas’ reflections on language and what we have just seen above. This is especially evident in the sense that, for both philosophers, the social processes that surround speech are more important than the analysis of linguistic structures. More significantly, they agree in giving priority to speech over writing and to criticizing those who see language as deriving from thought rather than the other way around. However, there are some marked differences between the two. First, the theme of the distortion of language is prominent in Levinas’ writings, particularly in the work, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. Second, with Levinas, the treatment of language is often located within a wider discussion of “the face.” Language pierces the individual’s armor of self-concern. It uproots this natural attitude and brings the person to experience responsibility for, and to come to the aid of, the other. Language is creative; not only does it awaken responsibility, it creates the power to respond.19 Levinas describes some of the features of human interaction that language awakens as the power of welcome, of gift, full hands, and hospitality.20 In that fundamental encounter with the other that is language, the new appears. We learn something from our meetings with other people.We are given insights, orientations, ideas that we did not possess before.“Teaching” is the term which Levinas often uses to denote the fact that something new emerges out of human interaction. He is quite insistent that we recognize that teaching is more than maieutics,

171

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

the technique of helping the student to recall the truth that is latent within himself or herself. Without his notion of teaching, based on receiving something from the outside, we would be assigned the terrible destiny of living out of our own resources alone.There would be nothing in our lives but that which we found within. The issue of the corruption of language is most clearly introduced through Levinas’ distinction between “the saying” and “the said.” As far as I have understood it, this is a distinction between the ideal possibilities of encounter or language, and the reality of the ways that these possibilities are often limited or subverted. Again, “the saying” is not literally limited to spoken language.21 It includes the whole situation of being in relationship, of approach, giving, etc., that precedes or, alternatively, is the foundation for the possibility of speech occurring between persons. “The said” is the limiting of real speech by linguistic structures that inevitably reflect the self ’s attempt to erase everything that cannot be one with itself. Through the category of “the said,” Levinas is suggesting that the actual encounter between persons must be understood in the context of the particular social and political structures of the time. These structures or systems are, to some extent, expressions of the powerful urge toward totality or the domination of what is not “the same.” Readers of Levinas recognize that, compared to the eloquence and dramatic effect of his discussion of the impact of the face, every interpretation or commentary appears shallow. The face stands for the whole human body. It is just that Levinas has discovered that the poverty, vulnerability, as well as the wealth of the human is contained in the face. In particular, he speaks of the face of the poor and the stranger that overcomes every defense that the self might erect. Confronted by the face of another, silence is impossible, for one

172

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

cannot but be responsive/responsible. All that is found in the encounter with another, that at times is discussed in the context of language, is depicted at other times by Levinas in terms of standing before another person’s face. As he writes, “meaning is the face of the Other, and all recourse to words takes place already within the primordial face-to-face of language.”22 The theme of the face is not as prominent in Rosenzweig’s work, but it is also not totally absent. The human face appears at the climax of the Star. He sees it as mirroring our understanding of the interaction of God, man, and world that gives orientation to everyday life. While the face of which he speaks is human, he believes that it provides a reminder of God. Thus, for Rosenzweig, in living with other persons the individual is continually made aware that she or he also lives before the Divine countenance. More importantly, it seems to me that Rosenzweig shares with Levinas a positive attitude toward the body. For both of them, erotic love is a valuable topic for the philosophical understanding of the human. This is illustrated, in the case of Rosenzweig, by the prominent places given in the Star to The Song of Songs and to a discussion of “the kiss.” In addition to the theme of the face, the poetic-philosophic description of the sensuous discovery of the other through caress is another testimony to Levinas’ view of the philosophic importance of the body. The use of religious categories and terms is an essential feature of the description of the encounter between persons, especially in reflections upon language for Rosenzweig, and the face for Levinas. They share the view that the interhuman realm reveals a trace of the Divine. They do not believe that human relationships exist for the sake of the divine or that religious story diminishes in any way

173

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

the importance of the human. Yet, their work powerfully implies that an understanding of the relationship between persons requires religious story. The divine nature of speech is one theme that illustrates Rosenzweig’s use of religious story. In his view, speech is human, fully human, because it continually and effortlessly, as it were, brings out the highest in human lives. Yet, precisely for this reason, it is divine, for the fullness of the human comes only through a power that stands beyond all humans and draws them up. The interhuman – what Martin Buber described as “the between” – is the miraculous place where traces of the divine can best be sensed. Put in another way, Rosenzweig believed that the word is recognized as both human and divine when we acquire an appreciation for the ways that persons are brought to life through speech. God’s relationship to speech might be seen in two forms: as the origin or source of the trust that enables persons to throw themselves into speech, and as the power that transforms persons once they begin speaking. For example, Rosenzweig saw the acceptance of words from a speaker, including our belief that the other is sincere, as being based upon a trust in speech. No explanation can account for this trust, but Rosenzweig found that a religious story about God’s creation of language points to the elemental nature of this trust and to its source in terms of a “person” prior to all human persons. Rosenzweig wrote: And language is easily trusted, for it is within us and about us; as it reaches us from “without,” it is no different from language as it echoes the “without” from our “within.” The word as heard and as spoken is one and the same.

174

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

The ways of God are different from the ways of man, but the word of God and the word of man are the same. What man hears in his heart as his own human speech is the very word which comes out of God’s mouth.23

Second, Rosenzweig saw the need to use a religious midrash when speaking of the dramatic ways that other persons empower an individual to change, and the incredible ways that speech allows someone to reach beyond herself or himself, that is, to transcend the self. He spoke of the act of being touched by God’s love, often through the speech of one’s neighbor, as the transformation of the individual from a defiant, fearful self into an eloquent soul. As noted earlier, for Levinas, the act of looking into a human face embodies the whole encounter between persons. Looking into the face of the person that is next to one, exposes the vulnerability of the other, along with the direct, if unspoken, command not to kill the other. Face to face with the other is the stance that first engenders responsibility. Yet, this face to face requires religious story in order to be fully described. The vulnerability of the other is both heightened and made more concrete by discussing it in the light of standing before the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, of whom the Bible speaks. The recognition that one must not kill the other who stands nearby is more than the result of some vague feeling not to harm; it is the acknowledgement of the commandment: “Thou shalt not kill!” While Rosenzweig and Levinas recognize the necessity of utilizing religious story or midrash to illuminate the relationship between persons, they are careful that God does not thereby become a philosophical theme. For them, God is not a term in an argument.

175

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Story or midrash is suggestive. It does not prove anything, but points to the wondrous elements that lie within the interhuman realm. Put in another way, the term “God” is not part of some system (of the self). The word is used because it allows the responsibility that the individual has for another to be expressed or pronounced in the most forceful way. This responsibility cannot be communicated outside of the context of such terms as commandment, neighbor, stranger, and even creation. Levinas wrote, for example: The religious discourse that precedes all religious discourse is not dialogue. It is the “here I am” said to a neighbor to whom I am given over, by which I announce peace, that is, my responsibility for the other.“Creating… the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to the far and to the near, says the Lord.”24

Two Jewish Philosophers There are other dimensions of the works of Rosenzweig and Levinas that might prove valuable to explore, and many of the topics discussed here require more analysis. However, as a conclusion, I would like to reexamine a few elements that have already emerged and to suggest that these might be distinctive to modern Jewish philosophy.25 Rosenzweig and Levinas were trained in philosophy, and their works take their point of departure from such pivotal thinkers as Hegel for Rosenzweig, and Heidegger for Levinas. However, they all stand apart from the major philosophical streams. Both of them offer an ethical critique of earlier (and contemporary) philosophy by insisting on the centrality of the relationship to other persons. As we

176

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

have seen, this ethical critique incorporates religious story into its philosophical discussion. At least in terms of their notions of the self, Rosenzweig and Levinas do not represent either a typical modern or post-modern position. They do not speak of the alienated self that must battle the outside world, while discovering some hidden meaning within. Yet, they also do not give prominence to the notion that the self ’s basic problem is that it is without a center or that it is fragmented and discontinuous. Many post-moderns prominently feature a self trying to recapture or reincorporate the missing, what is unthought, error or “the bastard.” However, Rosenzweig and Levinas maintain that the healing of the self does not come through some type of individual contortions. It comes from the outside. The new, “teaching,” is the gift that only another can bestow upon the self. There is no truth more fundamental or instructive than that children are born out of two. Unlike much of modern philosophy, Rosenzweig and Levinas do not offer the encounter with one’s own death as a criterion of authenticity. The confrontation with one’s own death is still just the act of a single person, an act of solitude. In the work of some thinkers, including Heidegger, the encounter with death seems to bring the self to denounce an essential relationship to another. However, Levinas’ treatment of death heightens one’s responsibility for others. It is this concern for other persons rather than the turning of the self upon itself that is exemplified in the treatment of death in the following lines; “The face is the other who asks me not to let him die alone, as if to do so were to become an accomplice in his death.Thus, the face says to me: you shall not kill.”26 While Rosenzweig does begin the Star with a discussion of the

177

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

individual’s fear of death, this is a result, in my view, of the distinctive narrative within the book, rather than a belief that authenticity arises out of the confrontation with death. For Rosenzweig, facing the future death of the self makes one death-like or mute. It is only within the meeting with the other that speech and life well up. Often in surprising ways, their discussions turn toward the theme that love overcomes death. While neither Rosenzweig nor Levinas believes that a person can escape death, they hold that, through language and the related human phenomenon – love, death is not permitted to wipe away all meaning. Despite the truth that the individual will some day die, love between persons builds up things that death cannot overcome. In their work there is a fascination with language. They trust in speech, seeing it as having a source, origin or foundation that is beyond humans.27 They are also very positive about the body. Just as language is not some kind of clumsy instrument, they do not have an instrumental view of the body. The body is more than an apparatus of the mind. The body, especially the human face or countenance, is the window to the soul or the whole being of a person. I think that there is a link between these attitudes toward language, body, and other persons. Rosenzweig and Levinas are critical of views that insist that language is a derivative of, or an almost unnecessary dimension of, thinking. They are equally opposed to the position that the body is a crude, almost expendable, extension of mind.What they are excited by is the concrete world of the everyday. This is the world of interaction, of persons who are encountered precisely through the specificity of their speech and bodies. In this world, other people are very important, because they liberate the individual from the cage of the self. Rosenzweig and

178

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

Levinas maintain a pluralism that is not just tolerant of the other, but requires the other as different. I would like to suggest that the positions of Rosenzweig and Levinas that have just been outlined in terms of death, love, human interaction, language, the body, and pluralism, are positions common to many modern Jewish philosophers. Some of these views can be found in works by Martin Buber,28 Abraham Heschel, Emil Fackenheim, and others. For example, Fackenheim once linked the pivotal role of the theme of death in modern philosophy to the influence of Christianity. He contended that, on the other hand, the portrait of humans that views the interaction between persons as an essential feature of existence was a position more in harmony with basic features of Judaism.29 Finally, despite these pronounced areas of similarity between Rosenzweig and Levinas, it is precisely with reference to religious story that a major difference appears. For both of them it is vital that God be understood as person. Only the language of person provides them with the resources to speak of God’s concern for the neighbor and the stranger, for example. Yet, with Rosenzweig there is a celebration of, and joy in, biblical anthropomorphisms. These offer him the means to compose story after story about all of the ways that God lives with people. In one of the last articles that he composed, he wrote that behind the biblical stories about the encounters between humans and God there lies the double assumption of the Bible as a whole: namely that God is capable of what He wants (even to meet the creature from time to time in fully bodily and spiritual reality) and that the creature is capable of

179

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

what he should be (thus, even to understand fully and to recognize God’s self-embodying and self-spiritualization that from time to time turns towards him).30

In contrast, with Levinas there is a supreme austerity in terms of what can be said directly about the human relationship to God. Beneath his linguistic hesitancy or carefulness is the fear of appropriating God into a human system of the same, of affirming a “Gott mit uns” (God [is] with us). However, this austerity exhibits its own type of grandeur. Levinas has written: “It is not by superlatives that we can think of God, but by trying to identify the particular interhuman events that open towards transcendence and reveal the traces where God has passed.” 31 I am intrigued by the reasons that lie behind this difference as well as the powers and limits of each of these paths. Is it legitimate to suggest that the opposition to the notion of the self that is tied to the Cartesian “cogito” brings together the writings of Rosenzweig and Levinas? Despite the differences between them, it is through a midrash that focuses on this opposition that two central features of their work have been illuminated: the critique of philosophy and the transformation of the self that arises out of the encounter with the other.

180

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

Notes A version of this chapter was incorporated into Michael Oppenheim,

1

Speaking/Writing of God: Jewish Philosophical Reflections on the Life with Others (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 11-27. Emmanuel Levinas, “Signature,” Research in Phenomenology, VII

2

(1978): 177. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (Boston: Beacon Press,

3

1972), 76-79. Rosenzweig believed that the emergence of the Jewish and Christian communities was part of a process whereby what had earlier been latent possibilities of encounter and speech in humans had now become actual. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence (The

4

Hague: Martin Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), 124. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne

5

University Press, 1988), 28. Also see, Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 75-76. The same point, namely, ‘‘‘ego’ is the essence of the world. All the

6

wisdom of philosophy can be summed up in this sentence,” can be found in Franz Rosenzweig, Understanding the Sick and the Healthy (New York: The Noonday Press, 1953), 54. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 46.To what extent there are the seeds of

7

such a critique in Rosenzweig’s corpus is a complex question. Rosenzweig recognizes the role of philosophy as providing a justification for the state, and he sees the history of states as a history of blood, war, and revolutions. However, Levinas’ explicit theme of the violence of philosophy, as it were, does not fully emerge in Rosenzweig’s work, at least as far as I know. See Alexander Altmann’s famous essay, “Franz Rosenzweig on History,”

181

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

in The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1988), 124-37. 8

Emmanuel Levinas, “Franz Rosenzweig,” Midstream (Nov. 1983):

35. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 207.

9

Levinas, Otherwise Than Being, 193.

10

Ibid., 55.

11

Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Kearney,“Dialogue with Emmanuel

12

Levinas,” in Face to Face with Levinas, ed. Richard Cohen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 27. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 73.

13

Cohen, Face to Face with Levinas, 26.

14

Erik Erikson, for example, places the developmental task of

15

“identity” prior to the task of “intimacy,” in Erik Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1968). See, also, Billie Ables, Therapy for Couples (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1986), 24. and on the relationship between autonomy and intimacy, Maggie Scarf, Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage (New York: Random House, 1987), 20-21. Nahum Glatzer, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New

16

York, Schocken Books, 1970), 198. It is interesting to ask whether the use of religious stories is merely a

17

requirement for reflection, or whether Rosenzweig and/or Levinas might believe that persons cannot fully live with others unless they see their lives as taking place within such stories. Rosenzweig belonged to an informal group of thinkers, called

18

the Patmos circle, who were interested in the issue of the corruption of language in the political and academic spheres, during the period following World War I. Among these people were Eugen Rosenstock and

182

Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas

Karl Barth. See, Harold Stahmer, “Speak That I May See Thee!” (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1968), 121-24. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 178.

19

Ibid., 205.

20

Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, 48.

21

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 206.

22

Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, 151 (emphasis added).

23

Levinas,“God and Philosophy,” in The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand

24

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 184. The biblical quotation is from Isaiah 57:18-19. Of course, it is not just themes that help to characterize the nature

25

of modern Jewish philosophy. The modern Jewish philosopher evidences, additionally, a commitment to the present community and a feeling of being obligated by the tradition of the past. Other aspects of these two philosophers’ life and work could be discussed in terms of these points. Cohen, Face to Face With Levinas, 24.

26

It is noteworthy, perhaps, that, as part of the awesome divine act of

27

creation, the Bible calls to our attention the equally divine act of naming what God created. The act of naming is similarly emphasized as Adam’s first act (Genesis 1:5, 7, 10, 20). See also, Noah Jacobs, Naming Day in Eden: The Creation and Re-Creation of Language (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1958). While Rosenzweig and Levinas share with Buber a deep concern for

28

the dynamics of relationship, they are critical of the presentation of these in terms of the philosophy of “I and Thou.” Rosenzweig did not agree with the stark opposition between the I-Thou and I-It relationships. Levinas’ main criticism of Buber is that in proposing that the relationship of the self and other is symmetrical or mutual, the necessary shattering of the self ’s powerful egoism is lost. Rosenzweig’s incisive one-page critique of

183

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Buber’s famous book is discussed in Bernard Casper, “Franz Rosenzweig’s Criticism of Buber’s I and Thou,” in Martin Buber: A Centenary Volume, ed. Hiam Gordon and Jochanan Bloch (New York: Ktav, 1984), 139-59. Levinas has written extensively about Buber, for example, Emmanuel Levinas, “Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge,” in Hand, The Levinas Reader, 59-74. Emil Fackenheim, Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy

29

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), 215-16. Franz Rosenzweig, article on “Anthropomorphism,” in Kleinere

30

Schriften (Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1937), 532. I am using a translation by Barbara Galli. Rosenzweig’s appreciation for the religious significance of anthropomorphic metaphors is a major point of departure in the author’s book, Michael Oppenheim, Mutual Upholding: Fashioning Jewish Philosophy Through Letters (New York: Peter Lang, 1992). Also see, Chapter 5 in the present volume. Cohen, Face to Face With Levinas, 32.

31

184

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

IX

Welcoming the Other:The Philosophical Foundations for Pluralism in the Works of Charles Davis and Emmanuel Levinas

There is perhaps no need more pressing in civilization today than the fostering of an acceptance and appreciation for persons who are different than oneself. The evidence of the failure of toleration and respect for the other is omnipresent and sometimes overwhelming. This is particularly, but not exclusively, the case in the context of the encounter between different religious cultures. It often seems that those institutions, systems of belief and action that express humanity’s longing for relation with the Ultimate also embody or direct their most extreme hatred and violence toward those who are different. In reaction to this state of affairs, to the violence that persons within one religious group sometimes express toward those from another group, there are religious persons who have written and worked to liberate us all from the destructive passions of intolerance and hatred. Charles Davis and Emmanuel Levinas are two such men. They are religious thinkers who have been shocked by the violence inflicted on the other and have attempted to demonstrate the necessity and the grounds for a passionate religious commitment to pluralism. While Davis and Levinas have made the theme of the acceptance or appreciation of the other an important element in their work,

185

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

there are profound differences in the ways that they pursue this task. The differences reflect both the traditions out of which they speak as well as their own individualities as modern religious thinkers. In exploring their understandings of the nature of and foundations for religious pluralism, I believe we will learn of some of the concerns, values, and hopes that animate their thought. We will also come to appreciate the plurality of approaches that can be taken toward the conception of pluralism itself. Charles Davis: Religious Convergence and the Mystical Principle Before examining Davis’ understanding of and argument for pluralism, it is important to recognize that there are perhaps two different contexts for his treatment of this issue. First, pluralism has a place within his examination of the challenges that modernity forces upon the Catholic Church, and Christianity more widely. Second, pluralism also is a theme in his analysis of the nature of religion and the problems that beset all religious traditions in our time. It is in his major work Christ and the World Religions (1970) that Davis begins to address the issue of religious pluralism from a specific Christian perspective: “The general problem I want to tackle here is the relation between faith in Jesus Christ and the other religious options still drawing allegiance from men.”1 Davis recognizes that for both theologians and laypersons the issues are new. His standpoint is within the Christian tradition, as a Christian, but the truth and claims of Christianity are seen by him as legitimate matters at issue. This argument reveals a fundamental aspect of Davis’ discussion of religious pluralism as a whole. It embodies his effort to critique Christian exclusivism, and to open the way toward an authentic but

186

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

critical appreciation of the variety and vitality of all of the religious endeavors of humans.2 This effort is continued in Theology and Political Society and What Is Living,What Is Dead in Christianity Today? where he reiterates this theme as the need to move away from the “parochial exclusiveness of most Christian theologians, whether Catholic or Protestant.”3 While as a Christian theologian Davis has been primarily concerned with the necessity of overcoming various strains of Christian exclusiveness, he also has spoken about similar elements in other religious traditions. In such essays as “Our New Religious Identity,” “The Philosophical Foundations of Pluralism,” and “The Political Use and Misuse of Religious Language,” pluralism within the context of the world’s religions is explored. In these smaller writings, there are analyses of the nature of the religious experience as well as statements about the emerging basis that permits us to question the claims of exclusivity in all traditions. What are the motivations that compel Davis to wrestle with this theme in so many works? There is his feeling of responsibility as a theologian that the future of Christian communities is imperiled today unless authentic responses to the challenges of modernity can be fashioned. More particularly, he believes that religious exclusivity limits the open quest of humans to converse with each other, preventing individuals and traditions from learning and sharing with each other. Without a respect for the other, humans are impeded in their ongoing, mutual effort to discover truth and create meaning. More pointedly and more dangerously, he seems to feel that religious exclusivity leads to a defensiveness and fanaticism that always has the potential of exploding into violence. In his explorations of the nature of pluralism, Davis insists that

187

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

there must be an area of unity among persons, some unity within or despite the diversity. In his words: Pluralism, then, also implies unity, some consensus or agreement. The divergent groups form one community; they agree to live together and co-operate in action for common goals. Pluralism is not brute plurality. It means harmony amid discord, unity of social life and political action amid religious and valuation conflict.4

The matter of religious pluralism is more complex. However, one dimension of the unity that allows for an authentic religious pluralism can be recognized in his contention, following the work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith, that there is “the convergence of the various traditions…towards the formation of a variegated, critical, global self-consciousness in which we come together in communication and partnership.”5 Davis’ understanding of pluralism also evidences a recognition that a significant way of experiencing the world is found among those who value this concept. He writes that: pluralism is the response of finite intelligence to a reality so rich that it constantly escapes its categories and calls for the convergence and complementarity of various cultures and modes of expressions.6

Again, the idea that there is a developing unity, or at least, convergence and complementarity among humans, is brought out. From another angle, the meaning of pluralism within Davis’

188

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

corpus emerges by examining what seems to stand as its opposite. Pluralism is often discussed, if not defined, in terms of its opposites, that is, particularity and exclusiveness. He speaks of “parochial exclusiveness,”7 of the need to overcome “the exclusive particularity of a supernaturally instituted Christian religion”8 and, more generally, of the thrust in mystical religion that “compels one to find the universal in the particular and to move from exclusiveness to pluralism.”9 The argument for pluralism, its justification as it were, takes two different directions in Davis’ writing. The discussion of the convergence and complementarity of the major religious traditions is one basis for pluralism. The other is provided by an analysis of the nature of religious experience. The conclusion that no religious tradition is justifiable in affirming that it and only it possesses the truth, because there is a developing common religious consciousness or identity that supersedes such affirmations, is the climax of the first argument. In the second, the contention that the experience of the transcendent is basically negative, grounds his understanding that no religious group can claim that its symbols, doctrines, or other features are absolute. There are a number of texts that discuss the emerging new religious identity or convergence of religious traditions. In Theology and Political Society, Davis utilizes, with critical reservations, some of the work of Jurgen Habermas. Habermas speaks of the social evolution of ego and group identity in terms of stages. He describes different points within the history of cultures and religious traditions and isolates trends in the development from one stage to the next. The trends in the development of humanity’s social identity include: the expansion of the secular in relation to the sacred; the movement toward autonomy; the shift from particularism to universalistic and individualized

189

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

orientation; and the increasing reflexivity of belief.10 In the final stage, one sees an identity not tied to a particular place or territory, but in terms of mutual participation in an ongoing communication process where a collective will and identity take shape. Davis’ understanding of the newly emerging religious identity is guided by the treatment of social identity that Habermas presents. He bases this view on an understanding of religious history not as the histories of discrete and completed entities, but as a “single history of human religiousness.”11 He also sees a convergence of religious traditions, implying “the end of orthodoxy, in the sense of a religious identity mediated through the fixed, objectified contents of a particular religious tradition.”12 More positively, this convergence marks a uniting of people of different traditions and positions in a growing inclusive religious communication. There is a: sharing of life. People are learning to live together, to listen to one another’s stories, to interpret and become familiar with alien symbols, to respect different customs and join in the rites of others.13

This sharing of living and learning does not, in Davis’ view, mean the end of specific religious traditions or the appearance of some abstract, universal discourse. Rather, it: articulates a unity of communication in the lasting differences of historical experience and remembrance and consequently of traditions, though these remain under a constant process of development and revision.14

190

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

In the article of 1980, “Our New Religious Identity,” the link between the newly developing identity and the convergence of religious traditions is reaffirmed. He writes: Making one’s own the ongoing, convergent history of religious faith by participating in a process of free, equal, and universal communication among people striving without domination to reach agreement on religious concerns is how one achieves a basic social identity of a religious kind at the level of the recent situation.15

Here, too, an appreciation for pluralism of religions and not some abstract universalism is acknowledged. He finds that there is a need for particular traditions to ground individuals, to provide for personal growth and to express the rich individuality of religious faith. If one approach that Davis takes to the issue of pluralism is in terms of identity and history, the second complements this by addressing pluralism within the context of what might be called a philosophical analysis of the nature of religious experience. The treatment of the human encounter with the transcendent as the basis for pluralism is developed in the text Christ and the World Religions. Davis holds that religious faith is the outcome of a person being grasped by the ultimate or transcendent. It is a “gift,” which probably means both a mystery and something not within human control. It is important to note that for the author, the development of faith takes place in “subjective consciousness.” It is not “necessarily” the product of some historical encounter. He speaks of a person’s “attempts to objectify the data of his subjective consciousness as modified by the presence of the transcendent,” and continues that the “various symbolic

191

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

forms of faith are objectifications produced by the human psyche in its reaction to its non-objective union with the transcendent.”16 Thus, the symbolic and doctrinal expressions of religion are seen as human products resulting from the inner “union” with the transcendent. Corresponding to this notion of the symbolic forms of religion, is the affirmation that religion cannot offer us anything that might be called a “proper knowledge of the transcendent itself.”17 Human thought and speech are brought to silence by this reality, and even symbols can only “reach out into the unknown.”18 Such symbols can, in fact, be critiqued. They can be judged in terms of the extent to which they “measure up to the height and depth and breadth of human experience.”19 In Christ and the World Religions, Davis’ position is firmly that of a Christian theologian who is committed to the Christian tradition, and to the “universality and finality of Christ.”20 This affirmation does not disallow for other religions, for “faith in Christ…does not… imply a denial of the persisting function of other religions in God’s ordering of history or of the positive value of religious pluralism.”21 The case for pluralism, in this instance the importance of dialogue with other traditions in the present, is also made by Davis through a reference to the past. He cites the impact of non-Christian mystic movements on the development and flowering of medieval Christian mysticism as an example of the way that such dialogue can lead to new understandings and insights.The last section of this book restates Davis’ contention that no single view of Christ or of the historical working of God is final. This follows from his understanding of the nature of religious faith and the products of such faith. However, within the perspective of this work, he does not insist upon the symbolic, and thus, limited nature of the foundational Christian belief

192

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

in Christ. The “universality and finality of Christ” for Christians remains a basic tenet of his position. There is a parallel discussion of religious experience and pluralism in a later essay,“The Political Use and Misuse of Religious Language” (1989), which, it seems to me, brings forward a somewhat different conclusion than the earlier treatment. The point of departure for this article is the use or misuse of religion or religious faith to buttress particular political positions. Davis argues that religious experience does not issue in some kind of specific content of meaning or knowledge that can then be directly applied to our life in the world. God is essentially a mystery, and “the fundamental experience of the transcendent is negative in the sense of an absence of formulable meaning.” This understanding entails that the “positive elements of meaning are deabsolutized and rendered dispensable.”22 The proposition that “the experience of the transcendent in faith is fundamentally negative in the sense that it brings us no proper content of meaning”23 is very important in Davis’ argument for religious pluralism. There can be no direct conflict between faith statements or claims among religions because all faith statements are both human and tentative. None is absolute. Further, even symbol systems cannot be said to collide or exclude each other in some absolute sense. While it is true that no specific content issues from the experience of the transcendent, symbol and myth are legitimate reactions to or expressions of that experience. Nevertheless, even these are not final or themselves transcendent. This leads Davis to discuss what he terms the “principle of equivalence of symbols,” which means that “the truth and efficacy of one symbolic system does not exclude the truth and efficacy of other, different systems.”24 Additional insights that underlie religious pluralism are presented in

193

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

the essay, but this one, it seems to me, is the keystone. My perception is that the divergence between the two discussions of pluralism in Christ and the World Religions and in the article “The Political Use and Misuse of Religious Language” rests on the treatment of Christ as that which embodies the Christian experience of the transcendent. In the book, Davis speaks of Christ’s universality and finality for Christian faith, while in the essay it seems that no religious symbol or system should be understood in this way. The difference in the two writings may be explored in a variety of ways. The first is directed to the Christian community, while the second is addressed to scholars of Christianity, and possibly other traditions. In the first, the author endeavors to bring committed Christians to see the value and importance of other religious communities. In the second, the issue of pluralism is not tackled from within the Christian community. There is also the possibility of development in Davis’ understanding or critique of religious symbols. In any case, I will take the later essay, which conforms to other recent writings more than the earlier book, as the more fully developed position concerning religious pluralism. The discussions of pluralism in terms of the developing common religious identity or convergence of religions, and in terms of the characterization of the experience of the transcendent, complement each other. First, one discussion explores modern social and cultural developments and their effects on religion, while the other examines the nature of religious experience itself. Second, both dimensions of religious life are brought together in the author’s recent considerations of the mystical principle in religion. He holds that the developing common religious identity has been made possible because of the modern views about religious experience that are in some sense

194

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

influenced by mystic understandings. The mystical dimension of religion is a theme that appears in a number of Davis’ works of the last decade, including What Is Living, What Is Dead in Christianity Today? A central place in the book is given over to a discussion of four major models of Christianity: the mystic, mythical, pragmatic, and visionary. The author is very critical of the mythical model of Christianity in this work. His presentation of it corresponds to the ways that he describes orthodox or traditional views of religion in other contexts.The mythical model of Christianity is seen as very literal. It takes phenomena and events in human history and directly relates them to the cosmic order. Religious institutions are held to be unchangeable and independent of human development. The mythic model of Christianity rejects other religious communities as competitors because it identifies particular institutions and beliefs with an eternal, supernatural order. He sees the threat posed to pluralism by mythic conceptions of Christianity and other traditions in the following terms: Myth of its nature is exclusive and coercive, because it is a social charter that articulates an objective order, independent of human volition. There is no room for pluralism that allows equal validity to other accounts of reality.25

The mystic model stands in opposition to the mythic one. This model includes the view that the “union with God” is the ultimate goal of religion and it treats all the instruments that lead to and from this goal as secondary. These instruments or mediating elements are not important in themselves and can be left behind or replaced. In

195

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

terms of Christianity proper, this version relativizes and treats as replaceable all that is distinctly Christian.26 The mystic view of religious experience has played a role in the development of the understanding of many modern religious persons. It has brought people to see that while the world’s religions embody a plethora of different symbol systems, there may be a common experience of the ineffable beneath this diversity. This point is forcefully made by the author in terms of Christianity: It was the mystical principle that enabled modern thinkers to overcome the exclusive particularity of a supernaturally instituted Christian religion and to interpret Christian religious experience in the context of the unity in pluralism of the religious history of humankind.27

Emmanuel Levinas: Alterity and Responsibility The issue of pluralism is very prominent in the works of Emmanuel Levinas. It plays an important role is his two major books, Totality and Infinity and OtherwiseThan Being or Beyond Essence, and arises throughout his individual essays. It is so important to the overall authorship that if one wanted special access into Levinas’ thought, the concern for and treatment of pluralism would be especially rewarding. The word “pluralism” (le pluralisme) has very special and specific uses in Levinas’ work. One sense of this meaning can be heard in a statement from the autobiographical essay “Signature.” He writes: “Time, language and subjectivity delineate a pluralism and consequently, in the strongest sense of this term, an experience: one being’s reception of an absolutely other being.”28 Pluralism is the name

196

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

that is given to the experience of one person confronting or facing another where the other demands, as it were, to remain separate or other. More accurately, Levinas speaks of the self receiving the other, which underscores his view that the encounter does not arise out of the subject’s will to power or even good will, but from its being confronted. It is the other person who acts upon, who impinges upon my controlled world, who demands. The self of the “I” is passive. In Totality and Infinity, this notion of pluralism is restated and, at the same time contrasted, with the notion of a mere “numerical multiplicity.” Unlike this arithmetic reference, pluralism “implies a radical alterity of the other, whom I do not simply conceive by relation to myself, but confront out of my egoism.”29 Another dimension can be seen, from the same text, in a peculiar use of the cognate term “plurality;” “sexuality in us is neither knowledge nor power, but the very plurality of our existing.”30 He means by this that sexuality cannot be adequately analyzed as the self ’s search for pleasure; it is a relation to someone beyond, someone “absolutely other,” someone who can never be “converted into ‘mine.’”31 Sexuality, and his term “fecundity,” denote one aspect of human pluralism; the fact that we are oriented toward a separate other who can never be turned into just another aspect of myself. While the more individual, phenomenological use of the term pluralism occurs frequently in different texts, a wider social sense of the term can be gleaned here and there. At the end of Totality and Infinity there is a statement about the nature of pluralist society. Such a society evidences “the unity of plurality.” Pluralist society stands upon relations of true pluralism, that is, upon the respect and responsibility that the self expresses toward the other.There is a unity here, but that unity is once again contrasted with any mere numerical

197

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

or systematic grouping or totality. Ultimately, authentic peace is “the unity of plurality” for Levinas.32 It can be said that pluralism motivates Levinas’ entire philosophical endeavor, just as a whole ethics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of language and epistemology arise out of the dynamics of facing the other. A concise and powerful expression – which is his way – of the passion behind the enterprise appears in the dedication to Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence: To the memory of those who were closest among the six million assassinated by the National Socialists, and of the millions on millions of all confessions and all nations, victims of the same hatred of the other man, the same anti-semitism.33

Beyond the usual interests of ethics, epistemology, and even aesthetics, thus stands a fundamentally ethical-political concern. We will soon turn to the explication of this relationship between philosophy and politics, or what he terms philosophy and the state. Levinas’ commitment to or responsibility for present-day Jewish communities is also a motive for his insistence on the significance of pluralism. His commitment has led to essays both indicating the continued relevance of the Jewish past for modern Jews and non-Jews, and expressing the need for the Jewish community to successfully interact with non-Jewish cultures. Succinctly he writes: “Loyalty to a Jewish culture closed to dialogue and polemic with the West condemns the Jews to the ghetto and to physical extermination.”34 The present treatment of pluralism in Levinas will explore both the philosophical texts and the writings dedicated to Jewish life in

198

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

our times. One scholar of the philosophical work has commented that, “Levinas’ proposals offer about as extreme a form of radical pluralism as has appeared in Western philosophy.”35 Since pluralism in this respect refers to the encounter between self and other, Levinas’ position is radical because it affirms as insistently and consistently as possible that the other must remain separate from the self. The language of this insistence is shocking to the traditional philosopher.The encounter with the other is the confrontation with “transcendence” or “Infinity,” and the need for the other is nothing less than “metaphysical desire.” Levinas is a provocateur: his work acts as a challenge to a natural human tendency or movement of the self to include or contain the other. According to him, the individual seeks to incorporate all that is different from the self, all alterity, into a single, total system of thought and life that is coterminous with himself or herself. The self works to replace alterity with “the same.” The endeavor to eliminate or eradicate the other has both a philosophical and a political expression, according to Levinas. For him, the history of philosophy is just this history of incorporating alterity within a total framework of being or ontology. Philosophers of ontology seek to present a system, in terms of the language of being, in which everything is included. Through this effort all that is individual, particular, and other is overcome. Said in another way, the philosophy of ontology is the philosophy of domination. The connection between philosophy and the state is reaffirmed throughout Levinas’ work. Philosophy presents a logic, a justification, that both leads to and underwrites the political effort to unite all persons in some common entity.While to those who philosophize or hold power this effort looks benign or even “enlightened,” from the

199

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

perspective of those who are not the dominant group, the violence toward the other is all too real. The argument is sometimes put very tersely by Levinas. He writes that: “Ontology as first philosophy is a philosophy of power. It issues in the State and in the nonviolence of the totality…which appears in the tyranny of the State.”36 This argument can be put in another way. The distrust of a single rational order, whether system or movement, rests upon Levinas’ view of the interrelationship between philosophy and the state. Western philosophy has continually recognized as its “destiny,” according to Levinas, the forging of an all-encompassing discourse out of the multiplicity of authentic discourses.This self-understanding corresponds, on the political side, to what he terms “the march towards universality of a political order.” However, whether theoretical or political, both movements rest upon the violent supersession of the individual and the particular.37 If ontology is a “philosophy of power,” then the rejection of this can only come by way of a new point of departure for philosophy. “Ethics as First Philosophy” is the title of one of Levinas’ most important essays. The ethical critique of philosophy and politics is founded on the absolute recognition of the integrity of the other person. Levinas speaks of this in terms of the idea of infinity. The idea of infinity is, first of all, not something that one can give oneself, according to Levinas. Utilizing the analysis of Descartes, he holds that the idea of infinity surpasses everything I can engender. Second, it testifies to the height of the other that escapes all of the self ’s efforts to measure or put into some usable perspective. Levinas holds that the encounter with the other is prior not only to ontology and epistemology, it is prior to self-consciousness. My recognition of myself as a particular being is built upon my situation,

200

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

and thus the human situation, of hearing the outside voice of the other and being responsible to her or him. In the words of Levinas, it is “my inescapable and incontrovertible answerability to the other that makes me an individual ‘I.’”38 The nature of the self ’s response to the other is portrayed by Levinas in terms of the face to face encounter.The face of the other is a revelation. It reveals the poverty and vulnerability of all humans. In the face one sees the plight of the poor and the stranger. However, Levinas is not interested in what feelings the face of the other might evoke. The face of the one whom I confront cries out with demands. Primary here is the command not to kill. It is important to note that the phenomenology of face to face gives primacy not just to responsibility and response, but to speech. For Levinas, language and speech are not the outcome of selfconsciousness or the expression of prior reflection or thinking. They constitute the first, the natural matrix for my life. Face and discourse are tied.The face speaks. It speaks, it is in this that it renders possible and begins all discourse...it is discourse and, more exactly, response or responsibility which is this authentic relationship.39

Levinas grounds reason in speech rather than speech in reason. Speech represents for him the whole phenomenology of the self confronting the other. Further, speech, unlike reason, does not attempt to overcome separation. Levinas is not naive: he recognizes that speech is not immune from the tendencies to systematize and to reduce alterity to the same.Yet, he believes that ever again the primal situation of standing face to face as well as the authentic speech of responsibility bursts out of the chrysalis of the same. On the one

201

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

hand, Levinas warns that every communication that is not based upon responsibility is an effort in domination.40 On the other hand, he indicates that there is a fundamental connection between language and alterity. He writes that “the relationship of language implies transcendence, radical separation, the strangeness of the interlocutors, the revelation of the other to me.”41 Levinas’ writings on the relationship between Judaism and other traditions as well as his reflections on pluralism within society are primarily found within the collection Difficile Liberté. The critique of philosophical and theological positions that find comfort in some variety of universalism resounds within essays written over decades. The following passage recognizes that violence has resulted from the confrontations between particular exclusivist communities. However, its primary focus is another strain of violence; that oppressive violence of purported universalisms: Between the wars which emerged from particularisms and the violence of those which seek to reduce them to a State, is there not a place for an absolutely pacifist and apolitical universalism? It would perhaps consist in loving men rather than being concerned about their discourse; in not constructing one’s truth from the shavings of the opinions one has come up against; in not recognizing the progress of Reason in successive examples of human madness, or eternal structures in the fragile institutions of ephemeral states.42

One prerequisite of this apolitical, subversive universalism is brought out above. It consists of focusing on the relations among

202

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

persons and groups and not on beliefs and opinions. Suspicious of universal reason, Levinas defines a truly nonviolent universalism in terms of mutual respect. Does this mean that Levinas refuses to acknowledge the goal of having groups overcome the individuality of their discourse in order to both participate in something wider and surpass their own particularity? The answer is “yes.” In fact, he holds that the destiny of Israel to remain a people apart, stands for the truth, the ethical necessity of rejecting the wider and the surpassing. Difficile liberté defines this stance of Israel, this testimony to authentic universalism. We have already seen that one element of this “pacifist universalism” is respect for the other as well as a concern with moral actions rather than agreement about beliefs. Levinas’ description of Israel among the nations confirms these points. Like Christianity and Islam, it is an expression of monotheism. Monotheism, in Levinas’ view, is not a matter of arithmetic. Monotheism implies, first, that there is one God who unites all humans as brothers and sisters. As Levinas formulates it, monotheism is the “supernatural gift of seeing that one man is absolutely like another man beneath the variety of historical traditions kept alive in each case.”43 More powerfully, it points to the realm of obligations. God is the one who issues the call to help the neighbor and stranger, the call of obligation. Monotheism affirms that the other cannot be ignored, that the self cannot refuse to enter into discourse.44 The discourse is the discourse of responsibility. Here persons can share concerns, and move one another. Yet, Levinas is not eager to share faith and exchange beliefs among traditions or communities. The universalism that he affirms is, in his terms, the universalism of “serving the universe,” which remains in the realm of ethics.45

203

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Levinas speaks of Israel as a blend of universal and particular that stands for all humankind. It is universal, in ways it shares with other monotheistic traditions, in speaking of the fraternity of all humans and responsibility for the other. It is universal in the sense that it is open to all. Further, it rejects any hierarchy of traditions. In the language of the rabbis, this is stated as “the just of all nations shall have a place in the world to come.” He comments: The rabbinic principle by which the just of every nation participate in the future world expresses not only an eschatological view. It affirms the possibility of that ultimate intimacy, beyond the dogma affirmed by the one or the other, an intimacy without reserve.46

Israel’s particularity is found within the shocking concept of “election.” Levinas does not hesitate to refer to it, but insists it means not privileges but responsibilities. The Jewish people has been given special obligations, “exceptional duties.”47 The universality of Judaism does not contradict its particularity, as Levinas sees it. He does not shun, despite all that we have heard above, the use of the term “exclusivity.” He writes: “The fact that tolerance can be inherent in religion without religion losing its exclusivity is perhaps the meaning of Judaism, which is a religion of tolerance.”48 Two Approaches to Pluralism In the foregoing I have tried to portray the positions of Charles Davis and Emmanuel Levinas in their own terms. I have attempted to elucidate the understandings of the nature of pluralism, the motivations for discussion, and the different philosophical justifications

204

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

or arguments. Although, on first reflection, one might have assumed that the positions of two contemporary religious thinkers on the issue of pluralism would exhibit many areas of agreement, it is the differences that are the most striking.49 These concern not only the basic definition of the issue itself, the reasons why pluralism is required, and the relationship between particularity and universality, but also those subjects that each regards as relevant to a discussion of pluralism. Beyond even these, there are also less obvious but interesting and telling differences in terms of treatments of the nature of religious experience and symbols, speech and the body. The vocabulary of pluralism that occurs within the two discourses represents one of the most significant differences.This is evident in the use and relationships between such terms as universalism, particularity, and exclusivity. In the discussions that take place within Davis’ texts, pluralism is tied to the universal. The twin terms particularity and exclusivity are often found together and are presented as opposed to pluralism. The statement about the need to “find the universal in the particular and to move from exclusiveness to pluralism,” is the best example of this overall expression. Further, the particular is often portrayed in contrast to the universal as both parochial and limited, as in the expression “tribal particularism.”50 Davis believes that the major threat to pluralism arises out of the clash of exclusivist claims made by groups or traditions that maintain that only they possess the truth or are in a relationship with the divine. He critiques those who propose the “exclusive particularity of a supernaturally instituted Christian religion.”51 He holds that this threat can become obsolete as people recognize that there is an expanding religious consciousness that straddles the boundaries of particular traditions and brings forward communication and religious insights

205

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

that unite humans. Thus, the hope of pluralism rests upon unity, upon what can be shared among persons. Davis acknowledges that humans are born and nurtured in particular traditions and need the symbols and rituals of those traditions to maintain a concrete identity. However, it is not a distortion to suggest that he envisions a pluralism despite particularity. In his words, “pluralism is not brute plurality.”52 Levinas’ presentation and argument are much different. His discussions of the meaning of pluralism always introduce such expressions as the “absolutely other being,”53 and the “radical alterity of the other.”54 Authentic pluralism does not overcome the particular. In fact, he can even use the term “exclusivity” in a positive way as was the case in his description of Judaism as being “a religion of tolerance” that did not lose its “exclusivity.”55 The universal is often placed in opposition to pluralism as in his statement about “the march towards universality of a political order.”56 Universalism is customarily defined in terms of totality and violence. It becomes something positive when combined with the “particular” where the latter dominates. I have in mind the example of Levinas’ oxymoronic description of a “universalist particularism” that he finds in Zionism.57 Although Levinas perceives the violence that has resulted from the clash of individual groups, his discussion is most sensitive to the violence that is the outcome of the suppression of particular groups or cultures. He believes that domination often occurs or is justified through the discourse of universalism; of what all persons share. For him, on the contrary, pluralism rests on the mutual respect of separate individuals and groups that encounter one another, each recognizing the integrity of the other. While traditions may share specific ethical concerns or orientations, especially as the outcome of monotheism, his hope for the peace of pluralism rests on behavior, respect and

206

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

toleration, rather than on common views. Overall, he offers a vision of pluralism requiring particularity. There are contrasting views of the nature of religious experience which seem to ground, philosophically, the divergent treatments of particularity and universalism. It is noteworthy that this ground is more developed in Davis’ work than in that of Levinas. Put in another way, it appears that Davis finds that his treatment of pluralism requires a thorough analysis of religious experience, revelation, and their relationship to tradition, while Levinas does not feel a need for the same analysis in the context of his presentation. The term mystic or mysticism plays a prominent role in Davis’ discussion of pluralism. For example, there is the statement that it was the “mystical principle that enabled modern thinkers to overcome the exclusive particularity of a supernaturally instituted Christian religion.”58 For Davis, contact with the transcendent is not a matter of some outside event in the world. Such contact takes place in “subjective consciousness without necessarily any objective revelation.”59 God is essentially a mystery and there is no concrete knowledge of the Absolute. In his words, the “fundamental experience of the transcendent is negative in the sense of an absence of formulable meaning.”60 The implication of this understanding is fully stated by him: “the positive elements of meaning [in a religious tradition] are deabsolutized and rendered dispensable.”61 Davis sees that when this view of religious experience is shared by persons in different traditions, they are enabled to step beyond the specific symbols, faith statements, and institutions. There is no fully corresponding statement about religious experience and tradition in the discourse on pluralism by Levinas. Still, Levinas’ understanding of Torah differs greatly from the way

207

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

that Davis discusses the relationship between religious experience and symbols. For Levinas,Torah is the result of an event of revelation. In this event, there was both divine and human input. While Torah is in human words, it is more than a human product. This means that one cannot get behind or beyond Torah. It is not relative. It is not dispensable. As he writes in a rather recent essay, “Revelation in the Jewish Tradition” (1977): The Talmud affirms the prophetic and verbal origin of the Revelation, but lays more emphasis on the voice of the person listening. It is as if the Revelation were a system of signs to be interpreted by the auditor and, in this sense, already handed over to him.62

Levinas is neither a fundamentalist, nor a literalist. He does not affirm, for example, that the Torah is all the work of one author, Moses. The miracle of its authorship, as he puts it, is not a matter of such purported authorship, but of the amazing consistency and power of its message: the “confluence of different literatures toward the same essential content.”63 However, one cannot philosophically go behind the text and see it as a mere human creation. Levinas reverts to what might be called story to say what can be said here. One key to understanding this is embodied in the phrase “as if,” in the statement quoted above about revelation. The phrase plays a role similar to the rabbinic phrase “ka ‘ba yahol,” “as it were.” Revelation is neither an objective system of signs nor is it not such a system. One can say, in a particular context, it is “as if ” it were. Thus, one reason that Davis speaks of a converging religious

208

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

identity is that he understands that it is possible to identify a common core of religious experience that lies behind and relativizes all specific religious expressions, that is, religious symbols, texts, and institutions. Levinas rejects both the converging identity and the view that it is possible to speak of a common religious experience that transcends and enables one to step beyond symbols within traditions. Another important illustration of the opposing views concerns the religious symbol that is central to many traditions, “God.” More specifically, there is a disagreement about the significance of understanding God as a discrete other, perhaps, as “person.”An analysis of “theism” appears in a number of Davis’ works, especially Body as Spirit and Theology and Political Society. In the latter, he summarizes his position: I do not consider negligible the difference between a mystical oneness that preserves the distinction of a person God and the individual human being and a mystical oneness that identifies the self and Ultimate Reality without distinction. I also think that theism has made possible the emergence of the individual self in a way that other forms of religion have not.64

Nevertheless, in the more extended treatment he has written that, “God if it is not made an idol, must be recognized as merely an inadequate, analogical expression, mediating a thrust toward a directly inexpressible mystery that lies beyond any human conception.”65 This view of theism is fully consistent with his treatment of religious symbols and concepts. The religious symbol that the theist calls God is an important element in some traditions. The symbol has

209

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

both meaning and religious implications. However, the symbol is an “inadequate” expression of an experience of “inexpressible mystery.” In other words, it is still important to see it as relative and a secondary expression of a core religious experience. Levinas does not have a parallel treatment of the theistic notion of God. In fact, there is great reticence to explore the notion of God or the experience of God directly in his literature. This is one of the most distinguishing features of both his philosophical and religious literature. I find that the indirectness of his God-language is not the result of his understanding of this symbol as relative or secondary, but that it, among other things, prevents or disallows the type of philosophical analysis that appears in the writings of Davis. The indirectness of this God-language is fully apparent in the following: Ethics is an optics of the Divine. Henceforth, no relation with God is direct or immediate. The Divine can be manifested only through my neighbor.66 The Other is not the incarnation of God, but precisely by his face, in which he is disincamate, is the manifestation of the height in which God is revealed.67

God stands as an entity distinct from, but accessible to humans. Just as ethics requires the separation and integrity of self and other, so the religious life continues this principle. Levinas’ discourse prevents the possibility of privileging some direct experience of the divine reality and thus stepping beyond tradition, symbol, and word. There is a large divergence in the treatment of language or speech which follows upon the fault lines that have been surveyed in other

210

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

areas. While both thinkers value discourse and communication very highly, they differ in their understandings of what is most important about such discourse and what are the overall powers of speech. Davis is particularly interested in the way that communication brings people together, bridges differences, and allows people to share experiences and insights. He speaks of the “free, equal, and universal communication among people,”68 and of the “structure of communication now growing among the religious communities.”69 Levinas sees the need for a shared discourse, at least in terms of ethics. However, as persistent as this point is, there is also a suspicion of a more far-reaching sharing. He discusses the “march towards universality of a political order” in terms of “confronting multiple beliefs – a multiplicity of coherent discourses – and finding one coherent discourse that embraces them all, which is precisely the universal order.”70 Additionally, Levinas is most interested in the fact that discourse respects the alterity of the other. He writes that “the relationship of language implies transcendence, radical separation, the strangeness of the interlocutors, the revelation of the other to me.”71 In terms of the powers and limits of language, the two thinkers also stand apart. As we have seen, Davis believes that the experience of the transcendent brings speech to an end and, as an implication of this, any faith content is only a secondary reflection upon the inexpressible mystery of the transcendent. For Levinas, the transcendent appears exactly in the face to face of persons, which is synonymous with the act of speaking between persons. I find that Levinas’ insistence on the divine dimension of Torah is in harmony with this view of the transcendent powers within speech. Finally, there is some correspondence between the differences listed above and the role that the body or language of the body

211

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

has in the discussions of pluralism.72 I do not detect direct or metaphorical references to the body within Davis’ discourse about pluralism. By now it is apparent that such references are essential to Levinas’ presentation.What accounts for this absence in one case and presence in another? The body is the most expressive aspect in both a concrete and symbolic sense of the particularity of humans, and it therefore is not surprising that metaphors of the body are absent from a treatment that looks to a shared identity and convergence, and is present in one that demands the acknowledgement of the alterity of the other. Levinas’ reference to sexuality in the context of a statement about pluralism is the strongest illustration of the tie that he sees;“sexuality in us is neither knowledge nor power, but the very plurality of our existing.”73 The two approaches to pluralism surveyed above are very instructive. Among other conclusions that can be drawn is that the issue of pluralism requires many approaches and each of these may have their powers and limits. For example, Davis’ stance provides us with a way of understanding and a language to describe the ways that traditions interact and learn from each other. It also proposes a perspective to overcome those exclusive aspects of traditions that often collide and lead to terrible conflict. Its weaknesses are well uncovered by Levinas’ analysis. Every universalism is limited, and there is always the risk of violence towards those individuals and groups who do not recognize themselves within it. Levinas’ standpoint provides a philosophical basis for appreciating the integrity of each individual and group. It teaches us that the words peace and pluralism arise only where acts of respect and toleration abide. There is strength in its suspicion and its analysis of the correspondence between purported universal views, movements,

212

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

and political powers. On the other hand, there are weaknesses in areas that mirror the strengths in the other treatment. For example, there is little in Levinas’ discussion of the ways that different religious cultures have interacted in the past and have been deepened through such interaction.The fruitful possibilities of interreligious dialogue are not and cannot be explored very far by using the vocabulary of Levinas. Some of the reasons for these two divergent treatments of pluralism have been touched upon throughout this discussion. We have seen differences in the problems that each thinker found to be foremost, in their audiences, and even in the definitions of pluralism offered. Certainly, each of these men is an independent thinker who powerfully colors whatever he studies and discusses. Still, that one stands as a Christian and another as a Jew cannot be dismissed as irrelevant. It is not surprising for persons who have some acquaintance with the history and major expressions of the two traditions that the hope in the universal is highly prized in the work of a Christian philosopher and that a suspicion of the language of the universal, as well as an emphasis on the particular, occurs in the thought of a Jewish philosopher. Yet, there is more to see than such general tendencies. Many of the diagnostic positions that Davis holds are also to be found in the work of such contemporary Christian, and especially Catholic, theologians as Bernard Lonergan, Dominic Crossan, and David Tracy. This is especially true in the case of Crossan and Tracy in terms of the pivotal understanding of the subversive-disruptive, fundamentally negative experience of the divine.74 Remember that this understanding is essential to the argument that relativizes, but does not treat as irrelevant, all particular religious expressions. The emphasis on the integrity of the particular,on the impossibility

213

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

of stepping beyond the specific contents of a tradition is common to such modern Jewish philosophers as Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and others. Although they do not espouse a naive realism, fundamentalism, or literalism, they remain excited about the powers and not the limits of religious language. For them, the divine-human encounter, the encounter that issues in the covenant between two distinct “persons,” remains the highest expression of religious life. There are a variety of ways to think of and argue for religious pluralism. Charles Davis and Emmanuel Levinas present two of these. Their work reveals the complex issues and questions that must be addressed when one is combining a deep concern for pluralism with a life-commitment to one’s own particular tradition. Additionally, the fact that we can recognize powers and limits within each of their portraits might well provide the basis for an argument about the necessity of a plurality of visions of pluralism.

214

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

Notes Charles Davis, Christ and the World Religions (London: Hodder &

1

Stoughton, 1970), 13. Ibid., 130.

2

Charles Davis, What Is Living,What Is Dead in Christianity Today? Breaking

3

the Liberal-Conservative Deadlock (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), 2. Charles Davis, “The Philosophical Foundations of Pluralism,” in

4

Le pluralism: Symposium Interdisciplinaire/Pluralism: Its Meaning Today, ed I. Beaubien, Charles Davis, Gilles Langevin, and Roger Lapointe (Montreal: Fides, 1974), 223-24. Davis, What Is Living,What Is Dead in Christianity Today, 1-2.

5

Ibid., 6.

6

Ibid., 2.

7

Ibid., 97.

8

Ibid.

9

Charles Davis, Theology and Political Society (Cambridge: Cambridge

10

University Press, 1980), 163. Ibid., 171.

11

Ibid., 172.

12

Ibid., 173.

13

Ibid., 174.

14

Charles Davis, “Our New Religious Identity,” Studies in Religion/

15

Science Religieuses 9 (Winter 1980): 37. Davis, Christ and the World Religions, 113-14.

16

Ibid., 116.

17

Ibid., 114.

18

Ibid., 117.

19

215

P H I L O S O P H E R S

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Ibid., 127.

20

Ibid., 130.

21

Charles Davis,“The Political Use and Misuse of Religious Language,”

22

Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26 (Summer 1989): 486. Ibid., 494.

23

Ibid.

24

Davis, What Is Living,What Is Dead in Christianity Today?, 30.

25

Ibid., 51.

26

Ibid., 96-97.

27

Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism (Baltimore:

28

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 293. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne

29

University Press, 1969), 121. (Italics in text.) Ibid., 227.

30

Ibid., 276.

31

Ibid., 306.

32

Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence (The

33

Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981), v. Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings (Bloomington: Indiana

34

University Press, 1990), 9. Harold A. Durfee, “War, Politics, and Radical Pluralism,” Philosophy

35

and Phenomenological Research 35 (1975): 556. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 46.

36

Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 94.

37

Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Kearney,“Dialogue with Emmanuel

38

Levinas,” in Face to Face with Levinas, ed. Richard Cohen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 27. Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe

39

Nemo (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 87-88.

216

We l c o m i n g t h e O t h e r

Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, 120.

40

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 73.

41

Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 239.

42

Ibid., 178.

43

Ibid., 178-79.

44

Ibid., 95.

45

Ibid., 176.

46

Ibid.

47

Ibid., 173.

48

While this essay has focused on the differences between these two

49

thinkers, there is an important understanding about the foundations for pluralism that they share. In “The Philosophical Foundations of Pluralism,” 249, Davis answered his own question in the negative, namely, whether “a genuine pluralism is a possibility without some form of belief in an ultimate reality beyond man.” The belief in a transcendent reality is an extremely significant element in Davis’ understanding of pluralism. Although Levinas does not directly discuss this issue, in light of his treatments of such topics as “the Other,” “face to face,” and the commandment not to kill, I find that his presentation of pluralism also rests on a belief in a transcendent reality. However, the differences in their views of the meaning of pluralism, the relationship to the transcendent and the nature of the transcendent retain their vitality here. Davis, Theology and Political Society, 163.

50

Davis, What Is Living,What Is Dead in Christianity Today?, 97.

51

Davis, “The Philosophical Foundations of Pluralism,” 223.

52

Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 293.

53

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 121.

54

Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 173.

55

Ibid., 94.

56

Ibid., 96.

57

217

P H I L O S O P H E R S 58

O F

E N C O U N T E R

Davis, What Is Living,What Is Dead in Christianity Today?, 96-97.

Davis, Christ and the World Religions, 113.

59

Davis, “The Political Use and Misuse of Religious Language,” 486.

60

Ibid.

61

Emmanuel Levinas, The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Cambridge

62

[Mass.]: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 204. Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 115.

63

Davis, Theology and Political Society, 180.

64

Charles Davis, Body as Spirit: The Nature of Religious Feeling (New

65

York: Seabury Press, 1976), 28. Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 159.

66

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 79.

67

Davis, “Our New Religious Identity,” 37.

68

Davis, Theology and Political Society, 173.

69

Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 94.

70

Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 73.

71

The correspondence between treatments of speech and the body

72

in modern religious thought is discussed in the author’s work: Michael Oppenheim, Mutual Upholding: Fashioning Jewish Philosophy Through Letters (New York: Peter Lang, 1992). Additionally, although I have not pursued the question here, in exploring the differences between the presentations of Davis and Levinas, the prominence of visual as against aural metaphors might be a fertile area.The possibility that there is a distinct difference in the use of these metaphors suggests itself because of Levinas’ pervasive critique of the place of visual metaphors in traditional Western philosophy. Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 227.

73

See,for example,DavidTracy,Plurality andAmbiguity:Hermeneutics,Religion,

74

Hope (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); and Dominic Crossan, The Dark Interval:Towards aTheology of Story (Santa Rosa [CA]:Polebridge Press,1988).

218

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

X Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard: Reflections on “The Lonely Man of Faith”

In the essay, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik attempts to come to terms with that special kind of loneliness that is felt by the contemporary religious person. While religious people from the time of Abraham have known loneliness, this feeling has been intensified by the world in which we find ourselves today.To explore this situation, Soloveitchik utilizes insights developed and passed down by the generations who lived within his religious community, as well as some “modern theologicophilosophical categories.” This essay shows Soloveitchik’s great sensitivity to modern religious thinkers, in all traditions, who struggle with questions similar to his. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a very influential Christian thinker who lived in Denmark and whose work provides a powerful portrayal of the suffering and tension, as well as the peace and strength, that dwell within the religious person. He is best known for his early books which highlight the “fear and trembling” of the religious individual who stands utterly alone before God. This “existential” side of Kierkegaard, which has had great influence upon twentieth century religious thought, is what so closely parallels some of the views found in Soloveitchik’s essay. However, there are important differences between these earlier, existential explorations

221

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

and Kierkegaard’s mature reflections on the nature of the religious life. In fact, many of the existentialist views that are usually attributed to Kierkegaard are taken from books written under one or the other of his many pseudonyms which were meant to indicate that the particular beliefs expressed in those books were not to be taken as Kierkegaard’s own, but were merely part of his overall endeavor to look upon the religious life from different angles.1 Points of Contact There are many points of contact between themes from Kierkegaard’s corpus of works and ideas expressed in Soloveitchik’s essay.These include the characterization of modern people as aesthetic, the understanding of the religious person in terms of the category of the individual, the experience of time, and the uniqueness of the religious life. While these points of convergence are interesting, what is of deeper importance are the ways in which Soloveitchik finds solutions to the loneliness of the modern religious person. They depart radically from the resolutions offered in Kierkegaard’s existential works. Soloveitchik’s foundation within the Jewish tradition gave him the resources to match Kierkegaard’s portrait of the loneliness of the modern person of faith, as well as to point beyond this loneliness to some important remedies. Kierkegaard understood the religious individual in terms of aesthetics. He wrote: If then, according to our assumption, the greater number of people in Christendom only imagine themselves to be Christians, in what categories do they live? They live in aesthetic, or, at the most, in aesthetic-ethical categories.2

222

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

The modern person is aesthetic because his or her telos or goal is the pleasurable. Life is seen as the on-going search for experience of the beautiful and pleasurable; the new and the momentary are key values. The measure of life is seen entirely in terms of what one has taken from, or gained over, the outward, whether this be nature, or, as in the case of Don Juan, other people: The aesthetic income is in the outward sphere, and it is this outward which provides assurance that the outcome is there; one sees that the hero has triumphed, has conquered the land, and then we are through with it.3

While the aesthetic person may not be unconcerned with God, God is only allowed a place within the understanding of life. This individual stage sees God everywhere in the world and feels a direct, natural, creaturely relation to the God-out-there, but the Godrelationship is not the foundation for life. It is of value only because it provides a pleasant feeling or experience. It is in this “religious” feeling that the aesthetic person sees the God-relationship, but what this demonstrates for Kierkegaard is that, on the contrary, there is a lack of relation. Soloveitchik also sees the modern individual, whom he calls “Adam the first,” in terms of aesthetic categories: “Adam the first is always an esthete, whether engaged in an intellectual or ethical performance.”4 Soloveitchik holds that dignity, which implies a glorious, majestic, and powerful existence, is the telos for Adam the first. Dignity is a term given to one by others, and it signifies that others have recognized one’s achievements. The modern individual is concerned with gaining power over the outward and the visible.

223

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

The aesthetic or majestic individual may seek to have a relationship to God, but, again, the relationship is circumscribed by the way in which this person “relates” to other things. Since all of life is lived toward the outside, the encounter with God is found within the framework of the cosmic: Majestic man, even when he belongs to the group of homines religiosi and feels a distinct need for transcendental experiences, is gratified by his encounter with God within the framework of the cosmic drama…. he cannot interpret his transcendental adventure in anything but cosmic categories.5

The majestic person sees God as the creator and director of the universe, and is satisfied with an aesthetic experience of this “cosmic” God, rather than struggling for a relationship which is more intense, individual, and binding. Kierkegaard contrasts the aesthetic person with the religious individual who sees that the only real telos in life is the Godrelationship. Only

the

God-relationship

gives

permanence,

orientation and authenticity to human existence. Kierkegaard has one of his pseudonymous authors write: “Essentially it is the Godrelationship that makes a man a man….”6 The God-relationship is not something that is won by doing battle with nature or with other people. ‘‘The religious outcome, indifferent to the outward result, is only assured in the inward sphere, that is, in faith.”7 God is found in the “inner person,” and not in nature. When the individual seeks after God alone, with a passionate single-mindedness, he or she finds that the primary battle is with oneself. The struggle for

224

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

God comes about through the cultivation of this single-mindedness and inwardness to the utmost degree. To exist authentically means to exist as a single one, as an individual before God. This is what is meant by inwardness, “the relationship of the individual to himself before God, his reflection into himself.”8 For Kierkegaard, only the individual can live in the realm of faith, where the existence of the crowd and even life within the boundary of ethic’s universal norms must be overcome. Soloveitchik also holds that authentic existence can be understood only from the standpoint of the category of the individual. “‘To be’ means to be the only one, singular and different, and consequently lonely.”9 This individual is not concerned with other people’s evaluations, or with outward results and conquests. For Soloveitchik, the individual finds legitimacy and worth only when he “lets himself be confronted and defeated by a Higher and Truer Being.”10 And, in turn, the religious life demands the existential depth in living that comes to one who sees himself or herself as an individual. The religious person understands that the only goal for life is found in the God-relationship. A hallowed existence is found when the disciplined individual allows the self to be overcome by the confronting God. Kierkegaard saw that the existing individual’s experience of time was a terrifying one. Everything is in motion, and the flux of time is seen both in the world in process and in humans who continually change. One of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms described the flux of time in this way: “But precisely because every moment, like the sum of the moments, is a process (a going-by) no moment is a present…”11 Human authenticity, which demands stability and continuity, can be found only if the individual is related to that which abides. For

225

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Kierkegaard, God, alone, provides this type of stability. Soloveitchik also realized that the experience of the flux of time intensifies the quest for God. The individual is conscious of living in a constantly moving stream of time. He or she is related neither to the beginning nor to the end of that stream, and one’s brief “now” passes before it can be grasped. For Soloveitchik, “the whole accidental character of his being is tied up with this frightening timeconsciousness.”12 For the individual to escape this flux of time and to give reality to one’s existence as a temporal being, she or he must be related to something permanent, which will give existence an orientation in time. All of Kierkegaard’s works portray the religious life as a unique stage that cannot be understood by other stages of life or by categories drawn from other spheres of experience. His attack upon Kant and Hegel arose from the attempt of these men to understand and, in the end, to reduce the religious life to ethics or philosophy. Opposed to such reductionism, Kierkegaard carefully delineated the boundaries of the aesthetic, which includes speculative philosophy, the ethical and the religious life. Kierkegaard’s most powerful pseudonymous work, Fear and Trembling, sought to show the uniqueness of the religious life by demonstrating that it could not be understood in terms of ethics and that it had elements that were not communicable to other people. As Abraham, “the knight of faith,” demonstrated, the religious category is beyond the ethical, since it demands the “teleological suspension of the ethical.”13 The ethical is the universal, that which is lived under the universal ethical laws, and can thus be understood by all. In this view, the religious is the area of the singular one, where the universal laws of ethics are suspended or held in check, because the individual stands alone before God. Since the religious is not

226

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

the universal, speech, which can deal only with what is common to people, must give way to silence: Abraham keeps silent – but he cannot speak. Therein lies the distress and anguish. For if I when I speak am unable to make myself intelligible, then I am not speaking – even though I were to talk uninterruptedly day and night. Such is the case with Abraham.14

The religious life is the realm of faith, because faith begins when the understanding can no longer continue. Faith is the passionate grasp of something that the understanding sees as unintelligible or even absurd. “Faith is the objective uncertainty due to the repulsion of the absurd held fast by the passion of inwardness…”15 The religious life is unique, because it is the realm of faith, infinite passion, and silence. The religious life is also seen by Soloveitchik as unique because it is irreducible. Although certain elements of it can be understood in terms of the aesthetic, the ethical, and the philosophic realms, its core is untranslatable.The religious is the realm of faith, where passion and commitment, rather than reason, direct life: The very instant, however, the man of faith transcends the frontiers of the reasonable and enters into the realm of the unreasonable, the intellect is left behind and must terminate its search for understanding. The man of faith animated by his great experience is able to reach the point at which not only his logic of the mind but even his logic of the heart and of the will, everything – even his own “I” awareness – has to give in to an “absurd”

227

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

commitment. The man of faith is “insanely” committed to and “madly” in love with God.16

In his endeavor to explore the dimensions of the modern religious person’s loneliness, Soloveitchik gave expression to insights that are also found in Kierkegaard’s works. However, Soloveitchik believed that this radical loneliness was not irremediable. He found that the religious life is punctuated by moments of majesty and comradeship as well as by moments of loneliness. In describing these other dimensions of the religious life, he no longer parallels what is offered in the early works of Kierkegaard.The extent of Soloveitchik’s departure from him can best be seen through an examination of the paradigms which each man uses to understand the way that the religious person stands before God. For Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes De Silentio, the paradigm of faith is Abraham’s trial at Mt. Moriah, while for Soloveitchik it is the encounter with God in prayer. Fundamental Differences De Silentio describes Abraham as the “knight of faith” and the paradigm of religious faith for all people. It is highly significant that Abraham’s encounter with God at Mt. Moriah, the akedah event, is singled out, rather than any other aspect of the relationship between Abraham and God. In Fear and Trembling, De Silentio portrays Abraham as standing alone before God. Abraham is alone, and he can speak to no one, neither to Sarah nor to Isaac, of what he must do. In addition, Abraham is portrayed as a man without worth before God, who puts him on trial. Abraham is tested. In this episode there is no reciprocity, since Abraham’s relationship to God is expressed in

228

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

his complete submission to God’s demand. God asks of Abraham his dearest possession, his son. De Silentio goes to great lengths to show what Isaac means for Abraham, in order to accentuate the trial. Abraham was given Isaac as a gift from God, because both he and Sarah were too old to expect this boy to be born. He cannot hope to have another son to replace this one. Isaac is also seen as the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham that his seed will grow and become a blessing to all the nations. If Isaac dies, the promise cannot be fulfilled and Abraham’s seed has ended. However, Abraham withstands the test. He has faith that God’s promises will be fulfilled, while, at the same time, he is willing to sacrifice Isaac. This faith and willingness indicate many things. The religious person must be willing to sacrifice the world, “to die to the world,” just as Abraham was willing to sacrifice his world, Isaac.Abraham never faltered in this faith that somehow, as absurd as it may have been, Isaac would be returned to him. Thus, even though the religious person is willing to sacrifice the world, there is also faith that the world will be given back. Finally, Abraham acted out what it means to have faith. Faith is concerned with the absurd. Faith is a passionate belief that goes beyond anything that can be grasped by the understanding. It is precisely where reason fails that faith brings the individual into relationship with God. There is one other important aspect of the individual’s relation to God which is not part of the Abraham story, but which the author of Fear and Trembling saw as so essential that he introduced it into his account of the trial. Abraham felt as “nothing” before God, and De Silentio adds to this nothingness the feelings of guilt and sin.17 The individual stands before God not only in complete submission,

229

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

but also in guilt and sin. Consciousness of guilt and consciousness of sin are seen as pervasive elements in the way the religious person confronts God. It is only with this consciousness of guilt and sin that faith becomes so indispensable. The leap of faith is the religious person’s absurd belief that even though he or she stands before God in guilt and sin, a relationship to God can still be found.18 The significance for Kierkegaard of the basic elements in the description of Abraham’s trial can be demonstrated by looking at his Journals: [Dying to the world] So too with dying to the world, in order to be able to love God. God is spirit - only one who is dead can speak that language at all. If you do not desire to die then neither can you love God, you talk of quite different things from him.19 [Sin and Guilt] From an early age I have suffered from a thorn in the flesh to which the consciousness of sin and guilt has attached itself; I have felt myself to be different. This suffering, this difference I have understood as my relation to God.20

For Soloveitchik, prayer and prophecy are the paradigms for the encounter with God. The example of prayer will be examined, since there is no difference in content, according to him, between it and prophecy. The single difference is that one is initiated by the individual, while the other is God-initiated. “Prayer is basically an awareness of man finding himself in the presence of and addressing himself to his Maker, and to pray has one connotation only: to

230

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

stand before God.”21 Soloveitchik describes two types of awareness that are felt in prayer. The first has its parallel in the above description of Abraham. It is the awareness of one’s nothingness before God: The awareness which comes with prayer is rooted in man’s experiencing his “creatureliness”…and the absurdity embedded in his own existence…the Tefillah awareness negates the legitimacy and worth of human existence. Man, as a slave of God, is completely dependent upon Him. Man enjoys no freedom.22

The other awareness cannot be found in De Silentio’s interpretation of Abraham’s trial. During the recital of Shema man ideally feels totally committed to God and his awareness is related to a normative end, assigning to man ontological legitimacy and worth as an ethical being whom God charged with a great mission and who is conscious of his freedom either to succeed or to fail in that mission.23

This awareness is central to Soloveitchik’s understanding of the religious person, who feels that he or she is nothing before God, but also that one has real worth and legitimacy in the relationship to God. Humans have a covenant with God, which means that both partners in the covenant recognize the worth of each other. People are not just slaves of God. God has given humans a moral mission, and God relies upon them as ethical beings. The mission not only

231

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

validates the “ontological legitimacy” of humans, but also the worth of the world. People are asked to realize God’s plan in the world. The individual is not asked to die to the world, nor is the world seen as a temptation to be overcome. Life in the world is not merely given back at the end, since life in the world is an essential part of the encounter between God and humans. It is in the world that people act out this relationship. Prayer embodies one other element for Soloveitchik: the community. Prayer is not just a dialogue between an I and a Thou; it takes place out of the foundation of a community and is always related to a concern for community: The foundation of efficacious and noble prayer is human solidarity and sympathy or the convenantal awareness of existential togetherness, of sharing and experiencing the travail and suffering of those for whom majestic Adam the first has no concern.24

Thus, prayer embodies many important elements in Soloveitchik’s understanding of the religious person, elements that are not found in Kierkegaard’s early pseudonymous writings.25 They are the following: 1) Humans have legitimacy and worth; they are not just “dust and ashes.” 2) This legitimacy and worth are given to people as ethical beings who have a moral mission in the world. This idea can also be formulated as an imperative – the encounter with God “must be crystallized and objectified in a normative ethico-moral message”26 3) People live out this relationship to God through acting in the world. 4) The encounter with God has the community as its foundation and its constant reference.

232

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

These elements found in prayer transform and re-direct the insights that, at first, Soloveitchik and Kierkegaard seemed to share. Each of the themes is cast in a new light, and Soloveitchik indicates resolutions to the dilemmas of the religious person that are entirely different from those that Kierkegaard sought to offer. The extent of these differences can be seen by re-examining the themes that were recognized as common to both. The first theme isolated Kierkegaard’s and Soloveitchik’s description of the modern individual as aesthetic.What characterizes this description is the modern quest for legitimacy and power in the confrontation with the world. For Kierkegaard this quest was seen as misdirected, because legitimacy or authenticity can be found only by turning away from the world, and focusing on the inner person. In relation to the struggle for religiosity, the world is regarded as a temptation. Although Kierkegaard held that the religious person is, in the end, given the world, prior to this there must be the willingness to die to the world. Kierkegaard struggled to say “Yes” to the world. Soloveitchik does not have to struggle to say “Yes,” because he believes that the world is a legitimate realm for humans. Soloveitchik questions only those who emphasize human dignity to the exclusion of the need for a deeper kind of “covenantal existence.” The majestic individual, who seeks to dominate the environment, is expressing a legitimate aspect of humanity. “Man reaching for the distant stars is acting in harmony with his nature which was created, willed, and directed by his Maker.”27 Action in the world is commanded by God. The relation between commandment and action is seen in the Halakhah, whose norm binds together the encounter with God and action in the world:

233

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

The Halakhah sees in the ethico-moral norm a uniting force. The norm which originates in the convenantal community addresses itself almost exclusively to the majestic community where its realization takes place.28

Kierkegaard held that the religious life must be expressed through the category of the individual. Abraham’s standing alone on Mt. Moriah is the paradigm of faith. The loneliness of the individual is taken by Kierkegaard as one aspect of the suffering that the religious life entails. In De Silentio’s descriptions of Abraham’s trial in Fear and Trembling, Abraham leaves Mt. Moriah in an unredeemable state of loneliness. For Soloveitchik, authentic existence is expressed in the feeling of loneliness, but the religious life offers a real way of also finding community. When God establishes a covenant with humans, people are brought into relation with both God and others. God’s revealing of Himself brings into existence a new community, the covenantal community. It is there, where people are bound together in their commitment to God, that the religious individual is redeemed from loneliness: Only when God emerged from the transcendent darkness of He-anonymity into the illuminated spaces of community-knowability and charged man with an ethico-moral mission, did Adam absconditus and Eve abscondita, while revealing themselves to God in prayer and in unqualified commitment – also reveal themselves to each other in sympathy and love on the one hand and

234

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

common action on the other. Thus, the final objective of the human quest for redemption was attained; the individual felt relieved from loneliness and isolation.29

The existing individual’s feeling of angst that arises out of the experience of the flux of time is depicted by both Kierkegaard and Soloveitchik who saw that redemption from this experience of coming to be and passing away was one of the most important needs of the religious person. However, the difference in what each means by redemption from time is very striking. For Kierkegaard, redemption from time was individual oriented and expressed in terms of the individual living at peace with herself or himself. It signifies a curtailment of process and human becoming, and an experience of one full moment, unrelated to past or future: Everyone would like to have lived at the same time as great men and great events: God knows how many really live at the same time as themselves. To do that (and so neither in hope or fear of the future, nor of the past) is to understand oneself and be at peace, and that is only possible through one’s relation to God, or it is one’s relation to God.30

For Soloveitchik, the ravages of time are conquered by the new orientation to time that is a product of the God-relation. The flux of time finds redemption through the experience of living in the convenantal community which transforms the flux of time into religious time. Life in the community gives the individual an orientation, in terms of the past, present, and future of the community.

235

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

The individual now has a meaningful place within time: In the covenantal community the man of faith finds deliverance from his isolation in the “now,” for the latter contains both the“before”and the“after.”Every covenantal time experience is both retrospective, reconstructing and reliving the bygone, as well as prospective, anticipating the “about to be.” In retrospect, covenantal man reexperiences the rendezvous with God in which the covenant, as a promise, hope, and vision, originated. In prospect, he beholds the full eschatological realization of this covenant, its promise, hope, and vision.31

Redemption from time is an experience of living contemporaneously with all of those who make up the history of the covenantal community. This is an experience that leads to fullness and creativity. An example of this is the Halakhic dialogue with past and future sages in the study of Torah. He is no longer an evanescent being. He is rooted in everlasting time, in eternity itself. And so covenantal man confronts not only a transient contemporary “thou” but countless “thou”-generations which advance toward him from all sides and engage him in the great colloquy in which God Himself participates with love and joy.32

Kierkegaard and Soloveitchik speak of the uniqueness of the religious life. It cannot be reduced to the aesthetic, the ethical, or the philosophic. Both argue against a stance represented by the Logical

236

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

Positivists, that truth in one area of life, i.e., the religious, must be fully translatable into empirical-scientific terms or else this truth has no meaning. Kierkegaard saw a dialectical relation between the religious life and the aesthetic and ethical, which are seen essentially as temptations for the religious person. For example, one type of temptation is related to the way the God-relation is to be found. The aesthetic life speaks of a “direct,” natural relation to the God in the world, while the ethical speaks of finding God by living in accordance with the universal norms of ethics. For Kierkegaard, there can be no “direct” relation to God, and the religious life demands the “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Soloveitchik sees a positive relation between the religious sphere and the others. There can be no reduction of the religious life into aesthetic or ethical categories, but there can be limited translation. The aesthetic, ethical, and the philosophic endeavors of people achieve their realization in the religious sphere. Soloveitchik wrote that “the human, creative, cultural gesture is incomplete if it does not relate itself to a higher modus existentiae.”33 The ethical realm, for example, must be grounded in what goes beyond the transience of the individual and society. The worth and validity of the ethical norm, if it is born of the finite creative-social gesture of Adam the first cannot be upheld. Only the sanctioning by a higher moral will is capable of lending to the norm fixity, permanence, and worth.34

Soloveitchik’s quest for self-understanding was enriched by the interplay of modern religious thought and the Jewish tradition.While

237

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

there is no direct evidence that he wanted to utilize the particular insights of Kierkegaard, the areas of agreement between these two are very clear. They saw that the religious individual feels lonely and misunderstood in a world that emphasizes aesthetic pleasure, power, and majesty. However, Soloveitchik utilized the Halakhic conception of human nature to portray the partial redemption that is open to the religious person. Full redemption cannot be found. God demands that the individual not remain within the redeeming, covenantal community, but must move back and forth between the covenantal and the majestic communities and bind them together through action. Some of the differences between Soloveitchik and Kierkegaard reflect differences in basic tendencies between the two religious traditions in which they lived. Although it is always a dangerous exercise to extract from the writings of two thinkers in order to expound upon the differences between the Jewish and Christian traditions, a brief comment is in order. Kierkegaard’s difficulty in affirming the goodness of the social world and his stringent call upon the single individual to pull away from others, what he called the “crowd,” overstate some tendencies within Christianity that do not find a parallel within Judaism. The harsh loneliness of Kierkegaard’s individual is tempered by Soloveitchik’s Jewish experience of the religious person’s life with others, both within the covenantal community and in the wider social world. Still, there are times in “The Lonely Man of Faith” when the reader senses that Soloveitchik recognized that there was a loneliness and inability to communicate fully even within the covenantal community. Loneliness is inseparable from the life of the religious person who speaks in “unique logoi.”

238

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

[The prophet] Elisha was indeed lonely but in his loneliness he met the Lonely One and discovered the singular covenantal confrontation of solitary man and God who abides in the recesses of transcendental solitude.35

Here, once again, Soloveitchik’s insight has a strong parallel to the thoughts of that nineteenth century Dane whom we have been examinng.

239

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Notes An important and lively discussion of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous

1

authorship is given by Stephen Crites, “Pseudonymous Authorship As Art and As Act,” in Kierkegaard: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Josiah Thompson (Garden City [N.Y.]: Doubleday & Co., 1972), 183-229. Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View For My Work As An Author (New

2

York: Harper & Row, 1962), 25. Soren Kierkegaard [Hilarius Bookbinder], Stages on Life’s Way (New

3

York: Schocken Books, 1967), 400. 4

Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” Tradition

(Spring 1965): 15. Ibid., 33.

5

Soren Kierkegaard [Johannes Climacus], Concluding Unscientific

6

Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 219. Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, 400.

7

Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 391.

8

Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” 27.

9

Ibid., 24.

10

Soren Kierkegaard [Vigilius Haufniensis], The Concept of Dread

11

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 77. Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” 46.

12

Soren Kierkegaard [Johannes De Silentio and Anti-Climacus], Fear

13

and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 64. Ibid., 122.

14

Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 540.

15

240

Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Soren Kierkegaard

Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” 61. Soloveitchik offers a

16

critique of Kierkegaard’s term “absurd” in a footnote, 61-62. See the third story of the trial of Abraham in Kierkegaard, Fear and

17

Trembling, 28-29. 18

The portrayal of Abraham in Fear and Trembling has elicited an

intense discussion from a number of Jewish critics. See, Robert Gordis, Jewish Ethics for a Lawless World (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1986), 103-10, who has responded that it is “a distortion of Biblical faith itself ” to argue that Abraham was commanded by God to “violate the moral law as he understood it.” Louis Jacobs presents a variety of Jewish responses to De Silentio’s story in “The Problem of the Akedah in Jewish Thought,” Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling: Critical Appraisals, ed. Robert Perkins (University [Ala.]: University of Alabama Press, 1981), 1-9. Soren Kierkegaard, Journals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938),

19

# 1266. Dru numbers the entries in this edition. Ibid., #1288.

20

Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” 35.

21

Ibid., 41.

22

Ibid.

23

Ibid., 37-38.

24

Kierkegaard’s mature writings offer deeper insights into the religious

25

individual’s life in the world. His Works of Love and Christian Discourses eloquently speak of the religious person’s life with others, although some essential differences with Soloveitchik remain. Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” 38.

26

Ibid., 16.

27

Ibid., 51-52.

28

Ibid., 45.

29

241

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

242

30

Kierkegaard, Journals, #700.

31

Soloveitchik, “The Lonely Man of Faith,” 46.

32

Ibid., 48.

33

Ibid., 59.

34

Ibid., 58.

35

Ibid., 67.

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

XI Eliezer Schweid:The First Israeli Philosopher

The return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel in the twentieth century represents a revolutionary challenge to Jewish thought. Confrontation with the meaning of being a Jew, of having a Jewish state, and of creating a Jewish culture is now inescapable. Further, these questions must be addressed in light of concrete social, political, and even economic realities of a modern nation. Modern Jewish philosophy is called to seek a reorientation toward the Jewish tradition that can begin to provide direction for an authentic continuity with the past, a fullness to individual and communal life in the present, and a viable foundation for future cultural creations. In the face of this challenge, the depth, maturity, and honesty of this enterprise is being tested. The writings of Eliezer Schweid represent the initial attempt of native Israeli philosophers to understand and respond to the full meaning of the return of the Jewish people to its old-new land. The strength and integrity of Schweid’s response will come to light through this introduction to the philosophical and educational aims as well as the central themes of his works. Eliezer Schweid was born in Jerusalem in 1929 and served in the Hagana in 1947 and 1948. He was a member of Kibbutz Zoraah until 1953 and received his doctorate in Jewish philosophy in 1961 from the Hebrew University. He is now a professor of philosophy at that university.

243

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

The extensive writings of Schweid attest to his understanding of the essential interrelationship between the two facets of his dual vocation as philosopher and educator. He has found that the Jewish philosopher who feels responsible to his or her people cannot separate the endeavor to confront the past from the need to teach, to enlighten, and to heal. Since the 1960s, Schweid has published articles and books on Hebrew literature, medieval and modern Jewish thought, and current issues that confront Israel. Particularly during the last two decades, instead of systematic treatments of a historical or philosophical nature, he has produced single essays and groups of essays. He believes that in our time the Jewish philosopher who lives in Israel is not permitted to take the time to stand back, reflect, and make systems because the destiny of the Jewish people and its state is at stake.1 Schweid’s books of the last twenty years deal with specific issues and crises that confront the Israeli population. This element of timeliness, as well as his dual voices of philosopher and educator, are exemplified in a few works that will be briefly examined. The Solitary Jew and His Judaism (1974)2 was a “hygiene of return” – using Franz Rosenzweig’s words about his major work3 – that sought systematically to explore the nature of the alienation from Judaism that many modern individuals experience and to sketch a path of return. The book was Schweid’s major attempt to converse with secular Jews, particularly Israelis, who believed that there was no possibility of finding meaningful contact with Judaism as a religious tradition. Schweid maintained that continuity with the culture and religious sources of the past was a prerequisite for the individual’s having an integrated identity. Further, he demonstrated that although a full encounter with Torah as God’s address to the Jewish people

244

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

must come at the end of the individual’s return, the beginning of that return consisted in steps as easy as accepting oneself as a member of the family and people out of which one was born. In two works of 1977, A History of Modern Jewish Thought4 and Between Orthodoxy and Religious Humanism,5 the author chronicled the historical events, as well as political, social, and intellectual processes that have challenged Jewish communities since the time of the Spanish Expulsion. He also diagrammed the responses of Jewish philosophers and religious leaders to these unprecedented changes. These books, as well as a plethora of essays on Zionist thinkers, were not intended to be mere historical inquiries. They examined the past in an effort to recognize the ways the present crystallized. Schweid sought to illuminate the options to the present secular-religious stalemate in Israel, which were submerged by the tide of history. The goal of his effort to uncover or rediscover creative expressions of past Jewish thought was to allow Jews in the present to rethink their positions and to choose again. The “Introduction” to The Land of Israel: National Home or Land of Destiny (1979)6 situates the work and explains Schweid’s motive in writing it. All of Schweid’s writings are permeated with a love of the land of Israel, Eretz Israel, but here Schweid saw himself responding to a specific situation that had been intensified by the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War; the haunting void in the self-understanding of young Israelis concerning the meaning of the land of Israel for the Jewish people. Schweid felt that the void had led to a crisis of purpose. In the face of the moral and spiritual trials of today, Israelis lack the national memories concerning the land of Israel which would be the source of the needed confidence, direction, and even life of individual sacrifice. The book teaches of the ways the land constituted one of

245

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

the central pillars of Jewish religious life, thought, and hope. The Land of Israel is deeply influenced by Schweid’s view that only an individual who has a basis wider than his or her own experiences, in a tie to a full and living culture, can experience authenticity and meaning. There is an enchanting statement at the beginning of the book that eloquently voices Schweid’s perspective: A Jew who has come to live in his land, or even one born and raised in it, has still not yet entered the land of Israel until he has erected a palace of memories there and lives in it through the symbols around which a way of life can take shape.7

The Cycle of Appointed Times: The Meaning of Jewish Holidays (1984)8 constituted the second phase, following the book on the land of Israel, of Schweid’s educational endeavor to make the past sources of Jewish culture accessible to his contemporaries. As do his other writings, it presents a philosophical argument directed to a particular internal controversy. Schweid argued with determination that intellectual inquiry into the meaning of Jewish life, and not just the doing of holy deeds, was and remains a fundamental concern in Judaism. This argument for the relevance of inquiry into religious meaning was issued into a climate where such a plea was anything but taken for granted, by either secular or religious Israelis. In this work Schweid explored the Jewish calendar, much as Franz Rosenzweig had done at the beginning of the century, as a key to understanding the wholeness of Jewish culture, both as Weltanschauung and as concrete way of life. Schweid held that the calendar is one of the supreme expressions of a people’s historical life, encompassing its

246

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

values, hopes, goals, and purposes.Through the calendar Jews learn to embrace their communal, familial, and individual obligations. Finally, a short monograph appeared in 1983, Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G. Scholem,9 that is pivotal to understanding Schweid’s overall corpus. Other dimensions of Schweid’s investigation of Scholem’s work will be taken up below, but two features of Schweid’s philosophical argument will be briefly mentioned here. Schweid was compelled to respond to Scholem’s contentions that Jewish mysticism was a core element in Jewish history and that it represented the only legitimate vehicle of religious renewal in the modern period. These contentions called into question Schweid’s entire philosophical enterprise because he saw them as undermining the role of Halakhah in Jewish history and denigrating the possibilities for a contemporary religious renewal that took the challenges of modernity seriously. Schweid has continually insisted that individual identity and communal life must be built upon some concrete obligations from the past and that for the Jewish people, Halakhah is the medium for those obligations. Further, all of his writings testify to his belief that the life of Torah is accessible to modern Jews who ask about meaning, are concerned with the direction of the modern secular world, and feel responsible to the entire Jewish people. A discussion of these views will bring us to explore Schweid’s treatments of the path of return, the life of faith, and Zionism and the Jewish state today. The Path of Return An analysis of the history, dynamics, and challenges that resulted from the encounter of the Jewish people and Judaism with modernity drew much of Schweid’s attention over the three decades of his philosophic activity. The goal of his analysis was to explore

247

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

the possibilities of authentic individual and communal replies to this unique meeting.Within this context, Schweid fashioned a philosophy of return for the individual Jew who seeks a path that will lead from a life of isolation and alienation from the Jewish people and culture to a Jewish life of continuity, wholeness, and creativity. A number of recurring themes punctuate Schweid’s discussion of the individual’s return. He begins with the realization that all Jews have been deeply affected by the events and processes of the last three centuries, particularly the emergence of secular culture. Therefore, it is impossible merely to repeat or copy some past Jewish model of individual or communal life without sacrificing the unity and comprehensiveness that Jewish life promises. Every individual solution to this situation requires a communal foundation and must include the feeling of being tied to and responsible for the whole Jewish people. Further, the unique character of the Jewish people is indissolubly tied to its distinct culture, and at the core of that culture lie religious patterns of thought and action. Thus a reappropriation of the religious traditions of the Jewish past, including particular norms or obligations from the past, is required to ground authentic individual and communal return. Finally, Schweid insists that the requisite resources for a full and vibrant Jewish life can be found only in the state of Israel. In a symposium in 1978 that focused on his works, Schweid reflected on his central effort to understand the relationships between religion and secular culture. In particular, he spoke of his interest in finding out “how a positively secular man can find and re-establish his relations with the religious sources of his culture.”10 Thus, for Schweid, the analysis of the possibilities for the individual Jew to reappropriate his or her past begins with an understanding of the

248

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

nature of secular culture. The process of secularization and the concept of secularism are nova in the Jewish experience that demarcate the boundary between medieval and modern.The revolutionary secular spirit that celebrated human autonomy, power, and creativity overturned the previously dominant religious values and institutions. Secularism asserted that humans have the right and the power to decide between truth and falsity, to enrich their lives through material and spiritual creations, and to use nature and to fashion social and political life in accordance with their own goals. Part of the appeal of Schweid’s call to secular Jews resides in his views that the many features of the secular world should be positively evaluated and that Jewish life does not stand contraposed to all of the values of secular culture. Thus he holds that though the quest for an authentic Jewish identity requires a reorientation toward secular culture, that is, a recognition of its limits, the secular individual is not asked to repudiate his or her entire earlier identity. Just as there is no single recipe or complete answer to the secular Jew’s quest for Jewish renewal, according to Schweid, not all of these Jews share the same initial viewpoint. He diagrams two different starting points: one for the person who begins with few existing ties to the Jewish community and tradition, and the other for the individual who already maintains an active Jewish life but who affirms a “cultural” definition of Judaism. There is an existentialist flavor to much of Schweid’s discussion of the issue of Jewish return, particularly in the major essay in the book The Solitary Jew and His Judaism. He wrestles with situations of alienation, feelings of meaninglessness and lack of direction, contradictions and paradoxes in life, the difficulties of living with freedom and concretely

249

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

in time, as well as the need for decision and commitment. Schweid proposes a direction that, though remaining true to many of these proper existentialist sentiments, is truly revolutionary. He asserts that the response to the question,“Who am I?” is another question,“From where do I come?” He bases the duty to know the past upon the imperative to know the self.11 The individual’s life does not acquire authenticity and meaning through self-isolation, but through the life of commitment based on an understanding that people are essentially linked to one another. These others, further, are not mere dialogical partners in the present, but persons who have formed and continue to form one’s family, community, and people. Schweid contends that the desire to educate their children motivates many people to inaugurate a process of self-examination. One is led to understand that raising children entails the teaching of specific values, relationships, and obligations that transcend the self and the present time. Continuity between a parent and his or her child necessitates a continuity between oneself and one’s parents. As Schweid comments: It is simple. It is impossible to be a father in the full sense of the concept – one who gives birth to his son not only physically but also spiritually – without, being a son in the full sense and correct sense of the word – one who receives a heritage of the life of the spirit.12

The relationship to the family is the starting point as well as the paradigm for the ever-widening circle of people, values, and ways of life that provides the context for the individual’s identity. Schweid believes that even the most alienated Jew retains some

250

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

powerful impressions of his or her family and that placing oneself in the context of one’s family as well as exploring the nature of the family in Judaism constitutes a significant, but not overly difficult, first step. What uniquely informs the Jewish family is the teaching that relationships of love are also defined in terms of obligations that have been formulated from the Jewish tradition. The next stage is decisive. Schweid argues that the family is nourished by the values, patterns of thought and action, and history of a specific people. Yet, he acknowledges that this argument is not adequate to make a Jew desire to be part of the Jewish people. Choosing to be a member of the Jewish people is a destiny-laden decision about the essence of oneself as a person. It is a decision about one’s roots in the past and responsibilities in the present. Even in affirming one’s membership in the Jewish people, one is drawn to inquire into the distinctive life of that people. In the modern period some Jews have offered purely “national” definitions of Judaism, stating that to be a Jew is simply to belong to a people, like other peoples. Schweid sees this definition as restating and not escaping the trap of modern alienation. All peoples acquire direction and vitality from their history, culture, and sacred sources. They are formed by their culture, just as they also author that culture. Individual identity and creativity are nourished by the fullness of culture that a person appropriates. The path of return of the individual Jew ultimately points toward an encounter with the Jewish religion. For Schweid, the national and cultural elements of Jewish identity are inextricably bound to religion. There is no Jewish people without Torah, which has always been the abiding source of Jewish culture. The individual who chooses to be part of the Jewish nation and believes that

251

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

that choice must be expressed in distinctive ways of life that have developed over history eventually turns to the Torah to discover what it has to offer. The open encounter with Torah is also the last stage in the path of return of the Jewish person, whom Schweid calls the cultural Jew, who is actively involved in the life of the Jewish people and its heritage.13 The label “cultural” designates a Jewish identity that seeks to live in continuity with a variety of expressions of Jewish life from the past but rejects the religious bases of these expressions. Schweid understands the reasons for the historical coalescence of this secular Jewish identity, and he respects its strengths and accomplishments.The vitality of this definition is indisputable because the majority of Jews of the present generation who have a positive relationship to Judaism have it in virtue of the appeal of Judaism as a culture. Significantly, most of those individuals who worked for the establishment of the modern state of Israel were motivated and guided by this viewpoint. Schweid’s insistence that these Jews reexamine their relationship to Judaism rests on his argument that the cultural standpoint lacks a way of maintaining continuity with that past, giving a fullness to Jewish life in the present, or providing a platform for Jewish creativity. The cultural Jew has no criteria for selecting what aspects from the Jewish tradition to appropriate into his or her life. A person chooses something rather than something else just because he or she, in some sense, likes it.This process of selection from the past unavoidably leads to distortions.When past expressions of Jewish life are taken out of the environment of religious values, ways of life, and institutions that gave birth to and sustained them, the result is a false, cosmetic repetition. Finally, even the appropriation of such profound elements of the

252

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

past as the land of Israel, the Hebrew language, and the Sabbath and Jewish holy days has not resulted in an experience of the wholeness of Jewish life in the state of Israel or a confidence in the emergence of new, authentic Jewish creations in the future. Schweid proposes two ways that returning Jews of today can readdress the religious tradition and answer their longing for a full Jewish life. Minimally, he asks for a positive attitude toward religion as the expression of the highest values of Jewish culture. He also has dedicated much of his work to exploring the meaning of Torah, the mitzvoth, and the divine covenant, expanding the possibilities for authentic lives of faith (emunah). Schweid sees a positive attitude toward religion as supplementing and widening the secular Jew’s view of himself or herself, rather than as a repudiation of this view. Mature secular humanism is not blind to the human struggle with meaning or the notion that people have responsibilities to each other. An appreciation for religion can arise out of an openness toward religious experience and thought as expressions of this quintessential quest for meaning. It also develops out of the recognition that every person owes a debt to those who contributed to the cultural and historical traditions that give form to individual and collective life.14 The returning Jew has not established a new relationship to religion unless the stance of openness and appreciation is concretized through a decision to be obligated by at least some elements of Torah. At the outset, the obligation towards Torah can be met by appropriating its central themes: the rejection of idolatry, including its modern expressions, and the affirmation of one’s responsibility for oneself, the neighbor, the society, and the natural environment.

253

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

The Life of Faith Judaism remains inaccessible to many modern Jews when it is presented, as it often is, as a closed system of acts and doctrines. In this case Jewish belief is judged by the unhesitating ability to affirm that all of the Torah was received directly from God (torah min hashamayim) and that everything in it is to be taken as historical truth. Correspondingly, Jewish practice is seen as a fixed body of laws or mitzvoth that must be accepted totally and all at once. Schweid regards the insistence that Jewish faith demands the affirmation of torah min ha-shamayim as stemming from a form of fundamentalism.15 The insistence arose as a defensive response to the emerging historical and critical consciousness that marks the modern period. More important, this response rejects the possibility that there can be a bridge between the two cultures – secular and Jewish – that constitute the inescapable environment for the vast majority of Jews. In speaking of an alternative path that could bridge these cultures, Schweid has offered a phenomenology of Jewish belief, focusing on a dynamic understanding of Jewish faith, the mitzvoth, and even Judaism itself. Jewish faith is not an assent to doctrines. It is trust in someone whom the believer has encountered and who has given assurances or promises about the future. The Bible, which remains the basis of Jewish faith today, indicates that the someone who is encountered, that is, God, has the power to fulfill promises and can be trusted to abide by them. God is known by humans through the divine actions of creation, revelation, and redemption. God’s will is seen in the commandments, and when a person obeys them he or she feels God’s presence as love. The Bible, then, insists that human life is fulfilled through a relation to God, expressed in a life of response to this moral will.16

254

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

What, then, are the mitzvoth, which religious Jews live with and returning Jews seek to appropriate? The mitzvoth are a developing body of commandments.They are in the full sense divine commandments or directives. Schweid once defined a mitzvah as a “directive whose source is in a divine authority whose presence we are in at the moment we give our obedience as an act of free will.”17 In fulfilling a mitzvah the Jew is responding to the divine presence that lies behind the directive. If the individual finds that a particular commandment has no meaning in the context of his or her free answer to the divine address, that person is not obliged to act. What is important, in a broader vision, is that the individual seek to be open to the possibility of hearing each mitzvah and to reaching out to it.Thus, the returning Jew must be in a process, through study and action, of widening the body of those mitzvoth to which he or she can respond.18 The goal of that process is to achieve a life of Torah, where God’s call engages the Jew not just at special times, but for his or her whole life. Being prepared to reply to a divine directive requires more than just the individual’s intention. It is also important that those who teach and interpret the directive help make it accessible to those who hope to fulfill it. Schweid has often criticized the rabbis who have the duty to interpret Torah for failing to be responsible to those who seek to find their way back. He believes that the interpreters of Torah have not honestly sought to make it alive to the non-Orthodox majority, by listening to their quests, understanding their situation, and considering the consequences of decisions as they affect the whole people.19 The most developed statement about the nature of Judaism is found in the monograph on the universally acclaimed historian Gershom Scholem. This statement focuses on Scholem’s contention

255

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

that Judaism cannot be defined in terms of a single worldview, religious experience, or way of life. Schweid begins his reply with a portrait of the Bible as a revolutionary document that overturns the reigning mythic view of the universe and the stance of idolatry that corresponds to it. The Bible witnesses to the religious notion that God is a “supernatural personality ruling the forces of nature.”20 Although the mythic view makes the gods part of these forces and bound to them, the Bible affirms that there is a moral power who stands free from all mechanical causality. When the believer stands in true relation to this power, his or her life is infused with freedom and meaning. Schweid finds, however, that idolatry leads either to a false security issuing out of the belief in humans’ power to control and dominate or to an immobilizing despair that prevents one from seeing the future except as ruled by laws of necessity. In all times, Judaism retained at its core this biblical notion, along with a historic myth that “includes the stories of the creation, the patriarchs, the wanderings in the desert, the settlement of the Land, the construction of the Temple, the monarchy, the decline and the destruction.”21 Based on this myth, the rabbis developed a religion “centering on the manifest way of life governed by study of Torah and the fulfillment of its ordinances.”22 As the Jewish people experienced historical crises, they extended and developed their understanding of the relationship between God and His people. Even biblical religion was not naive or unreflexive. It knew of times when God’s presence and direction were missing. Its response was to ask that the people make fundamental changes in their hearts, that is, a religious turning or teshuvah. Later in history, the notion of the completion of God’s plan through a messianic future emerged.

256

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

Zionism and the Jewish State Today There is a powerful political dimension to Schweid’s philosophical work. Of course, the Jewish philosophical endeavor, which includes a concern with and responsibility for the concrete life of a people, necessarily contains this dimension. In the modern period, many Jewish philosophers either explicitly or implicitly argued that the condition of being dispersed throughout the world did not inhibit the vitality of Jewish existence. Eliezer Schweid, in contrast, constructs a philosophy around the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. The passionate commitment to the Zionist enterprise and to the present state of Israel is not so much a theme within Schweid’s life and work as it is both the point of departure and the spirit that motivates everything. For he believes that only through Zionism can individual Jews fulfill their responsibility to the people as a whole and the Jewish community solve the problems that beset it. In this view, Zionism encompasses all areas of national life: the political, economic, social, linguistic, and cultural. His formulation of the goals of Zionism testifies to an extraordinary vision: to bring a scattered people home; revive its national language as a vernacular and as a language of total creativity; lay societal and economic foundations, at the same time transform the Jewish collectivity’s occupational patterns; crystallize social and daily life forms; and create political frameworks.23

Two features of his thought that I have not noted earlier are diagnostic of the strength of this commitment and the resources for Jewish thought that he finds through it. Schweid does not hesitate to

257

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

argue in continuity with the confidence exhibited by Zionist thought before the last two decades, that there is no future for the Jewish people outside the land of Israel.24 Additionally, he can honestly address the meaning of the Holocaust for Jewish life without seeing the need for this terrifyingly destructive event to give positive content to Jewish identity or education. For him, choosing life, that is, choosing the fullness of Jewish life opening for those who live in Israel, is the most authentic response to the Holocaust.25 Schweid is heir to the cultural stream within the Zionist movement. For him, Zionism was not just a rebellion against “Judennot,” Herzl’s phrase for the persecution and oppression that the Jews were experiencing in Galut. Schweid has written that the Jew who comes to Judaism because of outside pressure, rather than being motivated by an inner necessity, will see Zionism as nothing more than a form of assimilation.26 It is rather “the problem of Judaism,” that is, the stagnation of Jewish communal life, upon which he focuses as a Zionist thinker. His goal has been to explore the conditions necessary to create a new Jewish culture that retains the essence of continuity with the past and finds a proper balance between traditional contents and what is positive in modern secular culture.27 Schweid has often been critical of the generation of the founders who failed to provide the means for creating and expressing the life of the soul and the spirit.28 Finally, Schweid’s work indicates a deep sensitivity to the early religious Zionists, who saw the movement as the only way to give new life to a religious tradition burning low and under siege in the changing conditions of Galut. Some of the most significant sources of Schweid’s thinking about the critical questions that beset the state of Israel are found in this extended series of critiques of major thinkers within the Zionist

258

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

movement. These critiques almost take the form of dialogues, in which Schweid probes past standpoints, unearthing both the failures that have led to current crises and the overlooked insights that might point in new directions. With the problem of the renewal of full Jewish communal life as his point of orientation, Schweid has offered incisive criticisms of the work of Ahad Ha-Am, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and Gershom Scholem. The difficulties that Schweid sees in the thought of the influential secular Zionist Ahad Ha-Am are used to diagnose the flaws in cultural Zionism as well as in the current standpoint of many secular Israelis.29 Ahad Ha-Am, who is usually recognized as the father of cultural Zionism, believed that the religious foundation of the Jewish community would eventually dissolve through its contact with the emerging secular environment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He also recognized that authentic Jewish life must be built on some elements from the religious life of the past, and he sought to glean from it such contents as the Sabbath, holidays, marriage laws, Hebrew language, and love of the land of Israel. Schweid has contested this effort to establish continuity with the past, finding it partial and ultimately manipulative. According to Schweid, only a sense of being obligated to the past, and not just choosing desirable features from it, can provide a foundation which is of one whole texture and also has the ability to generate new forms. Further, as we have seen, the sense of being obligated necessitates an open encounter with Judaism, Torah, and the mitzvoth. Schweid finds more substance in the writings of Hayim Bialik and A. D. Gordon,30 for they sought to approach the depth of religious life rather than just find a substitute for it. Bialik thought that the relevance of Judaism could be made alive through Aggadah, and he hinted at

259

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

bringing the fullness of national life to the Torah. Gordon is appreciated by Schweid for his attempt to establish a contemporary Halakhah, that is, a way to enable the community to take shape in Israel. Schweid finds some of the obstacles to a revived religious life in Israel encapsulated in the religious philosophy of the Chief Rabbi during the mandate period, Abraham Isaac Kook.31 Schweid firmly disputes the judgment of many modern Orthodox Jews in Israel that Kook’s ideas present a true way to bridge the religious-secular split in that nation. On one hand, Kook had a toleration and appreciation for the secular Zionists who were laying the foundations for the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. He saw secular Zionism as a necessary stage in the development of the people, one that had a role in the divine plan. On the other hand, according to Schweid, Kook’s Kabbalistic reinterpretation of secular Zionism does not contribute concrete solutions to actual problems in the here and now. It does not reach out to understand the point of view, experiences, and hopes of secular Jews but counsels a religious toleration that is to remain in force until wayward secular Jews renounce their errors. The thought of Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn is often contrasted with that of Rabbi Kook in Schweid’s corpus.32 The book Democracy and Halakhah explicitly lauds the insights of Hirschensohn as unique, fertile efforts seriously to address the modern experience of the Jewish people, including its spiritual and cultural renaissance in Israel.33 Hirschensohn sought to understand the historical process that led to secular Zionism, such as the Haskalah movement and the entry of Jews into Western political and cultural life. He struggled with such challenges as the emergence of the social sciences, the new historical consciousness, biblical criticism, and democracy. Through this struggle, Hirschensohn’s own understanding of Judaism and Torah were

260

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

changed, but the rabbi did not fear this development. He believed, as did Maimonides, that there could not be a contradiction between Torah and the positive achievements of the human spirit.34 There are four aspects of Schweid’s positive evaluation of Hirschensohn that are directed into the current religious-secular struggle in Israel. First, Hirschensohn regarded Torah as the dynamic, developing basis for the life of a nation. The interpreters of Torah have a duty to prevent a cleavage between it and the people by renewing Torah according to the conditions and needs of the Jewish people. Second, he examined not just the conclusions of precedent-setting Halakhic decisions of the past but asked about the religious-moral principle behind the decisions. In this way, he viewed Halakhah as a positive moral and religious expression that sought to address modernity, rather than as a body of prohibitions warding off the new.35 A conception of Halakhah in harmony with the modern world is the basis for Schweid’s innovative call to regard all those realms of Jewish life in Israel in which a national-cultural foundation is being built as opportunities for expanding the scope of the mitzvoth as divine directives.36 Third, though many religious Israelis insist that democracy is antithetical to Torah and a Jewish state, Hirschensohn discussed the spirit common to both. He viewed the covenantal basis for Torah as the free choice of the people, and he believed that only through the uncoerced decisions of Jews today would Torah once again become the foundation for all.37 Fourth, Schweid is extremely sympathetic to Hirschensohn’s hope for a sincere debate, in fact, a “battle of peace,” between religious and secular Jews to decide the nature of the Jewish state. Hirschensohn trusted that this battle would force religious Jews to explicate the moral relevance of Torah, while respecting

261

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

and replying to their opposite partners. Secular Jews would come to realize that the Torah expressed a set of options to the spiritual, cultural, and even political crises that the Jewish settlement in Palestine faced.38 Schweid has often expressed his desire for such a dialogue replacing the climate of mutual hostility, self-righteousness, and political manipulations that fashions the present debate.39 He does not wish for or foresee a full agreement between the two sides, but he thinks that more dialogue might stimulate a consensus about self-definition and ways of life. In analyzing some crucial postulates that underlie the prolific investigations of Jewish mysticism by Gershom Scholem, Schweid is brought to formulate perhaps his most important philosophical work. The contest between Schweid and Scholem is not about some arcane matter; it concerns the possibility of Jewish religious renewal in our time. Integral to this question of renewal are such fundamental issues as the nature of Judaism, the character of its continuity over history, the essence of the crisis that modernity poses, and the direction that an authentic reaction must take. In Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G. Scholem, Schweid restates, refines, and clarifies major themes from his earlier corpus. As we have seen, Scholem contended that there was no abiding essence to Judaism, expressed as a worldview, religious experience, or way of life. Schweid rightly noted that this view allowed Scholem, along with the most revolutionary side of Zionist ideology, to affirm that there is no limit to what may stand as a legitimate part of Jewish creativity.40 Schweid acknowledged and prized the varieties of Jewish life from the biblical period to our own, but he still insisted that there is a core to that multiplicity. Explicitly addressing the issues of essence and continuity, he wrote:

262

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

The scholar who ponders the secret of the Jewish religion’s continuity and singularity…will find it in the historical myth of the Bible and the early rabbinic sages, and in the religious experience that comes to expression in the way of life based on that historical myth, namely, the life of Torah and divine ordinances. This is the thread of continuity that runs from the Bible and prophecy to the enterprise of early rabbinic sages, from the works of early rabbinic sages to the creations of the medieval sages, from the creations of these sages to the products of the Jewish religion’s sages and thinkers in the modern age.41

The core of this excitingly bold statement is the contention that the “life of Torah and divine ordinances,” that is, the life of Halakhah, was and remains essential to the continuity of Jewish life in the past and present. Of course, this is one of the unifying themes of Schweid’s entire undertaking. Equally as challenging to Schweid are Scholem’s statements that dispute the legitimacy and efficacy of Jewish philosophy and theology as a whole; and here, again, many contemporary religious and secular Israelis concur with Scholem. Scholem regarded medieval and modern Jewish mystical movements as the only authentic responses to changes in the intellectual, social, and political environment occurring during these periods. In opposition, Schweid believed that mysticism ignored these changes, rather than seriously struggling with them. It was through Jewish philosophy and theology that Jews came to an understanding of the developing nature of their new environments and formulated systems that sought to bridge the old and new. Although

263

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

he recognizes that no thinker or system of thought can, on its own, create a viable foundation for a community, Schweid sees the role of Jewish thought in this quest as irreplaceable. He argues: From the medieval period up to the present day, the Jewish people has been mostly located within the realm of a western culture which is based on scientific thinking and the accumulation of scientific knowledge. The people sought to participate in the culture of its environment, to exist in this environment and to make its contribution, while also preserving its individuality and uniqueness…We can state categorically that from the tenth century, it became apparent to Jewish thinkers that philosophy was vitally necessary for the continuity of Jewish culture’s integral development – insofar as Judaism did not relinquish its aspiration to remain the comprehensive culture of a people.42

In essence, both Scholem and Schweid realized that the religious structure of Jewish communal life was shattered in the modern period. Scholem believed that only through a miraculous reemergence of Jewish mysticism could a religious foundation for the Jewish community be reconstructed. He ruled out any other possibility, through his paradoxical insistence that authentic Jewish religious life must be founded on a fundamentalist belief in torah min ha-shamayim, coupled with his view that all such religious expressions are mere fossils from the past. Schweid recognized that these views were shared by many secular Israelis, who ridicule Jewish orthodoxy as anachronistic, but also deny the legitimacy of any “modern”

264

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

Jewish religious movements. He took issue with the view that only a fundamentalist stance toward Torah was authentically Jewish and explored paths that could lead toward contemporary individual and communal religious renewal. Although Franz Rosenzweig was a non-Zionist, he is for Schweid an outstanding representative of those who fulfilled the tasks of modern Jewish philosophy.43 Rosenzweig attempted to translate the religious myth, categories, and experience of Judaism for Jews living in the twentieth century. Like Schweid, he focused on the need for religious renewal because he saw religion as the core of the identity of the individual and the culture of a people. Further, both developed a positive and expansive view of Halakhah as God’s call to integrate increasing dimensions into the life of the covenant. Still, Schweid’s appreciation for Rosenzweig’s efforts is mitigated by his judgment that Rosenzweig was only able to present a remedy for the individual’s alienation, not a basis for a community, and that he removed the Jewish people from the arena of human history. Schweid’s critique of Ahad Ha-Am, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and Gershom Scholem indicates one method that he used to address issues now current in Israeli life. He also wrote a great number of pointed essays for this purpose. In his response to the changing life of this community, one particular development in his thought comes to light.Whereas in the decades of the 1960s and 1970s Schweid parried with the ideology of the dominant secular group, in the last decade he has increasingly been attentive to elements within the often selfrighteous religious camp. Schweid sustains both poles of his critique and vision by maintaining that each side has need of the other. He has chronicled the obvious move toward extremism in many religious communities within Israel. Growing numbers of religious

265

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

Jews have isolated themselves from the nonreligious, questioned the validity of the modern democratic state, and sought to force compliance with their own needs and views, all by appealing to religious principles. Schweid has carefully but very firmly pointed out that religious Jews must accept joint responsibility as citizens of the state, that earlier religious authorities did not regard the democratic state as a threat to Judaism or the Halakhic life, and that nonreligious Jews also have consciences and principles that must be respected.44 Repeatedly Schweid has argued that a “battle of peace,” of debate and dialogue, is necessary because neither secular nor religious Jews can live in the Jewish state without the other party.45 Secular Israelis require a relationship to Judaism and to religious Jews to strengthen their tie to the Hebrew language, to their sacred sources – especially the Bible, to the historical and national symbols that unify the people, and finally, to help legitimate their right to the land of Israel. Religious Israelis must be reminded that in the last two hundred years secular Jews have been the most creative and now provide, through the state, the conditions that allow religious communities to survive and flourish. Schweid finds himself forced to state the obvious, that Jews cannot have a modern state of their own without secular knowledge and technology. Schweid regards it as a misconception to propose that there are actually two monolithic camps in Israel.Within Israel there is a striking and healthy multiplicity of conceptions of the proper character of the Jewish state. He has often expressed displeasure over the course of events in the early history of the state, when the variety of small voluntary communities and associations of the Yishuv period was replaced by a government policy that transferred the task of building up the land to state agencies.The renewal of Jewish communal life, on the

266

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

contrary, should be accomplished through the development of similar communities, according to Schweid. The state must thus encourage: every Jewish community to interpret, each in its own way and according to its perceptions, the Jewish meaning of its way of life and to express this interpretation in intellectual, literary, artistic creativity, and even in life-styles.46

Eliezer Schweid’s quest to make earlier ways of life and patterns of thought accessible to his contemporaries aligns him with some of the endeavors of such modern Jewish philosophers as Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber,Abraham Heschel, and Emil Fackenheim. Like them, Schweid recognized that there could not be a mere repetition of the past and that a reactionary or fundamentalist position toward Torah was a totally inadequate response to modernity. The alternative paths of Cohen, Rosenzweig, Buber, Heschel, and Fackenheim have elements in common with that phenomenology of Jewish belief, description of Torah in terms of covenant and historical myth, and substantial but fluid sense of Halakhah that I have detailed in Schweid’s work. Schweid excels at this existentialist endeavor to make the past accessible to Jews of his time. It is the only way that more than just a few of those born outside of an insulated religious community can reestablish contact with their religious tradition. Rosenzweig and Schweid, in particular, have given individuals the confidence that the will to return can be translated into a definite path of action. They did this by indicating that a person does not have to choose between a full life in the modern world and a life of Torah. First, they demonstrated that the Jewish experience of faith, that is, of listening

267

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

to and freely answering God’s address, transcends all historical periods. Second, they portrayed Halakhah not as a finished body of law, but as a developing realm of concrete responses to the divine call. Schweid has characterized the central issue of nineteenthand twentieth-century Jewish thought as “the belief in Torah as an authority dictating a community’s way-of-life.”47 Although this statement is generally valid, it underscores the features that distinguish his work from the other Jewish thinkers named above. No other Jewish philosopher in the modern period has directed his or her work into the concrete present life of Jewish communities in the manner of Schweid. Even the masterful educational writings of Rosenzweig do not match the extensive and innovative insights of Schweid. Nor have any of these thinkers wrestled as seriously with the issue of helping a community find a consensus concerning fundamental Jewish patterns of life. The analyses and insights of Schweid stand as contributions not only to modern Jewish philosophy, but to modern religious thought as a whole. Modern religious thinkers, that is, Christian and postChristian philosophers and theologians, have customarily ignored Jewish philosophy, yet there are many areas of Schweid’s work that could prove valuable to them. Among these are his investigations into the nature of individual identity, the dynamics of religious belief, the relationship between religion and secular culture, and the role of the calendar in community life. It is difficult to assess the impact of Schweid’s writings, although it is clear that very few religious leaders in Israel have seriously read him and that the impasse between religious and secular Jews only seems to be hardening over time. These facts do not indicate any fundamental flaw in his work. A philosopher cannot be faulted

268

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

for not solving a society’s problems, problems that stem from deep economic, political, and social processes. But it is legitimate to ask whether Schweid has fully understood the price of having a Jewish state. The communal polarization and politicization might be an inescapable consequence of a modern nation-state.The development of a central bureaucracy, defense establishment, and the like cannot be overlooked in their affect on Schweid’s hopes for the creation of small pluralistic communities that are responsible, among other things, for their own educational institutions. He looks at the prestate period when such communities existed as models for a possible future.Yet is this a real possibility? Only the future can reveal the full answer to this question. But it is indisputable today that nothing is more essential to the future Jewish character of the state of Israel than the religious dialogue and experimentation that Schweid has called for, and that no Jewish philosopher has done more to pave the way for these than he has. There is no more compelling witness to the creative emergence of contemporary Jewish philosophy in Israel than the writings of Eliezer Schweid. Decades earlier, Julius Guttmann concluded his classic work Philosophies of Judaism with lines of sadness: Jewish philosophy, which has been renewed in the last decades of the nineteenth century, has now reached its nadir. If it once more arises to continue its work, it will develop under entirely new conditions.48

It now appears that the hope that underlies these lines for a new stage in the Jewish philosophical endeavor was not futile.

269

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

Notes Eliezer Schweid, Israel’s Faith and Culture (Jerusalem: S. Zak, 1976)

1

[Hebrew], 9; and “The Thought of Eliezer Schweid: A Symposium,” Immanuel 9 (Winter 1979): 92-93. Eliezer Schweid, The Solitary Jew and His Judaism (Tel Aviv: Am Oved,

2

1974) [Hebrew]. Nahum Glatzer, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought (New

3

York: Schocken Books, 1970), 135. Eliezer Schweid, A History of Jewish Thought in Modern Times

4

(Jerusalem: Keter, 1977) [Hebrew]. Eliezer Schweid, Between Orthodoxy and Religious Humanism

5

(Jerusalem:Van Leer Institute, 1977) [Hebrew]. Eliezer Schweid, The Land of Israel: National Home or Land of

6

Destiny (Rutherford [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985). Ibid., 10.

7

Eliezer Schweid, The Cycle of Appointed Times: The Meaning of Jewish

8

Holidays (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1984) [Hebrew]. Eliezer Schweid, Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G.

9

Scholem:A Critical Analysis (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1983) [Hebrew]. Quotations from the English translation by David Weiner (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) will be indicated by page numbers in parentheses. Schweid, “The Thought of Eliezer Schweid,” 94.

10

Eliezer Schweid, Israel at the Crossroads (Philadelphia: Jewish

11

Publication Society, 1973), 77. Schweid, The Solitary Jew and His Judaism, 17.

12

Schweid’s most detailed analyses of the situation of the cultural Jew

13

are found in Israel’s Faith and Culture, 152-78; and Eliezer Schweid, Judaism

270

Eliezer Schweid: The First Israeli Philosopher

and Secular Culture (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad,1981) [Hebrew], 221-48. Schweid, Judaism and Secular Culture, 228-29.

14

Schweid, History of Jewish Thought, 121.

15

See the essay “What Is Faith?” in Israel’s Faith and Culture, 11-67, and

16

Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G. Scholem, 29-30. Schweid, Israel at the Crossroads, 86.

17

Ibid., 86-99.

18

Eliezer Schweid, Between Judaism and Zionism: Essays (Jerusalem:

19

Histradrut, 1984) [Hebrew], 95, and Israel at the Crossroads, 98-99. Schweid, Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G. Scholem, 29.

20

Ibid., 47 (94).

21

Ibid.

22

Eliezer Schweid, “Elements of Zionist Ideology and Practice,” in

23

Moshe Davis, ed., Zionism in Transition (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 239. Schweid, Between Judaism and Zionism, 256.

24

A good example of Schweid’s treatment is ‘‘‘Choose Life: The

25

Holocaust in the National Conscience,” Between Judaism and Zionism, 12137. Schweid, Judaism and Secular Culture, 159.

26

Ibid., 22.

27

Ibid., 222; Schweid, Israel’s Faith and Culture, 185.

28

Schweid, Israel at the Crossroads, 69-83; Judaism and Secular Culture,

29

32-41. Schweid, Judaism and Secular Culture, 60-66, 157-81.

30

Schweid, Between Orthodoxy and Religious Humanism, 31-33; Eliezer

31

Schweid, Democracy and Halakhah: A Study in the Thought of Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1978) [Hebrew], 159-70;

271

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s i n the L a te 2 0 th C e n tu r y

Judaism and Secular Culture, 110-42. Schweid, Between Orthodoxy and Religious Humanism, 43-46;

32

Democracy and Halakhah, 159-70. Schweid, Democracy and Halakhah, 1-12.

33

Ibid., 36.

34

Ibid., 102-3.

35

Schweid, Israel’s Faith and Culture, 176.

36

Schweid, Democracy and Halakhah, 59-89.

37

Ibid., 168-69.

38

Ibid., 169-70, and Between Judaism and Zionism, 105.

39

Schweid, Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G. Scholem, 37.

40

Ibid., 68 (132).

41

Ibid., 66 (129-30).

42

Ibid., 82-85. There is a discussion of Schweid’s treatments of

43

Rosenzweig in Michael Oppenheim, “The Relevance of Rosenzweig in the Eyes of His Israeli Critics,” Modern Judaism 7 (May 1987): 193-206. Schweid, Between Judaism and Zionism, 85-104; Mysticism and Judaism

44

According to Gershom G. Scholem, 73. Schweid, Democracy and Halakhah, 168-70; Judaism and Secular

45

Culture, 240-41. Schweid, “Elements of Zionist Ideology,” 248-49; see also Judaism

46

and Secular Culture, 246-47. Schweid, Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G. Scholem, 84

47

(159). Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (Garden City [N.Y.]: Anchor

48

Books, 1966), 450-51.

272

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

XII

Can We Still Stay With Him?:Two Jewish Theologians Confront the Holocaust (Emil Fackenheim and Arthur Cohen)

The God of meaning is either not the God of ancient meaning (in this sense only is he dead) or he must be a newly understood God because, clearly, he and we deal in this century with a meaningless enormity that decisively concludes that age of past illusion where meaning was judgment and hope.

(Arthur Cohen)1

The most recent books by Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought,2 and Arthur Cohen, The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust, are theological in the fullest sense. More startling even than the comprehensive scope of these works is their effort to elicit from the experience of the Holocaust an authentic set of images and concepts of God’s relationship to creation, to humanity and to the Jewish people. Despite their differences, they share a belief that the Holocaust challenges everything we know or feel we know about our world and especially about God’s relationship to it. Fackenheim and Cohen see the Jewish theologian’s task as the post-Holocaust reformulation of the community’s accrued experiences of, and reflections upon, its relationship to God. The demand neither to ignore the horror of that event nor to despair

273

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

of the possibility of living beyond it constitutes the major challenge of that task. Their suggestions are valuable and necessary, for there is a consensus within the Jewish community that neither denial nor despair are legitimate responses. Further, their struggles to find some fragmentary meaning and direction demonstrate that, despite the skepticism of the community, Jewish theology is not a peripheral luxury, the whimsical plaything of a few marginal intellectuals. However there are major problems with their suggestions. Fackenheim provides a midrash, that is, an interpretation or story (and Jewish theology is classically midrash), but it is one-sided and says too much. Cohen constructs a new set of images and metaphors, but these fail to be the conduits of communication and liturgical sharing he seeks for the community. While many may find it blasphemous, I shall argue against Fackenheim and Cohen that some of the old ways of portraying God’s relationship to history still remain viable and powerful. The Holocaust as Rupture Despite the disparity between the concluding positions of To Mend the World and The Tremendum there is much that binds these works together.3 They share views about the place of the Holocaust in history, the threat of this cumulative event to Western religious and especially Jewish self-conceptions, and the resources within the Jewish tradition and modern Jewish thought that can be employed to respond to this threat. The Holocaust marks a watershed in the thought of both writers. The major transformation in Emil Fackenheim’s philosophical and theological thinking occurred as he began to recognize the extent of the challenge of the Holocaust to the traditional Jewish belief

274

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

in God’s providence over history. His awareness crystallized in 1966 or 1967, but even before then, his writings exhibited an important shift. His earliest position mirrored those of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber, who insisted on the reality of God’s revelations in the past and the continuing dialogue with the individual in the present. Fackenheim found lacunae in their positions and in 1957 began to formulate a theological position more sensitive to the community’s life in history. To Mend the World must be understood as the most recent theological product of an extensive and profound wrestling with the place of history in the Jewish theological endeavor.4 The Tremendum also reflects a transformation, a “reversal”5 within Cohen’s theological writings. However, in this case it is the first product of the encounter with the Holocaust. The most sustained presentation of his earlier position, in The Natural and the Supernatural Jew,6 is extremely close both to Fackenheim’s first point of departure and, again, to the dialogical views of Rosenzweig and Buber. In that work Cohen argued against the legitimacy of any purely natural view of the Jewish vocation in history, of any position that denied the power of God’s covenant with the Jewish people to shape the conceptions of their past, present and future.7 In The Tremendum, on the contrary, Cohen acknowledges that it may be impossible to affirm the supernatural dimension of this vocation after the Holocaust. The transformations in their thinking reflect a common assessment of the place of the Holocaust in Jewish history. For both, the Holocaust is a radical break with all of that history. It is rupture, “caesura,” for the magnitude of the horror, suffering and killing challenges the Jews’ conceptions of the meaningfulness of their history as no other event has. The Holocaust shatters earlier

275

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

Jewish affirmations about their covenant with God and about God’s presence in history as one who reveals Himself or Herself, judges and redeems. Cohen writes, for example, that, as caesura, the Holocaust “is an elaboration of the most terrible of Jewish fears – that the eternal people is not eternal, that the chosen people is rejected, that the Jewish people is mortal.”8 Moreover, for both thinkers the Holocaust threat is understood even more broadly, for it undermines humanity’s perceptions of itself. As abyss, it reveals unimagined negative possibilities in and of human existence, not only of the meaninglessness of human life, but of the total horror of human actions. It attacks if not destroys the prerequisite for any and all social life, the feeling or sense that humans can be trusted not to pursue evil for its own sake. As Fackenheim writes: But the Holocaust calls into question not this or that way of being human, but all ways. It ruptures civilizations, cultures, religions, not within this or that social or historical context, but within all possible contexts.9

The parallels between these two works extend beyond the realm of rupture and threat to the types of resources that Fackenheim and Cohen believe are available in the Jewish matrix of past symbols, metaphors and concepts about God, humanity and history. They resort, each for the first time in his work, to the symbols of Lurianic Kabbalah to express their insights. Cohen writes: The [Kabbalistic] tradition cannot deal with the Tremendum [the Holocaust] as it is presently understood,

276

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

but the cosmogonic imagination of the Kabbalah does define a trope that indeed addresses it and can compass its oppository immensity.10

In this, they repeat a pattern of encounter and response experienced decades earlier by Richard Rubenstein.11 Finally, the world of Franz Rosenzweig, particularly The Star of Redemption,12 stands as dialogical partner to both thinkers, and is partially rejected and partially revisioned. For both, to use Cohen’s metaphor, Rosenzweig’s writings contain a second trope that cannot remain as it was first conceived, but which allows us to address and compass. However suggestive, these areas of basic agreement do not negate the severe differences in substance and style between To Mend the World and The Tremendum. Let us critically explore the core theological argument of each. To Mend the World Fackenheim’s To Mend the World is a long and complex book and obviously is meant to continue his earlier explorations and arguments. The first half is a delicate and insightful investigation of the course of modern religious thought from Spinoza and Hegel through Rosenzweig and Heidegger. It concludes that despite the criticisms of Spinoza, Hegel and Heidegger, God’s revelation to humanity – and God is here understood as distinct from humanity, whether the human is conceived as individual, community or collectivity – is the shibboleth of modern religious thought and the only authentic foundation for modern Jewish life. The second half of the work adds a passionate new dimension to Fackenheim’s reflections on the theological implications of the Holocaust. The tie between the two

277

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

halves is the assertion that the Holocaust undermines all metaphysical thought, that is, all philosophical and religious thinking.The dramatic change in tone and style that marks the second half of the work suggests the tenuousness of the link between the two. Our interest lies in the way Fackenheim adds to his earlier work on the topic of God and the Holocaust. As before, Fackenheim construes the implications of the Holocaust in the form of a conditional statement. In God’s Presence in History the statement was “for the God of Israel cannot be God of either past or future unless He is still God of the present.”13 Fackenheim’s wellknown contention that a “commandingVoice of Auschwitz”14 has been heard by the Jewish community fulfilled the requisite condition for maintaining the concept of the God of history. In his view, so long as Jews continued to live as Jews, they were answering His voice. At least God’s fragmentary “commanding” presence could thus be affirmed. Fackenheim finds that in giving his earlier conclusion he had “lapsed into unconscious glibness.”15 Led by a heightened sense of the nature of the Holocaust’s threat, he insists that the belief in God’s providence in history cannot be maintained if we are left with no more than a commanding presence. Nothing less than some sense of a divine saving presence is needed and Fackenheim finds this by exploring the acts of resistance of many Jews and non-Jews to the “Nazi logic of destruction.”16 Fackenheim includes a wide range of actions within the category of resistance, from prayer, to giving birth to children, to armed opposition to the Nazis. All of those who acted in these ways sanctified the value of human life by doing battle with the Nazi goal of uprooting the dignity of life. Further, these acts are interpreted by Fackenheim as evidence of a divine saving presence during the

278

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

Holocaust. The Kabbalistic term tikkun, which means “mending,” provides the bridge between the human acts of resistance and the interpretation of them as manifestations of God’s presence. He writes that “we on our part must think of all such acts of kiddush ha-hayyim [sanctification of human life] as a Tikkun.”17 Just as the original, Kabbalistic sense of tikkun included the view that God’s power lay behind human actions, we must recognize that God’s saving power was at least one source of the unimaginable, seemingly impossible strength that lay behind these acts of resistance. Fackenheim holds that the consequences of God’s partial saving presence during the Holocaust continue to affect all of us. First, because there was a partial mending during the Holocaust, the mending or healing of the quality and substance of human life can still be experienced today. Second, we live under the obligation not to forget those who resisted and to continue their work of sanctifying life. A Tikkun, here and now, is mandatory for a Tikkun, then and there, was actual. It is true that because a Tikkun of that rupture is impossible we cannot live, after the Holocaust, as men and women have lived before. However, if the impossible Tikkun were not also necessary, and hence possible, we could not live at all.18

Thus, Fackenheim affirms a fragmentary saving or redemptive presence as both necessary and real. Although the tikkun has affected philosophy and Christianity, as a Jewish theologian Fackenheim is primarily concerned with the condition of the Jewish community. The Holocaust seemed to rupture the relations between Jew and non-Jew and between the modern Jew and the Jewish tradition, and

279

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

it sapped the strength of Jews to authentically continue to live as Jews.Yet, in examining the community today, Fackenheim finds two aspects of Jewish life that are evidence of a partial mending. One is the obvious, but still astonishing, return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, and the other is the more hidden fact that Jews continue to find meaning in the prayer-filled day of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).19 The Tremendum The Tremendum is a short, difficult book composed of four essays. The prose is heavy, curt and sometimes metaphorical. One reviewer has described this work as basically unintelligible.20 It is a challenging book, but there are sufficient rewards for tackling it. “The tremendum” is the designation that Cohen uses for the Holocaust.The term labels that event as breaking into history through an eruption from below, from the abyss, not through a revelation from above. Cohen writes: I call the death camps the tremendum, for it is the monument of a meaningless inversion of life to an orgiastic celebration of death, to a psychosexual and pathological degeneracy unparalleled and unfathomable to any person bonded to life.21 Since Cohen finds that an honest and sincere examination of the tremendum demonstrates that the traditional notion of a “beneficent and providential God”22 is incompatible with this catastrophe, he turns to the task of fashioning notions and symbols to correspond to a new understanding of divine reality.There are two Western traditions that,

280

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

combined and revisioned, provide the requisite symbols, myths and concepts to speak of God and God’s relation to creation and history after the Holocaust. The first is the “cosmogonic imagination of the Kabbalah.”23 Here creation is not the positive act of God calling everything into being, but a complex process that starts within God Himself (as Jews usually speak of God) and includes the notion that non-being, “the contradiction of being,”24 necessarily inheres in God and all that emanates out of Him. The second tradition, both “heartily Christian in its auspices, but gnostic-kabbalistic in its origins,”25 has a long history and persists in the modern period in the thought of Schelling and Rosenzweig. For this tradition the operative metaphor is God’s “speech” while the focus is on the nature of God’s being, both prior to and in relationship to creation. There is within God two poles: the one is necessary and self-contained, and the other is spontaneous and overflowing. Creation reflects both God’s spontaneous giving of Himself or Herself and the non-being, the abyss, that inheres within the divine reality. Cohen suggests that Schelling’s and Rosenzweig’s use of the metaphor of language to portray the meaning of creation provides another picture of this. They begin by holding that there is an analogue between divine and human nature. For example, the boundless possibility within humanity is an analogue to the plenitude within God. In both there is freedom and also limitation. Language is the result of the interaction of these two sides of humanity and God. It is both full of possibilities and marked by limits and rules. When people give way to complete freedom, language is overcome and sheer willfulness and destruction ensue. When people create through the dialectic of freedom and reason, they draw upon or respond to the

281

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

possibilities for good that always stand within the continuing speech, or structure, of God’s creation. Cohen concludes his discussion of this act of revisioning by writing: If we can begin to see God less as the interferer whose insertion is welcome (when it accords with our needs) and more as the immensity whose reality is our prefiguration, whose speech and silence are metaphors for our language and distortion, whose plenitude and unfolding are the hope of our futurity, we shall have won a sense of God whom we may love and honor, but whom we no longer fear and from whom we no longer demand.26

Finally, Cohen explores the other two central elements of traditional Jewish self-understanding: Torah and Israel. First, the tremendum contests and overthrows the rabbinic view that at a particular point in history, God revealed Torah in the specific form of law and teaching.The theistic view of God that lies behind this portrait of the revealing God is no longer viable. The Jewish people possess Torah, but Torah is not a set body of laws. It is divine revelation in the sense that it instructs by providing various correlations between ways of grappling with the nature of the divine and grappling with the nature and destiny of the Jewish people. It offers a number of models for thought and action, models that are uncovered and confirmed in Jewish theology and in Jewish praxis. The tremendum has banished that traditional view, powerfully reaffirmed by Rosenzweig, that the people of Israel is ahistorical, that it stands either beyond or to the side of history. This view is also deeply challenged by the establishment of the modern state of Israel.

282

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

Today it is clear that the Jewish people stand within history. Cohen holds that, as symbol, the belief in the eternity of the Jewish people is still important. The meaning of that belief cannot be completely detailed today, but it does point to a people who share and struggle for meaning with a particular set of symbols and notions. God as Person We have examined the positions that Fackenheim and Cohen share about the place of the Holocaust within Jewish history, and about the nature of its challenges to the Jewish community, to the way that the monotheistic communities speak of God and, ultimately, to all human self-understanding. These areas of agreement suggest that the major differences in their final positions might hide a common thread. Both authors insist that the Holocaust shatters the viability, flexibility – or better, the elasticity, that is, the extensive range of meanings – of the metaphor of the providential God. We are asked to renounce the wide range of ways that religious people in earlier times explored the meanings of the metaphor of the providential God when they faced particular terrifying historical events. Gone are the possibilities of speaking of the unfathomableness of God’s ways, or of God’s silence, or of waiting for future events to provide a deeper perspective. Instead of utilizing elements of these understandings, Fackenheim and Cohen require us to test the power of a very limited and literalistic sense – a reified sense – of this metaphor to give us insight into the Holocaust and to give us hope to look beyond it. After setting up the test to determine whether God was present at the Holocaust, Fackenheim decides that God was there and salvages the metaphor of the providential God, while Cohen claims that God was absent and boldly replaces it.What are the strengths and

283

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

weaknesses of their new theological formulations? Through the notion of a tikkun in the acts of those who lived during the Holocaust and in the lives of us who follow, Fackenheim seeks to account for the feelings of amazement and obligation that the examples of the resisters elicit in us. Much of the appeal of his position lies in its powerful description of the resisters. He intimates that the source of their dignity and courage must be human, or else the reality of their acts and their challenges is transformed into illusion. The source of their courage must also be more than human. We cannot conceive, when looking into ourselves – which is the way that we judge what one means when one is speaking of human resources – that we would have had the powers of acting in the same way. The term tikkun points to this more than human, to a divine source. It also brings us to recognize our inner need not only to stand in amazement of the human and the divine, but to testify to both dimensions through our acts in the present. Fackenheim’s description is very compelling. It provides insight into our own feelings and it reminds us of things that we ought not to forget.Yet, as compelling as it is, it is partial, that is, both more than we can say and not enough. It is more, because in seriously examining the Holocaust we do not have the power to say that God was there. It is not enough, because we also sometimes feel driven to say that God was absent. If Fackenheim were to suggest that what he is offering is a midrash/story and if he coupled it with another midrash/story about God’s being absent, then we would feel that a fundamental truth had been expressed. While Fackenheim recognizes that theology is a form of midrash, it is not in this spirit that he offers his insights. He gives his work the subtitle, “Foundations of Future Jewish Thought.” Additionally, as we just said, even if he were offering a story, the story

284

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

would be authentic to our deepest emotions and reflections only if it were accompanied by, and never separated from, an opposing story that spoke of God’s absence. Further, his “foundations” do not provide us with a reliable orientation to our past or our future. How is one to live with the test that he sets up – if God was not present at that time, he never was present, nor will he be – and with the resulting reified metaphor of the providential God? Must we conclude that past Jewish historical experiences of destruction were not real tests, or that God met them? Will we need to set up constant tests from out of our present and future experience? In such cases, will our belief that God was present during the period of the Holocaust force us to say that God has already passed whatever tests the future holds? Or, alternatively, if we find that God fails a future test, are we then forced to conclude that, after all, God was not present then? It is obvious that we cannot live with this reified metaphor. Fackenheim does not salvage but rather destroys for us the meaning and power of the notion that God acts or is present in history. In Cohen’s work there is a powerful attempt to clear away the debris left over from the confrontation between the metaphor of the providential God and the Holocaust.There is a relentless attack upon what he sees as misguided and vain theological efforts somehow to revivify the failing metaphor, especially through an allusion to divine silence. Cohen insists that if divine interference and redemption are recognized as God’s speaking, then God’s silence indicates either inaction and indifference, or “reproof and punishment.”27 Thus the twin metaphors of speech and silence have been rendered meaningless, unless one is prepared to suggest that either through inaction or as reproof there was “divine acquiescence in the work of

285

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

murder and destruction.”28 The constructive side of this work, however, is less illuminating. The new blending of Kabbalah and Johannine Gospel might reflect our experience of the tremendum, but it does not have power to direct our lives. Cohen provides us with a highly complex set of poems, but there is no clear metaphor with which to live. What else can one say about such a statement as the following? Or otherwise affirmed, what creation is for God is revelation for man, the silence of God becoming the speech of man. When God is denied, nothing can be named; when God is speculated, God remains the Something sought whose name is unknown; when God is affirmed the name of God is given; and when life is lived in community with God, God’s name is spoken as continuous presentness, the ongoing koh ‘amar (“Thus says the Lord”) of creation answered by the response of revelation, hinneni (“Here I am”).29

These lines are very suggestive and they are not nonsense.Yet they do not fulfill the conditions of theological method and language that Cohen himself describes. For him, the theological endeavor utilizes terms, characteristics and judgments in order to form a language that both opens individuals to each other and forges a “community of shared gesture, symbol, expression, and ratiocination.”30 Yet Cohen’s response to the Holocaust does not lead us from our experience to a language and a set of symbols that can be shared by individuals and that give orientation to community. While it really is too much to expect this theologian, or any one theologian, to provide a new

286

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

language that opens and gives foundation, the present book claims to make some movement in that direction. Just as the constituent myths that he utilizes arose out of two elites, the path that is built is one on which only a few lonely, sensitive persons can climb.The cosmogonic tradition of Kabbalah and the Johannine tradition of God’s speech offer insightful midrashim, but fail completely to engender trust, to elicit passion or to bring individuals together. Perhaps trust, passion and sharing are lost forever, but if that is the case then theology is also barren. The strengths and weaknesses of these works by Fackenheim and Cohen are very instructive. These authors are able to forcefully explore the challenges that the Holocaust presents to the metaphor of the providential God, but they fail to provide constructive ways of meeting these challenges.They seek to elicit some positive theological content from the negativity of the Holocaust; or, in Cohen’s words, to learn “something new about our relation to God and God’s relation to creation” from the Holocaust.31 Yet in neither case are we given viable direction beyond the abyss. I believe that these failures are not due to some accidental flaws in their perceptions or their arguments. Rather, while we are obligated to confront the threat that the Holocaust surely poses to the notion of the providential God, there is no positive truth within this collective event of cruelties and murder that can provide a new basis for our theological efforts. In light of this judgment, it is appropriate to turn again to the old metaphor of the providential God and to discuss first the way it does direct in most times and then to decide whether it indeed has lost its power in our very special post-Holocaust time. The metaphor of the providential God alludes to a number of notions about God. It suggests that there is an existing power

287

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

that is at the foundation of the universe and is best conceived of as person. The monotheistic traditions describe Him, or sometimes Her, as creator, revealer and redeemer. These notions suggest that, seen as person, God is concerned for people, reveals or manifests Himself or Herself in history, and enters into relationship and directs individuals and communities. God gives strength and sustenance to those who work for such things as peace and truth. The metaphor of God as providential is intimately tied to the notion of Him or Her as person. The Jewish community, for example, has seen that the relationship between God and the community is often best portrayed in the ways that we speak of different types of relationships between people. The prophets speak of God as forgiving husband entreating his wife, as king who reproves his rebellious children, as well as a mother who cannot forget her suckling child. Consequently, in light of the theological understanding that has been dominant within the Jewish community, the attack upon the metaphor of the providential God is the rejection of the notion of God as person. For Rosenzweig and Buber, speaking about God as person, and as creator, revealer and redeemer, was a metaphor. Neither man thought that the discussion of Him or Her being “person” was a statement about God’s essence, but a statement about the way that God appears to the religious community in light of a long series of encounters. This point is clearly made in the Star itself. As long as Rosenzweig wants to speak of what the individual and the religious community must know in order to live fully in this world, he speaks of God as loving, revealing Himself or Herself, and working with people in the process of redemption. At the end of the book he does drop the metaphor of God as person to provide a hint about the ultimate consummation of God, humanity and world in

288

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

redemption, and he says that, beyond history, God becomes “All in All.” Thus Rosenzweig does not insist that God must always be understood as person.The mystic sense of God as the consummation of everything, as the One, “All and All,” is helpful to us in alluding to that redemption that will occur at the end of time. However, this notion is not adequate when we seek to understand and participate in the concrete, everyday life with other individuals and within communities. In fact, both Rosenzweig and Buber (in I and Thou32) mercilessly attack mystic and idealistic philosophical views which replace the metaphor of God and humans in relationship or dialogue with a metaphor about God and humans being “One.” They hold that the mystic and the idealistic philosopher are necessarily led to disparage the value of life in this world; Rosenzweig even calls the mystic only half a human being. The fury of Buber’s and Rosenzweig’s attacks upon those who reject the viability of the metaphor of God as person, who acts and is revealed in history, provides some initial evidence that there is a great deal at stake in this issue. To speak of God as person tells us something about the universe, the individual’s place in it, and about the nature and value of human life. The use of the metaphor suggests that in living as full persons, in living with other persons, we participate in and contribute to the highest reality. It is to say that persons have ultimate worth; that any restriction of their fullness or use of them only as means to something else rather than as ends in themselves is not only immoral, it also takes something away from the greatness of the universe and violates its ultimate nature. The metaphor enables us to affirm that there is something holy in the life between and among persons, in the life of the individual in community. Adding to that life is more than a human act and

289

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

detracting from it is to take away something of ultimate worth. We know all this because the highest reality is, as it were, a person. Said in another way, the sanctity of human life is guaranteed as ultimate value because the Ultimate stands in relationship to us only when we and others live as full persons. The appeal of the work of Buber and Rosenzweig for Fackenheim and Cohen and their continual struggle with their predecessors indicates that they recognize some of the ramifications of this metaphor of God as person, who creates, reveals Himself or Herself, and redeems. However we have seen that they do not believe that the metaphor, at least as understood by their predecessors, is still viable. Fackenheim feels forced to indicate that the person of God was somehow involved or interfered – to use Cohen’s language – in the event of the Holocaust, and we concluded that his effort to prove the literal viability of the metaphor leads to its ultimate loss for us as meaningful. On the other hand, Cohen bluntly holds that the metaphor is meaningless today.Yet, he replaces it with complex poetry, not with a living, viable metaphor. Cohen had hoped that his new imagining would guarantee the value of life and also illustrate our own potentiality to destroy. Yet, again, we are not left with anything that can guide us, open us to each other or elicit our trust and hope. A final question does, of course, remain. Despite that which is at stake and the inadequacies of those other positions that are offered to us, we must ask whether we can still affirm the metaphor in light of the abyss of the Holocaust. As I have argued, To Mend the World and The Tremendum present positions that are based on the conviction that the metaphor of the providential God only stands if God can in some sense be recognized as interferer. In the first work Fackenheim suggests a way in which

290

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

it is possible to discover God there, and in the second Cohen labels all such attempts as doomed to failure. Both disallow the elasticity of the metaphor as it was utilized in the past, when the community was faced with examples of meaningless destruction. In earlier times the Jewish community would compose midrashim to allude to the ultimate mystery of God’s ways or God’s unaccountable silence. These responses did not produce a feeling of comfort, but allowed the struggle with God to continue. However, Fackenheim writes that it is not enough to rely on the strategy of speaking of mystery or silence; and Cohen refutes first one and then the other view by examining them in a very inelastic, caricatured, literal way.33 There is no satisfactory way to affirm the continued viability of the concept of God as person if this necessarily entails that God somehow be seen as interferer in terms of the event of the Holocaust. Fackenheim’s attempt to do this was a valiant one, but it is too flawed. On the other hand, certainly the Jewish tradition does not teach the doctrine of the interferer in the way that Cohen tests it:“as the interferer whose insertion is welcome (when it accords with our needs).”34 This too literal definition of divine speech is the presupposition for his too literal interpretation, and consequent rejection, of the meaning of divine silence. The equation of speech and interference is actually a good definition of idolatry. The tradition teaches that only with idols can one attempt to understand divine power in this way. There is no satisfactory theological meaning to be found in the event of the Holocaust. It stands as radical test of all theological meaning and in the face of it, the best that we can do is to speak of God’s mystery or silence. This does not mean that the Holocaust or the evil of humans is ignored.We turn to statements about the divine mystery or silence with the sense that all affirmations of meaning will

291

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

now be even more shot through with questions and with doubts. Yet we retain the metaphor because it continues to demonstrate the strength to fulfill the tasks of theological metaphor. The liturgical life of the community is alive, at least as much as it has been throughout the modern period. The metaphor of the providential God stands at the core of that synagogue liturgy which brings some Jews to affirm fully the system of traditional views and practices. Even outside of these, the cycle of times of communal prayer still has the power to break through to other Jews, perhaps to all, at one time or the other. Similarly, there are many Jews who continue to experience God’s presence as revealer through Halakhah. For some the truth of God’s revelation at Sinai is made known to them daily and in an intense way, and others catch glimpses of this truth only infrequently. Both Fackenheim and Cohen turn to the issue of access to God through liturgy or Halakhah only after the question of God’s relationship to the Holocaust is treated. Yet, in light of the testimony of those who find both direction and peace in these dimensions of Jewish life, we should be reticent to allow the issue of God’s relationship to the Holocaust to be the sole evidence in deciding upon the continued strength of our understanding of God. Even for those who probe the contradictions between belief in a loving and providential God and the realities of the Holocaust, the metaphor performs the extremely significant function of giving us ways to express our passions, in this case our bottomless feelings of anger and hurt. The metaphor of God as person allows us to yell at someone and to pray to someone. As Rosenzweig said, in countering Spinoza’s conception of God, that the religious person cannot love, or yell at, or pray to a principle or a ground of Being. For example, many of the literary responses to the Holocaust, such as the novels

292

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

of Elie Wiesel, possess much of their strength because there is a metaphor that allows the full range of our passions to be played out or expressed. Since we cannot affirm that God was there we are neither comforted nor satisfied. Yet we are also not forced to call a halt to our quest for meaning; to give up living, struggling and even, sometimes, trusting. The power of the metaphor to give form to our struggling and trusting is well documented in a statement by Buber that is found in Fackenheim’s book. In a letter of 1950 Buber concluded with the following: How is a Jewish life possible after Auschwitz? Today I no longer really know what this is - a Jewish life. Nor do I expect ever again to experience it. But this I know: what it is to stay with Him. Those who in our time stay with Him lead over to that which one day may be called a Jewish life.35

In arguing that the metaphor of the providential God remains viable, I am disputing the contention of Fackenheim and Cohen that the Holocaust is rupture or caesura, utterly shattering the old liturgical and theological patterns. The arguments that they offer to support their contention are not to be taken lightly, but they are also not fully convincing. How are we to decide whether the Holocaust represents a rupture with all of past Jewish life and thought? I believe that this decision cannot be made by examining the event itself, but by making careful observations about the life of the Jewish community today. If there has been a rupture, this will be indicated by the failure of the metaphor of God as providential partner to play an active role in the

293

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

everyday life of the community. However we have just seen that in such areas as the liturgical life of the community, the experience and practice of Halakhah, and the theological and artistic endeavors to struggle with the Holocaust, the metaphor retains its power. While these considerations might not prove that there has not been a rupture, they do point in the opposite direction to Fackenheim’s and Cohen’s belief that there has been one. It may be too early for us to decide whether the Holocaust is truly the caesura in Jewish history. At this point no final conclusion can be made. Provisionally what we can do is, first, point to the community’s overall response at this early time. Second, regardless of what view of the Holocaust eventually crystallizes, we maintain that Fackenheim’s and Cohen’s revisionings, unfortunately, do not get us beyond it by providing guidance and hope. Finally, the criticisms offered by Fackenheim and Cohen of Rosenzweig’s ahistorical treatment of the life of the Jewish people are irrefutable. The indisputable lesson of the Holocaust is that Jews live in history and are vulnerable to its worst horrors. The establishment of the modern state of Israel is the result of the Jewish will to choose to live in history and not just to be overcome by its forces.While the notion of the providential God does not enable us to see meaning in the Holocaust, it does give direction to our extremely powerful feelings and hopes about the entry of the Jewish people into history through the state of Israel. This can be seen in the prayer for the welfare of the state of Israel, composed by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which begins: “Bless Thou, O Lord, the State of Israel, the first flower of the promised redemption of Thy people.”36 There are many legitimate theological responses to the Holocaust and there are no entirely satisfactory ones. I have argued that the most

294

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

adequate response still focuses on the metaphor of God as person, of the providential God. In this way we affirm the ultimate value of human life and we continue to have a basis for our individual and communal religious experience. We recognize in a still deeper way, because we cannot ignore the event of the Holocaust, that our life with God is so fragile. Yet we also recognize that the commitment to the metaphor of God as person gives form to our living out our human and religious feelings, thoughts and tasks today.

295

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

Notes Arthur Cohen, The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the

1

Holocaust (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 5. Emil L. Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish

2

Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1982). Some of the elements that they share are brought out in Cohen’s

3

review of Fackenheim’s book. See Arthur Cohen, “On Emil Fackenheim’s To Mend the World: A Review Essay,” Modern Judaism, 3, 2 (1983): 225-36. For an analysis of Fackenheim’s intellectual development see Michael

4

Oppenheim, What Does Revelation Mean for the Modern Jew? Rosenzweig, Buber, Fackenheim (Lewiston [N.Y.]: Edwin Mellen, 1985), 87-114. Cohen, The Tremendum, 34.

5

Arthur Cohen, The Natural and the Supernatural Jew (London:

6

Vallentine, Mitchell, 1967). Ibid., 34.

7

Cohen, The Tremendum, 53.

8

Fackenheim, To Mend the World, 262.

9

Cohen, The Tremendum, 87. See Fackenheim, To Mend the World, 253.

10

Richard Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and

11

Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 209-25. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (NewYork: Holt, Rinehart

12

and Winston, 1970). Emil L. Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and

13

Philosophical Reflections (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 31. Ibid., 67.There is an extensive treatment of “the commanding Voice

14

of Auschwitz” in Emil L. Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem (New York: Schocken

296

C a n We S t i l l S t a y W i t h H i m ?

Books, 1978), 19-126. Fackenheim, To Mend the World, 24.

15

Ibid., 301.

16

Ibid., 254.

17

Ibid.

18

Ibid., 313, 329.

19

Michael Wyschograd, “Arthur A. Cohen: The Tremendum,” Jewish

20

Social Studies, 44 (1982): 179-80. Cohen, The Tremendum, 19.

21

Ibid., 50.

22

Ibid., 87.

23

Ibid.

24

Ibid., 87-88.

25

Ibid., 97.

26

Ibid.

27

Ibid.

28

Ibid., 94-95.

29

Ibid., 62.

30

Ibid., 52

31

Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,

32

1970). The books by Fackenheim and Cohen discussed here represent just

33

two positions within a wide range of Jewish responses to the Holocaust. These theological responses fall into two groups. First, there are writers who believe that the Holocaust is a watershed in Jewish history and an unprecedented challenge to Jewish faith. Of course, Fackenheim and Cohen hold this view, but they also believe that a reformulated Jewish faith can meet this challenge. Earlier, the important theologian, Richard Rubenstein, affirmed that Jewish faith could not withstand the unique

297

J e w i s h P hi l o s o phe r s i n the Late 2 0 th C e n t u r y

threat of the Holocaust. In After Auschwitz he concluded that God was dead. Second, many Jewish thinkers have insisted that the Holocaust is not a watershed in Jewish history and that the resources within the Jewish tradition that have been used to respond to other events of Jewish suffering remain adequate to this particular horror. They discuss the Holocaust in terms of punishment for Jewish sins, Jewish suffering and atonement for others, a test of faith, divine mystery or the temporary eclipse of God. The variety of responses is enumerated in Steven T. Katz, Post-Holocaust Dialogues: Critical Studies in Modern Jewish Thought (New York: New York University Press, 1983), 143-44. Cohen, The Tremendum, 97.

34

Martin Buber’s letter is quoted in Fackenheim, To Mend the World, 197.

35

David De Sola Pool, ed., The Traditional Prayer Book for Sabbath and

36

Festivals (New York: Behrman House, 1960), 260.

298

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m

XIII Theology and Community:The Work of Emil Fackenheim

Emil Fackenheim is one of the most important and original Jewish theologians of our time. Although born in Germany, he lived until recently in Canada, from which place his powerful theological writing has come to express the self-perceptions and the paradoxes that permeate that relatively new creation: the North American Jewish community. Fackenheim is, at the same time, an exceptionally perceptive philosopher, who has explored and criticized the wider social, cultural, and intellectual environment within which Jews have sought to achieve integration while maintaining their identity as Jews. Fackenheim was born in Halle, Germany, in 1916. In 1939 he was ordained a rabbi, having been trained at the Hochschule für dieWissenschaft des Judentums. Before his ordination he was arrested by the Nazis and sent for a few months to Sachsenhausen, a proto-concentration camp. He was allowed to emigrate to Canada in 1940 and eventually became a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. During the last few years he has been living in Jerusalem, Israel. This brief recitation of biographical data about Fackenheim already foreshadows two poles in his life and work, poles that also delineate the sacred myth of most Jews of North America. These are the poles of the Holocaust and Jerusalem. Despite his own experience of the beginnings of the Nazi terror, Fackenheim only gradually was

299

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y

able to explore its impact and its imprint on himself and others. It seems that the emergence of the Holocaust as the central focus of his work anticipated by a few months the radical reorientation that the Jewish community experienced during the 1967 Israeli-Arab Six-Day War.That war revealed the astonishing power that the memory of the Holocaust and the commitment to Israel had over Jews throughout the world, and especially in North America. While Fackenheim’s writings during the last two decades have elicited controversy among his Jewish critics, he is a popular lecturer and his theological work is probably better known by a community generally suspicious of Jewish theology and philosophy than that of any other contemporary writer. Further, unlike other Jewish historians, sociologists, or theologians who comment upon the nature of Jewish life in North America, Fackenheim has not been critical of the ways that the majority of North American Jews have come to express themselves as Jews. He does not lament the loss of ideal Eastern European and immigrant cultures or continually question the authenticity of North American Jewish life. On the contrary, he affirms that, in the wake of the Holocaust, such everyday acts as having Jewish children are dramatic expressions of faith in the Jewish tradition and contemporary Jewish life. Fackenheim has not hesitated to criticize some of his own earlier theological positions and acknowledges that his work has continually undergone change.1 In the “Introduction” to Quest for Past and Future,2 which contains many of his essays between 1948 and 1966, he suggests that there have been three shifts in his writings. His work of the first period, until 1957, was characterized by an existentialist stance that accentuated the contradictions in humankind, history, and the moral life and an insistence on the

300

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m

need for a leap of faith in God in order for the individual to arrive at a sense of life’s ultimate significance.3 These essays also attacked those liberal religious thinkers who substituted faith in human selfsufficiency for the belief in God’s revelation.4 Fackenheim became dissatisfied with the work of this period as he recognized that as a Jewish theologian he could not speak for all people or even all religious people. Rejecting his own unconscious universalism, he saw that contradictions in human existence appear only to those already living within a particular faith community. After this period his writings explicitly stated his commitment to the Jewish tradition, and they reflected his understanding that this commitment required both a belief in God’s earlier revelations and an openness to the possibility of a radical divine incursion into the present. In the second period, from 1957 to 1967, Fackenheim took the “singled-out condition” of the Jew as his point of departure. It seems to me that his examination of the Jewish “singled-out” existence mirrored the Jewish community’s wrestling with the meaning of its own “chosenness” in the modern period. He explored such themes as the meaning of God’s election of the Jewish people, the Jewish community as singled out by history, and the relationship between God and the Holocaust. For both Fackenheim and the community, to be chosen or singled out referred to the past and the present, to a gift as well as something radically evil, to God as well as to the human. In the third period of his work, Fackenheim began a full encounter with the terrifying event of the Holocaust, an encounter driven by his need to testify to God’s presence in that event. He soon saw that he was not leading, but being led by a community already facing and responding to its challenge. He discovered that Jews were

301

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y

answering this event by committing themselves and their children to the survival of the Jewish people. The Holocaust Theologian Except for the novelist Elie Wiesel, Fackenheim is the most prolific and well-known Jewish writer who has made a confrontation with the Holocaust the center of his work. While the consciousness of the Holocaust pervades all Jewish communities in the free world today, Fackenheim’s particular discussion of its meaning has its source in the North American Jewish community. Fackenheim clarifies and justifies the meaning of the Holocaust within the sacred mythology of the North American Jewish community. The role the Holocaust has in the self-understanding of North American Jews has been explored by many social scientists.The most instructive analysis for our purposes was done by Jacob Neusner in the book of essays Stranger at Home. Neusner explains that the consciousness of the near total destruction of European Jewry answers two needs for the community.5 It provides a justification for being Jewish and an explanation of what is distinctive about the Jews as a group. Jews who already identify with the tradition and the community, but who are unable to justify this commitment, find that the Holocaust teaches that there is no need to explain the reasons for remaining Jews. In offering the statement that “Hitler knew you were Jewish,” Jewish community leaders are affirming that there is no real choice about being Jewish. The Holocaust also provides a very acculturated community with something that sets it apart from others. The deeply felt need by many in the community to affirm the uniqueness of the Holocaust underscores the bond between their consciousness of this event and their own feelings of being part of a

302

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m

distinctive community. Finally, Neusner finds that North American Jews do not see the Holocaust as an isolated event, but as the negative pole contra-posed to the positive pole of the existence of the modern state of Israel. The degradation and almost complete destruction of the Jews are miraculously seen to lead to the resurrection of the Jewish people in their own state.6 There is a powerful correspondence, which Neusner notes,7 between Fackenheim’s theological work and Neusner’s description of the sacred myth of “the Holocaust and redemption.” The question of God’s presence in relation to the event is the motivating query behind all of Fackenheim’s labors. In God’s Presence in History, the theological argument for the necessity of confronting this question is posed by the statement that “the God of Israel cannot be God of either past or future unless He is still God of the Present.”8 In this view, if there can be no affirmation of God’s relationship to the Holocaust, then those tradition hallowed descriptions of past liberations and of the future redemption lose their force for modern Jews. The premise behind this statement is that the Holocaust is not just a tragedy, but a watershed in the history of Jewish faith and the foundation for the modern Jew’s self-understanding. The phrase, “the Commanding Voice of Auschwitz,”9 was the way that Fackenheim first spoke of the divine presence in relation to the Holocaust. For him this voice proclaimed that “the authentic Jew of today is forbidden to hand Hitler yet another, posthumous victory.”10 Although Fackenheim has said that the Holocaust offers, at most, fragments of meaning, the new divine imperative or commandment demands that Jews work for the survival of the tradition and community, or else they will allow Hitler to ultimately achieve his goal of destruction of the people.

303

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y

In his most recent work, To Mend the World, Fackenheim expands this treatment of the role of the Holocaust in the Jewish community’s consciousness of itself. He argues that beyond a commanding presence of God there is a partial divine saving or healing presence which emanates from out of the Holocaust.This presence constitutes a partial Tikkun Olam, that is, a mending of the world. According to Fackenheim the tikkun had its birth in the acts of defiance or resistance by some Jews and non-Jews to the Nazi goal of systematically destroying the humanity of its victims.11 To Mend the World makes the astonishing affirmation of a saving presence of God against the background of the Jewish community’s passionate tie to both the survivors and to those who died at the hands of the Nazis. Fackenheim gives theological expression to the communal emotions of amazement and awe in response to those who were able to resist. He puts into words the community’s sense that such acts had both a human and a divine source, as well as its belief that when Jews today act to heal a still broken world their actions are a continuation of that earlier resistance to the Nazi effort to eradicate the human element in our world. Fackenheim passionately argues for the uniqueness of the Holocaust in almost all of his writings.12 This theme again corresponds to Neusner’s statement about the importance of the Holocaust to Jewish feelings of distinctiveness. Fackenheim rejects attempts by other Jewish thinkers to capture the Holocaust in one of the usual theological meaning-schemes such as “sin and punishment” or “chastisement of love,” as well as those who want to find an explanation for it by placing it into a historical, political, or sociological context. If proponents of the first view were to win out, the Holocaust would merely be another Jewish tragedy. For those who present the second

304

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m

position, the Holocaust is just another product of universal historical, political, or sociological forces or laws. By rejecting both attempts to explain the Holocaust, Fackenheim is preserving it as a symbol of something special or distinctive about Jewish history and Jewish selfunderstanding. The modern state of Israel, which Neusner described as the second element in the sacred myth of North American Jews, also plays an important role in Fackenheim’s theological reflections on the Holocaust.13 He finds that in times of crises, such as the threat to Israel’s existence during the 1967 war, Jews are naturally brought to see a connection between the two. The Holocaust represents the annihilation that almost became total, while Israel allows Jews to feel that their history is still tied to the divine and that they have experienced a partial redemption in our own time.14 However, Fackenheim’s discussion of the role of Israel for Jews is left undeveloped. For two decades he has declared that Israel has meaning, some kind of ultimate meaning, for all Jews, but he hears no divine commandment and does not elaborate very much on the nature of that meaning. The key to this paradox in Fackenheim’s thought is again provided by those who have studied the North American Jewish community. Many commentators, preeminently Charles Liebman,15 recognize that while American Jews proclaim that Israel symbolizes Jewish redemption, it is a redemption that they view from afar. American Jews gain pride in being Jews from Israel’s existence, but unlike Fackenheim himself, they do not feel impelled to go there. Israel may symbolize redemption, but the symbol is not part of any extended worldview. For example, North American Jews do not believe in the Zionist message that Jewish existence outside the state must end in tragedy either through persecution or assimilation. I

305

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y

find Fackenheim is unable to say more about the redemptive meaning of Israel, because the state plays such a paradoxical role in the sacred myth of the community. Fackenheim and Modern Jewish Thought Since the period of the Jewish Emancipation, modern Jewish philosophers and theologians have combined a commitment to the Jewish tradition and to the Jewish community of their time with an affirmative, although usually critical, stance toward modem Western culture. From the time of his first essays, Fackenheim has elucidated a religious stance which insisted on a serious encounter with the challenges that modernity hurls at Jewish faith. He has recognized that the encounter with these challenges is transformative; the premodern faith of the “fathers” cannot just be repeated today. Yet, Fackenheim believes that a critical, questioning faith, a “second immediacy,” is both possible and necessary.16 In the company of other North American Jewish thinkers such as Abraham Heschel, Eugene Borowitz, and Will Herberg, Fackenheim began by attacking the rationalism and naturalism of classical liberal Judaism. He has often cited the influence and importance of the twentieth-century German-Jewish philosophers Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber.17 Like them, Fackenheim insisted that God’s revelation to humans is the shibboleth of authentic Jewish thought. However, Fackenheim found himself forced to acknowledge that more than any scientific or philosophical attack, the Holocaust represented for his time the ultimate threat to the believer’s continued affirmation of God’s presence. The encounter with this threat clearly brought him to step beyond the positions of his predecessors. Fackenheim rejected both Rosenzweig’s and Buber’s portraits

306

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m

of the dimensions of revelation still significant for modern Jews.18 Unlike these philosophers, he insisted, as we have seen, that a revelation to the Jewish community – and not just to the individual – was possible and even necessary. In affirming that there is a divine voice or tikkun that appears from out of the Holocaust, Fackenheim helped to crystallize the variety of Jewish responses to that event. First, there are those, like Fackenheim himself, who regard the Holocaust as a watershed in Jewish history and insist that some radical response to it is necessary. Richard Rubenstein19 was one early respondent who also spoke of it as a watershed, but he saw that the only possible conclusion was to put an end to believing in the Jewish God. More recently, Arthur Cohen20 has written about the Holocaust as a void or caesura, but he has found that a reimagined concept of God is the most adequate response. Second, those who see the Holocaust as a tragedy, but not as a caesura, believe that within the Jewish experience of suffering there is an adequate answer to this event. It has been suggested, for example, that the Holocaust is a test of faith or an inscrutable mystery.21 Fackenheim and Modern Religious Thought Fackenheim once defined modern Jewish thought as the “critical inquiry into the modern destiny of the Jewish people and its faith.”22 This inquiry, obviously, has led him to explore the broad philosophical, religious, and even political situations that set the conditions for Jewish life and belief. While modern Western philosophy has completely ignored modern Jewish thought and the Jewish experience since Emancipation, Fackenheim has argued that this disregard has deeply prejudiced philosophy’s conclusions.23 He has substituted for this absence his own script for an encounter of the

307

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y

most important Western philosophers – such as Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger – with the thought of Rosenzweig and Buber, as well as with dimensions of Jewish religious and historical experience.24 The pervasive bias against Judaism in modern philosophy and the unrecognized philosophical insights in the writings of Rosenzweig and Buber are documented in works such as The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought, Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy, and the first half of To Mend the World. There is a continual dialogue with Hegel that brings out Fackenheim’s deep understanding of and respect for this philosopher’s work and contribution. However, Fackenheim has argued that the Hegelian synthesis of the Christian confidence that God has entered and redeemed the world with the modern secular confidence in the infinite powers of modern civilization has been irretrievably shattered.25 In his view, we stand in the wake of the Holocaust, where the religious believer finds God’s presence elusive at best, and the secularist is stymied by his or her own doubts. Heidegger’s work is portrayed as the greatest of the twentiethcentury attempts to fulfill the omnipresent philosophical hope of grasping the infinite while refusing to ignore the historical matrix of all human life.26 However, Fackenheim believes that Heidegger’s failure to transcend the political ideology of his time and to act decisively against the Nazi urge to destroy means that his system was fundamentally flawed. For many decades Fackenheim has spoken of Christianity as a legitimate religion and has called for real dialogue between Jews and Christians.27 Part of the importance of this recognition, I find, is that it has brought him to feel justified in criticizing Christians when he believed that they were failing, on their part, to recognize the

308

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m

legitimacy of Jewish existence in the modern period. In particular, Fackenheim has demanded that Christians must be willing to understand and to stand by Jews in their defense of the state of Israel, because most Jews perceive Israel as an indispensable condition for the continuity of their people and their tradition. Fackenheim also argues that, in view of the Holocaust, Christians have a responsibility to support the effort of Jews to acquire enough power to protect themselves from their enemies.28 Fackenheim’s indictment of Heidegger’s work together with his insistence on a Christian defense of the Jewish state underscores his view that there are events in history to which philosophy and Christianity, as well as Judaism, must be exposed. He believes that religious as well as secular traditions must be judged by the responsibility for history that they elicit in their adherents. One significant area of Fackenheim’s contributions to modern religious thought concerns the critique of some of the false universalisms that are deeply embedded within modern Western life. First, in a number of essays but particularly in “Jewish Ethnicity in Mature Democratic Societies: Ideology and Reality,”29 he discusses a major problem that Jews have faced since Emancipation; the demand to disappear as Jews in order to be judged as authentic. He writes: This unilateralism has been with us ever since the Age of the Emancipation, ever since the men of the French Revolution proposed to give to Jews “as men” everything, and to them “as Jews,” nothing. This proposal had two hidden assumptions. One was that Jews were an anachronism as Jews, and on trial as men. The other was that the faith of Jews could fairly be judged, and their

309

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y

humanity be properly put on trial, by a civilization that had oppressed them for nearly two millennia.30

He states that the emancipators have not recognized even today the Christian triumphalism and anti-Semitism secularized in their culture. He calls on the heirs of the emancipators to acknowledge that participation in the life of the nations in which Jews live cannot be at the price of wiping away their particularity or seeing their lives as Jews as in any way lessening or endangering their lives as citizens. Second, he has carefully documented two false universalist assumptions embedded within modern philosophy. The first is that religious faith is some type of extraneous, exotic virus that distorts the pristine vision of what really is. For Fackenheim, modern philosophy is not neutral in facing the question of religious faith but begins with the presupposition, that is, with the belief, that God’s revelation to the individual is inherently impossible. Fackenheim’s point is that when the religious person faces the secular thinker we have an encounter between two different systems of belief.31 The philosophic illusion, especially common to modern existentialist thought, that there is a single, universal human condition is the second assumption Fackenheim attacks.32 He argues that every person speaks out of a particular history, community, and set of commitments. Despite the importance of Fackenheim’s demands for selfliberation, he fails to uncover at least one other universalism that has had destructive results. Fackenheim has not spoken of the false universalism of the Jewish tradition and Jewish thought, which has systematically excluded women and women’s experiences. This criticism turns upon himself his own willingness to be open to diversity and pluralism, to see that every “the human” or “the Jewish” masks a

310

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m

diversity that is denied by those who have held power. Fackenheim affirms that one’s tradition, culture, and commitments are enriched rather than weakened by recognizing and supporting the variety that is so often denied if not trampled. His acknowledgement of the need for feminist critiques of Jewish thought and experience would constitute another element in the tikkun that the world requires. Emil Fackenheim has made a unique contribution to modern Jewish thought and to modern Western religious reflection. He has brought Jewish theology into a new age of challenge and vulnerability – the age of Auschwitz and Jerusalem. He has forced both modern philosophers and Christian thinkers to confront a confident and vital tradition of Jewish life and thought, for the benefit of all sides.The core of all this has been his struggle with the meaning of the Holocaust. It is through this struggle that he has demonstrated his unmatched courage and rightly achieved much of his stature. However, his reflections on the Holocaust have often brought him close to the brink – where the Holocaust is no longer understood within the context of the covenant but as its basis. We are all challenged by the notion that the authentic response to the Holocaust constitutes God’s 614th commandment.Yet, whether the Holocaust is perceived as ultimate threat or as caesura, it cannot be transformed into the new raison d’être for Jewish existence.

311

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y

Notes 1

A more extensive treatment of Fackenheim’s intellectual

development is found in the author’s work, Michael Oppenheim, What Does Revelation Mean for the Modern Jew? Rosenzweig, Buber, Fackenheim (Lewiston [N.Y.]: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985), 87- 96. 2

Emil Fackenheim, Quest for Past and Future: Essays in Jewish

Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 3-26. 3

Ibid., 96-111.

4

Ibid., 25-51.

5

Jacob Neusner, Stranger at Home: “The Holocaust,” Zionism, and

American Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 8891. 6

Ibid., 202.

7

Ibid., 86.

8

Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations

and Philosophical Reflections (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 31. 9

Ibid., 67.

10

Emil Fackenheim, “Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future:

A Symposium,” Judaism 16 (1967): 272. 11

Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish

Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), 254. 12

Fackenheim, Quest for Past and Future, 17-19; God’s Presence

in History, 69-70; Emil Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History: Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), 26-31; To Mend the World, 9-13.

312

13

Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History, 273-86.

14

Fackenheim, To Mend the World, 313.

T h e o l o g y a n d C o m m u n i t y : T h e Wo r k o f E m i l F a c k e n h e i m 15

Charles Liebman, The Ambivalent American Jew: Politics, Religion

and Family in American Jewish Life (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), 88-108. 16

Fackenheim, Quest for Past and Future, 185-87; God’s Presence in

History, 35-61. Fackenheim, Quest for Past and Future , 4-5; To Mend the World, 6-9.

17

18

Fackenheim’s discussion of Rosenzweig is in The Jewish Return

into History, 189; To Mend the World, 73-101; of Buber, To Mend the World, 194-98. 19

Richard Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and

Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966). 20

Arthur Cohen, The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the

Holocaust (New York: Crossroad, 1981). 21

There is a presentation of the variety of Jewish theological

responses to the Holocaust in Steven Katz, Post-Holocaust Dialogues: Critical Studies in Modern Jewish Thought (New York: New York University Press, 1983), 143-45. 22

Emil Fackenheim, Encounters between Judaism and Modern

Philosophy: A Preface to Future Jewish Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 3. 23

Ibid., 3-6.

24

Ibid., and To Mend the World.

25

Fackenheim, Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy,

153-69; To Mend the World, 119-20. 26

Fackenheim, Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy,

213-29; To Mend the World, 149-90. 27

Fackenheim, Quest for Past and Future, 10-15.

28

Ibid., 25; The Jewish Return into History, 32-40; To Mend the

World, 284-85.

313

J e w ish P hi l o s o phe r s in the Late 2 0 th C entu r y 29

Fackenheim, The Jewish Return into History, 144-75.

30

Ibid., 149.

31

Fackenheim, Quest for Past and Future, 9-29, 44-46.

32

Fackenheim, Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy,

213-29.

314

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

XIV Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

There is a passionate,unique voice in modern Jewish Orthodoxy that deserves the widest of hearings. It belongs to the thinker and leader Rabbi Irving Greenberg. Greenberg addresses the most compelling issues that Judaism faces today with courage and insight. He asks: Can authentic Jewish life be sustained, when the majority of Jews have no contact with those most devoted to Torah and Halakhah? Is there legitimacy to an Orthodox Judaism that for the sake of its “purity” rejects responsibility for the whole Jewish people? Can Judaism maintain a productive encounter with modernity without sacrificing the commitment to a meaningful Jewish distinctiveness? Finally, has the unspeakable horror that is the Shoah irreparably damaged the covenant between God and the Jewish people? Greenberg combines philosophical and theological inquires with decades of work as a communal leader. He encourages Jews of all persuasions to speak with one another and to recognize their common concern for Judaism’s future. His practical work also includes efforts to strengthen Jewish education and to nurture the next generation of Jewish leaders. Despite the active opposition of many within his own movement, Greenberg continues to provide an impressive model, one especially important in our time, of a committed Orthodox Jew who welcomes dialogue and diversity. Irving Greenberg was born in New York in 1933 and his writings

315

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

display a distinctly American perspective. For some Jews, especially among the Orthodox, the term “American” is not necessarily an appellation of esteem. America is still often regarded as that trefe medina (unkosher state), a tempting but dangerous land, that furnishes very shallow soil for authentic Jewish life. Greenberg shows, however, that the hope and openness to the new which that soil engenders provides genuine sustenance. He gratefully acknowledges a number of important influences on his life, among which are: his father – Rabbi Eliyahu Chayim Greenberg, the teachers and students at the Bais Yosef Yeshiva in Boro Park, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and his wife, Blu Greenberg. These influences creatively resound throughout Greenberg’s mature reflections. Rabbi Eliyahu Greenberg encouraged in his son a faith in the Jewish people1 and a belief that Judaism could and should confront the challenges of modernity. At the Bais Yosef Yeshiva Irving Greenberg got a first hand sense of the overwhelming impact of the Holocaust, since many of his fellow students were refugees, and he also learned about the centrality that musar (ethics) must have in Jewish life and teaching. The preeminent modern Orthodox rabbi, Joseph Soloveitchik, had a multi-faceted influence, including providing a vibrant model of Orthodoxy and insisting that creative activity in the world is an essential feature of covenantal life. Finally, Blu Greenberg, a prominent feminist Jewish thinker in her own right, helped him to see the positive challenge that feminism presents to Judaism. Judaism: A Religion of Redemption Greenberg’s views about the impact of the Holocaust are well known.2 However, as pivotal as the Holocaust is in his thought, it is important to appreciate that he begins with an approach to Judaism

316

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

and not a theology of the Holocaust. Put in another way, it is an understanding of the nature of Judaism that compels him to confront the tremendum3 of the Shoah. Greenberg has written that “the central paradigm of Jewish religion is redemption.”4 He means by this that at the heart of Judaism stands a vision of the redeemed life and a path for concretely moving toward this goal in history. The Jewish portrait of redemption is sketched by Greenberg through exploring the ramifications of the biblical notion of tzelem elokim. As created in the image of God, humans are endowed with “three intrinsic dignities:” infinite value, equality, and uniqueness.5 The first means that human life cannot be weighed, measured, or compared in terms of, that is, subordinated to, any other value. In the Kantian parlance, humans are always a goal or end in themselves and never a means to something else. The second term implies that no person or group is privileged over another. In fact, idolatry results when a person or group absolutizes itself or its message. The third idea reinforces the dignity of every human by insisting that each person is irreplaceable and has a special role to play in the redemption of the world. Redemption is a hope and not a reality for Judaism, for Judaism is a religion that refuses to ignore the brutalities of history. It fully acknowledges that the dignities of tzelem elokim are scorned by the violence, oppression, poverty, degradation, and death that pervade human life. As Greenberg expressed it: “The Jewish religion is founded on the divine assurance and human belief that the world will be perfected.”6 Judaism engages with and seeks to overcome these realities of history through its notion of covenant. The covenant is that dynamic that God inaugurated in history, that partnership between God and the Jewish people, to achieve the dignities for which all humans were created. Jews are those teachers, models, and

317

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

co-workers – having both a divine and human partners – whom God designated to help all persons and even nature achieve redemption.7 For Greenberg, the messianic dream of perfection will not be realized by divine fiat, but by “improving this world, one step at a time.”8 These understandings of God, humans, and the world are expressed through the Torah and lived-out by the Jewish people through the holy days and the Halakhah. In this view,Torah is that divine teaching that stands as “the constitution of the ongoing relationship of God and the Jewish people.”9 The holy days record and present for reexperiencing the orienting events of Jewish history. They bring both past and future into the present. Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot ground the Jewish year with the experiences of liberation, covenant acceptance, and the movement toward redemption. These historical holidays are augmented by the clusters of the Sabbath and the Days of Awe, where the individual’s life is sustained and reinvigorated through the encounter with eternity. A Jewish rhythm or dialectic10 of sacred and profane, eternity and history, universal and particular is thus maintained within the Jewish calendar. As Greenberg puts it: The holy days nurture extraordinary dialectical capacities in the individual and community. Trust in God, but help yourself; demand justice, but take it one step at a time; save the world, but start with your own family; bleed for humanity, but be sure to preserve your own group because “all Israel are responsible one for the other.”11

For Greenberg, Passover is the model of the holy days. In harmony with the cardinal role that redemption plays in his presentation of Judaism, he regards the Exodus as “the core event of Jewish history

318

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

and religion.”12 It is paradigm and guarantor of redemption. When Jews relive the Exodus movement from slavery to freedom, they are linked with their specific past and also experience that promised universal future. They experience the perils of the deepest of human oppression, slavery. They are both frustrated and nourished by what is now only a “taste of perfection.”13 As a modern Orthodox rabbi, Irving Greenberg is committed to the meaningfulness of the Halakhah. Much as his teacher, Soloveitchik,14 and another modern Orthodox thinker and student of Soloveitchik, David Hartman,15 he powerfully portrays the way that Jewish law brings everyday life into contact with God. Halakhah gives fullness and direction – it has been given for the sake of the human16 – as it endeavors to guide the individual and community from hope to messianic realization. It is “the art of the possible, the divine science of the doable,” which seeks to perfect the human by converting “absolute ends into proximate means.”17 In this manner, Jewish existence takes up the trials of reality, without illusion or despair. Furthermore, both the covenant and Halakhah allow incremental progress in transformation without a fear that the inevitable compromises and shortfalls will corrupt the attainment of redemption. As we will see, this notion of Halakhah, as well as the other features of Judaism that have just been outlined, are the platform that allow Greenberg’s openness to the unique challenges that Judaism faces in the modern world. The Challenges of Modernity: Religious Pluralism and Feminism One of the most distinctive elements in Greenberg’s work is the recognition that the modern period and particularly the present

319

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

time offer hitherto unknown opportunities for the growth and development of Judaism. For the vast majority of its history Judaism displayed the ability to be a fortress against oppression and persecution. However, a new era of freedom and power for Jews has begun, which is especially evident in terms of the two current centers of Jewish life, America and Israel. A siege or fortress mentality, where every foreigner was presumed to be hostile and the new was perceived only as a threat, is no longer valid in our contemporary environment of personal, religious, and political freedom.18 Greenberg is confident that Judaism can thrive in the new situation. Many Jews do not share Greenberg’s assessment. They believe that Judaism requires “the protective tariff of gentile hostility and cultural inferiority.”19 His retort is characteristic of the spirit that pervades all of his writings; “I believe that it is God’s will and the eternal goal of the Torah that we learn how to play the religious game as a free and powerful people. We should welcome this stage of our covenantal road.”20 He looks forward to a friendly contest between rival faith and secular perspectives. Judaism’s affirmation of meaning in terms of Torah and covenantal existence, of family and community stands up to open examination. Further, the encounter with freedom can lead to a Judaism that overcomes past deficiencies and to Jews who emerge with renewed commitment. A powerful sign of his optimism and confidence is that, unlike almost all Orthodox and even Conservative Jewish leaders, Greenberg supports Jewish proselytizing.21 To be truly engaged with the new, requires that Judaism assesses and responds to the challenges of modernity. The dialectic of engagement means that Judaism has both a critical task and a positive charge. Greenberg sees the challenges of religious pluralism and of

320

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

feminism, or more widely, the changing role and status of women, as serious but also welcome. There is no question that he stands at the forefront of contemporary Jewish thinkers in his insights into these two defining issues of modernity. Greenberg sees the meeting between Jews and persons of other religious faiths and secular ideologies as an important development for Judaism.22 It has brought Jews to understand and respect other persons, that is, to see them “in the image of God.”23 It is a reminder that others are co-workers in the common project of redemption. This meeting purifies Judaism of the elements of absoluteness. Jews must recognize that while they have a unique covenant with God, the Bible also describes God’s covenant with all persons – the Noahide Covenant. Further, Judaism does not have a monopoly as a redemptive faith community in relation to God. Other communities are authentic expressions of the God-relationship. Greenberg cites Isaiah 19:24-25 that speaks of God’s special relation even to Israel’s greatest enemies during the biblical period, Egypt and Assyria.24 Pluralism does present difficulties, but Greenberg believes that Judaism emerges better after facing them. First, he finds that Judaism’s view of election or chosenness is not jettisoned but clarified through the meeting with others. Some thinkers, and Judith Plaskow is a clear example,25 conclude that the concept of election cannot be maintained when Judaism respects the reality and equality of other faiths. However, Greenberg holds that while election and equality stand in tension, they are also complementary. He writes that “election affirms the uniqueness of each people’s mission – but all are equal.”26 Even more unequivocally, he contends that Judaism has the resources to be more than tolerant. It can affirm the value of others in their particularity, which is the seal of true pluralism. He writes:

321

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Election affirms that the other is different for a good reason; the other is different because he or she is chosen for a special mission...Each group is called – that is chosen. Each can become a leader for tikkun olam (redemption of the world); each can share its experiences and become teachers and models for others.27

Second, many religious persons believe that pluralism only arises out of or inevitably entails a weakening of commitment. If this were true, then Judaism would have to regard it as an unadulterated threat. Yet, Greenberg insists that to respect and welcome the other heightens commitment. In learning about others, one sees that redemption is a cooperative effort and one discovers more about the distinctiveness and significance of one’s own religious community. He concludes that: We Jews should have enough inner security in our freedom and, out of consciousness of God’s love, allow love to be exercised as universally as God wills.The fullness of the other’s divine service enables us to appreciate and learn from them.28

Chapter Five in Greenberg’s book, The Jewish Way, is titled, “The Role of Women in Orthodox Jewish Life.” The prominent place of this discussion highlights the importance that the issue of women and Judaism has for him. While he has learned much from his wife about the problems and needs of Jewish women, his commitment concerning this issue is not derivative. Greenberg sees women’s place in Judaism

322

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

as a “burning ethical, religious issue.”29 He argues that Judaism must be more open to the experience and participation of women, because this is what Judaism itself demands. It is first a matter of fundamental respect, of tzelem elokim, and ultimately of tikkun olam. He is especially critical of the response to groups of Jewish women by Orthodox leaders and communities in America and Israel. In his words: The process of upgrading women’s condition, started by the Torah and given over to the Torah she b’al peh (oral Torah), has been prematurely stopped along the way...(because) of fear of change and yearning for authoritarianism.30

Greenberg insists that there are no good Halakhic reasons for the negative response that Orthodox rabbis have given to the requests of Jewish women to be treated as full covenant partners. He heartily supports the progress already achieved and points to the necessity of this being expanded. He would like to see, for example, increased opportunities for Jewish learning, and also giving full rights to women’s prayer groups, which he designates as “women’s minyanim.” His book on the holidays makes a point of detailing specific customs and practices by women as well as discussing the special celebrations of women’s groups on Rosh Hodesh (the beginning of the month). The treatment of the issue of women and Judaism expresses some of the perennial features of Greenberg’s overall philosophy of Judaism. We have already seen his references to tzelem elokim and tikkun olam. More subtly, his discussion of the changing role of women, both inside and outside of the Jewish community, reflects

323

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

his views about pluralism and the proper critical or dialectical stance toward modernity. He takes up two arguments that have been forwarded by some Jewish men and women who are opposed to new roles for women. Some claim that when women are given new powers and roles in Judaism all differences between “the sexes” will disappear. Following his model of pluralism, Greenberg believes that equality can be achieved between Jewish men and women without overwhelming distinctive differences. Some assert that modernity’s expansion of the roles of women necessarily diminishes the strength of the family.While Greenberg supports this expansion, he is sensitive to the new pressures it puts upon family life.Women must not affirm career to the extent of sacrificing family, but the answer to this tension requires responsible, creative efforts by both women and men. Family is not just a woman’s problem or responsibility. The Holocaust and the Voluntary Covenant The Holocaust presents the deepest challenge to Judaism and to Jewish thought in our time, according to Greenberg.31 Fundamentally, it threatens Judaism as a religion of redemption. How can the orienting experience of liberation during the Exodus and the messianic promises of tikkun in the future withstand the horrific reality of six million murders, where “Death won out”?32 How can the covenant, that partnership between God and the Jewish people in history, continue to be viable when the people were left alone, if not betrayed, to die as innocents? Greenberg’s answer is unequivocal. The standard Jewish notions of redemption and covenant, as well as faith, have been “broken.” The persistent and radical nature of the Holocaust’s challenge to Jewish thought appears in Greenberg’s frequent assertion that: ‘‘No statement, theological or otherwise,

324

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children.”33 The theme of the “voluntary covenant” is a bold phrase that underscores the idea that the Holocaust has ruptured or broken the contract between God and the Jewish people. Greenberg writes: After all, if one-third of the people of Israel is broken off from the body of the people and destroyed, how could the covenant of the Jewish people (which undergirds their being), and the Torah of the Jewish people (which shares their life), not be broken as well?34

Still, the dialectic within the notion of voluntary covenant affirms that the relationship has not ended. Greenberg thus rejects the simplicity of two types of response to the Holocaust, one that presents the event as a just punishment for Jewish sin, and a second that concludes that the Holocaust entails the death of God. For him, the relationship between God and the Jewish people has been renewed, at the initiative of the people. The Jewish people, who no longer owe obedience – for they were not in the wrong, voluntarily act out of renewed love and hope. A major theme that is addressed by Jewish thinkers who seek to fashion a response to the Holocaust concerns the question of “uniqueness.” Is the Holocaust similar to other tragic events of suffering in Jewish history? If the Holocaust is similar, then Judaism possesses the strength now, as in the past, for an adequate response. If, however, it is unprecedented, or unique, then only a transformed Judaism could summon the necessary resources to meet its threat. Many Orthodox thinkers, including the theologian Eliezer Berkovits,35

325

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

take up the first position. Irving Greenberg is the most prominent Orthodox thinker – the leading non-Orthodox figures include Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, and Elie Wiesel – who takes up the second.36 For him, the Holocaust presents unique challenges to Judaism. It affects all of his thought – redemption, covenant, tzelem elokim, pluralism, women, Israel, the holidays – as well as his practical efforts to strengthen the Jewish community. While the Holocaust is unprecedented, Jewish response to historic catastrophe is not. Greenberg sees past Jewish responses as a guide to what is happening in the present, or, put in another way, he presents a very powerful midrash37 or interpretation to illustrate that there is an evolving process within Judaism and that the Holocaust marks another of its phases. He suggests that there have been three stages in the unveiling/development of the notions of redemption and covenant within Judaism. In the biblical period God was regarded as the sole redeemer and the covenant was a contract between unequals. God was the adult, the actor in history, and the Jewish people, his children, remained loyal to the covenant primarily by being obedient. This biblical paradigm ended with the destruction of the two temples. In response to this catastrophe, the Rabbis rethought some of the basic concepts of Judaism. They recognized that God no longer directly intervened in history, which left that stage open to human initiative and responsibility. The covenant form was reconfigured to reflect a more equal partnership. For example, God’s word in the written Torah, or the biblical text, was now understood through oral Torah, that is, the interpretative efforts of the Rabbis. In turn, the Holocaust demarcates the end of the rabbinic paradigm and the beginning of a new stage. It demonstrated that God is more hidden/ limited than the Rabbis had believed. History and the movement

326

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

toward redemption are now given over to human efforts to an even greater extent. Correspondingly, the Jewish people have become the “senior partner” in the covenantal enterprise. In Greenberg’s words: “God now acts primarily, at least on the visible level, through human activity – ­as is appropriate in a partnership whose human participant is growing up.”38 The Holocaust, with the concomitant diminishing of God’s manifest presence, affects Jewish faith, the calendar, as well as Judaism’s holy sites. A Jewish faith left whole after the Holocaust would be one that ignored the reality of that event. Legitimate Jewish faith in God is possible after the Shoah, but it is a transformed one. Greenberg finds that there is now a heightened tension between “faith and doubt, hope and despair, triumph of life and victory of death.”39 At one time he discussed this dialectic of fractured faith in temporal terms. He wrote: Faith is living life in the presence of the Redeemer, even when the world is unredeemed. After Auschwitz, faith means there are times when faith is overcome… The difference between the skeptic and the believer is frequency of faith, and not certitude of position.40

The Holocaust equally ruptures, that is, breaks into, that great repository of Jewish theology and history, the cycle of Jewish holy days. One of the most insightful discussions in The Jewish Way is the chapter, “The Shattered Paradigm: Yom Hashoah.” It includes an analysis of the challenge and the effects of the Holocaust, but its major focus is the endeavor to commemorate the lives of those who were killed. The review of the theological discussions that led

327

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

to the establishment of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) demonstrates that the Jewish people themselves, often despite their leaders, understood the uniqueness of the event. They recognized the imperative that remembering the Holocaust not be collapsed into even the most important traditional mourning day, Tisha B’Av. Although the liturgy for Yom Hashoah is still in the experimental stage, the emergence of the day is of greatest significance. As he writes: The day itself is a classic expression...of the thesis of the emergence of a new cycle of Jewish history, one in which the human role in the covenant becomes even more responsible, while God becomes at once more hidden and more present.41

Additionally, it shows the inadequacy of the distinction pointed to by the labels “holy” and “secular;” it is a secular day, filled with hidden holiness. The midrash about the unfolding of the Jewish covenant traced the passage of holy sites from the Temple to the synagogue. Greenberg has identified and given tremendous time and effort to what he sees as the succeeding institution, Holocaust Memorial Centers. It may come as a surprise to many that the Holocaust Memorial Center follows in the wake of Temple and synagogue. However, the Holocaust Center symbolizes the third stage of the covenant, demonstrating the impact of that event on Jewish life. Greenberg sees the centre as the result of the Jewish people’s need for “a sacred space to study and explore the profound implications of the Shoah in a setting that enables a serious empathetic encounter with it in a total environment.”42 Thus, in its seemingly secular

328

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

shell the Holocaust Memorial Center again exhibits a hidden sacred dimension, appealing to Jews of every type of commitment. Greenberg also proposes that another institution, the open, “secular” retreat center where Jewish life can be intensively lived and renewed will also be a new, widespread third-era institution. He is frustrated by his inability to create one, thus far. The Holocaust is more than a challenge to Judaism, and here Greenberg reiterates a perception shared by many philosophers and theologians. He underscores the universal dimensions of the Holocaust’s effects by writing that “at the heart of the world is a crack; reality is fundamentally flawed.”43 In addition to Judaism, Christianity and modernity themselves are no longer whole. In terms of Christianity, Greenberg sees that its history of anti-Judaism, that two centuries of “teaching of contempt,” was a trigger for the Holocaust and now must be confronted and eliminated. Christianity is also fractured, as a second religion of redemption, because it is forced to face the full extent of the world’s lack of redemption, despite its traditional core message of the “good news” of the Christ. In terms of modernity, the Holocaust is a revelatory event. It uncovered deep fissures at the heart of modernity’s seemingly indisputable achievements and successes. Following the Holocaust, we have learned to be deeply suspicious of such modern values as universalism, progress, rationality, individualism and the “rights of man.” Jews and others were not saved by the protective covering of these values, and the post-Holocaust world must respect such correctives as particularity, pluralism, and community. The response to the Holocaust incumbent on all persons today is to affirm life. In Greenberg’s terminology this is to restore the image of God in every person. For him this means “to reduce evil

329

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

and suffering...bringing out to the fullest the individuality, the equality, and the value of every human being.”44 Every activity that reaches for these goals is religious in the highest sense. It attests to God’s presence in the only possible way, through realizing God’s image in the other person.45 Thus, God’s presence is felt, witnessed, and welcomed in a dialectical rather than a direct manner. This idea of a hidden kernel of the divine within the manifest skin of the secular, or of a necessary dialogue and dialectic between religious and secular is expressed by Greenberg through the notion of “holy secularism.”46 Greenberg’s commitment to pluralism, which was detailed above, also arises out of his attention to the Holocaust. If that event caused a split in every person, every community, every religion and every cause, then all human values and activities are affected. If the postHolocaust experience of rupture and fracture are taken seriously, then wholeness, completeness, and systematic consistency show themselves to be liabilities or errors. In his view, wholeness – lack of questioning, self-critique, openness to different and even opposing visions – is in fact a sign of inauthenticity. Correspondingly, the abilities to recognize the limits of one’s values and allegiances and to appreciate the force of others’ views and commitments, i.e., pluralism, both demonstrates and encourages health. Despite the length of the preceding examination of the Holocaust, one of the dominant themes in Greenberg’s treatment has not yet been introduced, that is, the modern State of Israel. As with many other Jewish thinkers, the connection between the two topics runs very deep for Greenberg. The creation of the state of Israel is one of the preeminent signs of the Jewish people’s voluntary affirmation of the relationship to God. In his words, “Coming after the incredible

330

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

destruction of the Holocaust, the creation of Israel and the rebuilding of Jewish life constitute an unparalleled reacceptance of the covenant.”47 From the other side, Israel exhibits a trace of the divine presence; the “rebirth of Israel...is comparable to the biblical Exodus itself.”48 Israel is thus part of the dialectic of Jewish life today of catastrophe and renewal, of death and life. For example, Greenberg believes that only the hope engendered by the “miraculous deliverance” of Israel during the Six-Day War allowed Jews to finally face the full horror of the Holocaust.49 Israel constitutes a revolution within Judaism, a revolution again confirmed by the calendar. The establishment of the state marked the end of Galut Judaism, of centuries of powerlessness. It demonstrated that the Jewish hope for redemption was alive, but that the Jewish people could no longer live just on hope. It began the awe inspiring process of ingathering of the exiles and showed that when the Jewish people take up responsibility for their fate in history, they are accompanied by their divine partner. Greenberg speaks of Israel Independence Day, Yom Ha’Atzmaut, as the holiday of “resurrection and redemption.”50 It is a day of joy, whose connection to the Holocaust is concretized by appearing seven days after Yom Hashoah in the calendar. Although Israel is a powerful rejoinder to the Holocaust, its relationship cannot just be one of diametrical opposition. The redemption of Israel is certainly a partial, fragmentary one. Greenberg sees Israel as a divine sign and a fulfillment of God’s biblical promises. However, God’s presence, Hashgachah, cannot be identified with any particular event in Israel’s history and those who see only Israel’s messianic meaning have lost touch with its and our broken reality. Greenberg advances a convincing critique of the messianism of

331

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Gush Emunim, the settlers’ movement, and of some Haredi, that is ultra-Orthodox, Jewish groups. His rejection of their overt view of God’s actions is based on his analysis of the dialectical effects that the Holocaust sows into Jewish history. It is blasphemous to think that God could be directly acting to realize a messianic plan for Israel, because that would imply that God could have intervened to save the six million innocents, and did not! He refers to Elie Wiesel’s judgment, in The Gates of the Forest, that the time for miraculous intervention is over. In Greenberg’s words: it is too late for an all powerful Messiah to come... Bringing the messiah is dependent on human intelligence, passion, and courage to help overcome the obstacles to perfection...The Kingdom of God can only be created if we bring people together and spread knowledge of God.51

This bold engagement with contemporary challenges such as the Holocaust,Israel,pluralism,feminism and modernity overall has brought Greenberg to be critical of, and fervently criticized by, many Orthodox leaders. He recognizes, as many other knowledgeable commentators have remarked, that Orthodoxy has moved to the “right” in the past few decades. Ultra-Orthodox rabbis and heads of Yeshivot have become increasingly influential and aggressive. Many within Orthodoxy have sought to draw a line between the righteous practitioners of Halakhah and all other varieties and streams of Judaism, which they regard as illegitimate. Further, under the banner of the famous slogan of Rabbi Moses Sofer (1762-1839) that “the new is prohibited by the Torah,” Halakhah has been expunged of the flexibility and openness that it had

332

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

exhibited in prior ages. In all, a fundamentalism has emerged that fears rational inquiry and self-criticism and that believes that modernity is equivalent to anti-Jewish. In response to these developments within Judaism, modern Orthodoxy has been on the defensive. Its major rabbinic institution, Yeshivah University, has not sought to counter Jewish fundamentalism, and those modern Orthodox leaders who have refused to accommodate the dominant spirit have been silenced and marginalized. Greenberg is very critical of the response of the movement with which he has always identified. He concludes that modern Orthodoxy has exhibited a “failure of nerve,” in response to Haredi pressure and also to a radicalization within modernity itself.52 As we have seen, Greenberg has tried to guide Judaism in another direction. He believes that: A renewal of the commitment to respect and realize the tzelem elokim of men and women, of observant and non-observant, of Jew and gentiles alike is the key to revitalization of Judaism and Jewry.53

He was at first dismayed by the results of the 1990 National Jewish Population Study that showed that the number of American Jews who saw themselves as Orthodox declined from 14.4 to 7.7 percent in the preceding two decades.54 However, his overall response has been to redouble his efforts to provide the vision of a confident and hopeful Orthodoxy. His respect for other, non­-Halakhic, varieties of Judaism has led him to listen seriously and to propose creative ways for them to participate in the Jewish tradition in their own terms.55 While he admits that, especially in the wake of the Holocaust, “it is

333

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

too early to prescribe and say that (halachic) observance is the only kind of Judaism that will survive,” he still finds it “almost impossible – to conceive that the Jews can live without the richness of Torah and halachic observance.”56 Jewish Living and Celebration I would like to conclude this presentation of Greenberg’s philosophy of Judaism by briefly commenting on the two major works that have been the source of this essay. The first is The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays of 1988. Jewish thought has often been presented through the genre of an introduction to or extended commentary on the Jewish holidays. In the last century two of the most important presentations are probably those of Franz Rosenzweig, Part Three of his The Star of Redemption, and Eliezer Schweid’s The Cycle of Appointed Times. Greenberg’s text is a rich tapestry of philosophical or theological reflection woven together with discussions of Jewish history, the origin of the holidays, Halakhic observances and more customary practices, and new innovations. For example, the examination of the holiday of Hanukkah includes a scholarly overview of the history of the Maccabean revolt, and the chapters on Yom Hashoah and Yom Ha’Atzmaut provide unique detail about the establishment of these days and possible ways for their commemoration. As another example, the chapter on Purim presents a convincing argument that the Scroll of Ester is a paradigm for the way that the Rabbis, and ourselves today, grappled with God’s presence in history. The humor with which Purim is celebrated – and which plays a supporting role in all of Greenberg’s writings – reflects well the tentative, humanistic, even somewhat rebellious way that we can honestly speak of God. Further, he finds:

334

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

Ester’s and Mordecai’s covenantal roles are rooted in the hiddenness of God. The lesson of Purim is that in an age of “eclipse of God,” look for divine redemption in the triumph of the good, even if that victory does not meet present notions of purity and perfection…God is the Divine Redeeming Presence encountered in the partial, flawed actions of humans.57

Exactly one decade following the first book, Greenberg published Living in the Image of God (1998). This is a second experiment in writing which presents his ideas – there are chapters on the nature of Judaism, his life, the role of women, the Jewish family, the situation of modern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust, Israel, and the Jewish future – in a conversational format. In it we see him as a Rabbi and leader dedicating most of his time, over many decades, to addressing very practical dimensions of the contemporary Jewish situation, such as Jewish learning, leadership training, and the unity of the Jewish community. His work as creator and director of CLAL,The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, is presented and honestly assessed.The book also provides an absorbing view into the difficulties that Greenberg has faced in the Orthodox world as well as some of the intellectual passions that activate him. At the beginning of the book he reveals his drive not to permit “another delay in getting my thoughts into print,” especially when it seems that “many more people had read about my ideas as represented by bitter opponents than had read them directly.”58 Even some of the questions by his conversational partner, Shalom Freedman, are in subtle tension with Greenberg’s critical views concerning ultra-Orthodox Judaism and

335

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

the Jewish environment of the state of Israel. Greenberg’s discussion of the current peace initiatives in Israel is also revealing. He fully believes in God’s promise of the land of Israel, but also anguishes over the rights of Palestine’s native Arab inhabitants. This difficulty comes out in his response to a question about “rebuilding the Temple.” He notes the paradox that there are “two magnificent Moslem mosques” on “the place where the Third Temple should exist.”59 He continues: “Maybe when the heavenly restoration occurs, the sanctuary will descend and sit on top of the Dome of the Rock without crushing it... As I said, I leave all of that to God.”60 There are areas within Greenberg’s thought where correctives and alternative visions could well be helpful.61 In particular, beyond these two books, through a more systematic discussion, but still not a system, he would have the opportunity to develop the implications of his insights, and to place them in the context of other philosophical presentations of Judaism. Still, of overriding importance is that Greenberg demonstrates that the Jewish way can combine commitment and openness, passion with concern for all persons. There are few contemporary Jewish leaders who have addressed in as steadfast a manner, combining both theory and practice, the crucial questions about the future of Jewish life, the role of Judaism in the world, and the challenges of the Shoah.

336

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

Notes A powerful view of the Holocaust from his father is also cited and

1

appears crucial. Rabbi Greenberg once replied to his son’s criticism of the Jewish people with a query whether over the prior decades it was the Jewish people or God who remained faithful. See, Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Living in the Image of God: Jewish Teachings to Perfect the World (Northvale [N.J.]: Simon & Schuster, 1998), xx. There is an insightful, detailed examination of Greenberg’s thought

2

by Steven Katz, “Irving (Yitzchak) Greenberg,” in Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, ed. Steven Katz (Washington [D.C.]: B’nai B’rith Books, 1993), 59-89. See the penetrating book on the Holocaust, Arthur Cohen, The

3

Tremendum (New York: Crossroad, 1981). Rabbi Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays (New

4

York: Summit Books, 1988), 18. Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 31.

5

Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 18.

6

Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 75-77.

7

Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 19. This view about the possibilities of

8

realizing redemption in history stands in contrast to the understanding of the modern Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas was extremely pessimistic about transforming the human condition in history. See, for example the provocative essay, Emmanuel Levinas, “Loving the Torah More Than God,” Difficult Freedom (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990), 142-45. Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 68.

9

Katz attributes Greenberg’s appreciation for dialectical thought to

10

337

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

the influence of the significant American Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, in “Irving (Yitzchak) Greenberg,” 60. Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 32.

11

Ibid., 24.

12

Ibid., 39.

13

See, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man (Philadelphia: Jewish

14

Publication Society, 1983). See, David Hartman, Joy and Responsibility (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi

15

Posner, 1978). The Israeli philosopher, Yeshayahu Leibowitz expressed a very

16

different view of Halakhah and, by implication, Judaism. He held that the sole purpose of Halakhah is worship of God and that Judaism does not offer happiness or redemption. See, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Judaism, Jewish Values and the Jewish State (Cambridge [Mass.]: Harvard University Press, 1992). Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 94.

17

Jacob Neusner also called for Jews to recognize the new situation of

18

freedom, in Jacob Neusner, Israel in America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985). Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 26.

19

Ibid., 27.

20

Ibid., 29.

21

Greenberg’s appreciation for Christianity in particular is discussed

22

by Katz in “Irving (Yitzchak) Greenberg,” 68-69. Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 78.

23

Ibid., 80.

24

See, Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai (San Francisco: Harper,

25

1991), 97. Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 82.

26

Ibid.

27

338

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

Ibid., 83. Greenberg’s experience in this connection is not just

28

theoretical. For example, in the course of his discussion of the heated criticisms that his reflections on the Holocaust have evoked from Orthodox leaders, he refers to the Christian theologians, Alice and Roy Eckardt. This couple, who were “shattered and transformed” by the Holocaust, courageously went on to explore its radical consequences for Christianity. Greenberg was inspired by their determination despite the opposition of many of their co-religionists. See, Ibid., 93. Ibid., 100.

29

Ibid., 105.

30

There are two significant essays on the Holocaust by Greenberg.

31

He views his well recognized essay, Irving Greenberg, “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire: Judaism, Christianity and Modernity After the Holocaust,” in Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era?, ed. Eva Fleischner (New York: Ktav, 1977), 7-55, as containing some of his most extensive reflections, while I prefer his later essay, Irving Greenberg, “Religious Values After the Holocaust: A Jewish View,” in Jews and Christians After the Holocaust, ed. Abraham Peck (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 63-86. Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 55.

32

Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 253. However, I am concerned about

33

this statement. No thought is credible in the face of such a scene. Only action would be responsible, if one had the opportunity. Thought has no answer, response, or reply. I think the significance of the Holocaust as a test of all philosophical and theological thought should be expressed in a different manner. Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 55.

34

Eliezer Berkovits has written that “the problem of faith presented

35

by the holocaust is not unique in the context of the entirety of Jewish experience,” in Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust (New York: Ktav,

339

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

1973), 90. See, for example, Richard Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical

36

Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Macmillian Co., 1966); Emil Fackenheim, To Mend the World (New York: Schocken Books, 1982); and Elie Wiesel, A Jew Today (New York:Vintage Press, 1978). Greenberg acknowledges that no fully adequate or satisfactory

37

response – in thought or in life­ – to the Holocaust is possible. This insight is expressed through such themes as the broken covenant and the dialectical life of Judaism today. Elie Wiesel and Emil Fackenheim confirm that the Holocaust has shattered the possibility of a systematic response. This is apparent in the value that Wiesel attributes to silence and in Fackenheim’s conviction that Jewish tikkun and teshuvah (return or response) are necessarily fragmentary. See, Elie Wiesel, “Why I Write,” in Confronting the Holocaust: The Impact of Elie Wiesel, ed. Alvin Rosenfeld and Irving Greenberg (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 200-206; and Emil Fackenheim, “Jewish Existence After the Holocaust,” in The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim, ed. Michael Morgan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 190-98. Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 38.

38

Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 323-24.

39

Greenberg, “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire,” 319. Although writing

40

before the Holocaust, the German­Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig also found that the boundary between belief and unbelief was no longer solid and clear. He saw the authentic religious person as both “disbelieving child of the world and believing child of God in one.” See, Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 297. Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 337.

41

Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 231.

42

Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 322.

43

340

Irving Greenberg: A Jewish Dialectic of Hope

Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 37

44

Emmanuel Levinas has given extensive philosophical expression to

45

the impossibility of a direct relationship to God and to the witnessing of the divine through the love of the neighbor. See, for example, the chapter “The Face,” in Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 85-92. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian theologian who was jailed and

46

killed for his opposition to Hitler, spoke of a new type of secular/religious expression in Christianity in terms of “religionless” Christianity. See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge, (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1972), 280-81, 380. Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 92.

47

Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 41.

48

Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 334.

49

Ibid., 373.

50

Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 310. In a related way,

51

Greenberg’s willingness to sacrifice land for peace has its source in his view of the Halakhic perspective of Judaism. Halakhah teaches that the ultimate goal is reached by proximate means, by taking one step after another. It also indicates that the individual can have confidence in the promise of ultimate redemption, despite necessarily falling short of it because of the realities of life in the world. Greenberg holds dear the divine promise that grants the whole land of Israel to the Jewish people, but can justify compromise to achieve peace and justice in the present time. Also see, 317. Ibid., 172. Greenberg recognizes that there is a radical side to

52

modernity that threatens religious communities today. This radicalization includes the overemphasis on individualism and universalism, as well as the unlimited growth of human power.

341

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Ibid., 113.

53

Ibid., 151.

54

In the section, “Toward A Pluralist Shabbat Experience,” he presents

55

a sensitive discussion of experiencing the sacred nature of the Sabbath without necessarily fully observing all the obligations, The Jewish Way, 175-81. Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, 60.

56

Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 251.

57

Greenberg, Living in the Image of God, xiv.

58

Ibid., 258.

59

Ibid., 260.

60

Katz offers a critique of some of Greenberg’s theological positions,

61

including his views of the relationship between faith and history, Halakhah and the Shoah, and the voluntary covenant and God, in Katz, “Irving (Yitzchak) Greenberg,” 78-84.

342

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

XV Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

It has been a little over ten years since the appearance of an important article on feminist Jewish philosophy, Hava TiroshSamuelson’s “‘Dare to Know’: Feminism and the Discipline of Jewish Philosophy.”2 Recently Tirosh-Samuelson supplemented her original appeal with the publication of Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, a book that contains both historical studies of and constructive essays about Jewish philosophy by a variety of authors.3 Both works challenge contemporary Jewish philosophers, the first by affirming that Jewish philosophy has been impervious to the writings of feminist theorists and philosophers and the second by providing a forum for feminist Jewish philosophers to “re-read” and “re-think” the tradition of Jewish philosophy. Tirosh-Samuelson’s efforts to initiate a “conversation between feminist philosophy, Jewish philosophy, and Jewish feminism,”4 and the critical writings of a growing group of feminist Jewish philosophers and historians of Jewish philosophy require responses. One appropriate response, which I am attempting here, is not to assess or even attempt a review of the “field” of feminist Jewish thought from some Olympian heights, but to suggest ways that fundamental commitments and perspectives of feminist Jewish philosophers, especially their focus on justice, gender, embodiment and human relationships, both challenge and reinvigorate Jewish philosophy.

343

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

One of the lessons of feminist philosophy or philosophies is that philosophy is always done out of a particular location, what is termed “feminist standpoint epistemology.”5 The positions that one takes on philosophical issues, as well as how one identifies and defines such issues, reflect a host of factors, including: culture, language, class, age, religious tradition, ethnicity, academic training and, of course, gender. Each of these factors is complex and none exhaustive in impacting what a philosopher finds important and how a philosopher addresses particular issues. One way to acknowledge these factors, in my case, might be indirectly through some reflections on how I see the various overlapping spheres of philosophy, Jewish philosophy, feminist philosophy, and feminist Jewish philosophy. Working Definitions: Philosophy, Jewish Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, and Feminist Jewish Philosophy6 It is usually assumed that the discipline of philosophy is universal, but in the West one actually has in mind a particular tradition of philosophy.There is, however, more than one tradition of philosophy. Scholars have identified three major philosophical heritages, and discussed these in terms of Western philosophies, South Asian philosophies, and Chinese philosophies.7 Each of these has particular interests and emphases, questions and issues, including such foci as: logic, mathematics, epistemology, ontology, ethics, aesthetics, religion, and social and political thought. They are characterized by different notions of what constitutes reason (and perhaps even logic), the self or non-self, knowledge, the world, and the proper goals of philosophy.8 Each heritage has multiple currents, shows changes over time, and covers a period of at least one thousand and five hundred years.Western philosophy encompasses the period from the ancient Greeks to the

344

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

contemporary era, and includes those traditions which were directly impacted by Greek philosophy, that is Christian, Jewish, and Islamic philosophy as well as modern Western or post-Christian philosophy. The major currents of South Asian or what is often termed Indian philosophy are linked to Hinduism and Buddhism, which have come to influence not only India but also the other countries of South Asia. Chinese philosophy includes Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist and Neo-Confucian philosophy, and the countries of Japan and Korea, in addition to China itself. Once the multiplicity of philosophic traditions is acknowledged, the usual difficulties encountered in describing this discipline become magnified. Some scholars even contest the use of the term philosophy to cover such diversity, or suggest alternative designations, such as Ninian Smart’s term darsanas or worldviews.9 Still, one can generalize, with much trepidation, about those phenomena that we usually group under the term philosophy. It is a discipline that addresses some of the widest and most profound human questions: the nature of the human, the universe, the true, the good, and the beautiful, as well as what constitutes authentic existence, communal life, and relations with others. What is distinctive to each of the three major traditions of philosophy are the culture(s) and history(ies) or the experiences out of which these streams of philosophy arise, the questions that are most prominent, and the methods used to address these questions. In terms of the prominent questions or fields, a number of scholars have noted the Indian philosophical concern with religion (or moksa/liberation), psychology, and dialectics; Chinese philosophical interests with ethical, political and social thought as well as aesthetics, and Western philosophical considerations about logic, mathematics, ontology, and epistemology.10

345

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

However, it must be noted that this standard characterization of the three philosophic traditions elides and obfuscates vital differences within each of them. For example, three of the participants in TiroshSamuelson’s 2004 volume have shed light on a stream of medieval and early modern Islamic and Jewish philosophy that is consistently ignored in the accustomed Western (Christian) philosophic narrative and which contests many of its perennial perspectives and judgments. Through an examination of the medieval Jewish poet/philosopher Ibn Gabirol, Sarah Pessin locates an Aristotelian branch of these traditions that more positively values materiality, passivity, the body and the erotic.11 According to Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Gersonides and Spinoza, following through an Averroist-Aristotelian stream, develop a materialist position that places desire and embodiment at its center.12 Lastly, Heidi Ravven in exploring Spinoza’s “ethics of desire” adds to this portrait Spinoza’s understanding that true knowledge and freedom require recognition of the extensive “web of social and natural relations” grounding human life.13 In light of all the above, it is difficult to suggest a single method or pursuit inclusive enough to do justice to the variety of philosophies.A tentative suggestion might be that these are approaches characterized by reflection that is articulate, sustained, critical, and self-critical. The notion of articulate is tied to language itself.14 The word “articulate” is from the Latin articulatus meaning jointed. The Oxford Dictionary includes such additions as: “distinctly jointed or marked; having the parts distinctly recognizable,” and in reference to sound; “Divided into distinct parts (words and syllables) having each a definite meaning; as opposed to such inarticulate sounds as a long musical note, a groan, shriek, or the sounds produced by animals.”15 To speak of “articulate” highlights clarity, meaningful distinctions

346

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

and connections. Philosophers use language to examine issues and present arguments and counter-arguments. Issues are addressed by breaking questions into distinct components, looking into relations, and insisting on providing the maximum appropriate clarity and meaning. The term “sustained” just reinforces the tenacity or persistence of the process of examination. The word “critical” refers to uncovering presuppositions and implications of positions and statements. Ideas are not just explored, but, in particular, what both grounds them and leads from them are traced. Finally, philosophy is self-critical. The philosopher not only presents arguments, but continually reflects upon her or his own position, presuppositions and implications. Philosophy, and this has special relevance to Indian philosophy,16 is taught and often performed through debates, where one invites or welcomes the other to critically examine one’s own position as part of the process of doing philosophy. The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has said that, despite all of Western philosophy’s lapses, it is the feature of being self-critical that is both outstanding and redeeming. In his words; “what I am interested in is precisely this ability of philosophy to think, to question itself, and ultimately to unsay itself.”17 The histories of philosophy are filled with self-critical statements about the nature of philosophy. One of the most compelling contemporary Western positions, that reflects the importance of the “linguistic turn”18 in many disciplines, as well as being in harmony with feminist concerns, is expressed by Richard Rorty. Rorty’s much cited essay “Pragmatism and Philosophy,” describes a shift in how Western philosophy itself is seen. He distinguishes between “Philosophy” and “philosophy.” Thinkers who believe in “Philosophy” search for ultimate truths that transcend cultures, languages, and particular

347

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

discourses. Adherents of “philosophy,” “compare and contrast cultural traditions” and find that “in the process of playing vocabularies and cultures off against each other, we produce new and better ways of talking and acting.”19 These post-philosophical philosophers study “the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the various ways of talking that our race has invented.”20 The awareness that there are three philosophical heritages, each with its own internal variety, significantly affects discussions of the nature of the interactions between “philosophy,” feminist philosophy, Jewish philosophy and feminist Jewish philosophy. Since what is usually regarded as “philosophy,” in this context is only a stream (Greek, Christian, and post-Christian) of one tradition, i.e. Western philosophy, the relationships between these will always be those among particularities. There is no universal “Philosophy” as such, and the engagement between Western philosophy and feminist philosophy or between Western philosophy and Jewish philosophy is one between disciplines with their own specific histories and presuppositions.21 There is also a great diversity of views concerning the nature and scope of Jewish philosophy.22 An influential definition was provided in Julius Guttmann’s classic, Philosophies of Judaism. He wrote that; “Since the days of antiquity, Jewish philosophy was essentially a philosophy of Judaism.”23 This means that Jewish philosophy uses the current tools or systems of (Western) philosophy to explore the nature of Judaism or specific issues distinctive to Judaism. Although the lack of consensus about the nature of this topic is highlighted in Tirosh-Samuelson’s “Introduction” to Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, this description seems to cover many of the viewpoints that she identifies.24 However, there is a broader understanding of Jewish philosophy, which is more consistent with both comparative

348

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

philosophy and feminist concerns. In harmony with the earlier discussion of the foci of the discipline of philosophy, Jewish philosophy might include, but not be seen as limited to Jewish topics, issues or beliefs. Jewish philosophers also explore, again, some of the widest and most profound human questions: the nature of the human, the universe, the true, the good, and the beautiful, as well as what constitutes authentic existence, communal life, and relations with others. One of the best examples of this understanding of the scope of Jewish philosophy is found in Franz Rosenzweig’s The Star of Redemption. The Star looks at nothing less than God, humans or “man,” and the world, through the integral categories – and Jewish understandings of these categories – of creation, revelation, and redemption. Additionally, in “narrating” a Jewish philosophical view of these topics, Rosenzweig also explores such matters as: mathematics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy, theology, world history, Western intellectual history, world religions, psychology, sociology, political theory, biblical literature, and linguistics.25 What is distinctive to Jewish philosophy is that the resources for this investigation emerge out of Jewish history or Jewish experiences. Jewish religion, literature, culture, and history provide the categories and experiences out of which Jewish philosophy is done. Some speak of Jewish experience or Jewish memory,26 but these terms must always be put in the plural, reminding us of the multiplicity of experiences of Jewish communities and individuals, including the importance of cultural, economic and social groupings as well as gender. Religion points to Jewish beliefs, practices, and worldviews. Literature might include such sacred texts as the Hebrew Bible, Mishna and Talmud, as well as the Halakhic and Aggadic commentaries and reflections, and liturgy, that arise out of these religious sources. Literature would also

349

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

include other writings, such as poetry, stories and novels that may be religious or “secular.” The term culture would include the huge variety of cultural productions including such things as folkways, music, dance, and art. Diachronically, Jewish experiences range from the biblical period to the present, and particularly relevant for contemporary Jewish philosophy are the Holocaust, the establishment of the state of Israel, and the new Jewish communities in North America. Jewish philosophy reflects out of these foundations and, following an earlier definition, proceeds in ways that are articulate, sustained, critical, and self-critical. Finally, it is important to add that while scholars representing all ethnic groups and religious and non-religious affiliations are welcomed as historians and critics of Jewish philosophy, constructive Jewish philosophy can only be done by those who feel obligated by Jewish experience, responsible to contemporary Jewish communities, and link themselves to past and future Jewish destiny, that is, are committed Jewish persons. In terms of exploring feminist philosophy, there is a helpful article by MarilynThie that was published as part of a group of essays dedicated to feminist philosophy of religion in the journal Hypatia. Thie’s title, “Prolegomenon to Future Feminist* Philosophies of Religions,” emphasized the plurality of feminisms, feminist philosophies, and philosophies of religions. She begins with a definition of feminism: Feminist* refers to mindsets, consciousness, and so on, which are aligned with liberation struggles that: a) take into account the complex interconnections among the various ways peoples’ lives are concretely defined, for example, race, class, age, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity interacting with gender; b) recognize the

350

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

structural and institutional nature of interconnected oppressions; and c) acknowledge that only by beginning with the lived experience of multipli-marginalized women (and those dependent on them) will liberation agendas be sufficiently inclusive, radical, and transforming.27

Thie uses the alliteration of adjectives of “political, practical, pluralistic, passionate, and partial,” to characterize feminist philosophies of religion.28 Drawing on her explanation and the work of other feminist philosophers, I would suggest that some of the most distinctive and important features of feminist philosophy include a (political) commitment to justice, the salience of gender as a category of experience and an analytic category, and heightened sensitivities for concrete experiences, especially the experiences and voices of those marginalized. There are also other features that are often prominent in feminist philosophy and feminist thought overall. These would include an understanding of humans as embodied, relational, and part of the natural order of living creatures and the environment.29 In terms of all of these characteristics, the lives and voices of women are central. The other aspects of philosophy, discussed above, including articulate, sustained, critical, and self-critical would augment this understanding of feminist philosophy. Finally, in my view, while male philosophers may explore and critique feminist philosophy, they cannot be feminist philosophers. Constructive feminist philosophy can only be created by women, those who reflect first-hand out of women’s experiences.While these statements are certainly debatable, they follow from the notion that participation in a particular history and experiences, in this case the gendered histories and experiences of women, is one of the distinctive

351

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

features of a philosophic tradition or stream. For me, this feature of the work of feminist philosophers points beyond those commitments to specific perspectives and understandings – about justice, gender as a category, embodiment, human relationships – which men can share. In addition, in response to the historic male hegemony in all philosophic traditions, I believe that there ought to be space(s) for exclusively women’s philosophic voices, in addition to places for the voices of men and women together.30 While some philosophers may be “gracious” enough to allow the focus on gender to prove itself over time as a central philosophic category of analysis, it might well be the feature of a prior commitment to justice that is the most problematic for those trained (whether men or women) in traditional Western philosophy. For them, philosophy is a love for or commitment to truth that allows the concern for justice at most, and only secondarily, as ethics. However, many feminist philosophers hold, in Tirosh-Samuelson’s words, that; “the act of philosophizing and the telling of the history of philosophy are always political acts,”31 and thus that the issue of justice is always at play and cannot be ignored or deferred. Similarly, Emmanuel Levinas, who has had great impact on contemporary philosophy, insisted on; “ethics as first [the beginning and foundation of] philosophy,”32 and defined philosophy as; “the wisdom of love at the service of love.”33 Levinas saw this love in terms of responsibility, and believed that it was precisely the heritage of Judaism that could bring this imperative forward in its full priority and urgency. The nature of feminist Jewish philosophy would follow from the earlier discussions. In particular, it would add to Jewish philosophy the aspects of the commitment to justice, and the attention to gender, as well as perspectives that highlight humans as embodied, relational,

352

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

and within the natural order. It would speak of those most important issues of human life out of the resources of Jewish experience or memory, especially the experiences and memories of Jewish women. The commitment to justice would include the critical feature of the recognition of the historical ways that Jewish women have been oppressed, repressed, and marginalized in the Jewish tradition. Feminist Jewish philosophers feature a responsibility to transform those elements within the Jewish experience that have caused this oppression,repression, and marginalization, as well as to bring forgotten and silenced Jewish women’s voices of the past forward and to create room for such voices in the present and future. Finally, consistent with the deliberations about Jewish philosophy and feminist philosophy, I would argue that while male Jewish philosophers can play productive roles as historians and critics – as well as respondents – to feminist Jewish philosophy, they cannot themselves be feminist Jewish philosophers. Feminist Jewish Philosophy: Justice, Gender, Embodiment and Relationships I would like to offer a few examples, some early and others more recent, of the ways that feminist Jewish theorists and philosophers in executing their perspectives and commitments offer new insights into how important philosophic issues can be understood, engaged and mediated. An initial question here concerns the label feminist Jewish philosopher. Feminist Jews or Jewish feminists have spoken of themselves in a variety of ways, using such terms as Jewish feminist philosophers, Jewish feminist theologians, and Jewish feminist thinkers. The disciplinary boundaries are not always clear – and not only in terms of feminism – especially concerning the relationship between Jewish philosophy and Jewish theology. In terms of the latter, for

353

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

example, Emil Fackenheim began his career as a Jewish theologian and later identified himself as a Jewish philosopher. Levinas divided his work between philosophical and Jewish writings. In addition, the questioning of disciplinary boundaries, as well as of binary thinking, i.e. either philosopher or theologian, plays a role in many feminist analyses.34 My treatment will be very inclusive, but I recognize that many theorists will disagree with this position. The concern for justice and focus on the place of Jewish women in terms of the Jewish tradition, practice, and community has had many ramifications. Feminist Jewish theorists and philosophers have offered critiques of past and present practices, explored for hidden voices and new resources, and also attempted to enhance the place of women in contemporary Jewish life. Judith Plaskow’s classic Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective offers an overall roadmap for a host of philosophic problems and strategies.35 The map includes a focus on the three traditional pillars of Judaism – God, Torah, and the people of Israel – as well as the strategies of critique, retrieval, and reconstruction. One of the lines of argument in her work, the analysis of God-language, was also prominent in early feminist critiques. Plaskow and a number of feminist Jews, including Lynn Gottlieb, Sylvia Fishman, Marcia Falk, and Rita Gross critiqued traditional language about God that was exclusively male in terms of both social implications and theoretical issues. They argued that the way that a community speaks of the divine reflects and reinforces fundamental views about itself and what it values. If the language of the highest realm is reserved exclusively for representations of the male, then women are being systematically devalued. The correlation between religious language and everyday life was underscored in Rita Gross’ statement that; “If it is daring, degrading or alienating to speak

354

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

of God using female pronouns and imagery, that perhaps indicates something about the way women and the feminine are valued.”36 On the positive side, Marcia Falk held that: Recognizing the enormous power of God-talk to educate and shape our lives, feminist Jews in our time are taking back the power of naming, addressing divinity in our own voices, using language that reflects our own experiences.37

The contribution in this case includes the widening of the possibilities of Jewish religious experience for all, since the addition of new metaphors for God brings Jews to recognize fresh avenues for encountering the divine. This discussion has also led to considerations of the links between the divine, the community, the erotic and nature. The practical impact of this discussion by feminist thinkers on Jewish religious life has been striking. In many Jewish synagogues and in a variety of Jewish “denominations,” changes in liturgy, especially in terms of utilizing feminine pronouns and metaphors to describe and address the divine, have been effected. Philosophically, this early discussion constitutes an important reminder of the nature and power of religious language. Religious language, that is language about the divine, is always metaphoric. The language that communities use arises out of their particular experiences and memory. It reflects not the nature of the divine itself, a divine which in Judaism is usually regarded as infinite, but the historic and contemporary ways that Jewish communities and individuals have experienced and addressed God. When this language is reified and taken as reality, as authoritatively descriptive of the divine, it borders on idolatry. The

355

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

continuing controversy in some quarters about these pronouns and metaphors reinforces the lesson that the issue of religious language is not just “academic,” but vibrates with the self-understanding, the identity and value commitments, of various Jewish communities.38 The feminist Jewish philosopher Susan Shapiro in her essay “A Matter of Discipline: Reading for Gender in Jewish Philosophy,” offers a fine example of the philosophical fruitfulness of interweaving a commitment to justice, focus on women, and sustained examination of gender tropes. She begins with a statement about methodology, which clarifies the meaning of “reading for gender.” In her words: Reading for gender requires attending to the rhetoricity and textuality of a work, that is to its patterning of metaphors and other figures and tropes, not only to its logic...to read for gender is to read for constructions and performances of gender in these texts with an interest in the intellectual and cultural labor these tropes enact. It is to read, as well, with an interest in their consequences, both within these texts and for readers today.That is, the work performed by these gendered tropes will be found to be philosophical, requiring a rethinking of what we understand philosophical texts to be and how they, therefore, may best be read.39

Shapiro speaks here of the exploration of the systematic ways that gendered metaphors and tropes are used to construct philosophic arguments and texts. Uncovering the place of these elements in a discourse brings new insights not only to the understanding of the text, but to the continuing effects of these texts on today’s readers, including their conceptions of philosophy itself.

356

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

Following a number of other feminist philosophers, Shapiro traces the use of gendered metaphors from Greek philosophy, through medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophers. Citing such texts as Plato’s Gorgias, she shows that the very establishment of (Western) philosophy as a discipline was founded on a series of gendered distinctions. The terrain of philosophy was created through the distinction between authentic dialectic, on the one side, and the false but alluring realm of rhetoric, on the other. Philosophy becomes the realm of dialectic, the rational, the soul, the good, and truth, while its opposite is composed of rhetoric, the irrational, the body, pleasure, and illusion.40 Much of the force of its argument comes through the use of gendered terms to designate and give valuation to the two sides. Thus, the masculine discipline of philosophy is contrasted with rhetoric’s use of flattery, pleasure, and the irrational, through statements that continually label the latter by way of the pronoun “she.” The special appeal of this argument for Plato’s audience, or its affinity for this portrait, is shown by Shapiro’s reference to contemporary accounts of Zeus’ creation of Pandora, in Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days. Pandora, the first woman, was Zeus’ punishment and curse to men, an “irresistible” creature of illusion and appearance, in all, the embodiment of “lovely evil.” 41 Thus, philosophy’s subtle use and exclusion of the “feminine” haunts its beginnings. Shapiro contends that in the medieval period both Islamic and Jewish philosophers erected their edifices upon this troubling foundation.42 The particular focus of her essay is the texts of Maimonides. These also utilized gendered distinctions that go back to Greek times, although consonant with the role of Aristotle in medieval philosophy, it is the Peripatetic who stands as the primary source. In discussing the importance of reason’s governance over the body, Maimonides utilizes a number of gendered dichotomies

357

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

and hierarchies. Reason and soul are identified with form, and the body with matter. While form is permanent, matter is unstable and the source of corruption. The ideal relation between reason and the body, form and matter, is portrayed as a marriage, a marriage in which form rules matter, reason rules body, as a husband rules his wife.43 The body is portrayed as a “married harlot,” when reason properly governs or disciplines the unstable and corruptible body. Shapiro argues that; “What this trope makes evident, in any case, is that matter’s inconstancy and moral corruption is due to its, as it were, ‘female sexuality.’”44 What is most incisive, and controversial,45 about Shapiro’s discussion is its pursuit of the “cultural and social consequences”46 of the metaphor of the “married harlot.” She seeks these in terms of both “the gendering of the Jewish philosophical subject and for the lives of Jewish women and men.”47 In relation to the former, Shapiro discusses the exclusion of women from philosophy as well as the overall devaluation of the body. The issue of “the lives of Jewish women and men” is pursued through a dramatic change of focus that arises directly out of central feminist Jewish philosophical concerns: justice, women, the body, relationships. She leaves the philosophic Guide to the Perplexed to visit one of Maimonides’ discussions of relations between a husband and wife in his tremendously influential commentary on Jewish law, the Mishneh Torah. She finds a consistency in Maimonides’ use of the metaphor of the body as a “married harlot” with his legal opinion about the rights of a husband to “discipline” his wife if she fails her obligations. Shapiro writes: “A wife who refuses to perform any kind of work that she is obligated to do,” Maimonides tells us, “may be

358

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

compelled to perform it, even by scourging her with a rod.” A husband may legally batter his wife with a rod to discipline her, to “quell” her unruliness. However, when a man is to be compelled by the rod, it can be administered only by the court and never, under any circumstances, at the behest of his wife or, indeed, by any woman.48

Shapiro does not suggest that she is proving that the metaphor of the “married harlot” caused Maimonides’ legal opinion.Yet, she does argue that we can see that this gendered trope is more than a question of mere words. There is a homologous fit between metaphor and ruling, that is to say, together they illuminate a universe of discourse and practice. It is a universe where philosophy’s founding metaphors are taken up by Jewish philosophy with the result of perpetuating and reinforcing the asymmetrical relationships between real men and women, thus putting, for us, a husband’s exclusive right to discipline a wife always under rhetorical and actual suspicion. Claire Katz’s book, Levinas, Judaism and the Feminine, provides another example of the contribution that feminist Jewish philosophy can make to both (Western) philosophy and Jewish philosophy. The dual reception in this case is primarily due to Emmanuel Levinas’ significance for these streams of thought. There are two lines of argument that course through Katz’s text. One is that Levinas’ discourse about the feminine plays a central, constructive role in his overall philosophic endeavor. The second argument is that an understanding of Levinas’ view of the feminine must be put into the context of his Jewish writings about the feminine and also his Jewish heritage overall. While many critics of Levinas, including the distinguished feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, find the discussions

359

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

of the feminine in his philosophic texts to possibly undermine the goals of his entire project,49 Katz believes that the feminine is a major catalyst behind the most important features of his work. Progressing through the whole body of Levinas’ philosophic authorship, Katz seeks to demonstrate that themes tied to the feminine, such as sexual difference and the erotic, elicit: the overall experience of alterity, the initial experience of present and future, the condition for the possibility of the face-to-face relation, the possibility for asymmetrical intersubjectivity, and the interruption of male virility. In the end, the feminine becomes the highest model – as maternity – for ethics. Thus, for Katz, far from being the Achilles’ heel of his ethical philosophy, the feminine is responsible for nothing less than the construction of authentic subjectivity. For example, she writes: Although Levinas insists that sexual difference is secondary to “humanity,” it is sexual difference that provides the means for the ethical relation to occur. It is fundamental to the movement of subjectivity...In other words, alterity via the relationship to the feminine in eros is the means by which the existent becomes a subject.50

Katz turns to Levinas’ Jewish writings to show that Judaism provides the foundation for his ethical philosophy, and particularly, for his understanding of the feminine. She analyzes such biblical narratives as: the Genesis creation accounts, the murder of Abel by Cain, the Akedah or binding of Isaac, and the story of Ruth’s relationship to Naomi and conversion to Judaism, to examine and explore Levinas’ ideas and images of the feminine. She contends:

360

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

Levinas derives his image of the feminine from the women of the Hebrew Bible. If we are to see the richness of Levinas’s image of the feminine, we must take into account the roles that men and women play in the Hebrew Bible.51

Katz also examines Levinas’ unexpected introduction of maternity as the model for ethics in his last major work, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Ethics. She quotes from one of his talmudic commentaries to show the Jewish source for this significant metaphor. Levinas has commented: Rakhamin [mercy] is the relation of the uterus [rekhem] to the other, whose gestation takes place within it. Rakhamin is maternity itself.God as merciful is God defined by maternity. A feminine element is stirred in the depth of this mercy.52

However, there is more than an analytic feature to Katz’s writing. Biblical narratives are used to heal, as it were, the lapses and wounds in Levinas’ image of the feminine. The story of Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi is used to reveal a deeper understanding of subjectivity, and a wider account than the sometimes stereotyped image of women that Levinas offers. Ruth announces the dynamic of self and stranger, of same and other in every person, as well as offering a “space” for women that goes beyond either the erotic or the domestic. If Katz’s book underscores the possibilities released through the overlapping feminist Jewish philosophical concerns with justice, gender and Judaism, a recent essay by Susan Shapiro reinforces the observation of the plurality of voices and judgments that inhabit this discipline. In the essay, “‘And God Created Woman’: Reading the Bible Otherwise,” Shapiro offers one of the most incisive and sustained discussions of the

361

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

problematic of Levinas’ construction and use of the feminine. As did Katz, she insists that an understanding of Levinas’ highly influential Greek (philosophical) writings, and especially the notion of the feminine, must be augmented through a careful analysis of his Hebrew (Jewish) essays. However, where Katz suggests the healing features of this Hebrew pharmakon, Shapiro points to the poisonous properties that exacerbate the troubling views of women and the feminine. Here Shapiro’s “reading for gender” in the two streams of writings brings her to “worry” that; “his characterization of rhetoric and idolatry serves to reinscribe within his writing the very gender hierarchy and subordination of female to male and Woman to Man that Levinas apparently would undo.”53 For example, she finds echoes in Levinas of Plato’s representation of woman in terms of appearance, artifice, and deception. Further, Levinas’ Jewish writings reinforce the identification of the masculine with the universal, the inequality of their relations, and the exclusion of woman from the public domain and from the realm of justice. At the end of the essay, Shapiro discovers positive “sparks” in Levinas that could be turned into full-blown embers through an ethical re-reading and re-writing of Levinas’ portrait of woman and the feminine, but the overall force of her analysis certainly leaves the reader with great doubts about this recovery. A final example of the power of feminist analysis takes up the important issue of Judaism and religious pluralism.54 The relationship between Judaism and other religions has a long history, with hints and suggestions found even in the Bible. In the medieval period Jewish philosophers considered the legitimacy of Islam and Christianity, but it has been especially from the period of Emancipation that the question of Jewish attitudes toward other religious traditions gained salience. Over the last one hundred years, such Jewish philosophers

362

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

as Hermann Cohen, Leo Baeck, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Abraham Heschel, Mordecai Kaplan, David Hartman, Eliezer Berkovits, David Novak, Eugene Borowitz, and Irving Greenberg have addressed the issue of the relationship between Judaism and other religious traditions. In the twenty-first century, the question is nothing less than compulsory. A particular contribution of feminist Jewish thought comes through in Judith Plaskow’s Standing Again at Sinai. She widens the inquiry about religious pluralism into an examination of the way Judaism treats the question of difference overall. She finds a symmetry between the dominant traditional representation of those in other religions, i.e. non-Jews, with the portrayal of Jewish women. Both are regarded as the “other.” Persons of other religions are outside the norm of Judaism, while women are other than the male norm. Difference is seen not only in terms of self and other, but also hierarchically. Both Jews and the male are identified with the divine, Jews as the one chosen people of God, and the male as providing the exclusive set of metaphors for the divine. Thus, Plaskow’s concern for justice and focus on gender bring her to insights about what she sees as Judaism’s systematic disparagement of difference. In her words: To understand more fully those aspects of Judaism that thwart Jewish acceptance of difference without gradation, we must examine further those ideas that have contributed to Judaism’s long history of conceptualizing difference in terms of hierarchical separations...Paralleling external differentiation [of Jews and non-Jews] were a host of internal separations that set apart distinct and unequal objects, states, and modes of being.55

363

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Plaskow’s remedy to Judaism’s traditional attitude toward both religious others and women is to substitute the model of particular parts (differences) having equal places in an overall whole for the paradigm of hierarchical gradations. For her, this means that Jewish notions of a transcendent God and of the election of the Jewish people must be abandoned. She writes; “I shall argue [that]...the notion of a supernatural deity who singles out a particular people is part of the dualistic, hierarchical understanding of reality that the feminist must repudiate.”56 Of Present and Future What do these examples suggest about the present and future impact of feminist Jewish theorists and philosophers on Jewish philosophy? As was the case in other areas of the academy when the voices of feminist thought were added to a wide range of disciplines, the result is more than quantitative. The effect goes beyond just new material being offered, new sources and texts being examined. Rather, the sustained attention to justice, gender, embodiment and relationships should change the way that the discipline of Jewish philosophy sees and conducts itself. Feminist Jewish thinkers contest Jewish philosophy’s language about objectivity and impartiality, introducing the point of departure of the concern for justice. Feminist Jewish thought changes the types of questions asked and the methods pursued in doing philosophy, through its affirmation of the salience of gender, that “reading for gender,” that has been traced above. The prominence of the topic of embodiment in the works of feminist Jewish philosophers, among other things, challenges Jewish philosophy’s tendency to ignore the concrete and practical nature of human living. Finally, feminist Jewish thinkers ask that

364

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

Jewish philosophy’s signature concentration on ethics be widened to include the examination of all types of human relationships, especially marriage and the erotic, as well as the systematic distortions that frame and support many of these in Jewish life. Second, feminist Jewish theorists and philosophers escalate the feature of self-criticism that defines philosophy and Jewish philosophy. In particular, they remind us of the ways that the terms “Philosophy” and “reason” have themselves been used to limit conversation in regard to persons, i.e. women, and approaches. We have seen that in both the medieval and modern periods some Jewish philosophers have continued Western philosophy’s founding act, by which philosophy, reason, the soul, and truth were distinguished from rhetoric, the passions, the body, and illusion by way of gendered tropes. In consequence, Jewish philosophy is called upon to be suspicious of metaphors, tropes, and dichotomies that end up saying more than they seem. The terms “philosophy,”“reason” and “truth” can no longer be used in innocence. Whenever they appear, one has the right to ask whether their use is furthering the praxis of discrimination and exclusion. For example, while it is a valuable effort to explore possible differences between the disciplines of philosophy and theology, the distinction between them as it appears in contemporary texts may cover over a facile and self-satisfied dismissal of particular methodological and substantiative questions as well as bodies of literature. In terms of the future of feminist Jewish philosophy, I would like to suggest a resource that has been invoked, but never explored in a sustained way, to augment one of its fundamental concerns. As we have seen, the understanding of the human as relational and the topic of relationships are omnipresent in feminist and feminist Jewish thought. These foci often arise in the context of the critique of Western images

365

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

of the self that speak of the human in terms of autonomy and autarchy, that is, self-consciousness, self-reliance and self-direction. Many feminist and feminist Jewish thinkers refocus attention on the myriad avenues – especially in concrete and embodied ways – that each individual is linked to and develops through relationships with others. Tirosh-Samuelson writes, for example, about evidence suggesting that; “personhood (or selfhood) is relational; the self is intrinsically social and the boundaries between the self and the world are extremely porous.”57 Following the philosopher Gillian Rose, the Jewish feminist Randi Rashkover speaks of philosophy in terms of; “the conscious reflection upon the drama of human inter-subjective engagement.”58 While Tirosh-Samuelson and other feminist Jewish thinkers have noted developments in post-Freudian psychoanalysis that highlight a relational notion of the self, this very fertile area remains underutilized.59 For example, Rachel Adler in Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics does discuss the Object Relations psychoanalytic theorists and the more contemporary work of Jessica Benjamin, but there is much more to plumb than in her account.60 The most prominent feature in Kleinian, Object Relations and contemporary Relational streams of post-Freudian psychoanalysis, especially in comparison with Freud, is the insistence that humans can only be understood in relationship with other humans. Major figures in these streams include: Melanie Klein, W.R.D. Fairbairn, D.W. Winnicott, Hans Loewald, Stephen Mitchell, and Jessica Benjamin.61 Object Relations theorists have explored in particular the relationship between mother and infant and hold that to understand the original and continuing basis for mental life, one must begin with the mother-infant dyad or matrix. Expressed in terms of human development, there is the famous statement by Winnicott that; “There

366

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

is no such thing as an infant,” by which he meant that “without maternal care there would be no infant.”62 Continuing to follow the influence of relationships – internal (within the psyche) and external, past and present – throughout the life of a person, Stephen Mitchell has concluded that; to speak of “an individual human mind is an oxymoron; subjectivity always develops in the context of intersubjectivity.”63 Some feminist Jewish philosophers’ questions about the notion of reason, its rhetorical uses that exclude women and reinforce views of individual autonomy and self-construction, should find the ontogenetic accounts of reason of the psychoanalysts to be extremely suggestive. In these cases, reason is seen emerging out of or grounded in the overall dynamics of human relationships. Melanie Klein ties the emergence of reason to the second stage of the infant’s development. The first stage, the paranoid-schizoid position, is named for the ways the infant manages its overwhelming aggression and anxiety. Part of its response to its own inner-directed aggression is to attack, at least in phantasy, the mother. The second stage, the depressive position, represents the infant’s remorse and efforts to reconsider and mend its relationship to the mother. For Klein, reason emerges at this time, as the infant tries to step outside of its anxiety and aggression in order to re-establish a more satisfactory relationship to the mother. Thus, Klein offers important insights into the passionate – love, guilt, loss and reparation – and relational origins – with the m/other – of reason.64 Hans Loewald also sees reason as arising out of the experiences of the early mother-infant matrix. Reason, that inner dialogue, is for him the incorporation into the individual of a dynamic process that first took place within that dyad. Here, reason develops in interaction and then is individualized.65 In both cases, reason is seen as a facility that develops out of the wider life between persons.

367

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

There are many other elements in these streams of post-Freudian psychoanalysts that may be helpful to feminist Jewish philosophy.66 I will include one additional area.These psychoanalysts have highlighted the embodied, passionate, and gendered nature of human life. A single quote, from Hans Loewald, best exemplifies this claim: The life of the body, of bodily needs and habits and functions, kisses and excrements and intercourse, tastes and smells and sights, body noises and sensations, caresses and punishments, tics and gait and movements, facial expression, the penis and the vagina and the tongue and arms and hands and feet and legs and hair, pain and pleasure, physical excitement and lassitude, violence and bliss – all this is the body in the context of human life.67

The title of Hava Tirosh-Samuelson’s article, “Dare to Know,” foreshadowed the situation today in the relationship between Jewish philosophy and feminist Jewish thought.The term “dare” is especially illuminating. Dare is a word of provocation, of passion, pointing to risk. Feminist Jewish theorists and philosophers challenge Jewish philosophy. What is the extent of the challenge? They contest the very constitution of that discipline, Jewish philosophy’s methods, parameters, and goals. The magnitude of the risk may account for Jewish philosophy’s failure so far to sincerely engage feminist and feminist Jewish writers and concerns. A major symptom of this “resistance,” is Jewish philosophy’s silence. However, there is no authentic way to evade this encounter, for only in that transformative meeting can Jewish philosophers (both men and women) fulfill their fundamental commitments to Judaism and to philosophy.

368

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

Notes This article developed out of an oral presentation in a panel on

1

“Women, Gender, and Jewish Philosophy: the State of the Discipline,” at the Association of Jewish Studies annual meeting in Chicago, December 2004. Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, “‘Dare to Know’: Feminism and the

2

Discipline of Jewish Philosophy,” in Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Studies, ed. Lynn Davidman and Shelly Tenenbaum (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1994). I will use Hava’s current name throughout this article, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, ed., Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy

3

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). Tirosh-Samuelson, “Dare to Know,” 85.

4

Ibid., 90.

5

I am not offering final,“monothetic,” definitions of these overlapping

6

disciplines, but collections of important characteristics for each one. Benson Saler in Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), discusses “monothetic” and “multi-factorial approaches” to definitions. See, for example, Ninian Smart’s World Philosophies (London:

7

Routledge, 2000), 1-11, and also Ben-Ami Scharfstein, “The Three Philosophical Traditions,” A Comparative History of World Philosophy: From the Upanishads to Kant (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 1-54. See, Scharfstein, “The Three Philosophical Traditions.”

8

Smart, World Philosophies, 7.

9

See Smart, World Philosophies, and also Scharfstein, “The Three

10

369

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Philosophical Traditions.” Sarah Pessin, “Loss, Presence, and Gabirol’s Desire: Medieval Jewish

11

Philosophy and the Possibility of a Feminist Ground,” in Tirosh-Samuelson, Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy. Idit Dobbs-Weinstein,“Thinking Desire in Gersonides and Spinoza,”

12

in Tirosh-Samuelson, Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy. Heidi Miriam Ravven,“Spinoza’s Ethics of the Liberation of Desire,”

13

in Tirosh-Samuelson, Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, 81. Charles Taylor has two fine essays on the role of articulation in

14

philosophy, Charles Taylor, “The Person,” in The Category of the Person, ed. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 272, 275, 280; and Charles Taylor, “Comparison, History, Truth,” in Myth and Philosophy, ed. Frank E. Reynolds and David Tracy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 41, 48. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. I (Oxford:

15

Oxford University Press, 1971), 118. Scharfstein, “The Three Philosophical Traditions,” 31.

16

Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Kearney,“Dialogue with Emmanuel

17

Levinas,” in Face to Face with Levinas, ed. Richard Cohen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 22. See Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis:

18

University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 60. Richard Rorty, “Pragmatism and Philosophy,” in After Philosophy:

19

End or Transformation? ed. Kenneth Baynes, James Bohman, and Thomas McCarthy (Cambridge [Mass.]: MIT Press, 1987), 54. Ibid., 58.

20

Treatments of feminist Jewish philosophy often presuppose that

21

“philosophy” is universal and that Jewish philosophy and feminist Jewish

370

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

philosophy are particular. For example, Tirosh-Samuelson speaks of “the secular, universal truth-claims of philosophy,” in “Dare to Know,” 98, while Jewish philosophy is grounded in the “Jewish tradition itself,” 99. Heidi Ravven in “Observations on Jewish Philosophy and Feminist Thought,” Judaism, 46 (Fall 1997), characterizes philosophy as “universal and critical,” 431, and Jewish philosophy as having “universalist as well as particularist tendencies,” 430. At times, philosophy is labeled as “Western” by feminist and feminist Jewish philosophers in the context of their critique of its androcentric character; see Tirosh-Samuelson, “Dare to Know,” 87. However, in the end, “philosophy” is still equated with the universal, at least once its defects are overcome. See the discussion of the nature of Jewish philosophy in Norbert

22

Samuelson, ed., Studies in Jewish Philosophy: Collected Essays of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy, 1980-1985 (Lanham, [MD]: University Press of America, 1987). Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (London: Routledge and

23

Kegan Paul, 1964), 4. In “Dare to Know,” she defines Jewish philosophy as; “a systematic

24

reflection about Judaism by means of philosophical categories and in light of philosophical questions,” 98. One problem with this definition is that it does not allow for an encounter or dialogue between Western philosophy and Jewish philosophy, or a critique of Western philosophy arising out of Jewish philosophy. Fackenheim in Emil Fackenheim, “Jewish Philosophy in the Academy,” in Jewish Philosophers and Jewish Philosophy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 189-92, discusses three contemporary areas where Jewish philosophy might critique or contribute to (Western) philosophy, which are tied to the Holocaust, the establishment of the state of Israel, and the nature of Jewish identity. See Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption (Madison: Wisconsin

25

371

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

University Press, 2005). This understanding of Jewish philosophy is also discussed by Heidi Ravven in her, “Observations on Jewish Philosophy.” As I read her essay, she speaks of the two aspects of Jewish philosophy as “philosophical exploration and Jewish elaboration,” 425; or,“Philosophical accounts that explore universal aspects of a shared humanity as well as cultural particularities,” 427. Heidi Ravven, in an insightful and nuanced discussion, describes

26

the resources for Jewish philosophy in terms of Jewish memory. Memory has the advantage of including Jewish identity and allowing for the continual reassessment and reconfiguration of the Jewish past. See, Ravven, “Observations on Jewish Philosophy,” 196-200. Marilyn Thie, “Epilogue: Prolegomenon To Future Feminist*

27

Philosophies of Religions,” Hypatia, 9 (Fall 1994): 229. Ibid., 231.

28

A number of feminist philosophers could be cited who show

29

the integration of all of these features; one of the most important is the French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray. Additionally,Tirosh-Samuelson provides an excellent description of central characteristics of feminist philosophy in “Dare to Know,” 85-96. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson’s decision to only include essays by women

30

in her book, Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, is, I believe, consistent with this position. Tirosh-Samuelson, Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, 7.

31

One of Levinas’ most famous essays is titled, Emmanuel Levinas,

32

“Ethics as First Philosophy,” in The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 75-87. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence (The

33

Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981), 162. Tirosh-Samuelson describes these features in “Dare to Know,”

34

372

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

especially 92-94. However, she sees it as important that “Jewish feminists learn to speak philosophically...rather than merely theologically,” 104. Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist

35

Perspective (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991). Rita Gross, “Female God Language in a Jewish Context,” in

36

Womanspirit Rising, ed. Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1992), 168. Marcia Falk, “Notes on Composing New Blessings,” in Weaving

37

the Visions, ed. Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1989), 128. There is a treatment of feminist Jewish thinkers’ critique of God-

38

language in my book, Michael Oppenheim, Speaking/Writing of God: Jewish Philosophical Reflections on the Life with Others (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 65-74. Susan E. Shapiro, “A Matter of Discipline: Reading for Gender in

39

Jewish Philosophy,” in Judaism Since Gender, ed. Miriam Peskowitz and Laura Levitt (New York: Routledge, 1997), 158-59. Ibid., 160.

40

Cited in Shapiro, “A Matter of Discipline,” 160.

41

As noted earlier in the present essay, such feminist Jewish philosophers

42

as Sarah Pessin, Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, and Heidi Ravven have explored streams of medieval and early modern Islamic and Jewish philosophy that reveal more positive attitudes toward matter, the body, and the feminine. Shapiro, “A Matter of Discipline,” 161-62.

43

Ibid., 163.

44

The controversy concerning Shapiro’s article revolves around her

45

analysis of Maimonides’ statement, which will be introduced shortly, relating to the rights of the husband to use a rod to discipline his wife. A number of critics have maintained the Rabbis did not find that

373

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

Maimonides’ ruling gave this power to the husband. There is a helpful summary of medieval rabbinic interpretations of this ruling in Avraham Grossman’s Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe (Waltham [Mass.]: Brandeis University Press, 2004), 219-23. Grossman writes: “Who is the subject of the permission to beat the wife so as to force her to perform household labors – the husband or the court? Opinions differ on this point. Some interpreted Maimonides’ words as saying that permission is granted to the husband. However, most of those who dealt with his words interpreted them to mean that the husband brings her to the court and that the court orders her to be beaten until she agrees to perform the labors mentioned,” 220. Shapiro, “A Matter of Discipline,” 161.

46

Ibid.

47

Ibid., 165. For a discussion of medieval rabbinic interpretations of

48

Maimonides’ statement see above, endnote #45. See Luce Irigaray, “The Fecundity of the Caress: A Reading of

49

Levinas’ Totality and Infinity, IV: B, ‘The Phenomenology of Eros,’” in Cohen, Face to Face with Levinas, 231-56; and “Questions to Emmanuel Levinas: On the Divinity of Love,” in Re-Reading Levinas, ed. Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 109-18. Also see Tina Chanter, ed., Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas (University Park [Penn.]: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001). Claire Elise Katz, Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine: The Silent

50

Footsteps of Rebecca (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 54. Ibid., 57.

51

Ibid., 126.

52

Susan E. Shapiro, “‘And God Created Woman’: Reading the Bible

53

Otherwise,” in Levinas and Biblical Studies, ed.Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Gary

374

Feminist Jewish Philosophy: A Response

Allen Phillips, and David Jobling (Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature, 2003), 168. A more detailed discussion of this issue is found in my essay, Michael

54

Oppenheim, “Feminism, Jewish Philosophy, and Religious Pluralism,” Modern Judaism, 16 (May, 1996): 147-60. Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 96.

55

Ibid., 104.There are a number of contemporary Jewish philosophers

56

who have revisited the notion of election in terms of what Plaskow has called a part/whole model, including David Hartman and Irving Greenberg, without insisting that the idea of a transcendent God had to be jettisoned. Tirosh-Samuelson, “Dare to Know,” 90.

57

Randi Rashkover, “Theological Desire: Feminism, Philosophy, and

58

Exegetical Jewish Thought,” in Tirosh-Samuelson, Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, 315. See, for example, Tirosh-Samuelson’s reference to the work of the

59

psychoanalysts Nancy Chodorow and Jane Flax, in “Dare to Know,” 90. Rachel Adler, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics

60

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998). Adler uses Object Relations theory primarily to speak of the way that men formulate their identity by repudiating their mother and other women, 4-5. She also discusses, citing Jessica Benjamin, a more relational view of the mature self, 115-16. Among the helpful introductions to these developments in post-

61

Freudian psychoanalysis are Jay R. Greenberg and Stephen A. Mitchell, Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory (Cambridge [Mass.]: Harvard University Press, 1983), and Stephen A. Mitchell and Lewis Aron, ed., Relational Psychoanalysis: The Emergence of a Tradition (Hillsdale [N.J.]: Analytic Press, 1999).

375

J e w i s h P h i l o s o p h e r s i n t h e L at e 2 0 t h C e n t u ry

D.W. Winnicott, “The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship,”

62

in Essential Papers on Object Relations, ed. Peter Buckley (New York: New York University Press, 1986), 235. Stephen A. Mitchell, Relationality: From Attachment to Intersubjectivity

63

(Hillsdale [N.J.]: Analytic Press, 2000), 57. Melanie Klein, Envy and Gratitude: and Other Works 1946-1963

64

(London:Vintage, 1997), 14-15, 279. Hans Loewald, The Essential Loewald: Collected Papers and Monographs

65

(Hagerstown [MD]: University Publishing Group, 2000), 539-40. The author’s recently published book, Michael Oppenheim, Jewish

66

Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Narrating the Interhuman (Lanham [MD]: Lexington Books, 2006), conducts a dialogue between the modern Jewish philosophers Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas and some of the post-Freudian psychoanalysts mentioned in this article. Loewald, The Essential Loewald, 125.

67

376

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ables, Billie. Therapy for Couples. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1986. Adler, Rachel. Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998. Altmann, Alexander. “Franz Rosenzweig on History.” In The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1988. Arendt, Hannah. Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968. Baeck, Leo. The Essence of Judaism. New York: Schocken Books, 1970. Bergman, Hugo. “Martin Buber and Mysticism.” In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, edited by Schilpp and Friedman. Biale, David. Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History. Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 1979. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Letters and Papers From Prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1972. Buber, Martin. I and Thou. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970. --------.‘‘The Jew in the World.” In The Zionist Idea, edited by Arthur

377

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Hertzberg. New York: Atheneum, 1969. --------.The Legend of the Baal-Shem. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955. --------.On Judaism. New York: Schocken Books, 1972. --------.The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism. New York: Harper and Row, 1960. --------.“Replies to My Critics.” In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, edited by Paul Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. --------.Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters. New York: Schocken Books, 1947. --------.Two Types of Faith. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1967. Casper, Bernard. “Franz Rosenzweig’s Criticism of Buber’s I and Thou.” In Martin Buber: A Centenary Volume, edited by Hiam Gordon and Jochanan Bloch. New York: Ktav, 1984. Chanter, Tina, ed. Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas. University Park, [Penn.]: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. Cohen, Arthur A. “On Emil Fackenheim’s To Mend the World: A Review Essay,” Modern Judaism 3, 2 (1983). --------.The Natural and the Supernatural Jew. London:Vallentine, Mitchell, 1967. --------.The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust. New York: Crossroad, 1981. Cohen, Hermann. Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism. New

378

York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1972. Cohen, Richard, ed. Face to Face with Levinas. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986. Crites, Stephen. “Pseudonymous Authorship As Art and As Act.” In Kierkegaard: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Josiah Thompson. Garden City [N.Y.]: Doubleday & Co., 1972. Crossan, Dominic. The Dark Interval:Towards a Theology of Story. Santa Rosa [CA]: Polebridge Press, 1988. Davis, Charles. Body as Spirit: The Nature of Religious Feeling. New York: Seabury Press, 1976. --------.Christ and the World Religions. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970. --------.“Our New Religious Identity.” Studies in Religion/Science Religieuses 9 (1980). --------.“The Philosophical Foundations of Pluralism.” In Le pluralism: Symposium Interdisciplinaire/Pluralism: Its Meaning Today, edited by I. Beaubien, Charles Davis, Gilles Langevin, and Roger Lapointe. Montreal: Fides, 1974. --------.“The Political Use and Misuse of Religious Language.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26 (1989). --------.Theology and Political Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. --------.What Is Living, What Is Dead in Christianity Today? Breaking the Liberal-Conservative Deadlock. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986. De Sola Pool, David, ed. The Traditional Prayer Book for Sabbath and Festivals.

379

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

New York: Behrman House, 1960. Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit. “Thinking Desire in Gersonides and Spinoza.” In Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, edited by Hava TiroshSamuelson. Durfee, Harold A. “War, Politics, and Radical Pluralism.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 35 (1975). Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. Erikson, Erik. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1968. Fackenheim, Emil. Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy. New York: Basic Books, 1973. --------.God’s Presence in History. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. --------.“Jewish Existence After the Holocaust.” In The Jewish Thought of Emil Fackenheim, edited by Michael Morgan. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987. --------.Jewish Philosophers and Jewish Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. --------.The Jewish Return into History: Reflections of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem. New York: Schocken Books, 1978. --------.“Jewish Values in the Post-Holocaust Future: A Symposium.” Judaism 16 (1967). --------.To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought. New York: Schocken Books, 1982.

380

--------.Quest for Past and Future. Boston: Beacon Press, 1970. Falk, Marcia. “Notes on Composing New Blessings.” In Weaving the Visions, edited by Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1989. Fingarette, Herbert. The Self in Transformation: Psychoanalysis, Philosophy and the Life of the Spirit. New York: Basic Books, 1963. Galli, Barbara Ellen. Franz Rosenzweig and Jehuda Halevi: Translating, Translations, and Translators. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995. Glatzer, Nahum, ed. Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought. New York: Schocken Books, 1970. Gordis, Robert. Jewish Ethics for a LawlessWorld. NewYork: JewishTheological Seminary, 1986. Gordon, Hiam and Jochanan Bloch, ed. Martin Buber: A Centenary Volume. New York: Ktav, 1984. Greenberg, Irving. “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire: Judaism, Christianity and Modernity After the Holocaust.” In Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era?, edited by Eva Fleischner. New York: Ktav, 1977. --------.The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays. New York: Summit Books, 1988. --------.Living in the Image of God: Jewish Teachings to Perfect the World. Northvale [N.J.]: Simon & Schuster, 1998. --------.“Religious Values After the Holocaust: A Jewish View.” In Jews and

381

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Christians After the Holocaust, edited by Abraham Peck. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982. Greenberg, Jay R. and Stephen A. Mitchell. Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory. Cambridge, [Mass.]: Harvard University Press, 1983. Gross, Rita. “Female God Language in a Jewish Context.” In Womanspirit Rising, edited by Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1992. Grossman, Avraham. Pious and Rebellious: Jewish Women in Medieval Europe. Waltham, [Mass.]: Brandeis University Press, 2004. Guttmann, Julius. Philosophies of Judaism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964. Hand, Sean, ed. The Levinas Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Hartman, David. Joy and Responsibility. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Posner, 1978. Heschel, Abraham. God in Search of Man. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966. --------.Israel: An Echo of Eternity. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1967. Hirsch, Samson Raphael. The Nineteen Letters. New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1969. Irigaray, Luce.“The Fecundity of the Caress: A Reading of Levinas’ Totality

382

and Infinity, IV: B, ‘The Phenomenology of Eros.’” In Face to Face with Levinas, edited by Richard Cohen. --------.“Questions to Emmanuel Levinas: On the Divinity of Love.” In Re-Reading Levinas, edited by Robert Bernasconi and Simon Critchley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Jacobs, Louis. “The Problem of the Akedah in Jewish Thought.” In Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling: Critical Appraisals, edited by Robert Perkins. University [Ala.]: University of Alabama Press, 1981. Jacobs, Noah. Naming Day in Eden:The Creation and Re-Creation of Language. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1958. Kaplan, Mordecai. Judaism as a Civilization. New York: Schocken Books, 1972. Katz, Claire Elise. Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine: The Silent Footsteps of Rebecca. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Katz, Steven. “Irving (Yitzchak) Greenberg.” In Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, edited by Steven Katz. Washington [D.C.]: B’nai B’rith Books, 1993. --------.Post-Holocaust Dialogues: Critical Studies in Modern Jewish Thought. New York: New York University Press, 1983. Kierkegaard, Soren. The Concept of Dread [by Vigilius Haufniensis]. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967. --------.Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments [by Johannes Climacus]. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.

383

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

--------.Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death [by Johannes De Silentio and Anti-Climacus]. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. --------.Journals. Edited by Alexander Dru. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938. --------.The Point of View For My Work As An Author. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. --------.Stages on Life’sWay [by Hilarius Bookbinder]. NewYork: Schocken Books, 1967. Klein, Melanie. Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963. London: Vintage, 1997. Leibowitz,Yeshayahu. Judaism, Jewish Values and the Jewish State. Cambridge [Mass.]: Harvard University Press, 1992. Levinas, Emmanuel. Difficult Freedom. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. --------.Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985. --------.“Ethics as First Philosophy.” In The Levinas Reader, edited by Sean Hand. --------.“God and Philosophy.” In The Levinas Reader, edited by Sean Hand. --------.“Loving the Torah More Than God.” In Difficult Freedom. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. --------.Nine Talmudic Readings. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. --------.Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence. The Hague: Martin

384

Nijhoff Publishers, 1981. --------.“Signature.” Research in Phenomenology,VII (1978). --------.Totality and Infinity. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1988. Levinas, Emmanuel and Richard Kearney. “Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas.” In Face to Face with Levinas, edited by Richard Cohen. Liebman, Charles. The Ambivalent American Jew: Politics, Religion and Family in American Jewish Life. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973. Littmann, Ellen. “Saul Ascher: The First Theorist of Progressive Judaism.” In Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 5. London: East and West Library, 1960. Loewald, Hans. The Essential Loewald: Collected Papers and Monographs. Hagerstown, [MD.]: University Publishing Group, 2000. Lowith, Karl. “M. Heidegger and F. Rosenzweig or Temporality and Eternity.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research III (1942). Luz, Ehud.“Zionism and Messianism in theThought of Franz Rosenzweig” [in Hebrew]. Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2, 3 (1983). Mendelssohn, Moses. Jerusalem: or On Religious Power and Judaism. New York: Schocken Books, 1969. Mitchell, Stephen A. Relationality: From Attachment to Intersubjectivity.

385

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Hillsdale [N.J.]: Analytic Press, 2000. Mitchell, Stephen A. and Lewis Aron, ed. Relational Psychoanalysis: The Emergence of a Tradition. Hillsdale [N.J.]: Analytic Press, 1999. Neusner, Jacob. Israel in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985. --------.Stranger at Home: “The Holocaust,” Zionism, and American Judaism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Olney, James. “Autobiography and the Cultural Moment: A Thematic, Historical, and Bibliographical Introduction.” In Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, edited by J. Olney. Princeton [N.J.]: Princeton University Press, 1980. Oppenheim, Michael. “Feminism, Jewish Philosophy, and Religious Pluralism.” Modern Judaism 16 (1996). --------.Jewish Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Narrating the Interhuman. Lanham [MD]: Lexington Books, 2006. --------.Mutual Upholding: Fashioning Jewish Philosophy Through Letters. New York: Peter Lang, 1992. --------.“The Relevance of Rosenzweig in the Eyes of His Israeli Critics.” Modern Judaism 7, 2 (1987). --------.Speaking/Writing of God: Jewish Reflections on the Life with Others. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. --------.What Does Revelation Mean for the Modern Jew? Rosenzweig, Buber, Fackenheim. Lewiston [N.Y.]: Edwin Mellen, 1985. Pessin, Sarah. “Loss, Presence, and Gabirol’s Desire: Medieval Jewish Philosophy and the Possibility of a Feminist Ground.” In Women and

386

Gender in Jewish Philosophy, edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson. Plaskow, Judith. Standing Again at Sinai. San Francisco: Harper, 1991. Rashkover, Randi. “Theological Desire: Feminism, Philosophy, and Exegetical Jewish Thought.” In Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson. Ravven, Heidi. “Observations on Jewish Philosophy and Feminist Thought.” Judaism 46 (1997). --------.“Spinoza’s Ethics of the Liberation of Desire.” In Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson. Rorty, Richard. “Pragmatism and Philosophy.” In After Philosophy: End or Transformation?, edited by Kenneth Baynes, James Bohman, and Thomas McCarthy. Cambridge [Mass]: MIT Press, 1987. Rosenzweig, Franz. “The Builders.” In On Jewish Learning, edited by N. N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken Books, 1965. --------.God, Man,and the World: Lectures and Essays. Edited and translated by Barbara E. Galli. Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1998. --------.Kleinere Schriften. Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1935. --------.“Das neue Denken.” In Kleinere Schriflen. --------. “The New Thinking.” In Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought, edited by Nahum Glatzer. --------.The Star of Redemption. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970. --------.Understanding the Sick and the Healthy. New York: The Noonday Press, 1953.

387

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Rotenstreich, Nathan. Jewish Philosophy in Modem Times. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. --------.The Recurring Pattern: Studies in Anti-Judaism in Modern Thought. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963. Rubenstein, Richard L. After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1966. Saler, Benson. Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists,Transcendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000. Samuelson, Norbert, ed., Studies in Jewish Philosophy: Collected Essays of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy, 1980-1985. Lanham, [MD]: University Press of America, 1987. Scarf, Maggie. Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage. New York: Random House, 1987. Scharfstein, Ben-Ami. A Comparative History of World Philosophy: From the

Upanishads to Kant. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

Schilpp, Paul and Maurice Friedman, ed. The Philosophy of Martin Buber. La Salle [IL]: Open Court, 1967. Scholem, Gershom. “How I Came to the Kabbalah.” Commentary 69 (1980). --------.Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books, 1941. --------.The Messianic Idea in Judaism:And Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality.

388

New York: Schocken Books, 1971. --------.On Jews and Judaism in Crisis. New York: Schocken Books, 1976. Schweid, Eliezer. Between Judaism and Zionism: Essays [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Histradrut, 1984. --------.Between Orthodoxy and Religious Humanism [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute, 1977. --------.The Cycle of Appointed Times: The Meaning of Jewish Holidays [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1984. --------.Democracy and Halakhah: A Study in the Thought of Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1978. --------.“Elements of Zionist Ideology and Practice.” In Zionism in Transition, edited by Moshe Davis. New York: Arno Press, 1980. --------.A History of Jewish Thought in Modern Times [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Keter, 1977. --------.Israel at the Crossroads. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1973. --------.Israel’s Faith and Culture [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: S. Zak, 1976. --------.Judaism and Secular Culture [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1981. --------.Judaism and the Solitary Jew [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved Publishers, 1974. --------.The Land of Israel: National Home or Land of Destiny. Rutherford [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985. --------.Mysticism and Judaism According to Gershom G. Scholem: A Critical Analysis [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Hebrew University,1983. --------.The Solitary Jew and His Judaism [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1974. --------.“The Thought of Eliezer Schweid: A Symposium.” Immanuel 9 (1979).

389

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Shapiro, Susan E.“‘And God Created Woman’: Reading the Bible Otherwise.” In Levinas and Biblical Studies, edited by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Gary Allen Phillips, and David Jobling. Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature, 2003. --------.“A Matter of Discipline: Reading for Gender in Jewish Philosophy.” In Judaism Since Gender, edited by Miriam Peskowitz and Laura Levitt. New York: Routledge, 1997. Simon, Akiva Ernst. “What Does Franz Rosenzweig Tell Us Today?” [Hebrew]. Daat 6 (1981). Smart, Ninian. World Philosophies. London: Routledge, 2000. Soloveitchik, Joseph B. Halakhic Man. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983. --------.“The Lonely Man of Faith.” Tradition 7, 2 (1965). Stahmer, Harold.“Speak That I May See Thee!” New York: Macmillan and Co., 1968. Taylor, Charles. “Comparison, History, Truth.” In Myth and Philosophy, edited by Frank E. Reynolds and David Tracy.Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. --------.“The Person.” In The Category of the Person, edited by Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Tewes, Joseph. Zum Existenzbegriff Franz Rosenzweigs. Meisenheim am Glan:Verlag Anton Hain, 1970.

390

Thie, Marilyn.“Epilogue: ProlegomenonTo Future Feminist* Philosophies of Religions.” Hypatia 9 (1994). Tirosh-Rothschild, Hava. “‘Dare to Know’: Feminism and the Discipline of Jewish Philosophy.” In Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Studies, edited by Lynn Davidman and Shelly Tenenbaum. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, ed. Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Tracy, David. Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Weintraub, Karl J. “Autobiography and Historical Consciousness.” Critical Inquiry 1, 4 (1975). --------.The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Wiesel, Elie. A Jew Today. New York: Vintage Press, 1978. --------.“Why I Write.” In Confronting the Holocaust: The Impact of Elie Wiesel, edited by Alvin Rosenfeld and Irving Greenberg. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. Winnicott, D.W. “The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship.” In Essential Papers on Object Relations, edited by Peter Buckley. New York: New York University Press, 1986.

391

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Wyschograd, Michael. “Arthur A. Cohen: The Tremendum.” Jewish Social Studies 44 (1982). Yaffe, Martin, ed. Judaism and Environmental Ethics. Lanham [MD]: Lexington Books, 2001. Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. Los Angeles: SelfRealization Fellowship, 1979. X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Grove Press, 1966.

392

INDEX Adler, Rachel, 366, 375n. 60 Ahad Ha-Am, 259 akedah (binding or trial of Isaac), 228-30, 241n.18 “Anthropomorphisms, On,” x, 97-105 Anti-Semitism, 34, 198, 310. See also Holocaust Arendt, Hannah, 18, 20 Aristotle, 357-58 Ascher, Saul, 8 autobiography, 135-57

history of, 136-37, 139



models of, 138-39

Autobiography of a Yogi, 146-49 Autobiography of Malcolm X, 149-52 Baeck, Leo, 8, 19 Benjamin, Jessica, 375n. 60 Bergman, Hugo, 130n. 8 Berkovits, Eliezer, 325-26, 339-40n. 35 Biale, David, 130n. 1 Bialik, Hayim, 259-60 Bible, 28, 77-78, 90, 100-101, 104-105, 109n. 50, 150, 175, 179, 183n.27, 254, 256, 263, 321, 361. See also “Anthropomorphism, On;” Torah body, 51, 162, 168, 172-73, 178, 211-12, 218n. 72, 357-58, 368 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 341n. 46 Buber, Martin, x-xi, 65n. 14, 83, 105, 111-34, 135-57, 275, 306-307

authentic selfhood, 136, 142-45

393

I N D E X



continuity of Judaism, 17, 19-21



Gnosticism, 113-15, 130



God as person, 113-14, 119, 288-89



God’s absence, 27, 293



Hasidism, 111-34



I-Thou philosophy, 115-17; 183-84n. 28



interhuman, 174



Jewish identity, 11-12



Kabbalah, 112-19, 130n. 6, 131n. 11



life of dialogue, 120-21, 127, 142-44, 152-53



modern Jewish faith, 119-23



spheres of relation, 143

Campbell, Joseph, x-xi, 135-57

authentic selfhood, 135, 144-45



hero’s journey, 140-41, 148

Christianity, 15, 55, 58, 101, 168, 179, 181n. 3, 185-218, 238, 279, 281, 308-309, 329, 338n. 22 Cohen, Arthur, xii-xiii, 273-98, 307

early thought, 275



Holocaust as rupture, 275-77



Kabbalah, 276-77, 281, 286-87

Cohen, Hermann, 14-15, 23-24 commandment, 21, 23, 25, 169, 175, 201, 217, 233, 254-55, 305, 311 community, 55-56, 101, 232, 236, 248, 267, 288, 299-314. See also Jewish people covenant, 10, 15, 39, 43, 58, 76, 231, 234, 236, 238, 261, 275-76, 311, 315, 317, 321, 324-28 Crites, Stephen, 240n. 1 Crossan, Dominic, 213

394

Davis, Charles, xi, 185-218

convergence of religions, 189-91, 194, 209



critique of exclusivism, 186-87, 205-206



religious experience, 191-94, 207



mysticism, 195-96, 207

Day, Dorothy, 155 death, 37, 49-66, 68, 81, 90-92, 146, 161-62, 177-79, 280, 325 Descartes, René, 159-60, 200 dialogue, x, 42, 44-45, 57, 65n 14, 73, 113, 119-120, 127, 142-44, 152-55, 157n. 28, 192, 213, 236, 262, 308, 367. See also Buber; God Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit, 346 Eckardt, Alice, 339n. 28 Eckardt, Roy, 339n. 28 Ehrenberg, Hans, 81 election, 96-97, 301, 321-22, 375n. 56 Emancipation, Jewish, 6, 362 Erikson, Erik, 182n. 15 eternity, 57-59, 96, 236, 283, 318 ethics, 8, 163, 166-67, 169, 200, 226-27, 237, 316, 365. See also justice; Levinas Existentialism, 25, 37, 128, 221-22, 249-50, 267, 300, 310 Eyn-Sof (infinite and hidden God), 115, 118 face, 164, 171-73, 175, 177-78, 201, 210. See also Levinas Fackenheim, Emil, xii-xiii, 9-10, 64n. 9, 105, 129, 178, 273-98, 299-314, 353-54, 371n. 24

biography, 299-300



commanding Voice of Auschwitz, 278, 296-97n. 14, 303, 311

395

I N D E X



Holocaust, 27, 41, 134n. 64, 273-98, 299-314, 340n. 37



Holocaust as rupture, 275-78



intellectual development, 274-75, 299-302, 312n. 1



Israel, 305-306, 309



modern religious thought, 307-11



North American theologian, 302-306



“singled-out condition,” 301



teshuvah, 24-25



tikkun, 279, 284, 304, 307



uniqueness of the Holocaust, 304-305

faith, 24-26, 79, 89-92, 107n. 14, 186, 191-93, 227-30, 234, 310

modern Jewish belief, 119-29, 254-56, 297, 327, 339-40n. 35. See

also God; Holocaust

Falk, Marcia, 355 Fear and Trembling, 226-30, 234 Feminism, xiv, 343-76, 350-52. See also feminist Jewish philosophy; feminist Judaism feminist Jewish philosophy, 343-76

characteristics, 352-53



critique of Jewish philosophy, 343, 357-58, 365, 368



female pronouns and metaphors, 354-56



justice, 351-54, 362-64



relationships, 365-68

feminist Judaism, xiii-xiv, xviiin. 1, 322-24, 343-76 Fingarette, Herbert, 157 Formstecher, Solomon, 14 Galli, Barbara, 67, 69, 79, 81-87, 106, 184n. 30 gender, 351-52, 356-59, 362, 364. See also Feminism

396

Glatzer, Nahum, 49-50, 87, 106n. 3 Gnosticism, 113-15, 130n. 8 God, 49, 273-98

absence, 27, 284-85



access to, 6, 40, 71-72, 364



aesthetic relationship to, 223



as person, 103-14, 119, 125, 179-80, 209-10, 283-95, 354-56



covenant with, 10, 58, 76, 234, 236, 276, 317, 324-28



creation-revelation-redemption, 288



dialogue with, 42-43, 54-57



in history, 26-28, 275-76, 278-79, 287-95, 324-28



living with, 61-62, 74-75, 79, 93-96, 101-102, 143-44, 173, 224-25,

227-32, 234, 237, 284-85, 295



name of, 71-72, 88



stages of religious consciousness, 117-18



two conceptions of, 126-29. See also “Anthropomorphism, On;”



Holocaust; providence; revelation

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 138-39 Gordis, Robert, 241n. 18 Gordon, A.D., 259-60 Greenberg, Blu, 316 Greenberg, Eliyahu, 316, 337n. 1 Greenberg, Irving, xiii, 315-42

biography, 315-16



feminism, 322-24



Halakhah, 319, 323, 332-34, 341n. 51



Holocaust, 315-16, 324-34, 339n. 28, 339n. 31



Israel, 330-32, 336, 341n. 51



Orthodoxy, 320, 323, 325-26, 332-34

397

I N D E X



redemption, 316-19, 324, 335



religious pluralism, 321-22



tzelem elokim, 317, 321-22



voluntary covenant, 324-27

Gross, Rita, 354-55 Grossman, Avraham, 373-74n. 45 Guttmann, Julius, 269, 348 Habermas, Jurgen, 189-90 Halakhah (Jewish law), 7, 19, 21-24, 30-31n. 8, 233-34, 236, 238, 261, 265, 292, 323, 332-34, 338n. 16, 341n. 51, 358-59 Halevi, Jehuda, ix, 67-85 Hartman, David, 30n. 1, 319 Hassidism, x, 111-34 Hegel, G.W.F., 14, 50, 74, 132n. 31, 176, 226, 308 Heidegger, Martin, 64n. 9, 158, 176-77, 308 Hero With A Thousand Faces, The, 135-36, 140-41 Heschel, Abraham Joshua, viii, 13, 25-26, 28, 40-41, 105 Hirsch, Samson Raphael, 21-22 Hirsch, Samuel, 14 Hirschensohn, Chaim, 260-61 history, 26-28. See also God; Holocaust Holocaust, xii-xiii, 26-28, 36-37, 41, 34n. 64, 159, 258, 273-98, 299-309, 324-34, 340n. 37

as rupture, 274-77, 325, 339n. 28, 339n. 31



uniqueness, 304-305, 325-26, 339-40n. 35. See also Cohen, Arthur; Fackenheim

Hume, David, 74 Husserl, Edmund, 158

398

I and Thou, 116-17, 136, 141-44 Idealism, 13, 92, 162, 167 interhuman, vii, 100, 166, 168-69, 173-74, 180 Irigaray, Luce, 372n. 29 Isaiah, 321 Islamic philosophy, 346, 357 Israel, state of, 28-29, 38, 134n. 64, 243-46, 294, 305-306, 309, 330-32, 341n. 51. See also Schweid; Zionism Issues, within Jewish philosophy, 3-33

continuity, 16-21, 111



essence, 7-9,16-17, 30n. 2



feminism, 343-76



God in history, 26-28



identity, 9-12



Jewish faith, 24-26



legitimacy/authority, 21-24



religious pluralism, xi, xviiin. 1, 80, 185-218, 321-22, 362-64



value, 12-16, 306

Jehuda Halevi, ix, 67-85, 89 Jewish Emancipation, v, 4, 9, 309-10 Jewish feminism. See Feminist Judaism Jewish identity, 9-12 Jewish mysticism, xiii, 18, 119-20. See also Hasidism; Kabbalah Jewish people, 10-12, 58-59, 75-76, 78, 80, 248, 282-83, 294, 300, 302306, 324-30. See also community Jewish philosophy, 3-33, 34-46, 179-80, 183n. 25, 214, 244, 265, 268, 306307, 364-68

399

I N D E X



and Western philosophy, 307-11, 371n. 24



attitudes toward, 39, 43-44, 307-308



issues, vii, 3-33



religious pluralism, xi, xviiin. 1, 80, 185-218, 321-22, 362-64 significance, 34-46. See also feminist Jewish philosophy; Holocaust;



issues within Jewish philosophy; religious pluralism

Jewish theology, 273-74, 284-87, 300, 302-306, 353-54 Jung, Carl, 140, 155 justice, 351-54, 362-64. See also Levinas Kabbalah (a variety of Jewish mysticism), 112-19, 123-28, 130n. 6, 131n. 11, 133n. 45, 276-77, 281, 286-87. See also Buber; Cohen, Arthur; Scholem Kant, Immanuel, 74, 226, 317 Kaplan, Mordecai, 8-9, 16, 17, 22-23, 25 Katz, Claire, 359-61 Katz, Steven, 298n. 33, 337n. 2, 337-38n. 10, 342n. 61 Kierkegaard, Soren, xii, 164, 221-42

aesthetic category, 222-23, 233



faith, 228-30, 234



pseudonymous authorship, 222, 224-26, 232, 240n. 1



relationship to God, 223, 226-30, 237



time 225-26, 235



trial of Abraham, 228-30

Klein, Melanie, 367 Kook, Abraham Isaac, 260 language, 79-80, 98-105, 164, 166-67, 169-76

one language, 79-80, 85. See also Levinas; religious language;



400

Rosenzweig

Levinas, Emmanuel, xi, 84, 108-9n. 36, 158-84, 185-218, 337n. 8, 341n. 45, 347, 359-62

and Buber, 184n. 28



and Rosenzweig, 158-84



biography, 158-59



body, 173, 178, 212



commandment, 169, 175, 201



critique of philosophy, 160-65, 199-200, 352



critique of self, 161-63, 166-67



death, 177



ethics, 163, 166-67, 200



face, 172-73, 175, 177, 201



feminine, 359-62



God as person, 209-10



language, 171-76, 178, 201-202, 211



love, 178



relationship to the other, 165-80, 197-206, 211-12



relationship to Rosenzweig, 158-84



religious language, 173-76, 179-80, 182n. 17, 210



religious pluralism, 185-218



revelation, 208



responsibility, 165, 175, 201, 203-204



same, 199



“Saying and the Said,” 172, 201



sexuality, 197



teaching, 171-72, 177



totality, 161-62

Liebman, Charles, 305 Leibowitz,Yeshayahu, 338n. 16

401

I N D E X

Loewald, Hans, 367-68 “Lonely Man of Faith, The,” xii, 14, 221-42 love, 53-57, 64n. 9, 166-68, 178, 367. See also language; neighbor; Rosenzweig Lowith, Karl, 64n. 9 Luz, Ehud, 106n. 9 Maimonides, Moses, 357-59, 373-74n. 45 Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 115-18 Malcolm X, 149-55, 157n. 22 marriage, 90, 358-59 meaning, of Jewish identity, 9-12 Meinecke, Friedrich, 92 Mendelssohn, Moses, 7, 12, 19 Messianism, 77, 331-32 midrash (story or interpretation), xiii, 159, 168, 180, 274, 284, 287, 326, 328 modernity, 4-5, 44-45, 187, 319-24, 341n. 52 Muhammad, Elijah, 149 mysticism, 195-96, 263, 289. See also Hasidism; Kabbalah; Scholem names, 71-72, 88, 94, 169-70, 183n. 27. See also Rosenzweig neighbor, vii, 59, 168, 170, 176, 179, 210, 341n. 45 Neusner, Jacob, 302-306, 338n. 18 “New Thinking, The,” 69-77, 86-110, 162 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 164 Object Relations Psychology, 366-67 Olney, James, 137, 157n. 22 Orthodoxy, 35-36, 320, 323, 325-26, 332-34

402

other, the, 53, 142-43, 161, 164-68, 171, 173-80, 185, 197-206, 211-12, 322, 330. See also Levinas Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, 171, 198, 361 Patmos circle, 182-83n. 18 Pessin, Sarah, 346 Phenomenology, 165 philosophy, viii, 70-71, 344-48, 352

critique of, 50-53, 60-61, 76-78, 89, 99-100, 160-65, 181-82 n.7,



199-200, 357-58

three philosophical traditions, 344-46

Plaskow, Judith, 321, 354, 363-64 Plato, 357, 362 Pluralism. See religious pluralism post-modern, 177 Pragmatism, 347-48 prayer, 230-32 providence, 275-76, 278, 280, 285, 287-95, 331-32 psychology, 365-68 Rashkover, Randi, 366 Ravven, Heidi, 346, 370-71n. 21, 372n.26 redemption, 57-61, 316-19, 324, 335, 337n. 8 Relational Psychology, 365-68 Religion, 89-90

stages of religious consciousness, 117-19

religious language, xi, 173-76, 182n. 17, 210, 354-56, 373n. 38. See also God religious pluralism, xi, xviiin, 1, 80, 185-218, 321-22, 362-64 responsibility, 165, 175, 177, 201, 203-204. See also ethics; Levinas

403

I N D E X

revelation, 7, 11-12, 54-57, 75, 168, 208, 310. See also God Rorty, Richard, 347-48 Rosenstock-Huessy, Eugen, 65n. 15, 164 Rosenzweig, Franz, ix-x, 49-66, 67-85, 86-110, 158-84, 265, 267, 275, 277, 281, 306-307, 349

and Levinas, 158-84



biography, 28, 63, 66n. 28, 68-69, 72, 81, 89



body, 173, 178, 340n. 40



continuity of Judaism, 16



critique of philosophy, 50-53, 60-61, 76-78, 89, 99-100, 160-65



critique of totality, 161-62



death 49-66, 81, 90-92, 177-78



eternity, 57-59



experience, 99-100



faith, 25, 79, 89-92, 107n. 14



God as person, 103-104, 179-80, 288-89



Halakhah, 22



Jewish people, 58-59, 78, 80



Judaism and Christianity, 55, 58, 96, 101, 168, 181n. 3



language, 79-80, 98-105, 164, 166-67, 169-76, 178



life, 70-71, 87, 90-93



living with God, 61-62, 74-75, 79, 93-96



love, 53-58, 166-68, 178



meeting the other, 165-76



name of God, 71-72, 88, 94



names, 71-72, 88, 94, 169-70



new thinking, ix, 70-74



orientation, 55



redemption, 57-61

404



religion, 89-91, 107n. 12



religious language, 71-72, 173-76, 179-80, 182n. 17



revelation, 54-57, 72, 75



soul, 51, 57, 72, 75, 88, 108n. 28



speech-thinking, 73-74, 84, 98-99, 163, 165



time, 58-59, 73



tragic hero, 52-53, 160-61, 166



trust, 55-56, 61-63, 98-105, 169-70, 174-75



value of Judaism, 15

Rotenstreich, Nathan, 66n. 25, 132n. 31 Rubenstein, Richard, 26-27, 277, 297-98n. 33, 307 Saler, Benson, 369n. 6 Schelling, Friedrich, 281 Scholem, Gershom, x, 18, 25, 111-34, 247, 255-56, 262-65

Hasidism, 111-34



Kabbalah, 112-19, 123-28, 130n. 6, 133n. 45



Judaism’s future, 127-28



stages of religious consciousness, 117-19, 132n. 31



view of God, 125, 128

Schweid, Eliezer, xii, 10-11, 105, 243-72, 334

battle of peace, 266



biography, 243-44



critique of Orthodoxy, 255, 265-66



critique of Scholem, 247, 255-56, 262-65



critique of secular Judaism, 248-49, 251-53, 259



education, 244, 246, 250



essence of Judaism, 262-63



faith, 254-56

405

I N D E X



identity, 10-11



land of Israel, 244-45



nature of Judaism, 255-56



path of return, 244-45, 247-53, 267-68



religious calendar, 246-47



Zionism, 257-60, 262

Secularism, 249 self, 177

autonomy of, 366-68



Cartesian notion, 159-60, 166



critique of, 160-65, 167



two models of, 135-36, 138-39, 144. See also soul

Shapiro, Susan, 356-59, 361-62, 373-74n. 45 Shekhinah (God’s presence), 122 Simon, Ernst, 87 Smart, Ninian, 34 Sofer, Moses, 332 Soloveitchik, Joseph B., xii, 14, 221-42, 316, 319

Adam I and II, 223-24



aesthetic category, 223-24



faith, 227-28



God-relationship, 225, 230-32, 234, 237



Halakhah, 233-34



prayer, 230-32



time 225-26, 235-36

Song of Songs, 170, 173 soul, 51, 57, 72, 75, 88, 94, 108n. 28, 120, 175, 178 speech, 57, 98-99, 166-68, 174, 201-202, 211, 281-82. See also language; speech-thinking

406

speech-thinking, 73-74, 84, 98-99, 163, 165. See also Rosenzweig Spinoza, Baruch, 74, 292 Star of Redemption, The, ix, 49-66, 70, 87-90, 92, 161-62, 164, 167-68, 173, 277, 288-89, 334, 349 Taylor, Charles, 370n. 14 teshuvah (repentance), 24-26, 256 Tewes, Joseph, 65n. 14 Thie, Marilyn, 350-51 tikkun (repair), 279, 284, 304, 306-307, 311, 322-24 time, 57-59, 73, 138, 225-26, 235-36 Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, 343, 348, 352, 366, 370-71n. 21, 371n. 24, 372n. 29, 372n. 30, 372-73n. 34 To Mend the World, 275, 277-80, 296n.3, 304 Torah, 35, 124, 207-208, 251-54, 260-62, 276-68, 282, 318, 323. See also Bible totality, 161-62. See also Levinas Totality and Infinity, 161, 168, 197-98 Tracy, David, 213 translation, 80-81. See also language Tremendum,The, 275, 280-85 trust, 55-56, 61-63, 98-105, 169-70, 174-75, 254 truth, 42, 44, 55, 62, 77, 84, 108n. 24, 108n. 32, 141, 148-54, 177, 237, 347-48, 352 tzelem elokim (image of God), 317, 321-22 Understanding the Sick and the Healthy, 164, 181n. 6 Weintraub, Karl, 137-40, 144-45, 147-48, 152

407

I N D E X

Wiesel, Elie, xiii, 292-93, 332, 340n. 37 Winnicott, D.W., 366-67 Women, 310-11, 322-24, 343-76. See also Feminism; feminist Jewish philosophy; feminist Judaism Yogananda, Paramahansa, 145-49, 153-55 Yukteswar, Sri, 146-47, 153-54 Zion, 76, 81 Zionism, xii, 257-60, 262, 305. See also Israel; Schweid

408

409

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

410