Identity Dialogically Constructed 9783883096100, 3883096105

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Ephraim Meir

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Ephraim Meir is Professor of Modern Jewish Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, and patron of the Jerusalem-Academy in Hamburg.

Ephraim Meir - Identity Dialogically Constructed

The essays collected in this volume discuss the creative tension between identity and communication and the complex relationship between specificity and universality. They deal primarily with various aspects of religious existence. The different chapters propose the shaping of identity in a dialogical manner and aim to promote an inclusive mode of thinking in which attention to the self does not preclude a genuine concern for the other.

Identity Dialogically Constructed

ISBN 978-3-88309-610-0

Verlag Traugott Bautz GmbH

Identity Dialogically Constructed

Jerusalemer Texte Schriften aus der Arbeit der Jerusalem-Akademie

herausgegeben von Hans-Christoph Goßmann

Band 4

Verlag Traugott Bautz

Ephraim Meir

Identity Dialogically Constructed

Verlag Traugott Bautz

Bibliografische Information Der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar.

Verlag Traugott Bautz GmbH 99734 Nordhausen 2011 ISBN 978-3-88309-610-0

Contents Preface

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1. Quo vadis, religio? Religion as Terror and Violence or as Contribution to Civilization. A Plea for Trans-Difference

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2. Constructing Religious Identity

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3. Fischer’s Essay ‘Love and Wisdom’ in Light of Jewish Dialogical Thought

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4. Towards “Proflective” Philosophy and “Proligion” with Fischer and Buber

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5. Janusz Korczak’s Care for the Little Ones in Light of Jewish Tradition

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6. On Hasidism as Dialogical Existence that Hallows Daily Life

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7. On a New Age in Democracy as Part of the Holocaust Memory

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8. A Scholar of German-Jewish Philosophy. On the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life

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9. How to Think Death from Time and not Time from Death

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Bibliography

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Preface In this collection of articles, I have brought together various texts that articulate my point of view on a range of subjects that all deal with identity and communication, mostly in religious existence. Several of the articles were published previously and have been reworked and enlarged in view of the present edition. Two of the chapters were originally written in Hebrew and appear here for the first time in English. Two chapters contain original contributions for this volume. The first chapter, written especially for this publication, contains my view on the problem of religion and the necessity of a “transdifferent,” dialogical attitude that celebrates both specificity and plurality, yet, at the same time, also urges cooperation between differing religious ways of life. The second article was originally written for a Festschrift in honor of Hamburg theologian Professor Wolfgang Grünberg on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.1 It deals with the life-long task of constructing religious identity, a task that I consider to be necessarily dialogical. The third chapter analyses the essay “Love and Wisdom” of the Christian dialogical thinker Franz Fischer. I compare his thoughts with those of Jewish dialogical philosophers, indicating that Jews and Christians participate in the same dialogical mode of thought. The chapter appeared previously under the title “Fischer’s Essay ‘Love and Wisdom’ in Light of Jewish Dialogical Thought,” in Die Bildung von Gewissen und Verantwortung – Zur Philosophie und Pädagogik Franz Fischers (Franz Fischer Jahrbücher).2 Chapter 4 “Towards ‘Proflective’ Philosophy and ‘Proligion’ with Fischer and Buber” continues the 1

Ephraim Meir, “I – You. Constructing Religious Identity,” in Theologie der Stadt (Kirche in der Stadt. Band 17), eds. C. Bingel e.a. (Berlin: EBVerlag, 2010), 140-144. 2 Meir, “Fischer’s Essay ‘Love and Wisdom’ in Light of Jewish Dialogical Thought,” in Die Bildung von Gewissen und Verantwortung – Zur Philosophie und Pädagogik Franz Fischers (Franz Fischer Jahrbücher) (Norderstedt and Leipzig: Anne Fischer Verlag and Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2010), 226-245.

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comparison between Fischer and Jewish thought, more specifically that of Buber. In this text, published here for the first time, I propose a radical dialogical philosophy and a new way of looking at religion, in the footsteps of Franz Fischer and Martin Buber. Chapter 5 “Janusz Korczak’s Care for the Little Ones in Light of Jewish Tradition” was originally a foreword for Monika Kaminska’s doctoral dissertation, published under the title Dialogische Pädagogik und die Beziehung zum Anderen. Martin Buber und Janusz Korczak im Lichte der Philosophie von Emmanuel Levinas.3 This essay presents Kaminska’s approach, which situates the Polish-Jewish pedagogue in a longstanding Jewish tradition and brings Korczak’s thoughts in the proximity of Levinas’s ethical metaphysics. Care for the other and respect for the mystery of the child and for the children’s otherness characterized Korczak’s life. The next chapter, “On Hasidism as Dialogical Existence that Hallows Daily Life,” appeared previously in the re-edited Hebrew translation of Buber’s “For the Sake of Heaven,” published by Yediot Aharonot and Sifre Hemed.4 It situates the Hasidic chronicle “Gog und Magog” within Buber’s dialogical thought that was eminently expressed in his “I and Thou.” It shows the extraordinary ability of Buber to present Hasidism as a source of inspiration for Jews and non-Jews alike. Chapter 7, entitled “On a New Age in Democracy as Part of the Holocaust Memory,” appeared first as a review of Shmuel Trigano’s The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah in the Website Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).5 It discusses the book of this French-Jewish 3

Meir, foreword to Dialogische Pädagogik und die Beziehung zum Anderen. Martin Buber und Janusz Korczak im Lichte der Philosophie von Emmanuel Levinas (Jüdische Bildungsgeschichte in Deutschland 9), by Monika Kaminska (Münster: Waxmann, 2010), 9-16. 4 Meir, “On Hasidism as Dialogical Existence that Hallows Daily Life,” (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Sifre Hemed, 2007), 287-303. 5 Meir, “On a New Age in Democracy as Part of the Holocaust Memory,” review of The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah, by Shmuel Trigano, Septermber 14, 2010, Scholars

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scholar, for whom the formation of what I call an “active memory” of the Shoa implies a critical reflection on democracy as well as the necessity of thinking the concrete and the particular. Chapter 8 appeared in the second volume of the Rosenzweig Jahrbücher.6 It is a memorial that I include here because Professor Rivka Horwitz was an eminent Jewish scholar and a warm personality, to whom I was closely connected and with whom I frequently studied. I had the privilege of discussing with her, in her Jerusalem home, a variety of Jewish thinkers as well as many themes that are crucial in modern Jewish thought. She loved Judaism and situated Jewish thinkers in the larger context of the Zeitgeist. The last chapter “How to Think Death from Time and not Time from Death” appeared as a foreword in the Hebrew translation of Emmanuel Levinas’s Death and Time.7 . It presents Levinas’s original thoughts on time in a nutshell; these philosophical thoughts are universal yet bear the traces of a particular, Jewish thinking. It is my hope that the essays assembled here will stimulate the reader to reflect upon his/her own religious existence and identity, and to put him or herself in permanent dialogue with those who belong to other religious traditions. All the essays highlight one fundamental idea: that the same and the other, identity and communicative, inclusive thinking, specificity and universality, belong inseparably together.

for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), http://www.spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID= 7168. 6 Meir, “Rivka Horwitz of Blessed Memory,” in Rosenzweig Jahrbücher (FreiburgMunich: Karl Alber, 2007), 263-267. 7 Meir, “How to Think Death from Time and not Time from Death,” foreword to Death and Time, by Emmanuel Levinas (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2007), 7-13.

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1. Quo vadis, religio? Religion as Terror and Violence or as Contribution to Civilization. A Plea for Trans-Difference “In the beginning is the relation.” (Martin Buber, I and Thou8) In Western Europe, migration, mainly that which comes from Muslim countries, has definitely changed a traditional Christian society. Islam is more and more visible, and discussions of religious symbols in the public sphere often take place, in France and elsewhere in Europe. In the Middle East, frictions and clashes between different groups frequently bear religious overtones. Ever since 9/11 Americans know for certain that terror also appears in a religious garment. All this prompts us to ask a question concerning the role of religion in Western secularized and pluralist societies: What is the impact of religious life upon civil society? It seems that secularization as self-sufficiency, or even as the liberation from religions, no longer has the last word.9 The relationship between secularization as a positive emancipation process and religiosity as pertaining to orientation has changed from a model of conflict to a 8

Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), 69. 9 Even a philosopher such as Habermas now writes on religion. See Jürgen Habermas, Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion. Philosophische Aufsätze (Frankfurt on Main: Suhrkamp, 2005). Thanks to Wolfram Weisse (Academy of World Religions in Dialogue, University of Hamburg) for this idea. I owe the definition of secularization as self-sufficiency or liberation of religion to José Casanova (Georgetown University, Washington, DC), whom I heard at a conference entitled, “Beyond Secularism? The Role of Religion in Contemporary Societies,” that took place July 9–10, 2009 in Hamburg. Significantly, Peter Berger abandoned his theory of secularization for a theory of pluralization of religion; see Peter L. Berger, “Die Pluralisierung der Religion in Zeiten der Globalisierung,” in Theologie im Plural. Eine akademische Herausforderung (Religionen im Dialog 1), ed. W. Weisse (Münster: Waxmann, 2009), 14.

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model of cooperation. Although the Enlightenment placed reason and the anthropocentric standpoint at the center, religion or at least religiosity as the quest for the spiritual, is again à la mode; we are beyond secularization, in “ultra-modernity,” where the relationships between state, society and religion are rearranged, and traditions and institutions reinterpreted and critically evaluated.10 In different societies, religion functions differently, and its Janus 11 face places a choice before us: religion as expression of violence or as a civilizing force. As a phenomenon with undeniable social components, it cannot be reduced to some “confessional” residues and to the private sphere, although many modern democracies would prefer it if that were the case. In this manner, religion as social fact has a civilizing function or else it contributes to a clash of civilizations. Frequently, religion has been the enemy of modernity, yet it also contains values that remain important in our secularized societies. A thorough analysis of religion as a potential producer of violence has been carried out by people such as Jan Assmann, Regina Schwartz, and Hans Kippenberg. In the face of the frequent use of religion for political purposes, one tends to adopt the position that the influence of religions has to be reduced as much as possible, since the various faiths have constantly fought bitter battles with each other, supported wars, and kindled the fires of existing conflicts. In his bestseller, The God Delusion, the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins even maintains that there is a logical link between the acceptance of God and terror, and that without religion the

10 The term “ultra-modernity” stems from Jean-Paul Willaime. It designates the new stage of modernity in which a new dialogue between states, society and religion is taking place. See Willaime, Le retour du religieux dans la sphère publique. Vers une laïcité de reconnaissance et de dialogue (Lyon: Olivétan, 2008). 11 This characterization of religious reality stems from José Casanova.

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world would be much better off.12 He hopes that religion will someday be a thing of the past. However, it is not clear that a world without religion is less aggressive. Therefore, modern and postmodern societies do not have to exclude religious consciousness, since living religiosity may be a positive factor, a pillar in society, fighting nihilism and affirming life. Religion does not only foster fanaticism, and there is even a revival of religiosity that positively affects society. Taking into account this relatively new circumstances, which can be called the post-secular situation, I ask the question whether or not we have to disconnect once and for all religious life from the public sphere, or, if religions, beyond secularism, could contribute, not to an undesirable melting pot but to a much-needed community in plurality that would be characterized by solidarity and recognition of the Other’s uniqueness. In my essay, I first offer an overview of some recent research on the relationship between monotheistic religions and violence. Thereafter, I criticize the tendency to equate religions and violence. At the same time, I point to an alternative approach that does not deny the destructive forces hidden in religions, which have both caused and worsened conflicts, but I go beyond this position and present religiosity as a possible positive energy that could diminish tensions and promote interculturalism and social reform. Religion as violence Hans G. Kippenberg recently wrote a book alleging that monotheism is intolerant religiosity.13 The Egyptologist, Jan Assmann, has already 12

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Hans G. Kippenberg, Gewalt als Gottesdienst. Religionskriege im Zeitalter der Globaliserung (Munich: C.H.Beck, 2008). For a survey of the main representatives of this view, see 17–23. In his book, Kippenberg devotes many pages to the socio-political situation in Israel. I agree with him that a geo-philosophy or a geo-theology is extremely problematic, and that religions are potentially violent. Yet when Palestinian attacks are called attacks of “freedom fighters,” isn’t that a one-sided view (121)? Is attacking innocent people legitimate violence? Does violence not remain violence, independently, 13

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maintained that biblical monotheism as it distinguished between false and true religion (die mosaische Unterscheidung) brought hatred and conflict, and that exclusivist and intolerant monotheism was violent. He perceived this hidden dynamite in the holy texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Idolatry, magic, and apostasy are the targets of religious violence that comes to the fore amongst religious fundamentalists.14 Regina M. Schwartz has added to this sad analysis her own interpretation of narratives, such as the story of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and the conquest of the Land of Canaan. The particularity of one people chosen by God who bestows privileges on His people, granting it the right to a territory, is characterized as violent.15 Kippenberg criticizes Assmann for not being radical enough: the Jewish people did not only develop a “semantic paradigm,” they also acted. He mentions the case of the Maccabees, members of the ancient Hasmonean priestly dynasty, who fought against the Greek rulers and defined themselves as potential martyrs in case they were to lose the battle against the Hellenistic rulers and their collaborators. Whereas Assmann restricts his vision of the link between monotheism and violence mainly to apostates, Kippenberg recognizes a religiously legitimized fight against those who prevent religious autonomy in

whether it is religion-based or non-religious? Do all religious Jews think that occupation is redemption (p. 122)? Kippenberg also analyses the religious violence of Hamas, which has gone so far as to even inherit the old European form of anti-Semitism (133– 144). Noteworthy is his own slippery shift from “Selbstmordanschläge” (139; suicidal attack) to “Selbstmord” (suicide; 141), and the moralizing end of his own one-sided narrative: Israel and the United States are not able to recognize what is called the “patience” (Geduld; 144) of Hamas and its sincere offer of a possible “hudna” (armistice). 14 See Assmann’s books,, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Die Mosaische Unterscheidung oder der Preis des Montheismus (Munich: Hanser, 2003); Monotheismus und die Sprache der Gewalt (Vienna: Picus, 2006). 15 Regina M. Schwartz, The Curse of Cain.The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

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biblical texts. At the same time, he contests Assmann’s idea that there was no cohabitation between Jews and pagans. In many ancient pagan cities, he argues, Jews did cohabitat with pagans, who worshipped Adonai as the highest God. He quotes Peter Schäfer, who calls Assmann’s idea of an exclusivist monotheism a “mumbo”16 that was historically nonexistent, and who protests against Assmann’s idea that anti-Semitism was the consequence or flipside of Egyptian antimonotheism.17 Kippenberg’s final conclusion is that there is no necessary link (zwingend notwendigen Zusammenhang) between monotheism and violence. He agrees with Assmann that one cannot extrapolate from a language of violence to a praxis of violence. On the other hand, the fight against apostasy and against common enemies speaks against the thesis that monotheism was always peaceful and that violence is the exception. In his view, there is a connection between monotheism and violence, which is “contingent” (contingent), not necessary (notwendig) nor impossible (unmöglich). All depends upon the concrete situation of a religious community.18 At the end of his book, Kippenberg writes19 that 16

“Ein Popanz,” see Peter Schäfer, “Geschichte und Gedächtnisgeschichte: Jan Assmanns Mosaische Unterscheidung,” in Memoria – Wege jüdischen Erinnerns. Festchrift für Michael Brocke zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Birgit E. Klein and Christiane E. Müller (Berlin: Metropol, 2005), 22. 17 Schäfer, “Geschichte und Gedächtnisgeschichte,” 28. Assmann defended himself, referring to Talmud Tractate Shabbat 89a, which states that when God gave the Torah on Mount Sinai, hatred came in the world; Assmann, “Antijudaimus oder Antimonotheismus? Hellenistische Exoduserzählungen,” in Das Judentum, im Spiegel seiner kulturellen Umwelten. Symposium zu Ehren von Saul Friedländer, eds. D. Borchmeyer and H. Kiesel (Neckargemünd: Mnemosyne 2002), 34–35. Schäfer reacted to this defense (Schäfer, “Geschichte und Gedächtnisgeschichte,” 30–33), contending that the contrast between monotheism and polytheism/cosmo-theism would be a contrast between Judaism and other religions, and that this battle takes place in Judaism itself, especially with the manifold Godhead (vielfältige Gottheit) in Kabbala. See Schäfer, “Geschichte und Gedächtnisgeschichte,” 22–24. 18 Kippenberg further mentions that in Christianity and in Islam rights were denied to apostates, but Islam did give Jews and Christians a position as “people of the book.” He refuses to label medieval societies as “persecuting societies.”

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religions as such rarely cause the fire, but that they may accelerate conflict situations and develop a martyrdom ideology. He very briefly mentions that religion may offer an ethics of fraternity (Brüderlichkeitsethik) as the motor for creative social organizations, yet this is obviously not his focus. Summarizing the above, one may say that scholars today discuss the topic of religion as violence and that there is a tendency to qualify religion as potentially violent. In light of this, it is deemed expedient to reduce religion to the private sphere, even to a personal preference. The Enlightenment belief in reason was followed by violent religiouseschatological thoughts and we witness an unholy connection between religion and politics occurring at this time. Islamic defenders of Palestine, certain religious Zionists, and Protestants, who expect the coming of the Messiah after the return of the Jews to Israel, all combined their beliefs with acts. Both Al-Qa’ida and 9/11 with their idea of jihad, as well as former U.S. president George W. Bush, who wanted a crusade against the “axis of evil,” used religious terminology. One understands why scholars are now more focused on the analysis of potential violence in religion. Western Europe itself has a long history of religious wars and violence that came to the fore, for instance, in the religious anti-Semitism that prepared the ground for a national, industrial, and murderous racist anti-Semitism. It is significant that Kippenberg only devotes two pages in his book to the question of how religion can contribute to a disruption of violence (Gewaltunterbrechung). His answer is too brief to satisfy me. In his opinion, interruption of violence could come from trans-religious initiatives and international institutions. Furthermore, he believes, Jews who have made pacts with others in the past have to accept a “hudna” from Hamas, and religious Islamic groups that are involved in social welfare work have to be encouraged. 19

Kippenberg, Gewalt als Gottesdienst, 198—207.

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In my view, all this is fine but largely insufficient. Suspension of violence is good, but countering violence through the active search for ways to coexist is better. My impression is that Kippenberg’s analysis that focuses upon violence as religion does not take the power of a humanizing religiosity in which human rights are central sufficiently seriously. Such a religiosity is not in contrast to a political sphere that is becoming more and more autonomous, but could be a source of inspiration in our modern societies. Theonomous thoughts are not necessarily in opposition with the autonomy of our daily lives; they may even demand and promote such an autonomy. Kippenberg ends where I would start. His is too external an approach, one which could be challenged by an “internal” vision that acknowledges the civilizing power in religions. Religiosity as humanizing force I seriously doubt that modern societies will definitively say farewell to religions. One and a half million copies of Dawkins’ book will not change this. I do not agree with Herbert Schnädelbach, who tends to consider religions outdated and obscurantist. This well-known German philosopher writes about the “curse” of Christianity (der Fluch des Christentums), and thinks that morality has its own autonomy that is ideally free from religious influence.20 True, desacralization or secularization is a fact, and basing ethics and values upon man’s autonomy is a legitimate enterprise, but I believe that our societies have reached a post-secular or—in Willaime’s terminology—“ultra-modern” stage, in which religiosity as humanizing energy again plays an important role.

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Herbert Schnädelbach, Religion in der modernen Welt (Frankfurt: Fischer Tachenbuch, 2009). Schnädelbach considers Islamism as a new form of fascism and thinks that the Jewish tradition was of importance for the West.

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In the following, I will give some examples of Jewish religious approaches and some common to the three monotheistic religions that stimulate people to live and work together towards a more humane world, in which diversity is seen not as a threat but as an enrichment. The examples from the Abrahamic religions that I will outline are the result of inclusive thinking. Against any claims of absolute truth, they uncover the ethical or dialogical potential in our religious sources. In a dialogical hermeneutics of the monotheistic sources, the acceptance of a common Father, the interaction between love and law, the ideas of hospitality and of the ineffable, and, finally, the connection between love of God and love of the neighbor all represent centuries-old ideas that may contribute to the humanization of our societies, which must be approached in a critical way. Together with a dialogical exegesis of religious sources, these inclusive and predominantly trans-confessional ideas may hopefully lead to the formation of societies that consist of dialogical communities. The three monotheistic religions foster the lofty idea of a common Father, whose very existence not only guarantees the equality of all His daughters and sons, but also their uniqueness, never to be absorbed in generalities or in larger categories. When in a social psychosis the Law of the father is denied, humanity ceases and equality is destroyed. Jean-Gérard Bursztein has revealed this process in his thought-provoking book on the Holocaust.21 Conversely, one may see fraternity as the result of the acceptance of the common Father and his Law. If one accepts the paternal prohibition, “Thou shalt not kill,” an equality among all is established. This is a positive effect of religion. From this perspective, acceptance of and respect for the other human being is the way of being in touch with the Divine. The ethical movement brings one into contact with the Infinite, with the Father. The acceptance 21 Jean-Gérard Bursztein, Hitler, la tyrannie et la psychanalyse (Aulnay-sous-bois: Nouvelles Etudes Freudiennes, 1996).

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of the Father makes fraternity possible and makes monotheists modest, since other human beings are also beloved children of God, and the fact that they are created “in His image” (Gen. 1:27) reflects the multiple aspects of the Divine. It was Freud who made us reflect on the cultural necessity of the acceptance of the Father and His commands. An eminent example of the potentially humanizing power of religion is to be found in his book, Moses and Monotheism, which appeared in 1939.22 This volume was discussed by Assmann, who—surprisingly, after his negative qualification of exclusivist monotheism—sought a critical analysis and redefinition of the Mosaic difference that was not based on fixed revelations. It was also discussed by his opponent, Peter Schäfer, who interprets Freud’s theory as the transformation of monotheism by therapy.23 I offer my own interpretation of Freud’s book, free of apologetics of religion as such. When one reads this remarkable volume in an empathic way, rather than with the intention of claiming that it was written by someone who did not cope with his own tradition, one may come to the conclusion that in his first and last book on Judaism, Freud in fact uncovers the civilizing power or genius of Judaism. Freud reflected upon his own identity in an attempt to solve what he calls “the mystery” of Judaism. True, he defined religion as illusion, obsession, and neurosis, the result of childish needs. This remains his view throughout his work, but in his second critique of religion,24 “Moses and Monotheism,” he 22 Sigmund Freud, Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion. Drei Abhandlungen, was translated into English in 1955 under the title, Moses and Monotheism. In the following I refer to the edition of “Der Man Moses” in the Studienausgabe. Band IX (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2000). 23 Schäfer, Der Triumph der reinen Geistigkeit. Sigmund Freuds Der Man Moses und die monotheisitsche Religion (Berlin: Philo, 2003). Schäfer thinks that Freud understood himself as a new Moses and a new Jochanan ben Zakkai, who – after the destruction of European civilization by the Nazis – made the last necessary transformation of monotheism, converting it into therapy. 24 The first critique was formulated in his Die Zukunft einer Illusion (The Future of an Illusion), written in 1927.

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regarded the collective religious experience of Judaism as the result of the renunciation of the immediate satisfaction of instincts (Triebverzicht), a process that founds culture.25 According to Freud, Judaism opts for life by accepting the prohibition, “Thou shalt not kill.” The prophets reminded the Jews to remain faithful to the universal God, who demands ethical behavior.26 Consciousness of their election made them optimistic and self-confident. In Freud’s analysis, Jews opted for the spiritual and have a religion that endows an enormous spiritual power in which one remembers the “forgotten” that is unforgettable; they remember the murder of the Father. A reflection such as this uncovers the hidden forces in the Jewish religion, the “Fortschritt in der Geistigkeit.” Such a progression in spiritual life is in my view as strong as the violent undercurrents, which must not be denied. Freud’s “Moses and Monotheism” highlights the positive impetus that religion may provide, indeed, also in our modern societies. A second possible contribution of the Abrahamic religions lies in the idea that the ungraspable, an element that is essential to our common heritage, constitutes an anti-dotum to the totalitarianism that characterized the preceding century. Of course, the term “God” may be used in a narcissistic way; it may be abused to confirm one’s own limitless grandiosity, but it also limits human violence through the recognition that there is a transcendence that cannot be reduced to what is. The recognition of transcendence, of the unutterable, enables a positive limitation to the Promethean power and egoistic self-assertion of the human being. Religious tradition that highlights transcendence may bring critique of self-sufficient and totalitarian societies. A third example of the possible civilizing force of religiosity lies in the exceptional relationship between law and love that characterizes Judaism: law 25 26

Freud, Der Mann Moses, 563. Freud, Der Mann Moses, 500.

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without love is cruelty, love without law is anarchy. If the limitations of the law are anchored in love, one avoids the sanctions of the super-ego. The pleasure principle therefore requires the reality principle, which has to remain linked to the pleasure principle. Reinterpreted in this manner, Judaism could offer to humanity the concept of the recognition of a Father who loves and demands at the same time.27 A fourth example of the possible role of religious traditions in our post-secular age lies in their vital function of realizing the idea of hospitality. In interreligious dialogues, one frequently concentrates upon theological content. This has its own importance, since it illustrates how multiple and variant are the ways to God. This plurality is not only necessary because of the fact that we are not self-sufficient; pluralism is the precondition for a sound approach to the Absolute. Pluralism in religion goes against absolute truth claims and exclusiveness. Although the appreciation of theological differences remains important, the common effort of the various communities with their specific languages to realize together human rights, to bring justice and peace, and to extend hospitality to each other is even more urgent. For the monotheistic religions, the practical realization of these goals means to live the Abrahamic adventure of hospitality anew. The way to God necessarily is effected by respect of the inalienable rights of the other human being and welcoming of him.28 In all the monotheistic religions, finally, one may develop a dialogical hermeneutics that interprets their texts in an inclusive manner. Certainly, fanatical interpretations always remain possible, but mankind also has interpreted its writings in specific contexts in an inclusive way that contributes to the humanization of humanity. Monotheism is therefore not only a problem—though it may produce indoctrination and 27 For a development of this theme, see E. L. Santner, On the Psychotheology of Every Day Life. Reflections on Freud and Rosenzweig (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2001). 28 For a more detailed account of this view, see Meir, “Das Abrahamitische Abenteuer (Er)Leben” in Theologie im Plural, 33–40.

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coercion—, it is also and foremost an opportunity. If in monotheistic religions justice is central, religion will contribute positively to civilization and to the stability of our societies. Because there is not one monotheistic religion but three, the recognition of the uniqueness of each group is a consequence of the belief in one Creator who apparently wants diversity. In a global consciousness, the other is merely an other I and the strange is ultimately familiar, but one may also adopt and develop a universal consciousness in which the otherness is not eliminated, but rather a prerequisite in order to obtain a complete picture of higher realities.29 Towards trans-difference The differences between the three monotheistic religions remain valid, but different houses do not yet constitute the whole street or the whole town. With thinkers such as Levinas and Derrida, we learned to evaluate otherness versus sameness and also to discover alterity in ourselves. I would like to affirm and to transcend these differences in order to develop an attitude of communication, exchange, coexistence, and interaction. The affirmation of differences in itself may also bring with it domination, self-interest, and the neglect of what is common. With the end of what Lyotard called the “big narratives,” we witness multiculturality and inter-culturality. Intra-culturality is not cultural enough. In one day, we may meet Jews, Christians, and Muslims in our towns, and churches are no longer the sole house of God in Germany or France.30 Identities became more dynamic because of the presence of the other and the daily contact with him or her. We learn about the other and from the other. We may learn not to be afraid of each other. One even switches identities if the old identity no longer fits, or freely adopts elements of 29

The distinction stems from Eric Santner. For the pluralization of religion in our global age, see Berger, “Die Pluralisierung der Religion in Zeiten der Globalisierung.” 30

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other religions. One is not oneself, one becomes oneself. In such a context, what we need now is a trans-difference to serve as the common ground between us, notwithstanding the undeniable differences that remain.31 If we take into account that the aim of religion is not to separate but to cultivate proximity to the other, we may discover what unites us, what is the universal dimension in our particular religions, and how religious humanism may contribute to other forms of humanism in modern society. The rediscovery of such common ground will enable a new dialogue between religious and public life. I propose to omit a term such as “Leitkultur,” dominant culture, which is coercive, paternalistic, and colonial; the dream of a homogeneous culture is a dangerous fantasy in our postcolonial epoch. The term implies too much assimilation and disrespect for otherness, and does not recognize the necessity of dissimilation of subgroups. On the other hand, one should not overly accentuate dissimilation, which potentially creates ethnocentrism and social ghettos, and makes the participation of all in the general society ultimately impossible. I use the term “trans-difference” in order to designate the movement that creates unity with respect for differences and avoids total assimilation, as well as extreme dissimilation. The realization of a “transdifferent” society implies the creation of fitting social and political structures, as well as laws for all; its source, however, lies in ethics that makes possible responsibility for the Other who is different and with whom I communicate.32 31

I use this term not as a break with binary thinking, outside of clear-cut differences (man-woman, East-West, etc.), in opting for the “third,” that is, fluidity, changeability, or multiple belonging, as a supplement to existing differences. For such a definition of transdifference, see Differenzen anders denken. Bausteine zu einer Kulturtheorie der Transdifferenz, eds. Lars Allolio-Naecke, Britta Kalscheuer and Arne Manzeschke (Frankfurt: Campus, 2005). 32 Responsibility is here synonymous with “tolerance,” understood in its etymological sense as “bearing” (tollere) the other.

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In the United States, we witness multi-culturality or a commonwealth of cultures. In France, one considers a human being rather as an individual, in trans-culturality; Northern countries in Europe opt more for the multi-cultural way, perceiving human beings as belonging to groups. In the “trans-difference” that I propose, one may transcend multi-culturality that respects different subgroups, as well as trans-culturality that addresses the individual as belonging to the greater group.33 The advantage of the term “trans-difference” is that one takes into account both the difference and the commonality, the concrete particular and the interaction. In this manner, one avoids assimilation that is blind to the particular and a dissimilation that becomes authoritarian and reduces the human being to his ancestry. In “trans-difference,” one recognizes the particular and rises above it. Conclusion With the preceding, I am not in any way advocating a simple return to traditional religions, nor do I have a neo-traditional approach to them. In our societies we witness frequent passages from one religion to another (religions by choice), as well as religiosity without strict belonging and syncretism. All these phenomena point to the end of the absolute dominion of traditional religiosity. There is greater freedom in religious existence than ever before. In our post-secular societies, religious spirituality, and its set of values, again fulfills a role: it is meaningful in the battle against relativism, anonymity, indifference, and lack of solidarity. True, nostalgia for a pre-secular age is still alive in fundamentalist circles that long for religious control from which 33

For an elucidation of the terms “multi-culturality” and “trans-culturality,” see Jacques Demorgon and Hagen Kordes, “Multikultur, Transkultur, Leitkultur, Interkultur,” in Interkulturell Denken und Handeln. Theoretische Grundlagen und gesellschaftliche Praxis, eds. Hans Nicklas, Burkhard Müller and Hagen Kordes (Frankfurt on Main: Campus, 2006), 27-36. Demorgon and Kordes use the term “inter-cultural” in a way that is parallel to my “trans-difference.”

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secularism freed our societies. Yet, religiosity that respects secularity and goes beyond it is another option. It is through the perspective of the renewal of religiosity with both its positive and negative aspects that I reflect on civilization, to which religions contributed and continue to contribute.34 In Western Europe, liberal democracies fought against the churches for freedom and equality for all. The war between religions and the oppressive behavior of the dominant religion can even be considered the heritage of Europe. Historically, religion was frequently an instrument controlled by political hands. Religious dominance and indoctrination, as well as politico-religious confusion, was countered by the establishment of democratic societies that diminish the influence of religions in the public sphere as much as possible. Philosophical critique was also helpful in contesting absolute religious truth claims. Yet political structures and philosophies are far from perfect, and they are likewise not free of bias and violence. Violence does not, after all, come solely from religion. It is my thesis that religion has the potential to fulfill a critical function in our modern pluralist and autonomous societies.

34 Often radical reinterpretations beyond strict orthodoxy are necessary in this process. So, for instance, in the realm of Islam, Mohammed Arkoun discloses the unthought and the unthinkable beyond the fixed orthodox settings. To view his effort to liberate Islamic history from dogmatic constructs, see his The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002). See also Ursula Günther, “Mohammed Arkoun: Towards a Radical Rethinking of Islamic Thought,” in Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an, ed. Suha Taji-Farouki (London: Oxford University Press, 2004), 125–168; Günther, Mohammed Arkoun. Ein moderner Kritiker der islamischen Vernunft (Würzburg: Ergon, 2004). I further refer to Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid (19432010), his humanistic hermeneutics of the Qur'an and his liberal interpretation of Islam. In the Christian tradition, Lessing “saved” forgotten or suppressed voices such as that of Reimarus against the orthodox pastor Goeze; see Michel Espagne, “Lessing et les hérétiques,” in Haskala et Aufklärung. Philosophes juifs des Lumières allemandes, Revue Germanique internationale 9 (2009), 133–145. In Judaism, Levinas radically interpreted the Jewish tradition as one of hospitality. See Meir, Levinas’s Jewish Thought Between Jerusalem and Athens (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008).

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Cooperation between the monotheistic religions is a necessity in our era of internet and global communication, in which we experience more and more interaction between people. In my eyes, the different which is not capable of being assimilated in trans-culturalism and the common which is not adequately recognized in multi-culturalism go together. Martin Buber’s dialogical thoughts on the “zwischen,” the sphere of the “between,” are most helpful in this respect.35 One does not have to opt for one particularity against another. For Buber, “spirit” is “between” different individuals and groups. “Trans-difference” is realized between the same and the other, between the known and the unknown, between the particular and the universal. “Trans-difference” between the three monotheistic religions expresses itself in an interaction between the religions in their functions within the broader secular society. Instead of tolerating, ghettoizing, privatizing, or demonizing religions, I propose a new and creative interaction between the secular society and religious cultures as well as a new sphere of interaction between the universal and the particular. Of course, in discussing the relationship between religion and state, Europe is not comparable with the United States, and both are different from the Middle East. But the return of religiosity is a fact in all these parts of the world. Although in the Middle East, religion frequently does not further peace, there are religious persons, Jews and Muslims, who are conscious that the name “Peace” (Shalom/Salam) is one of the names of God. I further am acquainted with progressive religious circles in which the furthering of peace is a high priority. Not enough has been written to date about the positive input of religions in conflict management.36 Moreover, just as in ancient times the prophet contested 35 See Buber, Ich und Du.Um ein Nachwort erweiterte Neuausgabe (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1958), 38. 36 See Ephraim Meir, Ben Mollov, and Chaim Lavie, “An Integrated Strategy for Peacebuilding: Judaic Approaches,” Die Friedens-Warte. Journal of International Peace and Organization, 82, no. 2-3 (2007): 137–158.

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the king when necessary, religion may once again fulfill its critical function. In this manner, one could hear in the streets of Teheran that “God is great” as a protest against the repressive regime. This courageous call for freedom comes from the mouths of those whose religiosity cannot be denied. Too frequently, religion has chosen the side of power and thus theocracies have been too prevalent in history, in particular in the history of Christian Europe. Yet, at the same time, one cannot neglect the civilizing powers inherent in religions, manifest in their ethical and spiritual values. These age-old powers may again become relevant in our postmodern times. The recognition of our modern democracies and of human rights go hand-in-hand with ancient values traditionally transmitted by religions, such as equality and fraternity. Religious traditions, as well as religiosity without religions, in fact, may confirm and convey values that our modern democratic societies cherish. Most importantly, they may bring a critical regard to political and social ideologies and help counter anonymity, economic egoism, narrow nationalistic behavior, and lack of solidarity. Secularization is a positive development, but the autonomy of the social and the political does not exclude a renewed critical relationship between the religious and the public sphere. “Transdifference,” as the possibility of combining the same and the other, is necessary in the monotheistic religions and in society at large.

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2. Constructing Religious Identity The subject in responsibility is alienated in the depths of its identity with an alienation that does not empty the same of its identity, but constrains it to it, with an unimpeachable assignation, constrains it to it as no one else, where no one could replace it. The psyche, a uniqueness outside of concepts, is a seed of folly, already a psychosis. It is not an ego, but me under assignation. There is an assignation to an identity for the response of responsibility, where one cannot have oneself be replaced without fault. To this command continually put forth only a “here I am” (me voici) can answer, where the pronoun ‘I’ is in the accusative, declined before any declension, possessed by the other, sick, identical. Here I am – is saying with inspiration, which is not a gift for fine words or songs. There is constraint to give with full hands and thus a constraint to corporeality. (Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence)37 Today, bookshop shelves contain a series of books about shaping identity. They describe how our era is a time of individualization, pluralization, globalization, and virtualization. In this epoch, traditional identities have become more and more problematic, since people live concurrently within different contexts and the unified worldviews of the once dominant meta-narratives have less and less impact upon contemporary, postmodern individuals. Frequently, the traditional social 37

Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), 141-142.

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frameworks of family or state are no longer the glue that keeps people together. Children have to cope with two or three “fathers” or without fathers at all. Nation-states have become pluralistic and a Turkish new German may feel more Turkish than German or more German than Turkish. People have become mobile, but are less in contact with each other. Under the pressure of economic globalization, many have left their original homes and try to acclimatize in other countries. The changes in society have led to changes in the view on identity. In this chapter, I will reflect on the impact of these dramatic social changes and on the resultant identity searching and religious self-understanding.38 Searching and shaping identity In order to cope with the uncertainties of our late modern society, one might be tempted to flee into a fundamentalist world where authorities are still authorities and where there are no doubts at all, but this is not an option for human beings who want to uphold their critical minds, their autonomy, and their conscience. To be without any identity is another way of fleeing from one’s own identity. However, one cannot live without identity, although identity is no longer essentialist, as it was in pre-modern times when human beings had fixed roles in a hierarchically structured society sanctioned by the Church or other religious institutions. Identity has now become a human construct.39 In a more and more fragmented world, human beings continually shape and construct their identity; they build and rebuild it. They tell and retell their lives, interpreting events and establishing causal links between them. In this manner, human beings somehow master their lives and continue to strive 38

For a description of the problematics of identity constructions, see Heiner Keupp et al., Identitätskonstruktionen. Das Patchwork der Identitäten in der Spätmoderne (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 1999). 39 For some famous examples of complex identity constructions linked to “passing,” “inbetweenness,” fluidity, or hybridity, see Identität und Unterschied. Zur Theorie von Kultur, Differenz und Transdifferenz, eds. Christian Alvarado Leyton and Philipp Erchinger (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010), 37-70.

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for unity in themselves. In life stories, they experience themselves as interiorities that are maintained, even when the exterior situations constantly change. Identity has become a dynamic enterprise, and creating it a life-long task. Autonomous identity and the need for recognition In the permanent search for identity, people realize that they are the authors of their own acts and responsible for the life-options they have chosen. The times when individuals possessed an immovable identity that gives a firm and fixed basis once and for all, are definitely gone. But the postmodern individual as enterprising self and developing being with endless options also wants a home of his own, a place where one is “with oneself,” where one may realize his or her life project and feel a sense of unity and a feeling of being recognized by others. One creates a home, but this home is always part of a broader landscape. As before, people who build their own cultural home long for recognition by others. This is inherent in human existence. Paradoxically, one cannot come to a desired autonomy without relationship to and dependence upon others. Problematic and healthy meta-narratives In the ongoing quest for identity, one is confronted in Western Europe with the great narratives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Since people are more flexible today than ever, they may even choose a different religion than the one they grew up with. Some feel that a change of cultural and religious climate contributes to a more successful building of their lives. Among those who choose this life option, which is not the more accepted decision, the tendency to see all the good in the new religion and all the bad in the former, now relinquished, religion is real. The realization of this option frequently creates the feeling of a “we,” contrasted to “all the others,” resulting in a high potential for psychic instability. On the other hand, one may positively evaluate the nostalgia of converts and their search for meaning in a world without roots or

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traditions. Such individuals are in search for a more fitting framework and for a society in which they realize and develop themselves and are engaged in the broader community of which they have become a part. “Chose your identity” has become a well-known slogan. Independently of whether one chooses to remain in the religion in which one is born and grew up or opts for more fitting alternatives, the narratives of the great religions themselves are no longer evident, not for the ones who stay in the paternal or maternal religion and not for the ones who nomadically make the passage from one religion to another. Through migration, that is mostly undertaken for economic reasons, through daily contact and dialogue with many different people, traditional relationships and values become less binding and obliging; they are even reconsidered, selectively chosen, or simply put into question. The subject frequently chooses between different life models. Even within the framework of the great religions, adherents look for their own place under the sun, their own “home” within the religion to which they belong, and they creatively opt for the system of thought that best fits them. So, for instance, a Jew may feel more comfortable with the rationalist thought of Maimonides or with the more ethnocentric approach of Jehuda ha-Levi. He may become a Hasid, but also a rationalist “mitnaged” who opposes himself to any sentimental form of religion. He may become religious or secular, and if religious, he may become a Reform Jew, a Reconstructionist Jew or an Orthodox Jew. In the same way, a Muslim may be a Sufi with universal love, he may feel German, or he eventually may become part of an extremist group. A Christian may feel sympathy with a liberation theology à la Dorothee Sölle or feel more at ease with the theology of Luther, Schleiermacher, or Barth. The pluralization within the great religious systems is therefore a fact, and in one religion different options are possible. Again, the option for a closed life style, in which one sees the others in one’s own religion or in the other religions as threatening, exists, but it is not the most desirable option. Belonging to a religion is

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no longer self-evident. At any rate, in different lifestyles the longing and need for orientation, coherence, and sharing a common religious world remain a real need of postmodern man. Religious affiliation is an expression of the identity of an individual, who may accept the values of a missionary religion or opt for a non-expansive religion that does not strive to absorb otherness in an all-compassing totality. Maintaining unity in plural situations One of the problems is how a subject may come to unity while participating in numerous experiences. A subject has multiple subidentities that he has to manage in order to feel that his self is nevertheless “one” in all the changing circumstances that demand the realization of sub-identities. One may change himself or herself continuously, in appearance, in clothing, in speaking different languages, and living in different contexts with different behaviors, but there nevertheless remains a residue of the self that is given and which guarantees that a person, notwithstanding great fluidity and diversity, feels “one.” If one is not merely an actor, one acts out of a sense of unity. People express their feeling of unity in the construction of life narratives. In such narratives, one presents oneself as one sees oneself and relates how others perceive him. Life stories thus offer a coherent picture of the I. Dialogue between the self and the other In their biographical narratives, individuals present their own identity. But—as I already remarked—one’s identity cannot be constructed without others, who perceive the “I” as a “me.” In the complex search for him- or herself, a person cannot do otherwise than relate to others, who appreciate him/her a lot or less or not at all. His existence is necessarily coexistence. His I is a relating I. In a successful lifestyle, the I becomes

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an I in dialogue with the non-I.40 Throughout many changing conditions, one may see oneself as the result of the interaction with others. In this way, for instance, one chooses to become a father, but the children themselves define one’s status as a father. One may marry, but once married one ceases to behave as a bachelor because of one’s responsibility for the partner. One comes to the concept of the same through the other. In relationship to others, the I becomes I. The individual finds his destination in dialogue with others. A successful identity is therefore in my view the one that takes into account alterity. Dialogue between collective egos What is true for the individual, who constructs his identity in dialogue with others, is also true for the collective I. In this view, no healthy religion perceives of itself as an isolated and closed group. The health of a religion can be measured by the degree to which they relate to others.41 Theologically formulated: instead of absolute truth claims, authentic religions develop the capacity to listen to what other religions have to say about the ineffable reality that caused their existence. Differently formulated: The religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam fulfill their tasks only when they feel part of the common project of bearing witness to the Divine reality, which can never be exhaustively articulated or dogmatically defined once and for all. Religiosity as the feeling of being children of one God or as being princesses and princes of the great King42 brings different religious meta-narratives together. The construction of a religious narrative may be pathological if “we” is opposed to “they.” It may become problematic if this “we” thinks 40

Buber, I and Thou, 80; Buber, Ich und Du, 29. See Meir, “The Contributions of Modern Thought to a Psychoanalytic Phenomenology of Groups,” Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought 19, no. 4 (1996): 563-578. 42 Buber, Die Legende des Baal Schem (1908), (Frankfurt o.M.: Rütten & Löning, 1922), 32. “Das größte Böse ist, wenn du vergißt, dass du ein Königssohn bist.” 41

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it can absorb every “non-we.” So, for instance, Marcionism, which was anathematized by the Church but remained influential throughout the history of Christianity, considered the Old Testament as problematic. It opposed itself to the other. Frequently, Christian identity was formed on the negative background of Judaism: it saw itself as universal versus the Jewish particularity, as a religion of grace versus a religion of law. One contrasted the two religions, as if Judaism teaches a God of wrath and Christianity a God of love, as if Jews have a religion of slavish obedience and Christianity of free subjects, as if Judaism is particular and Christianity universal. One stressed the discontinuity between the past and the present. Christianity was progressively dejudaized and one systematically contrasted the two religions. Also in Judaism, the tendency to see the “goyim,” the non-Jews, as opposed to the Jews not infrequently functions as a cheap way of strengthening the Jew’s own identity. A religious narrative will be successful if it constructs truth in permanent dialogue with others. This does not have to lead to a confusion or fusion of collective identities. One may remain with the own narrative, the own intimate story, but accept that other narratives are possible, real, and desirable. Just as the individual does not have to give up his own standpoint in relationship to the other, but constructs his personal identity in interaction with the non-I, one religious story does not have to loose its peculiarity when in contact with other religious accounts. In the construction or reconstruction of one’s narrative, the way that one sees oneself is dependant upon how one perceives the other. Collective religious identities will have to develop strategies in which one copes with the honest criticism of others. This is a most difficult task. Preconceived ideas about the other religion will lead to tunnel thinking, in which one’s view is narrowed and deformed. The openness to other religious experiences, on the contrary, makes the own narrative somehow relative, but it also strengthens one in living his own story, as one color in Joseph’s multi-colored robe.

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Religious meta-narrative and personal identity One could object that religions as meta-narratives have ceased to play a role in history and that we now witness the end of these big narratives. But contrary to expectations, religiosity has not finished its role in society. The God-is-death theologians and those who prophetically predicted the end of the religions have been disappointed because their predictions were premature. True, in postmodern times we became conscious of the aggression and power hidden in the different metanarratives.43 In this manner, the return to religions can never again be a simple reverting to the old patterns. Nevertheless, although one criticizes the different meta-narratives, they continue to play their role in the search for personal identity. There is a relationship between the way the individual constructs his own life project(s) and the broader societies and communities in which the individual lives. The individual who actively constructs his life is not without links to the religious, social, cultural, or political collective I, of which he is part and parcel. Narrative of the self in relation with the other The construction of the religious self is connected to the construction of the self, who has to realize his life project in his relation to family, nation, work, and to a network of significant or less significant others. In all these different realms, he necessarily behaves in different ways, but he nevertheless feels some kind of stability while constructing his own identity. Also on the religious level, one is confronted today with a multiple choice situation of varying religions and within each single religion. In such a situation, flexibility, good taste, tolerance, and most of all communicability are needed. Being an adherent of one religion does not exempt from relating to other religions. If the other religion is seen as an enrichment and not as a threat, the movement towards the other will 43

See, for example, Kippenberg, Gewalt als Gottesdienst.

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not cause fear and consequently regressive, non-dialogical behavior. The possibility of understanding and expressing one’s own self and life options, in dialogue with significant others has not yet been fully exploited, but I am convinced that a dialogical construction of one’s own religious narrative will open unexpected perspectives that have not been sufficiently considered until today.

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3. Fischer’s Essay ‘Love and Wisdom’ in Light of Jewish Dialogical Thought Until the present day Franz Fischer’s philosophy has barely passed the borders of Germany. Scholarly research in English on Fischer (Neukirchen 1929–Norderstedt 1970) is almost non-existent.44 However, with his philosophy of proflection, this creative thinker occupies a prominent place in the dialogical philosophy of the preceding century. The present study analyzes Franz Fischer’s essay “Liebe und Weisheit,” written in 1969, only one year before his death on November 4, 1970. Fischer’s short text comprises 42 pages of the original manuscript, and only 12 pages in Proflexion. Logik der Menschlichkeit.45 In 27 meditative units, Fischer concisely formulates his views on love and wisdom in an antithetical manner. It is not my intention to discuss each and every aspect of this rich essay. Instead, I will highlight the main ideas of this work and compare Fischer’s original thought with that of some Jewish dialogical thinkers, whose thinking is both similar and dissimilar. It is all the more surprising that—with the exception of Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik’s work on Fischer and Levinas, and Monika Kaminska and Thomas Altfelix’s article on both thinkers—such a comparison has not yet been made, since the similarities between Fischer’s ideas and that of Jewish dialogical philosophers are manifold.46 44

Kaminska and Thomas Altfelix, “The Pedagogical Quality of the Ethical Relation. Understanding Lévinas as a Pedagogue from the Perspective of Franz Fischer,” in Franz Fischer Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Pädagogik 12 (Norderstedt and Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2007), 67-97. 45 Franz Fischer, Proflexion der Menschlichkeit. Späte Schriften und letzte Entwürfe, 1960-1970 (Werkausgabe IV), eds. M. Benedikt and W.W. Priglinger (Wien and Munich: Loecker, 1985) (hereafter noted as Proflexion), 543-556. 46 Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, Franz Rosenzweig. Existentielles Denken und gelebte Bewährung (Alber-Reihe Philosophie) (Freiburg-Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 1991), 190-214; Schmied-Kowarzik, “Notizen zu einer Philosophie des Anderen,” in

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The text is divided into three parts. Each subdivision in these parts contains highly structured language unities or language experiments, “Übungen,”47 in which a negative sentence clarifies a preceding positive sentence and words of the first half of the unit receive their exact counterpart in the second half. With structural contrasts and architectonic and linguistically highly sophisticated thoughts, Fischer aims to change the minds of his reading public: without moralizing, admonishing, longing for a utopian situation, or intending to apply theories or an ideology, he meditatively describes the high reality of the selfless openness of the I to the other and the self-forgotten tendency of the other to the I. This description of a selfless existence for the stranger is the antipode of self-affirmation and self-assertion at the expense of the other. It is a way of thinking that is intimately linked to the praxis of a life devoted to the other and to God. Fischer’s thought is concisely formulated in the saying: “We are without ourselves with the one who is without himself with us. We are with ourselves without the one who is with himself without us.”48 The entire text on love and wisdom strives to provoke a metamorphosis in the reader, who is invited not to reflect on himself—one does not find oneself in a reflective way49—but, instead, to make a turn to the other and to live a life oriented towards him. The difficulty of the text stems from the fact that the other-centered praxis asks also for a system that aims at rejecting the theoretical, abstract way of thinking and exercising an alternative one, a living thought, this time praxis- and life-oriented.

Norderstedter Hefte für Philosophie und Pädagogik (1993), 31-51. For Kaminska and Altfelix’s article, see note 44. 47 See the subtitle of his “Proflexion und Reflexion—Philosophische Übungen zur Eingewöhnung der von sich reinen Gesellschaft,” in Proflexion, 348-453. 48 Fischer, “Die Hut,” in Proflexion, 357. 49 See Fischer’s “Die Aporie des Selbst,” in Proflexion, 110-122.

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I The first part of the essay contains nine passages and starts with a reflection on the word “philosophy” itself, which is composed of the elements “philein,” love and “sophia,” wisdom. The meeting between both may occur in “concrete” philosophy, in which love is primary, or in “abstract” philosophy, in which reflection is primary. If love tends towards wisdom, then the mind is reminded of the righteousness of the heart. This is contrasted with the situation in which wisdom tends towards love, and then the heart is reminded of the rights of the mind. Fischer clearly prefers philosophy as a concrete enterprise, as ethics, in which love comes first and reflection second, above abstract philosophy, as dialectics, of which Hegel is the eminent example and which discusses love as one of its themes. The preference for concrete philosophy fits well in Fischer’s entire project of proflection, which is at the antipode of Hegel’s reflective dialectics in which the I comes to itself through negation of the other. Instead of the Hegelian return to the self by detour of the other, Fischer’s philosophy strives to recognize the other in his alterity, not as a function of the I. The approach of the other in conscience, Gewissen, is very different from knowledge of the other, Wissen. The recognition of the other allows reciprocity to take place. Reflection on such a reciprocity is only possible as proflection, a form of thinking, in which the I does not return to itself in the meeting of the other. Reflection in itself is for Fischer a dead end; it is the theoretical, cognitive approach of the other that brings one back to the self. Proflection, on the contrary, is the flexion to the other, to alterity or Fremdheit, which allows taking love and righteousness as the meaning of all meanings into account. The tendency or flexion to the other comes into expression in the logic of proflection, which permits thought from the standpoint of the other and in flexion to him. On this point I want to mention the proximity of Fischer to Levinas’s concept of philosophy. Levinas was a great translator, who

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brought into the universal discourse of Athens a Jerusalem way of thinking, eminently present in the Bible, in Midrash, and in Talmud. A frequent traveler between Athens and Jerusalem, Levinas enriched “Greek” with “Hebrew,” arguing that philosophy as “love of wisdom” should not exclude any form of wisdom, certainly not biblical wisdom. In this manner, he brings interaction between his philosophy as “love of wisdom” and the “wisdom of love,” the wisdom of responsibility attested to in Jewish sources.50 Levinas’s idea of the relevance of wisdom of love for philosophy itself, the love of wisdom, runs parallel with Fischer’s proflection. But there is more. Levinas’s philosophical paradigm of the I is not Odysseus who returns to himself, to Ithaca, but Abraham, who does not go back to his own place: he sets off from Ur, never to return. This eccentric move is a journey towards utopia, the non locus. Abraham is therefore the prototype of the one who welcomes the other without returning to the enclosed circle of the self; he knows about hospitality. Similarly, Franz Fischer’s proflection is a move in which the I empties himself from his own self in order to be with the other. Only when one frees oneself from what binds the I to itself, which includes freeing oneself from needs, interests, and preconceived ideas, does one have the possibility to contemplate the other, which is on a higher level than seeing the other. Fischer and Levinas both consider ethics not as second, but as first, philosophy. They go beyond epistemology in their approach of the other. Yet, unlike Levinas, Fischer has a logic of mutuality and writes on reciprocity in human interrelations. For him, reciprocity frees one from egologic Hegelian thinking in which the I after 50

For the relationship between “the love of wisdom” and “the wisdom of love,” see Levinas, Totalité et Infini: Essai sur l’extériorité (Phaenomenologica, VIII) (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1961), (biblio essays 4120) (Paris: Hachette, 1990), IV; Levinas, L’audelà du verset: Lectures et discours talmudiques (Collection Critique) (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1982), 233-234; Levinas, “Paix et proximité,” in Les Cahiers de La nuit surveillée 3, ed. J. Rolland (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1984), 345-346.

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the detour of negativity returns to itself. Because of the fact that it is precisely the reciprocal relationship that frees an individual from egology, Fischer formulates that the I who becomes a stranger to himself may meet the other, who – in his positive alienation from himself – may meet the I. The alienation of the I as well as the alienation of the other does not estrange one from himself; it rather initiates in a person an irreducible element that allows meeting to take place. For Fischer, true meeting becomes possible only through the gratuitous donation of the self to the other and of the other to the self. On this point of mutuality, Fischer’s thoughts are close to Buber’s as they are expressed in his masterpiece, I and You.51 Buber writes on meeting, Begegnung, as characterized by mutuality, which is higher than relationship, Beziehung, which remains one-directional.52 Fischer contrasts “concrete philosophy” (konkrete Philosophie) and abstract philosophy (abstrakte Philosophie). In the first, love tends to wisdom, in the second wisdom turns to love. Primacy goes to love; thought is a function of love and should therefore always be proflection. Fischer was certainly conscious that a problem arises because the meeting itself can never be objectified. Nevertheless, in his philosophy of meeting the traces of meeting itself are palpable. Also this move of Fischer’s is paralleled by the philosophies of Buber and Levinas, both of whose approach to the other is not first of all a cognitive one, but rather one of presence, in Buber’s philosophy, or obedience to an external call, in Levinas’s case. A second antithesis in Fischer’s text clarifies the first and makes it clearer and more radical. If love produces wisdom, then we awaken to assistance of the other in need and to fraternity (Brüderlichkeitsglauben), a notion about which the Prague theologian Johannes Huss wrote. If, on

51 52

Buber, Ich und Du. See Pamela Vermes, Buber (Jewish Thinkers) (London: Peter Halban, 1988), 41-42.

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the contrary, wisdom has love as its theme, we do not see the other in his distress. In this passage, praxis gets priority over theory. The praxis of fraternity is more important than the idea itself, which was the second ideal of the French revolution. Like Buber and Levinas, Fischer highlights that our reflection on the other is secondary when compared to our addressing the other in fraternity. In Levinas’s phraseology: if reflection does not bear the traces of a higher rationality, it misses its goal. In my own words: dialogue is the premise for any logic, which stems from the social context and is meaningful when it functions in that context. The higher rationality of the heart is prior to philosophical rationality. Fischer’s statement is even more radical than that of Levinas, since, for him, proflection as ec-centricity of the I and attachment to the other allows for a fraternity that is never reached in reflection, which possesses and therefore contradicts fraternity itself. In my view, Buber’s opposition to philosophy as a system that speaks “about” and not “to” a you, receives its parallel here. Nevertheless, one may ask if talking “about” cannot bear the traces of talking “to” and if logic cannot bear the seeds of dialogue, from which it stems.53 This was recognized by Levinas, but Fischer does not share this standpoint. One may ask if Fischer, when talking about wisdom and love, does not create too great a gap between wisdom of love and love of wisdom. The tension between the love of wisdom and the wisdom of love must be recognized, but Fischer sets up an opposition between the two in an antithetical way of thinking. Apparently, towards the end of his life, Fischer became very critical towards the project of philosophy itself, which “forgets” that only proflection allows for the mutuality between the self and the other. For Fischer, only proflection makes fraternity possible. 53

Tsvi Werblowsky, “Ways of Faith and Ways of Wisdom” (Hebrew) in Lectures In Memory of Martin Buber. Twenty Years after his Death (Jerusalem: Israel National Academy of Sciences, 1987), 28-33

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Fischer’s next dictum contrasts Jesus’s command of love of the neighbor with neglect of the other, who remains far away instead of becoming one nearby, the neighbor. Here, an ethical, normative element enters into Fischer’s logic of communication. This dictum in its negative form comes close to Rosenzweig’s idea of the sinner, who prays that he remain himself and that the other stay other.54 In Star,55 the sinner only prays for himself, leaving the other for what he is, without expectations, and by doing so he delays the coming of the Kingdom. In contrast to the category of sinners, the person linked to others through his connection to the Absolute furthers the coming of the divine Kingdom, in which everything and everyone will become alive. In Fischer’s logic of humanity as well as in Rosenzweig’s anti-systematic system and Levinas’s ethical metaphysics, it is a command that characterizes the relationship. Yet, for Levinas, the command is a negative one, “thou shalt not kill,” whereas for Rosenzweig and Fischer, the command is a positive one, one of love. Unit number 4 in Fischer’s essay adds the challenging idea of being sent (Botentum) to the foregoing. This is to be compared with Levinas’s thought on election. For Levinas, the ethical relationship is necessarily one of election: every I is elected to become one-for-theOther.56 Also in Fischer’s philosophy, one is “sent” to obey the divine command to love one’s neighbor. The idea of being sent is eschatological in the sense that it refers to the very destiny of the human being. I surmise that, for Fischer, being sent has a religious and even messianic connotation. It is finally linked to the founding of a peaceful society, a society of peace, that the next section in the essay discusses, which 54

See his letter of January 2, 1919 to Gritli Rosenstock; F. Rosenzweig, Die “Gritli”Briefe. Briefe an Margrit Rosenstock-Huessy,eds. Inken Rühle and Reinhold Mayer, with a preface by Rafael Rosenzweig (Tübingen: Bilam Verlag, 2002), 211. 55 Franz Rosenzweig, Der Stern der Erlösung (Bibliothek Suhrkamp, 973) (Frankfurt o. M.: Suhrkamp, 1988), 304-306. 56 Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 275.

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contains the words “belief in the human being” (Glaube an den Menschen), fraternal love (Bruderliebe), and the pivotal expression “consciousness of mutuality” (das Gewissen der Gegenseitigkeit). Widening the field from intersubjective relationships to relationships between communities and nations, unit number 6 of this essay contains thoughts on friendship (Freundschaftsfrieden) and on enmity (Feindschaftskrieg). The hand that is given to the other in a relation of friendship is contrasted to the refusal of the outstretched hand in a relation of vengeance. Interesting in this antithesis is the use of the term “we,” which, as a collective self, may be an exclusivist, enclosed entity without relationship to the other, or—alternatively—an animated “we” that includes the other.57 Unit number 7 continues thought on the mutually exclusive or inclusive use of the word “we.” It also introduces the word compassion (Mitleid) as a new term into the discussion. It is noteworthy that Fischer writes on the exit of our body in the soul of him who makes an exit out of his own body into our soul. We perceive here a dualism, which—as such—is largely absent in Jewish dialogical thought, in which the body appears to be animated, inspired. Fischer’s dualism shows the trace of a Gnosticism, in which spirit is preferred over matter.58 In the next unit of the essay, Fischer specifies that one may bear the suffering of the other, that the other may bear our suffering, and that we may console the other who also consoles us. This creates a society that he calls a society of suffering (Leidensgemeinschaft), in contrast to the lonely suffering (Leidensvereinzelung) and an indifferent attitude towards the suffering of the other.

57

For a discussion of these contrasting possibilities of human societies, see Meir, “The Contributions of Modern Thought to a Psychoanalytic Phenomenology of Groups.” 58 Christianity fought against Gnosticism, but the traces of this phenomenon are to be found in Fischer’s writings.

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These words have strong parallels in Levinas’s thought. In his famous article, “La souffrance inutile,”59 Levinas denies that the suffering of the other is meaningful, but he writes on a meaningful “suffering in me.” There is “the just suffering in me for the unjustifiable suffering of the Other,” which brings the suffering of the other within an inter-human perspective: the other’s suffering calls me. I may suffer for his or her suffering and in this manner I may give meaning to my own. The idea of the messianic “suffering servant” of the prophet Isaiah, who sustains the oppressed and the humiliated, is explicitly present in Levinas and implicitly in Fischer. This is understandable since both draw upon a common biblical tradition. At the end of Part I of the essay, Fischer writes on the problem of sadness (Traurigkeit) and the blessing of gladness (Freude). When one takes the suffering of the other man upon one’s shoulders and the other reciprocates, paralyzing sadness is metamorphosed into the swing of joy. It is noteworthy that joy is perceived here as the result of a mutual responsibility that creates a common world—in Buber’s terminology “Umfassung.” 60 This is equivalent to Viktor Frankl’s ideas on happiness not as being the aim of one’s life, but as the epiphenomenon of the search for meaning. Frankl criticized a psychology of self-development in which self-assertion and the maintenance of the homeostasis are the most important foci in life: the absence of tension would be less important than the tiresome realization of a lofty aim. To be happy is not an aim, it is something that goes along with an accomplished, responsible, social life.61 For Fischer too, joy is the result of taking upon your shoulders the 59 In Les Cahiers de La nuit surveillée, 3 (1984), 329-338 (= “useless Suffering”, trans. Richard A. Cohen, in The Provocation of Levinas. Rethinking the Other, eds. Robert Bernasconi and David Wood (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), 156-167). 60 Buber, Werke. Erster Band. Schriften zur Philosophie (Munich and Heidelberg: Koesel and Lambert Schneider, 1962), 801. 61 Viktor Emil Frankl, Psychotherapy and Existentialism. Selected Papers on Logotherapy (New York: Washington Square Press, 1985), 49-61. See also Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 439-446.

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suffering of the other. He adds that a community of people who bear the suffering of each other in and of itself changes sadness into joy. II We come now to the discussion of the second part of the essay, which contains eight numbered sections that introduce or, more accurately, discover the divine dimension in the communicative reality of mutual interchange. The first piece in this section deals again with what is said in the preceding number about sadness and joy, but now the binomium corporal need and spiritual redemption (Fleischesnot, Geistesrettung), as well as the somehow Gnostic dual concepts darkness of the body and light of the spirit (Fleischesfinsternis/Geisteslicht) enter into the discussion. This also perfectly fits Fischer’s flexion to the other as the stranger who needs one’s ex-centric action. Fischer’s meditation is here dissimilar to the attitude of Levinas, for whom, in the footsteps of Rabbi Yochanan in the name of Rabbi Yossi ben Kosma, “the hunger of the other is great,”62 which means in this context: sacred.63 Levinas denies a spirituality that is not related to material needs. Fischer is in this respect nearer to the dialogical thinking of Buber, who concentrated upon the spiritual character of the relationship and was criticized by Levinas for neglecting the material side of it. For Levinas, to provide for the material needs of the other is my spiritual obligation. The next number in the essay makes the preceding item even more antithetical. Here, Fischer uses the terms white-black (Schwarz/Weiss). He contrasts darkness of the body (Leibesdunkelheit) with brightness of the soul (Seelenhelligkeit). Again, an aura of 62

Talmudic Tractate, Sanhedrin 103b. Levinas, Difficile liberté. Essais sur le judaïsme [1963], 3rd ed. (Paris: Albin Michel, 1976), (biblio essais 4019) (Paris: Hachette, 1988), 10.

63

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Gnosticism is clearly present. Poetically, almost mystically, he writes that the move towards the other brings a radiation (erstrahlen); it is a passage from the silver night of the moon to the golden day of the sun. The opposite is of course a diminishment of radiation (verstrahlen), whereby one moves from the golden day of the sun to the silver night of the moon. For the first time, we read about “God” and about the mild divine light of Dante’s Paradise and, in contrast, about the hard light of the stars of Dante’s Inferno. As in the writings of the Jewish dialogical thinkers from Cohen, Rosenzweig, and Buber, until Heschel and Levinas, God comes into the mind through the interpersonal relationship. Point number 12 adds the temporal dimension: we leave the silhouette of yesterday (der Schattenriss unseres Gestern) for the clarity of the morning (die Verklärung des Morgens). The following meditation again uses the metaphors of shadow and light, adding to them the terms past and future and the qualifications death and life. In a good biblical mode, living in the face of God means choosing life, whereas living for oneself is choosing death. In Levinas’s terminology: living in totality is living without a future, enduring a monolithic life without promises; in a life-for-the-Other, future is announced as a time of coexistence, a time in plurality, a “messianic” time of the answerability of the one for the other.64 Section number 14 somehow returns to the beginning of the essay by bringing the reader from the concealment of the mind (Verheimlichung unseres Gehirnes) into the openness of the heart (Eröffnung unseres Herzens). It further passes from our fear of the human beings (Menschenfurcht) into our human courage (Menschenmut), in which we experience divine shelter (Gottesschutz).

64 Levinas, Le temps et l’autre [1948] (Paris: Quadrige/PUF, 1989), 77-89; Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 313-318.

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Point number 15, does not simply repeat the preceding piece but rather complements it with a completely novel element. Here Fischer brings the reader from his or her own home (Heimat) to an elsewhere (in der Fremde); it is the friendship with the other (Fremdenfreundschaft) that brings the possibility of feeling at home, on the condition that I am at home with the stranger and the stranger feels at home with me. Writing on friendship with the stranger, Fischer expresses the possibility of mutual hospitality, substituting the being-at-home and the undisturbed chez soi for the always disturbing, humanizing act of hospitality that infringes upon one’s glorious spontaneity. In Levinas’s view as well, the stranger, the beggar, and the poor, and all the politically, socially, or economically weak represent a challenge for the collective I, who is permanently tempted to return to himself. At the same time, Levinas describes the possibility of making an exodus out of the self, not to return to the same in identitarian obsession but to make a courageous emigration out of the I without returning to a “fatherland.” The I who becomes different from himself in hospitality is for Levinas a “created” I.65 The correspondence between and overlapping of Fischer’s and Levinas’s thought is not surprising, since both based upon the JewishChristian tradition in which Abraham as the first follower of the Other was called upon to receive three strangers in his tent. In Hebrew, the word for hospitality, eruah, is significantly linked to aher, the Other, the stranger. Levinas is very radical in his thought when he maintains that the identity of the I stems from the Other, not from his negation but from his confirmation and promotion. But also for Fischer, the human being is far from tragically caught in his solipsism: he is able to leave his own enclosed circle in a movement of exile out of himself towards the stranger. Instead of the “I think,” in which reality is appropriated and exploited, proflection guarantees the possibility of hospitality, which 65

Meir, Levinas’s Jewish Thought. Between Jerusalem and Athens, 266-267.

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brings the I into the realm of primordial light, into one of a promising future, and of divine protection. I imagine Fischer could have had in mind a passage such as Matthew 25: 31-46.66 Point number 16 brings further nuances to the description of the wonder of the stranger, who may feel at home with us, and of ourselves, who may leave our intimacy to move towards the strangeness (Fremdheit) of the stranger. Again, we note a Gnostic element in the contrast between the “here” of our body (“Hier” unseres Leibes) and the “there” of our soul (“Dort” unserer Seele), although the contrast between the half-perceptible body (halbsichtbarer Körper) and the fully perceptible whole (vollsichtbare Gestalt) somehow mitigates this Gnostic tendency. Unit number 17 again introduces the divine, this time through the divine land (Gottesland) in the description of the move from the invisible back (das Unsichtbare unserer Rückseite) to the visible front (das Sichtbare der Vorausseite). The last component of Part II of the essay constitutes the apotheosis of the entire second part. The light that comes from the confront-ation with the stranger and from the con-front-ation of the stranger with us, is called now the light of the divine clarity of Cervantes’ heavenly island (gottvolle Allsichtigkeit der Himmelsinsel von Cervantes). Fischer claims that paradise of love brings clear perception, in contrast with the wildness of hatred, which remains blind. It appears that love of the other is not blind, but sees clearly, whereas hatred is blind, because it only looks—so to speak—for the Achilles’ heel of the other, surprising him from the back, without confront-ation, without full sight. This thought is parallel with Levinas’s writing on the face. The face of the other is for Levinas the divine light in which one sees the light, which corresponds to what is written in Psalms: “In Thy light do we see light” (Ps. 36:10; be’orkha nir’eh or). One 66 See further Meir, “Das Abrahamitische Abenteuer (Er)Leben,” in Theologie im Plural, 33-40.

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testifies to the Infinite in respect to the signifyingness of the face, that points to the Infinite.67 The face is the meaning of all meanings, spreading the light in which light is seen. Yet, unlike Levinas, who describes the ethical relationship as asymmetrical and avoids the word “love,” preferring the word “sanctity,” Fischer writes about the garden of love (Liebesgarten) in which the one reveals himself to the other in a mutual move of leaving the self in favor of hospitality of the other. The idea that love is not blind and that only hatred is blind is also found in Buber’s I and Thou, which provides us with another interesting parallel between Fischer’s text and the Buberian dialogical thinking.68 III The third part of Fischer’s essay consists of eight sections. At the beginning of this last part, Fischer builds further on the foregoing, but now he explains the import of “meaning” (Sinn), which is palpable in the amazement (Staunen) of a philosophy of humanity (Menscheitsphilosophie) that is free from itself and leaves the lonely self-evidence (einsame Selbstverständlichkeit) of the half view (Halbsicht) behind in favor of the shared wonder (zweisames Wunder) of the plain view (Vollsicht). Levinas’s metaphysics again offers a stunning parallel. We already mentioned that for Levinas, in light of the face, the meaning of all meanings is revealed. This ultimate meaning lies before any partial act of shedding light, before the I constitutes the world in Sinngebung. Finally, in Heschel’s philosophy of religion, the term “amazement” is central. Heschel’s “amazement” is parallel to Fischer’s Staunen.

67

Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 292. Heschel also refers to Ps. 36:10 and adds that there is divine light in every soul. Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (New York: The Noonday Press, 1955; reprint, 1993), 143. 68 Buber, Ich und Du, 19.

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Different from knowledge, radical amazement allows one to approach higher layers of human existence.69 Point number 20 completes the foregoing in that it defines the shared wonder as the exodus out of the lonely self view (Selbstsicht) to the twofold view of the other (Fremdsicht). Self-accomplishment (Selbsterfühlung) is replaced here by being recognized by the other (Fremdgesehenheit). The human eye of the twofold view meets the eye of God (Auge Gottes). Levinas, too, was alert to the passive element in the human relationship. He was attentive to the fact that being touched by the other precedes and triggers one’s ethical activity. But whereas in Levinas’s philosophy the regard of the other commands the I in an infinite command that ruptures totality, in Fischer’s thought, it is the eye that is not self-perceiving, but rather that is attentive to being perceived by the other, that meets what is named with an anthropomorphic expression, “the eye of God.” Point number 21 plays on the contrast between the reflecting insight (spiegelvoller Inblick) and the non-reflexive view (spiegelloser Ausblick), between the self-reflection from our face (aus dem Rahmen unseres Gesichtes) and the non-reflecting looking at the face of the other (im Bilde seines Antlitzes). It is well known that Levinas made “the face” a terminus technicus for the epi-phenomenon in which the ethical command takes place: it is not a phenomenon. Fischer, on the contrary, makes the image of the countenance of the I the locus in which the other is received. Let me note that Fischer distinguishes between face (Gesicht) and countenance (Antlitz). The term countenance – as with the Levinasian face – points in the direction of a metaphysical height, reinforced by the biblical expression of the image of God (Bilde Gottes). Both thinkers 69 Heschel, Man is Not Alone – A Philosophy of Religion (1951; reprint, New York: The Noonday Press, 1979), 11-17.

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know about hospitality, which in Hebrew is significantly kabbalat panim, the reception of the face. Furthermore, both connect the face to the divine, Fischer by linking the image of the countenance (Bilde des Antlitzes), which receives the other, to the image of God (Bilde Gottes), Levinas by writing about the infinity in the other’s face that ruptures the totality of the I. The panoptic, panoramic look of the I is substituted by the demanding look of the other. In Fischer’s precisely chosen words, in my own view (Gesicht), the other appears (erscheint), but it is out of my countenance (Antlitz) that I contemplate (anschaut) the other. In the first case, the other is an object; in the latter case, I am near to him, in proximity. Levinas highlights the passivity of the I in the relationship, Fischer the active outreaching of the I towards the other. The parallel with Buber is even stronger, since Buber also starts from the I as I-you, but mentions further the gratuitousness of the mutual encounter in which the other reveals his presence to the I which is present to the other: passivity and activity, election and being elected go together.70 Continuing the metaphors of light, number 22 compares the lie of self-blindness (Selbsverblending) with the radiance (Lauterkeit) of the recognition of the other (Fremdverklärung). These two situations are paralleled to sleeping and being awake, to the illusion (Scheinbild) of remembering and the shining image (Strahlbild) of guessing (Erahnung). In this manner, Fischer connects self-reflection with the past and a proflective attitude with the future. Whereas in Levinas’s philosophy, the I is awakened by the other, Fischer brings the state of being awake in relation to the I that recognizes the other. Both philosophers approach the unknowable future as the result of coexistence. The next number in Fischer’s essay posits the opposition of the sub-consciousness of our lusts (Unterbewusste unsere Begierde) in the meeting with our selves with the super-consciousness of love (Überbewuste der Liebe) in the meeting with the other. Moreover, 70

Buber, Ich und Du, 15, 70.

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Fischer now uses the term “divine Kingdom” (Gottesreich) and connects it to the pure relationship posited by Buber. In this pure relationship, the illusionary kingdom of the I (Scheinreich unserer Ichheit) is replaced by the radiating kingdom of the you (Strahlreich der Duheit). Because Fischer explicitly mentions Buber, it is appropriate to compare Buber’s ontology in I and Thou with Fischer’s proflection. For Buber, the I is a real, authentic I in relationship with a you, i.e., as I-you. The I is inauthentic, and less real in categorizing, perceiving, using, and experiencing. The aim of the human being is to develop the I-you and to transform the subject-object relation in the inter-subjective relationship and encounter. Of course, the I as I-you, as present to the non-I, can make the other more present, but it also happens that the other, through his presence, makes the I more present. In any case, and independently of the fact that the I or the other may be absent, the eternal Thou is the presence which cannot become absent. The presence of the divine Thou of necessity takes place in the encounter between two people.71 In Fischer’s thought too, the divine Kingdom comes into perspective when one leaves one’s own narcissism, which sees objects, for a movement towards a you that does not turn into an object. In the passage of the I to a you, one may be allowed a glance at the divine Kingdom. The contemplation of the divine becomes possible in the interrelation between human beings. Of course, Buber is discussing relations with nature, human beings, and ideas,72 whereas Fischer limits himself to the relations with human beings. But, for both, one contemplates the divine in the passage from the one to the other. Both thinkers perhaps posit too much of a separation between the interested I and the dialogical I. In the best moments of Buber’s I and Thou, I-you and I-it are more linked: the two

71 72

In Buber’s thought, the eternal Thou never becomes an it; Ich und Du, 69. Buber, Ich und Du, 11-12, 89.

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ways of life go together in creation and I-it is called to become I-you.73 Iit is necessary, but without I-you the world is not human enough. Levinas highlights that the I is interested more than Buber does, but he points to a transcendence in enjoyment and, more radically, in the command of the other. The metaphysical Desire for the other is a disinterested interruption of an interested life. I claim that on this point all of the three thinkers, Fischer, Buber, and Levinas, put the emphasis upon the purity of the movement to the other. It is as if they want to remove every objectifying view of the other from the light or radiance that stems from the non-egocentric approach to that other. Section number 24 widens the perspective even more; it treats peace as the antipode of war. The animosity or antagonistic confrontation between egos (das feindselige Gegenüber zwischen Ich und Ich) is opposed to the loving relationship between relating people (das liebende Gegenüber zwischen Du und Du). The first leads to a war of all against all (Allkrieg), the second to the comprehensive peace (Allfrieden) of a community. Levinas, too, considers peace not as the result of a pause between wars, which would be a fragile peace soon broken once one of the parties becomes stronger. A higher peace is rather the result of the ethical attitude towards the other, which is always – in contrast to Fischer’s thought – an asymmetrical relationship.74 Both Levinas and Fischer think of peace as that which marks the end of solipsism and the entrance into a fraternal community. Fischer’s point number 25 again opposes the commonness of our bodily existence and the uniqueness of the soul. Here, the opposition is the one between satanic nature (Satansnature) and divine history (Gottesgeschichte), between the comparability of our fall (Vergleich73

Buber, Ich und Du, 89; Meir, ‘Jij’ zeggen met Martin Buber. Dialogische opmerkingen bij Bubers ‘Ik en jij’ (Amsterdam: Amphora Books, 2006), 78-79, 9698. 74 Levinas, “Paix et proximité,” 339-346; Meir, Levinas’s Jewish Thought, 33-34.

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lichen unseres Falles) and the incomparability of our name (Unvergleichlichen unseres Namens). I again note Fischer’s dualism, which is largely absent in Jewish thought. The thought formulated in this unit reminds us of Rosenzweig’s description of the name as breaching the wall of objectivity as expressed in his Star.75 Section number 26 contains Fischer’s philosophy of time, resuming the subject discussed in number 13. The passage from satanic nature into divine history is the passage from the repetition of what was (Wiederholung unserer Gewesenheit) into the novelty of what will be (Erneuerung des Kommenden). It marks the passage from the immanence (Diesseits) of self-idolatry (Selbstabbild) to the transcendence (Jenseits) of the primordial image of the other (Fremdurbild). Fischer’s ideas on past and future are intimately connected to his ideas on idolatry and divine image. One cannot but remark again on the strong religious tone of this penultimate unit. Sticking to the past is repetitious, obsessive, and the tendency to the future is always novel, renewing. These ideas are again parallel to Rosenzweig’s thoughts on the world that is permanently there, but in which the divine address to man in revelation makes the human being ever new, transforming his self (Selbst) into a soul (Seele).76 The last unit of Fischer’s essay is divided into three parts. The first part concretizes the passage from immanent self-idolatry to the transcendence of the primordial image of the other as the passage from sexual opposition (Geschlechtsgegenteil) to sexual complementation (Geschlechtsergänzung). In this context Fischer writes about the proof of God (Gotteserweis) as it is located in the human being who is free from himself and turns from the division to the undivided unity of being manand-woman. 75 76

Rosenzweig, Der Stern, 207-209. Rosenzweig, Der Stern, 123, 222.

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In Rosenzweig’s philosophical midrash on Song of Songs in the middle of Star, the unity of man and women refers to the relationship between God and His people. As in Fischer, a loving relationship between people is, in Rosenzweig’s existentialist philosophy of love, concurrently the loving relationship between God and his beloved ones.77 It is remarkable that this time, Fischer has anti-Gnostic thoughts on the concreteness of our sexual existence, an issue also discussed by Levinas, with the difference, however, that Levinas bases the sound relationship between man and woman upon separation and division rather than upon unity and fusion. In the second part of the last item, Fischer returns to the idea of a passage from commonness (Allhäufigkeit) to the uniqueness (Alleinzigkeit) of the relation between man and woman. In the unique relationship between man and woman, one may contemplate the healing of the couple from its division into unity. The opposition (Gegenbild) of man and woman, about which one talks employing words that speak "about," what Fischer calls das Sprächliche, is replaced by the exemplary reality (Fürbilde) of man and woman that is only approachable in the living word, in what he calls das Wörtliche. With this distinction between two kinds of languages, an abstract, problematic one and a concrete, praxis-oriented one, Fischer makes an inclusion: at both the beginning and at the end of his essay, he utters his main idea about the incompatibility between reflexive and proflexive thinking. The expression “dreeinige Geistesmusik” points to the spiritual harmony between man and woman in which the living, not self-centered word (das von sich reinen Wort) is present. For Rosenzweig, too, love is never something that happens; it is a unique event in which human beings provide each other with a soul, enlivening.78 To talk about, in the third person, in a general manner, is 77 78

Rosenzweig, Der Stern, 221-228. Rosenzweig, Der Stern, 227.

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not to talk to, in the second person, in a personal way; one should not consider the neighbor as a “he,” he shall become a “you,” he is like you, a soul.79 In this perspective, redemption is the capability of the I to say to a “he”: “you.”80 Finally, in the third part of this last item, Fischer writes about the realization of the terrestrial bond (Erdenmenschenbund) between man and woman in their heavenly bond (Himmelsbund). In the latter connection, the divine takes place (in dem sich Gott ereignet). God waits for the lonely man to become complete. In this manner, Fischer concludes in an eminently Christian mode; God who accomplishes the resurrection of love between man and woman, is the one who is predicted in His image in creation and in the divine child Jesus, and who is manifested in the unity of people. Fisher finishes his essay with the words that, in the doctrine of God (Gotteslehre), as love for wisdom, God reveals himself as the one who creates the selfother (Selbander) that He alone really is. With these hymn-like, eminently religious words, Fischer concludes his essay that starts with thoughts on love and philosophy and ends with the passage on a divine teaching (Gotteslehre) or, as was originally written, philosophy of God (Gottesphilosophie). The philosophy of God is Fischer’s higher love of wisdom. In Jewish dialogical philosophy, the loving community likewise manifests the presence of God, the divine Shekhinah or Inhabitation. Song of Songs is a song of revelation, in which the revelation of man to woman and vice versa is at the same time the revelation of God to His beloved people. In his proflection, Fischer writes about God, who is defined as the only “selfother”(selbander), the One whose identity is the completely other, and who is proflectively related to the human beings who are different from Him, but who are called upon – in imitatio Dei – to introduce into 79 80

Rosenzweig, Der Stern, 267. Rosenzweig, Der Stern, 305.

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themselves the love of the stranger. Also Heschel, in his theocentric religious philosophy, accentuates that God is in need of man.81 He is in search of man; if man awakens to the divine light, then the upper light will come upon us. Heschel refers to Rabbi Aaron of Karlin, who said, “In Thy light which is within us will we see light.”82 For Rosenzweig, as for Fischer, philosophy and theology are intimately linked: theology objectively talks about revelation, philosophy subjectively describes the personal experience of this revelation.83 The clearest parallel, however, is again with Levinas, for whom God is to be approached by becoming other to yourself in obedience to the other’s call. This reception of the otherness in ourselves, of becoming positively alienated from ourselves in an eccentric movement to the other, brings us closer to God in a way that the more we come near to Him the more we become conscious that we are far from Him. This is the paradox of what Levinas calls the metaphysical Desire.84 Conclusions In his essay “Love and Wisdom,” Fischer urges us to enact a mutation in our lives. The dilemmatic structure of his utterances allows no choice: one has to decide to abandon a reflective, egocentered mode of thought and to adopt a proflective, other-centered thinking, which is anchored in concrete circumstances and leads to concrete situations. With his essay, Fischer strives to provide an education for a life in love. Fischer interprets the biblical verse, “Thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18) as: you and also the other, who is a you as you, have the God-given capacity to bring about a metamorphosis in your lives and reach real peace.

81

Heschel, God in Search of Man, 68, 136-144. Heschel, God in Search of Man, 143. 83 Rosenzweig, Der Stern, 115 84 Levinas, Totalité et Infini, 22. 82

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The points of contact between Fischer’s logic of proflection and Jewish dialogical philosophy are manifold, but – as Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik has perceptively written – the affinity with Levinas’s thought is remarkable.85 Fischer’s philosophy and Levinas’s metaphysics are at the antipode of what was current thought in Germany during the Shoah. Levinas’s confessional and professional writings around the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” as the Saying that breaches totality, are parallel with Fischer’s meditative and linguistically masterful proflection on the transgressing of one’s own borders towards the other in his uniqueness. Both philosophies are as removed from racist ideology and xenophobic attitudes as East is removed from West. Both think that meaning does not stem primarily from reflection, but rather from the other. Levinas calls the meaning of all meanings signifyingness (signifiance),86 defining it as the good beyond being; Fischer writes about Sinn, which ultimately stems from the turn (Hinwendung) to the other, from the question: wherefore is this or that good? Fischer’s philosophy is connected to the lofty strata of human life and perceives the other not as a threat but as the possibility of enrichment of the I and even as the one with whom one may experience a God-given completeness. This completeness is called love by Fischer. In Jewish thinking, the unity and wholeness with the other is called holiness, and this mutual openness of the one toward the other testifies to the Holy One, distinct from human beings but manifest in the lives of those who devote themselves to each other. Es, ergo sum, “I am because you are,” redefines the I as related to the other:87 I become myself in concrete care for the other. Fischer was 85 See note 46. Anne Fischer sent me a letter from André Neher, d.d. 9.11.1986, in which Neher writes that he is reading Fischer’s work. He further relates that the pure metaphysical-logical language of the three first volumes of Fischer is close to the spiritual world of his friend and colleague Levinas, but that he himself also felt philosophical affinity with Fischer. 86 Levinas, Ethique et infini. Dialogues avec Philippe Nemo (Paris: Fayard/France Culture, 1982), (biblio essais 4018) (Paris: Hachette, 1992), 94. 87 Fischer, Proflexion, 444-449.

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conscious of the fact that in order to discover this, one needs a language that is not reflective, but which reaches out to the other, a proflective manner of speaking and thinking.88 The high reality of an other-oriented existence is described in Fischer’s logic of meeting, which aims to bring the reader to the point where he vanquishes separations and barriers and opts for a God-dedicated life in openness to and love of the other. Such a life of self-transcendence is beyond self-expression that was highly praised by Abraham Maslow, Erich Fromm, and Carl Rogers. It is rather a life in selfless being for the other, which may also lead to the selfless existence of the other for us: such an existence as coexistence is the destiny of every loving couple and of a peaceful society. It is the starting point and the aim of proflective thinking. I would like to conclude with some words on the text of Matthew 25: 31-46. In this text, to feed the hungry, to quench the thirsty, to welcome the stranger, to clothe the naked, and to visit the ones who are sick or in prison, means: relating to the divine. This text is significantly quoted by the Jewish philosopher, Levinas, who thought that the nearness to the other permits us to guess the loftiness of God.89 It is a text that also epitomizes the philosophy of Fischer, who wrote about a pure love (von sich reine Liebe) and about nearness to the other in his illusions or illness, in all his uniqueness. For Fischer, a life in proximity to the other is prototypically lived by Jesus. The proximity to the other in selfless love, free from one’s interests and ideas, makes the world whole and 88 What is said, das gesagte, is always relative vis-à-vis meaning itself, das gemeinte, which can never be reached. In the above-mentioned letter (note 85), André Neher has related this idea of Fischer to the Maharal of Prague, who saw the relativity in the absolute itself, so that every day a Jew has to hear again God’s word “Hear, Oh Israel” (Deut. 6:4), as if he has never heard it in an identical way; not yesterday and not today or tomorrow, will he hear it as in the moment he presently hears it. See A. FischerBuck, “Proflexion und Reflexion bei Franz Fischer,” in Norderstedter Hefte für Philosophie und Pädagogik (1993), 29. 89 Robert Gibbs, “Jewish Dimensions of Radical Ethics,” in Ethics as First Philosophy. The Significance of Emmanuel Levinas for Philosophy, Literature and Religion, ed. A.T. Peperzak (New York and London: 1995), 13-23.

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brings near the Kingdom of the Most High, in Jewish and in Christian thought. Precisely when confronted with the evil of brown and red totalitarianism and other totalitarian forms of life, proflection takes on its most profound meaning.

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4. Towards “Proflective” Philosophy and “Proligion” with Fischer and Buber In his voluminous book on the other in the social ontology of the twentieth century, Michael Theunissen did not mention Franz Fischer (1929-1970) even once.90 Theunissen’s dissertation dates from 1964 and at that time Fischer was a relatively unknown philosopher in Germany. If a similar book were to be written today, the inclusion of Fischer would be imperative. To date no attempt has been made to situate Fischer in the spiritual landscape of dialogical philosophy. A laudable exception is Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, who briefly compared Fischer with Jewish dialogical thinkers in his book on Rosenzweig.91 The previous chapter brought Fischer in the proximity of Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Emmanuel Levinas. In the present chapter, I compare Fischer’s transformative thinking on philosophy and religion with Buber’s dialogical thought and religiosity. Fischer and Buber both argued that it was imperative that the traces of the dialogue with other human being be palpable in philosophy and religion. Their respective positions towards religion are the consequence of a philosophical point of view that was characterized by

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Michael Theunissen, Der Andere. Studien zur Sozialontologie der Gegenwart (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977). For an introduction in Fischer’s life and thought, see Anne Fischer-Buck, Franz Fischer 1929-1970. Ein Leben für die Philosophie (Vienna and Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1987). 91 Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, “Ethik – Bestimmtsein vom Anderen her und auf ihn hin,” in Dialogdenken – Gesellschaftsethik. Wider die allgegenwärtige Gewalt gesellschaftlicher Vereinnahmung, eds. Angelica Bäumer and Michael Benedikt (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1989), 372; Franz Rosenzweig. Existentielles Denken und gelebte Bewährung (Alber-Reihe Philosophie) (Freiburg and Munich: Karl Alber, 1991), 190-214. Schmied-Kowarzik focuses on parallels between Fischer and Levinas. See also Kaminska and Altfelix, “The Pedagogical Quality of the Ethical Relation.”

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Fischer as “proflective” and by Buber as “dialogical.” They each attempted to rethink philosophy and religion in dialogical terms. Fischer explicitly referred to Buber in his writing; he also taught Buber’s anthropology at the “Fachschule für Sozialpädagogik” in Hamburg, and this alone makes a comparison between both relevant. 92 Buber’s emphasis on I-you as against I-it finds its exact counterpart in Fischer’s “ciscendental other-consciousness of the you” (ziszendentales Fremdbewusstsein des ‘Du’) as against Kant’s “transcendental selfconsciousness of the I” (transzendentales Selbstbewusstsein des ‘Ich’).93 Both men lived in a period that suffered from two kinds of terrible totalitarianism, Stalinist communism and German nationalism, and they therefore understandably strove for a transformation of the human being. They described a twofold attitude to the world: I-it and I-you, reflection and proflection, contrasting both attitudes. Against the growing alienation of his time, Buber wrote about dialogical reality. Against the background of the Holocaust, Fischer also contrasted his logic of humanity, one that intended the other, to the logic of reflection, in which the I eternally returns to itself. The idea of comparing Buber’s religiosity with that of Fischer came to my mind after reading Anne Fischer’s booklet on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Franz Fischer.94 As critical participants in their respective religions, Fischer and Buber both strove for a “meta-religion” that would confirm and criticize their own religions. Buber’s position can be explained through his preference of religiosity as the living relationship with God which often clashes with concrete religion, whereas Fischer wrote about “pro-ligion” as a corrective of a “re-ligion” 92

F. Fischer, “Liebe und Weisheit,” in Proflexion, 552-553; A. Fischer, Franz Fischer 1929-1970, 17; A. Fischer, “Franz Fischer - 1929-1970. ‘Sinn aus sich selber’ und ‘atensionales Kalkül’,” in Die Bildung, 349. 93 Proflexion – Logik der Menschlichkeit, 477. 94 A. Fischer-Buck, Proflexion und religionsloses Christentum. Versuch einer Beziehung zwischen Dietrich Bonhoeffer und Franz Fischer (Norderstedt: Anne Fischer Verlag, 1995).

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that is too much focused on the self and forgets the other. In Jewish thought, such a critical position is made possible because the Name of God is ineffable. One cannot reach the deepest sense of the world and enclose it in a system, in Buber’s words: one can only point to it. Fischer highlighted the idea that the depth of reality is always greater than what can be said about it. He favored a religion-less Christianity. He wanted a return, a Umkehr from a metaphysical concept of God to a God to be found in the midst of life, from a self-sufficient and self-sustaining Church to a Church for the other. Buber likewise did not view Judaism as a mere religion, it was rather an exemplary dialogical way of life that suspects elements of magic and Gnosis. He preferred a subterranean Judaism, prominently manifested in the prophets and Hasidism. The two eminent scholars distinguished between what can be said about the ultimate reality and what is unutterable and yet approachable through relationship with the other. Proflective philosophy Fischer thought that utterances were always secondary if compared with the reality that is presumed: reality has priority. The meant reality (das Gemeinte) as the source of the meaningful utterances (das Gesagte) is never fully expressed. The import of the different meanings, das Gemeinte, is not reducible to utterances, das Gesagte, of objective knowledge. With this view, Fischer contested the idealism of Hegel, who thought that general utterances correspond to the intended or meant reality. With his revolutionary thought Fischer reproached Hegel for not respecting the unique and not distinguishing between what can be said of reality (das Gegebene) and what was actually meant (das Gemeinte). The meant reality became visible in utterances, but never exhaustively; it could bring the utterances in contact with their source. From this perspective, the sciences are not entirely autonomous: they have their root in faith that cannot exist without the sciences. This new understanding of faith, as connected to science but going beyond it, is not

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compatible with the thoughts of those who “possess” the ultimate truth without reference to earthy reality, neither with the view of those who limit their view to a value-free science without link to the ultimate and the unutterable. During his student years in Vienna, Fischer was concerned with the ancient philosophical question about the relationship between existence and meaning, reality and reason. During this early period, with writings that were gathered in his Philosophie des Sinnes von Sinn,95 he asked if reality can be uttered. He presupposed a transcendent meaning, one that we approach in giving meaning; reality is meaningful and we are cognitively related to it in giving meaning. Giving meaning presumes given meaning. In his time in Bonn, starting from 1955, Fischer reflected upon education (Bildung) and conscience (Gewissen). The results were writings, assembled under the titles Die Erziehung des Gewissens and Darstellung der Bildungskategorien im System der Wissenschaften.96 He came to the conclusion that for his new insights the traditional philosophical logic was insufficient.97 In his last years, in the sixties, he developed his own practical-ethical logic of humanity (Logik der Menschlichkeit or Menschheitsphilosophie) based upon the primacy of practical reason. In 1965 he published his Proflexion und Reflexion. Philosophische Übungen zur Eingewöhnung der von sich reinen

95 F. Fischer, Philosophie des Sinnes von Sinn. Frühe philosophische Schriften und Entwürfe (1950-1956), ed. Erich Heintel (Kastellaun: Aloys Henn, 1980). This book also contains Fischer’s doctoral thesis from 1956 entitled Systematische Untersuchung zum Affinitätsproblem (7-54). 96 F. Fischer, Die Erziehung des Gewissens. Schriften und Entwürfe zur Ethik, Pädagogik und Hermeneutik, ed. Josef Derbolav (Kastellaun: Aloys Henn, 1979); F. Fischer, Darstellung der Bildungsskategorien im System der Wissenschaften, eds. Dietrich Benner and Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (Ratingen-Kastellaun: Aloys Henn, 1975). 97 A. Fischer, “Franz Fischer - 1929-1970. ‘Sinn aus sich selber’ und ‘atensionales Kalkül’,” 332.

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Gesellschaft,98 in which he comes close to Buber’s thought on the holistic I-you and the alienating I-it. His entire oeuvre shows an evolution that is crowned by his proflective thought, which is free from itself and in which the non-reflective look at the face of the other replaces the reflecting insight.99 His final philosophy is not interested primarily in epistemology, rather, it wants to be concrete in its quality of wisdom rooted in lively and loving attention to the other human being. Fischer asked how truth is possible. Each science worked with an a priori fundamental principle (Grundbegriff) that pointed to meaning and which scientists themselves could not fully explain. On ever higher levels, the sciences refer to other sciences in order to give answers to the ultimate questions. Biology, psychology, the social sciences, human sciences, philosophy, and theology all refer to a presupposed meaning, to the “Sinn aus sich selber.” Even theology as the highest science merely works with utterances. Only in the practice of everyday life and in the uniqueness of each and every particular situation can meaning be made true. The sciences receive their meaning, therefore, when they are more than objective knowledge. Thought and action finally belong together in Fischer’s philosophy. Objective observation is not enough in sciences; this does not imply a theologisation of the sciences. It rather puts the sciences in the perspective of the search for the ultimate, normative meaning. It orients the sciences, relating them to the final meaning. The sciences are therefore limited: they have to know that they deal only with the “given” (das Gegebene) and that they cannot articulate the meant (das Gemeinte). If they forget their own limits, they become totalizing. The hypostasis of the scientific utterances leads to a neglect or disregard of the meant reality. The meant presupposes the sciences, which remain rooted in it. There is no dichotomy between knowledge and ultimate 98

The book was published in Aloys Henn Verlag, Ratingen; a new edition by Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, was published in Vienna in 2007. It further appears in Proflexion, 348-453. 99 F. Fischer, “Liebe und Weisheit,” in Proflexion, 551, no. 21.

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meaning, between reason and faith. Consequently, in Fischer’s thought, a turn, an “Umkehr” had to take place in the sciences: sciences and conscience were linked. Sciences have a task to fulfill; they cannot function properly without meant reality and meant reality cannot exist without the sciences. Fischer maintains that “das meinen” of reality needs knowledge, but cannot be reduced to the “Sagen” of knowledge. The sciences relate to the reality that is already there before the scientific reflection. Fischer distinguishes six educational categories, the so called “Bildungskategorien” that represent different approaches to reality.100 Anne Fischer illustrates these different approaches with the example of the phenomenon of a beating child, a phenomenon that finally points to a positive-normative attitude.101 1. There is first of all the presupposed unmediated reality (die unvermittelte Wirklichkeit), in which we participate. This reality precedes every educational category. For example: I experience that the child we love beats me. 2. The first theoretical educational category is that of the phenomenal horizon of the immediate-general (das UnmittelbarAllgemeine). Here, one describes the immediate reality, but only generally. We say something general on beating. But what is the meaning of this general phenomenon? 100

Fischer distinguishes between educational categories from a horizontal point of view and from a vertical one. Through the horizontal educational categories education takes place: one asks questions about reality that are scientifically elucidated, this leads to questions about values and to practical-ethical decisions. Cataloguing the educational categories vertically, Fischer discusses semantics, logics, physics, biology, psychology, sociology, historiography, juridical, political and esthetical sciences and finally theology. See Reinhard Aulke, “‘Was sind Bildungskategorien?’ -1. horizontal betrachtet. -2. vertikal betrachtet,” in Kategoriale Bildung in der Praxis, eds. A. Fischer-Buck and Reinhard Aulke (Praktische Hefte zu Franz Fischer’s Bildungstheorie. 1) (Norderstedt-Leipzig: Anne Fischer Verlag and Leipziger Universititätsverlag, 2000), 9-11. 89-101. 101 A. Fischer, Proflexion und Religionsloses Christentum, 13-17.

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3.

At the stage of the theoretical educational category of the predicative-general (das Prädikativ-Allgemeine) one explains scientifically: frustrations lead to aggression. Here again a new question arises: what has to be? This can only be answered when one asks for the positive meaning (positiver Sinn), which is the next stage. 4. A higher relation to reality, or a higher educational horizon, is called positive-general (das Positive-Allgemeine). It is the level of the positive conscience (positive Gewissenserkenntnis). In this stage, theoretical knowledge is insufficient and a practical viewpoint is needed; we become conscious that we stay in a reality that appeals to us. It is normative to create a situation in which the child is not or is less aggressive. This concrete child is perhaps in the position of an outsider, he has to be integrated in society. How to bring him in the situation, so that he loves again? 5. With the foregoing, we reach again the concreteness of the situation and practical education: the level of the unmediated concrete (das Unmittelbar-Konkrete). Here one does not only develop insights in the appealing reality; one realizes and creates possible situations for the concrete child, in which one does not limit himself to what “is,” the domain of science (Wissen), but with what “has to be,” the domain of conscience (Gewissen). 6. In the last stage, that of the positive-concrete (das PositivKonkrete), testimony is given that the positive can be lived, and one assures that something meaningful can be reached on the basis of what is previously experienced. Ethical life becomes possible not in rigid discipline, but while the educator is confident, in his educational process, that the upcoming generation is shaping its conscience. This last horizon brings us back to what made the entire pedagogical movement possible: the presupposed, appealing reality.

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In Fischer’s educational thought that focuses on the unique,102 the positive is conveyed in each and every science. The sciences will have to know that they work with basic concepts (Bildungbegriffen), which they cannot fully explain: biology works with the concept of life, psychology with personality, sociology with community, jurisdiction with justice, philosophy with thought, and theology with faith. This makes the sciences relative: they cannot present themselves as absolute, as covering complete reality. The sciences all work with descriptions (stage 2) and hypotheses, which explain situations (stage 3), that call for a norm (stage 4), to be realized in the concrete situation (stage 5). The sciences themselves (stage 2 and 3) have therefore to admit that they cannot fully express reality and that a practical approach is needed (stage 4 and 5). The positive travels through all the stages, because all the sciences finally point to the unutterable, to the meant. Proflection is therefore a radical break with the imperialism of the sciences and with subject-object thought. Fischer was not the only one who was attentive to the disaster of a knowledge that becomes hypostasized. Philosophy was the thought about the object, and the philosopher thought of himself as object. This reflection upon and eternal return to the self is what Fischer calls “die Aporie des Selbst.”103 In his own meditative way, he proposes a new manner of thinking which searches for meaning that does not lie in the self, but in the other, who meets me. The I had to turn to the other in proflection. The new thought is “pure from himself,” “without me” (von sich rein; ohne mich); it is 102

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002) argued that the enlightenment did not bring real emancipation. Rationality as economic rationality got rid of the individual, and science with its repetitions and technology as automation of the spirit brought about a civilization without the other. 103 Fischer’s essay “Die Aporie des Selbst” was published originally in a Festschrift for Theodor Litt, which appeared in 1960. It shows the problem of reflection upon being because reflection brings the human being to his own self without taking into account the non-I. See F. Fischer, Proflexion, 85-122.

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“with the other” (mit dem Anderen).104 Proflection finds meaning in the recognition of the other.105 In reflection, the I returns to itself; in proflection, the flection is to the other, to alterity. Instead of selfaffirmation comes the selfless openness to the other. In contrast to “abstract philosophy,” in which reflection is primary, Fischer’s “concrete” philosophy tends to the other with no return to the self.106 His own practical-ethical philosophy analyses reality with its ethical appeal of which one becomes conscious in the praxis of the orientation towards a concrete you. Instead of the abstract Hegelian “thought of thought” (Denken von Denken), in which the meant reality was absorbed in thinking, the “meaning of meaning” (Sinn von Sinn), that cannot be absorbed in thinking but only lived in a praxis, became the focus of his philosophy.107 In the footsteps of Schelling, he criticized negative philosophy that neutralizes and loses meant reality with concepts of absolute knowledge and developed a positive philosophy that takes into account the call of reality as reality. The meant reality became the starting point for the search for meaning. Fischer considers the horizons of meaning in reality, which presuppose the meaning of reality: the meant reality is mediated in sayings, but never absorbed in them.108 According to Fischer, Hegel’s philosophy of the spirit could not fully take into account the intersubjective encounter and the mutual relationship because of its reflective structure and return to the I. Fischer urges his audience to choose between proflection and reflection. He develops a transformative thought, in which the I frees himself from its own self and is selfless with the other in an eccentric praxis of fraternity. 104

F. Fischer, Proflexion, 349. F. Fischer, “Proflexion and Reflexion” in Proflexion, 357. 106 F. Fischer, “Liebe und Weisheit” in Proflexion, 543, no.1. 107 F. Fischer, Philosophie des Sinnes von Sinn. 108 Schmied-Kowarzik, “Sinnreflexion – Gewissen – Bildungssinn – Gegenseitigkeit,” in Vom Bildungssinn der Wissenschaften und von der Ethik des Anderen (F. Fischer Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Pädagogik 5) (Norderstedt and Leipzig: Anne Fischer Verlag and Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2000), 17-18. 105

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Proligion Fischer’s proflective thinking shows the limits of philosophical utterances and this frees the way for the horizon of faith, in which one opens himself up to the ultimate meaning, that cannot be expressed, but only attended to and received.109 Proflective, you-centered thinking implies a change of religion to pro-ligion, it requires a Christianity that is not the one of religion, but of the world. Of course, Fischer is conscious that the unutterable cannot be contained in a religious system. In his undogmatic thought, Jesus is ultimate meaning; “Sinn aus sich selber,” he incarnates the human destination in responsibility and conscience (Gewissheit des Gewissen). Fischer was a religious man, much interested in the Bible and fascinated by the Italian Catholic educator Don Bosco (1815-1888), who followed the spirituality of Francis de Sales. He did not believe in dogmata. He was acquainted with Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologization and with Karl Barth’s dialectical theology. As early as 1949, in a church of the Minorites where he had a religious experience that gave him an insight into another world and lead him from the self to the other and from a struggle for life to confidence and nonviolence,110 he became conscious that he had to find a new way of believing. His question was how to believe in a scientifically oriented epoch such as his own. During the Holocaust, science had been put in the service of evil. Through his own philosophy, on the contrary, Fischer wanted to bring a new approach to the sciences through education. Sciences, he believed, should respect and promote the humanity of human beings, who are created beings. The positive meaning required an ethical standpoint that approaches reality in a scientific manner, in view of an always-concrete you. Meaning had a 109

Schmied-Kowarzik, “Die Affinität von Wirklichkeit und Sinn,” in Die Bildung von Gewissen, 25. 110 A. Fischer-Buck, Franz Fischer 1929-1970, 26.

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transcendent, positive source as positive-ethical faith (positiver Glauben) as well as an immanent, cognitive source as reflection on meaning (Sinnreflexion).111 Fischer’s philosophy of education, by combining science and conscience, showed the limits of human thinking. With time, Fischer converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, but he considered both confessions as being incomplete expressions of what Jesus himself had taught.112 As a consequence of his novel thinking, which is not moralizing but meditative, the “I think” that absorbs reality is replaced by proflection. It is this proflection that leads to the possibility of hospitality and opens the perspective of the Divine. In the friendship with the other, with the stranger, the word ‘God’ as “selfother” (Selbander), proflectively related to the human beings, receives meaning.113 Das Wörtliche as the living word is the access to an elevated reality, whereas das Sprachliche, with its descriptive function only, speaks about reality.114 Parallel to the other-centered proflexion, proligion is therefore other-centered, and always anchored in concrete situations. The I is called by the other: “Es, ergo sum,” I am because you are.115 Dialogical philosophy The attention to the other was the basis of both Fischer’s and Buber’s thinking; it gave specificity to their thoughts. In the last decennium of his life, Fischer wanted to free the I from the chains of himself. What is outside the self would constitute the I. The self cannot think itself; its meaning comes, rather, from the eccentric movement to the other. For Buber too, there is no I in and of itself, the I is destined to become I-you, 111

Thomas Altfelix, “Sinn von Sinn,” in Die Bildung von Gewissen,. 45-49. A. Fischer, Franz Fischer - 1919-1970. ‘Sinn aus sich selber’ und ‘atensionales Kalkül’,” 337-338, 340. 113 F. Fischer, “Liebe und Weisheit,” in Proflexion, 556. 114 Ibid. 115 F. Fischer, Proflexion, 445. 112

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and meaning stems from the meeting that makes the human being a between-person, who is, so to say, transubstantiated in that meeting. For both Buber and Fischer reciprocity is essential in the relationship. Parallel with Fischer, Buber in “I and Thou” did not think that the objective point of view, the view of the I-it, is the apex. The category of “inbetweenness,” on the other hand, is central. Manipulation of the other, using the other, cataloguing and describing, is problematic for both philosophers. The subject-object relation had to be transformed in an inter-subjective relationship. Philosophy had to break with the subjectobject ontology, for it was a gateway that indicated and pointed to meeting as beyond the philosophical conceptualization; its vocation lie in witnessing to the primal act of meeting and to the plenitude of presence.116 Analogously, Fischer would say that philosophy has to become proflective as a kind of wisdom of love, starting not with thought, but with love. Buber’s dialogical philosophy is in itself an I-it exercise, it is a “chrysalis” that deals with I-you as a “butterfly.” Yet, this philosophy, as that of Fischer’s, bears the traces of the encounter: it turns from objects to a you. Like Fischer, Buber took the world seriously. Distancing himself from the ecstatic religiosity to which he had clung in the beginning of the 20th century, he gradually developed a dialogical thinking that denied his own previous Gnostic tendencies. In “I and Thou,” published in 1923, the it-world is important, and the you-world even more. One hallows everyday life by relating to the other, which opens the perspective to the eternal Thou. Buber thought that the sciences, psychology, economy, and politics all had to be brought within the I-you sphere. If not, they would loose their significance. However, in “I and Thou,” Buber perhaps separated the interested I and the dialogical I too rigorously. 116

See Alan Udoff in Buber, The Knowledge of Man. Selected Essays, ed. Maurice Friedman, trans. Friedman and Ronald Gregor Smith; introduction by Alan Udoff (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1988), viii-xxii.

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Notwithstanding this, Buber, like Fischer, did not create a merely utopian philosophy. With his meditations, Fischer rather led the reader to decision-making, which dealt with concrete situations and allowed to cope in the best possible way with the problems of life. Sporadically, as I have shown in the previous chapter, Gnostic remnants are to be found in his writings.117 Fewer Gnostic vestiges are present in Buber’s “I and Thou,” but they are not entirely absent, and still palpable in the sometimes sharp opposition between I-you and I-it. Reacting to the crisis in which he lived, Buber developed specific thoughts on society and politics. He did not enclose himself in a piety that was estranged from and inimical to the world, for he was less interested in discovering the mysteries of heaven; his main concern was man’s everyday life and his being situated in the concrete social and political setting. He did not flee in a radical Gnostic way from a sublunary, terrestrial reality, nor did he construct a theology that works with metaphysical abstract categories. He stood firmly in earthly reality, which he desired to interpret as essentially dialogical. Buber interpreted ‘to be’ as to be with other human beings. In his anthropology, existence is coexistence. He spoke about the eclipse of God that could be caused by man when caught in merely I-it relationships or by a God who veils his Divine countenance.118 His view originated in reaction to the profound crisis of humanism. The I was authentic and real when in relation, it was inauthentic and less real when using and experiencing. Buber coined the almost Biblical phrase “in the beginning is relation” (Im Anfang ist die Beziehung).119 Fischer and Buber both protested against the Cartesian dictum on the ego as ‘cogito.’ 117

See the previous chapter. Buber, “Replies to my Critics,” in The Philosophy of Martin Buber (The Library of Living Philosophers, 12), eds. A. Schilpp and M. Friedman (Lasalle, IL: Open Court, 1967), 716. 119 Buber, I and Thou, 69; Buber, Ich und Du, 20. 118

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They replaced the dictum by: I am with the other, therefore I am. Responsiveness was imperative in the anthropology of both thinkers. Buber quoted the Biblical Divine address to man: “Aieka,” “Where are you?” (Gen.3:9). Man therefore was a being, called upon to respond, to become an answerable person. In “I and Thou,” Buber develops an ontology of presence which asks for reciprocity. As mentioned previously, for Fischer too, reciprocity is essential in the relationship. In “I and Thou,” on the background of a world with a progressive augmentation of the “it,” Buber gave much weight to responsiveness and to the development of the sphere of the “I-you.” He adopted a dialogicalrelational transformative model of thinking, in which not the self, selfconsciousness, and self-interest were central, but the orientation of an I to a you. He intended to create a dialogical “between-man,” a Zwischenmensch, or a person who relates to his fellow human being. The I is not isolated, but becomes a person through his relation with the other. In Buber’s humanism, meeting and encounter come into being through the address of an I to a you. In this address, an “it” turns into a “you”: the object (Gegenstand) changes into a presence (Gegenwart).120 Alienation from the other by means of an objectifying attitude and partial approach towards him is replaced by the animation of the other. The “you” jumps from an “it,” but does not originate in “it.” The I is destined to meet the other, not to approach him in a purely cognitive way or to use and manipulate him; it is basically an I-in-relation. The relating I and the addressed you, which reveals itself, may meet, and this mutual “relation” (Beziehung) is “encounter” (Begegnung).121 Buber highlights that in the sphere of the “between” (zwischen), which is the humanizing factor in human society, institutions are too much “outside,” whereas feelings are

120

Buber, I and Thou, 63; Ich und Du, 16. The opposite is what Buber calls “Vergegnung,” lack of encounter or failure of a real meeting; See Buber, Begegnung. Autobiographische Fragmente (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960), 6.

121

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too much “inside.” Institutions are objective, feelings are subjective, whereas the meeting is inter-subjective.122 Parallel to Fischer, Buber criticized professional activities that remain merely in the sphere of I-it. His standpoints on psychology serves to illustrate this point for me. Buber notes that in the psychological profession, one has to not remain within I-it without any possibility of Iyou, without creating a common world (Umfassung). Amazingly parallel to Fischer, Buber wrote that we do not only need psychoanalysis, we need psychosynthesis. The therapist has to holistically relate to the patient. Effective help would originate in a view of the other, not in his parts, but as a whole, not in the past, but in the present. Buber argued that one heals through meeting.123 He did not strive to abolish the professional attitude of the therapist, but pointed to the possibility of real healing through meeting. Both the I-it and the I-you are necessary, for the latter does not replace, but complements the former. Therapy has to make the patient whole again. In this perspective, man is not a mere individual. There is the “between,” and therefore, one does not only have to relate to the world of a person, but to a person in the world. In the same vein, guilt is explained by Buber not as a mere neurotic inner feeling without basis in reality, but as existential, real. Buber’s introduction to Hans Trüb’s posthumously published book Heilung aus der Begegnung,124 provides us with extra material for Buber’s protest against a merely professional approach to the human psyche. In the introduction, he emphasized that a soul is never sick alone and that the between-ness, the situation between the soul and another existing being, is always involved. The psychotherapist had to step out of the role of professional superiority “into the elementary situation between 122

I and Thou, 92-94; Ich und Du, 41-43. Buber, A Believing Humanism. My Testament, 1902-1065, trans. Friedman (New Jersey and London: Humanities Press International, 1967), 138-143. 124 H. Trüb, Heilung aus der Begegnung. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Psychologie C.G. Jungs, eds. Ernst Michel and Arie Sborowitz (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1952). 123

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one who calls and one who is called.” Buber then depicts the situation of meeting by which the therapist may return to “a modified methodic.” In this changed methodic the unexpected, “which contradicts the prevailing theories and demands his [the psychotherapist’s] ever-renewed personal involvement,” may take place.125 What Buber describes in this preface is the necessity of meeting, of the between, which gives meaning to the training and practice of the therapist, whose selfhood becomes involved. On April 18, 1957, a dialogue took place between Buber and Carl R. Rogers, moderated by Maurice Friedman. The dialogue, organized by the University of Michigan before a life audience, is additional evidence of Buber’s distance from a purely professional attitude towards healing the soul. It displayed the similarities between both men, but significant differences also appeared. Rogers, who became famous for his clientcentered therapy, felt close to Buber, who, however, distanced himself from Rogers on a few points. Buber did not consider the relationship of psychotherapist-client as a fully reciprocal one, given the situation of the person who needed help. Moments of understanding were made possible by the therapist, not by the patient. Moreover, whereas Rogers talked about “acceptance” as consisting of a warm regard for the patient and respect for his individuality, Buber spoke about “confirmation” of someone not only in what he is, but in what he may become. Rogers agreed and brought a nuance into his position by adding the element of acceptance of the individual in his potentiality. Thereupon, Buber distinguished between a person and an individual as denoting the uniqueness of a human being, which can be developed in a process that Jung called individuation. One may become more and more an individual, but this was different from becoming more and more a person, who is an individual living in reciprocity with the world. In this

125

Buber, “Healing through Meeting,” in Buber, Pointing the Way. Collected Essays, ed. and trans. Friedman (New York: Schocken Books, 1957; reprint 1974), 93-97.

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framework, one had to help man against himself. 126 Friedman rightly analyzed part of the discussion between both personalities as circling around the question of if the therapist-patient relationship is based on a one-sided inclusion, as Buber holds, or on full mutuality, as Rogers claims. Buber holds that the therapist is not reduced to treating his patient as an it, and that the one-sided inclusion of therapy (or education for that matter) is still an I-you relationship founded on trust and partnership. True healing takes place only through meeting.127 In his writing on psychology, Buber redefined the essence of the unconscious, of guilt, of dream interpretation, and of transference.128 In the unconscious, the realms of body and soul were not dissociated; it was a state out of which the physical and psychical have not yet evolved: they cannot be distinguished from one another. Buber contested that the unconscious was something psychical, as Freud and his followers asserted. Guilt was not groundless neurotic guilt, but existential guilt that had its place in the inter-human sphere. Dreams were not the repression of conscious facts; in dreams, one assisted at the shaping of memory and in that sense they were not objects of investigation. Transference was not making the unconscious conscious, it consisted of bringing up something that is the product of relationship. Buber’s view was that the therapist confirms a person in his dynamic existence; he does not bring up the old, but shapes the new. I conclude that Buber’s attitude towards psychology resembles Fischer’s approach to the sciences: they both viewed the sciences from the perspective of high, dialogical reality. Dialogical religiosity In Buber’s perspective, the eternal Thou is a presence that cannot become absent.129 The encounter between two people is also the locus 126

Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 156-174. Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 21-23. 128 Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 23-29. 129 Buber, I and Thou, 123; Ich und Du, 69 127

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theologicus, the place where one meets God. The I, who says “you,” addresses at the same time the eternal “Thou.” The relationship to God occurs in the relationship with the human beings and it is therefore nonsensical to want to make present the eternal Thou without creating a true dialogical society. Also for Fischer, the Divine Kingdom comes into perspective in an anti-narcissistic perspective. In Buber’s philosophy the word “and” is central: I and you, God and man, God and involvement in the world. The animation of the world is the kernel of real spirituality. In meeting the world and uttering the primary word I-you, we “gaze toward the train of the eternal You” (blicken wir an den Saum des Ewigen Du hin) and “we perceive a breath of it [of the eternal You]” (aus jedem vernehmen wir ein Wehen von ihm).130 In his panentheistic thought, which underwent the influence of Hasidism, the inter-subjective meeting is the condition for the contact with the eternal Thou. Within the meeting of a particular “you,” one receives “a glimpse” through to the eternal Thou (ein Durchblick zu ihm).131 The world alone does not lead to God, but neither does one find Him by leaving the world. Man’s turn, his return (Umkehr) to the real excentric kernel of himself, to his “inborn you,” in other words, his presence to the other, makes the eternal Thou present. The human existence thus becomes a kind a sacrament: in meeting and encounter, in contemplating the other,132 God becomes present in the world. One can find in “I and Thou” an expression such as the “realization” of God, because one makes God real in solidarity with others.133 The eternal 130

Buber, I and Thou, 57; Ich und Du, 12. The sentences are repeated in I and Thou, 150; Ich und Du, 90. 131 Buber, I and Thou, 123; Ich und Du, 69. 132 “Schauen,” contemplate, and “zublicken,” glance, are in contrast to “beobachten,” observe; I and Thou, 90; Ich und Du, 39. 133 Buber, I and Thou, 161; Ich und Du, 100. Kaufmann translates “verwirklichen” by “actualize,” Smith in his translation has the more literal “realize” (Buber, I and Thou, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958], 114).

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Thou, however, never becomes “it.” God is called “the eternal presence” (die ewige Gegenwart),134 who is present for the human beings when they are present to each other. Buber therefore situates the conversation with God within the conversation between human beings; anthropology leads to metaphysics. It is mainly in the third part of “I and Thou,” after having analyzed the relationship between men and the situation of man in the social and political world, that he discusses men’s relationship with God. Buber was concerned by man’s everyday life. Like Fischer, he was critical of a religion that is not connected with social life. He critiqued religion, which was the “chrysalis,” which always had to receive “new wings.”135 He perceived a tension between religion and religiosity that occasionally becomes a contrast. In his universal religiosity, dialogue and morality were central, and he interpreted Judaism as a pioneering dialogical way of life. In his view, authentic religiosity would transform man and bring God in everyday life. Buber related to Hasidic stories as potentially lending orientation to a person's life. He saw Hasidism as a primary source of Judaism and strove for an enlightened form of Hasidism beyond the narrow bounds of the Hasidic communities. He contributed tremendously to its influence upon modern religiosity. Hasidism was an energetic, quasi-spontaneous, anti-institutional movement that focused upon living human existence before God, and even manifested some a-nomistic and anti-nomistic undertones because of its criticism of a life without intention. Buber interpreted Hasidism dialogically in such a way that non-Jews and Jews, particularly in Zion, could understand it. In his presentation of Hasidism and of Judaism as such Buber accentuated a life in community.

134 135

Buber, I and Thou, 155; Ich und Du, 93. Buber, I and Thou, 165; Ich und Du, 101.

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Between Buber and Fischer For Buber and Fischer, the other is not an object of my thought or of my empirical experience, which reduces the other to the self. They find a way to think of the other without returning to the self in an unchanged way. The identity of the I is therefore related to the other; to be subject means to be related. This implies that ethics is not based upon the freedom of the I, but upon its relationship with the other. Consequently, both dialogical philosophers thought that religion, as the effort of bringing near the Divine Kingdom, only fulfilled its task when this Kingdom was connected to the passage from an I to a you. The relationship with God was impossible without the turn to the other. Both thinkers applied their dialogical thoughts to what is more than inter-subjectivity, they broadened the perspective to society as such, to the interactions within one group and to the interactions between groups. They wrote about the realization of an open society as such as a consequence of their dialogical thinking. Just as Buber thought that the essence of Zionism was connected to its relationship with the Arab population, Fischer’s xenologic thoughts wanted to welcome the stranger as constitutive for the collective I. Buber and Fischer fully accepted and at the same time criticized knowledge while writing about a deeper knowledge that does not make the I return to itself, but catapults it out of itself towards the other. In Fischer’s thought, deep reality was never to be described exhaustively. There is a permanent discrepancy between reality and what can be said about it: general utterances would never be congruent with reality, since they are blind to the unique.136 In Buber’s dialogical thought, to talk about is never to be equated with talk with, for descriptive language is not dialogical language that tends to a you. The turn from the descriptive to the normative characterizes their philosophies.

136

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A. Fischer-Buck, Proflexion und Religionsloses Christentum , 7.

Fischer strove for an open society in which the stranger could be at home. This society was one of an always inclusive “we.” Human beings had to become strange to themselves, in a positive alienation, brought about by their selfless openness to the other. Selfaccomplishment (Selbsterfühlung) was replaced by the recognition of the other (Fremdgesehenheit).137 Buber with his critical thoughts on the “spirit of Israel” that resided in the answer to the high demand of the realization of human unity as striving to reflect the unity of God shared the same utopia that wanted its topic realization. 138 For both, the passage from the one to the other would allow for the contemplation of the Divine.139 They perceived the problem of a self-centered religion and preferred a religiosity in which a human being answers the Divine appeal by acting and deciding in society. For Fischer, ultimate meaning would come from what is intended by us, from the “Gemeinte” as God’s reality that never can be exhaustively said or caught in concepts. For Buber, ultimate meaning comes from the Divine Presence that is always there, from the eternal Thou that never can be fully reached and that is nevertheless manifest in our relationships and meetings. They both believed in an orthopraxis that would bring about a radical turn from an I to a you. 137

F. Fischer, “Liebe und Weisheit,” in Proflexion, 550. The insight that one is oneself in contact with the non-I leads to a radical change of perspective. Peter Berger has observed that Christian theology, for example, developed in contact with such different realities as Jewish, Hellenistic, and Muslim cultures as well as with modernity. He argued that the presence of world religions in today’s societies invites theological reflection. See Peter L. Berger and Wolfram Weisse, “Im Gespräch: Religiöse Pluralität und gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt,” in Religiöse Differenz als Chance? Positionen, Kontroversen, Perspektiven (Religionen im Dialog 3), eds. Wolfram Weisse and HansMartin Gutmann (Münster: Waxmann, 2010), 25. There is of course always the option of enclosing oneself in a fundamentalist way within one’s own religion. On the opposite side of the scale, however, positive contact and dialogue with the other lead to a different self-understanding. 138 Buber, “Der Geist Israels und die Welt von heute,” in An der Wende. Reden über das Judentum (Cologne and Olten: Jakob Hegner, 1952), 13-16. 139 Fischer, “Liebe und Weisheit,” in Proflexion, 556; I and Thou, 154; Ich und Du, 93.

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Both had a religiosity that may be called a “meta-religion.” As has been pointed out by Martina Urban, it was David Koigen (18771933) who introduced this term, which connotates a critique of religion, into the debate on religion. Urban situates Koigen and Buber in the Jewish philosophical tradition of “meontology” as the study of non-being or of what does not yet exist, that, in the absence of God, propels the individual to engage in the anti-apocalyptic messianic effort of selfperfection.140 Fischer and Buber had a self-critical and self-corrective view of religion. Fischer thought that a human being realizes his destiny by bringing knowledge into the perspective of a never fully explained reality that is ultimately God’s challenging word that asks to be understood and put into praxis in concrete circumstances. Buber fashioned his faith in reference to God, who is not to be expressed and objectified, but only to be addressed. They did not construct a Kantianlike religion out of reason, but conjoined the religious act and the attention and openness to the other, striving for a non-homogeneous society. Critical about institutional religion, they developed an othercentered, self-correcting mode of religion, bringing it back to the renewing spirit from which it was born. For both thinkers, as for Bonhoeffer, God was not to be found at the edge of life but in the midst of it. They were concerned that God was usually closed into temples and religious systems. Religion could easily become self-sufficient and separated from true religiosity, that entailed openness to the other man. Only the realization of an other-centered community would be able to give meaning to the word ‘God.’ Buber and Fischer distinguished between the empirical position of man and his openness to a you that has no qualities at all. A human being is not “experienceable” (erfahrbar) in Buber’s mind, he is not “an 140

Urban, “Deconstruction Anticipated: Koigen and Buber on a Self-corrective Religion,” in Shofar – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 27, no. 4 (2009): 107-135.

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aggregate of qualities” (eine Summe von Eigenschaften). If one pays attention to the color of the other’s hair, to his speech or to his graciousness, one does not really meet him.141 Similarly, Fischer said once that ‘you’ has no qualities (Das Du hat keine Eigenschaften). 142 ‘You’ finally gets his meaning from what escapes description, from the highest reality, one that appeals to the human being and to which science and faith respond. There are other remarkable parallels between the two thinkers under consideration. Like Buber, Fischer wrote about psychoanalysis and psychosynthesis.143 These thoughts belong to the last three years of Fischer’s life, when the Fischer family moved to Norderstedt near Hamburg. Fischer contrasts psychoanalysis, as the “relation” between the object and the subject, to psychosynthesis, with “proletion” of the subject to the subject. In the former case, the I relates to a you backwards, from his own standpoint; in the latter case, the I relates to a you forwards, attending to a you. In psychoanalysis, I and you are separated in two Iparts and mutuality is excluded. In psychosynthesis, I and you are exchanged in two you-parts and mutuality is created. In the first case, an I is opposed to an I; in the second case, a you is for another you. In psychoanalysis, the own is against the foreign, they are only partners in appearance, leading to a “straw-we.” In psychosynthesis, the foreign is not opposed to the own and they are real partners, in an “assembling you.” There is a clear parallelism here between Fischer’s thought and Buber’s considerations about psychoanalysis, casu quo psychosynthesis. Buber’s distinction between the person and the self-centered individual corresponds to Fischer’s distinction between “the ones, who are without themselves with the one, who is without himself with us, and the ones who are with themselves without the one, who is with himself 141

Buber, I and Thou, 69; Ich und Du, 20. A. Fischer, Franz Fischer, 79. 143 “Psychoanalyse und Psychosynthese,” in Franz Fischer, 595-596. 142

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without us.”144 In the same vein, Buber’s thought on the “non-doing” is analogous to Fischer’s conception of “non direction.” In “I and Thou,” Buber praised wu wei of the Tao – the way of Lao-Tzu - , the “non doing” (das Nichttun).145 According to Tao, freedom from desires and inclinations, from passions and lust, is a person’s highest achievement. This inner freedom corresponds to the outward non-action, wu wei.146 Buber specified that this not-doing is the activity of the whole man, “for nothing particular, nothing partial is at work in man and thus nothing of him intrudes into the world.”147 It is the action of non-action. This Buberian thought about non-action is parallel with Fischer’s “Atension” as the non-direction that characterizes his entire proflective philosophy.148 In the philosophy of the meant, the “Atension” in which other-centered, proflective “Extension” is contrasted to self-centered reflective “Intension,” signifies the quiet situation, a return to precognitive reality.149 This return to precognitive reality is the condition for any responsible act in conscience.150 Fischer’s new calculus, his “atensionaler Kalkül” as the quiet expectation that leads to participation and dialogue, is parallel to Buber’s view on the tranquil mind, which is the activity of the whole man (die Tätigkeit des ganz gewordene Menschen), the action of the non-self-centered man, the action of nonaction, which makes the supreme encounter possible. In Buber’s particular interpretation of “wu wei” as well as in Fischer’s “Atension,” 144

F. Fischer, “Proflexion und Reflexion” in Proflexion, 357: “Wir sind ohne uns mit dem, der ohne sich mit uns ist. Wir sind mit uns ohne den, der mit sich ohne uns ist.” 145 Buber, I and Thou, 125; Ich und Du, 70. 146 Later on, in “What is Common to All,” he distanced himself from Tao, which he characterized as a flight from the primeval reality of meeting. Tao was too quietist, focusing on the everlasting calm and the cosmic order, immanent in everything. See Friedman’s introduction to Buber, The Knowledge of Man, 31-32. The article “What is Common to All” was first published in Review of Metaphysics 11, no. 3 (1958). 147 Buber, I and Thou, 125; Ich und Du, 70. 148 F. Fischer, Proflexion, 349. 149 Ibid. 150 See A. Fischer-Buck, Proflexion und Religionsloses Christentum, 29 and 72-73.

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the I does not return to itself. In Fischer’s words: the I is “without itself” (von sich rein) with the non-I; in Buber’s terminology, the I has lost its residue of self consciousness, it is not partial any more, reflecting upon its own acts, but rather it is “whole.” Fischer’s criticism of the I that thinks itself and his definition of the I as without himself with the other is analogous to Buber’s critique upon the I-it that he saw as dominant in his time, and to his preference for the I-you that constitutes the humanity of human beings. Similarly, the ultimate reality, for Buber “das ewige Du” and for Fischer “das Gemeinte,” is not the object of our thoughts; one may only point to it in the praxis of meetings and in a society that selflessly opens itself up to others. One would have wished that Buber had had a less dichotomous way of thinking and that he had connected the sciences more fully to the I-you sphere. In “I and Thou,” the frequent opposition between I-you and I-it prevented Buber from giving the sciences a more prominent place in his dialogical thinking. I deem that in this particular point, Fischer’s philosophic-pedagogic thought is preferable to Buber’s.151 Yet, as I demonstrated supra, in Buber’s attitude towards psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, at a later stage, he too rooted knowledge and professionalism in the ultimate meaning of meeting. Like Buber, who contrasted I-you and I-it, Fischer opposed two approaches: the proflective and the reflective modes. One had to make a choice. In both Fischer and Buber mutuality characterizes the meeting between persons, in contrast to idealistic thought, in which the I returns to itself. The movement from the other to me prevents the return of the I to itself. For Buber, the spirit is not in an I nor in a you, but in the sphere of the “between” (zwischen).152 Also in Fischer’s logic of mutuality 151

More than Buber in “I and Thou,” Fischer gave importance to moral, juridical, political, and religious systems that are based upon meaning in itself (Sinn aus sich selber). See Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik, “ “Sinnreflexion – Gewissen – Bildungssinn – Gegenseitigkeit,” 21. 152 Buber, I and Thou, 89; Ich und Du, 38

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(Logik der Gegenseitigkeit), the reciprocal relationship (Wechselstiftung), or encounter in proflection (Gegenlauf), stays in contrast to the reflective movement with the return to oneself (Umlauf).153 Just as the other is not an object of my reflection, but the one whom the I approaches in an eccentric, self-less movement, God is not the object of my needs, He brings me in contact with the other, He is present in the interaction between human beings. More than Fischer, Buber accentuated the movement from the I to the non-I and he less stressed the movement of the non-I to the I, yet, finally, they both highlight the mutuality in the encounter as a God-given reality.

153

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F. Fischer, Proflexion, 349.

5. Janusz Korczak’s Care for the Little Ones in Light of Jewish Tradition In his diary of the ghetto, which he wrote during the last three years of his life, Janusz Korczak (Dr. Henryk Goldszmit, 1878–1942) noted that in his youth he prayed for a difficult but beautiful, rich, and worthy life.154 His request was granted: this Jewish medical doctor dedicated his life to children, preferring care for children of others above a family of his own. He lived in the Jewish orphanage "Dom Sierot" from 1912, for thirty years with and amongst children (only interrupted by World War I), with great respect for their existence, for their being children, for their own world, without wanting to shape them according to the pressing requirements of society.155 He was critical of the prevalent pedagogical theories, and instead gave priority to the praxis, which prompted him to search for reflection. He was a critical observer and, at the same time, he knew how to respect and love a child. Above all, his Jewish heritage, with its extraordinary combination of many rules together with great love, was the inspiration for his pedagogical approach, in which concrete care took shape in the rules of the house and in the children’s democratic self-government.156 Korczak was an heir to the best of Jewish tradition, in which love moderates the demand and in which orientation and order flow out from love. In Korczak’s attitude to the children, as in Judaism at its best, love and respect, proximity and distance, do not exclude one another; they refer to each other in a paradoxical way. Korczak was well aware that 154

Janusz Korczak, Tagebuch aus dem Warschauer Ghetto 1942 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1996), 96. 155 For Korczak, the children were not merely future people, they were people already. 156 In the orphan’s home, there was a self-government council and a system of arbitration by fellow residents. Older children were to take care of the smaller ones and had to participate in homemaking activities.

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evil existed in children,157 but he was also fascinated by them. He caressed them158 and thought that they had the right to be themselves and to help themselves, as well as to help other children. He believed in the children and gave them their rights, while at the same time providing them with orientation and order. This was possible because he did not tell the children what they should be, but gave them the possibility of being whatever they could be in the changing circumstances of their growing process. His attitude towards children was not one of coercion or indoctrination, but one of confidence in their own ability for selfeducation and their longing for a better future, for which he created the necessary structures.159 In her book on Korczak,160 Monika Kaminska discusses Korczak’s pedagogical thoughts and endeavors to connect them to the longstanding Jewish tradition that Korczak inherited. She concentrates upon Korczak’s sensitivity to the child’s world and upon his respect and love for the child that is like a parchment full of hieroglyphics which are only partly decodable.161 She highlights Korczak’s great closeness to the children with their own joys, problems and suffering, creating an atmosphere in which they could grow up according to their own rhythm. One may criticize his pedocentric views,162 but nobody has any doubts about the extraordinary position that Korczak occupies in the 157

Korczak, Wie liebt man ein Kind?, in Korczak, Sämtliche Werke. Band 4, eds. F. Beiner and E. Dauzenroth (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999), 194. 158 Korczak, Wie liebt man ein Kind?, 41. 159 See Yitzak Perlis, Janusz Korczak. Exemplary Life (Hebrew) (Kibbutz Ghetto Fighters: Ghetto Fighters, 1982), 33-37. 160 Dialogische Pädagogik und die Beziehung zum Anderen. Martin Buber und Janusz Korczak im Lichte der Philosophie von Emmanuel Levinas (Jüdische Bildungsgeschichte in Deutschland 7) (Münster: Waxmann, 2010). 161 Korczak, Sämtliche Werke. Band 4, 13. 162 Ernst Akiva Simon, Pestalozzi and Korczak. Pioneers in Social Education (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Oranim, 1949), for instance, criticized Korczak. I mention two of the arguments that he brought forward. In Simon’s view, Korczak did not sufficiently take into account the fact that children want to be adults; that they imitate them, play adult

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pantheon of the great twentieth-century educators. Kaminska reads Korczak ad meliorem partem, and tries to understand him as a Polish Jew who was an heir to the centuries-old Jewish heritage. Korczak’s thoughts are frequently compared with Buber’s dialogical thinking.163 Yet, in contrast to scholars who show the parallelism between Korczak’s pedagogical thoughts and Buber’s dialogical philosophy, Kaminska highlights that Korczak and Buber never met and that their thoughts differ substantially. Contrary to what is commonly accepted, she argues that Buber’s concept of Judaism, inspired by Hasidism, is far removed from Korczak’s view of Judaism.164 And whereas for Buber the pedagogical relationship is symmetrical,165 Korczak approaches the child as “secret” or “mystery” in an asymmetrical manner. Although Korzcak dreamed, with Mrs. Stefa Wilczyska, whom he called his “right hand,” of bringing his children to Israel,166 he himself was more critical than Buber of socialism in Eretz

roles, and refuse to remain in their present situation. Moreover, being a bachelor himself, Korczak would not have seen the child in his or her familial context often enough. Adir Cohen, in Janusz Korczak the Educator (Hebrew) ([Tel Aviv: Betsalel Tchernikover, 1974], 221-222), adds that Korczak did not prepare the children adequately for life outside the orphanage in Krochmalna Street, Warsaw. But his loving approach gave the orphans the necessary support, and permitted them to develop their own personalities and a positive attitude to life in a warm atmosphere before they entered harsh realities (223). 163 See, for example, Kees Waaldijk, Janusz Korczak. Vom klein sein und groß werden (Beltz Taschenbuch 751), trans. Verena Kiefer (Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Verlag, 2002), 145-148. 164 For an attempt to bring Korczak close to Hasidism, see Michael Kirchner, Vom Angesicht zu Angesicht. Janusz Korczak und das Kind (Heinsberg: Dieck, 1997). 165 See Buber, “Über das Erzieherische,” in Werke. Erster Band, Schriften zur Philosophie (Munich and Heidelberg: Kösel and Lambert Schneider, 1962), 787-808. 166 Korczak had great expectations of educating children in Israel. In the Thirties, he planned to immigrate to Palestine. He wanted to reach the Jewish land, but did not succeed. See Waaldijk, Janusz Korczak. Vom klein sein und groß werden, 35-40 and 121; Yitshak Perlis, “Korczak in the Warsaw ghetto,” in Janusz Korczak. From the Ghetto (1939–1942) (Hebrew) (Kibbutz Ghetto Fighters: Kibbutz me’uhad, 1982), 7071.

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Yisrael, as he experienced it in Kibbutz Ein Harod, where he stayed for a few weeks in 1934 and 1936. He was also more pessimistic about the Jewish-Arab conflict and critical of Buber’s idea of a renewal of the Jewish nation. For Kaminska, this is another reason to contest a too-close proximity between Buber and Korczak. Kaminska emphasizes the differences between Buber and Korczak through an interpretation of Korczak in light of the philosophy of Levinas, who developed his ethical metaphysics after the Shoah.167 Like Korczak, Levinas does not thematize the Other, and for both the relationship is asymmetrical in the sense that the educator has an unavoidable responsibility towards the child.168 Kaminska argues that it is better to interpret Korczak and Buber through a certain way of Jewish thinking, which is common to both and has its roots in “Talmudic” thought. Levinas shares this way of thinking and approaches the Other in proximity, in a relationship of caress. The originality of Kaminska’s work lies in her attempt to define Korczak’s anti-systematic method by placing it in the broader framework of a Talmudic mode of thinking, which is situational rather than conceptual, and characterized by an openness to what remains always other. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that Korczak’s pedagogy has been fully understood out of the broader framework of the continuous and living Jewish tradition, which pays special attention to

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Waaldijk, 148-153, briefly compares Korczak and Levinas, showing points of contact and analogies with Korzcak’s thought. Both protest against possessive love; both reject the approach to the Other as a pure activity and stress that the Other is not to be caught in objectifying language. For the two thinkers, a “reversed asymmetry” characterizes the relationship and a command comes from the Other. Waaldijk concludes that the thoughts of Korczak are elucidated and deepened in Levinas’s metaphysics, whereas Levinas’s ideas become concrete in the experiences described by Korczak. 168 Buber too highlights that the pedagogical situation is one-directional, but he nevertheless writes about a mutuality, “Gegenseitigkeit.” See Buber, “Über das Erzieherische,” 803-804.

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the Other and in which the subject is never an objective observer but rather open to an otherness that escapes objective grasping. In order to characterize “Talmudic” thought, Kaminska makes extensive use of the works of Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Eli Berkovitz, and of some of my own writings. In Talmudic hermeneutics, personal interpretation, plurality, and intertextuality are core concern. Questions around the ungraspable and unutterable are left open and accompanied by further questions. In her reading of Korczak as a prototypical example of “Talmudic” thinking and following in Korczak’s footsteps, Kaminska does not jump immediately to conclusions. Instead of looking for results, she keeps the discussion open and orients the reader to the question of “how to act.” In this manner, she gives the German-speaking public a new and fresh approach to Korczak. A second contribution by Kaminska, who is well acquainted with Polish culture, is that she reads the writings of Korzcak in the original and is able to translate them accurately for the German public. She is familiar with the valuable Polish documents from the orphanage “Nasz Dom” (Our Home), which have been in Kibbutz Beit Lohamei Hagetaot in the north of Israel since 1988. Korczak worked as adviser to the orphanage, which was headed by Maryna Falska. Kaminska furthermore takes into account the lesser-known Polish writings of Buber and his attitude towards Polish culture and Polish Judaism. She discusses Buber’s trip to Poland, which took place as late as 1939, as well as his concept of the halutz (the pioneer) and his messianic humanism. She also throws light on Siegfried Bernfeld’s thoughts on Judaism and Zionism, which clearly influenced Buber, but are largely neglected in secondary literature. It is to the great merit of Kaminska that she invites the reader to situate Korczak not only in the Polish context, but also in the Jewish tradition, which is of particular relevance to his universal thought. In the Jewish tradition, which ruptures any closed system, one does not think about education in abstract terms, but concretely and with a specific

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orientation. The face of the child is never a mere concept: it asks for respect and love. In this perspective, pedagogical thoughts and theories are only valid insofar as they reflect a basic respect for the face of the child. General concepts have legitimacy only in the framework of the non-indifference towards the Other. It is not knowledge that has priority, but the ethical obligation that implies acting before knowing. Examination without adhering is problematic, and theory has to take praxis into account. In addition, the starting point of Korczak was not theory and its application into the praxis, for he, rather, started from the praxis, on which he reflected in his writings. Story telling, which Korzcak often did,169 fits well into the framework of what Kaminska calls “Talmudic” thinking. Kaminska argues that, as in the Jewish sources, Korczak tells stories with transhistorical meaning. She discusses his stories on honesty, on the Hanukka lights, and on the act of a child giving bread to a dead child. These and other of Korczak’s stories are not only beautiful, they foremostly show Korczak’s approach to the child without any predetermined plan, in an act of “not-knowing.”170 Kaminska similarly identifies a Talmudic way of thinking in Levinas’s ethical metaphysics, in which Messianism points to a passivity or receptivity in activity, a patience in which one acts

169 See among others Korczak, Sämtliche Werke. Band 12. Der Bankrott des kleinen Jack, Kajtus der Zauberer, eds. F. Beiner and E. Dauzenroth (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998); Korczak, König Hänschen der Erste (Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971); Korczak, König Hänschen auf der einsamen Insel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971); Drei Reisen Herscheks and Die Menschen sind gut in Korczak Sämtliche Werke. Band 5, eds. F. Beiner and E. Dauzenroth (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997); Wenn ich wieder klein bin, in Korczak, Sämtliche Werke. Band 3, eds. F. Beiner and E. Dauzenroth (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2000). 170 For the importance of this “not knowing” in the philosophy of Vladimir Jankélévitch, in comparison with Levinas’s thought, see J. Hansel, “‘Proches et lointains’: Emmanuel Levinas et Vladimir Jankélévitch,” in Emmanuel Levinas. Prophetic Inspiration and Philosophy. Atti del Convegno internationale per il Centenario della nascita, Roma, 24-27 maggio 2006, eds. I. Kajon et al. (Firenze: Giuntina, 2008), 123-127.

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without remuneration. Through a comparison of the manner in which Levinas and Korczak both write on the ethical dimension of the human relationship, Kaminska succeeds in showing that aspects of Levinas’s philosophy and his meta-phenomenology throw light on Korczak’s pedagogy. Levinas’s methodological approach to the Other is not based upon epistemology or ontology, but upon transcendence. In his humanism of the other man, the other person has rights. Whereas in Husserl’s phenomenology the active subject constitutes the world with his intentionality, Levinas stresses the passivity of the subject, who is affected and inspired by the Other. Unlike Heidegger, who thought that the West has forgotten the Being and that the human being is open to this anonymous Being, he maintains that the West has forgotten the Other in what he calls its “allergy” to any otherness. The main difference for Levinas is not the ontological distincton between the beings and the Being, but the ethical one between the same and the Other. As with Korzcak, the openness of the I to the Other is caused by the Other. Levinas further describes how the command, “Thou shalt not kill,” creates a rupture in one’s totality. The Saying of the Other – his call – brings into the I “more in the less”; it brings to the I more than it may contain. Levinas and Korczak alike reveal the link between a totalizing being and a totalitarian system. Both are situated in the Jewish tradition, which in its best moments is cognizant of the I that becomes other to himself because of an outside voice. This otherness in the I causes the I to be without identity, so to say: the I does not return to itself. Like Levinas, Korczak describes the child in a non-cognitive approach as a “wonderful secret”171 and as “unknown otherness.” According to his

171

Korczak, Sämtliche Werke. Band 4, eds. F. Beiner and E. Dauzenroth (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999), 41.

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pedagogy, one has to approach the child in a non-objectifying way, in an attitude of caress.172 Kaminska succeeds in creatively comparing Levinas’s approach to Jewish texts with Korczak’s way of working with children. Just as a page of Talmud is not approached in merely a philological-historical way, so too the child for Korzcak is a secret text that can be decoded only partially, a book written in an almost unknown language. Just like the inspiring text in Levinas, the child in Korczak is not “known.” And, like the Talmudic text, the child brings the identity of the I into question and asks for deeds. Text and pupil ask for an answer, for personal engagement, before any knowledge. They ask for a second naïveté, for an openness that is fundamentally different from any objectifying approach. I see the parallelism Kaminska discloses between Levinas’s approach to texts and Korczak’s approach to children as a most creative moment in her book. Her analysis helps the reader to better understand what ethical hermeneutics is all about: it is a non-grasping, an openness to otherness and to the suffering of the human being, which is characteristic of the best of Jewish tradition. By pointing to the common in Levinas and Korczak, Kaminska makes explicit a kind of inspired rationality which is present in the Jewish tradition and eminently in Levinas’s metaphysical and Korczak’s pedagogical thought. One could easily imagine further research on the mutual elucidation of Korczak’s social pedagogy and Levinas’s ethical metaphysics. I am thinking about Levinas’s concept of “difficult freedom” and Korczak’s idea of the growing child’s autonomy, which, however, necessarily has its limits. Levinas’s ideas of the compatibility between a person’s freedom and the ethical “command” coming from the authoritative face runs 172

Korczak, Sämtliche Werke Band 4,41. One has to note, however, that Korczak warned against a possessive attitude or love based upon self-interest.

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parallel with Korczak’s anti-authoritarian, but clearly authoritative, educational thought that urges the children to respect values and at the same time guarantees the autonomy of children who have to decide for themselves and have the ability to solve many of their own problems. Levinas and Korczak take part in the Jewish tradition, in which one says that freedom is engraved on the tablets of the Law (Pirkei Avot [Sayings of the Fathers] 6:2). One could further compare Levinas’s concept of the “third” and the necessity for community structures that, however, remain under the critique of ethics, with Korczak’s network of fixed rules in the boarding school. These rules make possible the functioning of an active, democratic society that also respects a person’s individual freedom and rights. I am convinced that further research into the analogies between Korczak’s and Levinas’s thought could shed light upon the unusual social pedagogy of the humble and noble man who called himself Korczak. In Kaminska’s analysis, Korczak’s method is rightly defined as basically Jewish. She uses the thoughts of Jewish thinkers such as Berkovitz, Ouaknin, Heschel, Wiesel, and Jankélévitch, and also of theoreticians of hermeneutics such as Gadamer and Segeberg, in order to present Korczak as an interpreter who does not search for a unifying truth, but who invites one to communicate. In a way, Kaminska’s work is an exploration of Jewish thought and of basic notions such as time, future, face, the unutterable, reading beyond the verse, and of “nirin veein nirin” (seen and unseen). Her reading of Korczak as participating in a longstanding Jewish tradition is even more justified, since this tradition always paid particular attention to the orphan as a category that needs special attention. Korzcak maintained that every child – especially the orphan, with his own history and decisions, his own desires and experiences – has full right to our consideration. In this way, Korczak was eminently Jewish. One might rightly compare his educational thought to that of Rabbi Joseph Carle-

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bach.173 His life-promoting attitude was brutally confronted by Polish anti-Semitism, and finally by the murderous forces of German antiSemitism. One could object that the Jewish tradition is eminently religious and that Korczak was hardly a religious person, or that Judaism is national and that Korczak was a universal man. But Korczak was not an assimilated Jew; on the contrary, he increasingly became conscious of his own Jewish heritage, which contains particular – religious and national – elements that are not in contradiction to universalism. Following a good Jewish custom, he was named after his grandfather. His grandfather— also a medical doctor—was called Hirsch, the equivalent of Henryk, which was Korczak’s name before he changed it to Janusz Korczak. His father, Józef, was a lawyer who had written on Talmudic law. Korczak himself wrote prayers for people who do not pray, and stories on biblical themes.174 With time, his religious feelings grew.175 In the orphanage, there was daily prayer (including the traditional Jewish blessings, beginning with: “Blessed are you, Almighty, our God, King of the World…”); they followed the Jewish calendar; candles were lit on Shabbat; there were hamentaschen (pastries in the shape of Haman’s ears) on Purim; a Hanukkia on Hanukka; and unleavened bread and horseradish on Pesach. Korczak did not think that religion was opium for the people and recognized that children had the need for intimate conversations with God. He had discussions with Maryna Falska, who had an atheistic point of view, over the necessity of a chapel in the new building of her 173

See Hannah Yifrah, Janusz Korczak and Joseph Carlebach – Their Educational Thought (Hebrew) (Jerusalem and Ramat Gan: Ariel and Makhon Joseph Carlebach, 2001). 174 Allein mit Gott and Kinder der Bibel: Moses, in Korczak , Sämtliche Werke. Band 5, eds. F. Beiner and E. Dauzenroth (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997). 175 We have testimony that, in Ein Harod, Korczak said Qaddish, the prayer for the dead which is in fact a praise to God. He was also an enthusiast of the Bahai religion, in which the idea of the unity of mankind is central.

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orphanage because he thought it was important for children that they enter into conversation with God. Moreover, in Dom Sierot, there were lessons in religion and in Hebrew for those who were interested. Over time, Korczak also identified more with the Jewish people in Palestine. In 1925, he signed a manifesto for Keren Kayemet, the Jewish National Fund. In the Thirties, he visited the land, where he met many German Jews who had fled Germany, and was impressed by the work of the collective, as well as by the faith, which for him was part of a healthy Jewish existence. He tried to learn Hebrew, but was not successful. In 1937, he wrote: “Perhaps Jerusalem will give me strength.” In the same year, he participated in seminars of the halutzim, the pioneers, and wrote in their press. He talked about the renewal of man, of land, language, fate, and faith, and about the return to the land after so many years. Just as the Japanese fought against the volcano, the Australians against the desert, and the Dutch against the sea, the Jews in Palestine fought the swamps, the mosquito, and the scorpion. In the 1930s, he wanted to rent a room in Jerusalem, learn Hebrew, and read the Bible. After a month in Jerusalem, he would settle into the kibbutz. He was anxious about the fate of the Polish Jews. He wanted to emigrate to Israel, which he saw as a refuge for the Jews, but he did not make it.176 In his Herschek’s Three Travels,177 he writes about the three trips of Herschek to Eretz Yisrael. He tells the story of Herschek, who heard 176

On the subject of Korczak and Judaism, I drew from the following articles: Yitschaq Perlis, “Janusz Korczak—Jewish Fate as Choice,” (Hebrew) in Janusz Korczak. Notulae of the International Congress One Hundred Years after his Birthday, ed. Adir Cohen (Haifa: School of Education, University of Haifa, 1979), 69-75; Zvi Kurzweil, “The Judaism of Janusz Korczak,” in Janusz Korczak, 63-68. For a lively account of Korczak’s visits to Palestine on the basis of archives, testimonies of eyewitnesses, and Korczak’s own letters and notes, see Tali Shner, “Janusz Korczk’s Visits to Eretz Israel in 1934 and 1936” (Hebrew), in Dor Ledor. Studies in History of Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora, xxxiii. Interdisciplinary Studies of the Legacy of Janusz Korczak, (Ramat Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 2008), 39-64. 177 Drei Reisen Herscheks in Korczak, Sämtliche Werke. Band 5, F., eds. Beiner and E. Dauzenroth (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997).

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how Titus burned down the Temple. The holy books were destroyed, but the letters of the Torah went up to God. And when the Almighty wanted to decree a harsh fate upon the Jews, those letters defended them. Herschek wants to reach the land, but does not succeed. Three times he tries without success. This story, says Korczak, is told from generation to generation, over four generations: grandfather, father, grandson and great-grandson. Finally, a letter comes from Eretz Yisrael, not from Herschek, who has passed away, but from a young man who reached the land and works in an orchard. He writes that he reads and speaks little: he now sees what he once read. He observes ants upon the trees that hurriedly want to save their eggs, containing the future generations. Herschek is of course Hirsch, i.e., Henryk, i.e., Janusz. Twice Korczak went to Israel; he dreamt about a third time, but could not realize his dream. At the end, Korczak writes a letter to the young man in Palestine: “If people understood that in following generations lies the only hope for creativity, they would behave like those ants.” As the war was imminent, Korczak had doubts: doesn’t one have to behave like the ants, because he is the father of hundreds of orphans? All this points to Korczak’s Jewish consciousness.178 Kaminska, however, does not focus upon concrete manifestations of Korczak’s Judaism. Instead, she prefers to analyze his pedagogy as a Jewish way of approaching children. In her view, Korczak, in his pedagogical praxis and thoughts, is only to be understood in a longstanding tradition that she calls the tradition of “Talmudic thought.” Kaminska’s work is a valuable contribution to Korczak research; it successfully situates Korczak within the Jewish way of thinking. 178

It is therefore not surprising that in Israel there is great interest in Korczak’s pedagogy. See Janusz Korczak Bibliography 1971–1995. Works by him and about him. Compiled by Giora Bassin (Bet Lohamei Hagetaot: The Janusz Korczak Association in Israel, 1996) contains no fewer than 142 pages. Noteworthy is an Arab translation of some of Korczak’s writings by Ahmed Horani. See the bilingual Hebrew-Arab book Janusz Korcak: Selected Pedagogical Writings (Jerusalem: David Jellin, The Janusz Korczak Association in Israel, 1991).

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Kaminska interprets Korczak’s pedagogy out of her own Jewish and Polish culture. Her approach is novel and sheds new light on Korczak’s way of thinking and acting, which influences pedagogical thought and educational practice. This is all the more important since she gives Korczak a voice in Germany, a voice that was silenced in the gas chambers of Treblinka in 1942.

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6. On Hasidism as Dialogical Existence that Hallows Daily Life This essay, which situates “For the Sake of Heaven” ("Gog und Magog") in the totality of Martin Buber’s oeuvre, links this chronicle to his relational thought that is succinctly expressed in “I and Thou.”179 Buber belongs to a growing movement of relational thinking, among whom are such towering figures as Hermann Cohen, Gabriel Marcel, Franz Rosenzweig, Ferdinand Ebner, Paul Tillich, Franz Fischer, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Emmanuel Levinas. All these thinkers consider the separate “self” as an abstract mental construct and highlight the I as related to the other. As part of this greater movement, Buber’s transformative thought in "I and Thou" represents a challenge for postmodern man, who is invited to see himself as one-in-presence-of-the other and one-for-the-other. The reader of this epoch-making work, published for the first time in 1923, is urged to perceive himself as a connected being, not merely interested in self-development and selfassertion. Buber’s dialogical thought aims towards the creation of a common world and to responsiveness. The development of what he calls the “I-you,” i.e., the I in relationship with the other, is crucial in a period in which there is “progressive augmentation of the world of it.”180 In his dialogical-relational model, not the self, self-consciousness, and the narrowness of self-interest are central, but the orientation or dedication of the I to a you. Alluding to the initial words of the creation story in Genesis, Buber poignantly writes: “In the beginning is relation.”181 179

Buber, For the Sake of Heaven. A Chronicle, trans. Ludwig Lewisohn (New York: Meridian Books, 1958); Gog und Magog. Eine Chronik, in Werke. Dritter Band. Schriften zum Chassidisimus (Munich and Heidelberg: Koesel and Lambert Schneider, 1963), 999-1261. 180 Buber, I and Thou, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958) (hereafter in this chapter this translation of I and Thou is cited), 37; Ich und Du, 37. 181 Buber, I and Thou, 18; Ich und Du, 20.

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In his masterpiece “I and Thou,” the word “Geist,” spirit, appears in order to characterize what happens between people. Spirit is “a response to the you, which appears and addresses him out of the mystery.” It comes into being in the discovery of the you-dimension in the self: “Spirit in its human manifestation is a response of man to his you.” 182 This response in the human being to his you is the result of his meeting with the other. Hence, spirit “is not in the I, but between (zwischen) I and you. It is not like the blood that circulates in you, but like the air in which you breathe.”183 Buber’s spirituality is therefore dialogical and concrete, close to everyday life and to the world in which meetings are a rare phenomenon, but one that does occur. “I and Thou” endeavors to create a “Zwischenmensch,” a dialogical between-man related to others. Buber is not only a humanist, he is a religious humanist. Unlike other thinkers, he never thought that humanism and religiosity were contradictory. In his view, being present to another human being and making God present in the world are two sides of the same coin. In his dialogical thought, the mutual relationship between I and you is the locus theologicus, the very place where a person meets God. A religious humanist, Buber maintained that the I, who says “you” in a holistic, rather than fragmentary way, at the same time addresses God as the eternal “Thou.” Against any fragmentary (cognitive, utilitarian, or functional) approach, he thought that one should relate to others with all his person, in order to make the other present and through this, to allow God to be present in the world. In dialogue, the deepest dimension of all that is reveals itself. Against any illusionary thinking that wants to make the eternal Thou present without creating a true dialogical society, Buber points out that the relationship to God occurs in the relationship between human beings. In the loving approach to the world, in its animation and 182 183

Buber, I and Thou, 39; Ich und Du, 38. Buber, I and Thou, 39; Ich und Du, 38.

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in relating dialogically to every thing and every human being, Buber proclaims, we “look toward the fringe of the eternal You,” we are “aware of a breath from the eternal You” and we “address the eternal You.”184 One of Buber’s great merits is that he developed a religious humanism that is in fact a panentheistic thought, one that perceives God in everything. This panentheism was greatly influenced by Hasidism, in which the inter-subjective meeting is the condition for contact with the eternal You. Within the meeting of a particular you, one receives “a glimpse” through to the eternal You.185 The world in itself does not lead to God, but neither does one find Him by leaving the world.186 In Hasidism, Buber saw the possibility of living concretely in this world while preserving some strangeness or abnormality, of which the world is in need. This world (‘olam) refers to what is absent (ne‘elam), but which wants to become present. Man’s turn, his return (Umkehr) to the real excentric kernel of himself,187 to his “inborn you,”188 in other words, his presence to the other, makes the other and the eternal Thou present. Buber claims that human existence thus becomes a kind of sacrament: In human meeting and encounter, God becomes present in the world. In a mystical mood and with a daring choice of words, Buber writes that man has to “realize God in the world.”189 Contact and solidarity with others, not only empathy, make men, but also God, real. They bring a human being to the eternal Thou that never becomes it; because the eternal Thou is always present, He is “the eternal presence.” A person who really loves his wife and makes her present is able to look into the you of her eyes and see “into a beam of the eternal Thou.”190

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Buber, I and Thou, 6; Ich und Du, 12. Buber, I and Thou, 75; Ich und Du, 69. 186 Buber, I and Thou, 79; Ich und Du, 72. 187 Buber, I and Thou, 100; Ich und Du, 89. 188 Buber, I and Thou, 17; Ich und Du, 28. 189 Buber, I and Thou, 114; Ich und Du,100. 190 Buber, I and Thou, 108; Ich und Du, 93. 185

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The realization of God in the world is far from any theurgic action. This does not mean that men cannot influence God. Man may make God present by his presence to others. But this presence to others is far from magic formulas and gestures. In his presence to others, man hallows the whole of the everyday. It is the whole life that is at stake in true religious life. At the heart of every serious religious life is the divine-human meeting, which expresses itself in the inter-human relationship. Buber was not only a religious humanist, he was more specifically a Hebrew humanist. Inspired by Hasidism, he described a way of living in which one hallows everyday life, and every detail in it is lived in the presence of God. He writes about divine sparks in the human being, about building God’s “form” and about transforming the estranged world, the world of it, into a world of you, a real human world, a world of meeting and dialogue. The reunion of God and His divine Inhabitation, the yihud, would be the task of every Jew. Buber’s idea of perfect man (“der ganz gewordene Mensch”) 191 also stems from Hasidism: the perfect man, exemplary link to others, is the tsaddiq. Central ideas in his dialogical thinking, as they come into expression in his “I and Thou,” have their roots in Hasidic thought. His ideas concerning God’s omnipresence, of man’s being made in God’s image, and about the nonreality of evil all stem from the Hasidic way of living and way of thought. When expressing his religious and humanistic thoughts which are impregnated by Hasidic mysticism, Buber reminds Europe of its forgotten heritage of primal reality, the reality of presence (Gegenwärtigkeit) that is linked to time and place and is ultimately the presence of God in the world. The preceding remarks allow us to situate the chronicle “For the Sake of Heaven” as one of the eminent fruits of Buber’s dialogical thinking that was poetically and inspiringly expressed in “I and Thou.” 191

Buber, I and Thou, 77; Ich und Du,70.

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Reading this piece, one may easily recognize Buber’s great ideas, which were from the beginning inspired by Hasidism. In “For the Sake of Heaven,” one encounters the eternal Thou in the contact with the other human being, in returning to the other. The chronicle enters into a world that is different from anything one knows. It introduces a world that is forgotten and hidden, but which cannot be forgotten because we are in dear need of it. It introduces us to a world of permanent dialogue, in which the worth of the human being depends upon his responsiveness to men and God. It appears that there exists a world in which one devotes his life to the service of the reunion of the transcendent God and His Shekhina, His feminine side, which dwells on earth in company with the suffering and the depressed. This is the world and life of people who were conscious that every deed of theirs may cause the hastening or the delay of the reunion of God with His divine indwelling presence. Such an extraordinary, non-trivial life in the service of God expresses itself in humble service to other people. The Shekhina returns from its exile when one frees the divine sparks by helping his neighbor to live an accomplished life in the eyes of God and men. Through contact with the spiritual beauty that is present in other human beings, through saying “you” to one’s neighbor, one discovers the real joy of the world, which leads to the joy of God. In the spiritual life of Hasidism, genially described in “For the Sake of Heaven,” the highest duty of man consists in elevating the divine sparks. Through this work of discovering the divine element in the other, one brings true freedom and escapes the world of necessities. The redeemed holy sparks are brought to the Well of all life and light. Hasidim may learn from everybody, even from Hungarian herds, whose songs –brought back to their origin - testify to the love of God for His Shekhinah. Buber wanted to bring modern man to a peak of spirituality and he perceived Hasidism as nothing less than a renewal of Jewish life. He

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built an entire anthropology of the Hasidic way of living, which I will now describe. The first thing that the human being has to do is to not hide himself from the Highest Reality. He has to know that he cannot escape his answerability. The mechanisms of escape are many, but man is called upon to answer God’s call. The discovery of the real I is the discovery of being called, being asked to respond. I am called, therefore I am. Once the human being becomes conscious of the elevated task of living before the eternal Thou and of keeping Him always before him, he will discover that no path resembles another. God’s greatness lies in the fact that He has given different ways to the human being: there is not one, uniform mode, but a multitude of ways that reflect His greatness. Rabbi Bunam, about whom we hear in the chronicle “For the Sake of Heaven,” said once that he did not want to change places with Abraham. God wanted the blind Bunam to be the blind Bunam and not Abraham our father. As Rabbi Susja declared: one will not ask in the coming world: why weren’t you Moses, but: why weren’t you Susja? In this way, everybody has his unique task, which he receives in the place in which he stays. Each home contains a treasure, which is unique for that house. Everybody has to discover his own treasure: it is not far from us, but nearby. Buber’s religious anthropology, based on a multitude of Hasidic stories, further implies that one has to unite his own soul and to act out of the unity of his soul as a whole human being. And most importantly: one has to start with himself, but not forget that this is not enough and that one is linked to the entire world. You have to start with where you are, the hidden treasure is there, that is your treasure and the treasure of nobody else. However, the real self is discovered in the turn to the other; the I becomes I in the relation with the other. In Hasidic life, it all finally revolves around the divine Indwelling. Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk asked: “Where does God live?” When his visitors laughed and said: “The world is full of His greatness,” the Kotzker Rebbe answered his own question: “God is there where you

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permit Him to enter.” Buber’s panentheism bases itself upon such sayings. In the chronicle “For the Sake of Heaven,” one is invited to let God into his life by relating, by making Umkehr, by orienting himself to the other. This openness becomes possible when one lives his daily life as a site for the divine Indwelling. The chronicle slowly matured in Buber’s mind—for more than 20 years—until this complex of Hasidic stories was finally published in Hebrew during the time that he was already living in Jerusalem, at the beginning of World War II. He wrote it quickly, as if everything already stood clearly before his spiritual eye. Buber did not only know the world of Hasidism, he also lived it, not as a traditional Hasid of course, but as someone who wanted to renew and revive this spiritual movement. By presenting Hasidism, not as an obscure pious form of life, a parochial movement, but as a phenomenon that belongs to the great world spiritualities, he offered his many readers from all nations and denominations a gift that inspired them to orient their lives to others. It was Buber’s aim in “For the Sake of Heaven” not to present a theory or teaching but to acknowledge an eternal reality. He wanted to write about an elevated, spiritual reality. Although he came from a family of maskilim, he had been familiar with the Hasidic spirit from his youth on. He himself confessed that if he would have been confronted with Hasidim at the time when God’s word was central, before its deterioration into a mere caricature of itself, he also would have left his parents’ home and would have joined the Hasidic movement. What fascinated him in Hasidic life was nothing less than the renewal of Judaism. which consisted of making life in its entirety whole and holy. In his chronicle, Buber molded many fragments of the oral and written tradition into one great work. He had to fill in the gaps and to ensure the continuity of the story. The story contains a historical kernel. One reads about the complex relationship between two men who had the same name: both are called Yaacov Yitschaq. But the worlds of both Jews greatly differed. Yaacov Yitschaq, the “seer of Lublin,” had the

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extraordinary capacity to see where a soul originated from, from Abel or from Cain. He loved joy and hated sadness, which he considered to be the sin of all sins. He interpreted the historical events of his time in an eschatological way. In a magic-theurgic gesture, the seer of Lublin, as other tsaddiqim, wanted to make Napoleon “Gog of the land of Magog.” After Napoleon’s wars, the Messiah would appear. Ezekiel 38-39 describes how the Messiah comes after the demonic ruler Gog. The seer of Lublin as spiritual leader of his generation wanted his own Hasidim as well as others to recognize Napoleon as the apocalyptic Gog. He believed that the divine miraculous intervention would take place soon, in his days. The second protagonist is Yaacov Yitschaq, nicknamed the “Jew” or the “holy Jew.” He was a pupil of the seer of Lublin and, unlike his teacher, he was convinced that not magic and wonder, but teshuva, return, would bring the longed-for Messiah. He relativizes wonder: wonder from the point of view of revelation is what is natural from the point of view of creation. The “Jew,” who made his own school in Pschyscha and attracted his own pupils who came also from the seer’s court, asked himself if one has the right to wish to augment the forces of evil (Napoleon and his wars) in order to hasten the coming of the Messiah. He located the evil not outside, in other people, but inside ourselves. The difference between the attitude of the seer of Lublin and of the holy Jew towards redemption is crucial. The seer of Lublin, with his extraordinary gift of being linked to the Higher Worlds, was thinking about divine deeds that would alter history. The “holy Jew” believed that redemption depends upon the sincere return of the human being. In reading the chronicle, the reader feels how Buber identifies with the holy Jew, who highlights the importance of the return of the human being to the dialogical kernel of himself and to other beings in his contact with God. Redemption, the reunion of God with his Shekhina, will only come to pass with the help of human beings, and not without their return. The

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Messiah will come not as result of miraculous deeds, but because of teshuva. According to the “Jew,” the Messiah will be the King once human beings offer him his crown. In this perspective, it is futile to try to calculate messianic times. In his democratic court, the holy Jew taught his pupils that the only thing one has to do is to live humbly before God, and that that is “the whole man.” (Qohelet 12,13). It is in the entire reality of human life, and not in a separate place and with ready-made formulas, that man meets God. Magic offends meeting. One cannot learn real meeting with God: The human being meets Him when he meets Him in the encounter with other human beings and in the return to the own authentic kernel, i.e. to I-you.192 In the narrative, stories frequently point to the wrong paths that human beings follow and suggest the proper way to go. Rabbi Bunam’s well-known story about the keeper of a precious horse is a good example. The horse keeper wonders where the loam is when one drives a nail in the wall, and where the dough is in the midst of the pretzel. Finally, he asks: and where is the horse, although the door is closed and the doorkeeper watches? The audience understands immediately that illusion is the thought that keeps one away from real service. The real service is not based upon illusions, imaginary and futile thoughts, but upon concrete, world-oriented dialogical relation to reality. The seer and the holy Jew are the main protagonists in “For the Sake of Heaven,” which present each of them an entire world. But we also learn about others, about Bunam, the Kotzker rebbe, about the maggid of Kosnitz and about Rabbi Baruch, grandson of the Baal Shem. We read in this work about David of Lelow, student of the seer, about Rabbi Abraham Jehoshua Heschel, the man of Apta, about Elimelekh of Lijansk, pupil of the maggid, about Rabbi Yitzhaq Eisik of Kalew, singer 192

See Buber, “The Faith of Judaism,” in The Writings of Martin Buber, ed. Will Herberg (New York: Meridian Books, 1956), 261-262.

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of love songs and creator of an extraordinary light during the Seder, about Perez, who dies after having wished not to stay on earth without the holy Jew who is near his death, and about a few women, between them Schoendel, the wife of the “Jew” and Bejle, the wife of the seer of Lublin. The main background plot and the historical framework in the chronicle concern the victories of Napoleon. As mentioned, the seer of Lublin identifies Napoleon as Gog and wants to influence others to recognize this supernatural event that will necessarily bring in its trail the longed-for Messiah. People blindly followed this way of thinking. Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Rymanov still believed that he would hear the shofar of the Messiah, even when Napoleon had already suffered defeats. When Napoleon was banished to Elba, the seer still believed in the imminent coming of the Messiah. But other voices are soon heard. A group of people, of whom the holy Jew was the most representative, thought that perhaps the Messiah would come when nobody expects him anymore. Gog is to be found not outside, but inside. Nothing would be realized in the world that was not first realized in the own dialogical community. Finally, at the end of the chronicle, the seer of Lublin is stated as wanting only to work through “joy,” which unites people. When one rejoices at Simhat Torah, he declares, one will have a good Tisha be-Av. Although their thoughts and worldviews were opposed, the seer appreciated the “Jew” also after the death of the “Jew”; he spoke about him and quoted him. On his deathbed, he invited pharmacist Bunam, the Jew’s pupil and friend, and admitted that he had failed. Their hearts came close to each other. The seer confessed that he had always loved the “Jew,” but not enough. He still thinks that the Messiah will come at his last Tisha be-Av, the day he foresaw as the day of his own death. Significantly, Meir, the one who succeeds the seer as leader of the Hasidim, puts his headquarter in Apta, the place where the “Jew” had passed his youth.

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Something strange happened in “For the Sake of Heaven.” In the process of writing, Buber did not oppose Pschyscha and Lublin, he rather wanted to objectively give expression to both traditions. It is not Buber’s purpose to oppose both men, but to show the greatness of their souls. True, from his youth on, he was acquainted with the life and thought of Rabbi Bunam, who became the first student of Pschyscha. But he was convinced that the tradition of Lublin secretly bowed before the tradition of the “holy Jew.” He makes the “Jew” write to the seer that all that he knows, he learned from him. The “Jew” even says that redemption is near, but he immediately adds that one has to return, since everything depends upon return. There is thus great respect for the ways of living of both leaders, because both, although very different from each other, were also dialogical men: Both intended to create real communities. Both knew about elevating the sparks in this world and how to discover the divine dimension in other human beings. But without any doubt, Buber’s sympathy goes foremost to the holy Jew, who more than the seer of Lublin, makes redemption dependent upon the creation of real meetings and encounters, upon the return to the authentic kernel of the I to the “Iyou,” which orients the I to the other. The seer foresees that the “Jew” will have to die. After all his failures to bring the end of times nearer, he asks the Jew to bring him a message from heaven. And the Jew says to Benjamin, who guessed everything about the conversation between the Rabbi of Lublin and himself: does a Hasid refuse to give his life? To the objection of Benjamin that he is the seer’s opponent, the “holy Jew” replies: if one brings a message from the world of truth, that is truth. This amazing answer again places the holy Jew in the necessarily dialogical world of Hasidism. He considers himself a pupil of the seer, but his independence towards his teacher expresses itself precisely in his “heavenly” message to his teacher, that in the process of redemption the return of the human being to others and to God is a necessary condition. When the seer hears about the death of the “holy Jew” he laments that he had no Hasid like

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him and never will have such a one. “For the Sake of Heaven” is thus a story about two people who (like Buber and Rosenzweig in the 20th century) thought differently, but who were united in their firm intention to serve God in intensive dialogical communities. The entire chronicle is full of wonders. Also the “Jew,” although he does not count upon supernatural divine intervention but rather on the return of the human being, possesses magical forces. He has visions like the seer, he foresees events like his master, and through his prayer he influences the course of events. Yet, teshuva is decisive for him. Wherever he came, the “Jew” did not look for outward triumphs or successes. He linked messianic yearnings and willingness to return. It is clear that Buber preferred the attitude of the Jew to that of the seer, but he endeavored to describe the greatness of both schools, of Lublin and Pschyscha. The greatness of people like the seer and the “holy Jew” lay in their ability to relate, also when deep rifts separated master and pupil. The master respected the pupil and learned from him. The pupil also respected his teacher by giving him due credit and telling others that he owes everything to his teacher. The relationship between both persons is not without difficulties; Buber does not try to hide this, but above all their profound awe for each other reflects their awe for being in the presence of God. One has remarked that Buber tended to describe the “holy Jew” as a kind of Jesus. There are indeed pages on which the parallel is obvious. One passage in the book, for instance, strongly recalls Matt. 25, where— at the last judgment—people ask where they encountered the King, who replies that they encountered Him in the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. Reading this passage, everyone who is acquainted with the New Testament has this association. Another passage is not less relevant. The “Jew” asks his pupils to go to a place where they discuss kashrut. At the spot, they meet a man—Eliya—who admonishes the Hasidim that they worry too much about what enters their mouth, but too little about what comes out of their mouth. This of course reminds the reader of

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Matt. 15:11, where Jesus rebukes the Pharisees and states that it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of his mouth. In a third passage that is reminiscent of the life of Jesus, Rabbi Mendle of Tomashov, a pupil of the “Jew,” tells a story that contains the insight that God’s burden is a light one: when it is too heavy, it is not God’s yoke. This is similar to the words of Jesus that his yoke is easy and his burden light (Matt. 11:30). To the idea that Buber described the figure of the “holy Jew” as Jesus, he replied that this is not merely his inclination, it is reality: Jesus also stood in the Jewish tradition of the suffering servant. He refers to Albert Schweitzer, who described Jesus as such. Yet, he added, Jesus came out of the concealment of the “quiver” (Isaiah 49:2), whereas the “holy Jew” remained in it. The reader who is familiar with the holy anecdotes of Buber, in which a situation and a saying form the outer and the inner -- life and teaching --, will recognize some of the anecdotes in the chronicle. Because of the fact that Hasidic life hallows everyday life, eating, drinking, and dancing become holy acts, and everybody serves God in his own way, in diversity. We hear about a blacksmith who teaches the “Jew.” The Rabbi becomes the pupil of the blacksmith, who always precedes the tsaddiq in his own work for God. The “Jew” asks how the blacksmith knows about his spiritual work. And the blacksmith replies that he does not understand what the Rabbi does, but does the Rabbi understand him? The anecdote teaches that one has to understand first, if one gets involved with the other. Farmers too may instruct rabbis in the Hasidic stories. A farmer whose chariot with hay fell down on the road teaches the “Jew” that nobody knows what he is able to do, what lies in his possibilities, until he first tries it. He further teaches the “Jew” that he sees his fellowman as having been sent by God. Such stories are intended to bring the reader to a level of intensive listening to the other, of an essential opening up to the other man. Through these stories, he receives the occasion to elevate his life, to

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come to a dialogical existence in which the other’s presence becomes real. The dialogical stories become fully understandable only within a dialogical hermeneutics, one to which the reader is personally invited. They have a transformative function, urging the reader to adopt a dialogical lifestyle. Dialogical life is a life of involvement with the “you”: with both the other human being and with the “eternal Thou.” In the Hasidic worldview, the Shekhina is everywhere and serves the people, wherever they are, even in a house of whores, because everything unholy has to be changed into something holy. Drinking together becomes a pretext for learning. People may also be silent together. The “holy Jew” is a great specialist in this matter. Even letters of the alphabet become a pretext for spiritual contexts. The “Jew” understands this well. When he learned to read and write, he was told that twice yud, the one letter next to the other, signify the Name of God. In the dividing sign, however, twice yud are placed one above the other, signifying a partition, which separates one verse from another. If people are with each other, God’s Name is there, if one is above the other, there is division and no presence of God’s Name. The Hasidim pray in the manner in which they breathe. They serve God with their two inclinations. They are conscious that if one hates a bad man, one makes the other really bad and causes him to be enclosed within himself. The chronicle contains a special concept of freedom: the greatness of God’s freedom is contrasted with a coercion that reveals itself as evil. In these stories, which are naïve only on the surface, noble concepts come to the fore. Evil is considered an energy that is not oriented towards the good, and if so directed, it immediately becomes good. Real freedom is a higher freedom, which allows the human being to transcend the world of necessities. Another exalted concept is hidden in the fact that the Hasidim are conscious that they stem from dust, but at the same time they know that the Maker’s fingerprints are on them. Here the lofty paradoxical idea that one has to consider oneself as nothing, but

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on the other hand that one is almost like God, comes into expression. Humility keeps one from arrogance and haughtiness, while consciousness of greatness prevents man from falling into the pitfall of a feeling of inferiority. The good life lies in the right balance between accepting limits and being linked to infinitely great energy. The Hasidim knew that they were nothing in the face of God, but it was also their conviction that their conduct influenced world history. In the strange world of Hasidism described in “For the Sake of Heaven,” prayer and learning are permanent, but so is work on human qualities. The Hasidim are immerged in common study, they are entirely in the service of God, tightly linked to each other. In their view, to die is just to join the big yeshiva. Even when bad things happen, dialogue remains the aim of this pious people, because the dialogical dimension in their communities was never absent, although it could be temporarily diminished. In the elevated world evoked by Buber, biblical verses are not an illustration. They are rather the real world, for which events are only illustrations. Spiritual events influence history. Everything that occurs, for instance, the lack of children for the seer’s wife, has spiritual meaning. Events become clear in the light of what is written or of what one has to do in climbing the ladder of spirituality. The holy sparks are omnipresent in Buber’s chronicle. There is the holiness of Shabbat. Men do not enter Shabbat, Shabbat enters into them. Shabbat heralds the coming world. Holiness is further present in solidarity. All Jews are seen as brothers in love for Israel. Buber reminds us of forgotten realities that touch the kernel of Jewish life itself. In the world of the Hasidic community, miraculous events are normal. It is natural that one is able to prevent a sick man from dying. It is evident that the Shekhina wanders amongst the Jews and suffers with them and with all sufferers. One still is aware of how the world is based on 36 hidden tsaddiqim, who uphold the world. Buber’s rendition of Hasidic life makes Jewish customs suddenly become loaded with enormous spiritual power. One learns the

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secret of the miqve, the ritual bath, or the beauty of the maleve malka, the fourth meal during which the departing Sabbath bride is accompanied with songs. Buber does not describe mere piety, religiosity that is estranged and far away from daily life. On the contrary, his portray of the piety of the Hasidim is an attempt to describe reality as pointing to something higher, which gives meaning and sense to everything that a human being does. In the entire narrative, the “holy Jew” is described as a very special person, close to Buber’s heart and mind. He prays alone, he goes to the miqve alone. He does not only accentuate the collective life, but also puts emphasis upon the individual and his intentions. He pays attention to intentions and not only to deeds. He does pray and study, but at the same time he is entirely in the world. So, for instance, he teaches someone how to speak or how to eat. Yet Buber endeavors to show that although Pschyscha has different orientations, Pschyscha cannot exist and thrive without Lublin. The “Jew” admits his dependence upon the seer. He likewise warns his students that when they speak against the seer, they talk against him. With all their differences, Pschyscha and Lublin are linked to each other as two sides of the same coin. When the seer wanted to interpret Napoleon’s military enterprise as a precursor of the Messiah and an event that would magically bring forth Messianic times, “the holy Jew” did not adopt this approach. His attitude resulted from his dissimilar approach to wonder. This difference between the schools of Lublin and Pschyscha is linked to another variation, that of the attitude towards evil. As a suffering servant, expiating for others, the “Jew” wanted to take evil upon his own shoulders, to bear it, to take it upon himself. This is not theopathy, or some pathological conduct, but rather the loftiness of being linked to the other, in fact to all the others, in non-ending responsibility. This did not paralyze the holy Jew, it rather energized and vitalized him and made of him a man for the other, a man of the spirit, a Zwischenmensch.

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At the time of Buber’s writing, a horrible Führer dominated the world and tried to destroy everything Jewish. Buber writes on real leadership and true authority, on the persona of the real “Führer.” Elimelekh of Lijansk is described as a real Führer, one who holds his Hasidim together, not by encouraging them to blindly run after him. The real leader cares that people care for each other. He is a dialogical man.193 In “For the Sake of Heaven,” the spiritual is connected to the material world. The Diesseits is taken seriously. The chronicle does realistically mention disputes, anger, and even hatred as well, but above all, the book testifies to a life that is not trivial. In this elevated life, lived in a second naivety, one is in humble service of the other, one creates real dialogues. The chronicle ends with a story of reconciliation. Human beings, we learn, are destined to a life of dialogue, the life of the Zwischenmensch. Each man is responsible for the unification (yihud) of the divine with His immanence, His Indwelling, which he must “profess and confirm in every moment of his life, and in his relationship to all the things of the world.”194 More broadly speaking, with his interpretation of Hasidism Buber tried to renew the dialogical form of life. Already in his youth, when he came into contact with the Hasidim in Sadagora, he guessed that mutual respect and joy of the soul formed the basis of the true community. He considered it as his task to make Hasidism known to the world. Like the Hasidim, he himself looked for God in the world, aware that God in fact is the origin and aim of the world; God is the Place of the world and the world is not His place, hu meqomo shel olam ve-ein ha-olam meqomo.195 193

For Buber, the biblical leaders too are “the foreshadowings of the dialogical man, of the man who commits his whole being to God’s dialogue with the world, and who stands firm throughout this dialogue.” See Buber, “Biblical Leadership,” in The Writings of Martin Buber, 228. 194 Buber, “The Faith of Judaism,” in The Writings of Martin Buber, 262. 195 Genesis Rabba, va-yetse, 68.

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Buber’s religious humanism was not a denial of the world, but a confirmation of it. Similarly to Dietrich Boenhoeffer, he did not search for God in the margin, but in the midst of life. In the Hasidic lifeexperience God is present everywhere. Buber also thought that the “eternal You” was always present, although man is not always conscious of that fact. In the world every act may express the address to the “eternal Thou.” All acts may become holy, for the divine sparks that can be redeemed by man in daily acts lie in every thing. In all that man undertakes, holiness becomes possible. There are no prescribed rules, no fixed forms. Everything can be brought before God, one just needs the right attitude. As in Hasidism, Buber did not acknowledge a separation between holy and profane: he declared that you can be holy in the unification with your wife, in a conversation with your children, or with friends. Through hallowing the everyday, because the form penetrates matter, God adopts new “forms” and man realizes that he is created in God’s form and likeness. The main message of Buber in “For the Sake of Heaven” is that the entire process of redemption depends upon man. Everything has to become One. God’s “Thou” has to come out of concealment. It is man’s task to reunite God with His Indwelling. This task is accomplished when man becomes “holy man” and realizes the sublime existence, of which the tsaddiq is the prototype. He makes his own soul one and is linked to everybody and everyone. Only then, does yihud become reality. Buber did not intend to revive Hasidism with his books on Hasidism, as did, for example, Hillel Zeitlin. Neither was he a historian of Hasidism as was Gershom Shalom.196 He rather intended to show the 196

Shalom recognized that Buber made a definitive contribution (einen entscheidenden Beitrag) towards making Hasidism known in the West. Prior to Buber’s work, the Hasidic movement was barely mentioned in the sciences of religion. For the representatives of the haskalah, Hasidism was an extreme form of obscurantism. A changed attitude towards Hasidism came only with people such as Simon Dubnov,

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authenticity and actuality of dialogical life as exemplified in Hasidism. More than the past, it was the living present that interested him—the living present that could be realized through meditating the interpreted past. With his existentialist approach of Hasidism he developed a religious anthropology, in the center of which stood dialogue as the ultimate meaning of human existence. With his personal, selective interpretation of Hasidism, Buber succeeded in showing the dialogical dimension of a movement that he much appreciated. Through his presentation of Hasidism he relayed the message that God longs for man. God went into exile in the world, suffering with the fate of the world, until man will elevate everything before God’s eye and cause the unification of the One with His Shekhina.

Samuel Horodezky, and Yitschaq Leib Perez. See Gershom Scholem, ”Martin Bubers Deutung des Chassidismus,” in Judaica I (Frankfurt o.M: Suhrkamp, 1963), 165-167. Before Shalom’s sharp criticism of Buber’s interpretation of Hasidism, he also notes (168) that we are all his students in one way or another. Paul Mendes Flohr and Ze’ev Gries write that Buber made Hasidism a respectable movement through its translation in the discourse of his time and in the neo-romantic and later expressionist idiom. With his concept of hermeneutics as dialogue between past and present, he made the Hasidic texts relevant for the present. He presented the Hasidic myths and legends as popular wisdom precedent to the haskala. See the introduction of Mendes-Flohr and Z. Gries to Martin Buber. The Tales of Rabbi Nachman, trans. Maurice Friedman (Atlantic Highlands NJ: Humanities Press, 1988), x and xviii.

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7. On a New Age in Democracy as Part of the Holocaust Memory In Germany, one may recognize distinct groups of new immigrants with their different life styles, but there is a reluctance to consider such groups, for instance the Turkish minority, as “new Germans.” In France, on the contrary, one speaks more about general citizenship but frequently does not recognize the different specific ethnic/religious communities to which members of such groups belong. This problem of universality and particularity is at the center of Shmuel Trigano’s volume The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah.197 In Israel, there are two opposing forms of memory of the Shoah. One narrative is postZionist, the other, neo-Zionist. The first is the peace narrative that is told in a humanistic-universal perspective. The second fits a national perspective and highlights the Jewish character of the Holocaust. The Shoah is drawn into the dialogue by the Israeli right that wants security, as well as by the Israeli left that makes moral demands. In my eyes, both memories are compatible; they are not necessarily opposed. One must of course be sensitive to the misuse of the Shoah as a means for furthering political goals. At the same time, one should not forget that first of all the Shoah targeted the Jewish people. In the formation of the memory of the Shoah, the dichotomy can be bridged. Holocaust memory in Israel may be particularistic and universal at the same time. Universalistic thinkers rightly point to the danger of manipulation in certain political contexts, whereas proponents of a national memory equally correctly make us aware of the danger of universalizing the Shoah and forgetting its unique Jewish character.198 197

Shmuel Trigano, The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah. The Unthought in Political Modernity, trans. Gila Walker (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2009), 329. 198 See Galia Glasner Heled, “Responsive Holocaust Memory - Integrating the Particular and the Universal,” Jewish Educational Leadership 8, no. 1 (2009): 4-9.

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It is in this perspective that Trigano’s book on democracy and the Shoah is important. Trigano analyses the Jewish singularity and the rejection of it in political modernity. With immediate relevance to the Israeli debate, he discusses the question of whether the Shoah is a unique event or just one of the multiple genocides in the twentieth century. Does one have to talk about Shoah or about genocide in general? Is the event singular or universal? Whereas Steven Katz, Elie Wiesel, and Claude Lanzmann maintain that it was specific, others negate its uniqueness, pointing to ideological manipulation of strategists in the State of Israel who exploit the Shoah to advance the cause of national cohesion. New historians in Israel such as Uri Ram and Baruch Kimmerling, for instance, denationalize the Shoah in order to likewise denationalize the State of Israel. Against people like Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Boaz Evron, Ilan Pappe, and Benny Morris, Trigano defends the singularity of the Shoah. Yet, he does not defend an absolute singularity, which lends the Shoah an aura of mystery. He refuses to mythicize or theologize Auschwitz, placing the debate on the Shoah, rather, in the perspective of the future of modern politics. His focus is on the singularization to which the Jews were subjected and which led to their extermination: they were deprived of their citizenship. Trigano examines the phenomenon of antiSemitism from a sociological and psychoanalytical point of view and contributes to political philosophy in that he analyses the Jewish singularity and the rejection of this perspective in political modernity. He tries to answer the question of why the assassination of democracy had to involve the murder of Jews.199 His central question is how political modernity collapsed and how citizenship failed to take into account the concrete citizen in his singular identity.200 The Shoah concerns the fate of the singular human being in the democracy of the Rights of Man.201 199

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 55. Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 57. 201 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 238. 200

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Towards the end of his book, Trigano defines the memory controversy as “a decoy”: the focus on the uniqueness of the Shoah masks the real question about the fate of mankind, and those who criticize the Jewish aspect of the Shoah lose sight of the overall fate of singularity.202 Trigano discusses how the Shoah is interpreted by the fascist right-wing neo-Nazi groups, for whom the Holocaust is a Jewish plot. He also analyses leftist groups, which demonize Israel as the cause of Palestinian suffering. The Jewishness or singularity of the Holocaust is negated by the New Left, to which Tzvetan Todorov and Alain Brossat belong. In this view, Jews are allegorized in a Pauline manner. The main problem of Marxist theory is its incapability to deal with the concept of the nation and to appreciate peoplehood.203 Trigano, on the contrary, asks why the Shoah happened to the Jewish people, whom he considers to be pioneers who paved the way to political modernity. The Jewish people are for him the people of the covenant, which is one of the key sources of modern democracy.204 They did not find a place in the modern nationstates of Europe, where they remained abstract individuals. Unwilling to be absorbed in universalism, they reaffirmed their particularity. Trigano refers to Levinas, who defined the Jewish destiny as universal, more specifically, as a “particularist universalism.”205 In his eyes, the Jewish singularity is inseparable from the European identity, “a necessity for Europe.”206 Trigano’s book is replete with interesting remarks, such as one on the “passion” of Israel and the ugly light this expression casts on suffering as the way to salvation.207 He further remarks that for a “good cause” people were put in work camps, in psychiatric hospitals and in 202

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 237, 238. Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 61. 204 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 72. 205 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 83. 206 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 89. 207 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 38. 203

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extermination camps.208 This reminds me of Vasili Grossman’s Life and Fate, where he expresses his anti-totalitarianism; he does not believe in abstract “good,” but only in good deeds. The totalitarian regime in which Grossman lived had institutions that “educated” the people “only for their own good.”209 There are some passages in Trigano’s book with which I disagree. For instance, Trigano distances himself from Hans Jonas, who talked about an impotent God instead of reminding his German audience of the lust of power.210 I understand Trigano’s reservation, but I would like to ask the question of whether Jonas did not speak about Divine retreat precisely in order to give the entire responsibility of history to human beings themselves? Religious meditation may help to promote responsibility and prevent democracy from sliding into totalitarianism. Indeed, we need more “anthropodicies” than “theodicies” on the Shoah: in its dark light, we don’t have to justify God, but rather to ask were was man.211 I even think, together with Levinas, that there is bankruptcy of every theodicy in the post-Shoah area.212 “Theologizing” the Shoah is bad, but a post-Shoah theology that allows for critical examination of the European way of thinking and that focuses on Jewish singularity—which is Trigano’s main theme—remains a possibility for me and even a must in the correction of Europe’s self-image.213 Another point where I disagree with Trigano is when he writes on the “rhetorical” Jew after the Shoah. The author criticizes people like Blanchot, Jabès, Levinas, or Lyotard, who write on Jewish non-identity, which would be a Pauline 208

Trigano, Democratic Idea, 177. Vasili Grossman, Life and Fate. A Novel, trans. Robert Chandler (New York: Harper and Row, 1985). 210 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 41. 211 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 40. 212 Levinas, “Useless Suffering,” in The Provocation of Levinas. Rethinking the Other, eds. R. Bernasconi and D. Wood (Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature) (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), 156-167. 213 See Meir, Towards an Active Memory. Society, Man and God after Auschwitz (Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: Resling, 2006). 209

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move, since in their writings, “the conceptual machine of the signifier ‘Jew’ runs on its own power, independently of the real existence of Jews.”214 Trigano’s own focus upon the real Jewish people and his opposition to the rhetorical Jew slightly obscure in certain passages the forgotten element, which—as he knows well—Jews remind others: that one is obligated before divine Law and that, consequently, life is not to be reduced to existence in a State. One may always contest this or that other point—two Jews, three opinions—, but Trigano’s study undoubtedly represents a profound analysis of the tragedy of a universal that excludes the singular and puts “others” outside the confines of citizenship. This is Trigano’s great merit, as he teaches us not to forget the differences within the universal. The Shoah concerns political modernity itself, which replaces the concern for real man by the glorification of abstract man and still does not have room for “the given.”215 Time and again, Trigano reminds his readers that he is writing about the Jews as a nation, about real Jews who are forgotten in rhetorical figures. Napoleon wanted to put an end to the Jews as a nation. With the emancipation, they became more or less equal citizens and abstract individuals in the modern States, but this model was shaken by Auschwitz. After the Shoah, they returned to their earlier status of citizenship. The collective impulse expressed itself in Diaspora communities, in the Jewish State, and also in international communism. Trigano maintains that with the decline of Zionist political culture in contemporary Israel, Jewish singularity remains unthinkable. He also notes that the Shoah is frequently seen as a decisive factor in Jewish collective identity and that one witnesses a religiousness that leads to ghettoized modes of identity.216 All this is true, and I understand 214

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 91. Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 204, 194. 216 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 36. 215

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Trigano’s aim to point to the repression of singularity, which remains unaddressed from the psychological point of view. But an outdated religiosity or being obsessed or haunted by the Shoah are not the only ways of shaping identities in post-Zionist Israel. There are other alternatives than the ultra-orthodox anti-Zionist view that sees the Shoah as punishment and Zionists who instrumentalize the Shoah for the State. It is understandable why Trigano writes that the Shoah, also in Israel, is unthinkable as basically a flaw in democracy; as such, he maintains, it is repressed. Yet it is not difficult to imagine an existence in Israel that is neither a simple return to an archaic religion nor an obsession by the Shoah. In Israel there are also people who combine religiosity with a sensibility for democratic plurality. One may link universal problems to a particular, explicitly Jewish point of view. Is it unthinkable to view Jewish particularity as a “particularist universalism” around the ineffable or the inexpressible, the always-exterior that is traditionally called God? Such a singularity is also lived in communities that remain open to universal questions, in continuity with a centuries-old past and in the challenging situation of the State of Israel. For a number of people in Israel, the Shoah is not “a religion,” unthinkable, but most thinkable, 217 not something out of time and space, but an event that took place and asks for the formation of a counter-culture, in which the other is central, precisely in Israel. At all events, and Trigano would agree with this proposition, celebrating and promoting diversity in the democracy and accepting plurality in Israel, so that it becomes more and more part and parcel of people’s memory of the Shoah, is the great task of everyone who lives in Israel. Sartre’s and Arendt’s reflections on the Shoah are highly appreciated by Trigano, who bases his work upon their findings, but who wants to go further. Sartre’s 1947 essay on anti-Semitism is valued by Trigano because it seeks the causes of anti-Semitism within political 217

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 36-37.

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modernity itself, through the analysis of the bourgeois and of the democrat. The democrat searched the universal by rejecting the singular and, in this way, democratic rationality repressed peoplehood. Arendt’s perspicacious analysis in the first part of The Origins of Totalitarianism is also highly esteemed because it examines the process of the emancipation of the Jews themselves and criticizes modern politics that produced totalitarianism. Arendt’s much-discussed position that the Jewish people took an active part in the global game is well known. So are her notions of the “pariah,” who stays out of society and of the “parvenu,” who conforms to society. Together with Arendt, Trigano sharply criticizes the nation-state, in which equality obscures dissimilation and singularity. The individual Jew was politically recognized, but Jews as a people were socially excluded. From Arendt’s complex arguments Trigano derives the view that the Jewish question is a political one: modernity did not cope with the Jewish peoplehood. Whereas in Part I Trigano analyses the Jew-of-the-Citizen, in part II he examines the Man-of the-Citizen. Part II tackles the problem of modernity, in which Man became the source of the law, but men in their singularity disappeared in the polity. Pointing at this flaw in democracy, Trigano contributes to what Tocqueville called the “democratic process,” a development which still continues. Indeed, men were removed from their singularity and historicity, eventually “regenerated,” in order for each to become a citizen, a Man. Here lies the great originality of Trigano’s work: the point at issue for him is the citizen much more than the Jew. Trigano thus recognizes the failure of democratic citizenship itself:218 in multicultural societies, abstract citizenship was not sufficient to guarantee human rights to nationals who did not belong to the dominant people.219 Hegel universalized the people and the singular identity in the state, instead of safeguarding the universal “while 218 219

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 156. Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 158.

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recognizing the singular in its place.”220 Marx criticized the state and thought of historicity by writing on the “class,” the proletariat, but for him, Jews were not a people, they followed a religion—and religion, for him, was “the opium of the masses.” Marx came close to the idea of an absolute state with an abstract “universal” humanity, which according to Trigano contains the seeds of the later communist totalitarianism.221 The philosophy of human rights did not foresee the violent return of the national phenomenon, what Jacob Talmon called “totalitarian democracy.”222 Trigano does not think that respect for difference and otherness alone solves the question. It only scratches the surface of a broader question that concerns political modernity as such.223 What is at stake in the relationship between the singularity of the Shoah and the universal is for him the question of “origin.” Relying upon Pierre Legendre, Trigano argues in psychoanalytical terms that the “origin” was refused and foreclosed. The Nazis attacked the notion of filiation as such, the very idea of law.224 The Nazi madness related to the modern state, which wants control over the body, and even to human rights, since Hitler saw his racist legislation as the holiest human right. Trigano quotes Durkheim, who thought that the human being is “the sacred thing par excellence,” but what Durkheim had in mind was the abstract idea of man, that is, man in whom there is nothing particular.225 Trigano himself tries to think anteriority, i.e. history in democracy by writing about singularity. He defines the lack of differentiation in society, the total absolute sharing, as problematic: one has to think of exteriority in order to allow for differentiation. The lack of differentiation led to a sacrificial crisis. Trigano writes about “the hidden religion” of modernity and 220

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 168. Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 168-171. 222 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 173. 223 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 185. 224 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 200. 225 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 205-207. 221

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democracy, in which one creates an undivided whole through exclusion: “all totalities are sacrificial,” he writes, it is unanimity, the whole minus the excluded.226 In the last section, Part III, which is unfortunately relatively short in comparison with the first two parts, Trigano discusses the Jew-of-theMan. The singularity of the Jews in citizenship met a catastrophic fate. Stating that mythicizing or denying this singularity opens the way towards covering up the abyss that the Shoah opened, Trigano offers his own conception of the Jewish singularity as paradigmatic in democracy. He distances himself from theorists who approach the Jews as representing the Law,227 but does not think that the figure of the Law is altogether misleading. He himself talks about the Jewish “people” as the people of the Book.228 Jews were the living testimony that they did not draw their identity solely from the state, for they had a “narrative of origin” that could not be replaced by the discourse of reason. They spoke about the Covenant, the union of the one and the many.229 In his critical reflection on Jewishness, Trigano then concludes that there is a life for peoples outside the confines of the nation-state. As a consequence, he criticizes Jews who see themselves more as Israelis than as Jews and identify more as a Jewish nation than a Jewish people.230 Focusing upon the situation in France, he writes that Askenazi and Neher, who emigrated to Israel, found themselves in ideological-political impasses, whereas Levinas, by universalizing the concept of chosenness, in his eyes did not help to perceive the limit that separates the singular from the universal.231 Trigano avoids the Scylla of mere universalism and the 226

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 232. An eminent representative of this view is, for instance, Jean-Gérard Bursztein, Hitler, la tyrannie et la psychanalyse - Essai sur la destruction de la civilization (Paris: Nouvelles Etudes Freudiennes, 1996). 228 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 251. 229 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 253. 230 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 256. 231 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 259. 227

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Charybdis of mere singularity. Although I have a different view about Levinas, who in my eyes had a keen eye for the particular contribution of Jews to universal narrative,232 I agree with Trigano that one does not have to choose between universalism or particularism and that this is finally a false dilemma. For Trigano, there is a disparity between peoples and nationstates. The reality of people is much greater than the nation, and humanity exists only through singular peoples. The people carry the political, that represses it and puts the citizen over and above Man. For Trigano, singularity is “the apotheosis of hominization.”233 Singularity or “identity” is beyond computation and outside the political, but it is the foundation of the political; it vanquishes the non-differentiation of nature. Against the trend of belittling the concept of identity, Trigano puts it in the center of his thought. At the same time, he makes it clear that identity presupposes the relation to the other. In doing so he comes close to Rosenzweig, who attaches a tremendous importance to being called by the personal name234 as well as to Levinas, who interprets difference as non-in-difference and places proximity, hospitality, and the rights of the other man above politics. Referring to the medieval Jewish thinker Joseph Albo, who puts the conventional law of a real political community above the universal, natural law, because it gives to justice its practical conditions of application, Trigano thinks about the singular as superior to the universal and as opposing totalization. In a further important move, he refers to the superior, “divine law,” about which Albo writes and which has disappeared from political modernity. Trigano gives much weight to withdrawal or separation, to transcendence, also

232

See for example. Levinas, “Antihumanism and Education,” in Difficult Freedom. Essays on Judaism, trans. Seán Hand (London: Athlone, 1990), 277-288. 233 Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 279. 234 Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. Barbara E. Galli (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 201-202.

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called the “reality principle,”235 that state universalism tried to seize. He thereby takes up themes which he developed in another of his books, Philosophie de la loi. L’origine de la politique dans la Tora [Philosophy of the Law. The Origin of Politics in the Torah],236 where he states that the political cannot seek its origin in itself. Transcendence was surreptitiously reintroduced in political immanence and one forgot the limitation of politics, its status as a secondary reality. Trigano succeeded in making a point that is rather neglected in the current debate about the Shoah. He sheds sociological and psychological light upon a central problem in democratic societies which is not sufficiently acknowledged in the debate on the memory of the Shoah. I therefore consider his book on democracy and its flaw a most important and original contribution to the shaping of what I call “an active memory” of the Shoah.

235 236

Trigano, Democratic Ideal, 284. Trigano, Philosophie de la loi. L’origine de la politique dans la Tora (Paris: Cerf,

1991).

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8. A Scholar of German-Jewish Philosophy. On the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life On Thursday, January 4, 2007, Rivka Horwitz, born Goldsmidt, passed away in Jerusalem at the age of eighty. She was one of the leading figures in the field of the study of Jewish culture and a pioneer in the Rosenzweig scholarship. Because of her scientific achievements in the field of German-Jewish thinking from Mendelssohn until Rosenzweig, she became honorary President of the International Rosenzweig Society. She was also awarded with the Hermann-Cohen medal for Jewish philosophy of culture. Rikva contributed significantly to the study of Jewish philosophy in Germany from Moses Mendelssohn until Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig. Her interests ranged from philosophy of language and dialogue to German-Jewish identity, Wissenschaft des Judentums, Jewish education, and Kabbalah. Rivka was born in Bad Homburg in 1926, where her father headed a sanatorium. They left for Palestine as early as 1933. In Jerusalem, starting in 1947, Rivka studied philosophy and Jewish thought. She benefited from great teachers, such as Samuel Hugo Bergman, Julius Guttmann, and Gershom Shalom. She continued her studies in the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where she met Abraham Joshua Heschel and wrote her MA on the kabbalist Rabbi Barukh ben Abraham of Kosov. She completed her studies in 1962 with a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania (Bryn Mawr). Her doctoral thesis was the first work on Rosenzweig written after the Shoa, entitled Speech and Time in the Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig. She then married Josef Horwitz, who later became a Professor of Physics in Jerusalem. They adopted two children. With her family, Rivka returned from the United States to Israel, where she held a variety of academic positions before she began teaching at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva in 1975. She taught in the Department of Jewish Thought, where

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she reached the rank of full Professor. In 1995 she was Franz Rosenzweig guest Professor in Kassel, where she lectured on the dialogical thought of Martin Buber. In a conversation of 1973, Rivka told a friend of mine, Dr. Masha Turner, that she was disillusioned with academic life in Israel and that she had decided to dedicate herself to writing: Through writing, redemption would come. However, academic recognition came soon, and she became a central figure in the Department for Jewish Thought in Beersheva and in all of Israel. Rivka had pursued a life-long interest in Franz Rosenzweig. She published on Rosenzweig as a returning Jew and philosopher, writing about his decision to remain a Jew, his relationship to Zionism, his pedagogical activities and thought, his unpublished writings that she had studied in the Leo Baeck Institute, on his correspondence with Buber in the Summer of 1922, his relation with Hermann Cohen, and his approach to language compared with that of Johann Georg Hamann. I was privileged to coauthoring with her an article on Franz Rosenzweig for the new Encyclopaedia Judaica. She personally knew Eugen Rosenstock and wrote on him. She also worked on the letters of Gritli Rosenstock-Huessy and published on the importance of letters for the spiritual biography of Rosenzweig. In a seventy-five page preface to her “Franz Rosenzweig. Letters and Diaries” (Hebrew, 1987), she definitively replaced Nahum Glazer’s mythological picture of Rosenzweig with a more realist approach. Her Hebrew translation of letters and diaries complemented Jehoshua Amir’s Hebrew translation of the Stern der Erlösung and of Zweistromland. The dialogical philosophy of Buber was also one of her great interests. Her book Buber’s Way to “I and Thou” (1978) is an historical analysis of “I and Thou” and contains the first publication of Buber’s lectures “Religion als Gegenwart.” The second edition of this book, published ten years later, contains the English translation of these famous lectures. With her analysis of “I and Thou,” Rivka showed new ways of

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looking at Buber and offered insights which have since become generally accepted. She introduced innovations into Buber research by pointing to Rosenzweig’s influence on “I and Thou.” She further wrote on Buber’s educational activities in Germany of the thirties, on gnosticism and creation in his philosophy, and on his concept of God. In 1985, Rivka organized a conference in Beersheva focusing on Isaac Breuer, in whose home she was educated in her teens. Although she did not share his ultra-orthodox standpoint—he belonged to the Separat Gemeinde—and identified more with the religious nationalists of Mizrahi, she found in the home of her parents’ friends an intellectual atmosphere, human warmth, tolerance, humor, and a love for life that accompanied her throughout her life. She edited the congress volume and added a Hebrew translation of some of Breuer’s articles. She studied the Neue Kuzari, which Prof. Mordechai Breuer translated into Hebrew, almost until the end of her life. Other books by Rivka deal with Zacharias Frankel, the Conservative movement (1984), and Rabbi Hyle Wechsler (1991). Rivka published on a variety of Jewish thinkers, such as Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, Shadal and Rabbi Nahman Krochmal, on the Sage Isaac Bernays and his influence on Samson Raphael Hirsch, on Cohen’s Religion der Vernunft, on Kafka, on Nehama Leibowitz and on David Hartman’s approach to Christianity in comparison with Paul Van Buren and Rosenzweig. She wrote articles on different themes in modern Jewish thinking, such as revelation, holiness, and the Bible. In recent years, Rivka manifested a growing interest in Levinas and in Abraham Joshua Heschel. She wrote on prayer and the Hasidic sources in Heschel’s work. In 2003, Heschel’s book God in Search of Man appeared in Hebrew translation, for which she wrote an introduction. Like Heschel, she combined in her own personality the warmth of Eastern European Jewry and an openness to modernity. Rivka was one of the first to point out the importance of Levinas’s philosophical approach

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of the Talmud. She lectured on the theme at the international Levinas conference in Jerusalem January 2006. A student of Gershom Shalom, she also loved writing on Kabbalah. She wrote the entries “Throne of God” and “Shekhina” in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, articles on Kabbalah and myth in 19th century Germany, on Agnon, and on Rabbi Nahman of Breslav. She wrote reviews of books by Gershom Shalom and Yeshayahu Tishby, compared Shalom with Rosenzweig, wrote on Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik and his attitude to religious experience and mystery, on Kabbalah in the writings of Moses Mendelssohn, Kabbalah and the maskilim of Berlin, on the renewal of Kabbalah in Germany after Samson Raphael Hirsch, and, most recently, on Rosenzweig and Kabbalah. The last book published during her lifetime was “Multiple Faceted Judaism,” which appeared in 2003; a volume with many of her articles on Rosenzweig appeared post mortem.237 On her deathbed, Rivka was presented with an early copy of the jubilee volume in honor of her eightieth birthday, compiled from contributions of friends, colleagues, and students.238 Rivka had the rare ability to be able to describe complex ideas of intellectual history in just a few lines. She had a strong sense of associations and a flair for finding the less-known details that help us to understand modern Jewish thought. She loved to relate in great detail the lives of the people in whose thought she was interested. Although her primary focus point was historical in nature, she combined research of Judaism with a lively interest in actual Jewish life and spirituality. She was not a historicist, but employed a historical approach to which she 237

Aviezer Cohen, ed., Franz Rosenzweig: The Star and The Man. Collected Studies by Rivka Horwitz, (Beersheva: Ben Gurion University, 2010). I wrote the introduction to this collection of studies (13-16). 238 Haviva Pedaya and Ephraim Meir, eds., Judaism, Topics, Fragments, Faces, Identities. Jubilee Volume in Honor of Rivka Horwitz (Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University, 2007).

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brought warm sympathy for the people she studied, although she could be very sharp in her criticism of them. The joy she took in analyzing and understanding the theories of great Jewish thinkers did not prevent her from occasionally being quite critical of their ideas. Rivka did not see any contradiction between a full Jewish life and the academic study of it. For her, the tree of knowledge did not obstruct the tree of life, but rather gave access to it. She did not study the Jewish sources as dead documents, but as living texts that echo in the thoughts of many modern Jewish thinkers. Research of the Jewish tradition and love for it were mutually supportive. Jerusalem Prof. Shalom Rosenberg once remarked that she was one of the few researchers who not only wrote on Jewish subjects, but also believed in what they wrote. Rivka was a demanding teacher, who dispensed sharp criticism if necessary. She also was generous in communicating knowledge and insights to whomever she met. For her, to learn meant to teach. When I came to Israel in 1983 I met Prof. Pinhas Peli, who wrote a column on the weekly Tora portion in the Jerusalem Post, where he combined Judaism and modernity, and through him, I became acquainted with Rivka. When Pinhas Peli became ill, he asked me to replace him at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, and this is how I became a colleague of Rivka’s. She recommended me for a position at Bar Ilan University, and so I owe my academic career in Israel to her. Rivka and I regularly visited Pinhas on his sickbed, looking for ways to alleviate his pain by putting his mind on other things. Our talks on Rosenzweig as a Jewish educator much interested Pinhas and they remain fresh in my memory. Over the years, Rivka and I read each other’s articles, writing our remarks, appreciation, and eventually criticism. We became friends for life. She introduced me to many people, in Israel and abroad, and our ongoing conversations could take place early in the morning or late in the evening. Frequently, Rivka invited people to her home, and discussed various fields of Jewish thought in a free and relaxed way, very often

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around a table full of food. There were many study-circles in her home, of course on Rosenzweig, but also on Levinas and Heschel. She loved to sit with students and colleagues, and her home became a kind of free Jewish Lehrhaus in Jerusalem. She was an intensive listener and knew how to stimulate others’ conversation and thought. Many of her students remained close to her after their studies were completed. Through our research, we will continue the conversations that we began with Rivka. In the time to come, many friends of Rivka will deal with the comprehensive oeuvre she left us and remember her as a warm person with a refined spirit who cherished Jewish tradition and thought. May her memory be blessed.

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9. How to Think Death from Time and not Time from Death Emmanuel Levinas’s book Death and Time consists of the material from a course during the academic year 1975-1976.239 The text testifies to his oral teaching, to his manner of repeating, summarizing, and announcing new points of thought as a way of making the listener curious about what would follow. Levinas was a prolific writer, but in this book, which appears now in Hebrew translation, we are confronted, rather, with his oral teaching. More than in his written work, Levinas here fully explains the positions of other thinkers on time and death, offering his own perspective simultaneously. The reader will keep in mind that the text follows not only Totality and Infinity of 1961, where Levinas discusses the alterity of the Other and the relationship between the Same and the Other, but primarily Otherwise than Being of 1974, which discusses the subjectivity of the subject. Traces and echoes of these mature works, especially the last one, are palpable in this rendition of his course. Although Levinas has discussed death and time in earlier works, only in Otherwise than Being do his ideas on these themes reach their acme. Time is conceived of as the confrontation of a subject with the face of the Other, that is always exterior, never to be assumed. In other words: time is not the result of an isolated subject, but of the relation to the Other. One may think about the Hebrew bi-nomium zeman-zamin: real human time (zeman) is being called by the Other and being available (zamin) for him. From this perspective, the encounter with death is less my time that threatens to end and that creates Heideggerian Angst as basis of all emotions, than the encounter with the Other, who is mortal 239

The text was published as “La Mort et le temps” in Emmanuel Lévinas (Les Cahiers de l’Herne), eds. Catherine Chalier and Miguel Abensour (Paris: Éditions de l'Herne, 1991), 21-75.

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and absolutely other, and whose mortality provokes my responsibility and causes an emotion, which is the source of intentionality. History of philosophy The text of the course explicitly deals with the positions of other philosophers, not least those of Husserl and Heidegger, Levinas’s famous teachers. It treats the themes of death and time,—themes that he discussed in his writings, but never so exhaustively as the way he does here. Levinas is in dialogue with Heidegger, Kant, Hegel, Bloch, and Bergson, and refers to philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, Fink and Jankélévitch. The question of death is an ancient one; Plato already dealt with death and the immortality of the soul. The theme of death returns in the system of Hegel and in Heidegger’s ontology, and Levinas explicitly deals with their thoughts. In the first lessons, Levinas asks questions about death and time, then the bulk of the course treats different philosophies on these themes, but from his own perspective. In the final lessons, Levinas again takes up his initial questions and delivers his own thoughts. Heidegger and Hegel For Levinas, reading Heidegger is unavoidable, yet he strongly opposes the Heideggerian Weltanschauung.240 In Heidegger’s work, time and death are functions of his ontology, and infinity is not suggested even once. Time is thought of as starting from the death of the Dasein. For Levinas, to the contrary, death is imagined as starting from time, which is the relationship to the Other. Time is not a limitation of being, but the relation to the infinite that cannot be contained. It is unrest in the Same caused by the Other, but not unrest as a modality of an intentionality; it is 240

See chapter 3, “‘Hebrew’ in ‘Greek’: Beyond Heidegger” in my Levinas’s Jewish Thought Between Jerusalem and Athens (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008), 70-92.

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rather intentionality that is a modality of unrest. Being is not conatus as in Heidegger’s ontology, but hostage to the Other, being accused i.e., urged to be responsible. The Other’s death is my business. The human being for Levinas is more than conatus, it is a response to the Other’s demand. Levinas is aware of the fact that, in the history of philosophy, nothingness is inaccessible and that nothingness as separated from all being has not been thought about enough in philosophy. In Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, however, there is the possibility of access to nothingness via Angst (in a way that is parallel to Rosenzweig’s thinking). Nothingness becomes thinkable in death. Death is nothingness as the end of the Dasein, which is linked to the Being. Death is nothingness that becomes possibility. Man exists on the pathway to death, there is always the possibility of dying, which is something “das Man” wants us to forget. For Levinas, on the contrary, death appears in the perspective of the question coming from the Other’s face. The question of death is my responsibility for the death of the Other. My own mortality, my death, is not a possibility of the impossibility, but the impossibility of possibilities, it is being seized. Heidegger, who reduces metaphysics to ontology, protests against the error of onto-theology. He further deduces the I from ontology: it is a Dasein because of his Jemeinigkeit. Death reveals the ontological structure of Jemeinigkeit. Time is originally the possibility of “being” and “dying.” Primary time beyond linear time is understood through mortality. Yet, for Levinas what is at stake is first of all the mortality of the other man. In his metaphysics, he highlights the fact that I am irreplaceable in my responsibility for the Other, which defines me. He thinks of time as being revealed by the Other, with the impossibility of rest because of the disproportion between me and the Infinite, because of the à-Dieu.

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Levinas brings Bergson and Kant against Heidegger. In his Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion Bergson posits “duration” as relation to the neighbor, something inter-human. And Kant, with his questions “what do I have to do” and “what may I hope for,” does not refer to Being. He talks, rather, about meaning that does not stem from a relation to Being. One has to live as if the soul is immortal and as if God exists. The ultimate Good can only be hoped for. There is the rational hope of conciliation between virtue and happiness. In accordance with Kant, Levinas argues that in the history of philosophy there is meaning other than finitude and that a Heideggerian reduction is not necessary. Time is the reception of a surplus, not only a relationship with what happens, but with what can happen. What profoundly disturbs Levinas in Heidegger’s ontology is that the fear of being killed is greater than the fear of becoming a killer. Levinas, who subordinates Being to ethics, thinks of death starting from time. Time is not going towards nothingness, but going towards u-topy. “Love is stronger than death” is for him a meaningful saying. If one really loves, something is produced in the being which is higher or better than being. Being contains more than Being. It is not my not-being that causes fear, but the non-being of the beloved one. Love of the Other is an emotion caused by his approaching death. Death is encountered in the face of the Other. Levinas distances himself from Heidegger’s Sein zum Tode. He also criticizes Hegel, for whom pure, undetermined being and pure nothingness are the same. Hegel thinks of death in connection to the conduct of the survivor. Levinas finds another way of thinking about death in the philosophy of Bloch, who, in his Marxist vision, conceives of time as related to utopy; time is hope and death appears as the fear of leaving work unfinished. Time as Infinity in the finite and as diachrony

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Time as Infinity in the finite and as diachrony In Levinas’s view, time is esteem for the Infinite. The non-representable, the Other—God if one wants a religious term—, affects the Same in time. The Other is in the Same, not contained in the Same, not assimilated; he affects the Same in an ethical way. Before becoming Self, the Other is in my skin. The difference between the Same and the Other is a non-indifference. Time is my proximity to the Other, the metaphysical Desire for the Other. As in Otherwise than Being, the subject in these weekly lessons is not thought of as isolated, or as the Self, coming permanently back to himself. The subject is rather subjected, his identity constituted by the always exterior Other. The I is exposed, elected, inspired, and pre-original. In this perspective, time is diachronic, not to be synthesized, without possibility of synchrony in retention and protention, in memory and anticipation. The subject is not in time; it is always too late in comparison with the desired Other. Time occurs in the relation with the Other. It is diachronic. Not as in Husserl, where there is a possibility of synchrony, of a living present in which past instants are retained or other instants are foreseen for the future, and not as in Heidegger, where being is a being-to-death. Time is a relationship to difference, lived in nonindifference. It is relation with the Infinite. Time comes from the disproportion between the metaphysical Desire and the desired. This Desire ruptures the intentional conscience. Time is thus less linked to my possession than to my dis-position. What makes time human and what makes real transcendence possible is the beyond time in time. Mortality and responsibility Death and time are linked in Levinas’s lessons on the subject. There is the mortality of the Other and therefore my responsibility. Time is not any more the horizon of the being, but the intrigue of subjectivity-inrelation. Confronted with the death of the Other, I have the responsibility of a survivor. Death therefore brings an unrest, an emotion, that is not to

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be reduced to the Heideggerian Angst of being confronted with nothingness. Time is linked to the body as ethical body. Modern man knows the temptation of positivism, which reduces humanity to some facts: biological, physiological, and chemical facts. The body in Levinas is not a complex machine, but the more in the less: the Other is in my skin, without my possibility of containing him, appealing to my responsibility. Face to face with the Other, I cannot look from the side, I am from the beginning or, more precisely, before my beginning, answerable for the Other. Rosenzweig and Levinas It is well known that Levinas was greatly influenced by Rosenzweig. This is also true when he treats the themes of time and death, although he does not explicitly refer to the German-Jewish philosopher of Kassel. True, whereas in Rosenzweig the death of the individual appears as a rupture of totality (of history, of thought, and of the self), death in Levinas is first of all linked to the death of the Other: his mortality is my responsibility.241 But revelation as conceived in the Star of Redemption requires that one does not leave the other as he is and that one animates him and makes him alive in a loving relationship. Levinas’s notion of revelation too demands respect for and engagement towards someone in an ethical attitude of non-indifference. Like Rosenzweig, Levinas speaks about death as a being seized: death is exterior, as the Other is exterior, irreducible to the Self and not graspable (in Levinas’s terms: not in the light). Levinas says that death is not appearing, as opposed to phenomenology. And as does Rosenzweig, he quotes from the Song of Songs “Love is strong as death.”242 He does not quote this saying in order 241

Rosenzweig’s introductory words in Star on the fear of death are strongly reminiscent of Heidegger’s Angst of the Dasein-zum-Tode. 242 Song of Songs 8:6. In the Star, the Self is metamorphosed under the commandment of love and becomes “soul.” Rosenzweig further writes about the Jewish custom of

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to prove some religious truth, or in order to jump into another world. Levinas is well aware of the danger that lurks in the language of the preacher who talks too easily about death so that death loses its sting. He maintains that death is annihilation. But taking into account religious and social thinking, he thinks about death first of all as murder. The biblical verse “Thou shalt not kill” comes to his mind. Whereas for Rosenzweig, man is responsible for inspiring the entire world after his being inspired by the love commandment, Levinas in his post-Shoa thinking highlights that we are affected by the death of the Other and that we are in fear of the immobility of his face. This being emotionally affected by death is passive, not the result of an intentionality that is located in the self, but linked to an immemorial diachrony that cannot be reduced to experience. Death provokes compassion and solidarity. The relation to death is older than any experience. Time is a relation to the different that cannot be remembered or anticipated in synchrony. It is in this sense that—as far as Levinas is concerned—philosophy is far from being identical with ontology; man is more than a Dasein, persevering in the Being and death can never be reduced to my death.

wearing a death garment at the wedding ceremony. In his thought, death ruptures the Self, but so does love, which vanquishes death.

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Jerusalemer Texte Schriften aus der Arbeit der Jerusalem-Akademie herausgegeben von Hans-Christoph Goßmann Band 1:

Peter Maser, Facetten des Judentums. Aufsätze zur Begegnung von Christen und Juden sowie zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kunst, 2009, 667 S.

Band 2:

Hans-Christoph Goßmann; Reinhold Liebers (Hrsg.), Hebräische Sprache und Altes Testament. Festschrift für Georg Warmuth zu 65. Geburtstag, 2010, 237 S.

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Hans-Christoph Goßmann (Hrsg.), Reformatio viva. Festschrift für Bischof em. Dr. Hans Christian Knuth zum 70. Geburtstag, 2010, 300 S.

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Ephraim Meir, Identity Dialogically Constructed, 2011, 157 S.

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