Michael S. Kogan
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195112597
- eISBN:
- 9780199872275
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195112597.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter addresses the question: how far can Jews and Christians go in affirming the faith of the other? It presents a reassessment of Christianity by modern Jewish theologians: Franz Rosenzweig, ...
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This chapter addresses the question: how far can Jews and Christians go in affirming the faith of the other? It presents a reassessment of Christianity by modern Jewish theologians: Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. It then presents a reassessment of Judaism by three modern Christian theologians: Paul van Buren, A. Roy Echardt, and Clark M. Williamson. It argues that the dialogue does not and should not ask either faith tradition to give up any of its positive doctrines. What each must be willing to do is to reevaluate negative convictions. In altering the views of the other Judaism and Christianity should be recognised as having crucial roles to play in sacred history.Less
This chapter addresses the question: how far can Jews and Christians go in affirming the faith of the other? It presents a reassessment of Christianity by modern Jewish theologians: Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. It then presents a reassessment of Judaism by three modern Christian theologians: Paul van Buren, A. Roy Echardt, and Clark M. Williamson. It argues that the dialogue does not and should not ask either faith tradition to give up any of its positive doctrines. What each must be willing to do is to reevaluate negative convictions. In altering the views of the other Judaism and Christianity should be recognised as having crucial roles to play in sacred history.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804776646
- eISBN:
- 9780804781008
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804776646.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter uses the Jewish Theological Practice (JTP) model to analyze Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption. After providing a brief introduction to Rosenzweig and his book, it considers the ...
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This chapter uses the Jewish Theological Practice (JTP) model to analyze Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption. After providing a brief introduction to Rosenzweig and his book, it considers the methodological issues peculiar to the Star. It discusses two of Rosenzweig's contemporary interpreters, Leora Batnitzky and Peter Gordon and then explores exegesis, hermeneutics, divine perfection, and religious experience as sources for the principal theological claims in the Star. In the Star, Rosenzweig promotes a highly intimate divine-human relationship that purports to produce limited knowledge of God. The chapter concludes by addressing the limits that Rosenzweig places on his theological language.Less
This chapter uses the Jewish Theological Practice (JTP) model to analyze Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption. After providing a brief introduction to Rosenzweig and his book, it considers the methodological issues peculiar to the Star. It discusses two of Rosenzweig's contemporary interpreters, Leora Batnitzky and Peter Gordon and then explores exegesis, hermeneutics, divine perfection, and religious experience as sources for the principal theological claims in the Star. In the Star, Rosenzweig promotes a highly intimate divine-human relationship that purports to produce limited knowledge of God. The chapter concludes by addressing the limits that Rosenzweig places on his theological language.
David Novak
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195072730
- eISBN:
- 9780199853410
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195072730.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter presents Franz Rosenzweig's constitution of the Jewish–Christian relationship. Rosenzweig sees religion as one that is exclusively founded on revelation. One cannot understand his ...
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This chapter presents Franz Rosenzweig's constitution of the Jewish–Christian relationship. Rosenzweig sees religion as one that is exclusively founded on revelation. One cannot understand his movement from philosophy to religion as a movement simply from atheism to theism, Rosenzweig must be seen as moving from a detached ahistorical position to an affirmation of historical revelation. Rosenzweig was convinced that a Jew had to look out on the world from his Jewish standpoint and constitute it for himself. For him, revelation can only be either Jewish or Christian. For Rosenzweig, each community performs a vital function for the other. In Rosenzweig's constitution of the Jewish–Christian relationship, the particular origin (Judaism) of a universal process retains its individuality until the separation between the two is overcome at a higher level.Less
This chapter presents Franz Rosenzweig's constitution of the Jewish–Christian relationship. Rosenzweig sees religion as one that is exclusively founded on revelation. One cannot understand his movement from philosophy to religion as a movement simply from atheism to theism, Rosenzweig must be seen as moving from a detached ahistorical position to an affirmation of historical revelation. Rosenzweig was convinced that a Jew had to look out on the world from his Jewish standpoint and constitute it for himself. For him, revelation can only be either Jewish or Christian. For Rosenzweig, each community performs a vital function for the other. In Rosenzweig's constitution of the Jewish–Christian relationship, the particular origin (Judaism) of a universal process retains its individuality until the separation between the two is overcome at a higher level.
Paul Mendes‐Flohr
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199206575
- eISBN:
- 9780191709678
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199206575.003.0019
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
This chapter examines how Franz Rosenzweig read and responded to the Song of Songs' juxtaposition of love and death. Rosenzweig viewed the erotic imagery of the Song of Songs as the most eloquent ...
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This chapter examines how Franz Rosenzweig read and responded to the Song of Songs' juxtaposition of love and death. Rosenzweig viewed the erotic imagery of the Song of Songs as the most eloquent statement in the Hebrew Bible on the meaning of revelation, of the divine-human relation. Indeed, he refers to this love-song as the Kernbuch der Offenbarung, the focal-book of revelation. Yet God is not once mentioned, nor even alluded to, in this dialogue between a man and a woman, testifying to the physical delights and anguish of their mutual love.Less
This chapter examines how Franz Rosenzweig read and responded to the Song of Songs' juxtaposition of love and death. Rosenzweig viewed the erotic imagery of the Song of Songs as the most eloquent statement in the Hebrew Bible on the meaning of revelation, of the divine-human relation. Indeed, he refers to this love-song as the Kernbuch der Offenbarung, the focal-book of revelation. Yet God is not once mentioned, nor even alluded to, in this dialogue between a man and a woman, testifying to the physical delights and anguish of their mutual love.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804755214
- eISBN:
- 9780804769976
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804755214.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter examines the development of Franz Rosenzweig's thought as a philosophy of history. It considers his early rejection of historical relativism, the messianic epistemology he proposed in ...
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This chapter examines the development of Franz Rosenzweig's thought as a philosophy of history. It considers his early rejection of historical relativism, the messianic epistemology he proposed in his essay “The New Thinking,” and the messianic history he laid out in The Star of Redemption. The chapter also discusses Rosenzweig's interpretation of messianism as the drive toward the realization of universal justice in history, and suggests that his theory of individuality also took shape in conjunction with a radical rethinking of time and history.Less
This chapter examines the development of Franz Rosenzweig's thought as a philosophy of history. It considers his early rejection of historical relativism, the messianic epistemology he proposed in his essay “The New Thinking,” and the messianic history he laid out in The Star of Redemption. The chapter also discusses Rosenzweig's interpretation of messianism as the drive toward the realization of universal justice in history, and suggests that his theory of individuality also took shape in conjunction with a radical rethinking of time and history.
Randi Rashkover
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234523
- eISBN:
- 9780823240883
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234523.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Chapter 5 offers a philosophical presentation of the logic of law first through an examination of Franz Rosenzweig's New Thinking as an extension of F.W.J. Schelling's theology of divine freedom. ...
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Chapter 5 offers a philosophical presentation of the logic of law first through an examination of Franz Rosenzweig's New Thinking as an extension of F.W.J. Schelling's theology of divine freedom. Schelling's theology introduces philosophically the link between divine freedom and law earlier introduced in the Biblical analysis of God. Rosenzweig's essay, “The New Thinking,” deepens the analysis of the nexus between divine freedom and divine law and articulates the impact of both on freedom of human action and knowledge of the world. This chapter shows therefore how the logic of the law introduces a paradigm shift in analyses of how human desire relates to power and the production of knowledge about the world.Less
Chapter 5 offers a philosophical presentation of the logic of law first through an examination of Franz Rosenzweig's New Thinking as an extension of F.W.J. Schelling's theology of divine freedom. Schelling's theology introduces philosophically the link between divine freedom and law earlier introduced in the Biblical analysis of God. Rosenzweig's essay, “The New Thinking,” deepens the analysis of the nexus between divine freedom and divine law and articulates the impact of both on freedom of human action and knowledge of the world. This chapter shows therefore how the logic of the law introduces a paradigm shift in analyses of how human desire relates to power and the production of knowledge about the world.
Adam Zachary Newton
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263516
- eISBN:
- 9780823266470
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263516.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Chapter 7 corresponds itself to the third major part of the book, “Languages.” Its title, “Abyss, Volcano, and the Frozen Swirl of Words” incorporates metaphors drawn from essays by Gershom Scholem ...
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Chapter 7 corresponds itself to the third major part of the book, “Languages.” Its title, “Abyss, Volcano, and the Frozen Swirl of Words” incorporates metaphors drawn from essays by Gershom Scholem and Emmanuel Levinas about the Aktualisierung (“actualization”) or Verweltlichung (“secularization”) of Hebrew in the twentieth century. Restaging the interplay of “difficult” and “holy,” the chapter groups together a set of philosophical essays about translation and language in its material aspect: “Revealment and Concealment in Language” from 1915, by Hayyim Nahman Bialik; “Confession on the Subject of Our Language”, a 1926 letter from Gershom Scholem dedicated to Franz Rosenzweig; and Rosenzweig’s 1926 and 1925 essays, “Scripture and Luther” and “New Hebrew.” The chapter is bookended by excerpts from Bialik’s 1904 poem “Before the Bookcase” and the remarkable hymn to the Hebrew language from 1946, “Engraved Are Your Letters” by the American He- braist Abraham Regelson. Walter Benjamin’s 1916 essay, “On Language as Such and the Language of Man” and the 1923 essay on translation serve as points of reference, along with Levinas’s “Poetry and Resurrection: Notes on Agnon” from 1976. “The Eyes of Language: The Abyss and the Volcano,” Derrida’s fervent and ingenious 1986 essay analyzing the Scholem letter, and Monolingualism of the Other, his 1996 text on Rosenzweig, provide a postmodern counterpoint.Less
Chapter 7 corresponds itself to the third major part of the book, “Languages.” Its title, “Abyss, Volcano, and the Frozen Swirl of Words” incorporates metaphors drawn from essays by Gershom Scholem and Emmanuel Levinas about the Aktualisierung (“actualization”) or Verweltlichung (“secularization”) of Hebrew in the twentieth century. Restaging the interplay of “difficult” and “holy,” the chapter groups together a set of philosophical essays about translation and language in its material aspect: “Revealment and Concealment in Language” from 1915, by Hayyim Nahman Bialik; “Confession on the Subject of Our Language”, a 1926 letter from Gershom Scholem dedicated to Franz Rosenzweig; and Rosenzweig’s 1926 and 1925 essays, “Scripture and Luther” and “New Hebrew.” The chapter is bookended by excerpts from Bialik’s 1904 poem “Before the Bookcase” and the remarkable hymn to the Hebrew language from 1946, “Engraved Are Your Letters” by the American He- braist Abraham Regelson. Walter Benjamin’s 1916 essay, “On Language as Such and the Language of Man” and the 1923 essay on translation serve as points of reference, along with Levinas’s “Poetry and Resurrection: Notes on Agnon” from 1976. “The Eyes of Language: The Abyss and the Volcano,” Derrida’s fervent and ingenious 1986 essay analyzing the Scholem letter, and Monolingualism of the Other, his 1996 text on Rosenzweig, provide a postmodern counterpoint.
Michael L. Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195148626
- eISBN:
- 9780199870011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195148622.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter covers the writings and interchanges of various Jewish theologians who wrote in America in the late 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s, who included existentialists, and Reform Jewish ...
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This chapter covers the writings and interchanges of various Jewish theologians who wrote in America in the late 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s, who included existentialists, and Reform Jewish theologians. These writers include Emil Fackenheim, Will Herberg, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Eugene Borowitz, Bernhard Heller, Jakob Petuchowski, Arthur Cohen, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Joseph Soloveitchik, Lou Silberman, Bernard Martin, Eliezer Berkovits, Richard Rubinstein, and many others. The chapter also covers the debates in various journals as well as ideas put forward in more substantial publications (essays, books, etc.).Less
This chapter covers the writings and interchanges of various Jewish theologians who wrote in America in the late 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s, who included existentialists, and Reform Jewish theologians. These writers include Emil Fackenheim, Will Herberg, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Eugene Borowitz, Bernhard Heller, Jakob Petuchowski, Arthur Cohen, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Joseph Soloveitchik, Lou Silberman, Bernard Martin, Eliezer Berkovits, Richard Rubinstein, and many others. The chapter also covers the debates in various journals as well as ideas put forward in more substantial publications (essays, books, etc.).
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804755214
- eISBN:
- 9780804769976
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804755214.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter examines the influence of Hermann Cohen on the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig. It identifies what Rosenzweig acknowledges as his debt to Cohen and those aspects of Cohen's thought that ...
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This chapter examines the influence of Hermann Cohen on the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig. It identifies what Rosenzweig acknowledges as his debt to Cohen and those aspects of Cohen's thought that he did not directly acknowledge but which nevertheless become part of his thinking. The chapter considers Rosenzweig's philosophy as growing out of his fundamental concern to preserve a notion of the concrete human individual against generalization by means of concepts, and analyzes how he framed and developed his thinking of Jewish uniqueness in terms of election.Less
This chapter examines the influence of Hermann Cohen on the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig. It identifies what Rosenzweig acknowledges as his debt to Cohen and those aspects of Cohen's thought that he did not directly acknowledge but which nevertheless become part of his thinking. The chapter considers Rosenzweig's philosophy as growing out of his fundamental concern to preserve a notion of the concrete human individual against generalization by means of concepts, and analyzes how he framed and developed his thinking of Jewish uniqueness in terms of election.
Hermann Levin Goldschmidt
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228263
- eISBN:
- 9780823237142
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228263.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
First published in 1957, this book is a rethinking of the German–Jewish experience. The book challenges the elegiac view of Gershom Scholem, showing us the German–Jewish legacy in literature, ...
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First published in 1957, this book is a rethinking of the German–Jewish experience. The book challenges the elegiac view of Gershom Scholem, showing us the German–Jewish legacy in literature, philosophy, and critical thought in a new light. Part One re-examines the breakthrough to modernity, tracing the moves of thinkers like Moses Mendelssohn, building on the legacies of religious figures like the Baal Shem Tov and radical philosophers such as Spinoza. This vision of modernity, the book shows, rested upon a belief that “remnants” of the radical past could provide ideas and energy for reconceiving the modern world. The book's philosophy of the remnant animates Part Two as well, where his account of the political history of the Jews in modernity and the riches of Jewish culture as recast in German–Jewish thought provide insights into Leo Baeck, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig, among others. Part Three analyzes the post-Auschwitz complex, and uses the Book of Job to break through that trauma. Biblical in its perspective, the book describes the innovative ways that German–Jewish writers and thinkers anticipated what we now call multiculturalism and its concern with the Other. Rather than destined to destruction, the German–Jewish experience is reconceived here as a past whose unfulfilled project remains urgent and contemporary—a dream yet to be realized in practice, and hence a task that still awaits its completion.Less
First published in 1957, this book is a rethinking of the German–Jewish experience. The book challenges the elegiac view of Gershom Scholem, showing us the German–Jewish legacy in literature, philosophy, and critical thought in a new light. Part One re-examines the breakthrough to modernity, tracing the moves of thinkers like Moses Mendelssohn, building on the legacies of religious figures like the Baal Shem Tov and radical philosophers such as Spinoza. This vision of modernity, the book shows, rested upon a belief that “remnants” of the radical past could provide ideas and energy for reconceiving the modern world. The book's philosophy of the remnant animates Part Two as well, where his account of the political history of the Jews in modernity and the riches of Jewish culture as recast in German–Jewish thought provide insights into Leo Baeck, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig, among others. Part Three analyzes the post-Auschwitz complex, and uses the Book of Job to break through that trauma. Biblical in its perspective, the book describes the innovative ways that German–Jewish writers and thinkers anticipated what we now call multiculturalism and its concern with the Other. Rather than destined to destruction, the German–Jewish experience is reconceived here as a past whose unfulfilled project remains urgent and contemporary—a dream yet to be realized in practice, and hence a task that still awaits its completion.
Alan Mittleman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199297153
- eISBN:
- 9780191700835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297153.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines how Jews and Christians have responded to the attempted secularization of hope. It considers how the biblical religions, Christianity and Judaism, both resisted and were ...
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This chapter examines how Jews and Christians have responded to the attempted secularization of hope. It considers how the biblical religions, Christianity and Judaism, both resisted and were co-opted by modern hope. The emphasis here is on how Jewish and Christian thinkers conceptualized the relationship between hope and politics. Politics in the broadest sense as organized human action on a large scale can either be a sufficient vehicle for the fulfilment of hope, a failure vis-a-vis human hope, or a necessary but insufficient engagement on behalf of human hope. Among Jewish thinkers, this chapter considers Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber. Among Christian thinkers, it looks at Walter Rauschenbusch, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jürgen Moltmann. Finally, it discusses the normative Catholic position on hope and politics. It concludes that, while modern Jewish and Christian religious thought contributes different resources to the civic project, both can form a common front on behalf of the renewal of a public philosophy and a shared story for a liberal society.Less
This chapter examines how Jews and Christians have responded to the attempted secularization of hope. It considers how the biblical religions, Christianity and Judaism, both resisted and were co-opted by modern hope. The emphasis here is on how Jewish and Christian thinkers conceptualized the relationship between hope and politics. Politics in the broadest sense as organized human action on a large scale can either be a sufficient vehicle for the fulfilment of hope, a failure vis-a-vis human hope, or a necessary but insufficient engagement on behalf of human hope. Among Jewish thinkers, this chapter considers Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber. Among Christian thinkers, it looks at Walter Rauschenbusch, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jürgen Moltmann. Finally, it discusses the normative Catholic position on hope and politics. It concludes that, while modern Jewish and Christian religious thought contributes different resources to the civic project, both can form a common front on behalf of the renewal of a public philosophy and a shared story for a liberal society.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804755214
- eISBN:
- 9780804769976
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804755214.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter examines Franz Rosenzweig's views on the questions of nationality, language, and translation in his Jüdische Rundschau. It analyzes the role of German, Jewish, and German-Jewish ...
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This chapter examines Franz Rosenzweig's views on the questions of nationality, language, and translation in his Jüdische Rundschau. It analyzes the role of German, Jewish, and German-Jewish exemplarity in Jacques Derrida's philosophical nationality project, and puts forward Derrida Rosenzweig's views on Jewish existence and Hermann Cohen's views on German Judaism to pursue the question of (Jewish) identity or belonging through the optic of exemplarity. The chapter also considers Derrida's views on the debate between Rosenzweig and Gershom Scholem on the issue of translation and sacred language.Less
This chapter examines Franz Rosenzweig's views on the questions of nationality, language, and translation in his Jüdische Rundschau. It analyzes the role of German, Jewish, and German-Jewish exemplarity in Jacques Derrida's philosophical nationality project, and puts forward Derrida Rosenzweig's views on Jewish existence and Hermann Cohen's views on German Judaism to pursue the question of (Jewish) identity or belonging through the optic of exemplarity. The chapter also considers Derrida's views on the debate between Rosenzweig and Gershom Scholem on the issue of translation and sacred language.
Abigail Gillman
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226477695
- eISBN:
- 9780226477862
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226477862.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The three translators of the fourth wave believed that modern people’s relationship to the Bible, and to religion, had become reified, and that translation, undertaken in a modernist vein, could ...
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The three translators of the fourth wave believed that modern people’s relationship to the Bible, and to religion, had become reified, and that translation, undertaken in a modernist vein, could provoke new religiosity. They rejected the scholarly methods of their forerunners and also the axiom that a German Jewish translation had to be clear, correct, and beautiful. In Die fünf Bücher der Weisung, Buber and Rosenzweig deployed German to defamiliarize Hebrew scripture; to channel the voice beneath the written text; and to facilitate an intimate theological encounter. Bertha Pappenheim, social activist, pedagogue, and writer, began translating the Tsene-Rene, the medieval Yiddish Women’s Bible, into a folksy, Yiddish-inflected German. Pappenheim believed that the Bible ought to promote simple piety and ethical practice. Pappenheim was Buber's student and friend; she also lectured at Rosenzweig’s Lehrhaus. Proponents of the Jewish cultural renaissance, all three produced groundbreaking translations before turning to the Bible: The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln (Pappenheim); The Tales of Rabbi Nachman (Buber); and Ninety-Two Poems of Judah Halevi (Rosenzweig). In the face of manifold crises of the early twentieth century, these three thinkers took radical measures to insure Jewish survival and renewal.Less
The three translators of the fourth wave believed that modern people’s relationship to the Bible, and to religion, had become reified, and that translation, undertaken in a modernist vein, could provoke new religiosity. They rejected the scholarly methods of their forerunners and also the axiom that a German Jewish translation had to be clear, correct, and beautiful. In Die fünf Bücher der Weisung, Buber and Rosenzweig deployed German to defamiliarize Hebrew scripture; to channel the voice beneath the written text; and to facilitate an intimate theological encounter. Bertha Pappenheim, social activist, pedagogue, and writer, began translating the Tsene-Rene, the medieval Yiddish Women’s Bible, into a folksy, Yiddish-inflected German. Pappenheim believed that the Bible ought to promote simple piety and ethical practice. Pappenheim was Buber's student and friend; she also lectured at Rosenzweig’s Lehrhaus. Proponents of the Jewish cultural renaissance, all three produced groundbreaking translations before turning to the Bible: The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln (Pappenheim); The Tales of Rabbi Nachman (Buber); and Ninety-Two Poems of Judah Halevi (Rosenzweig). In the face of manifold crises of the early twentieth century, these three thinkers took radical measures to insure Jewish survival and renewal.
Bruce Rosenstock
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823231294
- eISBN:
- 9780823235520
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823231294.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Drawing together two critical moments in the history of European Jewry—its entrance as a participant in the Enlightenment project of religious and political reform and its involvement ...
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Drawing together two critical moments in the history of European Jewry—its entrance as a participant in the Enlightenment project of religious and political reform and its involvement in the traumatic upheavals brought on by the Great War—this book offers a reappraisal of the intersection of culture, politics, theology, and philosophy in the modern world through the lens of two of the most important thinkers of their day, Moses Mendelssohn and Franz Rosenzweig. Their vision of the place of the Jewish people not only within German society, but also within the unfolding history of humankind as a whole challenged the reigning cultural assumptions of the day and opened new ways of thinking about reason, language, politics, and the sources of ethical obligation. In making the “Jewish question” serve as a way of reflecting upon the “human question” of how we can live together in acknowledgment of our finitude, our otherness, and our shared hope for a more just future, Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig modeled a way of doing philosophy as an engaged intervention in the most pressing existential issues confronting us all. In the final chapters of the book, the path beyond Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig is traced out in the work of Hannah Arendt and Stanley Cavell. In light of Arendt's and Cavell's reflections about the foundations of democratic sociality, the book offers a portrait of an “immigrant Rosenzweig” joined in conversation with his American “cousins”.Less
Drawing together two critical moments in the history of European Jewry—its entrance as a participant in the Enlightenment project of religious and political reform and its involvement in the traumatic upheavals brought on by the Great War—this book offers a reappraisal of the intersection of culture, politics, theology, and philosophy in the modern world through the lens of two of the most important thinkers of their day, Moses Mendelssohn and Franz Rosenzweig. Their vision of the place of the Jewish people not only within German society, but also within the unfolding history of humankind as a whole challenged the reigning cultural assumptions of the day and opened new ways of thinking about reason, language, politics, and the sources of ethical obligation. In making the “Jewish question” serve as a way of reflecting upon the “human question” of how we can live together in acknowledgment of our finitude, our otherness, and our shared hope for a more just future, Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig modeled a way of doing philosophy as an engaged intervention in the most pressing existential issues confronting us all. In the final chapters of the book, the path beyond Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig is traced out in the work of Hannah Arendt and Stanley Cavell. In light of Arendt's and Cavell's reflections about the foundations of democratic sociality, the book offers a portrait of an “immigrant Rosenzweig” joined in conversation with his American “cousins”.
Jonathan Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814740620
- eISBN:
- 9780814724798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814740620.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter explores how Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig bring God back into the picture and thus, represent a gesture of return to older modes of biblical interpretation. Their approach does not ...
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This chapter explores how Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig bring God back into the picture and thus, represent a gesture of return to older modes of biblical interpretation. Their approach does not simply restore medieval or midrashic approaches to scripture but rather shifts the focus of authority from the biblical text to a space between the reader and the text, a space wherein the voice of the divine can still be heard by contemporary readers. According to Buber and Rosenzweig, the divine voice can only be heard in the context of an address, challenge, or question put to a listener or reader. In this sense, the hermeneutics of Buber and Rosenzweig retains its identity as a dialogical hermeneutics. The dialogue between heaven and earth that has somehow been preserved in the biblical text has become a world-historical paradigm and inspiration for subsequent dialogue.Less
This chapter explores how Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig bring God back into the picture and thus, represent a gesture of return to older modes of biblical interpretation. Their approach does not simply restore medieval or midrashic approaches to scripture but rather shifts the focus of authority from the biblical text to a space between the reader and the text, a space wherein the voice of the divine can still be heard by contemporary readers. According to Buber and Rosenzweig, the divine voice can only be heard in the context of an address, challenge, or question put to a listener or reader. In this sense, the hermeneutics of Buber and Rosenzweig retains its identity as a dialogical hermeneutics. The dialogue between heaven and earth that has somehow been preserved in the biblical text has become a world-historical paradigm and inspiration for subsequent dialogue.
Aaron W. Hughes
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199356812
- eISBN:
- 9780199358199
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199356812.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism, Philosophy of Religion
Whereas previous systems of thought—from medieval Aristotelianism to German idealism—flattened particularity and the difference in which it was grounded by positing abstract universal forms, ...
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Whereas previous systems of thought—from medieval Aristotelianism to German idealism—flattened particularity and the difference in which it was grounded by positing abstract universal forms, Rosenzweig locates in the individual’s finitude the ability to grasp the “All” by means of the relationships that he or she enters into with others. Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption is arguably the greatest work of modern Jewish thought. However, I wish to argue that his desire to establish the superiority of Judaism and those who practice it sets up a highly problematic (and faulty) comparison that is powered by a problematic juxtaposition between an essentialized “eternal people” and an equally essentialized “peoples of the world.” An early twentieth-century philosophical system that is grounded in racial and religious superiority, and that seeks rejuvenation based on an acknowledgement of shared ancestry, culture, and blood should immediately alert us to its implicit and explicit connection to fascism. For, ultimately, Rosenzweig’s philosophy of Judaism is one that is predicated on Jewish difference and, as such, is highly exclusive.Less
Whereas previous systems of thought—from medieval Aristotelianism to German idealism—flattened particularity and the difference in which it was grounded by positing abstract universal forms, Rosenzweig locates in the individual’s finitude the ability to grasp the “All” by means of the relationships that he or she enters into with others. Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption is arguably the greatest work of modern Jewish thought. However, I wish to argue that his desire to establish the superiority of Judaism and those who practice it sets up a highly problematic (and faulty) comparison that is powered by a problematic juxtaposition between an essentialized “eternal people” and an equally essentialized “peoples of the world.” An early twentieth-century philosophical system that is grounded in racial and religious superiority, and that seeks rejuvenation based on an acknowledgement of shared ancestry, culture, and blood should immediately alert us to its implicit and explicit connection to fascism. For, ultimately, Rosenzweig’s philosophy of Judaism is one that is predicated on Jewish difference and, as such, is highly exclusive.
Bruce Rosenstock
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823231294
- eISBN:
- 9780823235520
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823231294.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter shows how Franz Rosenzweig's philosophy of revelation can be read as laying the foundation for a new “messianic friendship,” one between Moses Mendelssohn and ...
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This chapter shows how Franz Rosenzweig's philosophy of revelation can be read as laying the foundation for a new “messianic friendship,” one between Moses Mendelssohn and Friedrich Jacobi. It shows how Rosenzweig inherited Jacobi's concept of experientially-based revelation, but took it beyond Jacobi's gnostic anti-Judaism by offering a decidedly anti-gnostic reading of the “root words” of the Hebrew Bible in The Star of Redemption. Rosenzweig is at pains to show that the God of the Hebrew Bible is a person and not, as Jacobi claims Baruch Spinoza represents Him, subjectless substance. Rosenzweig can be said to have offered a posthumous resolution of the Spinoza Quarrel that respects both Mendelssohn and Jacobi in their efforts to offer philosophical recuperations of the concept of lived revelation. It is in this sense that a “messianic friendship” is stated between Mendelssohn and Jacobi.Less
This chapter shows how Franz Rosenzweig's philosophy of revelation can be read as laying the foundation for a new “messianic friendship,” one between Moses Mendelssohn and Friedrich Jacobi. It shows how Rosenzweig inherited Jacobi's concept of experientially-based revelation, but took it beyond Jacobi's gnostic anti-Judaism by offering a decidedly anti-gnostic reading of the “root words” of the Hebrew Bible in The Star of Redemption. Rosenzweig is at pains to show that the God of the Hebrew Bible is a person and not, as Jacobi claims Baruch Spinoza represents Him, subjectless substance. Rosenzweig can be said to have offered a posthumous resolution of the Spinoza Quarrel that respects both Mendelssohn and Jacobi in their efforts to offer philosophical recuperations of the concept of lived revelation. It is in this sense that a “messianic friendship” is stated between Mendelssohn and Jacobi.
Dana Hollander
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804755214
- eISBN:
- 9780804769976
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804755214.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This is a combined study of the philosophies of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) that explores the question: How may we account for the possibility of philosophy, of ...
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This is a combined study of the philosophies of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) that explores the question: How may we account for the possibility of philosophy, of universalism in thinking, without denying that all thinking is also idiomatic and particular? The book traces Derrida's interest in this topic, particularly emphasizing his work on “philosophical nationality” and his insight that philosophy is challenged in a special way by its particular “national” instantiations and that, conversely, discourses invoking a nationality comprise a philosophical ambition, a claim to being “exemplary.” Taking as its cue Derrida's readings of German-Jewish authors and his ongoing interest in questions of Jewishness, it pairs his philosophy with that of Franz Rosenzweig, who developed a theory of Judaism for which election is essential and who understood chosenness in an “exemplarist” sense as constitutive of human individuality as well as of the Jews' role in universal human history.Less
This is a combined study of the philosophies of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) and Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) that explores the question: How may we account for the possibility of philosophy, of universalism in thinking, without denying that all thinking is also idiomatic and particular? The book traces Derrida's interest in this topic, particularly emphasizing his work on “philosophical nationality” and his insight that philosophy is challenged in a special way by its particular “national” instantiations and that, conversely, discourses invoking a nationality comprise a philosophical ambition, a claim to being “exemplary.” Taking as its cue Derrida's readings of German-Jewish authors and his ongoing interest in questions of Jewishness, it pairs his philosophy with that of Franz Rosenzweig, who developed a theory of Judaism for which election is essential and who understood chosenness in an “exemplarist” sense as constitutive of human individuality as well as of the Jews' role in universal human history.
Eric L. Santner
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226734873
- eISBN:
- 9780226734897
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226734897.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Following Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling's lead, Franz Rosenzweig links the paradoxical materiality of the Other—his or her non-thing-like Thingness—to the enigma of human freedom. That is, ...
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Following Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling's lead, Franz Rosenzweig links the paradoxical materiality of the Other—his or her non-thing-like Thingness—to the enigma of human freedom. That is, when we encounter the Other in his or her singularity, we encounter that which in the Other contracts from all predicative being (and the matrix of relations established through it) in the very act of contracting predicates. To return to the context of intersubjectivity, the contrast Rosenzweig proposes is one between relation and encounter: between love in the third person, love on the basis of our predicative being—our knowable “whatness” or “essence”—and revelatory love, love as eventful encounter with the Other in his or her death-driven singularity, the uncanny locus of human freedom. Rosenzweig's crucial insight is that the capacity for ethical encounter can be understood as an event belonging to the “psychotheology of everyday life.” This chapter examines the paradox of the superego as well as Rosenzweig's views on Judaism, redemption, and revelation.Less
Following Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling's lead, Franz Rosenzweig links the paradoxical materiality of the Other—his or her non-thing-like Thingness—to the enigma of human freedom. That is, when we encounter the Other in his or her singularity, we encounter that which in the Other contracts from all predicative being (and the matrix of relations established through it) in the very act of contracting predicates. To return to the context of intersubjectivity, the contrast Rosenzweig proposes is one between relation and encounter: between love in the third person, love on the basis of our predicative being—our knowable “whatness” or “essence”—and revelatory love, love as eventful encounter with the Other in his or her death-driven singularity, the uncanny locus of human freedom. Rosenzweig's crucial insight is that the capacity for ethical encounter can be understood as an event belonging to the “psychotheology of everyday life.” This chapter examines the paradox of the superego as well as Rosenzweig's views on Judaism, redemption, and revelation.
Katja Garloff
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501704963
- eISBN:
- 9781501706011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501704963.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter turns to two German Jewish modernists who produced very emphatic visions of interreligious encounters in and through love. Around the First World War, the increase of antisemitism and ...
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This chapter turns to two German Jewish modernists who produced very emphatic visions of interreligious encounters in and through love. Around the First World War, the increase of antisemitism and the trend toward Jewish “dissimilation” reopened the debates about German Jewish identity. At this time Franz Rosenzweig and Else Lasker-Schüler define love as a quasi-religious event that ushers in the possibility of political renewal. In The Star of Redemption (1921), Rosenzweig develops a concept of revelatory love as the foundation of a new kind of universality. Revelatory love, which is modeled on divine love and experienced in erotic love, is conceived as an act of singularization that at the same time exposes the subject to others. As such it enables neighbor-love and a new form of community, the infinitely open neighborhood. The second half of the chapter shows that Lasker-Schüler's bold reinterpretation of biblical stories in Hebrew Ballads (1913) and other texts is a poetic performance of revelatory love. In contrast to earlier Romantic models, love is here a force of disjunction rather than unification, leading to a proliferation rather than a reduction of differences.Less
This chapter turns to two German Jewish modernists who produced very emphatic visions of interreligious encounters in and through love. Around the First World War, the increase of antisemitism and the trend toward Jewish “dissimilation” reopened the debates about German Jewish identity. At this time Franz Rosenzweig and Else Lasker-Schüler define love as a quasi-religious event that ushers in the possibility of political renewal. In The Star of Redemption (1921), Rosenzweig develops a concept of revelatory love as the foundation of a new kind of universality. Revelatory love, which is modeled on divine love and experienced in erotic love, is conceived as an act of singularization that at the same time exposes the subject to others. As such it enables neighbor-love and a new form of community, the infinitely open neighborhood. The second half of the chapter shows that Lasker-Schüler's bold reinterpretation of biblical stories in Hebrew Ballads (1913) and other texts is a poetic performance of revelatory love. In contrast to earlier Romantic models, love is here a force of disjunction rather than unification, leading to a proliferation rather than a reduction of differences.
