Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence PDF Author: Daniel H. Weiss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009221663
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Is commitment to God compatible with modern citizenship? In this book, Daniel H. Weiss provides new readings of four modern Jewish philosophers – Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin – in light of classical rabbinic accounts of God's sovereignty, divine and human violence, and the embodied human being as the image of God. He demonstrates how classical rabbinic literature is relevant to contemporary political and philosophical debates. Weiss brings to light striking political aspects of the writings of the modern Jewish philosophers, who have often been understood as non-political. In addition, he shows how the four modern thinkers are more radical and more shaped by Jewish tradition than has previously been thought. Taken as a whole, Weiss' book argues for a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between Judaism and politics, the history of Jewish thought, and the ethical and political dynamics of the broader Western philosophical tradition.

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence PDF Author: Daniel H. Weiss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009221663
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Get Book Here

Book Description
Is commitment to God compatible with modern citizenship? In this book, Daniel H. Weiss provides new readings of four modern Jewish philosophers – Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin – in light of classical rabbinic accounts of God's sovereignty, divine and human violence, and the embodied human being as the image of God. He demonstrates how classical rabbinic literature is relevant to contemporary political and philosophical debates. Weiss brings to light striking political aspects of the writings of the modern Jewish philosophers, who have often been understood as non-political. In addition, he shows how the four modern thinkers are more radical and more shaped by Jewish tradition than has previously been thought. Taken as a whole, Weiss' book argues for a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between Judaism and politics, the history of Jewish thought, and the ethical and political dynamics of the broader Western philosophical tradition.

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence PDF Author: Daniel Weiss
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781009221672
Category : God (Judaism)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence Is commitment to God compatible with modern citizenship? In this book, Daniel H. Weiss provides new readings of four modern Jewish philosophers - Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin - in light of classical rabbinic accounts of God's sovereignty, divine and human violence, and the embodied human being as the image of God. He demonstrates how classical rabbinic literature is relevant to contemporary political and philosophical debates. Weiss brings to light striking political aspects of the writings of the modern Jewish philosophers, who have often been understood as non-political. In addition, he shows how the four modern thinkers are more radical and more shaped by Jewish tradition than has previously been thought. Taken as a whole, Weiss' book argues for a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between Judaism and politics, the history of Jewish thought, and the ethical and political dynamics of the broader Western philosophical tradition"--

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence

Modern Jewish Philosophy and the Politics of Divine Violence PDF Author: Daniel H. Weiss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009221655
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Uncovers connections between modern Jewish philosophers and classical rabbinic thought, arguing for rethinking of Judaism, politics, and violence.

Divine Violence

Divine Violence PDF Author: James R. Martel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136632557
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Divine Violence looks at the question of political theology and its connection to sovereignty. It argues that the practice of sovereignty reflects a Christian eschatology, one that proves very hard to overcome even by left thinkers, such as Arendt and Derrida, who are very critical of it. These authors fall into a trap described by Carl Schmitt whereby one is given a (false) choice between anarchy and sovereignty, both of which are bound within—and return us to—the same eschatological envelope. In Divine Violence, the author argues that Benjamin supplies the correct political theology to help these thinkers. He shows how to avoid trying to get rid of sovereignty (the "anarchist move" that Schmitt tells us forces us to "decide against the decision") and instead to seek to de-center and dislocate sovereignty so that it’s mythological function is disturbed. He does this with the aid of divine violence, a messianic force that comes into the world to undo its own mythology, leaving nothing in its wake. Such a move clears the myths of sovereignty away, turning us to our own responsibility in the process. In that way, the author argues,Benjamin succeeds in producing an anarchism that is not bound by Schmitt’s trap but which is sustained even while we remain dazzled by the myths of sovereignty that structure our world. Divine Violence will be of interest to students of political theory, to those with an interest in political theology, philosophy and deconstruction, and to those who are interested in thinking about some of the dilemmas that the ‘left’ finds itself in today.

The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy

The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy PDF Author: Steven Nadler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521843235
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This volume surveys the history of Jewish philosophy from antiquity to the early modern period, with an emphasis on medieval Jewish thought. Unlike other reference works, this volume is organized by topic rather than chronology. It includes contributions from leading scholars in the field.

The Grammar of ‘God’ in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

The Grammar of ‘God’ in Judaism, Christianity and Islam PDF Author: Farid Suleiman
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111501612
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
Engendering an intimate and deep relationship with God is at the heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This relationship manifests, among other things, in worshipping Him with sincerity, talking to (and about) Him, and being conscious of Him in every moment of life. For believers, God himself plays also an active role in pursuing this relationship by, for example, answering prayers and making the believer know and feel His uninterrupted presence. Many would consider this as common knowledge about the religions mentioned above. However, only few are aware that the meaning of the above differs significantly based on how one thinks that religious language works. Rather, it is taken for granted that the word ‘God’ refers to a metaphysical being with personal traits and plays a similar role in structure as words in empirical language. This has several implications such as the following: God can be talked about in an abstract and theoretical manner; His existence can be subject to inquiry like that of any other being such as planets or unicorns; and calling God good, while creation is obviously full of evil, is a proposition that needs rational justification. The famous 20th century thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein has famously stated that his goal in philosophy essentially amounts to "showing that things which look the same are really different". By his insistence to pay close attention to the grammar of a word – that is its use in language – he has opened up new perspectives on (not only religious) language that challenges the prevalent view outlined above. The goal of this volume is to pick up on Wittgenstein’s insights about language and religion and to bring them in fruitful relation to the three mentioned religious traditions respectively in an attempt to reassess the grammar of the word ‘God’.

The Marrano Way

The Marrano Way PDF Author: Agata Bielik-Robson
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110768275
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
The Marrano phenomenon is a still unexplored element of Western culture: the presence of the borderline Jewish identity which avoids clear-cut cultural and religious attribution and – precisely as such – prefigures the advent of the typically modern "free-oscillating" subjectivity. Yet, the aim of the book is not a historical study of the Marranos (or conversos), who were forced to convert to Christianity, but were suspected of retaining their Judaism "undercover." The book rather applies the "Marrano metaphor" to explore the fruitful area of mixture and cross-over which allowed modern thinkers, writers and artists of the Jewish origin to enter the realm of universal communication – without, at the same time, making them relinquish their Jewishness which they subsequently developed as a "hidden tradition." The book poses and then attempts to prove the "Marrano hypothesis," according to which modern subjectivity derives, to paraphrase Cohen, "out of the sources of the hidden Judaism": modernity begins not with the Cartesian abstract ego, but with the rich self-reflexive self of Michel de Montaigne who wrestled with his own marranismo in a manner that soon became paradigmatic to other Jewish thinkers entering the scene of Western modernity, from Spinoza to Derrida. The essays in the volume offer thus a new view of a "Marrano modernity," which aims to radically transform our approach to the genesis of the modern subject and shed a new light on its secret religious life as surviving the process of secularization, although merely in the form of secret traces.

Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy

Autonomy in Jewish Philosophy PDF Author: Kenneth Seeskin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521114622
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Although it is customary to view Judaism as a legalistic faith leaving little room for free thought or individual expression, Kenneth Seeskin argues that this view is wrong. Looking at classic texts from Biblical, Rabbinic, and philosophical literature, Seeskin shows that Judaism has always respected freedom of conscience and assigned an important role to the power of human reason. Clear and concise, this book offers a refreshing alternative to the mysticism and dogmatism prevalent in much of the recent literature.

How Judaism Became a Religion

How Judaism Became a Religion PDF Author: Leora Batnitzky
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691130728
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
A new approach to understanding Jewish thought since the eighteenth century Is Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality—or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period—and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea. Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish thinkers have debated whether and how Judaism—largely a religion of practice and public adherence to law—can fit into a modern, Protestant conception of religion as an individual and private matter of belief or faith. Batnitzky makes the novel argument that it is this clash between the modern category of religion and Judaism that is responsible for much of the creative tension in modern Jewish thought. Tracing how the idea of Jewish religion has been defended and resisted from the eighteenth century to today, the book discusses many of the major Jewish thinkers of the past three centuries, including Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Theodor Herzl, and Mordecai Kaplan. At the same time, it tells the story of modern orthodoxy, the German-Jewish renaissance, Jewish religion after the Holocaust, the emergence of the Jewish individual, the birth of Jewish nationalism, and Jewish religion in America. More than an introduction, How Judaism Became a Religion presents a compelling new perspective on the history of modern Jewish thought.

Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink

Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink PDF Author: Marc Michael Epstein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165246
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Introduction: for the love of books / Marc Michael Epstein -- The people of the book/books of the people: illuminating the canon / Hartley Lachter and Marc Michael Epstein -- Parchments and palimpsests: scribe, illuminator, patron, audience / Marc Michael Epstein -- The illuminated page: materials, methods, and techniques / Barbara Wolff -- Mapping the territory: ʼArbʻah kanfot maʼareẓ, the four corners of the medieval Jewish world. Ereẓ Yisrael/The land of Israel: homeland and center / Marc Michael Epstein ; Italia/Italy: the first western diaspora / Marc Michael Epstein ; Ashkenaz: Franco-Germany, England, Central, and East Europe / Eva Frojmovic with Marc Michael Epstein ; Sepharad and ʻArav: Spain and the Middle East / Raymond P. Scheindlin with Marc Michael Epstein ; The problem of national style / Eva Frojmovic with Marc Michael Epstein -- Iconography: telling the story / Marc Michael Epstein -- Dialogue and disputation: cultural negotiation / Marc Michael Epstein -- This world centered on the home: women, marriage, and the family / Shalom Sahar -- Glimpses of Jewish life: reality or illusion? / Marc Michael Epstein -- Incidental details: margins and meaning / Marc Michael Epstein -- Sacred and profane: naked ladies in the Haggadah? / Ágnes Vető -- Other worlds: fantastic horizons and unseen universes / Hartley Lachter wtih Marc Michael Epstein -- Zion and Jerusalem: the sum of all beauty, the joy of all the earth / Shalom Sahar -- In the royal court: Jewish illumination in an age of printing / Marc Michael Epstein -- A Yiddish Minhagim manuscript / Diane Wolfthal -- Illuminating the present: contemporary Jewish illumination / Susan Vick with Marc Michael Epstein -- Continuing the journey: annotated bibliography and manuscript descriptions / Jenna Siman Jacobs with Marc Michael Epstein.