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Volume 14 Issue 1 - Special Issue: Back to Redemption: Rosenzweig's Star 1919–2019 (Part I)

Issue of Naharaim

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Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available June 5, 2020

Frontmatter

Page range: i-iii

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June 5, 2020

Words and Diagrams about Rosenzweig’s Star

Martin Zwick

Page range: 5-33

Abstract

This article explores aspects of Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption from the perspective of systems theory. Mosès, Pollock, and others have noted the systematic character of the Star . While “systematic” does not mean “systems theoretic,” the philosophical theology of the Star encompasses ideas that are salient in systems theory. The Magen David star to which the title refers, and which deeply structures Rosenzweig’s thought, fits the classic definition of “system” – a set of elements (God, World, Human) and relations between the elements (Creation, Revelation, Redemption). The Yes and No of the elements and their reversals illustrate the bridging of element and relation with the third category of “attribute,” a notion also central to the definition of “system.” In the diachronics of “the All,” the relations actualize what is only potential in the elements in their primordial state and thus remedy the incompleteness of these elements, fusing them into an integrated whole. Incompleteness is a major theme of systems theory, which also explicitly examines the relations between wholes and parts and offers a formal framework for expressing such fusions. In this article, the systems character of Parts I & II of the Star is explored through extensive use of diagrams; a systems exploration of Part III is left for future work. Remarkably, given its highly architectonic character, diagrams are absent in Rosenzweig’s book, except for the triangle of elements, the triangle of relations, and the hexadic star, which are presented on the opening page of each part of the book. While structures can be explicated entirely in words, diagrams are a visual medium of communication that supplements words and supports a nonverbal understanding that structures both thought and experience.

June 5, 2020

Jewish Redemptive Epistemologies, Hegelian Teshuvot: Soloveitchik, Rosenzweig and Kook

Elad Lapidot

Page range: 35-57

Abstract

This paper consists in a reflection on the conceptual nerve center of Franz Rosenzweig’s thought and heritage that is the category of redemption as an epistemological category. The reflection is articulated through a comparative study of the redemptive epistemologies of three modern Jewish thinkers: Franz Rosenzweig, Rabbi Yoseph Dov Soloveitchik and HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook. The comparison arises from a basic feature that this paper identifies as common to all three modern visions of epistemic Jewish redemption: they all feature Hegelian interpretations of the traditional Jewish category of teshuva.

June 5, 2020

Geist der Übersetzung: Franz Rosenzweig on the Redemptive Task of Translation

Emeline Durand

Page range: 59-81

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of Rosenzweig’s theory of translation to his concept of redemption. Rosenzweig’s statements on the redemptive virtues of translation, in the afterword to his Jehuda Halevi and in “ Scripture and Luther ,” are well known. However, when considered in connection with the Star of Redemption as well as with the later essays, Rosenzweig’s position appears more complex than what a first reading might suggest, for he seemed to have abandoned his first definition of translation – as an imperfectly redemptive task, nevertheless providing effective understanding between the peoples – to adopt the notion of a true redemption of the tongues, be it at the expense of understanding. In what sense is translation, if at all legitimately, bound to Redemption? The paper argues that the concept of the spirit ( Geist ) is central to Rosenzweig’s theory of translation, and examines the metamorphoses of this concept from the Star to the later essays. It accounts for the fact that language, in a certain sense, is the true subject of redemption, and allows for new insights into the philosophy of history.

June 5, 2020

Between Abgrund and Urwirbel: The Story of One Word in the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible Translation

Ghilad H. Shenhav

Page range: 83-102

Abstract

This paper closely examines the translation of the Hebrew word תהום – abyss (Genesis 1:2), in two versions of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible: In the first edition of Die Schrift published 1926 the abyss is translated as “ Abgrund ”. However, after Rosenzweig’s death, the “ Abgrund ” is erased by Buber and replaced in later versions (1930/1952/1962) by the rather odd word “ Urwirbel .” This paper reflects on the transition from “ Abgrund ” to “ Urwirbel ” and demonstrates the profound rootedness of Buber and Rosenzweig in the German philosophical vocabulary of the early twentieth century. It shows how the conversion from “ Abgrund ” to “ Urwirbel ” crystalized a moment in German-Jewish thought, a historical meeting point in the depths of the abyss between the German and the Hebrew languages. The encounter was covered by the course of history but deserves to be revisited and reinterpreted.

June 5, 2020

“Ich Habe Nicht Geantwortet”: Hermeneutics of Secrecy, Religious Silence, and Dialogvergessenheit in Martin Buber’s Exchange with Franz Rosenzweig about Halakhah

Yemima Hadad

Page range: 103-132

Abstract

The exchange between Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig on the status of halakha is a well known, but also frustrating fixture in scholarship. For rather than responding to Rosenzweig’s critique, Buber seems to retreat in silence, claiming to be “unable to speak” about his position on Jewish Law. Scholars have generally tried to explain Buber’s failure to respond on philosophical and biographical grounds. What I propose, by contrast, is to revisit the question of Buber’s silence and secrecy from a hermeneutical standpoint, arguing that Buber engaged in a deliberate strategy of concealment that constituted its own form of response. The hermeneutics of silence discloses a call for religious renewal that follows a state of Dialogvergessenheit, but which cannot be made audible. Neither dialogue nor its remembrance can be commanded. While Buber struggles with his Nichtredenkönnen, he also stands in a tradition of secretive hermeneutics – the Jewish hermeneutics of sod.

June 5, 2020

Redemption Restored: The Star in the Context of Modernity

Eveline Goodman-Thau

Page range: 133-147

Abstract

In retrospect of a century, the philosophical and theological concepts of Franz Rosenzweig’s New Thinking, as developed in the Star of Redemption , are in many aspects a milestone in modernity, reflecting the crisis of the modern Jew and Judaism both historically and politically. The notion of redemption serves here in fact as a paradigm for modernity itself, where the individual attempts to position himself in the tension between religion and secularism, tradition and modernity. This contribution analyses Rosenzweig’s “Jewish journey of redemption”, not only from the perspective of Jewish Messianism, but in the context of modern Jewish thought as a cultural critique ( Kulturkritik ) in Western tradition, in its philosophical, theological, historical and political aspects.

About this journal

The journal Naharaim was founded by the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Centre at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007 and appears bi-annually. It is a peer-reviewed journal and publishes the latest research on philosophical, literary and historical aspects of German-Jewish culture. The articles appear in both German and English.

Naharaim (Hebrew for Zweistromland, a land that lies between two rivers) presents biographical portraits and research on the intellectual history of German-speaking Jewry. The journal explores paradigmatic thinkers within German-Jewish modernism since the Emancipation; traces the outlines of the German-Jewish experience both in the context of general Jewish issues and beyond the specific Jewish horizon; discusses the phenomenon of secularisation as a process of transformation of religious content taking place within the framework of a secular worldview; and critically engages with theoretical debates in France, North America and Germany that address topics from past and contemporary Jewish thought.

Volume 14 Issue 1 - Special Issue: Back to Redemption: Rosenzweig's Star 1919–2019 (Part I)

Issue of Naharaim

Frontmatter

Introduction

Words and Diagrams about Rosenzweig’s Star

Abstract

Jewish Redemptive Epistemologies, Hegelian Teshuvot: Soloveitchik, Rosenzweig and Kook

Abstract

Geist der Übersetzung: Franz Rosenzweig on the Redemptive Task of Translation

Abstract

Between Abgrund and Urwirbel: The Story of One Word in the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible Translation

Abstract

“Ich Habe Nicht Geantwortet”: Hermeneutics of Secrecy, Religious Silence, and Dialogvergessenheit in Martin Buber’s Exchange with Franz Rosenzweig about Halakhah

Abstract

Redemption Restored: The Star in the Context of Modernity

Abstract