From Nation State to World Empire: Franz Rosenzweig's Redemptive Imperialism

Abstract

At first glance, there seems to be no reason to question widely-held view that Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption denies politics a positive role in humanity's quest for redemption. For it is well known that Star presents Jewish people as a religious community which anticipates redemptive unification of world humanity before only by grounding its existence in a realm wholly beyond political vicissitudes of world history. Indeed, according to Rosenzweig, state acting in history cannot realize perfect community of all with God which Jew feels he already possesses in circuit of every year,2 and hence, the true eternity of eternal people must always be alien and enraging to state and to history of world.3 The proleptic eternity of Jewish existence gives lie to worldly and all-tooworldly sham eternity of historical moments of nations, moments expressed in destiny of their states.4 Contemporary commentators on Rosenzweig's writings have found in this contrast between state's violent, unsuccessful attempts to conquer history, and Jewish people's peaceful anticipation of redemption from a standpoint outside history, evidence for Rosenzweig's rejection of politics as a realm in which central problems of human existence can be addressed, and for his corresponding turn towards religion. What makes this turn all more profound, they point out, is how consumed Rosenzweig was by political affairs both before First