On the Rational Basis of Revelation in Rosenzweig’s <i>Star of Redemption</i>

Abstract

The present study focuses on ‘revelation,’ one of the three constitutive concepts, and possibly the most central such concept, in Rosenzweig’s philosophy. As opposed to its ostensibly religious meaning, the article offers a view of the rational element enfolded within this concept in Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption. By employing a textual exegesis based on a close reading of Rosenzweig’s language, the article seeks to show that Rosenzweig’s conception of revelation does not refer to an intuitive, Kabbalistic-mystical or esoteric concept. As a central pillar of Rosenzweig’s star-shaped method, revelation is the mediator between God’s love of people to a person’s love of others – which, in turn, is the basis for global redemption. The exposure of the rational-intellectual aspect of revelation thus advances the desired objective of Rosenzweig’s method, and accords with Rosenzweig’s own words when he suggested that neither does it make the claim to be a philosophy of religion – how could it do that when the word ‘religion’ does not occur in it at all! Rather, it is merely a system of philosophy. The study seeks to explore the dialectical thicket of descriptions and arguments in The Star of Redemption in order to expose the logical kernel of Rosenzweig’s philosophical method. Indeed, a close reading which isolates the mechanical concepts of Rosenzweig’s thought reveals The Star of Redemption’s philosophical motivation when Rosenzweig denudes the text from the complex of religious concepts that are the proverbial flesh that surrounds the proverbial bones of the system Rosenzweig attacks. Insofar as The Star of Redemption is concerned, we are not dealing with systematicism in the sense of a rigid consistency of rationality as a concept, but rather with a methodical outline where Rosenzweig describes religion’s sociological ‘skeleton’ and weaves his method around it using such concepts as “orientation” = “revelation” = “sharing” = “redemption.” Furthermore, the affinity between God and human passes through the affinity between one human and another. It therefore follows that the ‘warm welcome’ of revelation, is not a mystical experience, but rather a person’s conscious, rational, and reflexive orientation in her or his human environment.