ROSENZWEIG AND THE NAME FOR GOD

Abstract

Of what relevance today is the question of translating the name for God? And, if relevant, can a pre-Holocaust thinker be a resource for answering it? The particular event of the Holocaust is claimed to be, by Emil Fackenheim and many others, a unique event, an historical rupture. Each of the events of the six million unique murder-deaths of Jews is and remains always as unique and as rupturing as the Holocaust event as a whole. The notions of uniqueness and rupture have led many thinkers to raise questions of meaning and meaninglessness, and of how to proceed in philosophical and theological thought. We ask questions. And we do not understand. Our postHolocaust philosophical and theological responses, in terms of grammar, comprise the interrogative. Where was God? Why was He silent? The pre-Holocaust philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig, in his philosophy of speech, does not develop the grammatical mood of the question. He nevertheless recognizes this mood in significant ways that can carry import for the postmodern thinker. Robert Gibbs sees in Rosenzweig's system, particularly regard to his treatment of the concept of Revelation, a connection current post-Holocaust struggles. In his excellent book, Correlations in Rosenzweig and Levinas,' Gibbs notes that Rosenzweig's analysis of the Song of Songs as the focal book of revelation concludes with the issue of the publication (Veroffentlichung) of the miracle of love. This desire to publicize itself is expressed in the scream (Schrei), for the lovers' dialogue goes beyond itself, yearning for an opening up of the world for their love.2 Gibbs agrees Rosenzweig in characterizing this scream as an open ques-