The Jewish soulful aging of Jacques Élie Derrida

Abstract

ABSTRACT The essay explores the Jewish life and career of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), suggesting how, with age, his understanding of his destiny as leader of a transformative intellectual movement grew into a soulful journey. Derrida’s celebrated volume of work, based on his masterful concept of deconstruction, is seen as integral to his personal struggle with his Jewishness. While Derrida has been the subject of numerous biographies, including many that debate the influence of his Jewish background, this essay considers more directly how his quest to discover alternative spaces of language and thought (and refuge) became increasingly linked to his interpretations of the radicality of Judaic traditions. The argument moves from a discussion of his childhood as an Algerian Sephardic Jew to his career and life in Paris, to the relationship between deconstruction and spirituality, and finally, to his reckoning in his later years with survivorship, legacy, faith, and wisdom as guides to his internal desert of wandering and revelation.