Abstract
Discussions of Jewish responses to modernity often focus on what is new or what has adapted or evolved in Judaism in the face of modernity’s challenges. However, contrary to convention, this paper argues that, at least in principle, neither has the challenge nor the response changed all that much. Through an examination of several key modern Jewish thinkers, including Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Rosenzweig, and Buber, and by focusing on a traditional Jewish concept and value, the Love of God, this paper claims that the Love of God functions as the orienting principle for much of modern Jewish thought, just as it did throughout the history of Judaism. Upon demonstrating the consistent presence of the concept of the Love of God throughout the Jewish tradition, and especially in much of modern Jewish thought, this paper goes on to briefly reflect on the importance and vitality of the concept of the Love of God for both Judaism and modernity, despite and beyond the commercialization and cheapening of the concept of Love in recent times.
Highlights
Introduction by Hilary PutnamTranslated by Nahum Glatzer
If we can find a robust concept of the Love of God in his radically immanent cum pantheist and highly mechanistic philosophy, as well as in his political works, this bodes well for our claim regarding the rest of modern Jewish thought
When combining the metaphysics of the Ethics with the politics of the TTP, we find that the Love of God even undergirds the more modern liberal notions of democracy, free speech, and religious toleration, as argued for in the TTP, insofar as it is the only affect that properly exists and has any value
Summary
Introduction by Hilary PutnamTranslated by Nahum Glatzer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Seeskin, Kenneth. 2016. If we can find a robust concept of the Love of God in his radically immanent cum pantheist and highly mechanistic philosophy, as well as in his political works, this bodes well for our claim regarding the rest of modern Jewish thought.
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