Sources Of Judaism Research Articles

The Concept of Virtue in Religious Philosophy of Hermann Cohen

The concept of virtue was of great interest and importance for H. Cohen. In the interpretation of this concept in his latest work “Religion of reason from the sources of Judaism” the most important concepts of this work were brought in the focus: the specificity of definition of what is the religion of reason; understanding of the uniqueness of God; correlation; messianism. For Cohen, a single system of virtues presupposes a single and unique ethics and correlates with the idea of the unity of humanity. The last concept, in his opinion, maturated in the fold of monotheism. Humanity is one, because all people are creations of the unique God. “Religion of reason” treats of the common universal virtues. In the religion of reason, the idea of God and morality are inextricably linked. Cohen rejects metaphysical speculation about the nature of God, about the attributes of God inherent in himself. The religion of the mind speaks of God only in correlation with man. God is a moral ideal and reveals himself to man by giving him moral commandments. Morality connects man and God, and this connection is revealed in detail by Cohen in the theme of virtues. Understanding God as Truth is important for the disclosure of this topic. The corresponding virtue for a person is faithfulness to truth, or truthfulness. In addition to truthfulness in the usual sense, for Cohen, faithfulness to truth requires correct worship of God. The correlation culminates in the idea of messianism, which is interpreted by Cohen as an endless movement of a whole humanity to the social justice.

Civic Freedom out of the Sources of Judaism: Mendelssohn, Maimonides, and Law's Promise

ABSTRACT This conversation brings together contributors from the fields of Jewish and Christian thought to explore ways of understanding law as a blessing rather than a burden—as an expression of a community's own commitments, for instance, rather than a coercive imposition by an external authority. I recover a legal theory that addresses such concerns, focusing on a neglected text by a figure who is frequently cited yet too little understood: Moses Mendelssohn. Exploring a little-known essay on Jewish property law, I argue that Mendelssohn emphasizes the role of human communities in authorizing divine norms and the role of such norms in promoting freedom, and I suggest that his position continues to possess relevance for twenty-first century readers. Covertly appropriating Maimonides, Mendelssohn casts Jewish law as capable of producing a certain type of civic subject—as a communally authorized means of forming adherents into individuals who contribute to the preservation of freedom.

MICHAEL WALZER'S SECULAR JEWISH THOUGHT

Although he has never assumed the mantle of a “Jewish thinker,” Michael Walzer has over a period of several decades articulated a comprehensive teaching rooted in philosophical reflection on the sources of Judaism and focused on the most important issues facing both Israel and the diaspora. At the core of his teaching lies a reiteration of what he takes to be the Jewish idea of justice, which he derives from the Bible and other ancient and medieval texts. He also places strong emphasis on liberalism, which he sees not as a product of the Jews' ancient heritage but as “a product of emancipation,” yet no less authentically Jewish for that. On a practical level, his writings are concerned with the implementation of justice and liberal values in both Jewish communities and the Jewish state, in their internal affairs as well as in their relations with others. He has devoted special efforts to showing that a Jewish state is, as such, fully compatible with the promotion of both justice and liberalism, properly understood.

H. Steinthal: A Psychologist of the Jewish People

Abstract This paper deals with the concept of Judaism by H. Steinthal (1823–1899), a renowned linguist in nineteenth-century Germany and a lecturer at the Hochschule für Wissenschaft des Judentums. The first part (sections 1–3) outlines his early education and scholarly development with regard to Völkerpsychologie, which strives to clarify the mental characteristics of peoples in the richness and pletitude of their diversity. Through his intensive study of the works by Wilhelm von Humboldt, Steinthal constructed his own theory of linguistics, which would play a crucial role in that socio-psychological study of the culture represented by the discipline of Völkerpsychologie. The second part (sections 4–6) discusses in the main Steinthal’s commitment to Judaism in regard to personal, public and cultural aspects. Throughout this part of the paper, the role of emotional elements within his concept of Judaism is emphasized. As Dieter Adelman has pointed out, the notion of devotion (Andacht) constitutes the crux of his view on religious practice, even if Steinthal offered a quite rational (and almost atheistic) concept of religion, inclusive of Judaism. Section 6 explores Steinthal’s treatise on Deuteronomy (Das fünfte Buch Mose/Die erzählende Stücke im fünften Buch Mose) as a work of Völkerpsychologie. In this treatise, Steinthal sought to find a coherency of Deuteronomy, which originally consists of various sources, as Bible studies had revealed already in the mid-nineteenth century. Steinthal found it in the prosaic style of Deuteronomy, which he characterized as ‘charming’ and ‘endearing’, and it marked for him the birth of Jewish national literature and Jewish national spirit or national mind (Volksgeist). In conclusion, his treatise is reconsidered in its historical context. It was a challenge to reconstruct a synthetic view of Jewish literature, after Bible studies and the Wissenschaft des Judentums had pointed up the great variety and diversity within the history of Jews. Hermann Cohen succeeded in this task, building on Steinthal, in his major work, Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism.

Logic of Science vs. Theory of Creation: The “Authority of Annihilation” in Hermann Cohen’s Logic of Origin

AbstractThe difference between Hermann Cohen’s systematic philosophy and his philosophy of religion can be determined via the logical “Judgment of Contradiction,” viewed as an “Authority of Annihilation.” In Cohen’s Logic of Pure Knowledge the “Judgment of Contradiction” acts as a “means of protection” against “falsifications” that may have arisen on the pathway through the previous judgments of “origin” and “identity.” Cohen thematizes these operations in his Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, too. However, there they do not form the grounding for natural science but rather for the knowledge of nature as creation in a strict correlation to God’s uniqueness. Any admixture between God and nature is the falseness that must be excluded via the “Authority of Annihilation.” The Being of God places the world over against the possibility of its own radical Non-Being. Yet at the same time, a second mode of Negation, a relative Nothing providing continuity for the world’s being-there (Dasein), grounded in the “Logic of Origin,” retains its validity. In Cohen’s view a Creation “in the beginning” stands side by side with a continuous “renewal of the world” (hiddush ha-‘olam).

Finding God’s Purpose: Hermann Cohen’s Use of Maimonides to Establish the Authority of Mosaic Law

AbstractThe most important Jewish source for Hermann Cohen’s rational theology of Judaism is Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. Indeed, the Guide is of such importance that Cohen bases his entire idealistic interpretation of the Jewish religion on it. In particular, Cohen derives his discussion of the continued authority of Mosaic law from the Guide. What follows focuses on Cohen’s discussion of the “Law” in his Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, and attempts to fill a gap in recent Cohen research by dealing with questions of halakhah and the interpretation of rabbinical sources. Cohen’s original reading of, inter alia, Guide III.31‐32 led him to formulate a theory wherein Mosaic law—and by extension Judaism—guarantees the highest end of human morality. In identifying God with this end, Cohen eventually finds the ultimate criterion for the decision of how much of traditional Jewish law must still be observed in the need for the preservation of the purest monotheism—another central point in Maimonides’ philosophy.

A Dialogue between Philosophy and Scripture: Rereading Hermann Cohen through Bakhtin

While “philosophical novels” are a common category of contemporary writing, the idea of “novelistic philosophy” likely strikes us as strange and less familiar. However, this latter term is one distinctly suited to describe the philosophy of the German Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen (1842–1918). I argue that certain aspects of literary theory—specifically, the ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin—can be fruitfully employed to interpret Cohen’s posthumously published magnum opus, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism. In particular, Bakhtin’s analysis of novelistic discourse, and his concepts of polyphony and heteroglossia, can help to adjudicate the long-standing debate over the apparently contradictory “voices” that different interpreters have highlighted in Cohen’s text. Religion of Reason is frequently described as one of the most, if not the most, significant books of Jewish philosophy since Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. Nevertheless, Cohen has often been treated merely as a precursor to thinkers like Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas, whose writings have received greater attention in the field of modern Jewish thought. Likewise, with regard to general philosophy, Ernst Cassirer—Cohen’s doctoral student and disciple—largely overshadows his erstwhile teacher in terms of recognition and prominence. Although many factors could account for this

SUFFERING AND JOY IN THE THOUGHT OF HERMANN COHEN

While the central significance of the theme of suffering in Hermann Cohen’s Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism has been properly emphasized in the scholarly literature, the important complementary theme of joy has been scantily explored. Interestingly enough, the prominent Cohen scholar, Andrea Poma, in an essay that touches directly on the theme of joy in Cohen’s thought, speaks not so much of joy, but of the minor, though related, theme of humor. I will, therefore, just briefly review Cohen’s teaching on suffering, following along the lines of Poma’s penetrating analyses in his major study, The Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen, my own contribution being limited to pulling the strands together and teasing out a few implications, and devote most of my attention to Cohen’s teaching on joy. Suffering is a critical phenomenon for Cohen’s ethical and religious thought, and Cohen views it as taking place on three levels. Before we examine each level individually, two general remarks must be made that are applicable to all three levels. First, on all three levels we must not approach the phenomenon of suffering from a causal perspective, for such an approach would result in either metaphysics, mysticism, or myth—or all three, heaven forfend! Rather, in all cases we must view suffering from the perspective of the role it plays in man’s fulfilment of the infinite moral task. Thus, Cohen fervently maintains that suffering should never be seen as a punishment inflicted by God on man. Certainly this is true for the suffering of one’s fellow man. And even one’s own suffering must be viewed, in Cohen’s words, as “the punishment that man demands inexorably of himself for himself” (p. 226). Second, on all three levels suffering refutes any form of eudemonism. To cite the famous or infamous criticism Cohen levelled against Zionism: “Those louts, they want to be happy!” Because, of course, the goal of man’s infinite moral task, for the sake of which the individual or nation assumes suffering upon himself or itself and responds to the suffering of others with compassion, is not happiness, but holiness. As I said, for Cohen suffering takes place on three levels. First, the level of the individual. Here, suffering is part of the sequence of sin, penitence, liberation, and redemption. To briefly present Cohen’s anal-

What, exactly, do we mean by “an event” in Judaism?

In his thoughtful defense of Abraham Schalit, Daniel R. Schwartz presents as the alternatives in the reading of the literary evidences of ancient Jews and Judaism the choice of event or non-event: it really happened or it did not really happen.1 He rightly distinguishes between authors who claim to tell us what really happened, represented by Josephus, and the talmudic and midrashic writings, in which the claim of what actually happened is simply not an issue. To explain why his correct judgment of the character of history and its principal component, event, validly distinguishes one kind of written evidence from another, let me spell out precisely what, in the context of the classical sources of Judaism, authors meant by "event."

Van betekenis voor ons?

The Christian attitude towards the sources of Judaism has always been one of self-interest. In our century the ideals of critical scholarship and the diminishing role of Christianity have changed this to some extent. Modern interest mainly comes from New Testament scholars, but the question of the relation between the Church and the Jews is also a living issue, in which, however, the Hebrew sources are neglected. Christian interests tend to rashness in the application of the results of the study of the sources, as is shown by the example of Targum studies, Talmud and Midrash, and Jewish exegesis. Theology first has to make clear that the study of Judaism matters at all. Knowledge of the sources is a vital condition for an answer on this question, which is too often answered in the positive without sufficient reflection.

The Function of the Idea of Messianic Mankind in Hermann Cohen's Later Thought

The thought of Hermann Cohen represents one of the most important German Jewish interpretations of Judaism in the modern period. This article explores Cohen's idea of a universal messianic humanity, which the author considers to be central to Cohen's later religious thought. It is clear, especially in the Ethik des reinen Willens, that Cohen puts forth the idea of a universal humanity as a postulate of the moral reason in the Kantian sense. He rejects Kant's own postulate of personal immortality along with the concomitant notion of the final conjunction of virtue and happiness and argues that the idea of universal humanity opens up a this-worldly future and thereby properly specifies the infinity of the moral task. In an attempt to work out the implications of this ideal, Cohen projects it into the juridical-political sphere. The second major section of the article seeks to demonstrate that there is a systematic link in Cohen's philosophy between the unity of mankind and the unity of God. The author explains that, for Cohen, the idea of the unity of the one supersensible God opens up the future to the reality of one universal humanity. Attention is given to the mode of ideality which characterizes both God and universal humanity in Cohen's thought. Finally, the article turns to a discussion of how Cohen has derived the idea of universal messianic mankind from the sources of Judaism through a process of “idealization. ”This discussion includes a consideration of Cohen's views on the particular status of the Jewish people and of the degree to which his idea of messianic mankind is in harmony with the messianic idea current in Judaism from the second to the nineteenth century.