The nature of modern Jewish philosophy

CHAPTER 21
The nature of modern Jewish philosophy
Ze’ev Levy
Most of the attempts to define the essence of “Jewish philosophy” are of recent origin. In
the past Jewish thinkers were not bothered at all by this question; but what seemed
obvious at first glance is really fraught with a diversity of problems. This is reflected by
the terminological distinctions which modern scholars make between “Jewish
philosophy,” “philosophy of Judaism,”1 “Jewish thought,” etc.2 These concepts extend
beyond the bounds of terminology or definition. Also, there has not yet been any
satisfactory way of integrating Jewish philosophy within the teaching of general
philosophy. Therefore, to define Jewish philosophy is itself an upshot of modern Jewish
philosophy which raises two basic questions: how can a certain concept be really
philosophical, and at the same time be Jewish in its essence? How can one reconcile the
universal nature of philosophical discourse with the particularistic essence of Judaism?
Isaac Husik, one of the most eminent scholars of medieval Jewish philosophy, ended his
book with the questionable assertion: “There are Jews and there are philosophers, but
there are no Jewish philosophers and there is no Jewish philosophy.”3 This, evidently,
was an extreme and provocative formulation of a problem which had occupied Jewish
thought from Mendelssohn to our times, and has given birth to many different answers.
To investigate the nature of modern Jewish philosophy is therefore more or less
congruent with exploring the nature of Jewish philosophy itself, which has been the topic
of the first chapter of this book. However, a Jewish philosopher is entitled to be called a
philosopher, if his or her thought contributes to philosophy. This characterization indeed
holds for most of the Jews who have excelled in the field of philosophy from Philo,
through Saadia, ibn Gabirol, Maimonides, and others in the Middle Ages, to Spinoza,
Mendelssohn, H.Cohen, Rosenzweig, and Buber in modern times. All of them are of
universal importance, some of them obviously better known than others. We are
interested in them not merely because they are Jews but because we are confident that
their philosophy has a Jewish dimension as well. In this chapter the inquiry will therefore
take as its point of departure the working hypothesis that there exists something which
can be defined as a “Jewish philosophy,” and concentrate on the differences and changes
which it has undergone in the modern era.
While medieval Jewish philosophy evolved simultaneously with Arabic philosophy
that was its counterpart and source of inspiration on the general scene, this was not the
case of modern Jewish philosophy in its beginnings. During the two-hundred-and-fiftyyear transition period from the Middle Ages to the modern era Jews were forced to live in
a physical as well as spiritual ghetto which, with very few exceptions, narrowed their
spiritual horizons and put an end to the former fruitful encounter with general culture and
philosophy, especially as it had flourished in the Islamic regions. With the demolition of
the ghetto walls at the end of the eighteenth century, in the wake of Napoleon’s armies,
History of Jewish philosophy
516
Jews found themselves culturally and spiritually lagging behind their non-Jewish
contemporaries. M.Mendelssohn and S.Maimon were but two impressive exceptions that
confirmed the rule. (B.Spinoza and the Jewish community in the Netherlands were a case
apart.) Therefore, in Western Europe, from the period of the struggle for emancipation,
Jewish intellectuals had to cope with many new problems of which their predecessors had
been unaware, especially how to remain a Jew while taking part in the general spiritual
and cultural life of their surroundings. For more than a century this was the chief
enterprise of German Jewish philosophers. Only in the twentieth century, and a fortiori
after the Second World War and the destruction of German Jewry, did Jewish philosophy
begin to develop outside Germany—in America, Israel, Britain, and France.
But there is one more problem which did not exist in the Middle Ages. Except for a
few famous converts, such as Abner of Burgos, who abandoned Judaism, the Jewishness
of the Jewish philosophers and of their writings did not arouse any particular problem.
But what about the greatest philosopher that the Jewish people has produced in the
modern era, namely Baruch Spinoza? Does his work belong to Jewish philosophy? The
answer of most scholars seems to be affirmative.4 And what about S.Maimon,5 K.Marx,
H.Bergson, E.Bloch, and other thinkers?6 Similarly, what about the general philosophical
writings of thinkers such as M.Mendelssohn, H.Cohen, E.Levinas, etc.? Do they belong
to Jewish philosophy? Or may one perhaps portray their authors as split personalities,
dealing simultaneously with Jewish and general philosophy? (Levinas indeed tried to
distinguish between his “Hebrew” and “Greek” writings, both in French of course.)
Although these are more methodological than theoretical questions, they cannot be
ignored. They also are relevant in determining the nature of modern Jewish philosophy.
But they will be of lesser concern to the ensuing inquiry which focuses on modern Jewish
philosophy in its commonly accepted sense, namely philosophy of Jews in a Jewish
context.
All these processes led also to the emergence of different religious streams inside
Judaism that were fostered by certain philosophical outlooks. Modern Jewish philosophy
is distinct from that of the Middle Ages by exhibiting a much more marked religiophilosophical pluralism. While the various medieval trends in Jewish philosophy, such as
kalƗm, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, etc. did not substantially differ in their conception
of Judaism—all of them were “orthodox” (the sole exception being the Karaites)—
Judaism today is apprehended differently by Orthodox, Reform, Conservative,
Reconstructionist, and secular Jews.
This entailed another major change. Medieval Jewish philosophy relied on two main
sources of authority—on the one hand Aristotle’s (and to a lesser degree Plato’s)
philosophy, and on the other hand the Bible and the thought of the Sages. Moreover,
since the Torah and the Oral Law were believed to have been conferred by divine
revelation, their teachings were not open to critical inquiry; they were interpreted by way
of exegesis and commentary. Also independent philosophical thought was usually
couched in the language of interpretation. This explains the preponderant role of
hermeneutics in medieval thought; its purpose was to bridge the gap between
philosophical inquiry and authoritative prophetic revelation. Although this did not
diminish the importance of Jewish medieval philosophy which still occupies a paramount
position in the history of Jewish philosophy, such procedures are no longer compatible
with modern philosophical methods of inquiry. From Spinoza onwards Jewish thinkers
The nature of modern Jewish philosophy
517
emphasized and investigated the philosophical issues for their own sake; they resorted to
interpretation of scriptural passages only for illustration or for didactic purposes. While in
the Middle Ages the main road led from the sacred writings of Judaism to philosophy, the
new point of departure was general philosophy. This came to its most striking expression
in the writings of the two thinkers who stood on the threshold of modern Jewish
philosophy—B.Spinoza and M.Mendelssohn. Both had grown up in the religious
tradition of Judaism although Spinoza turned away from it and considered it inconsistent
with rationalist philosophical discourse while Mendelssohn did not see any contradiction
between his philosophical thought and his Jewish belief. One cannot get an appropriate
understanding of their thought without searching for the Jewish origins and traces in their
philosophies. This holds for Spinoza no less than for Mendelssohn.7 However, their
philosophical thought was not only shaped by outside influences, but it transgressed the
limits of Jewish problematics. Their philosophical work (except Mendelssohn’s
Jerusalem which was expressly written for apologetical reasons) does not belong to
Judaism although all later Jewish philosophers could not ignore it, and came to grips with
it in various ways.
Most modern Jewish philosophers look upon Judaism as a spiritual creation of human
thought which has evolved in history. This means that to criticize various elements of the
Jewish religious tradition or to contest the veracity and authority of biblical and talmudic
statements, stories, beliefs, and injunctions no longer constitutes an act of heresy. This
was the chief implication of Spinoza’s Bible criticism which still looked preposterous to
the scholars of his time, Jews or Christians. It has meanwhile become a commonplace for
modern Jewish philosophers that one ought to distinguish between the more permanent
along with the more transient elements in the Jewish religious heritage. Consequently,
modern Jewish philosophy is no longer a handmaiden of religion or theology but like
philosophy in general.
Although most Jewish philosophers in the modern era were and are
religious, their philosophical inquiries are not subjugated to religious
authority nor motivated by Jewish religious goals. They engage in their
philosophical studies as philosophers, not as rabbis or commentators.
Independence of thought replaces subordination. They formulate their
philosophies on an essentially secular basis, explicating the religious
norms and beliefs of Judaism by cultural, social, ethical, and national
aspects. Also, unlike medieval Jewish philosophy which exhibited more or
less continuous trends—Aristotelian or Neoplatonic ones, etc.—modern
Jewish philosophy manifests itself in the work of individual thinkers. It
would be misleading to speak of a Kantian, Hegelian, or Schellingian
school although one can trace the influence of these philosophers, and
others, on the work of their Jewish acolytes. The quest for independent
thought does not blur the impact of general philosophical trends, of Kant,
Hegel, and Schelling, and of Marx, existentialism and phenomenology,
and to a lesser degree British empiricism and American pragmatism. They
represent sources of philosophical inspiration, but none of them acquired
History of Jewish philosophy
518
such authority as, for example, Aristotle in medieval Jewish philosophy.
Despite the enormous imprint of Kant’s philosophy on many nineteenthcentury Jewish philosophers, foremost among them M.Lazarus and
H.Cohen, or the influence of Herder on N.Krochmal, Hegel on S.Hirsch,
Schelling on Sh. Formstecher, L.Steinheim, and F.Rosenzweig,
Condillac’s “sensualism” on S.D.Luzzatto, Spencer on Achad Ha’am, or
Dewey on M.Kaplan, the Jewish philosophers always maintained an
unmistakable critical stance in their regard.
These changes are sometimes indicated by new meanings given to certain traditional
religious concepts. Revelation, for example, still occupies an important place in modern
Jewish thought, among others in the philosophies of S.Steinheim and F.Rosenzweig.8 But
it is no longer conceived as an extrinsic occurrence but as an intrinsic belief, based on the
presupposition of faith. While in medieval philosophy revelation was regarded as an
objective event, a view which was still upheld by Mendelssohn, and formed the basis of
his definition of the distinctiveness of Judaism, today most Jewish philosophers regard it
as a subjective phenomenon.
The two main traditional arguments for revelation—prophecy and miracles—do not
stand up to modern rationalist criticism. This was already demonstrated by Spinoza in the
Theologico-Political Treatise.9 Therefore, modern religious thinkers shifted the term
“revelation” from the realm of philosophy to that of belief. This, however, gave rise to
another difficulty of which they were perhaps not fully aware. It undermined, for
example, the traditional objective historical basis of the covenant between God and Israel
at Mount Sinai, as related in the Bible. Certain modern Jewish philosophers—
Rosenzweig, Buber, Will Herberg—responded that revelation occurred to those men,
who spoke about it in their writings. The Torah is the word of God, but at the same time
it is a literary creation, written by man.10
Modern Jewish philosophy continues to explore most of the subjects investigated by
medieval Jewish philosophy, such as God’s reality, his essence and attributes, the reasons
for the commandments, the relationship between reason and revelation, etc. But in
addition it turns now to several new topics of philosophical interest—philosophy of
history, political philosophy, ethics. The political, social, and legal status of Jews in their
countries of residence pushed modern Jewish scholars to take up political philosophy, as
demonstrated by Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise and Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem.
In the case of Spinoza’s book the original incentive was a general political aim—to
defend freedom of thought and expression—but this involved a thoroughgoing discussion
of the political function of the ancient Hebrew state, and—at the end of the third
chapter—of the political and historical status of the Jews in his time. Similarly, the
uniqueness and continuity of the Jewish people in the Diaspora, without a homeland of
their own, aroused interest in philosophy of history. It gave birth to the movement of the
sciences of Judaism (Chochmat Israel) in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and
found a stimulating expression in N.Krochmal’s Guide of the Perplexed of our Times.11
Also H.Graetz forewarded his great historiographical work with a historico-philosophical
essay, in the Hegelian spirit, on “The construction of Jewish history.”12 In this field the
turnabout in modern Jewish philosophy was indeed very dramatic. Almost all the Jewish
philosophers interpreted Jewish existence on the basis of historical factors. While
The nature of modern Jewish philosophy
519
Spinoza tried to show that the history of the Jewish people in the diaspora was governed
by the same laws that held for all other peoples,13 Krochmal and Rosenzweig strove to
demonstrate that the historical laws that are valid for all other nations are inapplicable to
the Jewish people and its history.
But the mainstream of Jewish philosophy in the nineteenth century was engrossed in
reconciling the particularism of the Jewish religious tradition with the universalism of
philosophy. To this end Jewish philosophers devoted much thought to elaborating the
concept of the “essence” or “spirit” of Judaism. In the past—and this still held for
Mendelssohn—Judaism was identified with the observance of the “law.” There was not
felt to be any need to look for its essence, which was considered to be self-evident. This
changed in the nineteenth century when many Jewish thinkers no longer observed all the
religious commandments; they had therefore to search for another way of explaining their
adherence to Judaism. This they did by leaning on the concept of “essence.” The
particular essence of Judaism consisted, as it were, in the universal message of “ethical
monotheism.” This idea became the key concept of the liberal trends of Judaism. So,
rather paradoxically, the particular essence of Judaism was presented by removing its
particularistic features and by stressing its universal content.14 Simultaneously, most
modern Jewish thinkers endeavored to interpret the values of Western culture and thought
in the light of the ancient Jewish source. This trend culminated in H.Cohen’s magisterial
Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism.15 As a matter of fact, all these new
interpretations were a dialectical outcome of the inevitable encounter with modern
philosophical ideas. It was only after the Jewish philosophers had become acquainted
with concepts such as social justice, equality, etc., that they perceived them to be implied
already by the Torah, and availed themselves of the biblical terms in order to discuss
modern issues. Similarly, only after confronting the philosophical problem of freedom
and determinism was it possible to reach a proper understanding of the concept of
(divine) providence or of the famous saying, ascribed to Rabbi Aqibah: “Haqol tzafui
vehareshut netunah” (“Everything is foreseen but freedom of action is granted”).
Likewise, only the apprehension of Kant’s categorical imperative opened up the implicit
philosophical vistas of Hillel’s admonition: “Do not do unto others what you do not want
to be done unto you.” All these philosophical problems which were latent in the Jewish
scriptures acquired their explicit and adequate elaboration only in modern Jewish
philosophy. Although external influences were never absent in medieval Jewish
philosophy, they fulfilled an incomparably greater role in the modern era. Then the
concept of Judaism was shaped to a far-reaching degree by the fruitful dialogue with
philosophical concepts, drawn from outside trends. Seen from this angle, H.Cohen did
not merely work out a “religion of reason out of the sources of Judaism,” but rather
interpreted those sources by the precepts of his neo-Kantian epistemology and ethics.
In the modern era, Jewish philosophy thus encountered new problems that until then
had received but little attention. At the same time, various traditional concepts acquired
new meaning. For instance, the traditional idea of Israel’s chosenness was exchanged for
that of Israel’s mission. Modern Jewish philosophers were aware of the problematical
nature of the traditional concept. Spinoza had already asserted that any claim of election,
based on intellectual or moral superiority, is philosophically indefensible.16 Mendelssohn
and nineteenth-century Jewish philosophers, struggling for equality, also felt
uncomfortable with the concept of chosenness. The latter introduced and emphasized the
History of Jewish philosophy
520
idea of the “mission of Israel,” which is to propagate “ethical monotheism,” that is, the
moral teachings of the Bible, especially as expressed by the Prophets. However, does this
change in terminology indicate a conceptual shift? The traditional belief in chosenness
undoubtedly constituted some sort of ideological self-compensation for the inferior status
of the Jewish people in the diaspora throughout the ages. It “enabled the Jews to defy the
powers of destruction and to reverse the normal patterns of history.”17 From this angle it
had fulfilled an important positive role in Jewish life in the past, but it now became
metaphysically and ethically untenable in the light of modern philosophical thought; it
contravened the humanistic view that every person and every nation embodies the values
of one common humanity and one human spirit. None the less, several modern Jewish
philosophers still upheld the notion of election, including even such an important secular
thinker as Achad Ha‘am; he vindicated the idea of the chosen people without believing in
a choosing God. The people of Israel, as it were, excels by its essential “differentness”
and by its unique ethics of absolute justice; the latter expresses its “mission.”
If a secular thinker like Achad Ha‘am approved of the concept of
chosenness, despite its ethical difficulties, it comes as no surprise that
various Jewish religious philosophers did so, although with great care and
caution. Rosenzweig stated in his famous correspondence with Eugen
Rosenstock:
That is why even today, when the idea of being elected has been adopted
by every nation, the election of the Jews is something unique, because it is
the election of the “one people,” and even today our peculiar pride or
peculiar modesty, the world’s hatred or the world’s contempt, rejects an
actual comparison with other peoples. Though its content has now become
something universal, it has lost nothing of its metaphysical weight.18
However, for Rosenzweig, Jewish uniqueness and chosenness is embodied in Israel’s
being outside of history while all other peoples and religions fulfill their roles inside the
historical orbit. Israel’s chosenness had also been the focal point of Leo Baeck’s Jewish
religious thought. He shared some of Rosenzweig’s later ahistorical approach. Baeck
conceived of chosenness as a consequence of revelation, which was Israel’s unique
experience; the more certain the act of revelation, the more pronounced the sense of
chosenness derived from it. But, for Baeck, this was an article of faith and not an
historical judgment. It involves Israel’s responsibility toward other peoples. This implies,
evidently, the concept of the mission of Israel again. The people of Israel is chosen,
according to Baeck, because it is part of humanity and accomplishes the latter’s task in
the world. Baeck thus links together the concepts of revelation, chosenness, and mission;
they form the theological expression of that Jewish particularity which was destined to
become universal. However, while for Rosenzweig this universal mission implied the
concept of Israel as a metahistorical people, Baeck conceived it as the outcome of
historical theology although at the same time transcending historical definitions and
limitations.
Already Abraham Geiger had insisted, in a more or less Hegelian way, that doctrines
of chosenness were characteristic features in the development of almost all peoples, and
The nature of modern Jewish philosophy
521
not just peculiar to the Jewish people. On the contrary, according to him, the uniqueness
of Judaism is embodied in the fact that more than any other people or religion it has
completely overwhelmed such particularist notions and developed its universalist credo.
The concept of “chosenness,” because of its significant role in Jewish life and history,
certainly must not be disparaged as scandalous; but it is now utterly incompatible with a
modern world view, based on the ethical essentials of humanism and universalism. In this
regard Kaplan stated very clearly: “As a psychological defense to counteract the
humiliation to which the Jewish people was subjected, the doctrine of ‘election’ had its
value as an expression of the sense of spiritual achievement in the past; it had some
justification in fact.”19 But he hastens to add that nowadays “from an ethical standpoint, it
is deemed inadvisable, to say the least.”20 After Spinoza, it was Kaplan who discarded the
notion of chosenness more systematically than any other Jewish thinker. He did not
hesitate to name the chapter devoted to it: “The chosen people idea an anachronism.”21
To hold on to the concept of chosenness now is no more than “self-infatuation.” This
equally applies, according to Kaplan, to the attempts to replace it by the doctrine of
“mission,” which he characterized, using again a pejorative term, as “religious
imperialism,” clashing with “the ethical basis of democracy.”22 Both are not merely
undesirable concepts but useless claims. The notion of chosenness occupies a relatively
large place in this chapter because it is an instructive paradigm case of the treatment of
traditional concepts by modern Jewish philosophers.
Similar changes took place with regard to the belief in the messiah. The personalistic
version of the messiah gave way to messianism, that is, to the messianic idea as an
essentially moral vision that will unite all humankind in a life of justice and
righteousness. This conception occupied a central position in the thought of Jewish nonOrthodox philosophers; some of them tried to interpret it in terms of a universal ethical
and social prophecy; others tended to identify it with the rise of emancipation. Still others
converted the messianic idea into the idea of redemption, both on the personal and on the
communal plane. This became one of the three focal notions of Rosenzweig’s Star of
Redemption, and traces of it can even be found in E.Bloch’s Marxistutopian philosophy
of hope. The idea of messianism was perceived by secular Zionist thinkers as selfrealization, opposed to passive waiting for the coming of the redeemer. It thus became a
symbolic expression of the national redemption of the Jewish people.
There was, however, an important Jewish philosopher, the late Steven Schwarzschild,
who vehemently attacked all these attempts to replace the messiah by messianiam. In his
essay “The Personal Messiah—Toward the Restoration of a Discarded Doctrine,”23 he
was perhaps less concerned with reintroducing the traditional belief of the past than
refuting modern versions of what he named “pseudo-Messianism.” The great danger for
modern humanity consists, as it were, in the illusion that the messianic idea has been
accomplished, whether by the modern national movements, including Zionism, or in the
so-called “socialist” states (history has indeed proved him right on this), or by the
establishment of the state of Israel. The doctrine of a personal messiah does not
necessarily lead to quietism or passive waiting. On the contrary, the fact that we are still
waiting for him ought to make us more suspicious of those who claim that messianism is
already a fait accompli, and especially of its secularized interpretation. But
Schwarzschild’s rather idiosyncratic view on this matter, although inspired by humanist
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522
and socialist ideals, is not characteristic of the general trend of modern Jewish philosophy
with regard to the messianic idea.
Finally, a few remarks on the important place of ethics in modern Jewish philosophy.
Modern and contemporary Jewish inquiries into ethics differ from the ethical teachings of
Jewish philosophy in the past. There are multiple new problems, many of them
engendered by the enormous changes that have occurred on the social plane and as a
result of recent scientific and technological progress. This evidently is a problem which
Jewish ethics shares with general ethics. The particularly Jewish aspect consists in there
being not only many new issues which Jewish religious thinkers in the past, no less than
non-Jewish ones, could not even have imagined but that they have provided now-adays a
mutliplicity of answers. This is, of course, an inevitable outcome of the pluralism which
has become the distinctive feature of modern Jewish philosophy. There is no longer a
place for a “Jewish” position, if there ever was, but one must now usually ask: What do
Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, or secular philosophers (and
scholars) say about this or that specific ethical question? In this connection there is
another point worth mentioning. When modern Jewish philosophers discuss ethical
problems, they usually attempt to come to grips with halakhic positions on those ethical
issues that preoccupy contemporary thought. All these problems acquired a new
dimension with the rise of liberal religious currents inside Judaism that did not observe
many or even most of the halakhic commandments, and a fortiori with the rise of
secularism inside Judaism. Although for the majority of Jews today, whether religious or
secular, halakhah is considered to represent only a part of the religious outlook of
Judaism, one cannot shut one’s eyes to the fact that in the Jewish religious tradition
halakhah has played a predominant role. Therefore any modern inquiry into Jewish ethics
must take halakhah into account too, whether one wishes to acknowledge its ongoing
authority or to submit it to a critical scrutiny. From the philosophical viewpoint this can
be reduced to one common denominator: does there exist a Jewish extra-halakhic ethics?
This has become one of the most fascinating questions of contemporary Jewish
philosophy.24
In conclusion, notwithstanding the shift of emphasis from election to
mission, from the belief in a personal messiah to the messianic idea and
other similar connotational changes, as well as the new approaches to
ethics and halakhah, many issues of medieval Jewish philosophy have
retained their vitality and relevance. Jewish philosophy resembles general
philosophy in that both display intellectual continuity, although the hiatus
between medievality and modernity was much more profound and
conspicuous in Jewish than in general philosophy. However, as David
Neumark has written in the introduction to his History of Jewish
Philosophy in the Middle Ages: “The aim of any investigation into the
history of philosophy is philosophy itself, philosophicalawerness.”25
The nature of modern Jewish philosophy
523
NOTES
1 This was the title of Julius Guttmann’s famous book on the history
of Jewish philosophy. The title of the English edition accentuated this
still more: Philosophies of Judaism.
2 These questions were treated extensively in the third part of my
Between Yafeth and Shem, pp. 95–131.
3 Husik 1958, p. 432.
4 Only J.Guttmann expressed an ambivalent opinion. In his
Philosophies of Judaism he defined it as “beyond Jewish philosophy”
while in his important essay “Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem and
Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise,” in Jospe 1981, pp. 361–86
he expressed a contrary view.
5 Apart from Givat HaMoreh, his Hebrew commentary to the first
part of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, all his work was in the
field of general philosophy.
6 See Levy 1987, pp. 107–8; Jospe 1988, p. 9.
7 Levy 1989.
8 By the way, Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption exemplifies the
profound changes in modern Jewish philosophy; notwithstanding its
religious dimension and its salient Jewish elements, especially in the
third part, the book was not motivated by Jewish aims, apologetic or
others, but it was written out of general philosophical deliberations.
9 Spinoza 1951, chapters 1, 2, 6.
10 Herberg 1975, pp. 246–50.
11 Krochmal 1961.
12 Graetz 1936.
13 Spinoza 1951, p. 56.
14 Leo Baeck’s Das Wesen des Judentums of 1905, responding to
Adolf von Harnack’s book on the essence of Christianity, contributed
much to the popularity of the concept of “essence of Judaism.”
15 Cohen 1972.
16 “In regard to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with
the rest, and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather
than another.” Spinoza 1951, p. 56.
17 Herberg 1970, p. 279.
18 Rosenstock-Huessy 1971, p. 131.
19 Kaplan 1934, p. 43.
History of Jewish philosophy
524
20 Ibid.
21 Kaplan 1948, pp. 211–30.
22 Ibid., pp. 222, 224.
23 Schwarzschild 1970, pp. 519–37.
24 For example Lichtenstein 1978, pp. 102–23.
25 Neumark 1907–10, p. 5.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Texts
Baeck, L. (1936) The Essence of Judaism (London: Macmillan).
Cohen, H. (1972) The Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism
(New York: Unger).
Herberg, W. (1975) Judaism and Modern Man (New York: Meridian).
Husik, I. (1958) A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (New York:
Meridian).
Jospe, R. (1988) What is Jewish Philosophy? (Tel Aviv: Open University).
Kaplan, M.M. (1934) Judaism as a Civilisation (New York: Macmillan).
——(1948) The Future of the American Jew (New York: Macmillan).
Krochmal, N. (1961) More Nevukhee ha-zeman: The Writings of
Nachman Krochmal, edited with an introduction by S.Rawidowicz
(Waltham, MA: Ararat).
Levy, Z. (1987) Between Yafeth and Shem—On the Relationship between
Jewish and General Philosophy (New York and Berne: Lang).
Neumark, D. (1907–10) Geschichte der jüdischen Philosophie des
Mittelalters (Berlin: Reimer).
Rosenstock-Huessy, E. (ed.) (1971) Judaism despite Christianity—The
“Letters on Christianity and Judaism” between Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
and Franz Rosenzweig (New York: Schocken).
Spinoza, B. (1951) Theologico-Political Treatise, in The Chief works of B.
de Spinoza (New York: Dover).
Studies
Graetz, H. (1936) Die Konstruktion der jüdischen Geschichte (Berlin:
Schocken).
Guttmann, J. (1973) Philosophies of Judaism, translated by
D.W.Silverman (New York: Schocken).
The nature of modern Jewish philosophy
525
Herberg, W. (1970) “The ‘Chosenness’ of Israel and the Jew of today,” in
Arguments and Doctrines, edited by A.A.Cohen (New York: Harper &
Row).
Jospe, A. (1981) Studies in Jewish Thought (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press).
Levy, Z. (1989) Baruch or Benedict: On Some Jewish Aspects of
Spinoza’s Philosophy (New York and Berne: Lang).
Lichtenstein, A. (1978) “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic
independent of Halakhah?,” in Contemporary Jewish Ethics, edited by
M.M.Kellner (New York: Sanhedrin).
Schwarzschild, S.S. (1970) “The Personal Messiah: Toward the
restoration of a Discarded Doctrine,” in Arguments and Doctrines, edited
by A.A.Cohen (New York), pp. 519–37.