EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION TO SERIES

It is customary to begin studies devoted to the topic of defining what exactly this term, concept, or even discipline is. We tend not to speak of Jewish mathematics, Jewish physics, or Jewish sociology, so why refer to something as “Jewish philosophy”? Indeed, this is the great para- dox of Jewish philosophy. On the one hand it presumably names something that has to do with thinking, on the other it implies some sort of national, ethnic, or religious identity of those who engage in such activity. Is not phi- losophy just philosophy, regardless of who philosophizes? Why the need to append various racial, national, or religious adjectives to it?1 Jewish philosophy is indeed rooted in a paradox since it refers to philo- sophical activity carried out by those who call themselves Jews. As philoso- phy, this activity makes claims of universal validity, but as an activity by a well-defined group of people it is inherently particularistic. The question “What is Jewish philosophy?” therefore is inescapable, although over the centuries Jewish philosophers have given very different answers to it. For some, Jewish philosophy represents the relentless quest for truth. Although this truth itself may not be particularized, for such individuals, the use of the adjective “Jewish”—as a way to get at this truth—most decidedly is.2 The Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and related Jewish texts and genres are seen to provide particular insights into the more universal claims pro- vided by the universal and totalizing gaze of philosophy. The problem is that these texts are not philosophical on the surface; they must, on the con- trary, be interpreted to bring their philosophical insights to light. Within this context exegesis risks becoming eisegesis. Yet others eschew the term “philosophy” and instead envisage themselves as working in a decidedly

1 Alexander Altmann once remarked: It would be futile to attempt a presentation of Judaism as a philosophical system, or to speak of Jewish philosophy in the same sense as one speaks of American, English, French, or German philosophy. Judaism is a religion, and the truths it teaches are religious truths. They spring from the source of religious experience, not from pure reason. See Alexander Altmann, “Judaism and World Philosophy,” in The Jews: Their History, Culture, and Religion, ed. Louis Finkelstein (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1949), vol. 2, 954. 2 In this regard, see Norbert M. Samuelson, Jewish Faith and Modern Science: On the Death and Rebirth of Jewish Philosophy (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), e.g., 10–12. x editors’ introduction to series

Jewish key in order to articulate or clarify particular issues that have direct bearing on Jewish life and existence.3 Between these two perspectives or orientations, there exist several other related approaches to the topic of Jewish philosophy which can and have included ethics,4 gender studies,5 multiculturalism,6 and postmodernism.7 Despite their differences in theory and method, what these approaches have in common is that they all represent the complex intersection of Judaism, variously defined, and a set of non-Jewish grids or lenses used to interpret this rich tradition. Framed somewhat differently, Jewish philoso- phy—whatever it is, however it is defined, or whether it is even possible— represents the collision of particularistic demands and universal concerns. The universal or that which is, in theory, open and accessible to all regard- less of race, color, creed, or gender confronts the particular or that which represents the sole concern of a specific group that, by nature or definition, is insular and specific-minded. Because it is concerned with a particular people, the Jews, and how to frame their traditions in a universal and universalizing light that is believed to conform to the dictates of reason, Jewish philosophy can never be about pure thinking, if indeed there ever can be such a phenomenon. Rather Jewish philosophy—from antiquity to the present—always seems to have had and, for the most part continues to have, rather specific and perhaps

3 See, e.g., Strauss’s claim about ’ Guide of the Perplexed, perhaps one of the most important and successful works of something called Jewish philosophy ever written. He claims that one “begins to understand the Guide once one sees that it is not a philosophic book—a book written by a philosopher for philosophers—but a Jewish book: a book written by a Jew for Jews.” See , “How to Begin to Study The Guide of the Perplexed,” in The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. , 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), vol. 1, xiv. Modern iterations of this may be found, for example, in J. David Bleich, Bioethical Dilemmas: A Jewish Perspective, 2 vols. (vol. 1, New York: Ktav, 1998; vol. 2, New York: Targum Press, 2006). 4 See, e.g., David Novak, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Elliot Dorff, Love Your Neighbor and Yourself: A Jewish Approach to Modern Personal Ethics (New York: Jewish Publication Society of America, 2006). 5 E.g., the collection of essays in Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy, ed. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004). 6 E.g., Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid a Clash of Civilizations (London: Continuum, 2003); Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility (New York: Schocken, 2007). 7 E.g., Elliot R. Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004); Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination (New York: Zone Books, 2011).