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Political Theology out of the Sources of Judaism Randi Rashkover, Martin Kavka, eds.. Judaism, Liberalism, and Political Theology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014. vii + 356 pp. $35.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-253-01032-2. Reviewed by Alexander Kaye Published on H-Judaic (December, 2015) Commissioned by Matthew A. Kraus (University of Cincinnati) Judaism, Liberalism and Political Theology is arguments of the book as a whole, bringing mate‐ a study of a century-long critique of liberalism rial from some of the chapters as illustration. and the role of Judaism in that critique. The vol‐ The term “political theology” is widely used ume is an edited collection comprising thirteen today to refer to the complex relationship be‐ chapters and an extensive introduction by the edi‐ tween religion and politics. Its original sense, tors. The editors have done a remarkable job of however, and the sense with which this book is collecting what could have been a diverse group concerned, is more specific. A word of back‐ of tangentially connected pieces into a cohesive ground may therefore be helpful. The term was whole. The chapters deal with a host of Jewish coined by Carl Schmitt, a Nazi anti-Semite, in his thinkers, most prominently Baruch Spinoza, Her‐ 1922 essay “Political Theology.” He expanded mann Cohen, Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, Walter upon the ideas in that essay in several other Benjamin, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and works, most notably his 1926 “The Concept of the Sigmund Freud, as well as representative political Political.” Schmitt’s political theology was a set of theologians, including Carl Schmitt, Erik Peterson, descriptive and prescriptive ideas about the rela‐ Jan Assmann, Slavoj Žižek, Giorgio Agamben, and tionship between religion and politics or, more Alain Badiou. Each chapter stands well on its own properly, God and the state. These ideas were in‐ terms but together the chapters constitute a sus‐ tended as a criticism of the liberal understanding tained argument about the place of Judaism and of politics and law. Liberal thinkers in Weimar Jewish thought in a century of ferce debate be‐ Germany claimed that the authority of the state tween liberalism and its political-theological crit‐ was essentially secular and that both the liberal ics. Rather than present a summary review of the state and its law are, and should be, devoid of chapters, I will provide an overview of the main substantive religious or identitarian content. Thus for Hans Kelsen, a liberal legal positivist, and a H-Net Reviews major target of “Political Theology,” the authority Schmitt and developed by other thinkers over the of the state had to be justified on its own terms, past century--and Jewish thought. They do so without reference to theology, revelation, or in‐ from two directions. Despite recent “cracks in the deed any kind of metaphysics. marriage between Judaism and liberalism” Schmitt objected to these claims. For him, the (Martin Kavka, 108) represented by militant Jew‐ state was not simply the product of the neutral ish Zionism and the interest in multiculturalism process of law. Rather, it had to be founded on an among some Jewish thinkers like Susannah Hes‐ intense association of its citizens who stood apart chel, the contributors acknowledge that there re‐ from all others, giving rise to what Schmitt called mains a close association between Judaism and the “distinction of friend and enemy.”[1] Further‐ liberalism. Many of the contributors question the more, against liberal claim that the modern state wisdom of this association, “assum[ing] that had left theology behind, Schmitt famously insist‐ Schmitt and others might have been (or actually ed that “[a]ll significant concepts of the modern were) correct in pointing out a perhaps fatal theory of the state are secularized theological con‐ weakness or naïveté in the optimism of all liberal‐ cepts.”[2] Modern politics is essentially theological ism, including Jewish theological liberalism” because it has inherited the theological structure (Kavka, 108). At the same time, the nature of the of the premodern period; the omnipotence of God engagement between much of political theology as lawgiver has simply been transferred to the and Judaism remains deeply troubling for reasons omnipotence of the state as lawgiver. With these that I will summarize below. This book, then, at‐ arguments, Schmitt’s “political theology” attempt‐ tempts to lay out new possibilities of political dis‐ ed to invert Spinoza’s Theological Political Trea‐ course based on a serious engagement with both tise (1670), one of the foundational documents of Jewish thought and political theology that avoids that strand of the Enlightenment that sought to es‐ the anti-Jewish bias implicit (or explicit) in much tablish a secular basis for modern politics. political theology on the one hand, and the reflex‐ ive association of Judaism and liberalism on the This debate was not purely theoretical, of other. The hope of the editors is that this will en‐ course. At stake was the question of the relation‐ rich both political theology and Jewish thought. ship of the state to its citizens and to the rule of law. Whereas for Kelsen the state has no authority The book has two major arguments. First, it outside of the legal processes that constitute it, for argues that the association between Judaism and Schmitt the state, like God, is sovereign, and not the secular liberal state is a lot more complicated beholden to any system of law. Schmitt drew an than both the likes of Schmitt and many Jews as‐ analogy between the miracle, whereby God’s will sumed. Second, it argues that political theology’s overrides the laws of nature, and what he called interplay with Jews and Judaism was and remains the “exception,” whereby the state acts outside of central to the development of political theology as the rule of law. He claimed that it is the capacity a feld of thought but that the “Judaism” with to make exceptions to the law that defines the which the rhetoric of political theology has long modern notion of sovereignty. The most infamous engaged is often an essentialist, simplistic, and application of this principle was his support for sometimes patently anti-Semitic caricature. Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which Parts 1 and 2 of the book’s four parts develop granted emergency powers to Hitler and allowed the frst of these arguments. Part 1 forcefully un‐ him to seize power in 1933. dermines the “facile conceptions of Judaism’s The chapters in this book critique the rela‐ commitment to modern liberalism” tionship between political theology--as laid out by (introduction, 21). For example, Spinoza is often 2 H-Net Reviews taken as the earliest thinker to decouple Judaism main vigilant about employing violence for politi‐ from politics, paving the way for Jews to become cal ends. The implication is that we can recognize, “Germans of the Mosaic faith.” And yet we learn along with Schmitt, the lingering echo of theology that, in the understanding of Leo Strauss, Spinoza in modernity without embracing the troubling was deeply aware of how difficult it would be to conclusions that he thought followed from that for Judaism to retain its particularity while em‐ recognition (Gregory Kaplan, chapter 5). bracing the modern state (Jerome E. Copulsky, Another underlying message of parts 1 and 2 chapter 1). Similarly, Hermann Cohen, frequently is that, from the beginning, political theology de‐ portrayed as the epitome of the Jewish liberal the‐ veloped in opposition to Judaism. Schmitt, for ex‐ ologian, was actually, again in the eyes of Strauss, ample, associated liberalism--the problem that his a valuable source for thinking through the associ‐ political theology was designed to solve--with Ju‐ ation between politics, prophecy, and revelation, a daism and the Jews. What is more, his ideas were perennial preoccupation of political theology refined in conversation with, and in opposition to, (Dana Hollander, chapter 2). It is commonly un‐ specific Jewish thinkers. These include Hans derstood that political theology is intrinsically Kelsen, who was born a Jew (Kelsen’s conversion conservative. After all, at its core it is a critique of did not stop Schmitt referring to him as “the Jew secularizing trends of modernity. These chapters, Kelsen”), and Leo Strauss. Indeed, Strauss’s com‐ however, like others in the collection, implicitly ments on Schmitt’s early work led to various re‐ challenge this understanding by pointing to the finements in his later output, as discussed here by many points of contact between the themes and Hollander (chapter 2). The book demonstrates ideas of political theology on the one hand and of that from Schmitt onwards, Judaism has played a liberalism on the other. pivotal role in the construction of theories of po‐ Using the canon of modern German Jewish litical theology: “The rhetoric of ‘political theolo‐ thought, part 2 shows that it is possible to take gy’ at its inception is also a rhetoric about Ju‐ Schmitt’s critique of liberalism seriously without daism” (introduction, p. 3). Furthermore, the book accepting his solutions to that critique. Like convincingly argues that the “Judaism” with Schmitt, for example, both Rosenzweig and which political theology has always grappled has Arendt brought the notion of the miracle to bear often been essentialized as a static and monolithic on the problems of modernity. But whereas phenomenon, dismissed as “overly particularistic, Schmitt translated the idea of the miracle (the will legalistic and antithetical to the work of political of God overriding the laws of nature) into support theology” (introduction, p. 10). In this respect, the for the fascist abrogation of democracy (the will relationship between political theology and its of the sovereign overriding the rule of law), imagined Judaism can be understood as an in‐ Arendt and Rosenzweig used it to think about the stantiation of the argument of David Nirenberg’s human capacity for new beginnings and the Anti-Judaism that “across several thousand years, uniqueness of every human birth (Daniel Bran‐ myriad lands, and many different spheres of hu‐ des, chapter 7).
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