Arthur Green Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers
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Arthur Green Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers Editor-in-Chief Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University Editor Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester VOLume 16 Leiden • boston The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/lcjp 2015 Arthur Green Hasidism for Tomorrow Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes Leiden • boston 2015 Cover illustration: Courtesy of Hebrew College The series The Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers was generously supported by the Baron Foundation. Green, Arthur, 1941– author. Arthur Green : Hasidism for tomorrow / edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes. pages cm. — (Library of contemporary Jewish philosophers, ISSN 2213-6010 ; volume 16) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-90-04-30840-4 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-30842-8 (e-book) 1. Green, Arthur, 1941– 2. Jewish philosophy. 3. Judaism and philosophy. I. Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, 1950– editor. II. Title. BM565.G676 2015 296.8’332—dc23 2015034873 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 2213-6010 ISBN 978-90-04-30840-4 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-30842-8 (e-book) This hardback is also published in paperback under ISBN 978-90-04-30841-1. Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. 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CONTENTS The Contributors ............................................................................................. vii Editors’ Introduction to the Series ............................................................ ix Arthur Green: An Intellectual Profile ........................................................ 1 Ariel Evan Mayse Three Warsaw Mystics ................................................................................... 53 Arthur Green Jewish Theology: A New Beginning ............................................................ 105 Arthur Green Road Back to Sinai: The Post-Critical Seeker ........................................... 135 Arthur Green A Neo-Hasidic Life: Credo and Reflections .............................................. 169 Arthur Green Interview with Arthur Green ....................................................................... 191 Hava Tirosh-Samuelson Select Bibliography ......................................................................................... 257 THE CONTRIBUTORS Ariel Evan Mayse (Ph.D., Harvard University, 2015) is currently a Research Fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the Univer- sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation entitled “Beyond the Letters: The Question of Language in the Teachings of Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezritch,” explores the philosophy of language of one of the most important early Hasidic leaders. In addition to several scholarly and popular articles on Kabbalah and Hasidism, he is a co-editor of the two-volume collec- tion Speaking Torah: Spiritual Teachings from around the Maggid’s Table (Jewish Lights, 2013), and editor of the recent From the Depth of the Well: An Anthology of Jewish Mysticism (Paulist Press, 2014). Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Ph.D., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1978) is Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism, the Director of Jew- ish Studies, and Professor of History at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. Her research focuses on Jewish intellectual history, Judaism and ecology, science and religion, and feminist theory. In addition to numer- ous articles and book chapters in academic journals and edited volumes, she is the author of the award-winning Between Worlds: The Life and Work of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon (SUNY Press, 1991) and the author of Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being in Premodern Judaism (Hebrew Union College Press, 2003). She is also the editor of Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed Word (Harvard University Press, 2002); Women and Gender in Jewish Philosophy (Indiana University Press, 2004); Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life: The Legacy of Hans Jonas (Brill, 2008); Building Better Humans? Refocusing the Debate on Transhumanism (Peter Lang, 2011); Hollywood’s Chosen People: The Jew- ish Experience in American Cinema (Wayne State University Press, 2012); and Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century: Personal Reflections (Brill, 2014). Professor Tirosh-Samuelson is the recipient of several large grants that have funded interdisciplinary research on religion, science, and technology. Aaron W. Hughes (Ph.D., Indiana University Bloomington, 2000) holds the Philip S. Bernstein Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Roch- ester. Hughes was educated at the University of Alberta, the Hebrew viii the contributors University of Jerusalem, and Oxford University. He has taught at Miami University of Ohio, McMaster University, the Hebrew University of Jeru- salem, the University of Calgary, and the University at Buffalo. He is the author of over fifty articles and ten books, and the editor of seven books. His book titles include Abrahamic Religions: On the Uses and Abuses of History (Oxford University Press, 2012); Muslim Identities (Columbia Uni- versity Press, 2013); The Study of Judaism: Identity, Authenticity, Scholarship (SUNY, 2013); and Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism (Oxford University Press, 2014). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES It is customary to begin studies devoted to the topic of Jewish philoso- phy by defining what exactly this term, concept, or even discipline is. We tend not to speak of Jewish mathematics, Jewish physics, or Jewish sociol- ogy, so why refer to something as “Jewish philosophy”? Indeed, this is the great paradox 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 philosophy 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, Cul- ture, and Religion, ed. Louis Finkelstein (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of Amer- ica, 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 THE 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