A History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy
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A History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy Supplements to The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy Edited by Elliot Wolfson (New York University) Christian Wiese (University of Frankfurt) Hartwig Wiedebach (University of Zurich) VOLUME 14 A History of Modern Jewish Religious Philosophy Volume 1: The Period of the Enlightenment By Eliezer Schweid Translation by Leonard Levin LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schweid, Eliezer. [Toldot filosofyat ha-dat ha-Yehudit ba-zeman he-hadash. English] A history of modern Jewish religious philosophy / by Eliezer Schweid ; translation by Leonard Levin. p. cm. — (Supplements to the Journal of Jewish thought and philosophy ; v. 14) Includes bibliographical references. Contents: v. 1: The period of the Enlightenment ISBN 978-90-04-20733-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Jewish philosophy. 2. Philosophy and religion. 3. Jewish philosophers. 4. Judaism and philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. B5800.S3913 2011 181’.06—dc22 2011008586 ISSN 1873-9008 ISBN 978 90 04 20733 2 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. Originally published in Hebrew as Toledot Philosofiat ha-Dat ha-Yehudit ba-Zeman he-Hadash (2001) All rights reserved ©Am Oved Publishers, Ltd., 2001, Tel-Aviv. 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. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. 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To the memory of my four great teachers whose teachings have guided me in writing this book: Yitzchak Julius Guttmann Isaac Baer Shlomo Pines Nathan Rotenstreich CONTENTS Translator’s Preface .................................................................... xi Abbreviations .............................................................................. xvii Introduction Judaism, Philosophy and Modernity ................. 1 Defining the Topic and Purpose of This Work .................... 1 The Identity of Jewish Philosophy and Its Place in General Philosophy ........................................................... 7 “Religious Philosophy” versus “Philosophy of Religion” ........................................................................... 14 The Crisis of Religion in the Period of the Enlightenment—the Beginnings of Modern General and Jewish Philosophy ...................................................... 25 The Special Task of Jewish Philosophy of Religion .............. 33 Continuity, Centers, Influence, and Periods of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages and the Modern Age ..... 39 Chapter One God and Nature in the Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza .................................................................................... 53 The Beginning of Modern Philosophy of Religion, General and Jewish ........................................................... 53 Asserting Freedom of Knowledge—of Self, and of World ................................................................................ 55 The Doctrine of Spinoza’s Ethics ........................................... 60 Spinoza’s Rebellion against Religion: Theological-Political Treatise ................................................................................ 66 Chapter Two Leibnitz and Mendelssohn: Enlightened Defense of Christianity and Judaism ..................................... 87 Beginning of a New Dialogical Confrontation between Judaism and Christianity .................................................. 87 Leibnitz’s Monadology and Philosophy of Religion ............. 88 Moses Mendelssohn: Enlightenment, Common Sense, and Tolerance ................................................................... 96 Mendelssohn’s Phaidon and Jerusalem ...................................... 98 Mendelssohn’s Disagreements with Spinoza and Lessing ..... 101 Mendelssohn on Religion and State in Judaism and Christianity ........................................................................ 109 viii contents Chapter Three Challenge of the Idealist Revolution in the Enlightenment: Religion in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant ...................................................................... 117 Reason Addressing Religion’s Perennial Questions .............. 117 Religion Within the Limits of Reason ................................... 128 Kant’s Critique of Judaism ..................................................... 132 Chapter Four Philosophy Supplants Religion: The Teaching of G. W. F. Hegel ................................................................... 135 Hegel’s Ambition: Philosophy Embracing All ....................... 135 Hegel’s Dialectical Epistemology: The Ascent of Consciousness .................................................................... 137 The Progression of Consciousness in Individual and Cultural Development ...................................................... 139 Hegel’s “Sublation” of Religion ............................................. 144 Hegel’s View of Judaism as “Negative Dialectic” ................. 146 Chapter Five The Philosophical Return to Religion and Myth—The Philosophy of F. W. J. Schelling ....................... 153 Schelling, Philosopher of Romanticism ................................. 153 The Early System: Art, Creation, and “Intellectual Intuition” ........................................................................... 158 Rational Ecstasy: Knowing the Mind of the Creator ........... 163 Myth and Schelling’s Religious Philosophy of History ......... 166 Schelling’s Appropriation of Kabbalah .................................. 168 Chapter Six Judaism Between Sensualism, Imagination, and Reason: The Jewish Philosophy of Religion of Solomon Maimon ................................................................... 173 Celebrity of the Mendelssohn Enlightenment ....................... 173 From Hasidic Village to the Streets of Western Culture .............................................................................. 176 Reciprocal Critique of Kant’s and Aristotle’s Epistemologies ................................................................... 178 God as Postulate of Pure Reason .......................................... 189 A Skepticism Rooted in Maimonides and Kant ................... 193 Maimon’s Philosophy of Religion .......................................... 196 Maimon’s Philosophy of Judaism ........................................... 200 contents ix Chapter Seven Correcting Judaism By Its Own Criteria: Saul Ascher’s Philosophy of Religion .................................... 205 A Corrective to Kant (and revision of Mendelssohn) ........... 205 Ascher’s Leviathan: Redefining the Relationship of Religion and State ............................................................ 211 “Regulative” and “Constitutive” Stages in Religion’s Evolution ........................................................................... 219 Regulative and Constitutive Elements in Judaism ................ 221 Ascher’s Program for Reform; His Credo ............................. 225 Chapter Eight The Appearance of Enlightened Orthodoxy in Response to Modern Philosophy—Naphtali Herz Wessely and Mordecai Gumpel Schnaber ........................................... 231 Traditionalists Open to Enlightenment ................................. 231 Wessely: The “Law of God” and “Law of Man” ................. 234 Schnaber: Enlisting Maimonides in Defense of Tradition ........................................................................... 241 Schnaber’s Foundation of the Torah: A Rational Reconstruction of Maimonidean Dogmatics ................... 246 Drawing on Kant and Halevi ................................................ 252 Modifying Maimonides’ Rubric: Philosophical Pragmatism and Practical Traditionalism ........................ 260 Chapter Nine Judaism as an Evolving National-Spiritual Culture: The Thought of R. Nachman Krochmal Based on Hegel’s Dialectical Idealism .............................................. 267 A New Guide, Using Hegel’s Dialectic ................................... 267 Spearheading the Galician Haskalah ..................................... 269 Krochmal’s Adaptation of Hegel’s Historiosophy for a Jewish Renaissance ........................................................... 272 Philosophy of History for a Culture in Transition ................ 275 The Perplexity: Transition from Traditional to Modern Outlook ............................................................................. 277 Krochmal’s Pedagogical Strategy: Reformulating the Tradition in Modern Historical Terms ............................ 286 Diagnosing the Spiritual Errors of the Age, and the Truth To Which They Point ........................................... 292 Affirming Spirit Within A Modern Naturalistic World View .................................................................................. 302 x contents Development of Culture: Technology, Science, Morals, Art, Religion, Philosophy ................................................. 307 Monotheism, and the