Emmanuel Levinas Translated by Sean Hand
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DIFFICULT FREEDOM Johns Hopkins Jewish Studies Sander Gilman and Steven T. Katz, Series Editors DIFFICULT FREEDOM Essays on Judaism Emmanuel Levinas Translated by Sean Hand Freedom on tablets of stone (Tractate of Principles, 6.2) The Johns Hopkins University Press • Baltimore English translation © 1990 The Athlone Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Originally published in France as Difficile Liberte Essais sur le judaisme © Editions Albin Michel, 1963 and 1976 English translation published 1990 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Johns Hopkins Paperbacks edition, 1997 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 The publishers wish to record their thanks to the French Ministry of Culture for a grant toward the cost of translation. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levinas, Emmanuel. [Difficile liberte. English] Difficult freedom: essays on Judaism / by Emmanuel Levinas: translated by Sean Hand. p. cm. — (Johns Hopkins Jewish studies) Translation of: Difficile liberte. ISBN 0-8018-4074-0 1. Judaism. 2. Judaism—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. BM45 L4213 1990 296—dc20 90-31771 CIP ISBN 0-8018-5783-X (pbk.) To DOCTOR HENRI NERSON A Friend In memory of a teaching which exalts that friendship Contents Bibliographical Information x Translator's Note xii Foreword xiii I BEYOND PATHOS Ethics and Spirit 3 A Religion for Adults 11 Judaism 24 The Pharisee is Absent 27 Judaism and the Feminine 30 The Diary of Leon Brunschvicg 38 Being a Westerner 46 Means of Identification 50 The Ark and the Mummy 54 II COMMENTARIES Messianic Texts 59 HI POLEMICS Place and Utopia 99 A New Version of Jesus Narrated by the Wandering Jew by Edmond Fleg 103 The Spinoza Case 106 Have You Reread Baruch? Ill Persons or Figures 119 A Voice on Israel 123 Poetry and the Impossible 127 Simone Weil against the Bible 133 vn Difficult Freedom Loving the Torah more than God 142 An Eye for an Eye 146 The Struthof Case 149 The Name of a Dog, or Natural Rights 151 The Virtues of Patience 154 IV OPENINGS Jewish Thought Today 159 Jacob Gordin 167 Religion and Tolerance 172 Israel and Universalism 175 Monotheism and Language 178 'Between Two Worlds' 181 Judaeo-Christian Friendship 202 V DISTANCES Freedom of Speech 205 Judaism and the Present 208 The State of Israel and the Religion of Israel 216 From the Rise of Nihilism to the Carnal Jew 221 The Meaning of History 226 The Light and the Dark 228 Heidegger, Gagarin and Us 231 Hegel and the Jews 235 Exclusive Rights 239 VI HIC ET NUNC How is Judaism Possible? 245 Assimilation Today 255 Space is not One-dimensional 259 Reflections on Jewish Education 265 Education and Prayer 269 For a Jewish Humanism 273 Antihumanism and Education 277 Vlll Contents VII SIGNATURE Signature 291 Notes 296 Select Glossary of Names and Terms 302 Index 305 IX Bibliographical Information Publications in which the essays originally appeared: First published in Evidences: Ethics and Spirit (27,1952); The Diary of Leon Brunschvicg (2, 1949); Being a Westerner (17, 1951); Place and Utopia (10, 1950); Persons or Figures (11, 1950); A Voice on Israel (18,1951); Simone Weil against the Bible (24,1952); The State of Israel and the Religion of Israel (20, 1951). First published in Information Juive: Religion and Tolerance (1960); The Meaning of History (1963); The Light and the Dark (1961); Heidegger, Gagarin and Us (1961); Assimilation Today (1954). First published in Les Nouveaux Cabiers: Have You Reread Baruch? (7, 1966); Jacob Gordin (31, 1972-3). First published in L'Arche: Jewish Thought Today (1961); Judaism and the Present (1969); How is Judaism Possible? (1959). First published in Les Cahiers de lyAlliance Israelite Universelle: Reflections on Jewish Education (1951); For a Jewish Humanism (1956). A Religion for Adults first published in Tioumliline (1957); Judaism in Encyclopaedia Universalis: Means of Identification in Journees d*etudes sur Videntite juive; A New Version of Jesus Narrated by the Wandering Jew in La Terre Retrouvee (1953); The Spinoza Case in Trait d*Union (1955-6); Poetry and the Impossible in Bulletin de la societe Paul Claudel (1969); The Name of a Dog in Celui qui ne peutpas se servir des mots, a collection published in honour of Bram Van Velde (Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1975); From the Rise of Nihilism to the Carnal Jew in a collective work, From Auschwitz to Israel. Twenty years on; Hegel and the Jew in Bulletin of French x Bibliographical Information Judaeo-Christian Friendship (1971); Antihumanism and Education in Hamore (1973); Israel and Universalism in Le Journal des Communeautes (1958); Freedom of Speech in Les Lettres Nouvelles (51, 1957); Space is not One-dimensional in Esprit (1968). Talks broadcast on 'Ecoute Israel': Loving the Torah more than God (29 April 1955); Judaeo-Christian Friendship (20 October 1961). Letter to Le Monde: The Struthof Case (17 July 1954). Monotheism and Language originated as a speech given at a meeting of the French Students' Union at the Mutualite, winter 1959; 'Between Two Worlds' as a paper given on 27 September 1959 to the second Colloquium of French-speaking Jewish Intellectuals, organized by the French section of the World Jewish Congress. Judaism, Judaism and the Present, The State of Israel and the Religion of Israel, and Means of Identification are also published in The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Oxford, Blackwell, 1989). Copyright © all the above translations Sean Hand 1989. XI Translator's Note Quotations from the Bible have been taken from the Collins Revised Standard Version, and quotations from the Talmud come from The Babylonian Talmud, under the editorship of Isidore Epstein (London, Soncino Press, 1948). French words have occasionally been retained in square brackets in the English text, above all in order to show how Levinas is elaborating a philosophical language that reveals the moral dimen• sion present from the beginning in our physical being. xn Foreword The essays brought together in this volume were compiled over the years following the Liberation of France at the end of the Second World War. They bear witness to a Judaism that has been passed down by a living sense of tradition, one nourished by its reflections on stern texts that are more alive than life itself. These ancient texts, both biblical and rabbinic, not only attract the learned curiosity of philologists who, in looking into them, are already adopting a superior position. They respond to problems other than those of literary influence or dates. One must retain a keen ear: everything has perhaps been thought - before the Middle Ages covered the whole of Europe - by thinkers who were little concerned with developments, and who willingly hid, even from future historians, the sharp point of their real problems. Many of the pages you will read here attempt to uncover the difficult exegesis hidden beneath the apparent naivety of archaic commentaries, and to praise it in their own modest way. In the aftermath of Hitler's exterminations, which were able to take place in a Europe that had been evangelized for fifteen centuries, Judaism turned inward towards its origins. Up to that point, Christianity had accustomed Western Judaism to thinking of these origins as having dried up or as having been submerged under more lively tides. To find oneself a Jew in the wake of the Nazi massacres therefore meant once more taking up a position with regard to Christianity, on another level again to the one sovereignly assumed by Jules Isaac. But the return to origins immediately organized itself into a higher and less polemic theme. The experience of Hitler brought many Jews into fraternal contact with Christians who opened their hearts to them - which is to say, risked everything for their sake. In the face of the rise of the Third World, this memory remains precious - not because it allows one to revel in the emotions engendered, but because it reminds us of a neighbourly state which has lasted through history, the existence of a common language and xni Difficult Freedom of an action in which our antagonistic fates are shown to be complementary. Thanks be to God, we are not going to offer up sermons on behalf of dubious crusades undertaken to 'link arms as believers' and unite 'as spiritualists' in the face of the rising tide of material• ism. As if we should present a front against this Third World ravaged by hunger; as if the entire spirituality on earth did not reside in the act of nourishing; as if we need to salvage from a dilapidated world any other treasure than the gift of suffering through the hunger of the Other, a gift it none the less received. 'Of great importance is the mouthful of food' says Rabbi Johanan in the name of Rabbi Jose b. Kisma (Sanhedrin 103b). The Other's hunger - be it of the flesh, or of bread - is sacred; only the hunger of the third party limits its rights; there is no bad materialism other than our own. This first inequality perhaps defines Judaism. A difficult condition. An inversion of the apparent order. An inversion that is always on the point of recommencing. It is this which gives rise to the ritualism that leads the Jew to devote himself to service with no thought of reward, to accept a burden carried out at his own expense, a form of conduct involving both risks and perks. This is the original and incontestable meaning of the Greek word liturgy. xiv I BEYOND PATHOS Let them not enter the Sanctuary drunk (From Rachi's comment on Leviticus [10:2]) Ethics and Spirit Boring Morality Reading publications that define the social ideology of Christianity, or reviews such as Esprit, one could gain the impression that Christianity, even Catholicism, was moving towards a less realist interpretation of the dogma underlying the religious life of the faithful.